General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

[Doktor Howl]

Looks like Canada is about to elect their own nationalist idiot Trump clone.

I dunno.  Many of the Conservative party's supporters are clones of Trump supporters, but Scheer himself seems like a fairly standard right-wing type (anti-abortion, closet homophobe), and he has a fair way to fall to reach Trump's level of stupidity.  He doesn't strike me as particularly nationalistic; one Conservative (Maxime Bernier) actually broke away from the party because it was insufficiently anti-immigration.  (Bernier's platform's primary distinguishing feature is reducing the number of immigrants).

The SNC-Lavalin affair was a major screwup on Trudeau's part, and I dislike the man personally, but I do prefer him over Scheer as the next P.M. (on a policy level, anyway).  I'm hoping we get a minority Liberal government.  It gives Trudeau a nice sharp slap in the face, but doesn't hand power over to the Conservatives, and forces the parties to co-operate to get anything done.  (The Canadian system has devolved, in recent decades, to something like a term dictatorship.)

Edit:  I voted NDP.  I usually do.  They don't have a snowflake's chance in hell in my riding, though.

Once you get to that chanting stage, it's all over.

[Fujikoma]

Is it that moment you realize you're attending a professional wrestling match?

[Doktor Howl]

https://www.apnews.com/a089ddade65f42978c45147aa4ec2dca

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans have disrupted a closed-door deposition with a Defense Department official who was scheduled to answer questions as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Laura Cooper, a senior official who oversees Ukraine policy, arrived Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill to appear before the House panels conducting the investigation. Shortly afterward, more than two dozen Republican House members held a news conference outside the secure room in the Capitol where the deposition was taking place.

The Republicans decried that the deposition was happening behind closed doors and said Americans should be able to read the transcripts of any interviews being conducted as part of impeachment.

Republicans then walked into the meeting unannounced, and the deposition was put on hold. The two sides were trying to resolve the standoff, Republicans who left the meeting said.

Cooper's testimony comes a day after a top U.S. diplomat testified that he was told Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine until the country's president went public with a promise to investigate Democrats.

[Cain]

It's not like SCIFs are priority targets for foreign intelligence services because they detail sources and methods to Congress, or that cellphones can be remotely turned into microphones or that the US intelligence agencies know this and HAVE A BIG FUCKING DUDE POSTED OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO TAKE YOUR PHONES FROM YOU or anything.

Endangering US intelligence operations to own the libs.

[Doktor Howl]

It's not like SCIFs are priority targets for foreign intelligence services because they detail sources and methods to Congress, or that cellphones can be remotely turned into microphones or that the US intelligence agencies know this and HAVE A BIG FUCKING DUDE POSTED OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO TAKE YOUR PHONES FROM YOU or anything.

Endangering US intelligence operations to own the libs.

Why the fuck do we even have a sergeant at arms?

[Doktor Howl]

And then this happened:

https://www.apnews.com/b048901b635f423db49a10046daaf8a8

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — More than two months before the phone call that launched the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Ukraine's newly elected leader was already worried about pressure from the U.S. president to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy gathered a small group of advisers on May 7 in Kyiv for a meeting that was supposed to be about his nation's energy needs. Instead, the group spent most of the three-hour discussion talking about how to navigate the insistence from Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, for a probe and how to avoid becoming entangled in the American elections, according to three people familiar with the details of the meeting.

[The Johnny]

Hey, as long as the self-named "world police" has the moral/ethical highground, everything will be fine. Right? Right?

[Doktor Howl]

Hey, as long as the self-named "world police" has the moral/ethical highground, everything will be fine. Right? Right?

No, not really.   

[Doktor Howl]

It's not like SCIFs are priority targets for foreign intelligence services because they detail sources and methods to Congress, or that cellphones can be remotely turned into microphones or that the US intelligence agencies know this and HAVE A BIG FUCKING DUDE POSTED OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO TAKE YOUR PHONES FROM YOU or anything.

Endangering US intelligence operations to own the libs.

Surprise, surprise.  This was organized by Jim Jordan and Mark Walker.

[Doktor Howl]

It's getting a little crowded under the bus.   

https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/trump-mcconnell-said-ukraine-call-was-innocent-mcconnell-no-i-didn-t-71871045628

[Faust]

So does this look like it is actually building up to something like impeachment now, or are there too many smoking guns and too many crime scenes to link one to the other.

[altered]

I doubt it's impeachment now, but it's for the exact opposite reason you cited: it's so easy to link the president to the crime that there's one part disbelief, one part stubborn denial of reality just to give themselves a mental landing strip.

Disbelief because how the FUCK did it take this long to find this shit out if it was actually bad, of course. It was done practically in the open, free and clear, with receipts, notice the people involved knew they were doing bad, not even a token attempt at a proper coverup. (Closest thing was saying State Dept employees weren't allowed to testify. Which it was already too late for, we had the text messages.)

It's so indefensible (in the sense that there is literally no way to defend it) that the Republicans have to either give up on political aspirations, or deny it ever happened and make the whole thing out to be a giant, ridiculous, infeasible hoax.

[Doktor Howl]

So does this look like it is actually building up to something like impeachment now, or are there too many smoking guns and too many crime scenes to link one to the other.

My guess is the house republicans will screech and pull more stunts and the senate will quietly convict him, as Pence will also give them everything they like, but without the hysterics.

[Doktor Howl]

I doubt it's impeachment now, but it's for the exact opposite reason you cited: it's so easy to link the president to the crime that there's one part disbelief, one part stubborn denial of reality just to give themselves a mental landing strip.

Disbelief because how the FUCK did it take this long to find this shit out if it was actually bad, of course. It was done practically in the open, free and clear, with receipts, notice the people involved knew they were doing bad, not even a token attempt at a proper coverup. (Closest thing was saying State Dept employees weren't allowed to testify. Which it was already too late for, we had the text messages.)

It's so indefensible (in the sense that there is literally no way to defend it) that the Republicans have to either give up on political aspirations, or deny it ever happened and make the whole thing out to be a giant, ridiculous, infeasible hoax.

Someone posted way back in this thread a link to a lady who had survived one fascist state or another, and her first rule is "listen to what they say they are going to do, and believe that they will do it."

[Doktor Howl]

Posting the obvious here, to bookmark it for FB when I get home.

https://www.apnews.com/1a53b13c1d8d4a4d9ef0ffe8d5ffff38