Yes, it’s mostly true, except for the parts that are total lies and misrepresentation.
"what digby sez..."
Author: tristero
Trump bans, among others, the Rohingya from emigrating to the US.
It takes a really fucking sick man to refuse asylum to victims of genocide.
Mr. Bolton, a hard-line conservative with decades of service in Republican administrations, is no anti-Trump zealot, which makes his allegations against the president that much more devastating.
No it doesn’t.
What makes the allegations so utterly devastating is that genuinely decent, reasonable Americans — Vindman, Hill, Yovanovitch, and many others — had the courage to testify publicly. Bolton, in contrast, has behaved like a coward who puts his own selfish interests above his principles.
And the Times describing Bolton as a ‘hard-line conservative?” That’s like calling a regurgitated kumquat “edible. ” Well, I guess so, but it kind of misses the point in a nauseating way.
Please don’t misunderstand. Of course, Bolton must be called as a witness. Of course, he must obey a subpoena and tell the truth — he risks serious penalties if he doesn’t. But this little episode is being used by the press to normalize Bolton into some kind of sober, credible patriot. He’s not.
The real patriots are the whistle-blower, those who have already testified, and the amazing team of investigators led by Schiff and his colleagues. And what they described was devastating: grossly criminal and unethical behavior by the president of the United States.
Nothing factual — absolutely nothing of substance — was added by yesterday’s Times report that John Bolton, one of the most hot-headed nut right wing jobs that has ever served in government, wrote that Trump withheld millions of dollars of aid so he could cheat on the 2020 election.
Yet, as seems the norm today, the press is attaching more weight to the words of a single extremist than to the mountain of careful evidence amassed by some of the most sober and level-headed people elected to Congress.
“Even the well-known conservative X has a problem with Y” is the general structure of the argument. As if somehow the gold standard for what is reasonable and factual is not whether a statement is factually true or an argument is logical and reasonable. A right winger also has to agree, the more extreme the better, or there is no reason to accept it.
This really has to stop.
Wow. No one could possibly have guessed:
President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.
For some reason, whenever I hear about more evidence confirming Trump’s very obvious guilt, I keep thinking about this scene from Austin Powers.
Update: There are reports to the effect that the leaking of Bolton’s book might lead to some Republicans supporting Democrats’ requests to call witnesses.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
For those who need a quick overview of the impeachment trial, Robert Reich makes it all clear as a bell.
And for whom does the bell toll? American democracy:
- Did Trump commit an impeachable offense?
Yes. His attempt to get a foreign power to help him win the 2020 election is precisely the sort of thing the framers of the constitution worried about when they created the impeachment clause. If presidents could seek foreign help winning elections, there would be no end of foreign intrusions into American sovereignty and democracy. - Will the Senate convict and remove him from office?
No. The impeachment clause requires that two-thirds of the Senate vote to convict. That means that even if every one of the 45 Democratic and two independent senators votes to oust Trump, 20 Republicans would need to join them for Trump to be removed. The odds that 20 Republican senators will do so are exactly zero. - Why won’t they?
There are not 20 Republican senators with the courage and integrity to protect the constitution and the nation from the most dangerous and demagogic president in history.
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal attorney, plan to use their time in the trial to target the former vice president and his son, Hunter, according to multiple GOP officials familiar with the strategy.
They won’t bother trying to rebut the case the Managers made against Trump. The outcome of this farce is foregone so demonstrating reasonable doubt, etc, won’t change anything. It’s just a waste of time. Even worse, it would miss a splendid opportunity.
The purpose is to so damage Biden that he will not get nominated. And if he is nominated, there will be so much garbage about him out there — total garbage, but garbage with the imprimatur of a Senate trial — that people who haven’t been playing close attention (the vast majority of voters) will think he’s just as corrupt as Trump.
And the press — still in thrall to an ancient theory of objective reporting with the fatal flaw that it depends upon relatively good faith and honesty by its subjects — will mindlessly repeat all their garbage, in breathless headlines and made-for-tv soundbites. There will be peremptory fact-checking, of course, and long-winded nuanced attempts to clarify the half-truths mixed in with the lies — which no one will listen to or read.
But by simply repeating the Trumpists’ lies, misrepresentations, and distortions, the damage will be done.
One of the most powerful speeches of my lifetime. Once again, Adam Schiff has outdone himself.
If you haven’t seen or heard this clip yet, stop what you’re doing and watch. It’s one for the history books.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, weighs in on the Senate impeachment trial, says Dems have a shot at calling witnesses and getting documents …
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
First and foremost, may Glenn Greenwald and his family be safe. Obviously, the charges are, to coin a phrase, trumped up by Bolsonaro’s Brazilian Reich, designed to punish and silence an effective gadfly.
The Times does a pretty good job defending Greenwald. But this brief passage jumped out:
When Mr. Bolsonaro was elected president in 2018, Reporters Without Borders called him “a serious threat to press freedom and democracy in Brazil.”
President Trump may not have made a dent in press freedoms in the United States — its traditions and institutions are too strong for that…
Wow. They really don’t get it.
The elimination of White House Press Conferences. Trump’s manipulation of the simplistic “objectivity” standards of modern journalism to require coverage of his lies as if they were merely another point of view. The revoking of press passes for critical reporters. The flooding of social media with disinformation and lies. The verbal and physical threats against critics. And so on, and so on, and so on…
No. Journalism is in a very precarious position. Let’s see what happens to American press freedoms if a tv station gets their hands on a complete Trump tax return. Or if indisputable documentary evidence gets leaked that some of Trump’s personal behavior goes further than “merely” cheating on his wife or snickering with child molesters at a party. Or if Trump’s poll numbers go south this summer. Or if there is a truly serious extended international crisis caused by his gross incompetence.
Wow. The Times really doesn’t get it.