In any event, Gabbard is a non-issue. But, if she does end up as a third party candidate in 2020, then that won't matter either because your country will be doomed.

[32] Listen: EXTORTION: Exactly.

[33] Kick: Yep. And Repub thugs do it all while still having the nerve to complain about HER EMAILS and pretend they gave a damn about national security, etc.

Maybe it’s time to quit referring to this as quid pro quo and call it by its true name —extortion!

It's bribery... and infinitely impeachable as outlined in the United States Constitution.

FUN FACT

It is a federal crime to enter a SCIF without authorization.

Maybe it’s time to quit referring to this as quid pro quo and call it by its true name —extortion!

Are we piling on the NYTimes, now?

"NYT Politics
@nytpolitics
We’ve corrected this article and deleted an earlier tweet that incorrectly described Hillary Clinton’s recent comments from a podcast interview."

https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/1187097278001111041

https://twitter.com/MiekeEoyang/status/1187033307718049794

"Summary: To disrupt testimony from a DOD official on how the President endangered national security for both the US and Ukraine by withholding military aid, the President's allies further endangered national security by storming the SCIF with their electronic devices."

Your 'weather' poem is fine reading, but I'm uncertain why it's a "poem"? To my admittedly insensitive eyes, it's more of a ordinary dissertation or a composition and I don't see the point of printing it in stanzas, or whatever you poets call that form. What does that gain over simply composing a paragraph and printing it like this one I'm writing?

And for Gawdsake, ignore Liz's cockamamie "climate change" idea. I'm betting she thinks cookie recipes should be related to climate change!

Somehow, I think it should be tied in with action on climate change.

https://poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=146510

i write free verse
it doesn't rhyme
the meter is not fixed
well, sometimes it is
and it does,
but here we are.

https://poets.org/poem/poetry

:)
JL

At balloon-juice:

We are currently living in the fifth or sixth year, depending on when you want to date its start, of an unconventional Russian war against the US that uses information warfare to influence Americans to destroy ourselves. The US is not doing a particularly good job of fighting Russia as the US government and most Americans don’t seem to have figured out that we are at war. One of the major effects the Russians are trying to achieve is to influence Americans through the weaponization of information, misinformation, disinformation, and information for provocation in order to enflame American political; ethnic, racial, and religious; rural, urban, and suburban; sexuality/gender; and economic differences so that Americans destroy ourselves. In order to do this they have to use weaponized information for effect. And the effect they are trying to achieve is to make it impossible for Americans to both agree on what is true, factual, and accurate and, in many cases, even know what is true, factual, and accurate. The objective is to make it so that for Americans nothing is true and, therefore, anything and everything is possible. The New York Times needs to stop doing this. Not least of which because they do it over and over and over again and that pattern leads to an ugly conclusion: that as an organization they’re doing it on purpose. But even if they aren’t doing it on purpose, what they’re doing only assists the Russian’s information war against the US.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2019/10/22/the-new-york-times-botched-their-reporting-on-secretary-clintons-remarks-about-a-democratic-primary-candidate-being-groomed/

Both you and CW nearly always LEAP to the worst conclusion about anything HRC says/does - you are always primed for that. You then discount her information which is a mistake. A third-party spoiler from the left offers the GOP an undeserved lifeline and they will do what they can to foster one. And the only people foolish and ignorant enough to vote 3rd party, especially now, are foolish and ignorant enough to fall for misinformation.

NY Times relentless coverage of HER EMAILS played a key role in the campaign. They need to take great care not to replay that role in 2020 and need to be hammered when they blow it.

BTW, howcum your posts never rhyme??

Maybe on the order of,

"We heard it from the poet, but he doesn't know it!

OK, I think that's a real stretch, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Yeah, I fully understand what you're saying. Gawd only know, I heard it enough from the girls here for 3 yrs, right up to the moment when the Mueller Report fizzled. But it's NOT nearly as clear-cut constitution-wise as you guys wish it were.

I'm betting that not a damn one of those constitutional "sins" would turn out to be against the law in a court ruling. Scandal info, dirt, etc. might be interpreted to be a "thing of value" to you guys, mainly because it's the orange moron whom you hate doing it, but I'm betting "thing of value" means more like "money" kinda stuff, NOT information.

This is a "political blog" ain't it, and you nut jobs act like you don't understand even the basics of politics!!

The one Liz linked is an AP item in the NYT. Here's an NYT item covering pretty much the same thing: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/us/politics/tulsi-gabbard-hillary-clinton-russia.html

Let’s have a look at the transcripts between Trump and the Saudi’s, there is plenty of dirty deals that went down with them!

Just look at how well his failing to properly fill diplomatic positions has allowed him to create a government that can be corrupt out in the open with little to no consequences— until a whistleblower screwed it all up for him!

Who knows, who cares …. I mean really.

I just hope this was her last such contribution to 2020.

I think your 'town hall in Weigantia' is an idea worthy of discussion.

But, not about OD. Instead, would you be okay with a more general topic like getting big and dark money out of the political process?

It's hard to tell who she was talking about because she was commenting about the Republicans just before she said and she was talking about the Russians during the comment about grooming a third party candidate.

Did you listen to the actual podcast?
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaHEtcGxvdWZmZQ&episode=OGE2M2FhMTgtZTZlMS0xMWU5LTk4YWEtNTM4NTJiZDViMzc5&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjpy6vOsKflAhUBTN8KHb9FDlEQieUEegQICRAE&ep=6&at=1571455690614

I don't subscribe to NYT and can't see for myself - can anyone here?

Not synonymous. "Tit for tat" refers to limited retaliation. It's not just that retaliation doesn't escalate, but also that the hostile action is limited to retaliation: in a tit-for-tat strategy, one does not take any hostile action preemptively.

Brian Beutler had tweeted:
______________

Brian Beutler
@brianbeutler
Trump should resign the presidency. But unless he does or is removed, it’s impossible to read Taylor's testimony and not demand a full audit of Trump’s diplomacy.

What Taylor describes isn’t some slapdash, Improvised extortion. They got rid of and circumvented multiple inconvenient people, spent months getting ducks in a row.

And it almost worked! We almost woke up one day to a CNN EXCLUSIVE that Zelensky had opened investigations of Biden and 2016.

Now, just stop for a minute and think about how many other bad-acting countries Trump has established irregular foreign policies with: Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, the list goes on.

Limiting this inquiry to Ukraine is a bit like catching a murderer in the act of killing and charging him with one crime, ignoring the pile of bodies surrounding him.

For instance: we know there's a secure server at the White House that reportedly contains improperly classified, politically scandalous call summaries. Either Trump goes, or the impeachment inquiry has to expand.

As Mick Mulvaney said, "we do that all the time." Take him at his word, and investigate every shakedown.
_______________

There's zero reason to assume Ukraine has been the sole recipient of a Blotus shakedown. And while Guiliani may appear almost comic in his villainy when he babbles on cablenews - just as Blotus may appear demented, the bottom line is they've done some seriously nasty stuff and they went to a lot of trouble - quite deliberately - to achieve their ends.