” Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings died early Thursday due to complications from longstanding health challenges, his congressional office said. He was 68.”
“Schiff pushed Volker to say Ukraine felt pressure from Trump”
“In a secret interview, Rep. Adam Schiff, leader of the House Democratic effort to impeach President Trump, pressed former United States special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker to testify that Ukrainian officials felt pressured to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a result of Trump withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
Volker denied that was the case, noting that Ukrainian leaders did not even know the aid was being withheld and that they believed their relationship with the U.S. was moving along satisfactorily, without them having done anything Trump mentioned in his notorious July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
When Volker repeatedly declined to agree to Schiff’s characterization of events, Schiff said, “Ambassador, you’re making this much more complicated than it has to be.”
The interview took place Oct. 3 in a secure room in the U.S. Capitol. While the session covered several topics, the issue of an alleged quid pro quo — U.S. military aid in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens and a public announcement that such an investigation was underway — was a significant part of the discussion.”
—————
Hypocrites too. As the writer said, “this isn’t justice…… it’s just plain gross.”
For someone who likes to mock the President for supposedly sounding like a mob boss, that last line sound rather mob bossy to me. Schiff wasn’t getting the answer he wanted so he lashed out and berated the witness. Seems normal, right?
Here’s the rest of the exchange in question, where you can see Schiff continuing to press him to say something he clearly doesn’t think is actually true.
[Schiff] asked Volker whether he would agree that “no President of the United States should ever ask a foreign leader to help intervene in a U.S. election.”
“I agree with that,” said Volker.
“And that would be particularly egregious if it was done in the context of withholding foreign assistance?” Schiff continued.
Volker balked. “We’re getting now into, you know, a conflation of these things that I didn’t think was actually there.”
Schiff wanted Volker to agree that “if it’s inappropriate for a president to seek foreign help in a U.S. election, it would be doubly so if a president was doing that at a time when the United States was withholding military support from the country.”
Again, Volker did not agree. “I can’t really speak to that,” he said. “My understanding of the security assistance issue is — ”
Schiff interrupted. “Why can’t you speak to that, ambassador? You’re a career diplomat. You can understand the enormous leverage that a president would have while withholding military support from an ally at war with Russia. You can understand just how significant that would be, correct?”
Volker tried to go along without actually agreeing. “I can understand that that would be significant,” he said.
Schiff persisted. “And when that suspension of aid became known to that country, to Ukraine, it would be all the more weighty to consider what the president had asked of them, wouldn’t it?”
“So again, congressman, I don’t believe — ” Volker began.
“It’s a pretty straightforward question,” Schiff said.
“But I don’t believe the Ukrainians were aware that the assistance was being held up — ”
“They became aware of it,” Schiff said.
“They became aware later, but I don’t believe they were aware at the time, so there was no leverage implied,” Volker said.
If this were a Republican and this was the Benghazi hearing, it’d be front page news. As it stands, Schiff appears to be bulletproof in the legacy media. His actions are just ridiculous at this point. He’s holding secret hearings, kicking Republicans out of testimony, and selectively leaking lines he thinks can help his impeachment case.
This isn’t justice. It’s not even proper in the political arena. It’s just plain gross.”
Senate Minority Leader @SenSchumer says that President @realDonaldTrump, during their meeting, called @SpeakerPelosi a "third rate politician" and said to them, referring to the situation with the Kurds, that "there are communists involved and you guys might like that." pic.twitter.com/Ir4H5f1eDN
“The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel isn’t having any of the Democrats’ nonsense on this impeachment push. Yes, the Democrats have executed the final stages of their three-year plan: impeaching Donald Trump. It’s an inquiry. It’s nothing official…yet. But they’re doing their best to muddy the waters in the hopes that the damage being inflicted could impact the 2020 race by making the president’s already shoddy approval numbers (though I’m skeptical of those polls) even more dirty, making the unpalatable man even more distasteful with voters. Fine—but the allegations against Trump regarding this call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are straight trash.
The Democrats allege there was quid pro quo, wherein Trump threatened to delay military aid if Zelensky didn’t open a corruption probe into Hunter Biden’s arrangement with Burisma, an energy company. Hunter Biden is the son of Joe Biden and has zero experience in the energy sector. The Trump White House released the call and refuted all of the juicy claims made in this whistleblower report from a reported CIA agent who is a registered Democrat and had worked with a 2020 Democratic candidate. Oh, and the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was in contact with this person and knew about the contents of the complaint before it was even filed. It’s another orchestrated hit from the ashes of the Russian collusion myth.
You don’t need to be an investigative reporter to see that the Democrats have nothing here. That’s why this entire inquiry is being done in secret. And the only saving grace that keeps this impeachment drum going is that the liberal media takes everything Schiff and others say as gospel. So, Strassel does what she does best; gut the Democratic narrative—brutally. She goes line-by-line giving the GOP, Trump supporters, and anyone else who is skeptical of the impeachment push a go-to sheet in exposing this smoke and mirrors show (via WSJ):
Motive matters, but what matters more is the accuracy of the complaint itself. The real news of the past few weeks has been the steady accumulation of evidence that its central claim is totally wrong.
Which shouldn’t be surprising, given how many facts the complaint mangled about the call. It alleged, for instance, that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine to “locate and turn over servers.” He didn’t. It claims Mr. Trump “praised” a prosecutor named Yuriy Lutsenko and suggested the Ukrainian president “keep him in his position.” That didn’t happen either. There’s more, and when the whistleblower can’t get the facts of the call right, it’s no surprise he got his conclusion wrong too.
There is simply no evidence of what House Democrats have made the central claim of their impeachment inquiry: that Mr. Trump engaged in a “quid pro quo” by withholding aid to Ukraine unless it “opened an investigation” into former Vice President Joe Biden.
We now have the transcript of the call, in which Mr. Trump never threatened to withhold aid as a condition of an investigation. He doesn’t even mention money. The press is trying to suggest the threat was “implicit”—which means he didn’t say it.
There’s also the belated and devastating fact that the Ukrainians say they had no knowledge the aid was being withheld until a month after the call. How can you demand a quo when the target is unaware of the quid? Further, the aid was released—despite no “investigation” or “dirt” from Ukraine. And Mr. Zelensky has twice said there was no “pressure” or “blackmail” from the U.S. with regard to an investigation.
We also now have the opening statement of Kurt Volker, the former special representative to Ukraine, from his testimony last week to the House Intelligence Committee. “As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing,” Mr. Volker said, “Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion” during negotiations
The GOP may feel compelled to attack this circus, but Strassel warns that they should conserve their energy, noting that they’d be “be better off uniformly noting that the central players in this episode, and the written record, have already refuted the complaint, and that anything further is theater…the left is again counting on the public getting lost in a swirl of innuendo. But facts matter, especially when it comes to impeachment.”
You can clearly see that the video from ABC was edited, filtered, and altered the original video they used to spread their manure. This required skill, effort, thought, and clear malice beforehand.
It. Was. Intentional. The only question is were they hoodwinked, or they were willing participants in a fraud? I’m thinking probably the latter.
“False ‘combat video’ raises many questions, cautions for media”
—
“Now comes word from ABC News that it has pulled down video that aired on its flagship broadcasts, which claimed to show a “slaughter” by Turkey on the Syrian border after President Trump’s announced withdrawal of U.S. troops.
ABC correspondent Ian Panell reported on Sunday that the video “obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town of Tal Abyad two nights ago.”
The pictures show massive explosions lighting up the night sky. But it turns out ABC may have been hoodwinked, according to its own account.
A tweet issued by ABC News on Monday morning reads: “CORRECTION: We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight’ Sunday and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy. ABC News regrets the error.”
According to National Review, the alleged error was uncovered by social media users who compared the supposed combat footage to a YouTube video of a Kentucky military show — and it appears to be identical. (National Review credited Gizmodo with first reporting on the alleged error and publishing the videos side by side for comparison.)
ABC’s correction is the right move, of course. But I don’t think that’s the end of the story. It’s yet another in a long series of pretty serious media mistakes that never should have happened — and, arguably, would not have if appropriate journalistic standards had been deployed.
I can’t help but think that part of the problem might be that the video seemed to fit in so perfectly with the narrative that the media and other interests have been pummeling viewers with for a week. Had this video not shown what many wanted to see, it might have been treated more critically on the front end, rather than represented as a great, exclusive ABC News “get” that was shown to millions of its evening news and morning news viewers.
There may well be slaughters, massacres and abuses in the battle between Turkey and the Kurds in northern Syria. Such events have gone on relatively nonstop in the Middle East for a long time. News coverage, analysis, public discussion and debate are all worthy. Military experts, Democrats, Republicans and pundits all seem to agree that Trump is in the wrong. But under these circumstances, when preconceived notions are being set in stone, it’s all the more important to make sure we aren’t hoodwinked.
If the video aired by ABC is actually video of a military-type demonstration in Kentucky, there are other questions we need to have answered.
Exactly who brought the video to ABC and how did they represent it? What was the process ABC used to try to verify that the video was what they presented it to be? Who did ABC believe shot the “combat video”? Did they pay for it, or did someone just offer to give it to them out of the blue? What was the motivation of those who misrepresented the video?
Many who I sense never thought about “the Kurds” a week ago are purporting to speak knowledgeably on the topic, on television and in the press, as reporters and analysts. Lives are at stake and there are questions of freedom, democracy and terrorism, but there is always an element of someone making money at the heart of many such conflicts.”
“For conservatives who watched the Democrat debate, it was like visiting Earth-2, as Drunkblogger Stephen Green so cleverly put it. Conservatives probably could not endure these debates without Stephen Green’s infusion of both facts and humor.
Each of those candidates on the stage seemed oblivious to the reality of the last three years — the fabulous economy, lowest unemployment in decades, international trade renegotiated to our benefit, millions no longer on food stamps. Our military, eviscerated by Obama, is being repaired. Manufacturing has been revitalized, and the border, despite the intransigence of the Democrats, is slowly being better controlled. The wall is being built. Everything Trump has done since being elected has been effective; he has tried to keep his campaign promises despite the Democrats’ vow to see him impeached from day one. And no matter how vicious the Left is, those candidates on stage last night continue to opt for mindless delusion that he can be removed from office in order to prevent his re-election.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are grateful for a president willing to fight back against both parties, who have nothing but contempt for Trump-supporters, for the man who means to drain the swamp. We must be thankful for the distinguished few in the House (the Republicans in the Senate are abject cowards) who have the courage to defend the president. The swamp was certainly on display throughout the debate.
The Democrats are losing. Trump and his supporters are winning — on every issue, even Turkey and Syria. As others have observed, the Left plays checkers while Trump plays 4-D chess. He is way ahead of his opponents on every level, every issue. Most Americans like having jobs and like their friends and family members having jobs. They don’t mind the fact that some people are fabulously wealthy. Those are the people who fund the countless attractions we take for granted: museums, medical research, hospitals that specialize, university buildings, public television, and a host of other things the rest of us enjoy and take for granted. Where would we be without the largesse of all the American billionaires and millionaires who have funded so many projects that have enriched us all? However they attained their wealth is of no interest, nor is how they live their lives. They have contributed to the public good beyond what any of us can adequately appreciate.
But each and every one of the Democrat presidential candidates loathes and envies the rich. They mean to punish them. They want them to pay for all that free college tuition and health care for illegal aliens. They want to punish all the corporations that produce all the things we take for granted: our vast choices in any grocery store and our freedom to choose our own doctors, cars, where we live, what we watch on television, etc. Like the true totalitarians they are, they want to tell us what we can have, do, eat, drive, and think. They want to transform us into communist China. Nothing would make them happier. They would all still be rich; the rest of us would be under their thumbs, surveilled as the citizens of China are. Not one of the Democrat candidates ever mentions the word “freedom” or “liberty.” This missing link should be the biggest wake-up call of all: they want to control how we live rather than let us live according to the principles of the Founders.”
“I Asked Thousands of Biologists When Life Begins. The Answer Wasn’t Popular”
“Shortly after being awarded my Ph.D. by the University of Chicago’s department of Comparative Human Development this year, I found myself in a minor media whirlwind. I was interviewed by The Daily Wire, The College Fix, and Breitbart. I appeared on national television and on a widely syndicated radio program. All of this interest had been prompted by a working paper associated with my dissertation, which was entitled Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate.
As discussed in more detail below, I reported that both a majority of pro-choice Americans (53%) and a majority of pro-life Americans (54%) would support a comprehensive policy compromise that provides entitlements to pregnant women, improves the adoption process for parents, permits abortion in extreme circumstances, and restricts elective abortion after the first trimester. However, members of the media were mostly interested in my finding that 96% of the 5,577 biologists who responded to me affirmed the view that a human life begins at fertilization.
It was the reporting of this view—that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are biological humans—that created such a strong backlash. It was not unexpected, as the finding provides fodder for conservative opponents of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court had suggested there was no consensus on “the difficult question of when life begins” and that “the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, [was] not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
* * *
The U.S. abortion debate has raged for generations, and remains divisive to this day. As a lawyer, mediator and researcher, I sought to assess whether there is room for compromise. I believed that such an approach could help Americans on both sides develop a shared understanding of the main issues—particularly surrounding the question of when life begins. My approach was similar to that implemented by Yale Professor Dan Kahan in his 2003 gun-control debate manifesto, in which he declared his objective as “not to take any particular position on gun control but instead to take issue with the terms in which the gun control debate is cast.” I was being idealistic, yes, but this approach was not without precedent.
“This dissertation seeks to explain why the abortion debate persists and whether it can be resolved,” I wrote in my dissertation’s introduction. “While the U.S. Supreme Court was able to end the national segregation controversy with its holding in Brown v. Board [of Education], the Court has twice failed to end the national abortion controversy [in the landmark Supreme Court cases of Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992]. The controversy has been resilient for decades, and it grows as some states pass laws to ban abortions throughout pregnancy, and other states legalize abortion throughout pregnancy. [T]his dissertation aims to understand whether the national controversy surrounding abortion is trivial or insurmountable.”
I employed a theoretical approach that was recently codified by graduates from my department: “[A] proposal to have a synthetic approach to social psychological research, in which qualitative methods are augmentative to quantitative ones, qualitative methods can be generative of new experimental hypotheses, and qualitative methods can capture experiences that evade experimental reductionism.” In practice, this meant going back and forth between qualitative and quantitative methods, leading in-person mediations with small groups, reviewing literature, and conducting surveys of Americans and the experts whose opinions they respected. My research timeline was roughly as follows, with each step being guided by what I already had learned from the previous steps:
*I led discussions between pro-choice and pro-life law students. Little progress was made because both sides were caught up with the factual question of when life begins.
*I surveyed thousands of Americans using Amazon’s MTurk service. I found that most Americans believe that the question of “when life begins” is an important aspect of the U.S. abortion debate (82%); that most believe Americans deserve to know when a human’s life begins in order to give informed consent to abortion procedures (76%); and that most Americans believe a human’s life is worthy of legal protection once it begins (93%). Respondents also were asked: “Which group is most qualified to answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” They were presented with several options—biologists, philosophers, religious leaders, Supreme Court Justices and voters. Eighty percent selected biologists, and the majority explained that they chose biologists because they view them as objective experts in the study of life.
*I consulted with biologists, including a female University of Chicago Ph.D. genetics student; a female University of Chicago Ph.D. graduate; and a male professor—the biology expert in my department, who later served on my dissertation committee.
I reviewed aggregated lists of biologists’ views in this area, studied the opinions of experts who testified before a 1981 Senate Committee on a Human Life Amendment, and the 2005 South Dakota Abortion Task Force. I also reviewed polls of Americans’ views on the question of when life begins.
*Since these sources suggested the most common view was that a human’s life begins at fertilization, I designed a survey to understand biologists’ assessment of that view. I emailed surveys to professors in the biology departments of over 1,000 institutions around the world.
*As the usable responses began to come in, I found that 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization, with 240 (4%) rejecting that view. The majority of the sample identified as liberal (89%), pro-choice (85%) and non-religious (63%). In the case of Americans who expressed party preference, the majority identified as Democrats (92%).
*These data were not as surprising as some might imagine. Philosophers such as Peter Singer and Judith Jarvis Thomson have outlined abortion defenses that recognize a fetus’ humanity, while also rejecting the argument that fetuses have rights, or arguing that a pregnant person’s right to abort supersedes a fetus’ right to life. Unfortunately, that did not stop some academics from being angered by the very idea of being asked about the ontogenetic starting point of a human’s life.”
—————
It’s a long read, there’s much more, and it’s worth the time.
From the article: “Last week, northern Syria was relatively peaceful. Now it is chaos. Russian officers are touring bases abandoned by U.S. soldiers. A NATO ally is slaughtering America’s Kurdish partners. Islamic State prisoners are breaking out of jails” https://t.co/FfzfDr4yEd
Educated people in every nation are laughing at the United States, but the Russians are clearly having the most fun.
The Kremlin twists the knife on collapse of US/Turkey relationship, mocks Trump/Erdogan "letter". Kremlin spokesman Peskov: “You don’t often encounter such language in correspondence between heads of state. It’s a highly unusual letter,” https://t.co/1BTMjtqCYL
Like, I get the point #ExtinctionRebellion are making and yes, protest often needs to be uncomfortable, but my dudes, the tube is public transport. Low emission public transport. This is not your target audience. People are now taking cabs. 👍🏻
“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a Brexit deal with the European Union ahead of a crucial summit in Brussels. The details of the agreement were announced at a joint press conference with tEU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels today.
“We have a great new Brexit deal,” Johnson declared.
“We have concluded a deal and so there is not an argument for further delay,” EU Chief Juncker said referring to the October 31 deadline on which Johnson has vowed to take his country out of the 27-member bloc.
The top EU official also rejected the idea of extending the Brexit deadline –as urged by the British parliament, The Telegraph newspaper reported. “If we have a deal, we have a deal and there is no need for prolongation,” Juncker added.
BBC reported Prime Minister Johnson’s announcement:
A Brexit deal has been agreed between the UK and EU before a meeting of European leaders in Brussels.
Boris Johnson and Jean-Claude Juncker called it a “fair” outcome – and the EU Commission President said there was no need to extend the Brexit deadline.
He said: “We have a deal so why should we have a prolongation.”
This will be a boost for the PM, but he still faces a battle to get the deal through Parliament with ex-allies the DUP opposing it.
Mr Johnson urged MPs to “come together to get Brexit done and get this excellent deal over the line”.
He added: “Now is the moment for us to get Brexit done and then together to work on building our future partnership, which I think can be incredibly positive both for the UK and for the EU.”
“Did Schiff Try To Bully A Quid Pro Quo Out Of Volker?”
“If so, according to Byron York’s sources, it didn’t work. House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff pressed Ukraine ‘Amigo’ Kurt Volker to admit knowledge of an explicit quid pro quo demand from Donald Trump for dirt on the Bidens in exchange for suspended military aid. The State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine insisted that it didn’t happen, in part because the Ukrainians didn’t know until later that the aid had been suspended at all (via Jeff Dunetz):
“[The Ukrainians] didn’t want to be drawn into investigating a Democratic candidate for president, which would mean only peril for Ukraine, is that fair to say?” Schiff asked Volker.
“That may be true,” Volker said. “That may be true. They didn’t express that to me, and, of course, I didn’t know that was the context at the time.” (Volker has said he did not know that Trump had mentioned the Bidens on the July 25 call with Zelensky until the rough transcript of the call was released on Sept. 25.)
“Part of the other context is vital military support is being withheld from the Ukraine during this period, right?” Schiff asked.
“That was not part of the context at the time,” Volker said. “At least to my knowledge, they [Ukrainian leaders] were not aware of that.”
This did not sit well with Schiff, who wanted to connect dots through Volker. If the Ukrainians didn’t know that the aid had been withheld, of course, then it’s impossible for it to have been used in a quid pro quo by Trump, especially in the Zelensky phone call. That puts a serious dent in the impeachment hypothesis under which House Democrats have been operating since the exposure of the whistleblower complaint, and it leaves Schiff in particular out on a very shaky limb, having curated the complaint in the first place.”
“In fact, Sondland tells the investigators in this statement, he went directly to Trump once Bill Taylor began raising questions about the perception of a quid pro quo with the Ukrainians in early September. Sondland testifies that Trump, in a bad mood at the time, emphatically and repeated insisted that no quid pro quo was asked or desired:”
—-
“We now have two of the “Three Amigos” on Ukraine insisting that they never got directed to support a quid pro quo. Assuming they’re testifying truthfully, they would have been passing that message along to their contacts in Ukraine as well, which means that they would have been eliminating the pressure to dig up dirt on the Bidens. They would have related Trump’s words about wanting “nothing” in exchange for the aid, and specifically, “There is no quid pro quo.”
That does not mean that Giuliani would have refrained from saying something different, of course. However, it would be strange indeed to pass along diametrically opposed statements when the point would have been to pressure Ukraine into a particular — and uncomfortable — action. The Ukrainians might well have concluded that the State Department represented the official US position and that Giuliani (assuming he communicated a quid pro quo, which he has denied) was a cowboy wandering off the ranch, so to speak.
Sondland’s criticism of using Giuliani in Ukrainian diplomacy makes sense for that reason. Using a personal attorney to run official diplomatic policy without an official portfolio is confusing at best for allies, who can’t be sure who actually matters in the equation. However — and this is critical — that delegation still falls within the purview of the president. It might be ill-advised (and certainly looks that way in this instance), but it’s not at all illegal. Presidents have used private citizens and friends as back-channel diplomats for many years, sometimes openly, usually not, with mixed results. It’s never been thought to be an impeachable offense, nor should it alone be in this case.
From Sondland’s statement, it doesn’t appear that Democrats can advance their hypothesis on impeachment. Bad practices? Sure, but if Trump had demanded an inappropriate personal quid pro quo for a probe into the Bidens, Sondland and Volker would have to have known about it at some point, if not from Trump then from their Ukrainian contacts. There’s no evidence it exists, at least so far, which makes all of this oppo-research fodder and not much else.”
“President Donald Trump moves to stop ‘endless wars.’ I stand with him: Sen. Rand Paul
The Syrian civil war was a mess from the beginning. There’s no clear U.S. interest and no need for U.S. troops:”
—–
“In particular, in the past 18 years, from Iraq to Libya to Syria, past presidents went into one bad misadventure after another.
The Syrian civil war was a mess from the beginning, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supporting arms that went to Sunni extremists, which allowed the war to go on long enough that hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced.
During every conflict, as we attempt to extricate ourselves, there is always a chorus of hawks who scream about what will happen when we leave. It usually happens if we stay anyway.
Iraq. Afghanistan. Now Syria. We hear that our presence could be needed for decades. To what end? What do we hope happens during that time? I, for one, don’t see what our national interest is in policing the Middle East and nation-building. Thankfully, neither does President Trump.
His bold action to remove our troops from Syria is the continuation of his policy to leave that civil war. He sought to defeat the Islamic State and did. What is left is a decades-long battle among Turks, Kurds and Syrians that we cannot solve.
Every decision has a price. Would you be willing to send your son or daughter to stand between two armies 7,000 miles away as a human shield? I would not.
For those who want to stay, come to Congress as you should. Tell us, for starters, whom you would declare war on. Our NATO ally Turkey? The Kurds? Syria? No one can answer this because there is no clear U.S. interest and no need for our troops. That’s President Trump’s standard, and I support it.”
MORE BAD ARGUMENT BY TRUMP IN DEFENSE OF THE SYRIA PULLBACK
There are respectable arguments in favor of the pullback of U.S. troops in northeastern Syria. I don’t find them persuasive, but they are serious.
Unfortunately, President Trump persists in making ludicrous arguments. One of them, the fact that the Kurds didn’t help us with the Normandy invasion, I discussed here.
But as he mentioned at the end DJ. It’s Trump and Trump alone’s decision to make. He doesn’t need to convince anyone but himself.
These people never should have gotten US aid or arms. They’re terrorists. They were when Obama armed them and I said so repeatedly. I said there were no good guys here. I said it was a mistake. It was.
Leaving isn’t, although it could have need orchestrated differently IMO.
“Pence Announces Turkey Agreed to a Ceasefire in Syria so U.S., Kurdish Forces Can Leave
The ceasefire will last for 120 hours.”
—-
“From CNBC:
Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the United States and Turkey had agreed on a Turkish cease-fire in Syria, days after the country’s forces launched an offensive in northern Syria.
“Let me say this also includes an agreement by Turkey to engage in no military action against the community of Kobani,” Pence said. “And, in addition, the United States and Turkey have both mutually committed to a peaceful resolution and future for the safe zone, working on an international basis to ensure that peace and security defines this border region with Syria.”
The ceasefire will last for 120 hours. This will allow American and Kurdish forces to leave “from a designated safe zone at the country’s border.”
In return, Turkey will not face new sanctions from the U.S. Once the ceasefire becomes permanent, America will “revoke all economic punishments.”
Great news out of Turkey. News Conference shortly with @VP and @SecPompeo. Thank you to @RTErdogan. Millions of lives will be saved!
“Trump made the decision to pull out our troops from Syria ten days ago, which allowed Turkey to begin an offensive. This left the Kurds unprotected.
I blogged on that day that Erdogan does not keep his hatred of Kurds a secret from anyone. He considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Kurds helping to defeat ISIS, “as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey for 35 years.”
Many nations, including America, have listed PKK as a terrorist group. Turkey declared YPG a terrorist group in 2018.”
Wandering Views 
Rep. Elijah Cummings has died.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-rep-elijah-cummings-died-093050451.html
” Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings died early Thursday due to complications from longstanding health challenges, his congressional office said. He was 68.”
LikeLike
This is why this farce can’t happen in public. They don’t dare let you see the scuzzy, disgraceful tactics they’re using.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/schiff-pressed-volker-to-say-ukraine-felt-pressure-from-trump
“Schiff pushed Volker to say Ukraine felt pressure from Trump”
“In a secret interview, Rep. Adam Schiff, leader of the House Democratic effort to impeach President Trump, pressed former United States special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker to testify that Ukrainian officials felt pressured to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a result of Trump withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
Volker denied that was the case, noting that Ukrainian leaders did not even know the aid was being withheld and that they believed their relationship with the U.S. was moving along satisfactorily, without them having done anything Trump mentioned in his notorious July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
When Volker repeatedly declined to agree to Schiff’s characterization of events, Schiff said, “Ambassador, you’re making this much more complicated than it has to be.”
The interview took place Oct. 3 in a secure room in the U.S. Capitol. While the session covered several topics, the issue of an alleged quid pro quo — U.S. military aid in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens and a public announcement that such an investigation was underway — was a significant part of the discussion.”
—————
Hypocrites too. As the writer said, “this isn’t justice…… it’s just plain gross.”
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2019/10/16/new-adam-schiff-pressed-witness-change-story-accuse-trump-pressuring-ukraine/
For someone who likes to mock the President for supposedly sounding like a mob boss, that last line sound rather mob bossy to me. Schiff wasn’t getting the answer he wanted so he lashed out and berated the witness. Seems normal, right?
Here’s the rest of the exchange in question, where you can see Schiff continuing to press him to say something he clearly doesn’t think is actually true.
[Schiff] asked Volker whether he would agree that “no President of the United States should ever ask a foreign leader to help intervene in a U.S. election.”
“I agree with that,” said Volker.
“And that would be particularly egregious if it was done in the context of withholding foreign assistance?” Schiff continued.
Volker balked. “We’re getting now into, you know, a conflation of these things that I didn’t think was actually there.”
Schiff wanted Volker to agree that “if it’s inappropriate for a president to seek foreign help in a U.S. election, it would be doubly so if a president was doing that at a time when the United States was withholding military support from the country.”
Again, Volker did not agree. “I can’t really speak to that,” he said. “My understanding of the security assistance issue is — ”
Schiff interrupted. “Why can’t you speak to that, ambassador? You’re a career diplomat. You can understand the enormous leverage that a president would have while withholding military support from an ally at war with Russia. You can understand just how significant that would be, correct?”
Volker tried to go along without actually agreeing. “I can understand that that would be significant,” he said.
Schiff persisted. “And when that suspension of aid became known to that country, to Ukraine, it would be all the more weighty to consider what the president had asked of them, wouldn’t it?”
“So again, congressman, I don’t believe — ” Volker began.
“It’s a pretty straightforward question,” Schiff said.
“But I don’t believe the Ukrainians were aware that the assistance was being held up — ”
“They became aware of it,” Schiff said.
“They became aware later, but I don’t believe they were aware at the time, so there was no leverage implied,” Volker said.
If this were a Republican and this was the Benghazi hearing, it’d be front page news. As it stands, Schiff appears to be bulletproof in the legacy media. His actions are just ridiculous at this point. He’s holding secret hearings, kicking Republicans out of testimony, and selectively leaking lines he thinks can help his impeachment case.
This isn’t justice. It’s not even proper in the political arena. It’s just plain gross.”
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Sounds accurate to me. 🙂
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She’s a belligerent drunk.
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Narrative, wrecked.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/10/16/popcorn-wsj-columnist-wrecks-the-democrats-trump-ukraine-impeachment-claims-n2554627
“The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel isn’t having any of the Democrats’ nonsense on this impeachment push. Yes, the Democrats have executed the final stages of their three-year plan: impeaching Donald Trump. It’s an inquiry. It’s nothing official…yet. But they’re doing their best to muddy the waters in the hopes that the damage being inflicted could impact the 2020 race by making the president’s already shoddy approval numbers (though I’m skeptical of those polls) even more dirty, making the unpalatable man even more distasteful with voters. Fine—but the allegations against Trump regarding this call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are straight trash.
The Democrats allege there was quid pro quo, wherein Trump threatened to delay military aid if Zelensky didn’t open a corruption probe into Hunter Biden’s arrangement with Burisma, an energy company. Hunter Biden is the son of Joe Biden and has zero experience in the energy sector. The Trump White House released the call and refuted all of the juicy claims made in this whistleblower report from a reported CIA agent who is a registered Democrat and had worked with a 2020 Democratic candidate. Oh, and the staff of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was in contact with this person and knew about the contents of the complaint before it was even filed. It’s another orchestrated hit from the ashes of the Russian collusion myth.
You don’t need to be an investigative reporter to see that the Democrats have nothing here. That’s why this entire inquiry is being done in secret. And the only saving grace that keeps this impeachment drum going is that the liberal media takes everything Schiff and others say as gospel. So, Strassel does what she does best; gut the Democratic narrative—brutally. She goes line-by-line giving the GOP, Trump supporters, and anyone else who is skeptical of the impeachment push a go-to sheet in exposing this smoke and mirrors show (via WSJ):
Motive matters, but what matters more is the accuracy of the complaint itself. The real news of the past few weeks has been the steady accumulation of evidence that its central claim is totally wrong.
Which shouldn’t be surprising, given how many facts the complaint mangled about the call. It alleged, for instance, that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine to “locate and turn over servers.” He didn’t. It claims Mr. Trump “praised” a prosecutor named Yuriy Lutsenko and suggested the Ukrainian president “keep him in his position.” That didn’t happen either. There’s more, and when the whistleblower can’t get the facts of the call right, it’s no surprise he got his conclusion wrong too.
There is simply no evidence of what House Democrats have made the central claim of their impeachment inquiry: that Mr. Trump engaged in a “quid pro quo” by withholding aid to Ukraine unless it “opened an investigation” into former Vice President Joe Biden.
We now have the transcript of the call, in which Mr. Trump never threatened to withhold aid as a condition of an investigation. He doesn’t even mention money. The press is trying to suggest the threat was “implicit”—which means he didn’t say it.
There’s also the belated and devastating fact that the Ukrainians say they had no knowledge the aid was being withheld until a month after the call. How can you demand a quo when the target is unaware of the quid? Further, the aid was released—despite no “investigation” or “dirt” from Ukraine. And Mr. Zelensky has twice said there was no “pressure” or “blackmail” from the U.S. with regard to an investigation.
We also now have the opening statement of Kurt Volker, the former special representative to Ukraine, from his testimony last week to the House Intelligence Committee. “As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing,” Mr. Volker said, “Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion” during negotiations
The GOP may feel compelled to attack this circus, but Strassel warns that they should conserve their energy, noting that they’d be “be better off uniformly noting that the central players in this episode, and the written record, have already refuted the complaint, and that anything further is theater…the left is again counting on the public getting lost in a swirl of innuendo. But facts matter, especially when it comes to impeachment.”
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It surely does raise plenty of questions.
You can clearly see that the video from ABC was edited, filtered, and altered the original video they used to spread their manure. This required skill, effort, thought, and clear malice beforehand.
It. Was. Intentional. The only question is were they hoodwinked, or they were willing participants in a fraud? I’m thinking probably the latter.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/465726-false-combat-video-raises-many-questions-cautions-for-media
“False ‘combat video’ raises many questions, cautions for media”
—
“Now comes word from ABC News that it has pulled down video that aired on its flagship broadcasts, which claimed to show a “slaughter” by Turkey on the Syrian border after President Trump’s announced withdrawal of U.S. troops.
ABC correspondent Ian Panell reported on Sunday that the video “obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town of Tal Abyad two nights ago.”
The pictures show massive explosions lighting up the night sky. But it turns out ABC may have been hoodwinked, according to its own account.
A tweet issued by ABC News on Monday morning reads: “CORRECTION: We’ve taken down video that aired on ‘World News Tonight’ Sunday and ‘Good Morning America’ this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy. ABC News regrets the error.”
According to National Review, the alleged error was uncovered by social media users who compared the supposed combat footage to a YouTube video of a Kentucky military show — and it appears to be identical. (National Review credited Gizmodo with first reporting on the alleged error and publishing the videos side by side for comparison.)
ABC’s correction is the right move, of course. But I don’t think that’s the end of the story. It’s yet another in a long series of pretty serious media mistakes that never should have happened — and, arguably, would not have if appropriate journalistic standards had been deployed.
I can’t help but think that part of the problem might be that the video seemed to fit in so perfectly with the narrative that the media and other interests have been pummeling viewers with for a week. Had this video not shown what many wanted to see, it might have been treated more critically on the front end, rather than represented as a great, exclusive ABC News “get” that was shown to millions of its evening news and morning news viewers.
There may well be slaughters, massacres and abuses in the battle between Turkey and the Kurds in northern Syria. Such events have gone on relatively nonstop in the Middle East for a long time. News coverage, analysis, public discussion and debate are all worthy. Military experts, Democrats, Republicans and pundits all seem to agree that Trump is in the wrong. But under these circumstances, when preconceived notions are being set in stone, it’s all the more important to make sure we aren’t hoodwinked.
If the video aired by ABC is actually video of a military-type demonstration in Kentucky, there are other questions we need to have answered.
Exactly who brought the video to ABC and how did they represent it? What was the process ABC used to try to verify that the video was what they presented it to be? Who did ABC believe shot the “combat video”? Did they pay for it, or did someone just offer to give it to them out of the blue? What was the motivation of those who misrepresented the video?
Many who I sense never thought about “the Kurds” a week ago are purporting to speak knowledgeably on the topic, on television and in the press, as reporters and analysts. Lives are at stake and there are questions of freedom, democracy and terrorism, but there is always an element of someone making money at the heart of many such conflicts.”
————
Oh. they mean people like Ricky……
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Last night’s Democrat debate: A cluster of tyrannical fantasists
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/last_nights_democrat_debate_a_cluster_of_tyrannical_fantasists.html
“For conservatives who watched the Democrat debate, it was like visiting Earth-2, as Drunkblogger Stephen Green so cleverly put it. Conservatives probably could not endure these debates without Stephen Green’s infusion of both facts and humor.
Each of those candidates on the stage seemed oblivious to the reality of the last three years — the fabulous economy, lowest unemployment in decades, international trade renegotiated to our benefit, millions no longer on food stamps. Our military, eviscerated by Obama, is being repaired. Manufacturing has been revitalized, and the border, despite the intransigence of the Democrats, is slowly being better controlled. The wall is being built. Everything Trump has done since being elected has been effective; he has tried to keep his campaign promises despite the Democrats’ vow to see him impeached from day one. And no matter how vicious the Left is, those candidates on stage last night continue to opt for mindless delusion that he can be removed from office in order to prevent his re-election.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are grateful for a president willing to fight back against both parties, who have nothing but contempt for Trump-supporters, for the man who means to drain the swamp. We must be thankful for the distinguished few in the House (the Republicans in the Senate are abject cowards) who have the courage to defend the president. The swamp was certainly on display throughout the debate.
The Democrats are losing. Trump and his supporters are winning — on every issue, even Turkey and Syria. As others have observed, the Left plays checkers while Trump plays 4-D chess. He is way ahead of his opponents on every level, every issue. Most Americans like having jobs and like their friends and family members having jobs. They don’t mind the fact that some people are fabulously wealthy. Those are the people who fund the countless attractions we take for granted: museums, medical research, hospitals that specialize, university buildings, public television, and a host of other things the rest of us enjoy and take for granted. Where would we be without the largesse of all the American billionaires and millionaires who have funded so many projects that have enriched us all? However they attained their wealth is of no interest, nor is how they live their lives. They have contributed to the public good beyond what any of us can adequately appreciate.
But each and every one of the Democrat presidential candidates loathes and envies the rich. They mean to punish them. They want them to pay for all that free college tuition and health care for illegal aliens. They want to punish all the corporations that produce all the things we take for granted: our vast choices in any grocery store and our freedom to choose our own doctors, cars, where we live, what we watch on television, etc. Like the true totalitarians they are, they want to tell us what we can have, do, eat, drive, and think. They want to transform us into communist China. Nothing would make them happier. They would all still be rich; the rest of us would be under their thumbs, surveilled as the citizens of China are. Not one of the Democrat candidates ever mentions the word “freedom” or “liberty.” This missing link should be the biggest wake-up call of all: they want to control how we live rather than let us live according to the principles of the Founders.”
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Share this with your pro-life friends. It will be a useful tool in the debate.
https://quillette.com/2019/10/16/i-asked-thousands-of-biologists-when-life-begins-the-answer-wasnt-popular/
“I Asked Thousands of Biologists When Life Begins. The Answer Wasn’t Popular”
“Shortly after being awarded my Ph.D. by the University of Chicago’s department of Comparative Human Development this year, I found myself in a minor media whirlwind. I was interviewed by The Daily Wire, The College Fix, and Breitbart. I appeared on national television and on a widely syndicated radio program. All of this interest had been prompted by a working paper associated with my dissertation, which was entitled Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate.
As discussed in more detail below, I reported that both a majority of pro-choice Americans (53%) and a majority of pro-life Americans (54%) would support a comprehensive policy compromise that provides entitlements to pregnant women, improves the adoption process for parents, permits abortion in extreme circumstances, and restricts elective abortion after the first trimester. However, members of the media were mostly interested in my finding that 96% of the 5,577 biologists who responded to me affirmed the view that a human life begins at fertilization.
It was the reporting of this view—that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are biological humans—that created such a strong backlash. It was not unexpected, as the finding provides fodder for conservative opponents of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court had suggested there was no consensus on “the difficult question of when life begins” and that “the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, [was] not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
* * *
The U.S. abortion debate has raged for generations, and remains divisive to this day. As a lawyer, mediator and researcher, I sought to assess whether there is room for compromise. I believed that such an approach could help Americans on both sides develop a shared understanding of the main issues—particularly surrounding the question of when life begins. My approach was similar to that implemented by Yale Professor Dan Kahan in his 2003 gun-control debate manifesto, in which he declared his objective as “not to take any particular position on gun control but instead to take issue with the terms in which the gun control debate is cast.” I was being idealistic, yes, but this approach was not without precedent.
“This dissertation seeks to explain why the abortion debate persists and whether it can be resolved,” I wrote in my dissertation’s introduction. “While the U.S. Supreme Court was able to end the national segregation controversy with its holding in Brown v. Board [of Education], the Court has twice failed to end the national abortion controversy [in the landmark Supreme Court cases of Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992]. The controversy has been resilient for decades, and it grows as some states pass laws to ban abortions throughout pregnancy, and other states legalize abortion throughout pregnancy. [T]his dissertation aims to understand whether the national controversy surrounding abortion is trivial or insurmountable.”
I employed a theoretical approach that was recently codified by graduates from my department: “[A] proposal to have a synthetic approach to social psychological research, in which qualitative methods are augmentative to quantitative ones, qualitative methods can be generative of new experimental hypotheses, and qualitative methods can capture experiences that evade experimental reductionism.” In practice, this meant going back and forth between qualitative and quantitative methods, leading in-person mediations with small groups, reviewing literature, and conducting surveys of Americans and the experts whose opinions they respected. My research timeline was roughly as follows, with each step being guided by what I already had learned from the previous steps:
*I led discussions between pro-choice and pro-life law students. Little progress was made because both sides were caught up with the factual question of when life begins.
*I surveyed thousands of Americans using Amazon’s MTurk service. I found that most Americans believe that the question of “when life begins” is an important aspect of the U.S. abortion debate (82%); that most believe Americans deserve to know when a human’s life begins in order to give informed consent to abortion procedures (76%); and that most Americans believe a human’s life is worthy of legal protection once it begins (93%). Respondents also were asked: “Which group is most qualified to answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” They were presented with several options—biologists, philosophers, religious leaders, Supreme Court Justices and voters. Eighty percent selected biologists, and the majority explained that they chose biologists because they view them as objective experts in the study of life.
*I consulted with biologists, including a female University of Chicago Ph.D. genetics student; a female University of Chicago Ph.D. graduate; and a male professor—the biology expert in my department, who later served on my dissertation committee.
I reviewed aggregated lists of biologists’ views in this area, studied the opinions of experts who testified before a 1981 Senate Committee on a Human Life Amendment, and the 2005 South Dakota Abortion Task Force. I also reviewed polls of Americans’ views on the question of when life begins.
*Since these sources suggested the most common view was that a human’s life begins at fertilization, I designed a survey to understand biologists’ assessment of that view. I emailed surveys to professors in the biology departments of over 1,000 institutions around the world.
*As the usable responses began to come in, I found that 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization, with 240 (4%) rejecting that view. The majority of the sample identified as liberal (89%), pro-choice (85%) and non-religious (63%). In the case of Americans who expressed party preference, the majority identified as Democrats (92%).
*These data were not as surprising as some might imagine. Philosophers such as Peter Singer and Judith Jarvis Thomson have outlined abortion defenses that recognize a fetus’ humanity, while also rejecting the argument that fetuses have rights, or arguing that a pregnant person’s right to abort supersedes a fetus’ right to life. Unfortunately, that did not stop some academics from being angered by the very idea of being asked about the ontogenetic starting point of a human’s life.”
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It’s a long read, there’s much more, and it’s worth the time.
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Educated people in every nation are laughing at the United States, but the Russians are clearly having the most fun.
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But everyone else is participating.
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Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
CONTENT WARNING! Stupid activists get beat up.
————–
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They just can’t stop. He’s broken them too badly.
Yes. Yes she is.
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Brexit is happening.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/10/uk-eu-agree-on-new-brexit-deal/#more-297972
“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a Brexit deal with the European Union ahead of a crucial summit in Brussels. The details of the agreement were announced at a joint press conference with tEU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels today.
“We have a great new Brexit deal,” Johnson declared.
“We have concluded a deal and so there is not an argument for further delay,” EU Chief Juncker said referring to the October 31 deadline on which Johnson has vowed to take his country out of the 27-member bloc.
The top EU official also rejected the idea of extending the Brexit deadline –as urged by the British parliament, The Telegraph newspaper reported. “If we have a deal, we have a deal and there is no need for prolongation,” Juncker added.
BBC reported Prime Minister Johnson’s announcement:
A Brexit deal has been agreed between the UK and EU before a meeting of European leaders in Brussels.
Boris Johnson and Jean-Claude Juncker called it a “fair” outcome – and the EU Commission President said there was no need to extend the Brexit deadline.
He said: “We have a deal so why should we have a prolongation.”
This will be a boost for the PM, but he still faces a battle to get the deal through Parliament with ex-allies the DUP opposing it.
Mr Johnson urged MPs to “come together to get Brexit done and get this excellent deal over the line”.
He added: “Now is the moment for us to get Brexit done and then together to work on building our future partnership, which I think can be incredibly positive both for the UK and for the EU.”
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Star Chamber Follies
From Branco, via LI.
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Poor Ricky and the NYT.
Yes, they’re talking….
Because Trump isn’t claiming executive privilege to stop them
And despite the sleazy acts of the Dems in the House, they aren’t telling the story Dems and Ricky want told. In fact, quite the opposite….
https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/10/17/schiff-try-bully-quid-pro-quo-volker/
“Did Schiff Try To Bully A Quid Pro Quo Out Of Volker?”
“If so, according to Byron York’s sources, it didn’t work. House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff pressed Ukraine ‘Amigo’ Kurt Volker to admit knowledge of an explicit quid pro quo demand from Donald Trump for dirt on the Bidens in exchange for suspended military aid. The State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine insisted that it didn’t happen, in part because the Ukrainians didn’t know until later that the aid had been suspended at all (via Jeff Dunetz):
“[The Ukrainians] didn’t want to be drawn into investigating a Democratic candidate for president, which would mean only peril for Ukraine, is that fair to say?” Schiff asked Volker.
“That may be true,” Volker said. “That may be true. They didn’t express that to me, and, of course, I didn’t know that was the context at the time.” (Volker has said he did not know that Trump had mentioned the Bidens on the July 25 call with Zelensky until the rough transcript of the call was released on Sept. 25.)
“Part of the other context is vital military support is being withheld from the Ukraine during this period, right?” Schiff asked.
“That was not part of the context at the time,” Volker said. “At least to my knowledge, they [Ukrainian leaders] were not aware of that.”
This did not sit well with Schiff, who wanted to connect dots through Volker. If the Ukrainians didn’t know that the aid had been withheld, of course, then it’s impossible for it to have been used in a quid pro quo by Trump, especially in the Zelensky phone call. That puts a serious dent in the impeachment hypothesis under which House Democrats have been operating since the exposure of the whistleblower complaint, and it leaves Schiff in particular out on a very shaky limb, having curated the complaint in the first place.”
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And another……
https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/10/17/sondland-trump-told-us-giuliani-run-ukraine-policy-also-no-quid-pro-quo/
“In fact, Sondland tells the investigators in this statement, he went directly to Trump once Bill Taylor began raising questions about the perception of a quid pro quo with the Ukrainians in early September. Sondland testifies that Trump, in a bad mood at the time, emphatically and repeated insisted that no quid pro quo was asked or desired:”
—-
“We now have two of the “Three Amigos” on Ukraine insisting that they never got directed to support a quid pro quo. Assuming they’re testifying truthfully, they would have been passing that message along to their contacts in Ukraine as well, which means that they would have been eliminating the pressure to dig up dirt on the Bidens. They would have related Trump’s words about wanting “nothing” in exchange for the aid, and specifically, “There is no quid pro quo.”
That does not mean that Giuliani would have refrained from saying something different, of course. However, it would be strange indeed to pass along diametrically opposed statements when the point would have been to pressure Ukraine into a particular — and uncomfortable — action. The Ukrainians might well have concluded that the State Department represented the official US position and that Giuliani (assuming he communicated a quid pro quo, which he has denied) was a cowboy wandering off the ranch, so to speak.
Sondland’s criticism of using Giuliani in Ukrainian diplomacy makes sense for that reason. Using a personal attorney to run official diplomatic policy without an official portfolio is confusing at best for allies, who can’t be sure who actually matters in the equation. However — and this is critical — that delegation still falls within the purview of the president. It might be ill-advised (and certainly looks that way in this instance), but it’s not at all illegal. Presidents have used private citizens and friends as back-channel diplomats for many years, sometimes openly, usually not, with mixed results. It’s never been thought to be an impeachable offense, nor should it alone be in this case.
From Sondland’s statement, it doesn’t appear that Democrats can advance their hypothesis on impeachment. Bad practices? Sure, but if Trump had demanded an inappropriate personal quid pro quo for a probe into the Bidens, Sondland and Volker would have to have known about it at some point, if not from Trump then from their Ukrainian contacts. There’s no evidence it exists, at least so far, which makes all of this oppo-research fodder and not much else.”
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Awwwww….. too bad. 🙂
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Take note Romney and other NT traitors…..
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I agree. So do half of all other Americans.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/10/16/donald-trump-right-leave-syria-rand-paul-editorials-debates/4003497002/
“President Donald Trump moves to stop ‘endless wars.’ I stand with him: Sen. Rand Paul
The Syrian civil war was a mess from the beginning. There’s no clear U.S. interest and no need for U.S. troops:”
—–
“In particular, in the past 18 years, from Iraq to Libya to Syria, past presidents went into one bad misadventure after another.
The Syrian civil war was a mess from the beginning, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supporting arms that went to Sunni extremists, which allowed the war to go on long enough that hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced.
During every conflict, as we attempt to extricate ourselves, there is always a chorus of hawks who scream about what will happen when we leave. It usually happens if we stay anyway.
Iraq. Afghanistan. Now Syria. We hear that our presence could be needed for decades. To what end? What do we hope happens during that time? I, for one, don’t see what our national interest is in policing the Middle East and nation-building. Thankfully, neither does President Trump.
His bold action to remove our troops from Syria is the continuation of his policy to leave that civil war. He sought to defeat the Islamic State and did. What is left is a decades-long battle among Turks, Kurds and Syrians that we cannot solve.
Every decision has a price. Would you be willing to send your son or daughter to stand between two armies 7,000 miles away as a human shield? I would not.
For those who want to stay, come to Congress as you should. Tell us, for starters, whom you would declare war on. Our NATO ally Turkey? The Kurds? Syria? No one can answer this because there is no clear U.S. interest and no need for our troops. That’s President Trump’s standard, and I support it.”
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But ….
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/more-bad-argument-by-trump-in-defense-of-the-syria-pullback.php
______________________________
MORE BAD ARGUMENT BY TRUMP IN DEFENSE OF THE SYRIA PULLBACK
There are respectable arguments in favor of the pullback of U.S. troops in northeastern Syria. I don’t find them persuasive, but they are serious.
Unfortunately, President Trump persists in making ludicrous arguments. One of them, the fact that the Kurds didn’t help us with the Normandy invasion, I discussed here.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/the-normandy-test.php
I hoped that this argument was a throwaway — a one-off. No such luck. …
_____________________________
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But as he mentioned at the end DJ. It’s Trump and Trump alone’s decision to make. He doesn’t need to convince anyone but himself.
These people never should have gotten US aid or arms. They’re terrorists. They were when Obama armed them and I said so repeatedly. I said there were no good guys here. I said it was a mistake. It was.
Leaving isn’t, although it could have need orchestrated differently IMO.
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could have been orchestrated differently
Dang spell check…..
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And now I’m anon……
WordPress is awful the last couple of days……
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There ya’ go. Problem solved.
All we needed to do was properly motivate the two sides.
Move any civilians left (not counting fighters and their families) and then deal with the terrorists who remain.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/10/pence-announces-turkey-agreed-to-a-ceasefire-in-syria-so-u-s-kurdish-forces-can-leave/#more-297987
“Pence Announces Turkey Agreed to a Ceasefire in Syria so U.S., Kurdish Forces Can Leave
The ceasefire will last for 120 hours.”
—-
“From CNBC:
Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that the United States and Turkey had agreed on a Turkish cease-fire in Syria, days after the country’s forces launched an offensive in northern Syria.
“Let me say this also includes an agreement by Turkey to engage in no military action against the community of Kobani,” Pence said. “And, in addition, the United States and Turkey have both mutually committed to a peaceful resolution and future for the safe zone, working on an international basis to ensure that peace and security defines this border region with Syria.”
The ceasefire will last for 120 hours. This will allow American and Kurdish forces to leave “from a designated safe zone at the country’s border.”
In return, Turkey will not face new sanctions from the U.S. Once the ceasefire becomes permanent, America will “revoke all economic punishments.”
“Trump made the decision to pull out our troops from Syria ten days ago, which allowed Turkey to begin an offensive. This left the Kurds unprotected.
I blogged on that day that Erdogan does not keep his hatred of Kurds a secret from anyone. He considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian Kurds helping to defeat ISIS, “as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey for 35 years.”
Many nations, including America, have listed PKK as a terrorist group. Turkey declared YPG a terrorist group in 2018.”
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More…..
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Poor Ricky….. 🙂
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https://twitter.com/josephcourson/status/1184895797432766464
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Democrat talking points… media talking points….. same thing.
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https://twitter.com/MAGAChronicle/status/1184860188974518274
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Let me be the second one to point and laugh….
👇🤣🤣👇
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Can’t you just feel how unbiased they are?……
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