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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[barton]

From the Post, excerpts produced for the paywall blocked...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/09/this-is-constitutional-crisis-we-feared/

This is the constitutional crisis we feared
 
By
Paul Waldman
Oct. 9, 2019 at 11:02 a.m. MDT

  For nearly three years, President Trump’s critics have warned that there might come a point when we face a genuine constitutional crisis, one that threatens our very Democratic system. That constitutional crisis has arrived.

The White House has released an extraordinary letter from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to congressional Democrats, a document that will live on in infamy from this day forward as evidence of how profoundly Trump corrupted the office of the president and everyone around him.

Despite the fact that it appears under the signature of the chief lawyer of the White House, the letter reads like some combination of a deeply misinformed seventh-grader’s social studies paper and a rant from Sean Hannity, randomly tossing around terms like “civil liberties” and “separation of powers” without any apparent understanding of what they mean.   

Boiled down to its essence, the letter asserts that Trump is beyond the reach of oversight, of impeachment and of any checks and balances from the legislative branch. Because he thinks Congress is not treating him “fairly” (the word “fair” appears eight times in the letter), Trump has decided that he can issue a blanket refusal to “participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry.” All requests for documents and testimony will be rejected, and all subpoenas will be thrown in the trash.

To put this in context, there are regular disputes between Congress and the executive branch over particular subpoenas or other ways Congress exercises its oversight power.

“The executive rarely if ever is willing to give up everything Congress wants on the terms that Congress wants,” Professor Melissa Murray of New York University law school told me. But the usual procedure is that after some negotiation, “they reach some compromise that’s mutually acceptable. And when they can’t, they will then go to the courts.” 

The White House, however, is not saying that they have legal grounds to refuse some particular request Congress has made. They don’t even make a claim of executive privilege. They say instead that the entire inquiry is unfair, and therefore they can reject all of it.

“If Congress cannot exercise its power of oversight or its power of impeachment, it essentially means the president doesn’t have to answer to anyone but the political process, which only comes around every four years,” Murray says. “And that essentially makes the president a king.”

I also spoke to Elizabeth Wydra, the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, who agreed. The letter, she said, “has no basis in the Constitution, and its claims to wrap its partisan obstruction in the Constitution are outrageous.”     

[NeedsAdjustments]

A Quinnipiac poll, out later on Tuesday, found slightly lower support for impeachment than the Post. Forty-five percent of those polled said the President should be impeached and removed from office, 49% said he shouldn't be.
----
And an NBC/WSJ poll that was released Tuesday evening found even less support for impeaching and removing Trump -- 43% of those polled said they were in favor and 49% said they were against impeachment and removal.



https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/politics/washington-post-poll-trump-impeachment/index.html

That's the same NBC/WSJ poll that shows 58% support an impeachment inquiry, vs. 38% that do not?

Thanks.  But I posted a link to it yesterday.

INQUIRY!!!!


heh

Inquiry, yes.  As in, a large majority of Americans see the inquiry as legitimate and justified.  Already a departure from your “president’s” position.

Then almost as high a percentage of Americans see Trump as guilty without needing the inquiry to convince them as the percentage of Americans that elected him, and you crow about those numbers. 

heh.

[NeedsAdjustments]

Part of why I remain leaning more towards Warren (or Yang or Booker or Buttigieg) than Biden....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/opinion/what-hunter-biden-did-was-legal-and-thats-the-problem.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

In trying to disprove a link between the father’s powerful position and the son’s surprising success, Hunter Biden’s lawyers claim he did not take an equity stake in BHR Partners until after Joe Biden left office. Hunter, whose company, according to its financial records, held an equity stake in the fund, took a board seat when it was founded, in December 2013. At the same time, his business partner, Devon Archer, was vice chairman.

With the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, Joe Biden became point person in Ukraine as well. That same year, Hunter Biden landed a board position with the Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings. Despite having no background in energy or Ukraine, the vice president’s son was paid as much as $50,000 a month, according to financial records. (He left the board in early 2019.)

Why would someone with so little experience be able to command such enormous payments? Joe Biden recently claimed, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” But Hunter Biden admitted to The New Yorker that on one occasion, they had in fact discussed his work for Burisma: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’” Moreover, a representative for BHR Partners has said that Hunter Biden introduced his father to one of the company’s founders during their December 2013 China trip.

The Bidens are hardly alone. President Trump’s transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, and her husband, Senator Mitch McConnell, are being accused of having profited from their commercial ties to Beijing. In 2004, the two had a net worth of about $3.1 million, according to public disclosures. Three years later, the range was $3.1 million to $12.7 million. The next year, their net worth rocketed to $7.3 million to $33.1 million.

What changed? In 2008, Ms. Chao’s father, James Chao, gave the couple a “gift” of $5 million to $25 million (politicians are required to report money in ranges, not exact amounts). Certainly, their wealth has continued to grow.

Mr. Chao’s generosity was made possible by the fortune he has amassed through his shipping company, Foremost Group, which has thrived in large part because of its close ties with the Chinese government. In late 1993, Mr. Chao and his son-in-law, Mr. McConnell, traveled to China as guests of the state-owned shipyard conglomerate and military contractor, China State Shipbuilding Corporation. There they met with an old classmate of Mr. Chao’s, the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.

Mr. McConnell’s once hard-line condemnations of China softened in the years to follow. For example, as The New Republic has noted, Mr. McConnell went from telling University of Louisville students that America would never forget Tiananmen Square, in the late 1980s, to hosting the Chinese ambassador at the same school several years later, even as the ambassador publicly defended the regime’s suppression of the Falun Gong...

We need laws, with teeth and talons, to rid politics of these corrupting opportunities.  I would go so far as to suggest that candidates for public office, and immediate relatives, cannot have foreign business ties at all.  Yes, that is a suggestion that falls in the "burn it downnn!" category.

The "no background on energy" talking point is tired.  It is common practice for a company to hire board members for their connections and as window dressing.  Ask Sec. Mattis how much he knew about blood testing when he joined the board of a company that turned out to be a 100% scam.

The McConnell example is far more worrisome.   This is essentially a direct line from the People's Republic of China to Mitch McConnell's bank account.  Thats not ok.  No one should get rich because they serve the American People in public office.  Reasons for this are obvious.

No one's kids should get rich because their parents are in public office?  Also a defendable position.  But of course, kids get rich of their parent's connections all the time.

[NeedsAdjustments]

For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-time-history-us-billionaires-paid-lower-tax-rate-than-working-class-last-year/

...and the result has been an economic boom so big and so sustainable that the Fed will announce another round of interest rate cuts and quantitative easing to prevent the economy from sliding into recession.

[Yankguy1]

Red got a tax cut.

[kiidcarter8]

A Quinnipiac poll, out later on Tuesday, found slightly lower support for impeachment than the Post. Forty-five percent of those polled said the President should be impeached and removed from office, 49% said he shouldn't be.
----
And an NBC/WSJ poll that was released Tuesday evening found even less support for impeaching and removing Trump -- 43% of those polled said they were in favor and 49% said they were against impeachment and removal.



https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/politics/washington-post-poll-trump-impeachment/index.html

That's the same NBC/WSJ poll that shows 58% support an impeachment inquiry, vs. 38% that do not?

Thanks.  But I posted a link to it yesterday.

INQUIRY!!!!


heh

Inquiry, yes.  As in, a large majority of Americans see the inquiry as legitimate and justified. 

That's not what I posted.  Why are you going backwards?

[REDSTATEWARD]

For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class last year

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/08/first-time-history-us-billionaires-paid-lower-tax-rate-than-working-class-last-year/

...and the result has been an economic boom so big and so sustainable that the Fed will announce another round of interest rate cuts and quantitative easing to prevent the economy from sliding into recession.

Wanna try that one again?

[facilitatorn]

Adderall does not make a puppet interloper immune from inquiries and investigations even if he’s wormed his way into the White House.

What trump should be thinking about now is how he’ll get his buzz dust in federal prison.

[kiidcarter8]

Yes

With Bush and Cheney, you one note asshole.

[NeedsAdjustments]

When asked about the release of ISIS detainees after the SDF leaves those positions to defend themselves, Trump says "Well they are going to be escaping to Europe"

This guy really knows who our allies are, doesn't he?

Good thing there is no possible way to get to the US from Europe...I mean it takes months on a steamship right?

[facilitatorn]

Yes

With Bush and Cheney, you one note asshole.

If you insist, whiskey dick.

There are plenty of crimes they perpetrated to warrant a nice long lockup for each.

[kiidcarter8]

Yay!  Daniel and Tara are back!!!!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/politics/trump-october-fact-check-ukraine-whistleblower/index.html

[kiidcarter8]

Halle shootings "motivated by far-right ideology," German security official says


It was TRUMP's fault!

[kiidcarter8]

https://twitter.com/DHSgov/status/1182053357340495872

K Mac's on it.

[kiidcarter8]

https://twitter.com/Aramaithea/status/1182033067445297153

Beautiful Cali...