Your Once and Final Supreme Double Impeachee

[ewmayer]

And despite all the daily outrages, Team D and their pals in the MSM are hard at work lining up a second term for Trump, by way of eliminating from contention and gross-lying-about the positions of the few progressive pols running for the Dem nomination. Latest examples:

o Veteran and antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard eliminated from next round of D debates by way of dubious, whimsical and subject-to-change-without-notice DNC debate eligibility criteria. This is why the DNC, rather than the nonpartisan League of Women Voters as in past years, now controls the show - one more way to rig the process.

o WaPo lying about Sanders' Medicare For All proposal.

See also my link to Matt Taibbi's latest "be very afraid" article over in the Electile Dysfunction thread.

[Dr Sardonicus]

If you don't like the forecast, use a Sharpie on the weather map

"That map that you showed us today, looked like it almost had, like, a Sharpie written on it," a reporter said during a second White House event on Wednesday.

Trump cut off the reporter and said, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." He also said the map had been from three or four days before, when it had actually been issued six days earlier.

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley tweeted Wednesday night that the line was, in fact, from a black Sharpie, and he criticized the media for focusing on it.

This method should work just as well on climate forecasts...

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

If you don't like the forecast, use a Sharpie on the weather map
This method should work just as well on climate forecasts...

This is why an owner/ceo of a company is not a good choice for the is type of job. "I say our earnings projections will be 'this' ".

[Dr Sardonicus]

Il Duce's stunt with the weather map fired some synapses in my long-term memory.

I have a collection of Gahan Wilson's cartoons entitled, "... And then we'll get him!" which I received as a gift 40 years ago.

At the bottom of page 84 is a cartoon featuring a chart showing a downward trend. Two men are looking at it. One is standing and frowning. The other is sitting, with a crazed grin on his face, his hand on a switch. A bit beyond the end of the line on the chart, a wire leading from the switch is taped to the chart. The smiling man is saying,

... and when it gets there I'm going to give it a little electric shock and that will send it straight back up again!

Sometimes life imitates art. Sometimes the art is better.

Especially in this case, since the art is fantasy, and in real life our Twit(ler)-in-Chief is likely to be re-elected.

Talk about a double standard: When Bill Clinton was president, one thing that drove Republicans into a foaming-at-the-mouth, thrashing-on-the-floor, biting-the-carpet frenzy was, the guy would never admit his peccadillos. He was like the kid in Life in Hell, caught in the middle of the kitchen floor right next to the broken cookie jar, saying "I swear to God I didn't do it."

And yet, here is Il Duce, carrying this same inclination to the n-plus-1^th degree in all matters great and small, and they have no problem with it.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

This is why an owner/ceo of a company is not a good choice for the is [sic] type of job. "I say our earnings projections will be 'this' ".

Just to emphasize the point:

On September 6, some unnamed(*) bureaucrat at NOAA issued a statement, hung on the very flimsy pretext that some predictions indicated that Alabama might possibly feel some tropical storm force winds from Dorian, chastising the Birmingham office's tweet contradicting Il Duce:

The Birmingham National Weather Service's Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time

(*) I think it's safe to say the bureaucrat's name is Ben Dover.

[ewmayer]

Re. the latest manufactured ImpeachImpeachImpeach hysteria gripping DC, I predicted when the story first broke that this would turn into the latest huge own-goal by the Dems, because, having cultivated non-MSM news sources for the past decade-plus, I was well-acquainted with the underlying sordid story about crooked Joe Biden, the one where he publicly bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about threatening the Ukrainian government with withholding of a huge aid package if said government did not get a certain state prosecutor fired, a prosecutor who just happened to be looking into curruption involving a very cushy financial deal Biden's son had just happened to land with a Ukrainian firm in the wake of the US-sponsored Maidan Spring coup in Ukraine, a story which was roundly ignored as non-newsworthy by the western MSM at the time. MofA has a nice summing-up of the whole sordid affair:

The Democrats' Impeachment Attempt Against Trump Is A Huge Mistake | Moon of Alabama

MofA adds: "Trump should be impeached for his crimes against Syria, Venezuela and Yemen," a view echoed by some other well-kown voices in the political blogosphere, along with the accompanying why-that-will-never-happen commentary:

They’d never dream of impeaching based on illegal wars, illegal mass surveillance, or a thousand other genuine abuses of state power. So when the entire liberal mainstream coalesces around the conclusion that impeachment is suddenly mandatory — yeah, I’m skeptical

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019

Matt Stoller sees the hand of recently fired mass-murderous neocon nuthero of democracy John Bolton behind the whistleblower complaint:

John Bolton’s revenge of having Trump impeached over Trump’s abuse of power regarding the Biden family’s soft influence peddling is a turducken of corruption.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) September 25, 2019

['Turducken' is a portmanteau for deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck, further stuffed into a deboned turkey.]

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I was well-acquainted with the underlying sordid story about crooked Joe Biden, the one where he publicly bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about threatening the Ukrainian government with withholding of a huge aid package if said government did not get a certain state prosecutor fired,

I'm sure your masters in Moscow will be pleased
;-)

I hardly need point out that in addition to there being no evidence that Prosecutor-General Shokin was even investigating Hunter Biden, that, as VP, Joe Biden was hardly in a position to order withholding of a billion dollars in loan guarantees. There was plenty of pressure from other quarters at getting Shokin out. There were some folks, for example, who were chagrined at his refusal to go after Russian operatives who had been using Ukrainian protesters as practice in keeping up their marksmanship as snipers. Biden, as VP, was merely delivering the threat to withhold the funds.

Meanwhile, in the here and now...

Of course, besides stopping the DNI from delivering a "credible and urgent" whistleblower complaint to Congress, the apparent subject of the complaint -- coercing a foreign power to help out with an election campaign -- is also illegal. But it is puzzling. Why would CREEP the Admin even bother? Maybe the complaint is not that serious, and withholding the report is merely a ploy to yank the Dems' chains. If so, it's working beautifully. It's got their eyes off the prize -- getting Il Duce voted out of office.

OTOH, Il Duce is certainly a dim enough bulb actually to try bullying a foreign leader to go after a domestic political rival, as reports indicate.

But, as I said, it is puzzling. This sort of hamfisted nonsense is really unnecessary. The R's could make an ad that works in a clip of the original Star Trek series, fading in with a voiceover saying, Think of what could happen if Joe Biden became president...

SPOCK: Do you wish to call any witnesses, Captain Kirk?

KIRK: I am perfectly capable of speaking in my own defence, Mister Spock.

SPOCK: Captain, I would suggest

KIRK: No, no, no. It's all right, Spock. It's all right. There's only one reason, and one reason alone, for having this, hearing. I refused to leave Gamma Hydra Two

SPOCK: Gamma Hydra Four, Captain.

KIRK: Yes. A slip of the tongue.

SPOCK: Your inability to remember having given commands, reading and signing important orders and then forgetting them, your physical analysis as compiled by our own chief surgeon. All these things would appear to be irrefutable proof of failing physical and mental conditions.

KIRK: So I'm a little confused. Who wouldn't be at a time like this? My ship's in trouble, my senior officers are ill. And this nonsense about a competency hearing is enough to mix up any man. Trying to relieve a captain of his command is, well, that's, that's. Spock, I wouldn't have believed it of you. Go ahead. Ask me questions. I'll show you what I'm capable of. There's nothing wrong with my memory. Go ahead! Ask me anything! We're in orbit around Gamma Hydra Two, right? Anyhow, it doesn't matter. There's a lot more to running a starship than answering a lot of fool questions. A lot more. Go ahead. Ask me questions.

SPOCK: We have no more questions, Captain.

KIRK: Ask me anything. Anything.

Then, the clip fades out, and a printed message appears: JOE BIDEN -- HE'S PAST IT

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Sites with merchandise bearing this slogan are many. There are also coffee mugs.

Amazon has some T's pictured here. Also, with "nazi" replaced by "not my" here. Also, "Super Callous Fragile Racist Extra Braggadocious" T's here.

I didn't find the one of the advisor speaking into Il Duce's ear, but "your IQ test has come back negative" is all over the Internet, like a rash.

The alternate versions are really funny, too.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I hardly need point out that in addition to there being no evidence that Prosecutor-General Shokin was even investigating Hunter Biden, that, as VP, Joe Biden was hardly in a position to order withholding of a billion dollars in loan guarantees.

Au contraire, says The Hill's John Solomon:

Solomon: These once-secret memos cast doubt on Joe Biden's Ukraine story | TheHill

Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has locked into a specific story about the controversy in Ukraine.

He insists that, in spring 2016, he strong-armed Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor solely because Biden believed that official was corrupt and inept, not because the Ukrainian was investigating a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, that hired Biden's son, Hunter, into a lucrative job.

There’s just one problem.

Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative.

And they raise the troubling prospect that U.S. officials may have painted a false picture in Ukraine that helped ease Burisma’s legal troubles and stop prosecutors’ plans to interview Hunter Biden during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For instance, Burisma’s American legal representatives met with Ukrainian officials just days after Biden forced the firing of the country’s chief prosecutor and offered “an apology for dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures” about the Ukrainian prosecutors, according to the Ukrainian government’s official memo of the meeting. The effort to secure that meeting began the same day the prosecutor's firing was announced.

In addition, Burisma’s American team offered to introduce Ukrainian prosecutors to Obama administration officials to make amends, according to that memo and the American legal team’s internal emails.

The memos raise troubling questions:

1.) If the Ukraine prosecutor’s firing involved only his alleged corruption and ineptitude, why did Burisma's American legal team refer to those allegations as “false information?"

2.) If the firing had nothing to do with the Burisma case, as Biden has adamantly claimed, why would Burisma’s American lawyers contact the replacement prosecutor within hours of the termination and urgently seek a meeting in Ukraine to discuss the case?

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have tried to get this information to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) since the summer of 2018, fearing it might be evidence of possible violations of U.S. ethics laws. First, they hired a former federal prosecutor to bring the information to the U.S. attorney in New York, who, they say, showed no interest. Then, the Ukrainians reached out to President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, told Trump in July that he plans to launch his own wide-ranging investigation into what happened with the Bidens and Burisma.

“I’m knowledgeable about the situation,” Zelensky told Trump, asking the American president to forward any evidence he might know about. "The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case.”

Biden has faced scrutiny since December 2015, when the New York Times published a story noting that Burisma hired Hunter Biden just weeks after the vice president was asked by President Obama to oversee U.S.-Ukraine relations. That story also alerted Biden’s office that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin had an active investigation of Burisma and its founder.

Documents I obtained this year detail an effort to change the narrative after the Times story about Hunter Biden, with the help of the Obama State Department.

Hunter Biden’s American business partner in Burisma, Devon Archer, texted a colleague two days after the Times story about a strategy to counter the “new wave of scrutiny” and stated that he and Hunter Biden had just met at the State Department. The text suggested there was about to be a new “USAID project the embassy is announcing with us” and that it was “perfect for us to move forward now with momentum.”

I have sued the State Department for any records related to that meeting. The reason is simple: There is both a public interest and an ethics question to knowing if Hunter Biden and his team sought State’s assistance while his father was vice president.

The controversy ignited anew earlier this year when I disclosed that Joe Biden admitted during a 2018 videotaped speech that, as vice president in March 2016, he threatened to cancel $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, to pressure Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin.

At the time, Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma. Shokin told me he was making plans to question Hunter Biden about $3 million in fees that Biden and his partner, Archer, collected from Burisma through their American firm. Documents seized by the FBI in an unrelated case confirm the payments, which in many months totaled more than $166,000.

Some media outlets have reported that, at the time Joe Biden forced the firing in March 2016, there were no open investigations. Those reports are wrong. A British-based investigation of Burisma's owner was closed down in early 2015 on a technicality when a deadline for documents was not met. But the Ukraine Prosecutor General's office still had two open inquiries in March 2016, according to the official case file provided me. One of those cases involved taxes; the other, allegations of corruption. Burisma announced the cases against it were not closed and settled until January 2017. ...
[rest of article at above link]

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Au contraire, says The Hill's John Solomon:

Solomon: These once-secret memos cast doubt on Joe Biden's Ukraine story | TheHill

I am no doubt very stupid, but when in March 2016 did Biden meet Poroshenko?

[Dr Sardonicus]

Besides the factually suspect premise of Biden having met with Poroshenko in March 2016, there is also the fact that, as VP, he simply did not have the authority to make good on a threat to withhold funds. Hard to get around that one.

And what is the nature of the allegations against him? That he was trying to protect his son. And, based on his braggadocio, we know that he was making no secret of -- indeed, most likely exaggerated -- his role in getting Prosecutor-General Shokin fired.

In the here and now, Il Duce, as President, does have the authority to withhold funds. And the allegations about him WRT Ukraine are, that he threatened to do so to coerce the President of Ukraine to order an investigation into a domestic political opponent and potential campaign rival.

Also in the here and now, we know that, long before news of the whistleblower complaint became public, WH minions moved heaven and earth to bury it. Now why would they do that?

Curiously, one of the WH and R's lines about the complaint is that, even though they don't know who filed the complaint, that it was someone motivated by political bias. Neat trick, knowing the motives of an unknown person. Also, totally irrelevant as to the merits of the complaint.

But, of course, we are in the post-truth era. Facts don't matter anymore.