Thursday, September 19, 2019

Who is on the line?

So this happened in America. The president was on the phone with a foreign leader and what he was saying so "alarmed" a member of the intelligence community and the individual went to his superior as a whistle- blower and told them that what the president was saying to this other world leader (cough cough, Putin) was a threat do national security. The communication was coded, URGENT.

All of this, of course, will not matter to the cult of trump. They will make excuses for the president's actions and declare that whatever he was doing he was doing it to make America great again. Just more "fake news". 

To be fair, the president of the United States can say pretty much whatever he wants to a foreign leader. As someone said earlier, he can promise to sell Alaska to the Russians and that shouldn't prompt an intelligence official sounding a national security alarm. So clearly what was said had to be bad enough to get this senior intelligence person's attention.   

What the president might (or might not) have said to a foreign leader (cough, cough, Putin) might have been devastating, but what we know happened next is just as troubling. The justice department, as they have been known to do, has been stonewalling congress and covering for their president.

"The complaint was deemed "credible and urgent" by Mr. Atkinson and so he brought it to the House Intelligence Committee's attention, as required by law. Trump's "acting" Director of Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, stepped in and blocked disclosure to the Committee, in defiance of the law that says it "shall be" given to Congress. This is yet another coverup by the most corrupt administration in history. But, this is critical intelligence that cannot be delayed for 6 months while it winds through the courts, and indeed, should not go to court at all."

I have to give trump credit, though, he hit the jackpot with Bill Barr. Here is a man who has been acting more like trump's personal lawyer than someone who is supposed to be the chief law enforcement official for the people of the United States. Barr will do everything in his power to make sure that whatever Mr. trump said to that world leader will not see the light of day.

Sadly, as I have written countless times when writing about the behavior of the grifter in charge, this too shall pass. The American people have trump shenanigans overload, and nothing seems to change what has already been baked into the cake. He will just keep lying, stealing, and bluffing his way though this presidency. And we will keep shaking our heads and wondering how in the hell people can in good conscience continue to support him. 

*Pic from theroot.com 

53 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:35 PM

    “Deep state! Deep state! Deep state!

    Something something Peter Strzok! Something something Andy McCabe! Something something Steele dossier!”

    This has been a performance of my very best wingnut impression. Please purchase my comedy merchandise or donate to my Patreon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:10 AM

    "What the president might (or might not) have said to a foreign leader (cough, cough, Putin)"

    Maybe not. Possibly it could be *cough cough* Ukraine.

    Wingnuts have this whole new, idiotic conspiracy theory about Joe Biden shutting down a Ukrainian corruption investigation of Biden's son. You can read all about that here, but it's the usual pile of Republican lies and drivel, which they seem to trot out routinely now, because they can't win anymore except by cheating.

    Anyway, this seems to be their master plan for saving Trump's bacon if Joe ends up being the nominee, much as it was with Hillary Clinton in the last election. It's not like they can successfully sell the president to the majority of voters as a positive force in this country. They can't make Trump look good -- he's self-evidently a racist halfwit who doesn't know what he's doing and only passes policies selling the country out to his rich friends -- so the only viable option is to sling made-up shit at Biden and try to make him look worse than Trump.

    So the rumor swirling around is that Trump tried to use the power of the federal government to somehow bribe Ukraine's president to phony up some kind of evidence that would appear to corroborate their anti-Biden conspiracy theory and make it look plausible enough that at least some people might believe it.

    Again, this is pure speculation at this point. There could be some completely different foreign policy blunder/misdeed that the whistleblower objected to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. According to WAPO. not Putin but instead Ukraine. Perhaps something to do with the $250 million in military aid Fergus was withholding to try and extort Ukraine into opening a bogus investigation of the Bidens to help his reelection campaign, which current polling has losing to Biden by double digits.

    The DoJ has no authority over whistle-blowers in the IC. There is black letter law that protects them and spells out the exact steps to be taken in evaluating the information they provide, that are being followed carefully here.

    But the flouting of those protocols pales in comparison to what Fergus' lawyers claimed in court today in an attempt to keep his tax documents hidden:
    According to them, a sitting president can not be investigated.
    No, not just indicted as per the bogus OLC memo, but fucking investigated.

    These fools have to go. They're saying that if Fergus shot someone on 5th Avenue, he couldn't be investigated as a suspect.

    Now, his policies have killed way more than just the one victim he's bragged about, but "the law doesn't apply to me" is a different statement in a court filing than it is at a campaign rally, and all of these fuckers have to go, and they have to stay the fuck gone.
    No rebranding themselves as independents and slinking away from accountability this time. Burn the fucking lifeboats.

    -Doug in Oakland

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2019/09/remembering-how-trump-and-right-tried.html

    -Doug in Oakland

    ReplyDelete
  5. The CoatesvilleExPat7:45 AM

    Not to worry Judge. This POTUS will keep this screed engine humming up to 2024. Plenty of time to prepare for the Pence presidency.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congress--and in this case, the Intelligence Committee--has the power to hold both IG Atkinson and DNI Maguire in "inherent contempt." High time they used this power. Inherent contempt empowers them to arrest and detain a defiant lawbreaker on Congress's own authority without going to a separate court. Whether the AG (we know Trump could care less) will budge once his own juniors are jailed is a good question, but it would be better than taking no for an answer, when that no is clearly not theirs to give and is patently not a legal option. Is it possible for Congress to jail Barr? A delicious prospect. Adam Schiff is steamed, and something has to give.

    Time for a showdown. This shit has gone on long enough.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fake News Update9:44 AM

    BREAKING: Hostile intelligence operative leaks vague assertions regarding confidential conversation to manically adversarial press in yet another attempt to smear president.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous10:02 AM

    "Wingnuts have this whole new, idiotic conspiracy theory about Joe Biden shutting down a Ukrainian corruption investigation of Biden's son."

    Yes, another one of those conspiracy theories supported by documented fact.

    In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

    “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.

    “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.

    Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden’s account, though they claim the pressure was applied over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day. Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine’s parliament obliged by ending Shokin’s tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired.

    But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.

    U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.



    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived

    https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12:05 PM

    Elizabeth Warren - I'm An Indian Too

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=84&v=I7FyyVwYEds

    ReplyDelete
  10. Drumpfuck's lawyers came up with the idea that as sitting unelected potus, Drumpfuck cannot be investigated for any reason and no criminal acts can be charged against him. They believe he is totally immune from all laws so he wouldn't have to leave the kremlin annex when he loses next year.

    ReplyDelete
  11. https://the-immoral-minority.com/i-will-bite-through-your-eyeballs-while-youre-still-alive-and-i-will-laugh-while-you-scream-rhode-island-trump-supporter-pleads-guilty-to-threats-directed-at-harvard-profe/

    Hannibal Lecter Junior on the line for Drumpf.

    ReplyDelete
  12. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/did-trump-try-to-extort-the-president-of-ukraine-into-investigating-joe-biden

    Likely Drumpf's problem is he bribed Ukraine to investigate Biden with frozen foreign aid money. Drumpf also tried to bribe Ukraine into helping him win re-election.

    Unfucking believable the sheer amount of crimes stoopid fucking wingnuts will ignore in their pursuit to frame a Democrat.

    Drumpfuck cannot be believed. He has no credibility because of his pathological lies and his criminality.

    ReplyDelete
  13. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/20/the-weak-and-risky-case-against-andrew-mccabe-228147

    Hows this for tone deafness. this current illegal, unelected bogus potus pushing the justice department to try someone for telling a lie when drumpf has told more than 12000 of them since Putin installed him in the kremlin annex.

    ReplyDelete
  14. How many Drumpf businesses has he brought back home from overseas? Anyone? Why should anyone else be forced to repatriate when the crook in the kremlin annex ignores his own rules? Fucking inbred morons.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous1:45 PM

    Climate change is bullshit......

    ReplyDelete
  16. Colonel Sam Colt is on the line.Urgent message to stoopid fucking inbred ammosexuals......

    https://the-immoral-minority.com/gun-maker-colt-suspends-production-of-ar-15s-for-civilian-use/

    Run along and blame Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Religious freedumb in a part of Alaska.....

    https://the-immoral-minority.com/pastor-for-the-church-of-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-leads-opening-prayer-for-kenai-borough-assembly/

    ReplyDelete
  18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LYMlVp0TNQ

    Fake Noize reports WSJ claims Drumpf pressured Ukrainian president 8 times to investigate Biden and son.

    Months ago Ukrainian government official said there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by gas company or Biden's son.

    ReplyDelete
  19. The whole Colt thing boils down to one fact: Colt products are all wildly overpriced and can't compete in the market with similar products that don't have a pony stamped into them.

    You can buy three non-Colt AR-15s for the price of one Colt branded one.

    -Doug in Oakland

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous6:34 PM

    "But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member."

    No he wasn't. This is the bullshit conspiracy theory part. There doesn't seem to have been any Ukrainian investigation into Burisma. In fact, it was just the opposite. The prosecutor actually thwarted a British investigation into one of Burisma's officers. He was unwilling to chase down corruption cases, at Burisma or other Ukrainian companies, which is why Joe Biden pushed for him to be fired.

    Wingnuts have made an allegation that is 180 degrees off of the reality.

    And that dude at the Hill you quoted, John Solomon, is another lying wingnut weasel who regularly flogs these fake conspiracy theories. His credibility is zero. The Hill should be ashamed to employ him.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Doug, my fondest wish is to be able to say I was taken out by an inbred ammosexual with an assault weapon with an oversized clip who nailed me on the fortieth or forty first follow up shot.

    ReplyDelete
  22. The whole Ukrainian non scandal is a typical right wing false flag story done to try to disrupt the political lives of opponents and as you can see from how many of these stories get debunked every goddamn day, it is all bullshit and nothing more.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Fake News Update6:54 PM

    "Fake Noize reports WSJ claims Drumpf pressured Ukrainian president 8 times to investigate Biden and son."

    Biden threatened to withhold billions in aid to Ukraine unless they fired a prosecutor investigating his son's company and now the Deep State/Democrat media is trying to turn this into a Trump scandal.

    Kind of like how Hillary paid for Russian disinformation against Trump to win the election, and they tried to accuse Trump of being the one who colluded with Russia.

    ReplyDelete
  24. You have not a shred of evidence proving HRC knew anybody in her campaign paid for the dossier, which the IG found to be credible enough last year to lengthen out his investigations against Drumpf.

    There is empirical evidence Drumpf and his campaign colluded with Russian agents. The whole Mueller report is full of them, collusion is not a crime but it happened numerous times. So did and still is ongoing....obstruction of justice.

    Where is the proof Biden threatened to withhold billions from Ukraine?

    ReplyDelete
  25. From Heavy.com..... 3. The Ukrainian Rada Wanted Shokin Removed
    Viktor Shokin


    Viktor Shokin had much bigger issues than the corruption case against Mykola Zlochevsky. Almost immediately after he was appointed, he started to cause almost irreparable harm to Ukraine’s legal system.


    For starters, he failed to prosecute any prominent members of the Yanukovych regime or anybody in the current government. He constantly blocked reform to Ukraine’s broken legal system. He was in charge of implementing the 2014 law on prosecution which the European Union had asked Ukraine to do for years.

    The law aimed to reduce to role of prosecutors who “were absurdly superior to judges in the Soviet legal system that persisted in post-Soviet Ukraine” according to Atlantic Council. It also called for a reevaluation of all prosecutors in order to weed out the more corrupt and incompetent ones. Shokin manipulated the process so that the old system mostly remained the same and minimal, ineffective changes were implemented.

    He was the largest obstacle to judicial reform in Ukraine. It wasn’t just Joe Biden calling for his ouster, it was the United States government and the European Union.

    Steven Pifer, a career foreign service officer who was ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton, told Politifact that “”virtually everyone” he knew in the U.S. government and virtually all non-governmental experts on Ukraine “felt that Shokin was not doing his job and should be fired. As far as I can recall, they all concurred with the vice president telling Poroshenko that the U.S. government would not extend the $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine until Shokin was removed from office.””


    The European Union also called for him to be fired and celebrated his removal. “This decision creates an opportunity to make a fresh start in the prosecutor general’s office. I hope that the new prosecutor general will ensure that [his] office . . . becomes independent from political influence and pressure and enjoys public trust,” said Jan Tombinski, the EU’s envoy to Ukraine, in a statement at the time.

    4. Experts Agree That Hunter Biden’s Position Created a Conflict of Interest for Joe

    Despite Shokin’s removal being justified, experts still agree that Hunter’s involvement with Burisma created a conflict of interest.



    Ain't like there have never been conflicts of interest in the Drumpf crime family and Biden is a bit player in a non-scandalous non-scandal.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous12:02 AM

    "Where is the proof Biden threatened to withhold billions from Ukraine?"

    The fucking video where he bragged about it.

    What is wrong with you?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Doesn't matter what anyone else did, that's not how criminal justice works. "But judge, what about those guys who rape babies? Shouldn't they go to jail instead of me?" Nope. You both did crime, you both get punishment.

    Our damn fool of a president tried to use $250 million of military aid to a country being invaded by the last foreign country that meddled in our elections to extort that country into meddling in our next election.

    That makes the envelopes of $50K in cash that Agnew regularly accepted as bribes while in the white house seem positively quaint.

    These clowns have to go.

    These clowns have to stay gone.

    They have to own what they've done.

    Burn the fucking lifeboats.

    -Doug in Oakland

    ReplyDelete
  28. "make it look plausible enough that at least some people might believe it."

    Millions of fox news viewers will believe anything trump says.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous3:35 AM

    You've got to admit - Trump's doing wonders for the economy.

    Plus Asian and Eastern European women think he's sexy.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous3:39 AM

    Why are there so many gay black men? Homosexuality (and all its attendant diseases) is rampant in the black community. AIDS is out of control. Gay downlow black men pass it on to their baby mommas, the mommas pass it on to their kids. Then the so-called men leave, and a whole new generation of disease-ridden bastards is created. Sad.

    What is WRONG with black people? I'm being serious.

    ReplyDelete
  31. What is wrong with you? Biden said a billion, not billions. The whole country wanted the prosecutor removed because of malfeasance and there was no attempt by Biden to get anyone to help HRC.

    Your non-story is still a non-story, non-scandal. Live with it.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous10:56 AM

    Oh, it was only a billion dollar threat from Biden unless they fired the prosecutor investigating his son. Well that's ok then.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous11:02 AM

    "Our damn fool of a president tried to use $250 million of military aid to a country being invaded by the last foreign country that meddled in our elections to extort that country into meddling in our next election."

    This is an absolute fabrication that tries to accuse Trump of doing what Biden actually did.

    None of the reporting on this "whistleblower" story even alleged any quid pro quo was offered for Ukraine investigating Biden's son being paid off by a Ukrainian gas company and Biden quashing any investigation into to it.

    This "scandal" consists of the President requesting assistance in the investigation of corruption at the highest levels of our government, which is entirely appropriate.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I read Solomon's latest garbage piece from the Hill today. He is trying to involve HRC and uses un-named anon sources to do it. But he assures those stoopid enough to believe his drivel that the source is a reliable former US attorney.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Ukraine received 513 million in aid in 2016 from the US, not billions(s)

    ReplyDelete
  36. https://twitter.com/i/status/1175392716110401543

    ReplyDelete
  37. Biden's son being paid off by a Ukrainian gas company and Biden quashing any investigation into to it.

    Where is your proof. let's see actual facts not desperate wishful thinking.

    He was the largest obstacle to judicial reform in Ukraine. It wasn’t just Joe Biden calling for his ouster, it was the United States government and the European Union.

    Steven Pifer, a career foreign service officer who was ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton, told Politifact that “”virtually everyone” he knew in the U.S. government and virtually all non-governmental experts on Ukraine “felt that Shokin was not doing his job and should be fired. As far as I can recall, they all concurred with the vice president telling Poroshenko that the U.S. government would not extend the $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine until Shokin was removed from office.””


    The European Union also called for him to be fired and celebrated his removal. “This decision creates an opportunity to make a fresh start in the prosecutor general’s office. I hope that the new prosecutor general will ensure that [his] office . . . becomes independent from political influence and pressure and enjoys public trust,” said Jan Tombinski, the EU’s envoy to Ukraine, in a statement at the time.



    Looks to me like the US and everyone else wanted him removed because he would not investigate the alleged corruption, not because he did.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Drumpfuck is on the line declaring himself stoopid fucking inbred micro-dicked czar for life because HRC had emails and was never investigated.

    Screwdy Rudy went on Fake News today swearing Drumpf doesn't have a wooden micro dick and as soon as Rudy gets the splinters out of his tongue he will admit the splinters came from sucking wooden micro door knobs.

    ReplyDelete
  39. For the official record, the debunked shit about Biden and HRC has absolutely no bearing on the fact that Drumpf tried to bribe a foreign nation to investigate Drumpfuck's top rival for the Dems.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Anonymous2:16 PM

    Why are there so many gay black men?
    ----------
    So guys like you can get some? Funny you know how many there are. You should settle down with one guy, maybe get married.

    ReplyDelete
  41. rumpf and wingnuts are totally desperate to falsely tie Biden into Ukraine mess so people pay less attention to the crooki in chief, Drumpfuck.

    He has moar impeachable offenses lining up against him than Carter's has back pills.

    ReplyDelete
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  43. Gambler2 ASKA White Woman7:58 PM

    Fake News Update said...

    " BREAKING: Hostile intelligence operative leaks vague assertions regarding confidential conversation to manically adversarial press in yet another attempt to smear president."

    9:44 AM
    ----------------
    LOL!! fake news from Fake News.

    ReplyDelete
  44. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Gambler2 ASKA White Woman8:02 PM

    Anonymous said...

    Why are there so many gay black men?
    ---------------------
    Why is that your business? Do you make a habit out of questioning other people's sex lives?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Anonymous8:45 PM

    +white people don't exist
    -white people caused [problem x]

    ------

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    -white people are racists

    ------

    +white males are weak and pathetic
    -we should all fear white males

    ------

    +white people oppress other races
    -we need to live near white people

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  47. Anonymous8:48 PM

    Black people good.

    White people bad.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1175504986006052865

    ReplyDelete
  48. Anonymous11:55 PM

    TRUMP 2020!!

    ReplyDelete

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    -Doug in Oakland

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