MAGAThread XVI: Raising the Barr

[Nea Byzantia]

I’m sure the Kurds are more then capable of defending themselves.


As for your edit:

Keeping the people who control the bosphurus happy seems to be the deal.

They aren't very happy with you rn over the whole S-400/F-35 thing and are looking more and more towards the Russians. Your move?

Don't sweat it. The Turks are just as capable of coming crawling back to NATO and the West if and when it suits their interests. Turkey is looking out for Turkey; and they're looking for the best deal. They're siding with Russia, because atm, Russia is giving them the best deal. None of this is necessarily permanent - anymore than Turkey's allegiance to NATO and the West was permanent.

[Fartsniffage]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... althy.html

The very wealthiest now paying less tax than the poorest?

[Nea Byzantia]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

The very wealthiest now paying less tax than the poorest?

Colour me shocked...

[Cannot think of a name]

Ah let's see, what does Monday bring us? Well...

1. Trump is convinced that Pelosi committed treason, should be immediately impeached. Congress can expel members but that's extremely rare and isn't going to happen. Not to mention, no one has committed treason.

"I'm not impeached, you're impeached. You're all impeached."

It really should bother people that the head of state has no idea how the state works, but I guess that was his selling point.
(I swear to fuck if one of you are hitting quote right now to say "And his followers don't care he could etc."...)

This one is particularly frustrating for two reasons. Schiff literally did exactly what he was supposed to do. Whistleblower contacted his office, they sent Orange Crush to the IG to investigate it. If Schiff had acted on it without doing that he'd have done what Trump is essentially accusing him of. And getting bent out of shape because Schiff was hyperbolic when talking about the report just brings up all those times we were told we can't tell the difference between the president "joking" and saying something horrifying.

Not to mention accusing him of treason because he 'exaggerated.' Someone call Alanis Morrisette.

2. Trump Endorses Turkish Military Operation in Syria, Shifting U.S. Policy. Ah great, let's fuck over one of our greatest allies in the region: the Kurds. Then again, it's no surprise given it's Trump.

We're Lucy to the Kurds Charlie Brown at this point.

3. Trump Loses Court Fight to Keep Tax Records Secret From N.Y.. Basically this:

A federal judge in New York ruled that Trump can’t stop his accountants, Mazars USA LLP, from turning over his taxes and other financial documents to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., whose office is investigating whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to hush-money payments.

Seems things are slowly unraveling, especially if said unraveling is going to hurt Trump, and drag Republicans that rather be spineless and afraid to confront him. I'm sure he'll appeal this though he's bound to lose.

Two and half hours to the deadline. I still don't think the tax returns are going to be a bombshell. But at this point it'd be nice to just get it over with.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Ah let's see, what does Monday bring us? Well...

1. Trump is convinced that Pelosi committed treason, should be immediately impeached. Congress can expel members but that's extremely rare and isn't going to happen. Not to mention, no one has committed treason.

Did the United States Congress declare formal war on Mr. Donald J. Trump while I was away or? <.>

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Does Trump know who the Kurds are? Are we sure didn't think he was having a conversation about cheese?

[Torrocca]

2. Trump Endorses Turkish Military Operation in Syria, Shifting U.S. Policy. Ah great, let's fuck over one of our greatest allies in the region: the Kurds. Then again, it's no surprise given it's Trump.

Make no mistake, this is more than likely bound to lead to a full-fledged genocide. It's absolutely disgusting.

[San Lumen]

Ah let's see, what does Monday bring us? Well...

1. Trump is convinced that Pelosi committed treason, should be immediately impeached. Congress can expel members but that's extremely rare and isn't going to happen. Not to mention, no one has committed treason.

"I'm not impeached, you're impeached. You're all impeached."

It really should bother people that the head of state has no idea how the state works, but I guess that was his selling point.
(I swear to fuck if one of you are hitting quote right now to say "And his followers don't care he could etc."...)

This one is particularly frustrating for two reasons. Schiff literally did exactly what he was supposed to do. Whistleblower contacted his office, they sent Orange Crush to the IG to investigate it. If Schiff had acted on it without doing that he'd have done what Trump is essentially accusing him of. And getting bent out of shape because Schiff was hyperbolic when talking about the report just brings up all those times we were told we can't tell the difference between the president "joking" and saying something horrifying.

Not to mention accusing him of treason because he 'exaggerated.' Someone call Alanis Morrisette.

2. Trump Endorses Turkish Military Operation in Syria, Shifting U.S. Policy. Ah great, let's fuck over one of our greatest allies in the region: the Kurds. Then again, it's no surprise given it's Trump.

We're Lucy to the Kurds Charlie Brown at this point.

3. Trump Loses Court Fight to Keep Tax Records Secret From N.Y.. Basically this:

A federal judge in New York ruled that Trump can’t stop his accountants, Mazars USA LLP, from turning over his taxes and other financial documents to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., whose office is investigating whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to hush-money payments.

Seems things are slowly unraveling, especially if said unraveling is going to hurt Trump, and drag Republicans that rather be spineless and afraid to confront him. I'm sure he'll appeal this though he's bound to lose.

Two and half hours to the deadline. I still don't think the tax returns are going to be a bombshell. But at this point it'd be nice to just get it over with.

If they aren't going to be a major bombshell then why go to such effort to hide them? What is he keeping so secret?

[Gormwood]

"I'm not impeached, you're impeached. You're all impeached."

It really should bother people that the head of state has no idea how the state works, but I guess that was his selling point.
(I swear to fuck if one of you are hitting quote right now to say "And his followers don't care he could etc."...)

This one is particularly frustrating for two reasons. Schiff literally did exactly what he was supposed to do. Whistleblower contacted his office, they sent Orange Crush to the IG to investigate it. If Schiff had acted on it without doing that he'd have done what Trump is essentially accusing him of. And getting bent out of shape because Schiff was hyperbolic when talking about the report just brings up all those times we were told we can't tell the difference between the president "joking" and saying something horrifying.

Not to mention accusing him of treason because he 'exaggerated.' Someone call Alanis Morrisette.

We're Lucy to the Kurds Charlie Brown at this point.

Two and half hours to the deadline. I still don't think the tax returns are going to be a bombshell. But at this point it'd be nice to just get it over with.

If they aren't going to be a major bombshell then why go to such effort to hide them? What is he keeping so secret?

Most likely trying to protect his wet paper feefees because the tax returns would expose how he's not really rich like he keeps bragging. And there's a small chance they would also reveal how deeply in hock he is with Russian oligarchs.

[San Lumen]

If they aren't going to be a major bombshell then why go to such effort to hide them? What is he keeping so secret?

Most likely trying to protect his wet paper feefees because the tax returns would expose how he's not really rich like he keeps bragging. And there's a small chance they would also reveal how deeply in hock he is with Russian oligarchs.

and i doubt most of his supporters would care

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

how deeply in hock he is with Russian oligarchs.

Y'know all it would take now to constitute a case of treason for Donald Trump is for the United States to be at war with Russia. <.>

[Gormwood]

Most likely trying to protect his wet paper feefees because the tax returns would expose how he's not really rich like he keeps bragging. And there's a small chance they would also reveal how deeply in hock he is with Russian oligarchs.

and i doubt most of his supporters would care

Well as might stop bringing up his fanatical base. You keep saying they wouldn't care even if a tape of him molesting girls with Epstein came out so just get that out of the system and move on.

[San Lumen]

and i doubt most of his supporters would care

Well as might stop bringing up his fanatical base. You keep saying they wouldn't care even if a tape of him molesting girls with Epstein came out so just get that out of the system and move on.

Perhaps I should. Im sorry if it comes as repetitive. There have been signs they are starting to leave him

[Cannot think of a name]

Same link that was provided by someone else earlier, Trump got a delay, no tax records today.

President Donald Trump won a last-minute reprieve from a court order that would have forced his accountants to immediately hand over his tax filings and other financial records. But he still must persuade an appeals court to reject the ruling against him, which called Trump’s claims of immunity “repugnant” to the U.S. Constitution.

A federal judge in New York ruled early Monday that Trump can’t stop his accountants, Mazars USA LLP, from turning over eight years of taxes and other financial documents to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., whose office is investigating whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to hush-money payments.

Trump immediately appealed and in less than two hours won a delay to give the federal appeals court in Manhattan time for expedited review. The delay postponed what would have been a 1 p.m. Monday deadline for Mazars to begin turning over the records to prosecutors.

The ruling means that Trump is closer to losing control of his tax filings and other financial records after years of defying a modern presidential norm of disclosing them to the public.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero rejected Trump’s request for an injunction to block a grand jury subpoena for Trump’s personal and business records, ruling that the case should have been filed in state court, rather than federal court. But he also ruled against the president’s constitutional claims, calling his argument for immunity from investigation “virtually limitless.”

There was tweeting. Oh yes, there was tweeting.

Trump assailed the ruling in a tweet shortly before the appeals court issued its temporary order.

The Radical Left Democrats have failed on all fronts, so now they are pushing local New York City and State Democrat prosecutors to go get President Trump. A thing like this has never happened to any President before. Not even close!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019

Not that you were going to get to read them.

Lawyers from Vance’s office told Marrero that New York law and legal ethics rules required them to keep the material secret. But information from the returns, or the documents themselves, could be used to develop cases or presented as evidence in a trial.

“This court cannot endorse such a categorical and limitless assertion of presidential immunity,” Marrero wrote in his ruling. “The expansive notion of constitutional immunity invoked here to shield the president from judicial process would constitute an overreach of executive power.”

Harry Sandick, a former federal prosecutor and partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler in New York, said the ruling was clear.

“The court was unwilling to accord the type of absolute immunity Trump’s lawyers asked for,” Sandick said. “The founders meant to give us a president, not a king.”

That last line has to be a bit of a stinger for Trump.

Anyway, dragging out court cases is rich people's jam. So likely-

If Trump loses in the federal court system, he could still try to block the subpoena by suing in state court, potentially drawing out the process.

There's still two strikes against him in the other subpoena.

Trump is also fighting subpoenas from other House committees that are trying to get financial information from Mazars, the president’s accounting firm, and from his bankers at Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. Federal judges in New York and Washington have ruled against Trump in those two cases, and he’s appealing.

Congressional Democrats want to get hold of the records to investigate matters including Trump’s possible business ties to Russia and potential violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which curbs a president’s ability to take payments from foreign and domestic governments or officials.

[Cannot think of a name]

If they aren't going to be a major bombshell then why go to such effort to hide them? What is he keeping so secret?

Most likely trying to protect his wet paper feefees because the tax returns would expose how he's not really rich like he keeps bragging. And there's a small chance they would also reveal how deeply in hock he is with Russian oligarchs.

I've said this before, due to the nature of the way real estate developers are taxed specifically, his tax returns will show a loss every year. This won't reflect his actual earnings or income, just his paper worth with write offs. But his ego is such that he doesn't want people to see that because he'd have to explain it, and there would be people who would make hay of the fact that they show a loss because they don't know that about real estate taxes.

Which I guess, yes. It's down to his fragile ego and optics.

[Cannot think of a name]

Because why would he?

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Monday that he "absolutely" asked President Donald Trump "multiple times" to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but about energy -- not the Bidens -- and said he is not leaving his role in the administration.

Speaking at a press conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, Perry said that he told Trump that it was in the best interest of the two nations to have discussions regarding energy issues. His response comes on the heels of reports that Trump told lawmakers Perry urged him to make the July 25 call that has become a key focus of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry into the President.

"Absolutely, I asked the president multiple times. 'Mr. President, we think it is in the United States and in Ukraine's best interest that you and the President of Ukraine have conversations and discuss the options that are there,'" Perry said Monday. "So absolutely yes."
...
On Friday, Perry said on the Christian Broadcasting Network that Joe Biden's name did not come up in during the many conversations that he had with Trump.

"Not once, as God is my witness, not once was a Biden name -- not the former Vice President, not his son -- ever mentioned," he said at the time.

That, of course, was because there were gold in them thar hills.

As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors.

Mmmm...self dealing. All the more annoying in its non-illegality.

It’s unclear if Perry’s attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies pushing for a similar outcome, and no one has alleged that there is criminal activity in any of these efforts. And it’s unclear what role, if any, Giuliani had in helping his clients push to get gas sales agreements with the state-owned company.

But the affair shows how those with ties to Trump and his administration were pursuing business deals in Ukraine that went far beyond advancing the president’s personal political interests. It also raises questions about whether Trump allies were mixing business and politics just as Republicans were calling for a probe of Biden and his son Hunter, who served five years on the board of another Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

[North German Realm]

Did he unironically use "Great and unmatched wisdom"???

[Gormwood]

Did he unironically use "Great and unmatched wisdom"???

Yes. He's full of himself.

[Cannot think of a name]

Did he unironically use "Great and unmatched wisdom"???

Yes. He's full of himself.

He needs to cut to the chase and make his proclamations in via a hologram in green smoke.

[Gormwood]

Yes. He's full of himself.

He needs to cut to the chase and make his proclamations in via a hologram in green smoke.

A bigly hologram.

[Shrillland]

Yes. He's full of himself.

He needs to cut to the chase and make his proclamations in via a hologram in green smoke.

Better still, he can just do what Niyazov did in Turkmenistan and rename the month of June Trump.

[Gravlen]

Did he unironically use "Great and unmatched wisdom"???

The Chosen One, and the King of Israel? Sure he did.

[Gravlen]

Trump wants to impeach Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Mitt Romney. Probably someone else as well, I have lost count of how many he's accused of treason by now.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/07/poli ... index.html

Graham is now openly criticising Trump. I think he might be trying the waters of public opinion, seeing how far he can go. If he survives this, Trump might face impeachment.

[Zurkerx]

Did he unironically use "Great and unmatched wisdom"???

I'm surprised he hasn't called those beneath him plebs yet.

Because why would he?

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Monday that he "absolutely" asked President Donald Trump "multiple times" to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but about energy -- not the Bidens -- and said he is not leaving his role in the administration.

Speaking at a press conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, Perry said that he told Trump that it was in the best interest of the two nations to have discussions regarding energy issues. His response comes on the heels of reports that Trump told lawmakers Perry urged him to make the July 25 call that has become a key focus of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry into the President.

"Absolutely, I asked the president multiple times. 'Mr. President, we think it is in the United States and in Ukraine's best interest that you and the President of Ukraine have conversations and discuss the options that are there,'" Perry said Monday. "So absolutely yes."
...
On Friday, Perry said on the Christian Broadcasting Network that Joe Biden's name did not come up in during the many conversations that he had with Trump.

"Not once, as God is my witness, not once was a Biden name -- not the former Vice President, not his son -- ever mentioned," he said at the time.

That, of course, was because there were gold in them thar hills.

As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors.

Mmmm...self dealing. All the more annoying in its non-illegality.

It’s unclear if Perry’s attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies pushing for a similar outcome, and no one has alleged that there is criminal activity in any of these efforts. And it’s unclear what role, if any, Giuliani had in helping his clients push to get gas sales agreements with the state-owned company.

But the affair shows how those with ties to Trump and his administration were pursuing business deals in Ukraine that went far beyond advancing the president’s personal political interests. It also raises questions about whether Trump allies were mixing business and politics just as Republicans were calling for a probe of Biden and his son Hunter, who served five years on the board of another Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

I actually read all this yesterday. Can't say I'm surprised; many administrations have done it, it's just a matter if they get caught or not. In Trump's case, he seemingly got caught though to be honest, Republicans don't care (as we have seen them focus on Biden instead). But I feel this second whistleblower may hurt him even more (be awesome if he has recordings though that's highly unlikely; it would seal his faith).