Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
ZooeyModeratorAnd of course…you know…
What Isn’t Mentioned About the Trump-Ukraine ‘Scandal’
This article was originally published on Consortium News.
The most crucial aspects of the Trump-Ukraine “scandal,” which has led to impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, are not being told, even by Republicans.
Trump was very likely motivated by politics if he indeed withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kiev launching an investigation into Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden, though the transcript of the call released by the White House between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelinsky does not make certain such a quid-pro-quo.
But what’s not being talked about in the mainstream is the context of this story, which shows that, politics aside, Biden should indeed be investigated in both Ukraine and in the United States.
We know from the leaked, early 2014 telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland, then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that then Vice President Biden played a role in “midwifing” the U.S.-backed overthrow of an elected Ukrainian government soon after that conversation.
That’s the biggest crime in this story that isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government.
As booty from the coup, the sitting vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, soon got a seat on the board of Ukraine’s biggest gas producer, Burisma Holdings. This can only be seen as a transparently neocolonial maneuver to take over a country and install one’s own people. But Biden’s son wasn’t the only one.
A family friend of then Secretary of State John Kerry also joined Burisma’s board. U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto got a Ukrainian contract soon after the overthrow. And the first, post-coup Ukrainian finance minister was an American citizen, a former State Department official, who was given Ukrainian citizenship the day before she took up the post.
After a Ukrainian prosecutor began looking into possible corruption at Burisma, Biden openly admitted at a conference last year that as vice president he withheld a $1 billion credit line to Ukraine until the government fired the prosecutor. As Biden says himself, it took only six hours for it to happen.
Exactly what Biden boasted of doing is what the Democrats are now accusing Trump of doing, and it isn’t clear if Trump got what he wanted as Biden did.
Threats, Bribes and Blackmail
That leads to another major part of this story not being told: the routine way the U.S. government conducts foreign policy: with bribes, threats and blackmail.
Trump may have withheld military aid to seek a probe into Biden, but it is hypocritically being framed by Democrats as an abuse of power out of the ordinary. But it is very much ordinary.
Examples abound. The threat of withholding foreign aid was wielded against nations on the UN Security Council in 1991 when the U.S. sought authorization for the First Gulf War. Yemen had the temerity to vote against. A member of the U.S. delegation told Yemen’s ambassador: “That’s the most expensive vote you ever cast.” The U.S. then cut $70 million in foreign aid to the Middle East’s poorest nation, and Saudi Arabia repatriated about a million Yemeni workers.
The same thing happened before the Second Gulf War in 2003, as revealed by whistleblower Katharine Gun (who will appear Friday night on CN Live!). Gun leaked an NSA memo that showed the U.S. sought help from its British counterpart in signals intelligence to spy on the missions of Security Council members to get “leverage” over them to influence their vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq.
In 2001 the U.S. threatened the end of military and foreign aid if nations did not conclude bilateral agreements granting immunity to U.S. troops before the International Criminal Court.
More recently, the U.S. used its muscle against Ecuador, including dangling a $10 billion IMF loan, in exchange for the expulsion of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from its London embassy.
This is how the U.S. conducts “diplomacy.”
As former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali wrote:
“Coming from a developing country, I was trained extensively in international law and diplomacy and mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.”
This fundamental corruption of U.S. foreign policy, which includes overthrowing elected governments, is matched only by the corruption of a political system that exalts partisan political power above all else. Exposing this deep-seated and longstanding corruption should take precedence over scoring partisan scalps, whether Biden’s or Trump’s.
ZooeyModeratorI just got around to this thread which I’ve had in an open tab for a couple of days, and I don’t think much of Ball’s opinion.
Unless I missed something, or misunderstood something along the way, her position makes no sense to me.
Now…I did not listen to nor read Pelosi’s statement, but I haven’t seen or heard it reported anywhere else that she said that they would focus exclusively on the Ukraine issue.
I did hear that the plan was to put together, as quickly as possible, comprehensive Articles of Impeachment from the findings of six different investigations that the Democrats have been holding. That came straight from the mouth of Maxine Waters who is many things, but a misinformed bullshitter is not among them.
Furthermore, the notion that this is about protecting their “own” in Biden is preposterous.
I have no reason to doubt that Pelosi would do a great deal to support Biden’s ascension to the White House, but impeaching Trump does not fall into that realm. First of all, if this was about protecting Biden, the best move would have been to downplay, then ignore this whistle blower report, not put it directly in the red hot center of the world media spotlight. That makes zero sense. Of course, the first thing Republicans did was claim that the Real Issue is Biden, not the phone call, and this entire thing will probably make Biden’s slump in the polls even worse. No way it’s gonna help, right? So I don’t buy that at all. Secondly, nobody stakes their entire political career on a gambit to protect Hunter Biden from scrutiny. Even if what he did was illegal, and it wasn’t. It was unethical, for sure, but less unethical than the president asking foreign dignitaries to pay to stay at properties he owns. Not even close. So she’s gonna throw impeachment at Trump in order to protect Joe Biden. FFS. No. Just no.
September 28, 2019 at 1:03 pm in reply to: man charged with flying to Bay Area, setting grass fires #105844ZooeyModeratorI think it’s probable that he flew to the bay area because it’s the dark, librul heart of Commiefornia.
ZooeyModeratorYeah, from what I’ve read, Billy is right; they thought the paraphrased phone call would exonerate Trump. They’ve used that tactic before to get away with stuff. (By “that tactic,” I mean relying on the fact that there is only circumstantial evidence, not blatant evidence. That’s how they dodged the entire charge of collusion with Russia. There was no documented evidence of “If you do this, we will do that”).
But watch this bit by Trevor Noah…
Start at 5:20
And Billy, the Democrats aren’t going to make this just about the Ukraine. Maxine Waters has said that the Democrats have had six different committees investigating Trump since January (including the committee she chairs, Financial Services), and that they intend to all sit down, sort through what they have, and draft Articles of Impeachment. They are going to be thorough about this because everything is at stake. If they fail to win the vote of Impeachment, Pelosi and the Democrats are going down in flames. They have crossed the Rubicon, and they intend to win. They KNOW they are going to win. Pelosi wouldn’t have launched this without knowing for CERTAIN that she had more than enough votes to impeach him. That’s part of why she waited this long. Not because she doesn’t have a spine, but because she knew it would be disaster if they failed to pass the resolution. Yes, there has been plenty of evidence for impeachment since before the 2018 election, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is, and always will be, marshaling the votes to pass something.
So they have been collecting evidence since Day One of the 116th congress. That compilation of evidence has slowly persuaded more and more representatives to sign onto impeachment. Ukraine isn’t what suddenly flipped the switch. It was more like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I expect all six investigations to contribute their strongest evidence of malfeasance to the Articles, and they are going to drop that indictment like a planeload of bricks on that asshole’s sorry orange head. Anything short of that would be monumentally foolish, and say what you want about Pelosi, she is nobody’s fool.
There is a motive for centering on the Ukraine issue, though, and that quite simply is that election interference is a huge issue for the Democrats, and they have to do everything in their power to shine light on the Republicans’ election rigging. That is seriously the only thing keeping the minority party in power. The only thing. If they didn’t cheat, the Democrats would completely control the government. So using election-rigging as the main rail is brilliant. It not only cripples Trump, it puts McConnell directly in the sunlight, as you put it. Surely Pelosi and Schumer are smart enough to see that, and use it to force election security. (Surely? They will, won’t they?)
ZooeyModerator
ZooeyModeratorJeff Flake says ‘at least 35’ Republican senators would privately vote to impeach Trump
https://www.foxnews.com/media/jeff-flake-35-gop-senators-impeach-trumpZooeyModeratorYou guys may have seen this, but Jeff Flake said that if the impeachment vote were private rather than public, about 35 Republican senators would vote to impeach Trump. His support is razor thin and completely dependent upon Fear of Reprisal (from voters or the party machine).
I wanna say that, in my study of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (as well as my personal experience with narcissists), one characteristic is the complete inability to accept blame for anything. They have a extremely strong compulsion to deflect any criticism at all.
I think that we could see a Great Unraveling.
Trump already said to the cameras that Pence’s phone calls should be looked at. Whether there is anything there or not, he is pushing his VP into the spotlight as a deflective shield. And he won’t hesitate to do that to ANYBODY (with the exception of Ivanka).
There are a lot of people involved in this. Trump didn’t classify all these phone calls in an inappropriate place. He isn’t smart enough to do that, and probably has no understanding of classifications anyway. Somebody else did that. Probably multiple people. And we’ve just started on this. Given what we’ve seen over the past 3 years, does anybody doubt that there is an exceedingly long and impressive list of illegal maneuvers like this that have taken place to cover up the narcissistic lawlessness of this overconfident, entitled, ignorant, and frankly stupid man?
The more Trump unravels, the more people are going to try to save themselves, and the more people who head for the lifeboats, the more he is going to unravel.
And there are already people who have left – Tillerson and others – who may decide to speak their minds.
Dunno. Hate making predictions because I get so many wrong, and that’s humiliating. But this looks like the beginning of the Grand Finale in a 3-year long fireworks show. And I say that based mostly on my certainty of what to expect from Donald Trump. It IS safe to predict that he will lose his shit. A “normal” person might be patient and ride out the storm, tacking this way and that, absorbing a hit here and there with an eye on the shore, but Trump is not that guy. He’s not. And nobody has been able to restrain him yet.
ZooeyModeratorOh…and another thing on Hedges…
Hillary Clinton hiring a law firm that hires FusionGPS that hires Christopher Steele is not equivalent legally or morally to what Trump did. I don’t think I even need to explain that claim.
ZooeyModeratorBilly_T wrote:
Apologies for actual opinion posts in the meme thread.Yeah, and I’m going to respond, so…zn…maybe you could cut this all and start a new thread with Hedges as the anchor?
IMO, this is more than just about Trump. It’s about the presidency…for me it is, anyway. Who knows what everyone else wants. The power of the executive has been growing, and over the decades, it has swallowed up some power that used to belong to the legislature. Trump has expanded it. And, sure, some of his crimes are the Same Old crimes that he just is too stupid to conceal. Hedges is right about that; he’s right that the oligarchy doesn’t mind what Trump does so much as the manner in which he does it. But the fact that he is doing in brazenly – $274 million in taxpayer money to go golf at his own course, for example – expands what future presidents can do without reproach. I don’t like it.
ZooeyModerator
ZooeyModeratorI do not want a Sanders Warren ticket. One of them should stay in the Senate which is at least as important as the White house. And VPs just go to funerals. That’s a waste of a progressive senator.
I like Castro as VP.
September 25, 2019 at 3:49 pm in reply to: RAMS TV Map for game 4 & informal poll — will the Rams get untracked v. Tampa? #105659ZooeyModeratorUnbelievable. That is 4-4 for me. I don’t think I’ve seen 4 games over the TV in a SEASON in two decades, and I always get 2 every year when they play the 9ers.
So…you know…selfishly…I figured this would be an advantage once they moved back to LA.
ZooeyModeratorBarr denies he knew anything about this beforehand, and that may be true. It may not be. But the fact Trump said something about Barr proves nothing in itself.
The Dems have crossed the Rubicon now. They have to go for the throat, or they are screwed. I would think that there would be calls for Barr to recuse himself soon, and I would think they would start amping up the demands for testimony, documents, etc. I don’t know what avenues are available – what citing someone for Contempt of Congress actually MEANS legally, and so on, but they better have a strategy for compelling access to some of this stuff, or we’re going to watch the Dems punch away at the air the way they have been for nearly 3 years now.
They have to get the whistle blower report. The transcript is not enough, especially since it has passed through the White House filter. The whistle blower provided context, and probably had some dots to connect to this conversation. I don’t think the transcript of the call itself is the whole picture. If it is…the Dems are probably going to fail at this.
ZooeyModeratorShe could beat Trump…because so many voters just don’t like the chaos of Trump. They would prefer a wonk to a bull in a china shop.
But Ball is right…she fits the profile of a long list of Democrat losers, and she COULD lose at the end of the campaign because she’s NOT going to get the passionate turnout the Dems need from POC and the youth vote. Those people will come out for revolution, but not for policy papers. At least not in the same numbers.
ZooeyModeratorThat was a purty good argument.
ZooeyModerator=====================
What would be funny iz,
if the Politicians somehow impeached Trump — and then he won re-election, anyway.
(losing the popular vote again, of course )Amerika.
w
vBe a lot funnier if it were a movie instead of reality.
ZooeyModeratorShe’s calling his conduct “a violation of the law.”
I read somewhere this morning that such an approach might not be the best because a president doesn’t have to violate the law to be impeached, so she may have set the bar higher than it needs to be, but I dunno about any of that.
But…here we go.
ZooeyModeratorI agree with you on the messaging, but IF they go through with it, I’m gonna wager they don’t do that. Probably they will go with some Trump the Villain narrative. That would be a mistake, but….
ZooeyModeratorYeah. Getting rid of Republicans is only Phase One, and it’s the easiest part. We then have to overpower the Democrats. And NOTHING we ever accomplish will be permanent unless we cut out the corrupting influence of money in politics. Any gains we make will only be temporary. We have to make a law that Money is NOT free speech, and corporations are not “people.” We have to get rid of legal bribery. We have to stop the revolving door between lobbying, congress, and Wall St. We have to finance elections with public money, and implement Instant Runoff Voting. We have to break up the media monopolies. We have to undo the damage the GOP has done to the judicial system. And…as wv points out, in the Senate we are outnumbered 99-1. In the House, there are no more than about 10 people who would consider doing this, and it may be fewer than that.
And…so… there goes the planet.
Bash on, regardless.
ZooeyModeratorInteresting.
Yeah, um, I think I am expecting GOff to perform better pretty damn soon. If we get 6 games into the season, and this is still where he is, the conversation about “ceiling” is going to get a little flame under it.
ZooeyModerator
ZooeyModeratorThe pressure on Mayfield was the difference in the game. Not a lot of sacks, but enough pressure to keep him off balance all night.
McVay/Goff need to adjust to the fact that defenses have adjusted to the Rams. People spent the summer studying the Rams’ games against Chicago and New England, and they need to come up with something. Goff still makes WTF throws, but I think he will continue to improve. He is still a puppy.
TB at home, then quick trip to Seattle to finish off their season. Then some time off.
ZooeyModeratorYeah. It’s over. Capitalism is in Stage 4 cancer right now, and we are basically looking at palliative care. I’m kinda curious how these completely self-sufficient billionaire bunkers are going to work out, but I won’t be around to watch that part of the story.
ZooeyModeratorGiven how we already look at the poor of other nations as animals and are trying to build a wall to keep them out, there is little hope that we will respond humanely when whole populations of them are forced to move as climate change progresses.
Yes, that’s been disturbing me for quite some time. There are going to be hundreds of millions of people displaced. Mostly poor, brown people. And they are going to head north.
ZooeyModerator================
Fox’s take on it, so far:jesuschristmybrainisbleeding.
Wow.
Well…if Bleached Blonde C-Cup says so….
ZooeyModeratorI’m sorry, but the second somebody utters the phrase “progress them forward,” I’m out.
I can put up with a lot of things, but you may not tarnish the English language without consequence.
ZooeyModeratorTrump is an entirely new level of corrupt. He has moved the country from a state of polite corruption into a state of corruption in broad daylight. The really discouraging thing to me is that a significant minority of the country is perfectly okay with that. Not “Trump? Whatever.” There are 50-60 million people in this country who are “Trump? Fuck, yeah!”
That aside…if this whistle-blower thing is what it appears to be…Pelosi cannot sit on her hands any longer. This is treason. This isn’t just run of the mill malfeasance, obstruction, lying, embezzlement whatever. It’s flat out treason.
I believe Pelosi has calculated that it will be better for Dems to let Trump continue to inflame the country with his corruption, incompetence, and racist hatred than to impeach him. The dude is blowing himself up on his own petard, and the likelihood of a blue wave in 2020 is pretty good, imo. Nobody is going to incite a massive turnout like Trump. And I think that has been her thinking.
But that calculus has to go out the window if, in fact, Trump has leveraged a foreign nation in an attempt to interfere in the election.
And I think this is serious. ALL of it is serious (which is your point), but this is like Super Duper Uber Serious. An intelligence official has just galloped his horse with guidon blazing over a cliff. No matter what happens as a result of this, that person has just killed his/her own career. You cannot blow the whistle on the President and keep your day job. For somebody to do that, it has to be the Real Deal. Not some kind of librul hitjob made out of nothing. You don’t accuse the president of failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. This has to be a Hit and Run under the influence. You don’t throw away your career on anything less.
So. IMO this is it. If this doesn’t lead to impeachment, it’s time to pack the bags and get out because the country is officially over.
ZooeyModeratorJake W. Goldman@JakeWGoldman
Guys: “I let my wife pick all the colors for our wedding because I’m terrible with that stuff.”Also guys: “I prefer our alternate uniforms because the helmet doesn’t clash as much with our pants and compliments the secondary color we use for our jersey piping.”
Yeah…that’s not accurate.
It’s…”The alternate uniforms are better cuz the other one sucks.”
ZooeyModeratorIs there a yapper who deserves a paycheck less than Skip Bayless?
I’m not sure that anybody on the planet takes him seriously.
-
AuthorPosts
