https://theintercept.com/2019/12/04/george-bush-barack-obama-and-the-cia-torture-cover-up/
Impeachment Battle Stations: Jonathan Turley is a Sell Out
Impeachment Battle Stations: Jonathan Turley is a Sell Out
I am at impeachment battle stations this morning, surrounded by cats. One of them is already snoring. I miss my little Burmese who died recently. He had watched 21 years of CSPAN and news shows and was a kitty genius. He appreciated and would have schooled the other cats on the historical significance of this event.
Jonathan Turley will read a statement this morning which is longer than the statements of any of the other lawyers appearing. He will finish with a hilarious (I’m not serious) narrative about how even his dog is angry, but we don’t need to rush into impeachment. Isn’t that just so cute?
Turley used to be a principled analyst and commentator. Then he was hired by the Republicans to destroy the ACA. Jonathan Turley fought AGAINST providing health insurance for low income people. This is the kind of scum he became after the Republicans bought him off.
Turley will say that there is no “statutory crime” here. But, the Constitution doesn’t require a statutory crime to impeach. That’s just how shameless Turley has become in terms of advancing nonsense as legal reasoning.
Brian Williams (why does he still have a job) is telling us that it is understandable that nobody will read the House Intelligence Committee Report because it’s 300 pages. Is he talking about himself? I read 300 pages regularly and know other people who do. The mediocrity that fills the corporate news is just so tiresome.
House Intelligence Committee Report, the Federalist Society and the federal courts
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) held up military assistance funds for Ukraine that had been approved by the Congress and cleared by the State Department.
Some officials in the OMB knew that holding up properly approved funds was illegal. At least two of them resigned.
The Administration struggling to find a legal method for withholding the funds. They opted for a strategy that required the hold be reapproved every few days.
Because career officials saw the dodge, the con, the administration had to get rid of career people and replace them with political appointees who either didn’t know or didn’t care that what they were doing was illegal.
This is exactly what the “drug dealers” did with the Ambassador to Ukraine. They got rid of her and replace her with a political appointee who would do what the President said even if it was illegal.
This is exactly what the administration is doing with appointments to the federal courts. The Republicans are rushing to confirm judges who are outrageously unqualified for the positions they are being appointed to. These are people who wouldn’t get near a federal judgeship without the favor of the Federalist Society and the Republicans.
When forced through the Senate by McConnell, they will be beholden to those who secured them their cushy positions. These men and women are either ideologues or incompetent to analyze and understand the law and therefore more likely to decide cases as their Republican benefactors tell them. They know they would never be in the position without the advocacy of the Republicans and therefore don’t’ care if their legal reasoning is unsound. Make no mistake about it, if these Federalist Society lawyers take over the federal bench, we will have no legal system in the traditional sense of the word.
There will be no traditional sense of the word. Once you have destroyed meaning, destroyed language and the shared meaning of language, you have destroyed the legal system and then the democracy.
We can’t allow them to do this.
Afternoon Notes: Epstein, the House Intelligence Committee Report, MSNBC,Ukraine
Afternoon Notes: Epstein, the House Intelligence Committee Report, MSNBC,Ukraine
House Intelligence Committee Report
The House Intelligence Committee has released their preliminary impeachment report.
Included are phone records that document phone calls between Giuliani and OMB, made from the White House. This makes it impossible to maintain the fiction that Giuliani was conducting a “rogue operation.”
Epstein
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz told The Miami Herald on Wednesday that he does not believe investigating the outcome of pedophile multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s case is a wise move, saying it would set a “dangerous” precedent of second-guessing prosecutorial decisions.” The Intellectualist.
If you don’t know just how outrageous this plea deal was, you need to do some reading. The plea deal immunized not only Epstein, but anyone associated with him, unnamed.
Ukraine Scandal
Seth Abramson pointed out on Twitter that the Trump/Ukraine story is far worse than the Democrats are presenting. They are conducting a concerted attempt to dumb down the impeachment inquiry to the most elementary story hoping that then, people will understand it.
Abramson writes: “It’s much worse than we’ve been told.”
Trump, Pompeo, Giuliani, Nunes, Solomon, Parnas, Lutsenko and Fruman, Abramson notes began their plotting much earlier than is being considered. (Note: Schiff referred to this in his statement today after the report was released).
The plotting began at a time when the participants didn’t know if Mueller would take down Trump. It started when Trump learned he was being investigated over Russia.
Trump, Abramson argues, believed that Mueller would take him down. The push towards Ukraine was a defense to allegations he knew were being made against the Kremlin, which he believed were going to be connected to him via Manafort.
This was not a plot against Biden. Biden was just the icing on the cake.
“This was a plot to exculpate Trump, Putin and the man who connected them: Manafort. It was a plot to end sanctions and pave the way for Trump deals in Russia.”
The key events started before anyone knew that Biden was going to run for president.
Duncan Hunter and Sentencing
Duncan Hunter is going to be allowed to plead guilty to corruption charges he vehemently denied for years. Hunter claimed the charges against him were politically motivated and a (sign) “witch hunt.” He refused to admit his wrongdoing, publicly claimed that he was being persecuted and still holds his position in the congress, but he is being allowed to plead guilty to one charge. Even though he has been charged with multiple crimes, and potentially faces five years in prison, the reporting is that he will most probably get a little over a year.
There is no functioning criminal justice system for white collar, corporate and state criminals in this country. That’s why Trump and Manafort and others like them were running around free to engage in political campaigns. This must stop or we will have no democracy left.
The Corporate Media
At this extremely serious time, Nicolle Wallace has Donnie Deutsch on her show as a member of the panel. Deutsch is a “marketing expert.” This, folks, is where we are as a country, and where the corporate media is.
House Intelligence Report: Partial Table of Contents
- The President Forced Out the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine …………………………………….38
- The President Put Giuliani and the Three Amigos in Charge of Ukraine Issues …………51
- The President Froze Military Assistance to Ukraine ……………………………………………….67
- The President’s Meeting with the Ukrainian President Was Conditioned on An
Announcement of Investigations ………………………………………………………………………….83
- The President Asked the Ukrainian President to Interfere in the 2020 U.S. Election by
Investigating the Bidens and 2016 Election Interference …………………………………………98
- The President Wanted Ukraine to Announce the Investigations Publicly ………………..114
- The President’s Conditioning of Military Assistance and a White House Meeting on
Announcement of Investigations Raised Alarm ……………………………………………………126
The President’s Scheme Was Exposed
