All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[shooshoomanjoe]

-https://fox4kc.com/2019/10/06/9-shot...ty-kansas-bar/

I wonder if Hispanics were the target.

[Tami]

GOP Rep. Chris Stewart responds on Fox: “It does not matter. This person is going to come forward and say, yep the president had this phone call. And yep, we have this transcript. Why should I care at all?”

Twitter Link

[Tami]

All Americans should support Donald Trump impeachment inquiry. Here’s why | Editorial

Twenty-one years ago, the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial board called on Bill Clinton to resign from the presidency.

“As well as the responsibility to lead the country through political and economic problems, there is a moral standard that applies to the office of the president,” the editorial board wrote on Aug. 19, 1998, two months before the U.S. House handed down articles of impeachment.

But Clinton wasn’t about to resign, at our urging or anyone else’s. Neither will Trump. His overwhelming narcissism would never allow it.

That’s why it’s essential for the House’s impeachment inquiry to play itself out.

We already know — from the White House’s own account of the call — that Trump asked a foreign leader for the “favor” of digging up damaging information on former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential 2020 rival for the presidency.

The whistleblower complaint that outlined the president’s abuse of office during that phone call contains many more elements that need to be thoroughly examined. All Americans should be able to agree that we deserve to know the facts, even if the president and his minions would prefer we didn’t.

But just like 20 years ago, a portion of the American public is unwilling to hold our head of state to a presidential standard. To any standard, really.

[4saken1]

U.S., North Korea break off nuclear talks

Deals made: zero.

Well I guess there goes Trump's chance at the Nobel Peace Prize!

[Gray Lensman]

All Americans should support Donald Trump impeachment inquiry. Here’s why | Editorial

What Trump has done in public view is much, much worse than what Clinton did. It isn't possible to support Clinton's impeachment and not Trump's without sinking into the lowest depths of hypocrisy. The reverse isn't true, however, just because of what Trump is accused of doing.

[InformationGeek]

Twitter Link

...well that's something.


Meanwhile, other people losing their minds. Here's my senator, Ron Johnson, going off the deep end.

WATCH: @SenRonJohnson is asked why he winced & brings up a "conspiracy theory."

@chucktodd: "I have no idea why we're going here. ... Can we please answer the question I asked you instead of trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you're not criticizing him?" #MTP

And then this:

Chuck Todd: “You dont trust the FBI or CIA?”
Ron Johnson (R-WI): “No, I don’t! I didn’t then and I never have.”
That is a real quote from a United States Senator

[Tami]

...well that's something.


Meanwhile, other people losing their minds. Here's my senator, Ron Johnson, going off the deep end.



And then this:

Maybe it has something to do with this?

Predictably, the Russians are gloating over the fact that GOP lawmakers met with their Russian counterparts in a secret room.

Twitter Link

[Tami]

This 18-Year-Old Mass Shooting Survivor Is Running For Office — And Someone Just Tried To Stab Him

HOUSTON — Last Thursday had already been pretty hectic for Marcel McClinton before a man tried to stab him.

The 18-year-old gun violence prevention activist is running for city council in Houston, but he turned up late to a political breakfast, where he served biscuits to black seniors and asked for their vote. Then he drove back across town to grab the business cards he’d forgotten at home, headed to city hall to pore through donor contributions, and sat for a photo shoot and hourlong interview with BuzzFeed News.
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Then McClinton arrived at a community meeting that ended up being a register to vote event — which he can’t campaign at, so he left quickly. He then dashed to a candidate forum on the other side of Houston to give a quick stump speech to local Democrats, before speeding down the road to an endorsement screening for an Asian American PAC.

On his way home, he pulled into a Starbucks on Memorial Drive for an iced latte, when he heard shouts for help. When he came to assist, a man who had just stolen beer from the gas station next door lunged at him with a knife, just inches from his face. The man continued to swing the knife at McClinton, while the teen called 911. He then helped chase the thief into bushes across the road to keep him away from confused onlookers who didn’t seem to grasp that the man had a weapon.

“I didn’t want him to go on a cutting spree,” said McClinton. “And if he had a gun, we’d be dead.”

Guns are something McClinton thinks about a lot. After surviving a mass shooting near his church in May 2016, he helped to organize the March for Our Lives Houston rally, where 15,000 people turned out in Texas to protest gun violence.

[Tami]

Barr’s review of Russia investigation wins Trump’s favor. Those facing scrutiny suspect he’s chasing conspiracy theories.

Attorney General William P. Barr has taken an interest in a mysterious European professor whose conversation with an adviser to President Trump’s 2016 campaign helped launch the FBI investigation into possible coordination with Russia — and who has since become the focal point of an unproven conservative theory that the entire inquiry was a setup, people familiar with the matter said.

Those involved in the FBI investigation said they are mystified by the attorney general’s activities and interest in the professor, Joseph Mifsud, and they suspect that Barr might be using Justice Department resources to validate conjecture that Mifsud was deployed against a Trump adviser by Western intelligence to manufacture a basis to investigate the campaign.

“It just seems like they’re doing everything they can to delegitimize the origins of that investigation,” said one person involved the Russia probe, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive matter that is still being reviewed. “I just don’t think there’s any real basis to disparage it.”

[Malvolio]

Not suspicious at all:

Botham Jean's neighbor, a key witness in Amber Guyger trial, shot to death in Dallas

But it makes no sense. If you're going to have a witness killed, wouldn't it make more sense to do it BEFORE he testifies?

[Malvolio]

-https://fox4kc.com/2019/10/06/9-shot...ty-kansas-bar/

This almost sounds like an episode of Sons of Anarchy.

[PaulBullion]

But it makes no sense. If you're going to have a witness killed, wouldn't it make more sense to do it BEFORE he testifies?

Sends a message to future witnesses: You testify against a cop, you get executed ASAP.

[4saken1]

Sends a message to future witnesses: You testify against a cop, you get executed ASAP.

Yep. Not to mention if Guyger ever gets an appeal for any reason, there's one less witness.

[Mister Mets]

Sends a message to future witnesses: You testify against a cop, you get executed ASAP.

It would require a lot of risk to send a message that has to be kept vague enough to be easily denied.

[PaulBullion]

It would require a lot of risk to send a message that has to be kept vague enough to be easily denied.

No, it would not.