Market politics

[Intl Professor]

Color me a mama's boy, but I admit it. One of the fascinations for me is how real women are and we disagree with them at our peril. I think it is George Bernard Shaw in Man in Man and Superman who causes John Tanner to say “No man is a match for a woman without hobnailed boots and a whip. Perhaps not even then.” (My mother's only act of violence was a green switch applied to a bare space you know where just once. Stings like hell.)

For another example witness this: Opinion | The Perils of Abstraction

With the conclusion: “It would serve each of us well to make a collective effort to inventory our beliefs, assess how much they rely on abstractions, and consider how a move away from the abstract and toward the concrete might bring us all closer to understanding what winning looks like.”

Timely advice this electoral season.

 

[bkp_duke]

Of course it smells, and I am offended by stink, but which laws of US or Ukraine were violated by either Biden? Curious minds would like to know so as to weight and validate the outrage you feel. In the case of Trump by his own admission he has used taxpayer funds to bribe a foreign official to interfere on his private behalf. According to our Constitution that is treason by definition and there are more than two witnesses. Critics and supporters of Trump will respond, "But is treason an impeachable offense?" In my eighties my sense of smell is deteriorating but with a long life committing sins I have more moral sense than that.

May I be the first to cast this stone? Do I protest too much?

Interesting, I would say bribery laws (fire the prosecutor that is investigating the company that my son works for, or no aid). Hypocrisy, it's EXACTLY what the Dems are accusing Trump of, but I would argue the evidence is stronger against Biden than Trump.

I do NOT, after reading the direct transcript (not the crap that the left media is embellishing) believe that Trump comes remotely close to what you assert he has done. Mark my words, the Impeachment vote will be along party lines, and the Senate will acquit. In the end, this will be a colossal waste of time.

 

[bkp_duke]

He was not the President of the U.S., he did not break any laws. Investigate all you want but it's a waste of time.

He was the VICE PRESIDENT, if you want to split hairs. He specifically said, on video, that Ukraine aid was withheld unless the investigator was fired. That's loads more evidence than anyone has on Trump. You have at best a questionable transcript, and a handful of SECOND hand (NOTE: not a SINGLE witness has said they had first hand info to back up the accusations - you get a lot of "it was assumed", or "I heard from someone that heard from someone"). The "evidence" against Trump is a joke. It's completely partisan, and it will only lock up Trump's base for the 2020 election.

 

[bkp_duke]

MODERATOR:

I am getting the very strong impression that there are some here who are using the term “fascist” as the same kind of dog whistle to leftists that other terms appropriately have been described as performing a similar function to conservatives, etc.

Summary: apply the same kind of level-headed, REASONED analysis and logic when discussing political events outside your own country as is asked for when analyzing the situation in the US, UK, EU and so forth. This “political “ thread exists against the strong wishes of TMC’s owners - do not present reasons to have it disappear.

Thank you for letting the thread exist. I made my posts before I caught up to this post, but I believe they are in compliance with your instructions.

 

[JRP3]

I do NOT, after reading the direct transcript

Don't you mean the edited, redacted transcript, since the actual transcript has not been released?

 

[JRP3]

He specifically said, on video, that Ukraine aid was withheld unless the investigator was fired.

Which was the policy of the US and it's allies. How many times must that be said before you stop ignoring it? Everyone wanted that corrupt investigator fired.

 

[winfield100]

As I tell my kids, two wrongs don't make a right. It is becoming clearer and clearer that Hunter Biden had ZERO qualifications for his "job" with Burisma and that he was only given the job for access to his father. . . . hrm, that sounds VERY quid pro quo to me.

Investigate Trump, but the Bidens do NOT get a free pass on this at all.

Correct, two wrongs don’t make a right, but 3 lefts make a right

 

[winfield100]

My current thoughts include both that (1) with Congress fairly unequivocally having abrogated its Constitutionally mandated SOLE responsibility to be the ones to declare war;

and

(2) that one of our recent Dingbats-in-Chief declared a “War On Terror”,

that, therefore, just about anything goes also insofar as declaring who or what the enemy is....AND as to what is providing succor to same.

Words matter, you numbskulls!

How do you have “war” on an idea or concept?

 

[AudubonB]

Answer:

As I wrote - via a dingbat.

 

[AudubonB]

Answer:

As I wrote - via a dingbat.
Apologies for the snarkiness but I’m on the iPhone; can’t really type or write.

 

[bkp_duke]

Which was the policy of the US and it's allies. How many times must that be said before you stop ignoring it? Everyone wanted that corrupt investigator fired.

I don't recall you actually producing said policy. Produce it, and I'll shut up, but you are making a Grand Canyon sized assumption there.

 

[bkp_duke]

Don't you mean the edited, redacted transcript, since the actual transcript has not been released?

Better than Shiff's impromptu BS he tried at the beginning of the Impeachment proceedings . . .

At BEST that was bad comedy.


Question for the left - you do know there is ZERO chance Trump is removed from office, right? Are heads going to explode when that become reality?

 

[JRP3]

Question for the left - you do know there is ZERO chance Trump is removed from office, right? Are heads going to explode when that become reality?

My head will remain intact. There is plenty of evidence that the Republicans will likely support him no matter what crime he commits. That doesn't mean the Dems shouldn't push the impeachment since it's the right thing to do.

 

[JRP3]

I don't recall you actually producing said policy. Produce it, and I'll shut up, but you are making a Grand Canyon sized assumption there.

If he was sometimes wary of U.S. intervention, in this case Biden defined a broader rationale on behalf of the United States: dismantling the influence of Russia. The U.S. view was widely shared: European nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank offered Ukraine aid, loan guarantees and political support, so long as the government in Kyiv implemented reforms to make Ukraine less corrupt and more economically stable.

In the fall of 2015, U.S. officials begin targeting Shokin specifically. Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state, said during congressional testimony in October 2015 that the prosecutor general’s office needed to clean up corruption including the “dirty personnel” in its own office.

“He became a single point of failure,” Kahl, Biden’s national security adviser, said of Shokin. “We could keep pushing corruption cases, but unless there was a fundamental change at the top, things weren’t going to change.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...178618-f1cf-11e9-b648-76bcf86eb67e_story.html

In Kyiv, Biden privately informed Poroshenko of the decision and the demand: Fire Shokin, or you lose the loan guarantees.

“Poroshenko was clearly disappointed,” said Colin Kahl, Biden’s national security advisor at the time.

In an interview, Poroshenko recalled “heated” but cordial discussions with Biden.

He said the loan guarantees were contingent on meeting International Monetary Fund benchmarks, including replacing the prosecutor general. Biden was not alone in his demands, Poroshenko said.

“Pressure on us came from everywhere: the activists, political forces, embassies, international organizations,” he said, adding that the names of Hunter Biden and Burisma never came up.

Here is what Joe Biden actually did in Ukraine

But sources ranging from former Obama administration officials to an anti-corruption advocate in Ukraine say the official, Viktor Shokin, was ousted for the opposite reason Trump and his allies claim.

It wasn't because Shokin was investigating a natural gas company tied to Biden's son; it was because Shokin wasn't pursuing corruption among the country's politicians, according to a Ukrainian official and four former American officials who specialized in Ukraine and Europe.

Without pressure from Joe Biden, European diplomats, the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations, Shokin would not have been fired, said Daria Kaleniuk, co-founder and executive director of the Anti Corruption Action Centre in Kiev.

"Civil society organizations in Ukraine were pressing for his resignation," Kaleniuk said, "but no one would have cared if there had not been voices from outside this country calling on him to go."

What really happened when Biden forced out Ukraine's top prosecutor

 

[Norbert]

I don't recall you actually producing said policy. Produce it, and I'll shut up, but you are making a Grand Canyon sized assumption there.

Aside from JRP3's reply: It seems like you don't know much outside of the coverage by FoxNews and similar outlets. Elsewhere it is common knowledge that at the time the prosecutor was fired, the investigation had already become dormant, and that not only the US but also several others were asking for a prosecutor who would investigate more (not less) into corruption, and that there was corruption in that prosecutor's office itself.

 

[Norbert]

Question for the left - you do know there is ZERO chance Trump is removed from office, right? Are heads going to explode when that become reality?

No, Trump will feel encouraged to take it up a notch, and it will get even worse. This is the last opportunity for a (somewhat) graceful exit by the republican party. If they don't take it, their place in history will become exceptional.

 

[dmunjal]

Tulsi Gabbard on Jimmy Dore going after Saudi Arabia. She's got balls. Along with the banks and the military industrial complex, our relationship with Saudi Arabia along with Israel is a topic that neither party will criticize.

 

[MikeQ]

I've no idea why Trump incessantly lies about everything.

View attachment 475889

He's probably referring to H.R. 2515 Whistleblower protection Reform Act of 2019, which he did sign into law. This law doesn't cover the whistleblower in question though. That would have been the 1998 law. I'd say he's more confused than lying.

 

[Paracelsus]

Krystal Ball knocked it out of the park again today with this segment on Tulsi and on the DNC:

 

[EVNow]

He's probably referring to H.R. 2515 Whistleblower protection Reform Act of 2019, which he did sign into law. This law doesn't cover the whistleblower in question though. That would have been the 1998 law. I'd say he's more confused than lying.

Possible - I'd not think Trump really understands what he is signing. Just a gist of whatever the staff tells him.