will one breakdown lead to another?
https://www.meforum.org/59598/
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I have now finished O'Reilly's book.
In the last 50 or so pages O'Reilly discussed Trump's tax cut victory which enraged WAPO and The NYT's. who predicted disaster as did Warren B.et al. The passage of the tax bill killed three progressive gooses: it re-opened Alaska for more drilling, it undid Obama's agenda to some degree and it gave tax relief. Since the bill's passage, the middle class has regained some income momentum, the economy has done far better than during the Obama years and employment is at historic levels. I recently talked with an industrialist who said he could not find qualified workers and would need to spend to train them and that would , hopefully, solve his labor problem but cost him more and thus, reduce profits. It proved to be sort of a two edged sword, however, because the workers they were training were actually un-trainable.
Trump also came to believe Mueller was biased against him and told O'Reilly of an argument he had when Mueller said he wanted his initiation money back because he was leaving a Trump Golf Course since he was moving out of the area and Trump refused. Perhaps Mueller should have recused himself, comes to mind.
2018 was not a good year considering all the negative things that happened and Trump became convinced Pelosi also hated him and would do everything in her power to ruin his presidency.
We have been exposed by O'Reilly to the view Trump is basically distrustful and certainly there is evidence he and his family have met strong resistance in part because he sought to drain the swamp and has been vocal about doing so as well. In D.C power is everything whereas, in New York, money talks. In an interview, perhaps the last O'Reilly had before completing the book, he and Trump were engaged in a conversation about why Trump was meeting the kind of rejection he was and had it impacted him.Trump said he was energized by the attacks, being president provided him with challenges and action real estate did not and he was convinced the mass media were dishonest. and were doing harm to both himself as well as to the office he occupied and to the nation.
O'Reilly ends by stating Trump is not going to change.He will not modify his behaviour, will continue to tweet or "begin wearing jeans. In an earlier part of the book O'Reilly wrote Trump always wears a coat and tie while in the Oval Office and most of the time when in the White House and that the 63 million who voted for him, have a vested interest in his presidency, loathe his detractors and the election will not be about ideology but economics and pocket book issues. Trump has not necessarily been a promoter of conservative principals but will continue to appoint traditional judges and justices and will do nothing to alienate his conservative supporters.
Perhaps Noonan would be well advised to read O'Reilly's book.
I understand her argument that events are fluid and eventually , if there is a trial in The Senate and more information comes out, after a protracted debate, Americans will tire and and their sentiment for tolerance with Trump will collapse.
However, an impeachment based on a Schiff head Gulag type investigation, leaked testimony in a closed door environment is more likely to be seen as unfair and prejudiced against the rule of law and we still remain a basically fair minded people who believe in the fair application of our laws.
For the moment Pelosi is allowing Schiff head to "lead the witness" so as to to provide the press the ability to leak tainted material
I will remind readers Noonan never thought Trump would win either and since she seldom leaves her office I doubt she understands the psyche of us "deplorables."
When we look about at the Democrats running for the office I believe we will stick with the devil we know.
Time will tell. (See 1 and 1a below.)
That said, I understand the pounding Trump has taken for over three years and the unfairness of it has to take a toll no matter how strong Trump may be.
I have no doubt he has made mistakes that a person more skilled in the ways of D.C and which a more politically astute person might have avoided. Also Trump's personal insecurity and combative style, that causes him to over reach and make enemies, is frequently unnecessary and counter productive. The most recent instance was his comments about General Mattis.
I also believe Trump does not intend for America to become totally isolationist but I am concerned about the long term effect of his most recent act of withdrawal and his desertion of proven allies. I believe his involvement with Erdogan will blow up in his face as it did with Obama. The man is not trustworthy, his word is basically worthless but even Erdogan has a legitimate argument with the Kurds. How evacuating that region of the world will play out is anyone's guess but I have to believe not favorable because we are abdicating to Russia and Putin has to be licking his chops.
Longer term it is possible Putin will get mired down in the Middle East's muck and find the cost beyond what Russia can afford but Putin will respond in a far different manner than we would if he is challenged and that can create challenges which we may not be able to ignore.
It is one thing to have a face off with Iran and a totally different one if Russia is involved. All of this is way above my pay grade so I will stop here but I do believe Trump is coming across as one beyond his skill set and he will certainly get no help from those who hate him, want to bring him down and, who also, have to be licking their lustful chops.
They too will use whatever he is doing as more grist for their impeachment mill.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Austrian Ambassador's interview before trip to Israel. (See 2 below.)
And:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Finally:
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Pelosi hell bent! (See 3 below.)
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Off to Staci's funeral, returning late Sunday.
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Dick
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1) The Impeachment Needle May Soon Move
The mood has shifted against Trump, but the House has to show good faith and seriousness.
By Peggy Noonan
Things are more fluid than they seem. That’s my impression of Washington right now. There’s something quiet going on, a mood shift.
Impeachment of course will happen. The House will support whatever charges are ultimately introduced because most Democrats think the president is not fully sane and at least somewhat criminal. Also they’re Democrats and he’s a Republican. The charges will involve some level of foreign-policy malfeasance.
The ultimate outcome depends on the Senate. It takes 67 votes to convict. Republicans control the Senate 53-47, and it is unlikely 20 of them will agree to remove a president of their own party. An acquittal is likely but not fated, because we live in the age of the unexpected.
Here are three reasons to think the situation is more fluid than we realize.
First, the president, confident of acquittal, has chosen this moment to let his inner crazy flourish daily and dramatically—the fights and meltdowns, the insults, the Erdogan letter. Just when the president needs to be enacting a certain stability he enacts its opposite. It is possible he doesn’t appreciate the jeopardy he’s in with impeachment bearing down; it is possible he knows and what behavioral discipline he has is wearing down.
The second is that the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, told his caucus this week to be prepared for a trial that will go six days a week and could last six to eight weeks. In September there had been talk the Senate might receive articles of impeachment and execute a quick, brief response—a short trial, or maybe a motion to dismiss. Mr. McConnell told CNBC then that the Senate would have “no choice” but to take up impeachment, but “how long you are on it is a different matter.” Now he sees the need for a major and lengthy undertaking. Part of the reason would be practical: He is blunting attack lines that the Republicans arrogantly refused to give impeachment the time it deserves. But his decision also gives room for the unexpected—big and serious charges that sweep public opinion and change senators’ votes. “There is a mood change in terms of how much they can tolerate,” said a former high Senate staffer. Senators never know day to day how bad things will get.
The third reason is the number of foreign-policy professionals who are not ducking testimony in the House but plan to testify or have already. Suppressed opposition to President Trump among foreign-service officers and others is busting out.
The president is daily eroding his position. His Syria decision was followed by wholly predictable tragedy; it may or may not have been eased by the announcement Thursday of a five-day cease-fire. Before that the House voted 354-60, including 129 Republicans, to rebuke the president. There was the crazy letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which was alternately pleading (“You can make a great deal. . . . I will call you later”) and threatening (“I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy—and I will”).
There was the Cabinet Room meeting with congressional leaders, the insults hurled and the wildness of the photo that said it all—the angry president; Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, standing and pointing at him; and the head of Gen. Mark Milley, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bowed in—embarrassment? Horror? His was not the only bowed head.
The president soon tweeted about a constitutional officer of the U.S. House, who is third in line for the presidency: “Nancy Pelosi needs help fast! There is either something wrong with her ‘upstairs’ or she just plain doesn’t like our great Country. She had a total meltdown in the White House today. It was very sad to watch. Pray for her, she is a very sick person!”
As the Democratic leaders departed, he reportedly called out, “See you at the polls.” Mr. Trump is confident that he holds the cards here—he’s got the Senate, and the base of the party says all these issues should be worked out in the 2020 election. But he is seriously weakening his hand by how he acts.
That meeting will only fortify Mrs. Pelosi’s determination to impeach him.
The president tweeted out the picture of that meeting just as the White House made public the Erdogan letter—because they think it made the president look good. Which underscored the sense that he has no heavyweight advisers around him—the generals are gone, the competent fled, he’s careening around surrounded by second raters, opportunists, naifs and demoralized midlevel people who can’t believe what they’re seeing.
Again, everything depends on the quality and seriousness of the House hearings. Polling on impeachment has been fairly consistent, with Gallup reporting Thursday 52% supporting the president’s impeachment and removal.
Serious and dramatic hearings would move the needle on public opinion, tripping it into seriously negative territory for the president.
And if the needle moves, the Senate will move in the same direction.
But the subject matter will probably have to be bigger than the Ukraine phone call, which is not, as some have said, too complicated for the American people to understand, but easy to understand. An American ally needed money, and its new leader needed a meeting with the American president to bolster his position back home. It was made clear that the money and the meeting were contingent on the launching of a probe politically advantageous to Mr. Trump and disadvantageous to a possible 2020 rival.
Everyone gets it, most everyone believes it happened, no one approves of it—but it probably isn’t enough. People have absorbed it and know how they feel: It was Mr. Trump being gross. No news there.
Truly decisive testimony and information would have to be broader and deeper, bigger. Rudy Giuliani’s dealings with Ukraine? That seems an outgrowth of the original whistleblower charges, a screwy story with a cast of characters— Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, natives of Ukraine and Belarus, respectively, who make you think of Sen. Howard Baker’s question to the Watergate bagman Tony Ulasewicz: “Who thought you up?”
More important will be a text or subtext of serious and consistent foreign-policy malfeasance that the public comes to believe is an actual threat to national security. Something they experience as alarming.
It cannot be merely that the president holds different views and proceeds in different ways than the elites of both parties. It can’t look like “the blob” fighting back—fancy-pants establishment types, whose feathers have been ruffled by a muddy-booted Jacksonian, getting their revenge. It can’t look like the Deep State striking back at a president who threatened their corrupt ways.
It will have to be serious and sincere professionals who testify believably that the administration is corrupt and its corruption has harmed the country. The witnesses will have to seem motivated by a sense of duty to institutions and protectiveness toward their country.
And the hearings had better start to come across as an honest, good-faith effort in which Republican members of Congress are treated squarely and in line with previous protocols and traditions.
With all that the needle moves. Without it, it does not
1a)
Impeachment Testimony Explodes With 6 Eye Witness Accounts Of What Happened By The U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry into whether President Donald Trump abused the power of his office to push the Ukrainian president to order an probe of a political rival has heard from a series of administration insiders over the past two weeks.
By Jim Hayek
At the center of the inquiry is a July 25 call in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zekenskiy to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son Hunter Biden over their ties to a Ukrainian energy company.
Trump has acknowledged many of the central facts related to the call, maintaining that none of it amounted to wrongdoing.
Despite a White House declaration last week that the administration would not cooperate with an impeachment inquiry that it dismissed as a “kangaroo court,” the three Democratic-led committees leading the probe have heard from a series of witnesses.
Below are highlights of the testimony so far:
KURT VOLKER
The first witness, Kurt Volker, was the U.S. special representative for Ukraine until he resigned the day after the public release of a whistleblower’s complaint filed by a U.S. intelligence official that cited the call. The complaint described Volker as trying to mitigate the damage from efforts by Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats.
Volker’s Oct. 3 testimony revealed that he and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, drafted a statement for Zelenskiy that would have committed Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
It also called for Ukraine to probe a discredited conservative conspiracy theory that maintained that Ukraine, not Russia, had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a person familiar with the briefing said.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH
The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her post in Kiev after what she said was “a concerted campaign” against her, according to a copy of her Oct. 11 opening statement posted online by U.S. media.
Giuliani has accused Yovanovitch of blocking efforts to convince Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and suggested she was biased against Trump.
Trump also specifically referenced her in his July call with Zelenskiy, saying “the woman was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news,” according to a White House summary of the call.
FIONA HILL
Fiona Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian affairs on Trump’s National Security Council, on Monday recounted for lawmakers a July 10 meeting that she attended with senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials, including Sondland, according to a person familiar with her testimony.
Hill said Sondland raised the matter of investigations, which she and others took as a reference to a probe into the Biden family, the person said.
She was alarmed at what she heard and was advised to see the lawyer for the National Security Council, according to the person.
GEORGE KENT
George Kent, a senior U.S. diplomat, on Tuesday said he had been alarmed by efforts by Giuliani and others to pressure Ukraine and detailed the people Giuliani relied upon for information, according to a lawmaker familiar with his testimony.
Kent also said a top White House official, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, picked the officials responsible for Ukraine policy after Yovanovitch was recalled in May, Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly told reporters.
MICHAEL MCKINLEY
The former adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday told investigators he had resigned from his post over the State Department leadership’s unwillingness to defend Yovanovitch, according to people familiar with McKinley’s testimony.
GORDON SONDLAND
A hotelier and Trump political donor, Gordon Sondland told lawmakers that Trump directed senior officials to speak directly to Giuliani about U.S. policy in Ukraine.
Sondland said in his prepared Thursday remarks that he did not understand “until much later” that Giuliani was pushing for Ukraine to investigate Biden.
Sondland also participated in a series of text messages with Volker and another top U.S. diplomat, Bill Taylor. In the messages, he quoted the president when he wrote there was no quid pro quo, a Latin phrase meaning a favor in exchange for a favor, according to his prepared comments. (Writing by Makini Brice Editing by Alistair Bell)
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3)
Congressional Democrats are bound and determined to stick with their treasonous attempts to impeach President Trump. The reality here is that impeachment is not a new endeavor, by any means. Democrats tried to use the Mueller investigation as grounds for impeaching Trump and when that blew up in their faces, Democrats couldn’t handle it. They became desperate for another shot at impeachment, which brings us to where we are right now.
Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood before the press and delivered a series of accusations against the president. Pelosi took aim at Trump’s various policies and furthermore stated that voters, such as yourself, won’t get a say on the impeachment of this president, per reports from Breitbart News.
At this point, the House Speaker is just embarrassing herself. There is no grounds for impeaching Trump and there isn’t enough Congressional support for it. Voters know it and even Pelosi knows it; that’s why she recently announced that the House will not be voting on whether or not to commence the impeachment inquiry.
When a reporter asked the House Speaker when Congress will simply let voters decide on whether or not President Trump remains in office, Pelosi answered with the following statements:
3)
Pelosi Declares “Voters WON’T Decide” on Trump Impeachment
TAKEN FROM THE CONSERVATIVE
Congressional Democrats are bound and determined to stick with their treasonous attempts to impeach President Trump. The reality here is that impeachment is not a new endeavor, by any means. Democrats tried to use the Mueller investigation as grounds for impeaching Trump and when that blew up in their faces, Democrats couldn’t handle it. They became desperate for another shot at impeachment, which brings us to where we are right now.
At this point, the House Speaker is just embarrassing herself. There is no grounds for impeaching Trump and there isn’t enough Congressional support for it. Voters know it and even Pelosi knows it; that’s why she recently announced that the House will not be voting on whether or not to commence the impeachment inquiry.
Reviewing Pelosi’s Statements on Trump, Impeachment, and Voters
During yesterday’s press briefing, the House Speaker censured the president on a series of matters. Pelosi slammed Trump for “reluctance” and “cowardice” on issues regarding guns, immigration, climate change, etc.
However, in doing so, the Speaker alleged that none of the aforementioned matters are connected to the impeachment inquiry. Pelosi declared that those issues pertain to the election.
When a reporter asked the House Speaker when Congress will simply let voters decide on whether or not President Trump remains in office, Pelosi answered with the following statements:
“The voters are not going to decide whether we honor our oath of office. They already decided that in the last election.”
Why Democrats Should Listen to Voters
The cavalier attitude expressed by Pelosi yesterday is precisely why Democrats are in their current predicament. It’s also why Republicans have continued to fundraise record amounts of capital. If House Democrats actually paid attention to voters, they’d realize they’re wasting time on impeachment.
It’s also very clear that Nancy Pelosi isn’t the only Democrat who believes that voters aren’t worth listening to. The 2020 Democrats (who ironically need the votes from people they’re dismissing) clearly aren’t paying attention to the citizens in this country. If they were, they’d know that ending private healthcare, increasing taxes, and conducting door-to-door gun grabs are deeply unpopular in America.
As always, the Democrat Party is bound and determined to maintain their current course of action, despite it working against facts, logic, and reason.
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