Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts

Thursday, May 12, 2022

June 20, 2019: President Trump Decides to Attack Iran - Then Changes His Mind

 

6/20/19: The threat of war with Iran grows after Iran shoots down a $130 million U.S. drone. 

President Trump loves to bluster. Now he must puzzle out what to do. He talks to National Security Adviser John Bolton, a man who has never seen a Middle Eastern country he didn’t want to bomb. Bolton urges Trump to rain down destruction. 

Administration officials tell The New York Times that the president’s national security team is unanimous in favoring a limited strike against Iranian radar facilities and missile batteries. 

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warns that escalation may have unforeseen and dangerous results. 

Trump decides to attack!

 

Planes are on the wing. Ships move into strike position. Then, with ten minutes to spare, Trump decides he should really, really think about what “General” Tucker Carlson has said. The Fox News general warns that if Trump goes to war with Iran, he will never be re-elected. 

That clinches it. Trump aborts the mission and wastes millions of dollars of taxpayer money just for fun.



Bombers were on the way to Iran when Trump called them back.


 

* 

A BIPARTISAN BILL in the U.S. House of Representatives has been introduced. (You thought Congress could never get anything done!) The bill would require cellphone carriers to offer screening and call-blocking technology to customers, free of charge, within 18 months of the bill’s enactment. 

In May, alone, Americans received an estimated five billion robocalls from scammers and telemarketers. 

If the House and Senate can get a bill worked out and passed into law, it may boost the average approval rating of Congress at last. 

That average currently stands at 19.4%. The last time it was as high as 30% was August 29, 2009.

 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Trump later defends his change of mind, regarding the attack on Iran, saying he was not told till the last minute that the attack might kill 150 Iranians. He said the toll would be too high. He didn’t want to kill 150 people. 

(Several military experts say there’s no way the president wasn’t told about the toll up front in any planning session.) 

Then again, this president loves to talk loudly and wave his Big Stick. First, he tweets to all his fans, assuring them the U.S. was “cocked and loaded” and could have attacked if he really wanted. 

Trump was trying to have it two ways. First, he wanted to take credit for caring about Iranian lives. 

Still, he was one tough hombre, ready to kick Iranian ass.

 

General Carlson, however, was perfectly clear about what had swayed Trump. On his Friday night show, Carlson explained: “Bombing Iran would have ended his political career in a minute [emphasis added]. There would be no chance of reelection after that.” In other words, Trump would happily have killed plenty of Iranians if he thought it would make him look good. 

It was poll numbers, not numbers of dead, that convinced him to abort the attack. (See: 6/23/19.)

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

February 23, 2021: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Trump Must Show His Taxes

 

2/23/21: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Congress may indeed sneak a peek at Loser Don’s taxes.



Did the president pay taxes to support the government he led?

 

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“That’s fascism, not justice - and that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me, except that the people of our Country won’t stand for it.” 

Loser Don

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Rejected-President Trump reacts as only he can. In an email statement so nutty, we provide it (annotated) in full below, he howls: 

This investigation is a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country, whether it was the never ending $32 million Mueller hoax, which already investigated everything that could possibly be investigated, “Russia Russia Russia,” where there was a finding of “No Collusion,” or two ridiculous “Crazy Nancy” inspired impeachment attempts where I was found NOT GUILTY. It just never ends! 

At least a dozen members of the Trump 2016 campaign were convicted of lying about contacts with Russians. They include Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, both of whom Trump for some reason pardoned. Don Jr. also met with Russians, then “forgot” the meeting for over a year, until the free press broke the story.

 

So now, for more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S. The Tea Party was treated far better by the IRS than Donald Trump. The Supreme Court never should have let this “fishing expedition” happen, but they did. This is something which has never happened to a President before, it is all Democrat-inspired in a totally Democrat location, New York City and State, completely controlled and dominated by a heavily reported enemy of mine, Governor Andrew Cuomo. These are attacks by Democrats willing to do anything to stop the almost 75 million people (the most votes, by far, ever gotten by a sitting president) who voted for me in the election – an election which many people, and experts, feel that I won. I agree! 

The U.S. Supreme Court is not controlled by Democrats; so Trump should quit complaining. And he already lucked out once, after being named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the same case that sent his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to prison. 

Plus, any numbskull should be able to figure out that if Trump is cheating on his taxes, that doesn’t have anything to do with stopping all the people who voted for him in the last election. They got to vote. 

That ship has sailed.

 

The new phenomenon of “headhunting” prosecutors and AGs – who try to take down their political opponents using the law as a weapon – is a threat to the very foundation of our liberty. That’s what is done in third world countries. Even worse are those who run for prosecutorial or attorney general offices in far-left states and jurisdictions pledging to take out a political opponent. That’s fascism, not justice – and that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me, except that the people of our Country won’t stand for it. 

Really? The guy whose rallies consistently featured chants of, “Lock her up!” and “Lock him up!” is going to complain about headhunting prosecutors?

 

In the meantime, murders and violent crime are up in New York City by record numbers, and nothing is done about it. Our elected officials don’t care. All they focus on is the persecution of President Donald J. Trump.

 

I will fight on, just as I have, for the last five years (even before I was successfully elected), despite all of the election crimes that were committed against me. We will win!

 

I think we can assume that on his tombstone, someday, Trump will include the line, “I won the 2020 election by millions of votes.” 

He lost because turnout across the country was high, and because Joe Biden got 81.3 million votes, which is more than the 74.2 million Trump received. (Trump can’t even get the number of votes he received right.)

 

* 

RIGHT-WING media types are so desperate for ways to disparage the new president that they have been forced to insult one of the Biden family’s dogs. Greg Kelly, a host on Newsmax, decided that Champ, a 12-year-old German Shepard, looked dirty, and uncared for, and “like a junkyard dog.” 

 

Biden’s dog is terrible! His marriage sucks! 

He didn’t mention the Biden’s other dog, Major, the first rescue animal ever to live in the White House. He wanted viewers to believe Joe and Jill Biden were neglectful owners and probably deserved to be impeached. 

Since Newsmax beat him to the puppy punch, Tucker Carlson realized he would have to go even lower to make a point – that Joe Biden was a terrible president and a loathsome human being – and focus on the Biden’s 44-year-long marriage. Apparently, Tuck was bummed because the media couldn’t “get enough of Joe & Jill’s love story,” as the banner headline for his show read. 

Scoffing at the idea of a loving couple in the White House, he explained: “The Bidens’ affection is totally real. It’s in no way part of a slick PR campaign devised by cynical consultants determined to hide the president’s senility by misdirection,” Carlson claimed cynically. With a smirk on his face (pretty much one of only two expressions that ever register on Carlson’s smarmy mug), he added, “No, not at all. Their love is as real as climate change.”

 

Ha, douchebag! Both NASA and NOAA believe that climate change is real. So, Tuck, once again you prove you are an idiot; and watching your show makes viewers dumber every night. 

As NASA’s own website clearly says, “Scientific evidence for warming of the climate is unequivocal.” 

And the probability is 95% or greater that the warming is human-caused. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: Commenting on another U.S. Supreme Court decision, terminating his last-ditch challenges to the 2020 election result, Trump insisted again that he was the true winner of the contest. He did not wish to say, exactly, how victory was stolen from him, however, because the companies that his toadies insisted had rigged the vote have been suing those toadies left and right. 

Latest to be called to account: Mike Lindell, of MyPillow-right-wing-nut-send-in-the-troops-to-change-the-election results infamy. Lindell is looking at a damage suit for $1.3 billion. But he’s so delusional, he insists he has been hoping he’d be sued, so he can prove in court how right he has been all along.

Monday, March 21, 2022

April 27, 2021: Even GOP Lawmakers Want Us to Get Vaccinated

 

4/27/21: A group of Republicans in Congress, who happen to be health professionals, release an advertisement encouraging people to get vaccinated. In it, Sen. Roger Marshall, a freshman from Kansas and a doctor, and others wear “white coats with stethoscopes draped around their necks.” Marshall urges viewers to get vaccinated, “So we can throw away our masks, and live life as free as before.” 

This message, correct as it is, is necessary because over the last year countless other GOP voices have been raised in anger, devoted to downplaying the threat from the virus, insisting masks are symbols of oppression, and vaccines will change our DNA. Right-wing voters have been inundated with stupidity. Now the Republican medical people were doing their little part to bring light.


Mask protester in Germany.


 

It didn’t help recently, when Alex Jones insisted on his show that people who get vaccinated would be “dead within a year.”

Sunday, March 20, 2022

November 12, 2021: Steve Bannon Charged with Criminal Contempt

11/12/21: Steve Bannon, the Trump-pardoned scam artist, gets indicted on a charge of criminal contempt after refusing to respond to a congressional subpoena.


Can a guy get a pardon around here?


____________________ 

We should all want the legislative branch to check up on the executive branch. That’s why we call it “checks and balances.”

____________________

  

His testimony is wanted in an investigation into events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill. Bannon left the Trump administration in 2017, but the former president says anything he might had said about events of that day would be shielded by executive privilege. That would include anything Bannon knows about a meeting he attended on January 5 – when the president wasn’t present. 

To say this is a broad interpretation of what “executive privilege” involves is an amazing understatement.

 

We should also note that when witnesses appear before Congress, they may claim executive privilege in regard to specific questions. They can’t just hide out and wait until they get a pardon (again). 

Even Trump fans, and Trump-enabling lawmakers in Congress should be able to see why we want the legislative branch to have the power to subpoena witnesses and compel appearance. Otherwise, Hillary Clinton could have thumbed her nose at the committee that investigated Benghazi. 

President Biden could hide behind the same impervious shield for the next three years if he wanted – as could every other president to come. 

You don’t have to be a genius to grasp this concept. Still, most GOP lawmakers fail to grasp it.

 

In fact, on his podcast on Jan. 5, Bannon correctly predicted (or perhaps knew), “All hell is going to break out tomorrow.” 

Trump, of course, was impeached the second time, in part, on a charge of obstructing Congress.