White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:48:47 AM +00:00 · HunterIf you’re just joining us, Alan Dershowitz is giving a long lecture on how the founders would not want a president impeached for mere abuse of power, despite Alan Dershowitz previously arguing the opposite. He’s trying to put a legal spin on Ken Starr’s argument that there are Too Many Impeachments These Days.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:52:45 AM +00:00 · HunterDershowitz now arguing at length that merely being a “dishonest” leader is not impeachable, which is probably not going to go down well with an already-fuming Trump.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:54:44 AM +00:00 · HunterDershowitz has spent quite a bit of time defending his own complete reversal of opinion on the issues he’s arguing tonight, which does not help Trump but does help Dershowitz as he claws at credibility in the highest-profile television show he’ll ever be on.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 1:58:58 AM +00:00 · HunterNext up: Trump’s legal team will communicate via magic crystal with the Founding Fathers, who will say they agree with Donald Trump in every way. Wait, the crystal broke—so we’ll go with Cipollone, one of the Trump defenders implicated in the very acts that landed Trump here to begin with. He says he’s closing up for the night and promises it won’t take long.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 2:02:21 AM +00:00 · HunterCipollone lied about this not taking very long. And again, he is ignoring the facts of the case at hand and arguing procedure and Too Many Impeachments These Days. “Imagine if all that energy was being used to solve the problems of the American people.”
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 2:04:02 AM +00:00 · Hunter“This choice belongs to the American people. They will get to make it months from now.” So the “Constitution” prevents you from removing the traitorous idiot and crook from office. And we’re done.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace slammed conservative pundit Katie Pavlich on air, telling her to “Get your facts straight” after she tried to claim all kinds of made-up facts in her defense of Donald Trump. In question was Pavlich’s revisionist retelling of how the Democratic House’s impeachment inquiry was hampered by obstruction. In Pavlich’s imagineering, the Democratic Party is breaking with impeachment tradition by pushing an incomplete case, “and every impeachment beforehand, the witnesses that were called had been called in the House before being brought to the Senate. So there are questions here about the process.”
That’s not true. It’s not even a little bit true, and Wallace cut Pavlich off to tell her as much: “They hadn’t all been called in the House, and in the Clinton impeachment, they’d been called by the general independent counsel. They had not been called by the House.”
Right-wing pundit Katie Pavlich is just the kind of dumb that Trump’s Republican Party loves: willing to toe any line of misinformation, no matter how many obvious facts and contradictions there are. Appearing on Fox News with conservative luminaries such as Brett Baier, Pavlich was promoting the old conservative trope that the difference between Clinton’s impeachment trial and Trump’s is that the Democratic Party keeps trying to add new things to it, because it’s going so terribly. The basis of this bit of bullshit is that Donald Trump’s White House has refused to allow anyone to testify, while his Department of Justice has done more work trying to cover up his criminal behavior than any of the actual work it’s supposed to do as a department.
Wallace has been as critical of President Trump as anyone can be on the Fox News network, even admitting to the public that Trump has damaged our freedom of the press. But it’s hard to tell whether Wallace is angry at the lies being spread, or how stupid the spin is. The segment opened with Wallace saying proof that the John Bolton news that broke over the weekend was “big” was how intensely people like Pavlich were trying to spin it.
xWhoa, sparks fly on Fox News: Chris Wallace tells @KatiePavlich, "Get your facts straight!"Â @BretBaier then says, "Let's tone it down." pic.twitter.com/7IyBch5q6K
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 27, 2020
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.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, and their whole crew are back to continue the opening arguments in the impeachment defense of Donald Trump. They gave a brief preview on Saturday, which was exactly what you’d expect: lies and attacks. They resume in the wake of reports that former national security adviser John Bolton’s book recounts a conversation with Donald Trump in which Trump explicitly tied military aid to Ukraine investigating his political opponents—exactly what Trump was impeached for—but it’s unlikely that will change the basic lie-and-attack strategy.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:02:14 AM +00:00 · HunterA new face in the Trump defense lineup: Robert Ray, who so far is repeating Ken Starr’s arguments that there is too much impeachment these days so everyone should just go home.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:05:19 AM +00:00 · Barbara MorrillRobert Ray, the latest Trump lawyer to yap, tell us that Nixon committed a lot of crimes when he wasn’t impeached.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:07:23 AM +00:00 · Hunter“Impeachment was never intended to be a partisan tool,” says Ray, ignoring that the problem here is that one party and only one party believes Corruption is Good Now.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:13:53 AM +00:00 · HunterAfter the fireworks of Pam Bondi brazenly lying about the basics of Shokin’s corruption, Ray’s return to a long, meandering “and we tied an onion to our belts, which was the style at the time” reminiscing brings things back around to where we were this morning. This impeachment is partisan and improper, because we say so, and Trump’s crimes aren’t serious, like lying about sex, but only attempts to tamper with the fabric of our elections (again.)
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:23:38 AM +00:00 · HunterI’m not ignoring Ray, I just once again have no idea how this ties into an actual defense of Trump. He’s instead arguing that a “partisan” impeachment is “illegitimate”, the alleged crime wasn’t serious enough, and the House did it wrong, ad nauseam.
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020 · 12:27:04 AM +00:00 · HunterNow Ray is again saying the evidence of a quid-pro-quo is “weak,” again completely ignoring the new Bolton revelation that Trump directly told him he was holding up military aid for a Biden investigation—debunking this entire plank of the defense. All of this is now gibberish.
The Republican Party continues forward with its oblique defense of Donald Trump’s impeachable crimes. This on the heels of bombshell news that former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his soon-to-be-published memoir that Trump froze the congressionally earmarked financial aid to Ukraine subject to them opening up a public corruption investigation into the Biden family. By any measure this would be a smoking gun. In fact, back in September, even Fox & friends’ Steve Doocy could agree to that. In a clip you can watch below from Sept. 24, 2019, Doocy explains how the whistleblower complaint only means something if someone could truly point to Donald Trump withholding aid because he wanted an investigation into a campaign rival—Joe Biden.
STEVE DOOCY: If the president said, you know, “I’ll give you the money but you’ve got to investigate Joe Biden,” that is really off-the-rails wrong.
Ainsley Earhardt agreed.
xSteve Doocy: "If the president said 'I will give you the money but you've got to investigate Joe Biden,' that is really off-the-rails wrong. But if it's something else, you know, it would be nice to know what it is." pic.twitter.com/wWpuLqeRUT
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) September 24, 2019
Steve Doocy spent Monday pushing back those goal posts, while Fox News brought on corrupt politician after corrupt politician to pooh-pooh these bombshell revelations. Speaking with alleged sexual molestation accessory after the fact Rep. Jim Jordan, Doocy asked this of the new Bolton allegations. Calling these allegations something that “we have heard before,” Doocy went on to both illustrate exactly why the news is damning, while also saying it didn’t matter now, for no reason.
DOOCY: This is something we have heard before but now, because it’s John Bolton, and he was in the room, what does this change?
Media Matters put together this clip showing Doocy in September and Doocy on Monday.
xwe all knew it would come to this, and yet it's still so amazing to watch pic.twitter.com/HJp1bK9UNJ
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) January 27, 2020
Listen, everybody has the right to change their minds about things. In fact, as more and more evidence is revealed, one should be able to change their mind as they now have new information to work with. And yet, somehow, Steve Doocy is so filled with the poison of cynicism, he is able to seamlessly change the parameters of the argument in such a way that it makes me wonder if Steve Doocy’s mind is simply filled with a gaseous sulfur-smelling void.
By Andrew Spalding | January 27, 2020
While hosting the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, singer Alicia Keys took the opportunity to call for President Donald Trump to be impeached.
Breitbart News reported that Keys took the stage near the beginning of the show to perform her own version of the song “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. The star revamped the lyrics of the song to include reference to various nominees at the music show, including Ariana Grande and K-Pop group BTS. However, she also made sure to include some lyrics about impeaching President Trump.
“Tonight we must unite in spite of all the news that we’re seeing,” Keys sang as she also played piano. “It’s like so crazy. I don’t even watch TV.”
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“Commander in chief impeached, y’all get out, let’s bring Cardi B. Cardi — can you please show all these people what to do?” she added.
someone you loved – alicia keys version pic.twitter.com/azRyQNobnf
— nadz ☻⁷ (@hwafully) January 27, 2020
Cardi B is a 26 year-old former stripper-turned-rapper who has been open about her hatred for President Trump. Over the past few weeks, Cardi B has begun saying that she wants to run for Congress, and she has even earned the endorsement of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
I do feel like if I go back to school and focus up I can be part of Congress.I deadass have sooo much ideas that make sense.I just need a couple of years of school and I can shake the table .
— iamcardib (@iamcardib) January 13, 2020
Unfortunately for Keys, her little political moment backfired on her, as social media users made it clear that they don’t care what she thinks about the current president.
Who really cares what you think?! Don’t use the stage to spew your political hatred. Nobody values your opinion.
— kerry foust (@kerryfoust) January 27, 2020
https://twitter.com/OlszowyHank/status/1221768532318478336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
DOES EVERY CELEB EVENT HAVE TO BE POLITICAL? YOU ARE PREACHING TO THE CHOIR, a group of people who live in La La land and have no idea what it's like to live in the real world anymore. You are making $$$ making music, why not spread love, instead of your hatred for the President?
— Joseph J Gomez aka Joe Gomez (@Joseph_Gomez) January 27, 2020
Keys’ move was particularly classless given the fact that the Grammys took place hours after the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, who was killed on Sunday morning in a helicopter crash along with his 13 year-old daughter and seven others. Keys opened the show by paying tribute to Bryant, and it was hoped that she and her fellow stars would be able to put their leftwing politics aside for an evening to honor the athlete.
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“We are literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built,” Keys said to kick off the show.
Unfortunately, Keys just couldn’t resist still using the awards show to take digs at Trump like the ignorant liberal elitist that she is.
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
Read more at LifeZette:
Rocket Strikes U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
Congressional Democrats Add Insult to Injury by Alienating Second Possible Impeachment Trial Swing Vote
DEVELOPING: More GOP Senators Could Defect in Impeachment Trial
The post Alicia Keys Demands That Trump Be Impeachment While Hosting Grammy Awards appeared first on The Political Insider.
