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

[worstblogever]

I'm still pissed about Trump slagging the Kurds for not being at the beaches of Normandy as Turkey invades.

It's like...

1) The Kurds DID assist the allies.
2) Sure, the Kurds weren't at Normandy... but it's because it was a SURPRISE LAND INVASION. Do you know what would have given that surprise away? If thousands of Kurds tried moving across the entire European theater of the War to show up for D-Day. F***ing moron.
3) Trump still hasn't criticized the Nazis at Charlottesville, so maybe the bloated prick should avoid throwing stones about who's doing their part to stand up to Nazis.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Oh f************k off with that.

When I first heard about that, my jaw dropped and I thought, "No! Trump couldn't possibly be THAT idiotic!" But then, I reminded myself that we're dealing with Trump who'll say ANYTHING, safe and sound in the knowledge he won't be called to task by his party for his ridiculous comments.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Turkey's Syria invasion: Member of US Special Forces says, 'I am ashamed for the first time in my career'

A member of U.S. Special Forces serving alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria told Fox News' Jennifer Griffin on Wednesday they were witnessing Turkish atrocities on the frontlines.

“I am ashamed for the first time in my career,” said the distraught soldier, who has been involved in the training of indigenous forces on multiple continents. The service member, whom Griffin described as "hardened," is among the 1,000 or so U.S. troops who remain in Syria.

“Turkey is not doing what it agreed to. It’s horrible,” this military source on the ground told Griffin. “We met every single security agreement. The Kurds met every single agreement [with the Turks]. There was no threat to the Turks -- none -- from this side of the border."

“This is insanity,” the concerned U.S. service member said. "I don’t know what they call atrocities, but they are happening.”

Griffin called it one of the hardest phone calls she has ever taken.

U.S. military officials told Fox News the president ordered the military not to get involved in the Turkish strikes, after the Kurds requested air support.

Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria are guarding thousands of captured Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, now without the help of the U.S. in the area.

The Special Forces member said the Kurds have not left their positions guarding detainees. In fact, “they prevented a prison break last night without us," the military source on the front line said. “They are not abandoning our side [yet]."

Yeah, but WE abandoned THEM. A dark moment for American foreign diplomacy.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Yeah, but WE abandoned THEM. A dark moment for American foreign diplomacy.

America's foreign policy is nothing but darkness.

This isn't the first time the US has fucked the Kurds over, but it will be the worst.

[Mister Mets]

Because that's yet another selectively biased inference of yours not backed by actual immigration data and therefore not worth even addressing.

You pick and choose what you want to believe, which is why it's pointless to engage you on a factual level.

Linking to opinion pieces is not a valid substitute for real data based on actual Democratic legislation and rule (Clinton and Obama).

Like many Republicans, your perspective is based on fear, which is why Trump plays your party like a fiddle.

This time you also neglected to quote the entirety of my post, including a section in which I addressed the points on legislation and immigration data.

[jetengine]

Away from Trump for a moment. Any thoughts on the NBA and Activision censoring their work because of China ?

[aja_christopher]

This time you also neglected to quote the entirety of my post, including a section in which I addressed the points on legislation and immigration data.

And you failed to address the fact that your opinions are rooted in fear, which is why Trump plays your party like a fiddle.

You cited an opinion piece that validated your own personal biases, not an unbiased comparison of immigration data under Democratic (Obama and Clinton) presidencies versus Republican presidencies.

You've already shown that you care little for facts when they don't suit your purposes regardless, whether it's on racism, the economy, the deficit, climate change, homophobia or nearly any other area where everyone -- including you -- knows your chosen party is lacking in integrity.

Your argument for allowing your party to abuse immigrant children and families basically comes down to "but the Democrats would be worse" -- yet you show no real verifiable evidence that this is true.

[Tendrin]

Hey, look! More corruption!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...m_npd_ms_tw_ma

Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, two foreign-born donors who gave money to a political action committee supporting President Donald Trump, were arrested Wednesday night and face charges tied to campaign-finance violations, two law enforcement officials confirmed to NBC News.
The pair are expected to appear in federal court Thursday.

Fruman and Parnas worked with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, Giuliani has previously said, as part of his dealings in Ukraine that involved efforts to encourage the nation to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Parnas is Ukrainian, while Fruman is Belarusian, according to the indictment unsealed Thursday.

[PwrdOn]

Away from Trump for a moment. Any thoughts on the NBA and Activision censoring their work because of China ?

What would people think if an executive of a Chinese company started commenting on sensitive American political issues and then cried foul if people boycotted his products? People are seriously overreacting to this like they do with pretty much everything that involves China. Why is it that this is the one arena where we still hold up smarmy white men as the ultimate authorities and dismiss the opinions of anyone who might actually know a thing or two because they're all brainwashed sheep incapable of forming their own thoughts?

[Tendrin]

Federal immigration officials wrongfully jailed U.S.-born Francisco Erwin Galicia for nearly three weeks, until a combination of reporting and public outrage finally led to his release. Months later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still appears to be targeting this American citizen for deportation, The Dallas Morning News reports.
Attorneys said they believe ICE still has its eye set on the 18-year-old because a notice to appear in immigration court that he got when he was initially taken into custody has been filed with a judge. “Based on the fact that Galicia received this most recent notice,” they told The Dallas Morning News, “he remains in deportation proceedings until a judge cancels the proceedings or ICE terminates the case based on prosecutorial discretion.”
But Francisco and his attorneys have already presented his documents, numerous times, and from the day he was initially detained at a Border Patrol crossing in Texas. But officials have doubted the authenticity of his documents, even as it was clear that they were the ones who were lying, when Customs and Border Protection chief Brian Hasting falsely told Congress that the young man had never claimed to be a U.S. citizen. “I always said I was an American citizen,” Francisco said.

But we should totally trust ICE, guys.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...eks#view-story

[Tami]

The Trump administration wasn’t rooting out corruption in Ukraine. It was encouraging it.

When President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open up a case on his political opponent Joe Biden, the only thing unfamiliar about the request from a Ukrainian perspective was that it was coming from a U.S. president.

Ukrainian presidents have used their prosecutor generals to prosecute their rivals for corruption since the country was founded in 1991. If there was one constant in Ukrainian politics before the election of Zelensky, it has been the use of graft to enrich the top elite — and the threat of selective prosecution to keep that elite in line.

Ukraine’s watershed 2019 elections were an effort by Ukrainians to put an end to corruption and the selective justice that sustained it, but behind the facade of Ukraine’s formal institutions, there have always been elements of a “blackmail state.” Thus, in seeking the criminal investigation of a rival, Trump administration officials weren’t fighting corruption in Ukraine — they appeared to be reactivating corrupt networks for their own political gain.

Nearly 20 years ago, secret recordings from the offices of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma were leaked to the public. While not as historically consequential as the recently released record of the conversation between Zelensky and Trump, this was big news. My research, for instance, looked at what these recordings showed about corruption in countries like Ukraine — and the role of the prosecutors general.

Here’s what they revealed. Behind the formal facade of the government was an informal system of rule in which the president and his subordinates monitored, encouraged and partially controlled graft — including bribery, embezzlement and self-dealing of state contracts.

Scholars have shown that informal institutions such as those in Ukraine can be very sticky. Two Ukrainian revolutions — in 2004 and 2014 — didn’t end the widespread corruption of Ukraine’s elite, or the role of the Ukrainian prosecutor general in protecting that elite from prosecution.

Petro Poroshenko’s prosecutors are a case in point. A year after taking office in 2014, President Poroshenko installed a loyal lieutenant — Viktor Shokin — as prosecutor general. There was broad pressure from the international community to push Shokin out for his failure to prosecute corruption. But Poroshenko just replaced him with another lackey, Yuri Lutsenko, the leader of Poroshenko’s political party in the legislature and a man who didn’t even have a law degree. Under Lutsenko, there were no high-level corruption prosecutions either, and he stymied efforts to establish an independent corruption court.

All of this puts the recent efforts of the Trump administration to pressure the new government of Ukraine into perspective. Zelensky just won an election on the promise of tearing Ukraine’s corrupt system out by the roots. Zelensky and his political party in parliament just pushed through reforms of the prosecutor general’s office to make it less vulnerable to political pressure and graft. Privatization of land and other reforms are in progress to shut off the many ways that corrupt officials have exploited state assets in the past.

The Trump administration, in its push to get the Ukrainian government to investigate Burisma Holdings, the firm where Hunter Biden served on the board, was not rooting out corruption in Ukraine. With the help of people such as U.S. envoy Kurt Volker, who knew how to navigate Ukraine’s shadows, the Trump administration was trying to reactivate that old corrupt system for its own ends.

Pressuring a government to put its legal system in the service of political ends through selective prosecution of cases is not part of a “wider context of rooting out corruption.” On the contrary, it is precisely what keeps these countries corrupt.

[Tami]

George Conway and other prominent conservatives call for ‘expeditious’ impeachment probe

More than a dozen prominent conservative lawyers, including George T. Conway III, offered their legal reasoning for an “expeditious” impeachment probe into President Trump, creating a document they hope will be read by Republicans who continue to stand by the president.

The 16 attorneys, many of whom worked in Republican administrations, wrote in a joint statement to be released Thursday morning that Trump’s now infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the text messages between diplomats and Trump’s public call for China to investigate a political opponent are “undisputed” events that amount to Trump violating his oath of office.

“We have not just a political candidate open to receiving foreign assistance to better his chances at winning an election, but a current president openly and privately calling on foreign governments to actively interfere in the most sacred of U.S. democratic processes, our elections,” they wrote.

[wjowski]

Away from Trump for a moment. Any thoughts on the NBA and Activision censoring their work because of China ?

They are reaping the rewards as we speak.

Now if only the same happened to Vince and WWE over Crown Jewel.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump lashes out over Fox News poll that shows majority support his impeachment

President Donald Trump expressed his displeasure Thursday with a Fox News poll that found a majority of registered voters believe Trump should be impeached — a record high in the survey.

The poll came after House Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry into the president over his call to have his Ukrainian counterpart investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a top political rival.

"From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good @FoxNews Poll," Trump tweeted. "Whoever their Pollster is, they suck. But @FoxNews is also much different than it used to be in the good old days. With people like Andrew Napolitano, who wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice & I turned him down (he's been terrible ever since), Shep Smith, @donnabrazile (who gave Crooked Hillary the debate questions & got fired from @CNN), & others, @FoxNews doesn't deliver for US anymore. It is so different than it used to be."

"Oh well, I'm President!" he added.

Which begs the question: Can this marriage be saved? Well, as long as Sean Hamhocks, Fucker Carlson and Laura Ignoramus continue slurping Trump, he won't bail on his personal propaganda network. Meanwhile....

**********

As Trump disavows Kurds over WW2, Republican anger grows

Republicans savaged President Donald Trump Wednesday for allowing Turkey to attack US allies in Syria as the President offered varying reasons for giving Turkey the green light, including the fact that Kurds did not fight alongside the US in World War II.

Turkey launched its military operation to flush Kurds allied with the US out of northeastern Syria sparking outrage in Congress, creating rare bipartisan unity about the risks to the Kurds, US national security interests, regional stability and the fight against ISIS.

Trump apparently gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the go-ahead on Sunday to proceed with his long-planned move against Kurdish fighters who make up part of the Syrian Defense Forces and who lost thousands of men fighting with the US against ISIS.

"News from Syria is sickening," Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking Republican in the House, tweeted Wednesday, echoing lawmakers across the spectrum. "Turkish troops preparing to invade Syria from the north, Russian-backed forces from the south, ISIS fighters attacking Raqqa. Impossible to understand why @realDonaldTrump is leaving America's allies to be slaughtered and enabling the return of ISIS."

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland on Wednesday announced a framework to place immediate sanctions on senior Turkish government officials, ban all US military business and military transactions with Turkey, and immediately activate 2017 sanctions on the country until Ankara stops its operations against the Kurds.

"This unlawful and unwarranted attack against an American friend and partner threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of civilians, many of whom have already fled from their homes elsewhere in Syria to find safety in this region," Graham and Van Hollen said in a statement.

"This invasion will ensure the resurgence of ISIS in Syria, embolden America's enemies including Al Qaeda, Iran, and Russia, and launch yet another endless conflict in what had been, until today, one of the most safe and stable areas of Syria and a region experimenting with the best model of local governance currently available in that war-torn country."

The hopeless cynic in me suspects all this Republican outrage is nothing more than window dressing to convince the public they aren't mindless drones slurping Trump 24/7, but it's all bullshit. Sooner than you think, those angry GOPers will fall back in line and resume the task they've been doing with bottomless zeal for the last three years....slurping Trump 24/7.

[BeastieRunner]

Turkey Hits Towns And Villages With Airstrikes During 2nd Day Of Syria Invasion.