The Right Side of the News

Amb. Sondland talked to Trump personally. He testifies to the fact that there was not only a quid pro quo but also that everybody (ie, Trump, Pompeo, Mulvaney, etc) was aware of it and was on board with it.Also, Pompeo was on that single phone call in question -- even though he denied it at first, he finally admitted that he had lied earlier and was indeed in on the call. LtCol Vindman was also in on the call.You did not even come close to approaching answering my primary questions in Message 3535: So then why don't Pompeo nor Mulvaney step forward and exonerate Trump with their sworn testimony? Why instead does Trump order them to not testify and they in turn order their subordinates to not testify? You know full well, as do we all, that if their truthful testimony would exonerate Trump then Trump would be ordering them to testify. So why doesn't Trump so order them? Everybody else is indeed a witness to the entire affair, which is not restricted to a single phone call summary filled with ellipses leaving out important parts according to first-hand witness LtCol Vindman (HINT: creationist quote-mining makes very heavy use of ellipses to leave out the parts of the quoted source that would place the quoted parts in context -- in at least one case, the first part of the sentence was from the first paragraph of the article and the second part was from the last paragraph such that the ellipsis covered up the entire article being "quoted").We are dealing with a months-long operation to pressure the Ukrainian government to give Trump personally something of value (ie, dirt on his leading potential 2020 opponent based on pure Russian propaganda), of which Trump's clear and admitted violation of federal law (ie, soliciting a foreign government for something of value to benefit yourself personally) is only one small part. That Trump was offering Zelensky something of value (ie, military aid) in exchange for services qualifies as a bribe, or that he was threatening to harm Ukraine in order to pressure Zelensky to accede to Trump's demands qualifies as extortion are just additional charges to pile upon Trump's long list of crimes and wrongdoing.Witnesses to the various parts of the entire operation to pressure the government of Ukraine are still witnesses. Let's use the metaphor of a fire. A whistleblower smells smoke which alerts him to the possibility that there might be a fire. Off hand, there are three possibilities: Let's consider another famous whistleblower whose name nobody remembers. During the infamous Watergate break-in, a security guard (the whistleblower in our story) found a door whose latch had been taped over to keep that door open. That led to further investigation which caught the "plumbers" in the act, which led to the White House's cover-up, which led eventually to the impeachment hearings against Nixon, which led eventually to Nixon having to resign the Presidency in order to avoid impeachment.The role of a whistleblower is to draw attention to a potential problem. The role of the investigators following up on that whistleblower report is to determine whether an actual problem exists and to refer further investigation to appropriate agencies.That is exactly what has happened. 
So, Faith, the question still stands: Why don't any of the primary witnesses (ie, Pompeo, Mulvaney, Trump, et al.) come forward to testify? If their testimony would exonerate Trump, then they should be strongly motivated to testify. The only reasonable explanation for their extremely stubborn refusal to testify would be that their truthful testimony would only condemn Trump and themselves.

Agreed. Most ambassadorships are more figurehead positions in nations with no problems. So long as you can put on a good party, etc, you're qualified. In the more troubled parts of the world, that's where we need the professionals like Marie Yovanovitch. Somebody likened it to the two different kinds of film producers: the ones who only write the checks to finance the film (eg, Steven Mnuchin who produced Wonder Woman) and the ones invested in making that film.Yet some such appointments can be surprising. When President Reagan in 1981 made actor John Gavin ambassador to Mexico, we all rolled our eyes. But then we learned that Gavin had a master's in Latin American affairs, so he actually had some useful skills. Now I find that John Gavin is himself Hispanic. So not all suspicious looking appointments are necessarily bad. Gordon Sondland turns out to have been active in politics before this, albeit on the state level (Oregon) as well as in philanthropic efforts where he is supposed to have made a good name for himself. He's not the complete babe in the woods politically, though he undoubtedly now finds himself out of his depth being suddenly thrust into the international deeps.I agree that what we're seeing is that everybody is trying to push him under the bus (AKA "the Gordon Problem"), so his response is to drag everybody else under the bus with him.

There can be times when you might want to eat the yellow snow.I've heard about Siberian shamans using psychedelics in their religious experiences which might lead to our Xmas fantasies of flying reindeer. I'm pretty sure it's mushrooms that were used, but please substitute whatever it ends up actually being. That psychedelic bio-material is poisonous to humans, but not to reindeer. Once it has been filtered through the reindeers' kidneys, the output was no longer poisionous though the psychedelic properties were still intact. Therefore, you could safely eat the yellow snow in order to have your vivid religious experiences.

Yes, the lawyer-speak line liie via texting that Trump wanted Sondland to repeat (which he did) was that there was not quid pro quo. But Sondland's most recent testimony was that there was indeed a quid pro quo.But that is still only secondary. Primarily Trump asked a foreign source for a thing of value for personal reasons, which Trump admitted to. That it was for any quid pro quo for purposes of bribery is secondary. That it was also for purposes of extortion is also secondary.That your theology makes you blind to such outrageous immorality only serves to expose the moral bankruptcy of your theology.

Well, it's not as if he was a private citizen there on his own. He was a member of the Saudi air force at Pensacola under orders for training, like thousands of other foreign military members. Basically, he was here on behalf of Saudi Arabia which should increase the level of Saudi Arabia's responsibility for his actions, even though his acts of violence were not part of his orders (I think we can safely assume that).Now, whether Saudi Arabia will end up being held responsible to any degree is doubtful.

And likewise The President seems to think he can boss around the House instead of treating them as a check on his own powers..The classic "checks and balances" philosophy that we were taught so unwillingly in the late 60's (for myself, that's the summer I learned to fall asleep standing up) should have taught us all too well.Each and every one of the three Branches of Government is supposed to be a check and balance imposed by the other two branches against that one branch.Yes, the Executive has ways to check the powers of the Legislative. But at the same time the Legislative has ways to check the powers of the Executive. Such as the oversight committee which Trump has been so fervently attempting to obstruct.Why are you ignoring those? The Congress has the duty to provide a check on the power of the President. Why are you complaining that they are trying to do their duty?

Such as a "leftwing publication" as MSNBC? Listening to their commentators' and hosts' interpersonal banter and self-qualifying comments, I see a different picture.I have heard several MSNBC hosts and commentators self-identify as life-long Republicans. Senior Chief Malcolm Nance (USN, ret.) self-identifies as a life-long conservative, but the problem, he says, is that he is a Colin Powell conservative -- patriotic to Country, Constitution, and America -- which the Trumpists now brand as "radical Left".So then a "leftwing publication" as MSNBC did in fact not just select "leftwing demagoguess" (CAVEAT: you did not imply such strict recruitment criteria nor do I imply that you had done so), but rather they have recruited many actual conservatives who just happen to refuse to drink the Kool-Aid of Cult-45 and hence remain sane and still aware of Reality. Interestingly, Tucker Carlson was on MSNBC for three to four years: 2005-2008. Yeah, I was also surprised to hear that several months ago.

Benjamin Harrison (1888) was a Republican. Rutherford B. Hayes (1876) was also a Republican. There was no Republican Party in 1824 when two members of the Democratic-Republican Party, John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson, were running against each other.That means that in all cases you cited (except for 1824) it was a Republican who was elected despite losing the popular vote. So instead of just the last two, all of these cases from 1876 on have benefited a Republican.So what's your point? That Republicans need special help to win? Such as election fraud and foreign interference?Also, please note that in 2000 it was the US Supreme Court that put Bush into office. In Bush v. Gore (2000), the US Supreme Court stopped the ballot recounts in Florida, awarding the election to Bush. The ultimate result of the ballot recounts was that Gore actually won the Florida vote, but by then it was too late.Edited by dwise1, : completed first paragraph

Note also how many Repugnicans have repeated the lies that impeachment required the violations of specific statues of law. No! The grounds for impeachment are primarily divorced from statues of the criminal code, which did not even exist when the Constitution of the United States of America was being written -- for that matter, it is only by the authority of the Constitution of the United States of America that the criminal code even exists at all. Ultimately, the grounds for impeachment laid in the abuse of power for corrupt purposes. Many such grounds (such as collusion with hostile foreign governments, as was documented over-amply in the Mueller Report) may not have violated any actual law, but they are impeachable nonetheless.The thing about Trump is that he is a "two-fer", though many times over. OK, I've been gathering this one my own. A "two-fer" would be a "two for one", wherein a single decision ends up checking two boxes instead. For example there was a character on "30 Rock" who was very well dressed and erudite and also black, so everybody assumed that he was both gay and black and thus always referred to him as "Two-Fer" since he marked off both the gay and black boxes. The last I followed was that upon hearing about that reasoning, he immediately rejected the gay part, but then I lost track of any subsequent action.The thing is that what Trump rightfully is being impeached for has nothing to do with any actual criminal statues. Trying to artificially require actual violations of criminal statues is just a lying Republican deception that we have heard far too much.Yet at the same time (the "Two Fer") Trump has also violated many federal laws, including directly ordering other government officials to violate federal laws -- I am no lawyer, but I can only assume that there must be some federal law against ordering other government officials under you to deliberately violate federal law. Any informed comments to this question?

And don't forget all those years Trump used his "charity", the Trump Foundation, as his own personal piggy bank to pay for all kinds of personal stuff, like legal expenses for his business, the Trump Organization -- (see Donald J. Trump Foundation - Wikipedia for more information). Some of that includes charities that certain contributions were supposed to be for either only receiving some or none of the contributions -- eq, when he boycotted the FOX News debate and did a big fund-raiser for veterans instead, no veteran organization received a nickel of that money until an investigative reporter, David Fahrenthold, started poking around and Trump, caught yet again with his hand in the cookie jar, suddenly "just sent out the first check ten minutes ago."Here's an interview with Fahrenthold on Chris Hayes on 31 August 2019 which also discusses foreign interests essentially bribing Trump through his hotels and resorts, just as there have been some large "contributions" to the Trump Foundation by foreign oligarchs ("contributions" which have been established to be mainly used by Trump for his own purposes).From "All In With Chris Hayes" (31 Aug 2019), "The Trick To Tracking Trump’s Lies And Corruption": Share and enjoy!

No, no, really.

And he even kept the receipts.Well, it was his ex-fixer, Michael Cohen, who kept the receipts. But Trump still has the title of "unindicted co-conspirator" for that crime for which Cohen is serving time. Once Trump loses his OLC "stay out of jail free" card then he can become the indicted co-conspirator for that crime, plus the leading role in several other indictments awaiting him the moment he leaves office.There are several possible scenarios for what will happen when Trump has to leave office. Two primary reasons why he must run for re-election is 1) to make all the more money from campaign contributions (including bribes masquerading as "contributions") and 2) to keep using those OLC memos to stay out of jail and 3) to get his ego stroked at his rallies.When Trump finally has to leave office, most likely by losing the 2020 election, he will be facing indictments from a myriad of investigations into his criminal activities (truly, the most extremely shtupid thing he has ever done in his entire life was to become President, since that brought all his criminal activity out into the open daylight). One possible scenario will be for him to flee the country to escape prosecution. The next question will be how we are supposed to retrieve Air Force One and its crew from Russia.

(Having watched that video) Actually Trump having a code name of "Humble" would be an excellent idea. Because nobody who knows anything about Trump could ever guess it.It would be like Faith adopting the code name of "Reasonable".Edited by dwise1, : second paragraph dig

One of the major problems in the impeachment was what to charge Trump with. The problem is an embarrassment of riches. From even before Day One Trump has committed so many impeachable acts day after day that it is virtually impossible to keep track of each and every one. The most apt description of Trump is to say that he is "self-impeaching", every day, in every way, he is getting more and more self-impeaching (allusion to his family's membership in Norman Vincent Peale's "positive thinking" congregation).A fundamental problem is that the case for impeachment and removal has to ultimately be made to the American public. The fundamental question was whether to bring everything out or to concentrate on a narrower narrative. The public can follow a narrow narrative, whereas the broad entirety of Trump's misdeeds would overwhelm them and confuse them.Of course, all that will go completely over your head. But normals reading this will understand what I am saying. Ever hear the old saying that a tiger cannot change its stripes? So if you take a sleazy con-man who has been "bending" the law every single one of the several decades of his life (having been mentored by a mob lawyer, Roy Cohn, in the ways of Mafia-style legalistics) and you put him into the highest office in the land, how could you expect him to suddenly and completely change at the most fundamental levels?Trump is a crook. He has always been a crook. He is still a crook.Trump is corrupt. He has always been corrupt. He is still corrupt.Did you ever bother to watch that video of the interview with David Fahrenthold? No, I didn't think so, blind as you are to the truth. But our lurkers are not as self-inflictedly blind as you are.It's a theme (in German: Leitmotif (an important concept in opera)) that keeps playing itself out. Democrats keep trying to dig up the facts of what actually happened. Republicans try to block that fact-finding and keep trying desperately to divert everybody's attention away from the actual facts as they complain constantly about procedure.Every trial lawyer and prosecutor knows for a solid fact that when the facts are on your side then you pound the facts, but when the facts are not on your side then your attack the procedures, and when that fails you merely pound the table.In all these proceedings, no Republican has ever addressed the facts of the case. Instead, all they have ever done has been to attack the process. None of Trump's "defenders" have attempted to defend his character in any way. Even Trump has attacked his supporters for not supporting him on the facts of the case, but nobody has done that for him. Because there is no possible defense for his deeds.

Well, technically he largely has.He basically promised to gut and destroy the government and our foreign relations (AKA "international diplomacy"), especially with our long-time allies. He has made considerable progress on that front.His promise to himself was to make himself rich from being President. Shortly after his election or inauguration was on video boasting that he would be the first president to have ever gotten richer from holding that office. So in that respect, he has made incredible progress. Amazing what you can accomplish when you are highly motivated (and nothing motivates Trump like money).