Category: Conservatives

The fight between Trump allies Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins may be getting nastier

Posted on by Hunter

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that the primary fight between appointed Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and newly infamous Donald Trump ally Rep. Doug Collins, who is running to replace her in the Senate, is likely going to get much, much nastier, with "Loeffler's allies" forming "an outside group that will match anything [Collins] spends with attack ads.” The short version: Loeffler very much wants to keep her Senate seat, does not think much of the upstart Collins, and has enough friends with cash to make Collins' life as miserable as she wants to in coming weeks.

See there? And you thought there was no good news left in the world. Come for the Republican-on-Republican grudge match, stay for the AJC's reported Collins camp slap-calling Kelly Loeffler a "human-sized Mike Bloomberg spending the gross national product of Guatemala on her campaign."

It's fair to say that Rep. Doug Collins raised more than a few Republican eyebrows with his surprise announcement that he wanted to be a senator now. He appeared to believe that his aggressive, long-winded, and excruciating-to-listen-to defense of Trump during House impeachment hearings would result in Trump demanding that his loyal ally be given the Senate slot; unfortunately for Collins, Trump now has more lapdogs than the Westminster Kennel Club, and while Collins was able to get a bit of rote Trump praise, he does not seem to have stood out in Trump's mind as anything special.

Loeffler, however, has what Collins does not have: cash, and lots of it. Loeffler is a Republican mega-donor who claimed she would be spending $20 million of her own money to keep her seat. That made her a very, very attractive appointee for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to name to the seat while allowing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to devote his own Republican committee cash to other must-win races. Loeffler's appointment is part of the overall trend of big political donors getting impatient with the system and just demanding that they themselves hold the offices they have been paying others to hold.

Doug Collins can't compete with that. Also, Doug Collins is insufferable even at the best of times. Also also, Doug Collins appears to have peeved his entire party by inserting himself into a race that Republicans thought would be a nonissue this year, for no apparent purpose other than self-promotion.

And also also also, Doug Collins appears to have vastly overestimated the rewards he'd be getting for his ridiculous impeachment performance, in which he had a voluminous amount of things to say, none of which any of you remember because it was all rote, blustering nonsense. On the contrary, after the Senate voted to nullify the charges against Trump, it was Loeffler who got singled out for Trump praise. "She's been downright nasty and mean about the unfairness to the president," he gushed.

This is becoming a race to watch, if only to see how low two thoroughly terrible people can knock each other while their cherished Dear Leader watches on the nearest television set. Go, have fun with that. Spend as much money as you can while you're at it.

Fascism: Graham says Barr has ‘process’ for Biden probe, Russian investigators ‘going to jail’

Posted on by Hunter

Top sycophant Sen. Lindsey Graham took to the Sunday shows, of course, to bask in the Senate's nullification of Donald Trump's impeachment for using the tools of his power to extort the Ukrainian government into providing him "dirt" on a Democratic election opponent. It is not just Trump that appears to feel unleashed; Graham, too, was eager to describe the next steps of the administration-led descent into American fascism.

A first step: The Trump "private lawyer" Rudy Giuliani's smear campaign against the Bidens is now moving into Attorney General William Barr's Justice Department. Whatever Barr’s prior pretenses may have been, Barr is now explicitly establishing the means by which Rudy’s propaganda can be filtered into official “investigations” of Trump’s targeted enemies.

Throughout the House and press investigations into the Ukraine scandal, Trump Attorney General Barr either refused comment or denied that he was involved with the Giuliani efforts, despite Trump specifically naming both Barr and Giuliani as contacts for the Ukrainian president in the "transcript" of Trump's now-infamous phone call. Whether this was a lie or not—and it is almost certainly a direct lie by a complicit Barr—such pretenses have now vanished.

On CBS's Face the Nation, Graham said that the Department of Justice is now "receiving information coming out of the Ukraine, from Rudy." Barr's Justice Department, says Graham, has "created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it’s verified."

This means that the president's self-identified "personal lawyer", acting on behalf of known-corrupt pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs and ex-officials and in concert with two now-indicted launderers of Russian cash, is now directly channeling conspiracy claims against Trump's election opponent to the U.S. Attorney General's office. There is no longer any pretense of Giuliani's efforts not being state policy.

And this, in turn, means the claims of Russian organized crime-tied Dmytro Firtash, seeking to exchange "dirt" on Biden in exchange for the U.S. Department of Justice dropping his indictments in this country, are now being funneled through Giuliani directly into a Barr-led Justice Department that seems more then agreeable to making such a trade.

That was not the only assertion from Graham that Republicans and the Trump administration would be adopting new fascist policies of targeting and retaliating against Dear Leader's critics and enemies. Just after Trump removed multiple U.S. government officials (and a family member) who testified to the House impeachment committee despite Trump and Barr's standing orders to refuse House subpoenas, Graham indicated that many of those who investigated Trump will be heading to prison.

"We're not going to live in a world where as a Republican you get investigated from the day you're sworn in, three years later they're still coming after you," said Graham, erasing both Whitewater and the Benghazi "investigations" from the nation's history.

"Here's what amazes me. The Russian investigation, what happened? Half the people behind the Russia investigation are going to go to jail," the Republican told his Fox News host. "And Trump was cleared."

"When? Hopefully," host Maria Bartiromo mugged.

"Well, just hang tight," Graham responded.

We are now well into fascism, and it is the Republican Senate that is not merely looking the other way, but aggressively assisting Trump's team in its implementation. Those that testified against Trump are being removed, despite laws seemingly barring such retaliation. The propaganda efforts against Trump's targeted political foe spearheaded by Rudy Giuliani (financed, it should be noted, from Russia, as previous Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort was financed for his own role in manipulating Ukraine towards Russian interests while creating schisms between that country and the west) are now being pipelined directly into Barr's Department of Justice.

Barr, whose department attempted to stifle the Ukrainian whistleblower complaint and worked to sabotage all investigation of Trump, has issued orders that he must be informed of and approve of any new investigations that touch on a 2020 campaign or candidate—both giving him direct access to any information potentially damaging to Trump's foes while maintaining absolute power to block probes of Trump himself.

It is in this environment that Lindsay Graham, who has been one of the prime advocates of Trump's new, law-bending authoritarian powers, has confidence that Trump's prior investigators will be jailed. "Just hang tight," he tells his propagandizing state media host.

It is not likely that John Bolton's book will see the light of day, not with the White House insisting it contains "classified" information that will take an unspecified amount of time to review. It is not likely that the Republican Senate will take any action, even the most minor, to restrain the Trump team in retaliating against witnesses or to block Barr from turning the nation's Justice Department into a tool for smearing, and possibly jailing, Trump's adversaries.

Travel restrictions imposed against the non-compliant. The stifling of official information contrary to Trump's scattershot, often-delusional proclamations. Invented state propaganda. The celebration of pro-state conspiracy and white nationalism promoters. Escalating threats of far-right domestic terrorism.

The only path out, now that Republicans have morphed from a conservative movement to a fascist one, is election turnout so overwhelming as to swamp even these new, myriad election-rigging efforts. And even that may not be enough.

Here's Lindsey Graham telling CBS that Attorney General Barr has "created a process" where Rudy Giuliani can feed Biden dirt from Ukrainian sources directly to the DOJ, and the DOJ will then check it out pic.twitter.com/A6N8YV6tS9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 9, 2020

Lindsey Graham: Half the people behind the Russia investigation are going to go to jail pic.twitter.com/Xi9LQV6J9M

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) February 9, 2020

Fascism rises: Graham says Senate GOP will do whatever it can to expose the whistleblower

Posted on by Hunter

If you missed it, yesterday strident Donald Trump toady Sen. Lindsey Graham explained to Fox "Business" host Maria Bartiromo what he believes the Republican Senate will do next, after voting to immunize Trump from a clearly criminal extortion scheme meant to gain foreign help in winning his reelection. Graham said the Senate will move on from declaring that no administration witnesses must be called in an impeachment trial to calling a litany of Obama-era administration officials to interrogate them about Trump's targets in that scheme, Joe and Hunter Biden.

Graham also vowed to do something far more serious: Summon the "whistleblower" who first told Congress of Trump's criminal conspiracy. This is so that Graham and Trump's other Republican allies can interrogate Dear Leader’s nameless critic and, possibly, expose, threaten, and target that person to the full force of the Republican’s treason-approving, violence-threatening, mail-bombing base.

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Graham told his host, Angry Fascist Banana, that Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr told him the committee will be calling the whistleblower to testify. Graham said that he intended to expose "how all this crap started" and launched into a stream of absolutely false, propaganda-based conspiracy theories about who the whistleblower was "working with" that we will not repeat here. He did not, however, indicate whether Burr still intended to keep the whistleblower's identity secret or whether he had been pressured into changing his mind on that.

Graham, obviously, believes that he will find some conspiracy that will require, or at least justify, doing Trump's personal bidding by exposing the only White House-linked official in the entire administration who put their duty to their country above their fealty to a raving, corrupt man damaging national security and our elections for his own personal gain.

There can be little argument that the Republican Party is now a fascist organization. It has put Dear Leader above the rule of law. It has given Dear Leader an "absolute immunity" to solicit as much foreign government assistance as he can muster or extort for the purposes of throwing the next election in his favor, while insisting that it will still be a “free election” regardless of how much false, conspiracy-premised propaganda Dear Leader can bring to bear. Now it insists that Dear Leader's law-protecting supposed enemies be exposed, and made examples of.

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Sen. Joni Ernst, who is dumb, threatens to impeach Biden based on Rudy conspiracy theories

Posted on by Hunter

One of the problems with electing brick-stupid people as senators, as Republican voters have taken to doing in droves since the election of the first non-white American president broke what was left of their brains, is that those senators tend forever to be saying the quiet parts out loud.

Sen. Joni Ernst, inflicted on us by Iowa for some reason, has been (1) frothingly angry at the impeachment of Donald Trump for merely doing crimes, (2) eagerly leaping to television cameras to (for free) further the very same conspiracy Donald Trump was attempting to get out of the Ukrainian government for a few hundred million dollars, and (3) is now insisting that since Democrats meanly impeached Trump for crime-doing well maybe Republicans will impeach a theoretical President Biden too because screw you, that's why.

“Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him,’” Ernst told Bloomberg News.

For what reason?

“For being assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”

Bloomberg News notes, to their small credit, that this is not true. This is a conspiracy theory. In the real world as inhabited by those of us not raised by paint fumes, Biden demanded the removal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for not prosecuting alleged corruption in companies like Burisma. Biden was acting on behalf of the United States government and State Department to further an official United States policy, one shared by the European Union and by Senate Republicans themselves. Because Shokin, now Rudy Giuliani's bestest friend after he came up with a host of theories on why everyone in Ukraine but him were the crooked ones, was corrupt.

What Bloomberg News does not point out, however, is that this makes Joni Ernst a liar. Not just a liar, but either a willful propagandist or an unwilling idiot, someone who allegedly is responsible for help writing our laws but who has not, at any point, been able to grasp even the most fundamental of information about the trial that she just fidget-spinnered her way through. She is furthering a lie, and using it as reason why Dear Leader's new enemy must be retaliated against, and justifying both the lie and the retaliation on the indignity of Dear Leader being asked to answer for doing what even her fellow Republican senators agree was a crooked act.

Sen. Joni Ernst may be taking the fascist path on these things but she is, thank God, not a bright fascist. A smarter Republican would have shut their pie-hole long ago but she just keeps going, apparently on a mission to show that her home state of Iowa will put literally anyone in a position of Republican power. Liars, white supremacists, you name it.

Lamar Alexander: Trump might be too dumb to know how to not commit crimes

Posted on by Hunter

It was soon-retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander who effectively ended the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, doing so with a statement that asserted House managers had indeed proven that Trump used U.S. military aid as bargaining chip for obtaining a smear of his election opponent, but that doing so was merely "improper", and not an impeachable offense. Alexander thus settled on the answer that would do the most injury to our democracy and the rule of law: the "president" did it, the "president" was caught doing it, and the "president" is now allowed to do it, going forward, with no repercussions other than facing a vote he is now allowed, by Senate decree, to rig.

Defending this extremist, cancerous nullification on Meet the Press, Alexander did himself no favors. Alexander said that what Trump should have done, if he was so "upset" about Joe Biden and Ukraine, “he should have called the attorney general, and told him that, and let the attorney general handle it the way they always handle cases involving public figures.”

Why didn't he, asked his host? “Maybe he didn't know to do it,” Alexander said, letting loose a small chuckle after tossing that turd on the table.

Chuck Todd pushed back on this notion that Trump, entering his fourth year of office, was "still new to this"; Alexander allowed that "the bottom line it's not an excuse. He shouldn't have done it."

Let's just savor that, for a moment, as Alexander's continued defense for why Trump cannot be held accountable to the same standards as every other public figure corrodes our Constitution. Alexander is suggesting here that maybe Dear Leader was, as Robert Mueller's team concluded of Dear Leader Jr., during the last attempt by the Trump family to further international corruption if it is on their behalf, simply Too Stupid To Not Crime.

Trump may have an entire administration behind him, the top ranks stuffed with Republican radicals all, and a kept attorney general of his own mold, but Donald Trump is a stupid, stupid, stupid man. In three years nobody has been able to explain to him how to not crime. Through nearly a year of Rudy Giuliani scheming and Trump inserting Giuliani and his allied criminals into the decision-making loops of the State Department, White House and Budget Office, none of the myriad involved officials were able to inform him of how an "investigation" of such corruption would actually be done. If he were serious about it. If he had non-criminal motives.

Is it possible for Trump to be that stupid? Perhaps. He still believes "stealth" aircraft are literally invisible, after three years; his absolute immunity to learning absolutely anything is so impressive that we surely will come out of this with a new brain disease being named after him. It is less possible for every single member of his staff, sans John Bolton and subordinates, to also have accidentally crimed out of ignorance. Not impossible, but not likely.

In any event, the Alexander pitch is, somehow, worse than before. Not only has it been proven that Trump extorted Ukraine in order to gain an election favor, and not only is he now allowed to do that, the alternative being some (any) form of Senate check on his new discovered power, but Trump is allowed to break our laws if he is or can claim to be so very stupid that he simply cannot remember or absorb them.

If that were not enough, Lamar gave away the last bit of the game at the end.

"Now I think it's up to the American people to decide, okay, good economy, lower taxes, conservative judges, behavior that I might not like, the call to Ukraine. Weigh that against Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders and pick a president.

He broke the law, but we got our "conservative judges." He may have violated the Constitution, his oath of office, the public trust and the very foundations of our democracy, with the eager help of the Senate and the "conservative" press, but it is either rank corruption or electing a Democrat so rank corruption, hints Lamar, it is.

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Dave Chapelle Defends Trump Supporters – Says He Doesn’t See Them ‘As My Enemy’

Posted on by LifeZette

By PopZette Staff | January 30, 2020

The liberal world of Hollywood is so vehemently anti-Donald Trump that it’s rare to see any entertainer say anything that humanizes the president’s supporters, as doing this can be considered risky to one’s career. That’s why it came as a refreshing surprise when comedian Dave Chappelle spoke out this week to defend Trump supporters, going so far as to say that he understands why people voted for him.

During a conversation with reporters in Iowa this week, Chappelle said that while he personally supporters the Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, he welcomes fans from all sides of the political spectrum, according to Daily Wire.

“I don’t look at Trump supporters as my enemy at all,” Chappelle explained. “I understand why people voted for Trump, I understand people are desperate. And I think that Andrew is right you run against the reasons that Trump got elected. I got friends on both sides of the political aisle, I got fans on both sides of the political aisle.”

RELATED: Tulsi Gabbard Despised at CNN, Shut Out of Town Hall

Though Chappelle does not identify as conservative, he has teamed up with those on the right in the past to combat cancel culture, something that he despises. After he was given the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor back in October, Chappelle gave an acceptance speech that was widely praised by conservatives in which he defended free speech.

“I like not knowin’ what’s going to happen. I like makin’ memories. Sometimes I do all this crazy s*** around my colleagues just so they can tell their friends I did it,” Chappelle said at the time. “Rather than talk about myself, just briefly, I want to just talk about my genre. Stand-up comedy is an incredibly American genre. I don’t think any other country can produce this many comedians. Unbeknownst to many people in this audience, I don’t think there’s opinion that exists in this country that is not represented in a comedy club by somebody. Each and every one of you has a chance of bein’ in the room.”

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“We watch you guys fight, but when we’re together, we talk it out. I know comics that are very racist, and I watch ‘em on stage, and everyone’s laughin’, I’m like, that motherf***** means it,” the renowned comedian continued. “Don’t get mad at ‘em, don’t hate ‘em, we go upstairs and have a beer and sometimes I even appreciate the artistry that they paint their racist opinions with. Man, it’s not that serious. The First Amendment is first for a reason. The Second Amendment is just in case the first one doesn’t work out.”

Most entertainers avoid conservatives like the plague these days, so it’s nice to see someone as famous as Chappelle humanizing Trump supporters and saying that they have some good points of view. If only more celebrities would do the same thing.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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The post Dave Chapelle Defends Trump Supporters – Says He Doesn’t See Them ‘As My Enemy’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Will Joe Biden’s Mistakes Overshadow His Experience

Posted on by LifeZette

By Robyn Kenney | January 30, 2020

It’s clear in this sea of Democratic Presidential candidates that if Joe Biden fails to lock in the nomination, it’s nobody’s fault but his own.

Biden’s gaffes are often laughable, or even puzzling, like the odd stories he’s told about his youth:

However his recent aggression towards voters on the campaign trail show a more volatile side to Biden. Far from the friendly Joe of the Obama years who’s mistakes were usually more cringe-worthy than aggressive. 

RELATED: Warren Wants to Control Your Freedom of Speech

Try to watch this without laughing out loud: 

 

But lovable Joe Biden has shown a different side of himself; conveying either a lack of inhibition gone wrong, or perhaps, and more likely, a glimpse into a deep-seated arrogance that has given way to hostility. 

Watch the way Biden handles this man and takes hold of his jacket:

The problem still remains for the Democrats that Biden is their best shot at even coming close to beating Donald Trump. 

The former VP had the nomination teed up for him – but just like a high school athlete with a propensity to get into trouble who has a scholarship on the line – everybody around him is thinking, “Just get through the year without getting in trouble and it’s yours.”

That kid usually decides to participate in a senior prank that involves stealing farm animals and putting them on the roof of the school at night, gets suspended, and loses his free ride.

All Joe Biden has to do is not put a goat on the roof, and he will be fine. But he can’t help himself.

Biden has continued to argue with voters against the urging of his staff to move along, as heard in the video above. He presumably refuses to fully prepare for debates and media events, based on his responses to attacks from his opponents, and his overall verbal fumbling. 

Biden still has so much power over the other candidates, because as long as he’s moderately coherent and remains to appear confident in the wake of his mistakes – no one can beat his resume.

Joe Biden, by the fact that he served as Vice President for Barack Obama for eight years, with no major discord made public by the press or the administration, puts him light years ahead of any other democratic candidate. 

On paper, Joe wins. Just read his resume compared to that of say, Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg. 

Personality, presentability, and ethics aside, Biden should hands down be the nominee in this motley crew that has people subbing the phrase “voter enthusiasm” for “voter confidence”.

What about Bernie, they say. Well, Bernie’s a long-time, self-proclaimed socialist and if I have any faith in the voting population of this country to recognize the dangers of socialism it will be extremely rocked if Bernie won the nomination. 

I’m not that worried about it.

RELATED: Alan Dershowitz Hits Back at Elizabeth Warren

It seems in the end, we’re looking at Joe Biden vs. Elizabeth Warren.

Neither candidate is particularly trustworthy or captivating. And Joe Biden’s resume may hold more weight psychologically with the American voting public than we realize. 

There are new polls discussing the so-called trust factor of each candidate. In a recent survey from Quinnipiac University, the top trusted candidate was Sanders, followed by Biden, and then Warren.

Of course Sanders won “most honest” in this survey. He is literally always admitted that he wants to take everyone’s money and spread it around as he sees fit. No change in that platform.

You can trust Bernie to run the country off a cliff.

So unless I’m wrong about the majority of American voters being slightly weary of socialist policies; Sanders’ perceived honesty is a symptom of his maniacal radical views remaining consistent.  

People trust Warren less than Biden, not because Biden is proven to lie less than Warren, but because they trust him to run the show. They trust that he knows how to handle himself in the White House, to play it cool, and not run in the room with wild ideas about how to “fix” our entire economic system with a Robin Hood scheme. 

Biden knows what it’s like to be in high intensity situations and standby and listen. Warren is an intellectual egomaniac. It’s her way or the highway, and she has a lot of ideas.

If Joe Biden ever became the President of the United States, moderate Democrats can trust, for the most part, that he won’t be bullied by the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez agenda. He won’t go radical. 

Biden might pander to the far-left to keep things quiet, but if he were to become President, things wouldn’t be that different policy-wise then from then when Obama was in office. That scares conservatives, but is a relief to middle of the road Democrats.

RELATED: GOP Brings Out Three Big Guns in Senate Trial of Trump

When it comes to Burisma, or any other scandal, Biden has the connections, power, and money to cover up, or at least get away with most of it in the end. 

Look at Hillary and Benghazi. Or her email scandal. They made her sweat, but in the end she got away with everything. Other than the fact that she has to look in the mirror.

Scandal is not likely to bring down Joe Biden’s campaign, even if there’s truth to it. Only Joe can ruin his campaign – it’s his to lose. 

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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The post Will Joe Biden’s Mistakes Overshadow His Experience appeared first on The Political Insider.

Bribery. The crime is bribery. Say it

Posted on by Hunter

The Trump defense against impeachment is premised on layers upon layers of nonsense, but the notion that Donald Trump's act—suspension of military aid to a foreign nation until its government announced an investigation of his just-announced domestic political opponent—does not constitute a crime is among the most blatant.

Bribery. The crime is that Donald Trump demanded a personal bribe in exchange for an official act of his office. And soliciting a bribe is, unequivocally, a criminal act.

The defense theory that Trump was allowed to target a specific political opponent for an "investigation" as a supposed foreign policy is inherently corrupt. There is no other word for it. Criminal defender Alan Dershowitz went further still, claiming that if Trump believed that his winning reelection was genuinely in the public's best interest, then any action he took to sabotage his opponents would be legal and allowable. In every other public context, this is recognized unequivocally as an act of corruption.

Ex-House Republican Chris Collins was indicted for insider trading—using private information to make stock trades meant to benefit himself. Ex-Rep. Duncan Hunter was indicted for stealing, outright, campaign funds for his own personal gain. The then-governor of Illinois, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, was impeached, removed, and imprisoned for seeking to trade political appointments, an official act of his office, for personal bribes.

It is Blagojevich's case that is a close analogue to what Trump himself did. Trump unilaterally delayed military aid allocated by the House and Senate to a foreign ally. Trump distanced his White House from that government, refusing a meeting the newly elected Ukrainian leader considered of utmost importance in signaling to Russia that his nation had the support of the United States. He withheld both acts, indisputably now, to procure an announcement from the Ukrainian government that his potential election opponent was now being investigated for corruption.

That is soliciting a bribe. Trump could have requested that his Department of Justice "investigate" his election opponent itself; it would still likely be a crime. Trump could have made the request without using the tools of his office to pressure the desperate Ukrainian government into compliance; doing so in his official capacity as president would still likely be a crime. Trump did the most corrupt of all versions, however.

Trump demanded that Ukraine announce two specific investigations, one of Biden and one promoting an anti-Democratic Party conspiracy theory boosted by the same Russian government known to have targeted Trump’s election opponents in the past. The only investigations Trump demanded were focused on his domestic political opponents.

Trump coordinated the effort not through the United States' robust law enforcement and foreign policy agencies, but through his personal lawyer, working with now-indicted Ukrainian criminals, coordinating "evidence"-gathering with a known-to-be-corrupt Ukrainian official seeking to trade that evidence to Trump's team in exchange for getting his own criminal indictment squashed by Trump's Department of Justice. This gaggle of criminals was elevated above the official United States foreign policy apparatus, and quickly succeeded in getting a member of that foreign policy apparatus, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, removed from her position by convincing Trump she was a political, not a policy, opponent.

Trump ordered multiple members of his Cabinet to take official actions, actions determined at the time to be baseless and soon afterwards judged to be illegal, intended to put maximum pressure on Ukraine to comply in providing the “favor’ he’d asked for. He ordered his subordinates to perform official acts meant to extort Ukraine into compliance—literally at gunpoint.

Trump provided no public explanation for his acts, Trump's subordinates provided their own government subordinates no private explanations for those acts; an after-the-fact effort was launched to investigate any possible rationale that could be offered for his acts; White House officials swiftly moved to conceal his acts as numerous White House and government officials alerted White House lawyers of the potentially criminal nature of those acts; and when Congress eventually learned of his acts, Trump offered no explanation, but instead ordered all agencies to refuse document requests, subpoenas for testimony, and other basic tools of oversight.

Donald Trump sought a bribe from Ukraine. Donald Trump demanded that the government of Ukraine grant him two very specific personal favors, both targeting his election enemies, and withheld official acts of his government to procure them. Trump ordered his administration to take official acts to obstruct congressional investigation of those acts.

Seeking something of personal value in exchange for performing an act as a public official is seeking a bribe. It is not hard to understand. It does not matter if it is called a new "foreign policy" in which personal bribes are, now, supposedly both official policy and good for the country.

It's bribery. Just say it. And every Republican senator either knows full well that Trump was soliciting a bribe or, by denying it, has indicated that they too are sufficiently corrupt to consider demanding precisely the same thing in exchange for doing their own official duties.

That is likely the case. It is evident, at this point, that nearly every Republican senator both stipulates that Trump did exactly what John Bolton claims to be an eyewitness to and is taking the official position that members of their party are indeed allowed to solicit such "favors" without repercussion or recourse. But it is unambiguously bribery, and each of them is now conspiring in that act.

Who’s paying for Trump’s impeachment defense? Republican donors, yet again

Posted on by Hunter

Almost everything about Donald Trump's finances remains murky, because Donald Trump has refused to do the customary tax disclosure of what he owns and who owns him, while his cabinet blocks outright any congressional attempts to review that material. But we do know, in a bit of an ironic twist, who is paying for Trump's lie-filled legal defense during his Senate impeachment trial. You will not be surprised to learn it ain't Donald Trump.

The Trump defense is in large part being paid, reports The Washington Post, by the Republican National Committee. Yes, it is the Republican Party itself, through the donations of America's greatest suckers, that is paying to argue that a Republican-and-only-a-Republican president can demand that a foreign government assist his reelection efforts, and can use the tools of his public office to extort it into doing so. Impeachment word-sayers Jay Sekulow and Jane Raskin had received $225,000 as of November, says the Post, but we can expect that amount to balloon significantly.

The RNC's costs to defend Trump are expected to be in the millions, all of it coming from Trump-supporting Republican donors (presuming, of course, there's no Lev Parnas or other foreign-agent cash mixed in, which is not a bet anyone should take). This is less money that Trump's supporters have to donate toward actual Republican campaigns, so this is good news. That doesn't mean that the rest of America isn't on the hook for some of Trump's defense, however: Taxpayers of course pay for the Justice Department and White House-based government lawyers who have done their damnedest to obstruct the House's impeachment investigation and continue to argue vigorously that the Senate has no right to or need for evidence either.

But the rest of the details, like Trump's own finances, remain murky. Defender Alan Dershowitz claims he is not receiving a penny for his work defending Trump, which checks out, because Alan Dershowitz would consider national television time to be the best pay anybody could possibly give him, and will probably be using his own recordings ... privately ... for the next 10 years. Ken Starr isn't talking at all, because Ken Starr has gotten very reluctant to talk about much of anything since his most recent scandal—or maybe he decided he needs all the fact-hiding practice he can get, just to keep himself limber.

Sen. Martha McSally defends insulting a reporter with rambling, self-satisfied op-ed

Posted on by Hunter

Republican Sen. Martha McSally will never be mistaken for a person of integrity. She is, however, the sort of Trumpian person who likes to invent insults and fundraise off them by selling overpriced T-shirts emblazoned with them. McSally responded to a CNN reporter's question about whether she would consider new evidence in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump by calling the reporter a "liberal hack," saying, "I'm not talking to you," and walking away. Within hours, McSally's website sported a new "You're a liberal hack" T-shirt as fundraising gimmick. Bask, America, in the glow of the world's greatest deliberative body and its assembled merchandise.

All of that looked boorish, unnecessary, and more than a little cowardly; McSally also faced calls to apologize to the reporter who had asked a perfectly legitimate question of a public official. So now McSally's got a long, rambling, extremely whining op-ed out, complaining that she, of course, is the real victim here.

Again, let's keep in mind that the chief justice of the United States recently called the Senate by its preferred porn name, World's Greatest Deliberative Body, as we try to glean any meaningful content from this piece other than self-satisfied grunting noises.

McSally writes, "Predictably, his entire industry melted down. How dare someone – a woman, perhaps? – ‘lash out’ at a reporter like that! In a hallway, no less! The pearl-clutching was more over-the-top than I could have ever imagined."

All right, that is about enough of that. There's also quite a bit of McSally reminding the world that she is a veteran, saying that, "as a combat veteran who survived situations where foggy communications could get people killed, I don't have time for the language games they expect you to play in Washington."

Right, because insulting reporters and refusing to answer the most fundamental questions about the single biggest issue and story in the country today is saving people from "getting killed." So brave. So, so very brave.

The rest of piece seems to be an entirely contentless stream-of-consciousness bashing of the "liberal media" and "DNC talking points," and by God I flew 325 combat hours so I should be able to insult all the reporters I want to because they are "liars" and this is, yes, pretty much what Donald Trump himself would write if he did not have bone spurs and if he allowed ANYONE AROUND HIM to edit his burping thoughts into complete sentences.

But the central message is unmistakable: The press is "liberal"; therefore the free press is an enemy, and attacks on it are therefore not only justified but required of all Good Republicans as we trundle toward the great Republican future in which no reporters will ask questions that our lawmakers do not like. And you can support this new Republican future by buying our favorite insults printed on T-shirts.