All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Senate Republicans say Trump should be held accountable for riot -- but not by them

Senate Republicans want their cake but they don't want the mess. Let someone else deal with this.

Cowardly Republicans are hoping, if not praying SDNY nails Trump's orange hide to the wall so they don't have to face the wrath of the Donald's lemmings, either figuratively or literally.

[Immortal Weapon]

I need to find the full interview. Chris Cuomo is calling out Robinhood CEO on his bullshit

https://twitter.com/LynettLam/status...95173709766657

[TheDarman]

Senate Republicans say Trump should be held accountable for riot -- but not by them

Senate Republicans want their cake but they don't want the mess. Let someone else deal with this.

Ehh...this isn’t ideal, but at least they are offering alternatives means of punishment. If you want to be Lindsey Graham and claim the trial is unconstitutional, then offer up an alternative: how should ex-presidents be investigated and punished for the things they have done towards the end of their time in office or when it was done prior to a quick resignation? The thing is that too many other Republicans want to claim that Trump shouldn’t be held accountable at all. If more had this tact, I wouldn’t like it, but it at least make some kind of sense.

[Amadeus Arkham]

Senate Republicans say Trump should be held accountable for riot -- but not by them

Senate Republicans want their cake but they don't want the mess. Let someone else deal with this.

We all know that if it was the other way around and it was Obama who incited a deadly riot to stop the certification of an election he lost it would be the Republicans who would chopping at the bits for impeachment - even after he left office. These ghouls are partisan cowards to the very end.

[CSTowle]

We all know that if it was the other way around and it was Obama who incited a deadly riot to stop the certification of an election he lost it would be the Republicans who would chopping at the bits for impeachment - even after he left office. These ghouls are partisan cowards to the very end.

If he had just slept with Stormy Daniels while married, forget covering it up by paying her hush money, forget the questionable use of campaign funds to pay off his lawyer for paying her the money it would have been the biggest scandal by a wide margin of the Obama Presidency. Way bigger than Tan Suitgate, Latte-Salutegate, or any of the Birther nonsense. And if it had happened I'd bet everything I own Sean Hannity would have derived more pleasure from the affair than Obama ever could have.

Not sure where it ranks for Trump scandals, but I don't think it makes the top 20. Sex stuff sells though, so probably had an outsized amount of attention paid by the media (have to get clicks and ad-buys).

[Kirby101]

We all know that if it was the other way around and it was Obama who incited a deadly riot to stop the certification of an election he lost it would be the Republicans who would chopping at the bits for impeachment - even after he left office. These ghouls are partisan cowards to the very end.

Except Obama, or any Democrat, would not do that.

Remember the Brooks Brothers Riots in Florida 2000, this is part of the GOP playbook.

[Tami]

Ukraine stayed quiet during Trump-era pressures. Now it’s sharing some Giuliani tales.

KYIV — There was a consistent message from Ukraine's leadership over everything from the Trump campaign's dirt digging to Ukraine's central role in the first impeachment proceedings: No comment.

But now, as the Biden administration settles in, some close allies of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky are opening up about one of the longest-running dramas from the Trump era — the blitz of meetings, messages and public statements in Ukraine by former president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Among the accounts emerging from Ukrainian officials is a July 2019 phone call between Giuliani and Andriy Yermak, formerly one of Zelensky’s top aides and now his chief of staff. Yermak said the conversation was the first direct contact between Giuliani and the Zelensky administration and, until now, was only discussed in general terms.

The Zelensky team’s decision to talk about Giuliani’s tactics coincides with efforts for a reset in relations with President Biden, who dealt closely with Ukraine during his eight years as vice president.

“We’ve gotten through all these trials, despite criticism at home and abroad,” said Yermak. “And today, this feeling that Ukraine — the mention of Ukraine — is associated with various scandals should disappear.”

[Jack Dracula]

Ehh...this isn’t ideal, but at least they are offering alternatives means of punishment. If you want to be Lindsey Graham and claim the trial is unconstitutional, then offer up an alternative: how should ex-presidents be investigated and punished for the things they have done towards the end of their time in office or when it was done prior to a quick resignation? The thing is that too many other Republicans want to claim that Trump shouldn’t be held accountable at all. If more had this tact, I wouldn’t like it, but it at least make some kind of sense.

My hope is that despite what they say to the press some of these GOP Senators and congresspeople are willing to work under the table with Democrats to hold Trump accountable. I can't believe all of them want to continue to work with the likes of Cruz, Hawley, Paul, and Taylor-Greene.
If only those mythical sane Republicans would organize and flood their representatives with emails, tweets, and phone calls urging them to act. They need to demonstrate that Trumps' followers and Qanon don't represent the entire party.

[Malvolio]

My hope is that despite what they say to the press some of these GOP Senators and congresspeople are willing to work under the table with Democrats to hold Trump accountable. I can't believe all of them want to continue to work with the likes of Cruz, Hawley, Paul, and Taylor-Greene.

Plus, this time we will have witnesses testifying live in C-SPAN. So if Republican Senators still want to vote to acquit, they will have to answer to constituents who will have seen that testimony. I'm not saying that will guarantee a conviction, but it will make it a bit more difficult for Republican Senators to just dismiss what Trump did.

[kidfresh512]

Plus, this time we will have witnesses testifying live in C-SPAN. So if Republican Senators still want to vote to acquit, they will have to answer to constituents who will have seen that testimony. I'm not saying that will guarantee a conviction, but it will make it a bit more difficult for Republican Senators to just dismiss what Trump did.

Their constituents are who they are afraid of is the problem. If they weren't scared of that crowd and being primaried etc. they would easily get rid of trump.

[Tami]

Kevin McCarthy on Twitter

President Biden told us he would have a plan to defeat the virus on day 1. He just never told us that it would be to give the vaccine to terrorists before most Americans.

Ummm....say what?

[Mister Mets]

Kevin McCarthy on Twitter

President Biden told us he would have a plan to defeat the virus on day 1. He just never told us that it would be to give the vaccine to terrorists before most Americans.

Ummm....say what?

It's a stretch to call it Biden's plan, but detainees in Guantanamo will start receiving the vaccine.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/29/khalid...in-guantanamo/

Accused terror masterminds like KSM and other detainees at Guantanamo Bay will begin receiving the coronavirus vaccine, the Pentagon confirmed Friday, even as the United States continues to experience severe shortages of the miracle jab.

A spokesman for the Department of Defense confirmed that officials had signed an order which will see COVID-19 vaccinations “offered to all detainees and prisoners.”

The shots could be given as soon as next week.

“It will be administered on a voluntary basis and in accordance with the Department’s priority distribution plan,” spokesman Michael Howard told The Post.

Forty detainees remain at the United States military prison in Cuba, including the man accused of plotting the worst attack on US soil, which claimed 2,977 inncocent lives on Sept. 11, 2001, and has since been linked to thousands of other deaths.

The order was signed on Jan. 27 by Terry Adirim, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs who was sworn in as a Biden appointee on Inauguration Day, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed.

The move immediately sparked outrage from New Yorkers who lived through and helped bring New York back from its darkest day.

“You can’t make this up. The ridiculousness of what we get from our government. They will run the vaccine down to those lowlifes at Guantanamo Bay before every resident of the United States of America gets it is the theater of the absurd,” said Tom Von Essen, who was city Fire Commissioner during 9/11 and lost 343 firefighters on 9/11.

“It’s f—ing nuts,” he said of KSM getting the vaccine before most Americans can.

John Feal, a demolition supervisor at the Ground Zero pile in the aftermath of the attacks who has various 9/11-related illnesses, and who has not yet gotten the vaccine, was stunned by the news.

“The fact that the 9/11 community can’t get the vaccine and the terrorists can show how backward our government is,” he told The Post. “It’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. It’s an insult to the people who ran into the towers and were killed and those who worked on the pile for months and are ill.”

The average 9/11 responder was 38 at the time and are now age 58-59, short of the cutoff to get the vaccine in New York, said Feal, who runs the Feal Good Foundation, an advocacy group for 9/11 responders and who helped push Congress to permanently extend the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.

Brian Sullivan, a retired special security agent with the Federal Aviation Administration, said, “I’m incensed. It’s totally outrageous. I’m 75. I haven’t gotten my COVID vaccine. They’re going to give it Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?”

[Gray Lensman]

It's a stretch to call it Biden's plan, but detainees in Guantanamo will start receiving the vaccine.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/29/khalid...in-guantanamo/

If one inmate gets it it puts every guard at risk, and the guards there come from military barracks. Why is the NY Post against protecting American servicemen?

[Tami]

If one inmate gets it it puts every guard at risk, and the guards there come from military barracks. Why is the NY Post against protecting American servicemen?

It's probably more like an inconvenient fact that can be minimized or excluded.

[Kirby101]

There are 40 inmates at Gitmo now. Is this really a problem whether they get vaccinated or not. Trump left us high and dry with no vaccine plan, and THIS is what traitor McCarthy wants to concern himself with. Trying to find crap just to attack Biden is not an act of unity, as if the GOP ever wanted that.