SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    The Trump Presidency : Year III
Page 1 ... 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 ... 348

Closed Topic Closed
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
The Trump Presidency : Year III Login/Join 
Member
Picture of Tubetone
posted Hide Post
Nice to see McCarthy stepping up. Now, if he’d only defend the House against the destruction that’s being allowed to the lower chamber of the first branch of government.

He needs to stick up for more than Republican interests. He needs to gather Democrat House members to join in the preservation of the WHOLE House’s public credibility and rightful constitutional function: making law, not abusing its time and resources for electioneering against Orangeman.

It’s time for someone to lead the bipartisan abandonment of this misuse of the House.


_______________________________
NRA Life Member
NRA Certified Range Safety Officer
 
Posts: 3078 | Registered: January 06, 2010Report This Post
wishing we
were congress
posted Hide Post
a long but very good speech by AG Barr

https://theconservativetreehou...istance/#more-176234

short snips:

Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called “The Resistance,” and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, “resistance” is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government .

A prime example of this is the Senate’s unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process. The Senate is free to exercise that power to reject unqualified nominees, but that power was never intended to allow the Senate to systematically oppose and draw out the approval process for every appointee so as to prevent the President from building a functional government.

Yet that is precisely what the Senate minority has done from his very first days in office. As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to invoke cloture on 236 Trump nominees — each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time meant only to delay an inevitable confirmation. How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama’s first term? 17 times. The Second President Bush’s first term? Four times. It is reasonable to wonder whether a future President will actually be able to form a functioning administration if his or her party does not hold the Senate.

Of course, Congress’s effective withdrawal from the business of legislating leaves it with a lot of time for other pursuits. And the pursuit of choice, particularly for the opposition party, has been to drown the Executive Branch with “oversight” demands for testimony and documents. I do not deny that Congress has some implied authority to conduct oversight as an incident to its Legislative Power. But the sheer volume of what we see today – the pursuit of scores of parallel “investigations” through an avalanche of subpoenas – is plainly designed to incapacitate the Executive Branch , and indeed is touted as such.

The costs of this constant harassment are real. For example, we all understand that confidential communications and a private, internal deliberative process are essential for all of our branches of government to properly function. Congress and the Judiciary know this well, as both have taken great pains to shield their own internal communications from public inspection. There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the Executive’s internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public, nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people.
 
Posts: 19558 | Registered: July 21, 2002Report This Post
Member
Picture of Tubetone
posted Hide Post
sdy,

I finally got to read the speech and I think Barr hit another key point that explains why I and so many others find this whole undertaking so personally offensive:

Barr said, “The fact is, that, yes, while the president has certainly thrown out the traditional beltway playbook and punctilio, he was upfront about what he was going to do and the people decided that he was going to serve as president."

Trying to nullify my vote pisses me off.

If we lose our vote it makes us mad.

Can we return to more comity? We have been able to find a way throughout our history but first, more disruption is needed and President Trump still remains the best instrument for the job.

To me, he’s like the new boss brought up to change a corporation’s climate for better health. He promises to bring a type of constitutionL reset. We elected him for that job and we’re in the ugly phase of that merely playing out.

Rush, if I heard correctly, said he was never more proud of the president because he is causing a disruption in the status quo. What it had embraced was and is is an errant course. I agree.

The opposition is so deeply offensive to some of our key founding principles.


_______________________________
NRA Life Member
NRA Certified Range Safety Officer
 
Posts: 3078 | Registered: January 06, 2010Report This Post
Lawyers, Guns
and Money
Picture of chellim1
posted Hide Post
quote:
a long but very good speech by AG Barr

Yes. Worth watching.

AG Bill Barr Speaks About The Damage to Our Nation From The “Resistance”...
Barr speaks at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention




"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
 
Posts: 24044 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009Report This Post
wishing we
were congress
posted Hide Post
Timothy Morrison impeachment testimony released

Remember Lt Col Vindman?

from Morrison testimony:




seen at https://twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

John Dean on CNN:

“I think this president probably should have been impeached the day he walked in."

Guess Dean doesn't think much of our Country's way of doing things
 
Posts: 19558 | Registered: July 21, 2002Report This Post
Peace through
superior firepower
Picture of parabellum
posted Hide Post
John Dean on CNN:

“I think this president probably should have been impeached the day he walked in."

John Dean? The Nixon/Watergate John Dean?
 
Posts: 107459 | Registered: January 20, 2000Report This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by parabellum:
John Dean on CNN:

“I think this president probably should have been impeached the day he walked in."

John Dean? The Nixon/Watergate John Dean?


Former Nixon counsel John Dean: Trump 'should have been impeached the day he walked in'

https://www.washingtonexaminer...the-day-he-walked-in

John Dean, the former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, ripped into President Trump, saying he should have been impeachment on day one of stepping into office.

"I think this president probably should have been impeached the day he walked in," Dean said Saturday on CNN. "He's incompetent. He has a terrible attitude. He doesn't understand government. He is in there trying to build his own brand, and he's taking advantage of the office from day one. It's just kind of caught up with him with this incident."

Dean claimed that Trump should also be facing "about 10 instances of obstruction of justice from the Mueller report," which the House Democrats' impeachment hearings have not discussed.

His comments come as House Democrats held the first week of public impeachment hearings. The proceedings center on whether Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

In another CNN appearance earlier this week, Dean indicated that the impeachment witnesses who have publicly testified have more evidence against Trump than Congress had against former President Richard Nixon. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed that sentiment on Thursday, saying, "What President Trump has done ... makes what Nixon did look almost small."

The president has clashed with Dean in the past calling him a "sleazebag" as the Watergate-era figure prepared to testify in front of the House this summer. Dean, 80, was part of the Watergate scandal as he cooperated against his co-conspirators in order to receive a shorter prison term.

He testified in front of Congress this summer to give "a little historical perspective on the Mueller report" and compared the report to the Watergate scandal which took down Nixon.



_________________________
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
Mark Twain
 
Posts: 12648 | Registered: January 17, 2011Report This Post
Get Off My Lawn
Picture of oddball
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by parabellum:
John Dean? The Nixon/Watergate John Dean?


John Dean, The Watergate Weasel. A worthless scumbag of true distinction. Sold everyone else down the river, all while trying to diminish his key role in the whole scandal.



"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
 
Posts: 16658 | Location: Texas | Registered: May 13, 2003Report This Post
Member
Picture of 2012BOSS302
posted Hide Post
The left focuses on nothing - Trump is still working.
-----------

While Dems Focus On Impeachment, Trump Flips Another Circuit Court to Conservative Majority

With the confirmation of White House attorney Steven Menashi to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, another federal appeals court has a majority of Republican-appointed judges.

Menashi, whose nomination was vehemently opposed by Democrats and civil rights groups, was confirmed by the Senate, 51-41. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins joined Democrats in opposing the 40-year-old’s nomination. The 2nd Circuit now has seven judges tapped by Republican presidents and six named by Democrats.

The 2nd Circuit is the second federal appeals court Trump has remade to have a majority of judges appointed by GOP presidents. In March, the president flipped the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals with the confirmation of Paul Matey.

Trump is also close to shifting the balance of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to majority Republican-appointed judges, with the Senate expected to vote on the nominations of Robert Luck and Barbara Lagoa in the coming days. He has also brought the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered to be the country’s most liberal, closer to parity.

45 is doing what he was elected to do. That’s why he’ll be re-elected next year.

https://flagandcross.com/while...nservative-majority/




Donald Trump is not a politician, he is a leader, politicians are a dime a dozen, leaders are priceless.
 
Posts: 3791 | Location: Idaho | Registered: January 26, 2014Report This Post
Peace through
superior firepower
Picture of parabellum
posted Hide Post
Well, pop- quiz for ya, John? Who left Washington, D.C. in disgrace? Who served time in prison for their actions in a presidential administration? Who is a disbarred attorney? Here's a clue for ya, John- it ain't Donald Trump, you self-righteous hypocrite. Loudmouthed, sanctimonious jackass. Hide your face in shame, you felon.
 
Posts: 107459 | Registered: January 20, 2000Report This Post
Member
Picture of 2012BOSS302
posted Hide Post
He was accurately called a sleazebag by President Trump (and probably Nixon at the time.)
quote:
His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland.


quote:
After his plea, he was disbarred as an attorney. According to the FBI, Dean was the "master manipulator" of the Watergate affair.


quote:
Nixon requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter and even invited him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. Dean went to Camp David and performed some work on a report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, the task placed him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement as well as others


quote:
Dean hired an attorney and began his cooperation with Senate Watergate investigators, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel and participate in cover-up efforts, not disclosing this obvious conflict to Nixon until some time later.


quote:
Dean had earlier asked Nixon for formal immunity from prosecution for any crimes he might have committed while serving as White House Counsel. Nixon refused to grant this request and his refusal led Dean to cooperate with the prosecutors very soon afterwards. Upon going to the prosecutors, Dean also requested immunity, which was not granted despite his many revelations.

He sounds perfect to be on CNN and the other corrupt news stations.




Donald Trump is not a politician, he is a leader, politicians are a dime a dozen, leaders are priceless.
 
Posts: 3791 | Location: Idaho | Registered: January 26, 2014Report This Post
Political Cynic
Picture of nhtagmember
posted Hide Post
despite all his flaws, Richard Nixon was a far better person than John Dean ever was

even dead, Nixon still has a better character than Dean



[B] Against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC


 
Posts: 53158 | Location: Tucson Arizona | Registered: January 16, 2002Report This Post
7.62mm Crusader
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by chellim1:
quote:
a long but very good speech by AG Barr

Yes. Worth watching.

AG Bill Barr Speaks About The Damage to Our Nation From The “Resistance”...
Barr speaks at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MeMwdtbPR6g" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]
I find myself applauding along sitting here in my vehicle. Our 85th AG is historic. Amazing man.
 
Posts: 17900 | Location: The Bluegrass State! | Registered: December 23, 2008Report This Post
wishing we
were congress
posted Hide Post
This post is about Charles Kupchan.

Who is he ?

He was Eric Ciaramella's boss at NSC.

Kupchan left the Trump administration in Feb 2017. Lasted about a month

He worked for Bill Clinton when Clinton was president.

He worked for obama.

in 2018, he wrote an article headlined, “Trump Is Poised to Do Irreparable Harm to World Trade. Here’s what other countries can do to stop him.”

Kupchan defended Eric Ciaramella, then an assistant to National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, whom he believed was being unfairly maligned at that time. Eric Ciaramella’s former boss, Kupchan told Foreign Policy that Ciaramella is one of the “worker bees of the federal government. They want to serve the nation, and they care deeply about the issues they’re working on.”

He was on the guest list for Obama’s final state dinner

https://gufaculty360.georgetow...pAAC/charles-kupchan

From 2014 to 2017 Kupchan served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council in the Obama White House.

He was also Director for European Affairs on the NSC during the first Clinton administration

He wrote several books including

No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn (2012),

from the book:

The world is on the cusp of a global turn. Between 1500 and 1800, the West sprinted ahead of other centers of power in Asia and the Middle East. Europe and the United States have dominated the world since. But today the West's preeminence is slipping away as China, India, Brazil and other emerging powers rise. Although most strategists recognize that the dominance of the West is on the wane, they are confident that its founding ideas--democracy, capitalism, and secular nationalism--will continue to spread, ensuring that the Western order will outlast its primacy.

In No One's World, Charles A. Kupchan boldly challenges this view arguing that the world is headed for political and ideological diversity; emerging powers will neither defer to the West's lead nor converge toward the Western way.

The ascent of the West was the product of social and economic conditions unique to Europe and the United States. As other regions now rise, they are following their own paths to modernity and embracing their own conceptions of domestic and international order.

Kupchan contends that the Western order will not be displaced by a new great power or dominant political model. The twenty-first century will not belong to America, China, Asia, or anyone else. It will be no one's world. For the first time in history, an interdependent world will be without a center of gravity or global guardian

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

oh, did I mention that Kupchan was friends w Clinton hatchet man Sid Blumenthal ?




https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...-to-president-obama/


What a nest of vipers President Trump was handed
 
Posts: 19558 | Registered: July 21, 2002Report This Post
Member
Picture of Tubetone
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sdy:
This post is about Charles Kupchan.

. . .

in 2018, he wrote an article headlined, “Trump Is Poised to Do Irreparable Harm to World Trade. Here’s what other countries can do to stop him.”


Globalism, whether political or economic, is the gap in thinking we are experiencing now. Control, manipulation and power are the only ways to achieve it because free people will not chose it for themselves.

The left has browbeaten Americans into a corner that they will not easily accept anymore. You can’t do this or that has turned to you can’t say this or that which has turned to you can’t think this or that - all in obedience to an undesirable agenda.

Americans now agree with George Strait: ”I’m into culture clean up to my ears. It’s like wearing a shoe that’s too small.”


_______________________________
NRA Life Member
NRA Certified Range Safety Officer
 
Posts: 3078 | Registered: January 06, 2010Report This Post
Frangas non Flectes
Picture of P220 Smudge
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by David Lee:
quote:
Originally posted by chellim1:
quote:
a long but very good speech by AG Barr

Yes. Worth watching.

AG Bill Barr Speaks About The Damage to Our Nation From The “Resistance”...
Barr speaks at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MeMwdtbPR6g" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]
I find myself applauding along sitting here in my vehicle. Our 85th AG is historic. Amazing man.


That was an excellent speech by an incredibly sharp man. I thought of Jallen quite a bit watching that address. I think it was the sardonic wit combined with cutting right to the heart of the matter. I know some here have doubts about AG Barr, but quite frankly, if this guy is part of the swamp, I'll be devastated to learn of it because he seems quite earnestly to be on board the Trump Train and wanting to pull the plug and send the whole mess of mud and snakes swirling down the whirlpool.


______________________________________________
Carthago delenda est
 
Posts: 17099 | Location: Sonoran Desert | Registered: February 10, 2011Report This Post
Only the strong survive
Picture of 41
posted Hide Post
 
Posts: 11828 | Location: Herndon, VA | Registered: June 11, 2009Report This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Ukraine whistleblower may have liaised with Vindman over Trump call

https://www.washingtonexaminer...white-house-meetings



The whistleblower whose complaint about President Trump's communications with Ukraine launched House impeachment proceedings was still attending White House meetings recently and may have spoken to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman prior to filing the complaint, according to the Washington Post.

On Saturday, the outlet published details about the steps a CIA analyst took to blow the whistle after the president urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July 25 phone call to start an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, who is also leading the pack of 2020 Democrats. Notably, the Post was clear that the whistleblower is male.

"The analyst had served on the National Security Council during the Trump administration and had been in the presence of the president. After returning to the CIA, his job required him to continue to participate in National Security Council meetings," the publication reported, indicating that the whistleblower was still attending meetings at the White House recently.

The Post claimed the whistleblower never told any of his White House contacts about his plans to file a complaint, which he worked on "after hours" in his cubicle at the CIA headquarters for two weeks before submitting it on Aug. 12.

Before filing the complaint, the anonymous person spoke with a White House official who also expressed concern over Trump's conversation with Zelensky. The "shaken" official said the call was “frightening,” “crazy,” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security.”

While unconfirmed, it is possible that the official was Vindman, who still works with the whistleblower on U.S.-Ukraine policy.

"The analyst does not identify the official in his July 26 memo, which was obtained by congressional investigators in the impeachment inquiry. But Vindman, in his testimony, disclosed that he had spoken to officials outside the White House within days of the Trump-Zelensky call," according to the report.

Timothy Morrison, a former deputy assistant to the president and the National Security Council’s former senior director for Europe and Russia, testified that he "had concerns about Lieutenant Colonel Vindman's judgment." He added that others on the National Security Council, including the NSC's former senior director for Europe and Russia, Dr. Fiona Hill, were wary of Vindman.

"Among the discussions I had with Dr. Hill in the transition was our team, my team, its strengths and its weaknesses," Morrison said. "And Fiona and others had raised concerns about Alex's judgment."

Morrison also said that, although he never personally suspected Vindman of leaking, others had brought that concern about Vindman to him. Vindman testified, however, that he doesn't know who the whistleblower is.

In the time between the July 25 call and the filing of the complaint, the whistleblower approached the CIA's general counsel and then reached out to a staffer on Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee, "conveying his concern only in the broadest terms before the official urged him to say no more and consult a lawyer" according to the Post.

Schiff knew about it but did not immediately inform his Republican colleagues on his panel. The Washington Examiner has reported that two ex-NSC staffers are now employed by Schiff. Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint.

The whistleblower also reportedly met with a friend "who is an attorney and an expert on national security law" at a coffee shop. The pair "chatted briefly" before the friend "stopped the analyst before any details were broached."

"The friend referred the analyst to another attorney, Andrew Bakaj, who had more expertise on whistleblower procedure and law," the Post reported. "After parting ways, the friend pulled out his iPhone and deleted a calendar item he had created for their meeting that included the whistleblower’s name."

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson said that his review of the whistleblower's allegations "identified some indicia of bias of an arguable political bias on the part of the complainant in favor of a rival political candidate" but that "such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern appears credible."

While the whistleblower's identity has not yet been confirmed, career CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, 33, was named by RealClearInvestigations as the potential whistleblower. Ciaramella previously was Ukraine director on the National Security Council under President Barack Obama and then worked as acting senior director for European and Russian affairs during the Trump administration.

He is now a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia on the National Intelligence Council and works under the director of national intelligence. He had a close relationship with Biden during the Obama administration and attended a State Department banquet with him in 2016.

Ciaramella was also cited in a key passage of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in connection to the May 2017 meeting between President Trump and Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after James Comey was fired as FBI director.

Lawyers for the whistleblower called attempts to out their client "the pinnacle of irresponsibility" and did not confirm or deny reports naming Ciaramella.


_________________________
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
Mark Twain
 
Posts: 12648 | Registered: January 17, 2011Report This Post
Member
Picture of erj_pilot
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by sdy quoting AG Barr:

"What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government".
And THIS...is why I wonder why every last GD one of these sunsabitches hasn't been charged with SEDITION?!?!?

se·di·tion
/səˈdiSH(ə)n/

noun
noun: sedition; plural noun: seditions

conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.



"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24
 
Posts: 11066 | Location: NW Houston | Registered: April 04, 2012Report This Post
Member
Picture of TigerDore
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Tubetone:
Nice to see McCarthy stepping up. Now, if he’d only defend the House against the destruction that’s being allowed... He needs to stick up for more than Republican interests. He needs to gather Democrat House members to join in...

You are assuming there's a decent number of moderates that also have backbone and character, on the Democrat side of the House. I wish you are right, but I think that is a pipe dream.



.
 
Posts: 8607 | Registered: September 26, 2013Report This Post
  Powered by Social Strata Page 1 ... 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 ... 348 

Closed Topic Closed

SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    The Trump Presidency : Year III

© SIGforum 2024