monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

he could not get a loan from any bank in the country he supposedly governs?

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who's reported to have played a central role in trying to convince Ukraine to investigate a Trump political rival, is “not relevant” to the Senate impeachment trial, Sen. John Cornyn said Sunday.

“That's a relationship that causes some of us to sort of scratch our heads,” the Texas Republican said on CBS's “Face the Nation.” “But I'd say he's not relevant to the articles and what the Senate is going to be asked to do, impeaching a president for the third time in American history for a non-crime over events that never occurred.”

And then there's the last bit I bolded there from a Senator who has just taken an oath to attend to the evidence and to do impartial justice.

That some of the objections I raised are common to many who oppose your political views does not mean either that they came from Fox news, or that it is the source of my observations. You appear to rather insultingly believe otherwise.

The New York Times
@nytimes
U.S. State Department analysts have found that Russian-linked Twitter accounts sought to sow confusion in South American nations that oppose the Moscow-backed government in Venezuela HERE

Senator Rand Paul
@RandPaul
Despite climate alarmist predictions, humans will likely survive for hundreds of millions of years into the future. In the meantime, we should begin creating atmospheres on suitable moons or planets.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Dershowitz said the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress stemming from the pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate a Trump political rival — were “noncriminal actions.”

“When you read the text of the Constitution, treason, bribery, other high crimes and misdemeanors — ‘other’ really means that crimes and misdemeanors must be ... akin to treason and bribery,” he said.

Laurence Tribe
@tribelaw
· 5h
.@AlanDersh comments on impeachment on Larry King Live, 8/24/98
01:41:04 DERSHOWITZ: “It certainly doesn't have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty.”

Jay Rosen
@jayrosen_nyu
· 1h
"Creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working." https://vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation

I agree. This is what we're up against: flood the zone. And it is working.

Understood. Still, there could be someone like me in the UK who has never went anywhere but the country she lives who all the sudden decides to take a tour of the US and rents a car and drives on the wrong the side of the road. It just makes sense to have a little driving awareness or something before renting a car in another country. But maybe not, I am not wedded to the idea.

The leaders of major Shia armed groups in Iraq gathered in Iran's city of Qom earlier this month to coordinate efforts to expel the United States' troops in Iraq.

Mohammad Mohie, spokesman of the Iran-backed Shia paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the meeting held on January 13 aimed to coordinate future action among the armed groups.

"That meeting was very important to coordinate our actions, activities and the resistance for the next step," Mohie said.

"The Americans may stay in Iraq and challenge us, so we are coordinating among ourselves," he said, adding that populist Shia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, who leads the Sairoon bloc in parliament and lives in Qom, had called the meeting.

It also included Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Shia armed group led by Qais al-Khazali, who was blacklisted by the US over his alleged role in the killings of demonstrators in Iraq.

"We responded to Muqtada al-Sadr's call … and one of the outcomes [of the meeting] is the protest which will take place in four to five days," said Mohie.

"This is the beginning of the new era of coordination between Shia forces and resistance groups," he added.

The Iraqi Parliament responded to recent escalations between the US and Iran on Iraqi soil by voting on January 5 in favour of a resolution calling on the government to expel foreign troops from the country.

The resolution also called for cancelling Baghdad's request for assistance from the US-led coalition which had been working with Baghdad to fight the ISIL (also known as ISIS).

Days after the Parliament's vote to expel foreign troops from Iraq, Sadr called on January 14 for a "million-man march" against the presence of US troops in Iraq.

"The skies, land and sovereignty of Iraq are being violated every day by occupying forces," Sadr wrote on Twitter. The march is expected to take place on Friday.

President Trump made 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years

The president said twice as many false or misleading claims in 2019 as he did in 2017 and 2018 combined.

Yesterday, in response to a detailed 111-page brief outlining the House of Representatives’ case for impeachment, President Trump’s legal time filed a six-page response. It is notable primarily for advancing an audacious and highly dangerous constitutional claim: that a president cannot be impeached for any abuse of power.

...According to its reasoning, a president can only be impeached for a literal criminal violation, the kind of crime for which you or I could be hauled off to the police station. He cannot be impeached for abusing his power. The first article of impeachment “fails on its face to state an impeachable offense,” his lawyers write. “It alleges no crimes at all, let alone high Crimes and Misdemeanors, as required by the Constitution. In fact, it alleges no violation of law whatsoever. ” Trump’s lawyers do deny the facts laid out in the indictment, but they argue that even if Trump was guilty of every action of which he was charged, he cannot be impeached for it.

...Second, as a historical matter, there is no evidence that impeachment was designed to deal solely with violations of federal law. The framers debated impeachment and the record suggests a broad range of concern, ultimately leaving the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to Congress to decide. Alexander Hamilton defined it as “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Historically, less than one-third of impeachments of federal officials have charged a criminal violation.

Quote:

President Trump made 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years

The president said twice as many false or misleading claims in 2019 as he did in 2017 and 2018 combined.

WP

Imagine if this was your business partner. Or your mate. Or your chief of police or fire chief. Or your accountant. Or the engineer in charge of bridge safety. Or you child's surgeon.


And yet for a huge portion of the Republican base, none of this matters whatsoever. For many, it appears to be a positive aspect in the man's character.

They just say the reports on his lying is all fake, or they make believe that all politicians lie like this.

Should an American president solicit foreign interference in U.S. elections? It’s a question that’s near the center of Donald Trump’s Ukraine scheme. It’s a question that’s been around for months. And it’s a question Republicans still don’t know how to answer.

On ABC News’ This Week, George Stephanopoulos posed the question to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who said, “I don’t know that has been actually proven. You know, that’s all in dispute.”

It’s really not. We know this for certain in part because the White House released an official call summary of Trump’s July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which the American president pressed his counterpart in Kyiv to “look into” Joe Biden. A week after that call summary was released to the public, Trump stood on the South Lawn of the White House and told reporters on camera, “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.” The Republican added soon after, “I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens.”

Reminded of reality, Shelby suggested Trump’s rhetoric didn’t actually count, because it was “political.” It led to this exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So it’s OK?

SHELBY: I didn’t say it was OK. I said people make them – people do things. Things happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, this is the president of the United States.

SHELBY: Well, still the president of the United States is human. And he’s going to make mistakes of judgment and everything else.

The senator added that he doesn’t believe Trump’s controversy “rises to the standard of an impeachable offense.”

It was a little painful to watch the Alabama Republican change direction so frequently, so quickly.


Shelby’s first instinct was to falsely argue that the jury’s still out on whether Trump sought foreign election assistance. He then quickly shifted, acknowledged that Trump did seek foreign election assistance, but suggested it wasn’t important. The GOP lawmaker then shifted again, concluding that his party’s president had made a “mistake,” but not one he was inclined to care too much about.

All of this unfolded over the course of about 80 seconds.

What’s more, it’s worth appreciating Shelby’s “things happen” declaration – as if presidential extortion schemes are somehow routine incidents that American leaders occasionally stumble into – which dovetails nicely with White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s “get over it” posture from October.

I mention this in part because it’s generally amazing to watch the White House’s GOP allies struggle while trying to cover for Trump’s obvious misdeeds, and in part because Republicans have had several months to come up with an answer to the question about presidents soliciting foreign election assistance, and they still haven’t quite figured it out.

This started in earnest months ago, when a few too many GOP lawmakers – most notably Iowa’s Joni Ernst and Colorado’s Cory Gardner – struggled mightily with the question, refusing to say much of anything.

In the months that followed, others in the party have tried to deny the existence of factual details altogether. Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), for example, was asked whether she believes it’s all right for an American president to ask a foreign power to investigate a political rival. “He didn’t,” the congresswoman replied, reality be damned. “He didn’t do that…. He did not do that.”

Trump did exactly that. It’s not one of the debatable aspects of the scandal.

All of which led to Richard Shelby giving it a try, weaving between talking points, culminating in a concession that Trump made a mistake about which the senator appears to be indifferent.

If Republicans can’t think of a good answer, after months of planning, perhaps it’s because the president’s actions were, in a rather literal sense, indefensible.