Trump enters the stage

At a subversive undertaking, somewhere East (East London, that is) yesterday, together with a group of other disparate individuals… all there for a common purpose, we ended up all huddled together in a big black tent to take shelter (kinda) from the wind and the rain and started cracking jokes and telling funny tales of other subversive undertakings we had attended. About an hour or so later, we all started laughing at differing tales, ending in only one or two laughing at the same tale or just our own, so what we laugh and smile at is most definitely group/ethnic-specific, I agree.

On observation, we were definitely selected for our look… some for their sky-blue eyes, others for their green to hazel glowing eyes, and others for their big-baby-brown almond-shaped cat-like eyes… all having a focused (but not intense) gaze, of that of perceiving but not judging, and so being but not becoming… any one thing. Everyone agreed on my observation, once pointed out.

Non-practicing Roman Catholic, but one cannot escape or deny the moulding effect that such an environment has on the psyche, combined with (Bengali) meditation, that forms the mind into an East meets West mentality… but we all have our own individual combination of formative-moulding, when those windows of formative-opportunity open up throughout our lives.

Are we not a combination of the two… of how we appear to others and how we perceive ourselves? the external/appearance, and the internal/physiological, confirming the I/of who intrinsically are.

The mind can accommodate/make concessions, but too many beyond one or two and it becomes a big ask, and who’s got time for that in one lifetime? no-one, that’s who.

Rembetiko sounds very Middle-Eastern/Arabic, no? We can all relate I’m sure, but not feel what the other feels, and we have our own inherited feels to deal with, so anything else becomes a system overload on the (over)burdened.

I, myself, am brown, but I cannot identify with all whom are brown, so I identify with that of my last past ancestry, or a combination thereof… that of being Caribbean. This does not stop me from having compassion for and/or interacting with others, but I prefer mine Organic, not Forced, like days of yore. There is such a thing as too much, and so self-optimisation/adjustments becomes not do-able within one lifetime… it’s a big and unthinkable ask.

I had compiled my reply earlier this afternoon, but it got lost… never to be re-trieved.

Exactly. Distinguishing and calculable differences are synthesized in fact, rather then approximated by indifferentiable polls of primary identifiable set of criteria.
As such a means. are opinion based reality reification are based, and objectively and premordially jumped to.

It suits some, to deem all as black, or white, or brown, or whatever, for their own means to an ends that suits them.

Care to clarify on what you’ve said above, further, Meno_ I don’t quite understand.

Don’t worry. Neither does he.

Well, I’ll await Meno_’s clarified reply, regardless of what you’ve said.

Are you channeling Scrooge tonight, or simply reverting to your default demeanour?

Before I clarify the narrative in question, like to affirm both: of not being understood and not really understanding myself.

That much is obvious. And really, guys the admission of not understanding myself is also duplicitous and mired
In the kinds of swampiness that we find yourself asking, over and over again nowedays.

Why? Because as an occultist, with psychical attributes, leaning toward ego dissipation, ) where as you, agean, find the ego in the middle, I find it in a flow that varies between positions. The ego may vary from the right and the left , politically, psychologically depending .
I have explained in detail, about that kind of indeterminacy to those who rather view the ego as a divisor between realities . The primary affect and the secondary effect. And so on.

But the ego can identify primarily with cultish and primitively reduced animal behavior, which is more akin to the reified animal feelings of sub conscious beings. for whom , reaction drives animals more as reflected feelings , ideated by facial recognition of feelings. Animals react but the automatic conditioned behavior absorbs most emotion.

Nietzche and Heidegger make this difference, and will relate this preferentially. But since it is late , will defer that to tomorrow .

The Joker, in the first film had to have his smile surgically sown unto his face, and that Joker is the equivocal political figurehead of Trump.

His facade become compressed between political expediency and a narcissistic internal dynamic.

The ego thus, is purposefully disassociated from the control of simulated affects,in order to stay the political criteria, and vice versa.

I don’t see a problem with this, and the questionable narrative that You have trouble with is underlined by the above stated dicothomy -between Nietzche and Heidegger . But I will try to make the argument more sensible and reductive on an other occasion.

The very uncertain description by language does increase uncertainty in
situ, and a reified form of verbatim interpretation, will end the argument in closer and closer spiraling topological pathologies.

This is why interprwtation has always a need to be reduced into contradiction, and here I agree with the idea that zero sum functions further complicate things.

The fact that I have to leave this now as partially derived, has.to do with limitations of time.

To sum up:

The distinction appears between Nietzche and Heidegger, and in between them , Husserl, very generally, filled up with particulars later, in that intentionality within an unsignified specific reified type,which can not with exactness transcend an objective tying animal and human motivation.
There are gaps, which matter, for animal behavior can not be regressed without transcending an exact point, a missing link between primates and man. Such transcendence is expressed in Heidegger, but nor it in Nietzche.

This point needs clarification, but it needs rereading …
But it can be safely said that Heidegger, especially in ‘Being in Time’ does interpret an intentionality within the continuum

This is significant for many reasons, and there is a need to establish ground for these kinds of interpretations. It also is possible to draw lines, within which the extrinsic political factors can collude the psychological considerations.

It may be objected to, that a such collusions of a politics of the experience can not be contraveryed with the experience of a psychological politics, but there is room in the mix for a social-psychological matrix to be put within .

Again I can questions as what this means, for I approach the a priori fillers within a larger representative bounded matrix, the content will fill into it, as a hypothetical can let duration be a guide as to when that happens.

I will not quote ‘Being and Time’ from beginning to end, only relevant parts to support the ideas behind it.

That there is an unassailable difference in Heidegger’s understanding of Nietzsche, is a worth enough subject to investigate.

These types of philosophical investigations will not negate Wittgenstein’s effort at containing the literal extensions of meaning, but include them within a wider ranging venue.

I think the difference is cogent enough to cut the element of a regressed civilizations a matter more consistent in one than the other.

A Nietzchean overextension of meaning in Heidegger, can effectively change underlying reactive processes,
and challenge race specific .claimes more tenuous .

I wish to be not as mystifying, of how a caricature like Trumpism may arise , and become a functional power to attain a will, with which power snowballs into an unfathomable intensional, objective construct.

Finally such reasoning , having precedence may not be as ubiqtuous, as alleged, since historicity, does by definition can not cover it’s own tracks, to get rid of mistaken assertions, only a well displaced revisions with strong connections with the prior, can be left unchallenged.

In fact, it is far easier to understand Heidegger then Nietzche, and may be this is the reason for the differing narratives,that are easier to take liberties with. (As in N’ obscurity.)

You may consider an analysis as involved as this , and compare it to a certain professor , bordering on comic relief, in Foucalt’s Pendulum, or the earnest attempt of a serious search into the very roots of the problem, it makes little difference, since there is a measure of truth in either, or both approaches.

I hope this did some justice to unwarranted and slanted claims .

Even if, treated periphally, some call to simplification does not uncover an effort at a cover up. You be the judge, after all.

Nietzsche diagnosed the dis-ease but did not trace it to its organic origins, but only to its conscious expressions - evaluations, judgments.

Wittgenstein correctly saw how modern disorders expresse themselves linguistically but offered no solutions because his kind benefited from obscurity and confusion, inspiring later generations to justify the ‘end of philosophy’ and the meaninglessness of language.

To imply that existence is intentional is to return to ancient superstitions.
Only life has intent - the word can only be used in reference to it and only it - an awakening to existence.
Existence has no intent, no telos, no motive. To believe that it is even absolutely, completely, ordered is to project organic prejudices into its inorganic essence.
Complex unities can be explained without it, using the simple interactivity of energies - attracting/repelling and harmonizing, or disharmonizing.
No intent required. So, to insist exposes the mind’s intent - projection.

Politics, and marketing is entirely psychology based, and this is where the defensiveness of nihilism can be traced. It is what is being exploited and manipulated by those who intuitively understand it.

And this is where the argument slams into a differentially unresolved brick wall: the difference between the general and the specific acquisition of cultural types.
This is where when the general sources require a multiform approach, as in all realms of science, the onto logical priority, the reflective one, which this is the exact point of the succeeding series of modeled
economy of the calculus of species differentiation, entailing all substantial forms of capital, having no descriptive exits from the Protestant ethic of the sense of production , to the epostomolagocallly different general forms of special relativity . This proceeds regardless of who thought it up. The identity of the ‘who’ simply does can not matter, theories have been politically deconstructed as.to whether Darwin or Kammerer’s approach of evolution fits best a programmable series of.functional analysis,l.
Humanity comes before it’s differential types can develop, that also is really a fact.
Can a partially differentiated typicality presume such partiality before such succession can be realized? Probably not.
These generic considerations , while approaching a continuum of general anthropological sequences , proceed uninterrupted without tracing differentiability at a certain point ?At this time , the idea of a missing element between a late animal and the very first Adam, again sets a useless game in improbable exact points of digress.
In the same in borderline psychopathology, what subtlety of difference is there that approaches general treatment of neurosis from the larger series of triggers that psychopathology presents, in treating of a differential patterns?
There is no sign which can account for it. This is why Jumg broke off of Freud’s circle.

It does really not matter whether the most basic sense of it lies in a level of certainty where it chases it’s own tail, am argument resting in an indifferentiable series of signs, that Wittgenstein points to, ideas capture the signs them selves generally, before functional applications can ‘clarify’ them.
No, Ideas are not dead in thenl water then essential supposition preceeds even it’s own hypothetical , being IT’s own progenitor.

Nature preceded nurture in an absolute sense and it has a primordial and reflexive ontogenesis, primary differentiation between it’s unrecognized elements a lasting trace of cosmological certainty.

And lastly , this is why the phenomenological world is preposesses by the eidectic, because interpretation is judged as substantial, as if it was conductance of matter, but it matters not, even if the dialectical is primarily of first order signification or second. The de construction of that notion does conclude justly that the deconstruction of repeated calculus of many variables proceed irrespective of whether awareness of it is a sine quo quid, or a quid pro quo . Existential dialectic does proceed in a wholly determinate pattern, in fact it is not even realized as such, because it is not primarily consistent with matter, it simply does not matter.
De construction points to both, a necessary and cognitively parrelel universes inference subsisting in and with relative contingencies, family of resemblances set in an absolute and immutable set of what may be best described as apeothetic divination.

House Judiciary Committee says it could draft ‘new articles of impeachment’ against Trump

PUBLISHED MON, DEC 23 2019 3:10 PM EST

Kevin Breuninger

Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee say that the panel could draft and recommend “new articles of impeachment” against President Donald Trump if additional evidence is revealed by former White House counsel Don McGahn.

McGahn’s testimony is “relevant to the Committee’s ongoing investigations into Presidential misconduct and consideration of whether to recommend additional articles of impeachment,” the panel’s lawyers write.

Democrats have been fighting for months to enforce a subpoena for McGahn to testify as part of the impeachment proceedings in Congress.



Don McGahn, White House counsel, listens during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.

Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee said Monday that the panel could draft and recommend “new articles of impeachment” against President Donald Trump if additional evidence is revealed by former White House counsel Don McGahn.

Democrats have been fighting in court for months to enforce a subpoena for McGahn to testify as part of the impeachment proceedings in Congress. They argue that McGahn’s testimony is “central” to parts of the House committee’s investigation into Trump, which is not yet complete even though the Democrat-led chamber passed two articles of impeachment against him last week.

And McGahn’s testimony is “also relevant to the Committee’s ongoing investigations into Presidential misconduct and consideration of whether to recommend additional articles of impeachment,” lawyers for the Judiciary Committee wrote in a submission to the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals.

“If McGahn’s testimony produces new evidence supporting the conclusion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the Articles approved by the House, the Committee will proceed accordingly—including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment,” the lawyers wrote.

Trump was impeached on two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — related to his efforts to have Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announce investigations involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, and a debunked conspiracy that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump allegedly withheld hundreds of millions of dollar in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine while he was pushing for the probes into his political rivals. His administration refused to comply with congressional Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, and it has pressured numerous government witnesses not to cooperate.



The Judiciary Committee’s court filing Monday followed an entry from attorneys for the Justice Department, who argued that the House’s vote to impeach Trump undermines the push from Democrats to have McGahn’s subpoena enforced quickly.

The DOJ lawyers wrote that there is no longer “any justification for otherwise expediting the Court’s decision in this case,” outside of an already-scheduled Jan. 3 hearing, where both sides will argue their cases.

But the Judiciary Committee’s attorneys countered that Trump’s impeachment in the House has “reinforced,” rather than undercut, the need for an “expeditious resolution of this appeal.”

McGahn, the lawyers argue, was a key witness to Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice detailed in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election meddling and possible coordination between the Kremlin and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

McGahn could help the Judiciary Committee establish a “pattern of obstructive behavior” that would bolster the case for impeaching him on obstruction of Congress, the panel’s lawyers wrote.

“The Committee continues to suffer harm with each additional day that it is denied access to McGahn’s testimony,” the lawyers wrote. “The Committee should not be required to wait any longer.”

Trump’s holiday menu: handouts for billionaires, hunger for the poor

Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib



Republicans defend cuts to food stamps by saying that keeping people hungry will make them work harder. But we know this is just about cruelty

When it comes to billionaires benefiting from the generosity of the American taxpayer, the holiday spirit is alive year-round. Taxpayers paid out $115m to Donald Trump so he could play golf at his own resorts.

And Amazon didn’t just pay zero in federal taxes on $11bn in profits – taxpayers gifted the corporation $129,000,000 in rebates. That’s enough to pay for CEO Jeff Bezos’s three apartments in Manhattan, including a penthouse, that cost him $80m.

And what about government generosity for those who actually need help? Tax dollars are somehow much harder to come by when they’re not going to handouts for the rich. The average person in poverty, struggling to put food on the table, gets about $134 a month in nutrition assistance.

Now, just in time for the holidays, Trump has finalized the first of three policies that will make this disparity even more obscene. Two years after passing a $1.5tn tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations, the Trump administration plans to strip 3.7 million people of their nutrition benefits.

The administration’s first step is to kick 700,000 adults off of nutrition assistance as they struggle to find work. The second step: trying to punish families who have high childcare and housing costs. And third, they want to hurt families who already are making difficult choices between food or heat.

Together, the three proposals will cut billions of dollars from one of our nation’s leading anti-poverty programs. Meanwhile, the Republican tax scam is working exactly as planned. Today, the richest 400 billionaires pay lower taxes than any group in America – including the poor. Nearly 100 of the top Fortune 500 companies now pay nothing in taxes.

This is what oligarchy looks like: Trump’s appetite to shower the ultra-wealthy with corporate welfare is endless – and so is his administration’s willingness to assault our nation’s most vulnerable and hungriest families.

Republicans defend this by saying that keeping people hungry will make them work harder. But we know this is just about cruelty. We know that withholding food from needy people who are underemployed only deepens the crisis of poverty in America.

Some states will be hit harder than others. Vermont could see a 30% cut to benefits, and one in five low-income people who rely on nutrition assistance could no longer be eligible to participate. In Michigan, about one in seven would be kicked off food aid, with an estimated 15% cut in benefits. This is absolutely devastating.

It goes without saying that we must fight as hard as we can against the Trump administration’s savage attack on nutrition assistance. But we need to go beyond that. We must demand that the ultra-wealthy finally start paying their fair share so we can dramatically expand nutrition support. In the richest country in the history of the world, we have a moral obligation to eradicate the hunger that more than 37 million of our fellow Americans suffer every day.

We can start by increasing nutrition assistance by $47 per person per month – that is the shortfall between what low-income people need to prepare adequate meals and what they get in benefits. We should also significantly increase the income threshold for this program, so everyone who needs help gets it. We must also guarantee that all schoolchildren get free breakfast and lunch at every public school in America.

And we should also lift the onerous conditions on what people can buy with nutrition assistance. One Vermonter shared how, in the cold winter months, she wished she could buy her children a hot-roasted chicken from the store, because she had no access to an oven. Under the current program, she can only buy the day-old cold roasted chicken. Multiple Michigan families have similar stories to share. These are the kinds of requirements that force poor people to jump through humiliating hoops but they accomplish nothing in the fight to end hunger.

Ultimately, we must make a choice as a society: will we tolerate the insatiable greed and cruelty of the billionaire class?

This holiday season, we should work in our communities to make sure our most vulnerable neighbors are taken care of and do not go hungry. But we must also be prepared to mobilize millions of people to defeat the Trump administration’s latest attack on the poor – the same way we came together to block Republicans’ attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and kick 32 million Americans off their health insurance.

Defending already inadequate benefits is not enough. Ultimately, we must make a choice as a society: will we tolerate the insatiable greed and cruelty of the billionaire class, whose control over our political system lets them take food out of the mouths of hungry school kids? Or do we build a humane, equitable society that ends poverty, hunger, and homelessness – and allows everyone to live with dignity?

As the new year approaches, let us commit to fighting for a government and an economy that works for the overwhelming majority of the people. That is how we will make food security a human right in America.

© 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All

rights re

Opinion +

Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Soros tirade exposes three uncomfortable truths

Opinion by Lev Golinkin

Updated 11:09 PM EST, Tue December 24, 2019



Editor’s Note: (Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.)

(CNN)Monday evening, as American Jews gathered to celebrate the second night of Hanukkah, news broke of Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Semitic tirade against billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

The remarks, which came during an alcohol-laden interview with New York Magazine, cap off a long, alarming year for anti-Semitism both in the United States and abroad.

Lev Golinkin

Indeed, the most dangerous thing about living at a time of constant stories about anti-Semitism is how quickly the hatred is normalized. Two and a half years ago, chants of “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia, stunned America; today, anti-Semitism is just a part of the news cycle.

And so, as we take stock after this latest news, it’s time to face three uncomfortable truths. First, despite his claims, Giuliani’s comments are unmistakably anti-Semitic. Second, this anti-Semitism is not merely vile but dangerous: The anti-Soros tropes like those evoked by Giuliani may tacitly encourage those prone to violence, resulting in Jewish bodies on the streets. Most disturbingly, we can’t write this off as the inebriated ravings of a single man. Everything Giuliani said had been repeated, over and over, by President Donald Trump, by Republican lawmakers and by Fox News hosts.

Of course, today’s surge of anti-Semitism isn’t limited to Republicans; the problem is widespread. Some of the leaders of the Women’s March have been plagued by accusations of anti-Semitism and a horrific kosher market attack in Jersey City earlier this month is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism thought to be fueled in part by a hatred of Jews, according to the state attorney general.

But the proliferation of anti-Semitic tropes in the GOP is so worrying precisely because it’s widespread and systematic. By now, there’s enough evidence to say that, in much of today’s Republican Party, anti-Semitic tropes are not an irregularity but a feature.

What happened to Rudy Giuliani? It’s a long story

Giuliani’s attack runs the anti-Semitic gamut, from medieval accusations of Soros not being truly religious (similar slurs were used during the Spanish Inquisition, which led to the torture and forced conversion of Jews) to claims that Soros controlled a US ambassador and “elected” district attorneys – which builds on the classic anti-Semitic trope of powerful Jews controlling the government.

Giuliani’s baseless accusation – indeed, the GOP’s obsession with Soros – is the embodiment of modern anti-Semitism, which is, at its root, a conspiracy theory: the belief that Jews are secretly undermining white nations by manipulating ideology, media, money and immigration.

Over the past 300 years, anti-Semites on both sides of the Atlantic have tirelessly spread this deadly lie, tweaking it to suit their needs. To the Russian czars as well as American anti-Semites like Henry Ford and Joseph McCarthy, the Jews were responsible for bringing communism in order to destroy their nations.

The Nazis used this conspiracy to blame Jews for orchestrating Germany’s loss in World War I; today’s white terrorists like the Pittsburgh shooter use it to claim Jews are bringing in immigrants to turn America into a white-minority state.

Trump is trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. It must stop

Every conspiracy theory needs a “them,” the shadowy puppet master pulling the strings. In the 1800s, it was Baron Nathan Rothschild, the original Soros, a businessman accused of manipulating European currency. Henry Ford focused his anti-Semitic tracts on the Warburg family and their advocacy for the Federal Reserve system.

Today’s Jewish bogeyman of choice is Soros. And, according to a number of prominent Republicans, Soros is everywhere.

In the wake of the horrific Parkland school shooting, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre exploded in an entire dog-whistle concerto, accusing globalists and Soros of plotting to take away Americans’ guns. Congressman Steve King stated that Soros is bringing immigrants to America; the same conspiracy theory was given by the Tree of Life shooter as his motivation for massacring 11 Jews in Pittsburgh. Theories of Soros being behind Black Lives Matter, Trump’s impeachment, and protests against the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the Supreme Court have proliferated in the past several years.

The embrace of anti-Semitism posing as anti-Soros conspiracies has gone far beyond the fringe. It’s easy to dismiss the Pittsburgh terrorist or even King and Giuliani as outliers. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also propagated the Soros theory, tweeting out a lie about Soros and other Jewish Democratic donors attempting to buy elections.

How to stop the horrifying resurgence of anti-Semitism

Rep. Louie Gohmert, like Giuliani, accused Soros of not being truly Jewish. A prominent Republican lobbyist repeated unfounded claims that Soros had ties to the former US ambassador to Ukraine. President Donald Trump has promoted the theory of Soros bringing migrants to America.

Fox News, in particular, has been a bastion for Soros conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, host Tucker Carlson devoted an entire segment to claims that Soros is “hijacking” our democracy and “remaking” the United States. Last month, another host, Laura Ingraham, blamed Soros for GOP losses in Virginia’s state election.

Indeed, earlier this month Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League took the unusual step of calling out Fox’s role in the proliferation of Soros theories in an NBC op-ed with the blunt headline “Fox News is normalizing anti-Semitism even as violence against Jews surges.”

This, then, is the state of the Republican Party as we enter a new decade as well as what will surely be a tense election year: An anti-Semitic theory has been embraced by the President of the United States, members of Congress and the No. 1 conservative cable network.

This is not simply an obsession with a prominent billionaire. It’s no longer a fringe theory. It’s not drunken ramblings by the ever-bumbling Giuliani. It is the world’s bloodiest anti-Semitic belief that has now become a tenet and a rallying cry for some of the biggest names in one of the two political parties in the United States.

View on CNN

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and the outrage and rebalance of the biblical right

Opinion +Live TV
Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Soros tirade exposes three uncomfortable truths
Opinion by Lev Golinkin
Updated 11:09 PM EST, Tue December 24, 2019

article video

Editor’s Note: (Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.)

(CNN)Monday evening, as American Jews gathered to celebrate the second night of Hanukkah, news broke of Rudy Giuliani’s anti-Semitic tirade against billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

The remarks, which came during an alcohol-laden interview with New York Magazine, cap off a long, alarming year for anti-Semitism both in the United States and abroad.

Lev Golinkin
Indeed, the most dangerous thing about living at a time of constant stories about anti-Semitism is how quickly the hatred is normalized. Two and a half years ago, chants of “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia, stunned America; today, anti-Semitism is just a part of the news cycle.

And so, as we take stock after this latest news, it’s time to face three uncomfortable truths. First, despite his claims, Giuliani’s comments are unmistakably anti-Semitic. Second, this anti-Semitism is not merely vile but dangerous: The anti-Soros tropes like those evoked by Giuliani may tacitly encourage those prone to violence, resulting in Jewish bodies on the streets. Most disturbingly, we can’t write this off as the inebriated ravings of a single man. Everything Giuliani said had been repeated, over and over, by President Donald Trump, by Republican lawmakers and by Fox News hosts.

Of course, today’s surge of anti-Semitism isn’t limited to Republicans; the problem is widespread. Some of the leaders of the Women’s March have been plagued by accusations of anti-Semitism and a horrific kosher market attack in Jersey City earlier this month is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism thought to be fueled in part by a hatred of Jews, according to the state attorney general.

But the proliferation of anti-Semitic tropes in the GOP is so worrying precisely because it’s widespread and systematic. By now, there’s enough evidence to say that, in much of today’s Republican Party, anti-Semitic tropes are not an irregularity but a feature.

What happened to Rudy Giuliani? It’s a long story
Giuliani’s attack runs the anti-Semitic gamut, from medieval accusations of Soros not being truly religious (similar slurs were used during the Spanish Inquisition, which led to the torture and forced conversion of Jews) to claims that Soros controlled a US ambassador and “elected” district attorneys – which builds on the classic anti-Semitic trope of powerful Jews controlling the government.

Giuliani’s baseless accusation – indeed, the GOP’s obsession with Soros – is the embodiment of modern anti-Semitism, which is, at its root, a conspiracy theory: the belief that Jews are secretly undermining white nations by manipulating ideology, media, money and immigration.

Over the past 300 years, anti-Semites on both sides of the Atlantic have tirelessly spread this deadly lie, tweaking it to suit their needs. To the Russian czars as well as American anti-Semites like Henry Ford and Joseph McCarthy, the Jews were responsible for bringing communism in order to destroy their nations.

The Nazis used this conspiracy to blame Jews for orchestrating Germany’s loss in World War I; today’s white terrorists like the Pittsburgh shooter use it to claim Jews are bringing in immigrants to turn America into a white-minority state.

Trump is trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. It must stop
Every conspiracy theory needs a “them,” the shadowy puppet master pulling the strings. In the 1800s, it was Baron Nathan Rothschild, the original Soros, a businessman accused of manipulating European currency. Henry Ford focused his anti-Semitic tracts on the Warburg family and their advocacy for the Federal Reserve system.

Today’s Jewish bogeyman of choice is Soros. And, according to a number of prominent Republicans, Soros is everywhere.

In the wake of the horrific Parkland school shooting, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre exploded in an entire dog-whistle concerto, accusing globalists and Soros of plotting to take away Americans’ guns. Congressman Steve King stated that Soros is bringing immigrants to America; the same conspiracy theory was given by the Tree of Life shooter as his motivation for massacring 11 Jews in Pittsburgh. Theories of Soros being behind Black Lives Matter, Trump’s impeachment, and protests against the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the Supreme Court have proliferated in the past several years.

The embrace of anti-Semitism posing as anti-Soros conspiracies has gone far beyond the fringe. It’s easy to dismiss the Pittsburgh terrorist or even King and Giuliani as outliers. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also propagated the Soros theory, tweeting out a lie about Soros and other Jewish Democratic donors attempting to buy elections.

How to stop the horrifying resurgence of anti-Semitism
Rep. Louie Gohmert, like Giuliani, accused Soros of not being truly Jewish. A prominent Republican lobbyist repeated unfounded claims that Soros had ties to the former US ambassador to Ukraine. President Donald Trump has promoted the theory of Soros bringing migrants to America.

Fox News, in particular, has been a bastion for Soros conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, host Tucker Carlson devoted an entire segment to claims that Soros is “hijacking” our democracy and “remaking” the United States. Last month, another host, Laura Ingraham, blamed Soros for GOP losses in Virginia’s state election.

Indeed, earlier this month Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League took the unusual step of calling out Fox’s role in the proliferation of Soros theories in an NBC op-ed with the blunt headline “Fox News is normalizing anti-Semitism even as violence against Jews surges.”

This, then, is the state of the Republican Party as we enter a new decade as well as what will surely be a tense election year: An anti-Semitic theory has been embraced by the President of the United States, members of Congress and the No. 1 conservative cable network.

This is not simply an obsession with a prominent billionaire. It’s no longer a fringe theory. It’s not drunken ramblings by the ever-bumbling Giuliani. It is the world’s bloodiest anti-Semitic belief that has now become a tenet and a rallying cry for some of the biggest names in one of the two political parties in the United States.

View on CNN
© 2019 Cable News Network

What It Would Take for Evangelicals to Turn on President Trump

Michael Luo

December 23, 2019

Christians concerned about Trumpism may need to turn their focus inward to counter the corrosive influence of Fox News and other forces permeating evangelical culture.

One night in 1953, the Reverend Billy Graham awoke at two in the morning, went to his study, and started writing down ideas for the creation of a new religious journal. Graham, then in his mid-thirties, was an internationally renowned evangelist who held revival meetings that were attended by tens of thousands, in stadiums around the world. He had also become the leader of a cohort of pastors, theologians, and other Protestant luminaries who aspired to create a new Christian movement in the United States that avoided the cultural separatism of fundamentalism and the theological liberalism of mainline Protestantism. Harold Ockenga, a prominent minister and another key figure in the movement, called this more culturally engaged vision of conservative Christianity “new evangelicalism.” Graham believed a serious periodical could serve as the flagship for the movement. The idea for the publication, as he later wrote, was to “plant the Evangelical flag in the middle of the road, taking a conservative theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems.” The magazine would be called Christianity Today.

During the next several decades, Graham’s movement became the dominant force in American religious life, and perhaps the country’s most influential political faction. From the late nineteen-seventies through the mid-eighties, evangelicals became increasingly aligned with the Republican Party, progressively shifting its priorities to culture-war issues like abortion. Today, evangelical Protestants account for approximately a quarter of the U.S. population and represent the political base of the G.O.P. Despite President Trump’s much publicized moral shortcomings, more than eighty per cent of evangelicals supported him in the 2016 election. Last week, however, Mark Galli, the ninth editor to lead Christianity Today since its founding, in 1956, published an editorial calling for President Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. “The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents,” Galli writes. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” Galli, who will retire from his post early in the new year, implores evangelicals who continue to stand by Trump to “remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior.”

Galli and other contributors to the magazine have been critical of Trump in the past, but the forcefulness of the editorial took many by surprise. The piece became a sensation, trending online and receiving widespread media coverage. On Twitter, Trump lashed out at the magazine, labelling it a “far left” publication that “has been doing poorly.” Graham’s eldest son, Franklin, who became the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association after his father’s death, in 2018, claimed that his father would have been “very disappointed” by the piece and had, in fact, voted for Trump in the 2016 election. “It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism,” Franklin wrote on Facebook. On Sunday, Timothy Dalrymple, Christianity Today’s president and chief executive officer, issued a statement defending the editorial and reaffirming one of Galli’s assertions: that “the alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness”—the heart of believers’ evangelistic mission.

There has long been a segment of evangelical leaders and commentators who are critical of the President, including Russell Moore, the head of the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention; Peter Wehner, the author of the recent book “The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump”; and David French, a writer and constitutional lawyer whom anti-Trump conservatives courted, unsuccessfully, to mount a third-party bid against Trump in 2016. The Christianity Today editorial reflects much of their distress—about the moral hypocrisy of Christian supporters of Trump, the damage done to efforts to serve as ambassadors for the gospel in an unbelieving world, and the ways Trump and his Administration have perpetuated racism, xenophobia, and other traits that are antithetical to the God of justice and mercy. In late 2017, the Reverend Timothy Keller, a renowned Presbyterian pastor in New York City, wrote a piece for The New Yorker on the future of evangelicalism, with the headline “Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore?” “ ‘Evangelical’ used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with ‘hypocrite,’ ” Keller writes. Last year, a group of evangelical pastors, nonprofit leaders, college presidents, and scholars convened at the Billy Graham Center, at Wheaton College, in Illinois, to discuss ways to revitalize the movement in light of its turn toward Trumpism. The meeting disbanded with little to show for it, but the organizers issued a press release that states that an “honest dialogue about the current state of American evangelicalism” had occurred.

There has been little to suggest that these rumblings of dissent represent any kind of threat to Trump’s political support. Many of these Trump critics might be best understood as part of a more urban, internationalist, and broad-minded élite class within the evangelical movement. In his 2007 book, “Faith in the Halls of Power,” D. Michael Lindsay, a former sociologist at Rice University and currently the president of Gordon College, distinguished between “cosmopolitan” and “populist” evangelicalism. The populist wing of the movement “depends on mass mobilization and large-scale democratic action” and “relies upon a rhetoric of dichotomies (as in ‘good’ and ‘evil’) and appeals to the commonsense concerns of average people,” Lindsay writes. He points to prominent figures such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, and the pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen as representatives of populist evangelicalism. He describes cosmopolitan evangelicals as having “greater access to powerful institutions” and writes that “the social networks they inhabit are populated by leaders from government, business, and entertainment.” The problem for Trump opponents is that, when it comes to electoral sway and cultural influence within evangelicalism, the populists exercise far greater leverage.

Lindsay’s focus is on documenting the emergence of the élite class of evangelicals. He devotes less attention to the root causes of differing cultural and political attitudes between cosmopolitan and populist evangelicals—though those causes may hold the key to understanding evangelicalism’s turn toward Trumpism. Earlier this year, James L. Guth, a political scientist at Furman University, published a study on the prevalence of populist traits among white evangelicals, including distrust of political institutions, preference for strong leadership, and commitment to majority rule. Guth finds that these qualities—characteristics that lead to support for populist leaders like Trump—permeate white evangelicalism. It is a disquieting conclusion and suggests that evangelical support for Trump may be far more deeply entrenched than previously understood. Guth suggests that evangelical backing of Trump is less transactional—about his ability to, say, deliver conservative appointments to the Supreme Court—and more about certain shared cultural beliefs. Guth writes that “white evangelicals share with Trump a multitude of attitudes, including his hostility towards immigrants, his Islamophobia, his racism and nativism, as well as his ‘political style,’ with its nasty politics and assertion of strong, solitary leadership.”

The crucial question, then, is: What is driving these attitudes? In a forthcoming book, “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States,” the sociologists Andrew L. Whitehead, a professor at Clemson University, and Samuel L. Perry, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, propose a cultural framework for understanding support for Trumpism that goes beyond religious categories. Through extensive survey work, they discover that an amalgam of cultural beliefs—fusing Christianity with American identity and centered on the belief that America is, and should be, a Christian nation—is a better predictor of support for Trump than economic dissatisfaction, political party, ideology, religion, or a host of other possible determining factors. Whitehead and Perry call this framework “Christian nationalism” and argue that the popularity of these beliefs among white evangelicals explains their support for Trump.

Notably, Whitehead and Perry find that about a quarter of white evangelicals hold beliefs that do not align with Christian nationalism. They also find that though greater religiosity is correlated with Christian-nationalist beliefs, once those beliefs are accounted for, Americans who engaged in more frequent religious practice—church attendance, prayer, and bible reading—were less likely than their less observant peers to subscribe to political views normally associated with Christian nationalism, such as believing that refugees from the Middle East pose a terrorist threat to the United States, or that illegal immigrants from Mexico are mostly dangerous criminals. In other words, Whitehead and Perry find that the threat to democratic pluralism is not evangelicalism itself but the culture around evangelicalism. The true motivator for Christian nationalists is not actually their religious beliefs but the preservation of a certain kind of social order, one that is threatened by racial minorities, immigrants, and Muslims. “Where Christian nationalists seek to defend particular group boundaries and privileges using Christian language, other religious Americans and fellow Christians who reject Christian nationalism tend to oppose such boundaries and privileges,” they write.

Their findings highlight serious obstacles for anyone hoping that white evangelicals will abandon Trump, but they also suggest a path forward. Within evangelicalism, cultural influence in the secular world is highly prized as part of advancing the message of Christianity. Christians concerned about Trumpism and worried about the future of their faith, however, may need to turn their focus inward, to reshape the culture of evangelicalism and counter the corrosive influence of Fox News and other demagogic forces that sow division and breed suspicion. Cultural change is daunting—much of what ails the evangelical faithful is not entirely under the control of their leaders—but the challenge is not so different from the one Graham contemplated more than sixty years ago, in the middle of the night, as he launched his movement to unify Christian believers and transform them into a positive force for society.

What it Would Take for Evangelicals to Turn on President Trump

Kenneth Star thinks the Speaker is overreaching:

Nancy Pelosi is overreaching into the Senate’s power to convict, he says, by setting conditions into the procesiraal matters, namely delaying the fprwewarding of the impeachment.

Accorming to Start, such a mover certainly interferes with the process by which the Senate can conduct it’s business.

Ken Starr says the impeachment of President Trump…: youtu.be/Fy7B61vnf-8

OPINION - POLITICS

Pelosi’s best move might be to keep impeachment in her pocket and not send it to the Senate

PUBLISHED THU, DEC 26 2019 8:00 AM EST

UPDATED 19 MIN AGO

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference after the House passed Resolution 755, Articles of Impeachment Against President Donald J. Trump, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on December 18, 2019. -

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

The House Democratic leadership has wanted no part of impeachment since the “blue wave” swept them back into power in the 2018 midterm elections.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi made this explicit earlier this year in an interview with The Washington Post Magazine. “I’m not for impeachment,” she said.

“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Translated, what she meant was: in this political environment, impeachment will never be bipartisan. It will never get 67 votes “aye” votes in the Senate. So why put 25–35 vulnerable Democratic House members in marginal or pro-Trump districts in harm’s way? (More to the point: Why should she put her tenure as Speaker of the House at risk?) Why engage in a process that will enrage the President’s supporters and give him a rallying cry (“witch hunt”) for his re-election campaign? Why make it harder for Democratic Senate candidates running in states that Mr. Trump won?

Impeachment put a lot at risk and promised little if any, political reward. The only way to resolve the “Trump issue” (from her point of view) was to vote him out of office. Impeachment wasn’t helpful to that cause.

The Washington Post Magazine interview was the first of a number of attempts (both public and private) by Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to shut down the impeachment “groundswell” on the left and in the media. Down the street, President Trump was doing everything he could to enrage the media and the Democratic Party’s “progressive” wing and in so doing, escalate their demands for impeachment proceedings. The intra-Democratic Party conflict, he and his handlers reasoned, would generate copious media coverage and highlight the party’s socialist insurgents.

A key piece of the president’s reelection effort is to make the Democratic Party’s left wing (“The Squad,” among others) the face of the Democratic Party. As White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney put it a while back, the Trump reelection message revolves around three “issues”: the economy, immigration and Democratic Party “socialism.” Engaging “the Squad” and other left-wing (preferably black) legislators has been a “go-to” tactic of Trump’s pre-season election campaign.

Trump miscalculated in thinking that, in the end, Pelosi could and would shut it down. It was a rookie mistake on Trump’s part; another example of how an absence of empathy leads to miscalculation. You can’t deal productively with someone like Pelosi if you don’t make an attempt to understand the politics of her position.

In the event, miscalculation left Trump with the ignominy of being only the third U.S. president in the nation’s history to be impeached. There was no way to spin that away. It was an “own goal” of epic proportions.

That said, the politics of the vote were (and remain) tricky. No one has any doubt, really, that the president did what he stands accused of doing. But 'persuadable" voters are not convinced that the charges warrant his removal from office and they were unnerved by the speed of the House’s “deliberations.” It didn’t seem deliberate at all. It seemed like a rush to judgement.

What does Pelosi do now?

For the moment, she’s waiting, using the Christmas break to give her caucus members a chance to take soundings in their districts. But the truth is she can’t really afford to wait. Removing the president of the United States from office doesn’t wait for constituent service. Trivial as our politics is and has become, there’s no way around the magnitude of what’s happened and what might happen next. Impeachment has global implications. It sets historic precedents. And the Democrats own it, for the moment, so it’s their job to resolve it or at least move it along.

Pelosi’s best option would be a “pocket veto.” Legislative leadership, of course, can’t execute a “pocket veto.” That’s an executive function. But something very much like a “pocket veto” would serve Pelosi and her party’s interests well.

She could say: “I’m not sending these articles of impeachment over to the Senate. There’s no point in doing so. The majority leader has made it clear that he has no interest in a ‘fair trial.’ There’s no point in wasting everyone’s time and taxpayer money to arrive at a decision that Republican senators have already made. Everyone, including each and every Republican member of the Senate, knows that President Trump did exactly what he stands accused of doing. And impeachment is a fact. So we’ll let it stand as is; a monument to the president’s dishonesty and corruption, to be contemplated and remembered by Americans for generations to come.”

Owie! That would light up the night sky over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no? The White House and the reelection campaign committee would erupt in a volcano of tweets and seething appearances on Fox News. God only knows who, aside from Pelosi, would be the target of Team Trump’s collective wrath.

But everyone else, or virtually everyone else, would accept Pelosi’s proposed political resolution with gratitude. Republican Senators would be happy to be rid of the dreary task of defending the president’s conduct. Democratic senators would no longer have to explain why what voters perceive as a felony is actually a capital crime. The “progressive caucus” might be upset for a time, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t play quarterly politics. She plays a long game, emphasizing yards gained and time of possession. She can bank the House vote on impeachment as a first down, which, for Team AOC, it was and is.

If AOC is OK with a Pelosi “pocket veto,” then her massive social media following will follow along. Which in turn will bring along all the other Democratic left-wingers and their media allies. House Democrats in marginal districts will be thrilled to have the issue die a quick death. And as an added bonus, the “Pelosi rebellion” will be counted, by any number of cable television chatterboxes, as a 'win-win" for the party’s two main factions: Pelosi’s authority remains intact, Team AOC made its points and advanced its cause. Harmony restored and a tricky issue shelved, the House Democratic majority in the 2020 general election will be (all-but) secured.

Pelosi was right about the politics of impeachment back in March. Democrats don’t need to convince voters who favor impeachment to vote Democratic. They’re already committed to doing just that. And Democrats will never convince voters committed to President Trump of anything, really. The 2020 election is about those that remain — “the persuadables.” Whoever persuades them wins.

Pelosi’s job is to guide her party toward its political advantages. Impeachment is not an advantage. It’s a 48%-to-48% issue. Health care is an advantage. Shoring up Social Security is an advantage. Climate change is an advantage. Gun control is an advantage. She wants the House of Representatives, especially the Republican members, debating those issues. Because every time House members do, it helps her party’s cause.

Don’t be surprised if she executes the congressional equivalent of a “pocket veto.” It’s a smart play. And she’s nobody’s fool.

John Ellis is the Editor of News Items and a former columnist

© 2019 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Division of NBCUniversal

Beating Donald Trump in the 2020 election isn’t everything; it’s the only thing
Debating wine cellar fundraisers, free tuition and ‘Medicare for All’ won’t rid America of an unfit president: Our view
THE EDITORIAL BOARD | USA TODAY | 49 minutes ago

To the casual observer of the Democratic debates, it seems like candidates are spending a lot of time debating improbable ideas like free tuition — that is, when they are not arguing the appropriateness of holding fundraisers in wine caves.

While President Donald Trump is holding pep rallies in key battleground states, the Democrats are engaged in what looks at times like a squabble within an academic department.

Perhaps as a result, the ratings for the Democratic encounters have been slipping with each installment. To some degree, this is the inevitable outcome of a race pitting an incumbent against a large field of would-be challengers.

Focus on winning 2020
But there is also a warning in it: Few of the ideas being debated are getting much traction beyond Democratic true believers. And even many Democrats are ready to see some winnowing of the field in the early caucus and primary states.

This is a pretty good indication that the party’s voters should focus largely on one overriding issue: which of the candidates is best equipped to defeat Donald Trump next November.

Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, at the Democratic presidential debate on Dec. 19, 2019, in Los Angeles.
Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, at the Democratic presidential debate on Dec. 19, 2019, in Los Angeles.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
OPPOSING VIEW: Voters want change, not centrism

In just a few short years, Trump has promoted the interests of U.S. foes, needlessly run up massive government debts, thwarted progress on climate change, done palpable harm to America’s health care system, and turned the once-proud party of Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan into a adulation cult.

Ridding the nation of his unfit leadership is far more important than who has the most extensive plan to hand out free money (we’re looking at you, Andrew Yang) or require everyone to get their health care through an expanded Medicare (Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders).

The Democrats need a nominee who can go toe-to-toe with Trump, explain to the electorate why he is so wrong in so many ways, and build a consensus on taking the nation in a new direction.

Practical proposals
This is not to say issues don’t matter. If the candidates merely criticized Trump and touted their own electability, they would come off as lacking substance. But the ideas and issues they present in the primaries need to be the kind that can garner widespread support in a general election — particularly in crucial states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

These would include practical proposals to preserve and expand health coverage, rebuild America’s standing in the world, adopt sounder fiscal policies and address climate change.

© Copyright Gannett 2019

youtu.be/XnGes2cdFwE

Messianic claim:

Related video: Donald Trump refused to say what his favourite Bible verse is after he claimed it was his ‘favourite book’

Trump shares claim he is ‘heaven sent’ and suggests Obama ‘kicked Jesus out’ of US

President’s post comes as administration records ‘historic lows’ for refugee resettlement

4 hours ago

Donald Trump has promoted a post claiming he is “heaven sent” and suggesting Barack Obama “kicked” Jesus out of the US in a string of tweets just days after Christmas.

The president spent some of his Friday evening retweeting praise for himself, including one post from January 2018 with a picture of a man who appears to be Jesus Christ and a caption saying: “Obama kicked me out. Trump invited me back.”

“I truly believe this man was heaven sent in order to save and protect the most gracious, benevolent, and in turn, prosperous country ever,” the caption to the post said, referring to the president.

Mr Trump’s decision to share the post follows a number of current and former Trump administration officials who have suggested the president was sent by God.

The suggestion about Jesus Christ, a man who is thought to have been from the Middle East, also comes as refugee resettlement in the US has dropped to “historic lows” during the Trump presidency.

Donald Trump celebrity president: A decade in two halves

Data from the State Department shows that the US is no longer the world’s top country for refugee admissions after substantial declines since Mr Trump’s inauguration, according to the Pew Research Centre.

The president added a comment of “Thank you!” to the post, which he has also shared on his Instagram account.

In November, Rick Perry, the US secretary of energy, described Mr Trump as the “chosen one” and said he had told the president that he was picked by God to rule.

It isn’t just Rick Perry who believes Donald Trump is the ‘chosen one’

Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, followed Mr Perry with similar comments and claimed Mr Trump’s election showed “everything happens for a reason”.

“I think God sometimes places people for lessons and sometimes places people for change,” Ms Haley said.

“And you can look at everything that has happened [in Mr Trump’s presidency], and I think we are seeing a lot of changes, and I think we are gaining a lot of lessons.”

Sarah Sanders, the former White House press secretary, has also claimed God “wanted Donald Trump to become president”.

In August, Mr Trump promoted a claim that Jewish people in Israel love him as if he is the “King of Israel” and like he is “the second coming of God”.

However, the president’s spiritual credibility has been called into question in recent days.

Earlier this month, the religious magazine Christianity Today backed Mr Trump’s impeachment and called for evangelicals to examine their “unconditional loyalty” to his presidency.

The magazine’s stance provoked an angry response from the president, who accused the publication of being part of the “far left” on Twitter.

Trump is in debt!

Huge debts up to his ears likened to his life, .to Russia, China, the German Banks, the IRS, and the enforcers.are nuclear triggers tied to economic and ideologically vested national intelligences.

These interests are tied sub marginally to residual modes of.operational proceeders, encompassing , a tightening web of international money flows, that have not changed since the bottom one of.seeking the source of money flow

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Explosive new revelations just weakened Trump’s impeachment defenses

By Greg Sargent

Opinion writer

December 30, 2019 at 9:58 AM EST

If Mitch McConnell is going to pull off his scheme to turn President Trump’s impeachment trial into a quick and painless sham with no witnesses, the Senate majority leader needs the story to be covered as a conventional Washington standoff — one that portrays both sides as maneuvering for advantage in an equivalently political manner.

But extraordinary new revelations in the New York Times about Trump’s corrupt freezing of military aid to Ukraine will — or should — make this much harder to get away with.

McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation. If Republicans bear the brunt of media pressure to explain why they don’t want to hear from witnesses, that risks highlighting their true rationale: They adamantly fear new revelations precisely because they know Trump is guilty — and that this corrupt scheme is almost certainly much worse than we can currently surmise.

That possibility is underscored by the Times report, a chronology of Trump’s decision to withhold aid to a vulnerable ally under assault while he and his henchmen extorted Ukraine into carrying out his corrupt designs.

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The report demonstrates in striking detail that inside the administration, the consternation over the legality and propriety of the aid freeze — and confusion over Trump’s true motives — ran much deeper than previously known, implicating top Cabinet officials more deeply than we thought.

Among the story’s key points:

As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.

Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known. The Pentagon pushed for the money for months. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.

Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.” We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden. The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.

Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.

Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”

Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.” (Some of this had already been reported, but in narrative context it becomes far more damning.)

It’s impossible to square all this with the lines from Trump’s defenders — that there was no pressure on Ukraine; that the money was withheld for reasonable policy purposes; and that there was no extortion because it was ultimately released. As the Times shows, that only came after the scheme was outed.

Multiple officials worried that the hold violated the law or worked extensively to skirt it. Others saw Trump’s actions as contrary to the national interest and never got a sufficient explanation for his motives. One top official executing the scheme tried to distance the White House from it and keep it quiet.

The Post’s View: Trump’s pardon of Gallagher just got even more appalling

What makes all this new information really damning, however, is that many of these officials who were directly involved with Trump’s freezing of aid are the same ones Trump blocked from appearing before the House impeachment inquiry.

This should make it inescapable that McConnell wants a trial with no testimony from these people — Democrats want to hear from Mulvaney, Bolton, Duffey and Blair — precisely because he, too, wants to prevent us from ever gaining a full accounting.

We now have a much clearer glimpse into the murky depths of just how much more these officials know about the scheme — and just how much McConnell and Trump are determined to make sure we don’t ever learn. That’s so indefensible that it might even breach the levee of the media’s both-sidesing tendencies.

( and /The Washington Post)

Trump’s defenders are taking a huge risk

Here’s another possibility. If McConnell does pull off a sham trial leading to a quick acquittal, more might surface later that, in retrospect, will get hung around Republicans’ necks and reverse-reveal just how corrupt their cover-up really was.

As George T. Conway III has noted, in such a scenario, Trump’s defenders will suffer blowback from “the very evidence they sought to suppress.”

This new report underscores the point. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is currently battling the administration over a tranche of OMB and Pentagon documents related to the aid freeze that CPI just obtained due to a court order. This is how Duffey’s emails surfaced, but much of what CPI has obtained has been blacked out.

CPI is asking a judge to lift the blackouts, and a ruling is expected as early as March. So it’s plausible that CPI could obtain a great deal of new information — showing even more clearly how worried officials were that Trump’s freeze was breaking the law — in only a few months.

That could come after Senate Republicans ran a sham trial and acquitted Trump. Do they really want to be on the hook for having suppressed such evidence, even in the face of a whole new round of deeply incriminating revelations?

Apparently they see that outcome as less risky than allowing witnesses to testify. Which again shows how worried they are about allowing the American people to gain a full accounting of Trump’s corruption.

Read more:

James Comey: The four stages of being attacked by Donald Trump

Paul Waldman: Could Democrats impeach Trump twice? They might have to.

Paul Waldman: Donald Trump, whiner in chief

Paul Waldman: Newly revealed emails show why Trump should fear a real Senate trial

Jennifer Rubin: Here are some New Year’s resolutions for the media and politicians

Al

© 1996-2019 The Washington Post

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Draw Your own inferences.

A grim end to a dark political year

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

Updated 9:12 AM EST, Tue December 31, 2019



(CNN)A rancorous year is raging to a close in apt fashion, with a prolonged burst of presidential fury, partisan dislocation in Washington and amid warnings that America’s very soul is under threat.

On the last day of 2019, President Donald Trump is fuming about acquiring the historic stain of becoming the third president to be impeached after stretching the boundaries of his office one too many times.

He’s whipping up a storm of misinformation that challenged the very notion of fact itself, creating an alternative narrative for Republicans, who are trapped by his mastery of the party’s grassroots base, to adopt.

Democrats had hoped to use the House majority handed to them by midterm election voters last year to spotlight the issues their presidential field is encountering on the trail – access to health care, high college costs and rebalancing an economy tilted further toward the rich and corporations by Trump’s mammoth tax cut.

But Trump’s pressure on Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden – a possible 2020 foe – forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bow to her liberal base and drop her antipathy to impeachment. She will learn next year whether the process, which has deepened divides between two halves of a nation with no common political language, will backfire among swing-state voters.

GOP lawmakers ignored a strong body of evidence of presidential malfeasance in Ukraine, leading to questions over whether the insurmountable partisan divisions in Washington render the ultimate constitutional tool designed to constrain an unchained president is now obsolete.

And once again the specter of foreign interference is threatening to cloud a US presidential election, raising the possibility that whatever happens next year, the legitimacy of Trump’s second term – or the new mandate of the 46th President – will be compromised in the minds of millions of American voters.

The economy – one of the few bright spots

There were a few bright spots in 2019. The economy extended its unlikely winning streak – over a decade now since the Great Recession – as the jobless rate hovered at a half-century low and even wages began to rise. Its success is one reason why Trump is a viable candidate heading into his reelection year – but also underscores that, absent his divisive, scorched earth brand of politics, his approval rating would surely be far higher than the mid- to low-40s.

And a rare joint agreement by Trump and Democrats on a refashioned US-Canada-Mexico trade deal and a year-end budget accord showed that, despite the fury on Capitol Hill, some things can get done when both sides have a political incentive to do so. Trump is touting a phase one trade deal with China but experts suggest its limited progress is hardly worth the cost of the tariff war. And with tensions with Iran racing back to the boil, American foreign policy seems set for a testing period ahead.

Back in the US, in the last days of the year, the political mood darkened further. Democrats and Republicans seemed to track further apart on the arrangements for the Senate impeachment trial expected to start within days. Trump’s GOP allies in the Senate are refusing to reopen investigations and to call witnesses – despite new evidence of the administration’s machinations over Ukraine that have emerged in recent days. Pelosi is yet to transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate as she awaits the shape of the possible trial – in a sign of how partisanship is infecting the operating system of American democracy.

A knife attack on a rabbi’s home in New York may not turn out to be politically motivated. But it underscored the brittle national mood as key power brokers suggested that the latest assault on a Jewish target on US soil was an emblem of something badly wrong. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, warned of intolerance, anger and hatred exploding into an “American cancer in the body politic.”

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, blamed local New York leaders – many of whom are political foes of her father – for doing too little to stem a rise on anti-Semitic attacks. “Attacks on Jewish New Yorkers were reported almost every single day this past week. The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic violence in New York (and around the country) receives far too little local governmental action and national press attention,” she tweeted.

Her tweet sparked a volley of responses from critics who believe the President’s wild, sometimes racially tinged rhetoric has contributed to a rise in right-wing extremism.

And just when it seemed like a leaden holiday season could not get much worse, it did.

Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a beloved civil rights hero, announced on Sunday the foreboding diagnosis of his stage IV pancreatic cancer. The 79-year-old is one of the last living links to an era when aspirational politics overcame entrenched intolerance and discrimination – an equation that often seemed reversed in the rough political year of 2019.

A holiday seasons that encapsulated a nation’s divides

Political exchanges that crackled over the holiday season exemplified a sense of national estrangement.

America’s President spent the season of peace and goodwill tweeting abuse at great US cities that are home to his top political opponents. He retweeted conspiracy theorists and tweets that might have outed a whistleblower whose revelations prompted an impeachment case against him for abuse of power.

Most recent presidents went off the grid at Christmas. They were more likely to be accused of responding too slowly to events than refusing to cede the spotlight.

But Trump, fulminating over impeachment, quickly disregarded his own advice spelled out in his holiday message: “Together we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect – traits that exemplify the teachings of Christ.”

Trump’s invective offers a window into how he wields power – by creating a charged and chaotic political atmosphere in which he seems more comfortable than other leaders.

He long ago dismissed the notion that the presidency helps set the moral tone of the nation. He’s used the platform from the start to advance his own personal and political grievances.

Biden, who is no stranger to tough campaign trail rhetoric, accused Trump of going much further than the norm by subverting America’s moral fabric.

“Today’s politics are too toxic, mean and divisive,” Biden wrote in a Sunday editorial carried by Religion News Service.

“People are too quick to demonize and dehumanize, too ready to dismiss all that we have in common as Americans,” the former vice president wrote.

“(Trump) doesn’t understand America. He doesn’t know what it means to live for or believe in something bigger than himself,” Biden wrote.

Trump’s defenders often tell those shocked by the President’s antics not to overreact to tweets that might question someone not used to the vitriol to question the commander-in-chief’s state of mind.

Yet Trump has 68 million Twitter followers. His tweets are official presidential statements. And so they are bound to shape the nation’s political discourse.

The President knows his unrestrained behavior is key to his political appeal. His supporters love conduct that tramples every code of the political elites whom they abhor and prove that the outsider that won election in 2016 has not gone native. Media squeamishness about the rhetoric only solidifies his appeal to his flock.

There is risk for Trump, however, in his culture-war tactics. Recent polling and analysis suggest he’s lost support among white female voters - to such an extent that his prospects in the swing states he needs to win reelection could be compromised.

Still, there’s no sign that key Republicans who understand the forces shaping the party’s base are ready to distance themselves from the President – a sure sign of his political strength.

Asked about Trump retweeting an item that contained the unsubstantiated name of a person named by some right-wing outlets as a whistleblower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy demurred.

“I have enough trouble paddling my own canoe. But I do agree with Mrs. Trump that – and I have suggested before to the White House – that if the President would tweet a little bit less, it wouldn’t cause brain damage,” Kennedy told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Trump also used his holiday season tweets to spread misleading news accounts about the Ukraine episode from conservative media outlets and commentators. He personally attacked Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – the top two Democrats involved in his impeachment and the Senate trial to come.

His incessant attacks are a bleak omen. If 2019 was a poisoned political year, 2020 will very likely be much worse.

© 2019 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Protesters storm US Embassy in Iraq, shouting, ‘Death to America’
Donald Trump threatens Iran for insurgents storming of US Embassy in Iraq
DAVID JACKSON AND JOHN FRITZE | USA TODAY | 2 hours ago

Dozens of angry Iraqi Shiite militia supporters broke into the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad, prompting tear gas and sounds of gunfire. This follows deadly U.S. airstrikes this week that killed 25 fighters of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq. (Dec. 31)
AP
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Amid renewed tensions in the Middle East, President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed Iran for insurgents storming the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and threatened Tehran over the incident.

“Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities,” Trump tweeted late in the day. “They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!”

He also said the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is safe and “has been for hours,” and he thanked Iraqi leaders for their assistance.

Earlier in the day, Trump said Iran would be held “fully responsible” for violence targeting Americans.

“Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many,” Trump said in his morning tweet. “We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.”

The U.S. Embassy in Iraq is, & has been for hours, SAFE! Many of our great Warfighters, together with the most lethal military equipment in the world, was immediately rushed to the site. Thank you to the President & Prime Minister of Iraq for their rapid response upon request…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019
Supporters of the Iraq Shiite militia, which is backed by Iran, broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad earlier Tuesday, setting fire to a reception area amid tear gas and gunfire.

As protesters massed outside the U.S. compound in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a statement that “we are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy.”

The episode hearkened to the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, in which four Americans were killed, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. Republicans were heavily critical of the Obama administration’s response to that attack, and that criticism become a central GOP talking point against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was the Secretary of State at the time of the attack.

Trump sought to head off those comparisons by tweeting at one point that the U.S. response to this incident was “The Anti-Benghazi!”

Some lawmakers feared the escalating violence in Iraq could lead to military conflict with Iran.

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said “the predictable result of the Trump administration’s reckless bluster, escalation and miscalculation in the Middle East is that we are now hurtling closer to an unauthorized war with Iran that the American people do not support.”

The embassy attack in Baghdad followed U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 fighters from the Iranian-backed militia. The U.S. described those strikes as retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq.

In defending the U.S.-led airstrikes, Trump tweeted that Iran “will be held fully responsible.”

Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019
It was Trump’s first public comment on Sunday’s airstrikes.

As for the embassy attack, Trump said that “we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”

The president, who is spending the holidays at his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., has been largely out of sight since taking questions from reporters on Christmas Eve. Trump briefly traveled to his golf course near the resort, but stayed for less than an hour, breaking his usual routine of spending several hours at the club.

In a later tweet, the president said he had a “very good meeting on the Middle East” and was returning to his Mar-a-Lago resort. He promised to provide “updates throughout the day” on the situation in Baghdad.

Speaking to U.S. soldiers by video call on Dec. 24, he thanked the military for its effort to eliminate the last remnants of the Islamic State’s territory and for the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But on Tuesday the president remained largely out of sight and had no public events listed on his schedule.

Baghdad protests break out outside US embassy following deadly airstrikes
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, echoed the president and blamed Iran for the confrontation at the embassy and for escalating tensions.

“When an Iran-backed militia killed an American in Iraq last week, it met with a firm response. Now our embassy in Baghdad — sovereign U.S. territory — has been attacked in yet another reckless escalation,” Cotton said in a statement. “As the president notes, Iran must be held responsible.”

In describing the invasion of the U.S. embassy in Iraq, the Associated Press said its reporter “saw flames rising from inside the compound and at least three U.S. soldiers on the roof of the main building inside the embassy.”

The AP added: "There was a fire at the reception area near the parking lot of the compound but it was unclear what had caused it. A man on a loudspeaker urged the mob not to enter the compound, saying: ‘The message was delivered.’”

Critics said Trump’s policy toward Iran is flawed, starting with his decision to withdraw from the multi-national nuclear agreement with the regime in Tehran. As the U.S. renews economic sanctions on Iran, its government is threatening to revive programs that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

“It’s hard to overstate what a total failure Trump’s Iran policy has been,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, a foreign policy aide to President Barack Obama. “Nuclear program resumed. Regional provocations escalated. US isolated.”

Originally Published 11 hours ago
Updated 2 hours ago

© Copyright Gannett 2019

Crack in Republicam Bastion

Some GOP have ‘misgivings’ about McConnell impeachment strategy
Sen. Susan Collins: ‘It is inappropriate’ for Mitch McConnell, Democrats to prejudge impeachment trial

The House approved both articles President Trump was being accused of for impeachment, making him the third impeached president in U.S. history.
USA TODAY
Republican Sen. Susan Collins criticized Democrats in the Senate as well as GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for predetermining their votes on the pending impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

“It is inappropriate, in my judgment, for senators on either side of the aisle to prejudge the evidence before they have heard what is presented to us, because the each of us will take an oath, an oath that I take very seriously to render impartial justice,” Collins said in an interview with Maine Public Radio on Monday.

The Maine lawmaker’s comments came after fellow moderate Republican from Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, voiced her own reservations about McConnell’s declaration that he was in lockstep with the White House to set the trial procedures. Murkowski said she was “disturbed," and that it “further confused the process.”

More: GOP senator ‘disturbed’ with McConnell ‘total coordination’ with the White House for impeachment trial

“Everything I do during this I’m coordinating with the White House counsel,” McConnell said earlier in December, before the House had cast its vote. “There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this, to the extent that we can.”

“We know how it’s going to end. There’s no chance the president’s going to be removed from office,” he also said.

Collins, who faces a tough reelection for her fifth term, said her position during the impeachment trial would be as an impartial juror, and slammed senators from both sides of the aisle for indicating they would not do the same.

“I have heard Democrats like Elizabeth Warren saying that the president should be impeached, found guilty and removed from office. I’ve heard the Senate majority leader saying that he’s taking his cues from the White House,” Collins said. “There are senators on both sides of the aisle, who, to me, are not giving the appearance of, and the reality of judging this in an impartial way.”

More: Touting ‘centrist’ approach, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announces she is running for a fifth term

Collins, like Murkowski, criticized House Democrats for impeaching Trump without going through court proceedings to enforce subpoenas that the White House was blocking. The House voted to impeach Trump on two articles of impeachment over his dealings with Ukraine: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

“I am open to witnesses,” Collins said, breaking from what some Republicans in the Senate have indicated. “I think it’s premature to decide who should be called until we see the evidence that is presented and get the answers to the questions that we senators can submit through the Chief Justice to both sides.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to hold the articles of impeachment in the House also “seems like an odd way to operate,” Collins said.

More: Trump’s impeachment trial in Senate likely to be more partisan than Bill Clinton’s was in 1999

Collins, one of the senators who was also present for former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings, said the “precedent established by the trial for President Clinton is one that our leaders should take a hard look at,” specifically pointing to a bipartisan negotiation on trial terms.

“I can’t imagine anything like that happening today, regrettably,” Collins said.

Originally Published 5 hours ago
Updated 4 hours ago

© Copyright Gannett 2019

Is Pelosi trying to delay the impeachment trial to ruin Trump’s state of the union speech?

BY NATIONAL POST STAFF

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: DEC 31, 2019

Has Nancy Pelosi got one last trick up her sleeve when it comes to U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment process?

Huffington Post is reporting that in political circles, theories are increasingly doing the rounds that Pelosi, the tactically astute House speaker who has led the impeachment charge, could delay sending Trump’s articles of impeachment to the Senate until after the president gives his annual state of the union address on Feb. 4.

The idea, some believe, is to have Trump make the high-profile speech while still under the shadow of impeachment — rather than after the Republican-dominated Senate acquits Trump, as it is expected to do.

It had been assumed the Senate trial, which follows a vote to impeach Trump in the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives, would happen in January. But if Pelosi can delay the Senate trial, it is increasingly believed Trump might give an unhinged rant as an impeached president rather than bask in acquittal.

Huffington Post reports that on Monday, Paul Rosenzweig, a top George W. Bush adviser who served as a policy executive in the Department of Homeland Security, set political pulses racing with the following tweets:

“I think I may have figured out why (Pelosi) is holding the articles of impeachment (or at least part of the reason): She wants to make sure that when POTUS gives the SOTU on Feb 4, he is still under impeachment,” he wrote.

“Imagine what it would be like if he got to give the SOTU having been cleared by the Senate — it would be a full-blown triumphal rant. But if the impeachment is still pending, it might, instead, be an unhinged narcissistic screed of almost unimaginable insanity.

“Just think of how painful it would be for 53 Republican Senators to sit in the halls of Congress, watching a live meltdown on national TV. That, alone, would be worth the price of admission. Maybe I’m wrong and this hasn’t crossed her mind — but I love the idea.”

David Frum, a one-time Bush speech writer speaking on MSNBC’s The Last Word on Monday, told Lawrence O’Donnell that he felt Rosenzweig could be right.

“If there’s been a trial and there’s been a sham hearing and the Senate has slapped together an acquittal, imagine the tone of President Trump on the 4th of February: triumphal, obnoxious, overbearing, ‘I win, I win, you lose, you lose,’” Frum said. “If the impeachment is still pending on the 4th of February, can you imagine how insane that state of the union is going to be?”

Votes of Representatives are pictured on a screen as US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi presides over Resolution 755, Articles of Impeachment Against President Donald J. Trump as the House votes at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on December 18, 2019.- TheSAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

“It’s going to be an hour of paranoia and grievance and narcissism of a kind that is going to terrify, as Paul suggests, that will terrify even many of his supporters. So if it’s not wrapped up by the 4th of February, that could have very dramatic consequences.”

The House voted on Dec. 19 to charge Trump with “high crimes and misdemeanours.” He’s only the third U.S. president in history to be impeached.

Blowback: Trump outs the alleged whistleblower who helped spark his impeachment

‘The president is impeached’: U.S. House deals Donald Trump a historic rebuke

Conrad Black: The impeachment effort will blow up in the Democrats’ faces

Democrats charge he abused his power as president by pressuring Ukraine to help him win re-election. They accuse Trump of endangering the U.S. Constitution, jeopardizing national security and undermining the integrity of the 2020 election.

At the heart of the case is testimony by current and former officials alleging an extraordinary effort that went outside official channels to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce a corruption investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

With files from Reuters

Read the feature rich experience

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Is Pelosi trying to delay the impeachment trial to ruin Trump’s state of the union speech?

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Pelosi trying to delay the impeachment trial to ruin Trump’s state of the union speech?

BY NATIONAL POST STAFF

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: DEC 31, 2019