Trump repeatedly (8 times) urged Ukraine president to investigate Biden’s son

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/20/trump-repeatedly-urged-ukraine.html

Trump says it ‘doesn’t matter’ if he talked of investigating Biden with Ukraine president (it does)

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“It’s a ridiculous story. It’s a partisan whistle-blower,”

“They shouldn’t even have information,” he continued.

“totally appropriate.”

“It doesn’t matter what I discussed,”

“Somebody ought to look into that,"

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[Current occupant of the White House] solicits campaign contributions from a foreign state. Republican establishment: [crickets].

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Sweet! That’s really going to trigger the libs!

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Why is America so powerless to remove a corrupt “leader”?

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I think what has been so far proven is that a normal politician who makes a significant mistake (illegal or simply unethical) will be undone when it becomes public. But when the brand of a politician is constant, unrelenting, defiant illegality and unethical behavior, each new allegation is simply another minor incident. It’s too hard to maintain an appropriate level of outrage when the wrongdoing is in the firehose stream of liquefied shit. You are already drowning in shit, what is the effect of another barrel or two more?

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Because for removal our constitution requires a supermajority in a body that his party controls.

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See what happens when you believe the sh!t you hear on Fox News?

You start extorting world leaders because you really think there’s a good reason to.

LOL

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From a review of They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 by Milton Mayer:

With evident fatigue, the baker reported, “One had no time to think. There was so much going on.” His account was similar to that of one of Mayer’s colleagues, a German philologist in the country at the time, who emphasized the devastatingly incremental nature of the descent into tyranny and said that “we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.” The philologist pointed to a regime bent on diverting its people through endless dramas (often involving real or imagined enemies), and “the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise.” In his account, “each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’” that people could no more see it “developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

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Laws are just words on paper without the political will to enforce them.

The power to remove Trump currently lies with people who will tolerate any manner of wrongdoing as long as it’s their guy in the White House.

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In large part because the Dem establishment has been all too willing to compromise with him and work with him (the same goes for McConnell and all the other GOP politicians who operate in bad faith).

The alternative is to admit that the political system they’re invested in is deeply, deeply broken and that some voters will never, ever vote for them despite every technocratic appeal to logic and reality. They won’t do that – saying so would imply that they’ve wasted their lives, and probably cost them their jobs.

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Why is America so powerless to remove a corrupt “leader”?

It’s tough to prove that a fox is an ass to other foxes.

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Government is working perfectly for the rich. Why impeach him?

Insert head chopping gif here

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Mr. Trump didn’t mention a provision of U.S. aid to Ukraine on the call, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid-pro-quo for his cooperation on any investigation.

So was there a specific crime committed here? Or is this just another “unprecedented” action by a president that violates the usually norms, but isn’t technically illegal? Because he’s been doing stuff that falls under the latter category since day one and it doesn’t seem to matter. People gripe that “Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex.” but the main point of that was that he lied under oath so there was a real crime to point to, no matter how minor. I’m sick of getting my hopes up that Trump finally did something that crossed the line, only to be disappointed yet again.

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Because the founding fathers assumed there’d always be a benevolent oligarchy.

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“It doesn’t matter what I discussed,” Trump said.

Then why won’t you tell the media what you discussed?

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the new reporting isn’t mentioning a specific quid pro quo. But it’s also not mentioning the “promise” that was supposedly in the initial whistleblower report. Congress really needs to see the actual report.

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Ellen Weintraub, the chair of the FEC, made it very clear that accepting the help of a foreign government against a political opponent is illegal, directly in response to Trump saying he wouldn’t rule it out, before these calls. This wasn’t just acceptance. This was solicitation.

Specifically, it is illegal for a campaign to receive money or anything of value (including oppo research) from a foreign entity.

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