https://twitter.com/pnrodenbush/status/1178699768249360389
Patrick Rodenbush @pnrodenbush

All those GOP appointments to the Supreme Court despite the fact that Democrats have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections.

Lawrence Hurley ✔ @lawrencehurley

Supreme Court appointments by party of president since Nixon was elected:

Republicans: 14
Democrats: 4

11:54 AM - Sep 30, 2019

https://popular.info/p/facebook-giving-massive-distribution

Facebook is giving a page featuring incendiary right-wing memes and dangerous misinformation about diabetes massive distribution — reach that exceeds some of the nation's largest news outlets.

The Rowdy Republican page, which has over 780,000 followers, is run by an affiliate marketer with a history of legal problems and deceptive practices. He is seeking to drive people to a site about "The Big Diabetes Lie," which tries to convince people to purchase a $55 paperback book. According to the website, if you have diabetes and don't purchase this book, you will soon die:

If you are OK with slowly losing your vision and then going blind as diabetes destroys the blood vessels in your eyes causing them to wither and die, if you're perfectly fine with dying 9 years earlier, possibly not waking up tomorrow, dropping dead at any moment or having your legs amputated. If you are OK with not seeing your kids or grandkids grow up, then please, close this page and go back to what you were doing.

One of the leading medical experts in treating diabetes, Dr. David Goldstein, an endocrinologist affiliated with the University of Missouri, reviewed the website and told Popular Information that the information was "ridiculous" and contained "dangerous misinformation."

The Daily Caller, a member of Facebook's official fact-checking program, reviewed a post by Rowdy Republican that included a link to "The Big Diabetes Lie" and rated it "true."

The runaway success of the Rowdy Republican page is a sign that Facebook's efforts to reduce the spread of misinformation is failing. As a result, its users are being put in danger.

According to a source that has contacted Facebook representatives, the company has ignored reports about misinformation from the Rowdy Republican page since at least November 2018. Facebook also did not respond to a request for comment by Popular Information.

</snip>

https://www.justsecurity.org/66370/trump-goes-full-putin-capitulation-inside-the-oval-office/

by Joshua Geltzer and Jake Sullivan
September 30, 2019

Vladimir Putin’s favorite form of argument is whataboutism. Accused of virtually any wrongdoing, Putin points to something done by a country other than Russia and asks, “What about that—what’s the difference?” New revelations about Donald Trump’s 2017 Oval Office meeting with top Russian officials indicate that Trump has taken Putin’s approach to a whole new level. For Trump, it’s not just what about them—it’s what about us.

Over the past two decades since Putin came onto the scene, the United States, alongside other Western nations, has called out various Russian transgressions. And his retorts have had a consistent ring. A Russian invasion of Georgia—but what about the American-led “invasion” of the former Yugoslavia? Russian aggression in Crimea—but what about America’s “aggression” in Syria? Russian interference in U.S. elections—but what about America’s “interference” in the internal politics of Ukraine—not to mention, in Putin’s view, in Russian politics via American nonprofits preaching democratic reform?

We’ve long known that Trump has a strange admiration for Putin. But recent reports confirm that Trump has adopted Putin’s whataboutist logic wholesale—and put his own stamp on it.

Trump’s instinct toward whataboutism isn’t brand new, of course. We’ve seen it, for example, in Trump’s attempts to deflect criticism of his interactions with Ukrainian leadership by pointing toward those of his political rival Joe Biden: Think I did something wrong in pressuring Ukraine—what about Biden. It matters not, of course, that the comparison fails to withstand scrutiny.

Trump’s emulation of Putin’s brand of whataboutism is highly dangerous when deployed as public propaganda by an American President. But it turns out Trump has followed this logic not simply for public consumption. He’s apparently internalized it and, moreover, turned it against the United States in private diplomatic exchanges. Consider stunning revelations that, in a 2017 Oval Office meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, Trump said he was unconcerned that Russia interfered with America’s 2016 election—the very election that put Trump in the Oval Office. He also apparently expressed lack of concern–or even “seemed to invite”–Russian interference in other countries. The reason Trump reportedly gave for his lack of concern? His view that the United States takes similar steps to meddle with domestic elections in other countries.

</snip>

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-30/whistleblower-complaint-now-trump-talks-of-civil-war-and-treason

By Timothy L. O'Brien
September 30, 2019, 6:30 AM EDT

The president of the United States suggested on Twitter on Sunday night that the country may have to endure a civil war should he be impeached and removed from office. So a timeline detailing how Donald Trump and the rest of us got to this point is probably in order.

Less than two weeks into Trump’s presidency, unseemly details of his conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia leaked to the media. After that, the White House limited the number of people with access to transcripts or records of Trump’s phone calls.

Three months later, in May 2017, Trump fired the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, and gloated about it in an Oval Office meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the U.S., referring to Comey as a “nut job.” That ugly bit of juvenalia also made it into the press, along with the more serious and disturbing revelation that Trump disclosed classified intelligence information to the Russians. With that, the White House clamped down even further and began moving records and transcripts of some of Trump’s conversations onto a so-called “code-word” protected and highly classified National Security Council computer network, according to the New York Times.

Ever since then, apparently, many of Trump’s potentially embarrassing diplomatic machinations reportedly made it into that database alongside the more typically sensitive records all presidents have routinely and legitimately classified for national security purposes. Based only on what we know thus far, among the material on the secret NSC network reportedly ranking as possibly ghastly rather than improper or illegal are discussions Trump had with Saudi Arabia’s royal family about the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

But it’s the opaque and overtly illicit material that we now know is hidden on that system, the use of which only became known thanks to a complaint filed by a Central Intelligence Agency whistle-blower, that is the stuff of presidential impeachment proceedings. The foundational disclosure, from the whistle-blower, was that Trump called Ukraine’s president in July and offered to connect him to his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Attorney General William Barr so they could jointly dig up dirt in Ukraine on a political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. That conversation, the whistle-blower said, got stashed away on the restricted NSC network – which the White House later confirmed.

On Friday night, the Washington Post disclosed that when Trump met with the Russians in the Oval Office in 2017, he went beyond slagging Comey and disclosing classified intelligence. He also told them “he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries.” That statement “alarmed White House officials” who decided a memo summarizing the meeting should be “limited to a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly.” It wasn’t clear if that memo was secreted on the NSC’s restricted network, but Congressional investigators can go ahead and find out.

CNN reported on Friday night that transcripts of sensitive calls between Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia were also limited to a select group in the Trump administration. CNN said it wasn’t clear if those transcripts were placed on the restricted network; the New York Times reported that they were. The Kremlin, unsurprisingly, said over the weekend that it would rather not see those transcripts made public. Congressional investigators should try to get a look at those conversations, too.

</snip>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/30/trump-is-cornered-his-civil-war-threat-stinks-panic/

By Greg Sargent Opinion writer

September 30, 2019 at 10:12 a.m. EDT

President Trump has now approvingly quoted a top supporter raising the prospect of “civil war." He accused unnamed national security officials in his own government of “spying” on him. He just called for a top Democrat in Congress to be arrested for “treason.”

And that was all in the last 24 hours.

All of this has many observers warning that Trump is lurching in an increasingly authoritarian direction, as the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry ratchets up.

But all of this is better seen as an expression of deep panic and self-incrimination -- not just because the latest revelations have Trump on the defensive, but also because of meaningful shift in the power dynamics shaping the standoff between the White House and Democrats.

There’s been a very fundamental change in the way House Democrats are going about holding Trump accountable: They’re no longer in the position of demanding cooperation from the White House and then waiting for a court to compel it.

Instead, Democrats now can threaten immediate consequences for the failure to comply: Impeachment for that very act of stonewalling.

This pattern, and the force of this new dynamic, become clear when you pull together multiple new statements from Democrats. On ABC News, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said that if the White House doesn’t meet its demands as part of their impeachment inquiry, “they will be strengthening the case for an article of impeachment based on obstruction of the lawful functions of Congress.”

Schiff issued a similar warning on NBC News. And Democrats on three committees just subpoenaed the State Department for a raft of documents designed to shed more light on Trump’s pressure on the Ukrainian president. They added the pointed warning that failure to comply “shall constitute evidence of obstruction of the House’s impeachment inquiry.”

This came with a hard deadline of one week. And this fundamentally upends the dynamic that held sway for months.

</snip>

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/463466-gop-senators-attack-whistleblowers-credibility

Republican senators scrambling to protect President Trump from a formal impeachment inquiry are attacking the credibility of the whistleblower who filed a complaint.

GOP lawmakers are asserting the whistleblower did not have firsthand knowledge of the actions detailed in the complaint and question whether the person had a political agenda.

“It doesn’t come from a person with personal knowledge. It’s like I heard these people say this, and now I’m reporting it. I think that is pretty bizarre,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

“Secondly, after a certain point, it doesn’t just allege facts, it really is kind of a dossier or political diatribe, so I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Having said that, we are in the process of talking to the director of national intelligence and the inspector general.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has had a reputation for protecting whistleblowers, said the one at the center of the Trump impeachment inquiry didn’t necessarily deserve protections.

“If they are not really a whistle blower, they don’t get the protection,” he said.

The remarks from Grassley, Cornyn and other senators echo arguments coming from Trump, but stand in stark contrast to the testimony last week from acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who said the whistleblower acted in good faith.

“I think the whistleblower did the right thing,” Maguire told the House Intelligence Committee.

</snip>

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/gop-playing-weak-hand-defending-trump-ukraine-n1060216?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_mtp

Sept. 30, 2019, 8:54 AM EDT
By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann

WASHINGTON — Maybe the most telling aspect of this Ukraine story have been the Republican defenses and explanations of President Trump.

When you add them all up, it becomes pretty clear the GOP is playing a weak hand.

Here’s what we heard from Republican lawmakers over the weekend:

It’s all hearsay: “It's all hearsay. You can't get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay. The whistleblower didn't hear the phone call,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on CBS.

In fact, we have the transcription memo of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s new president, which pretty much matches the whistleblower’s complaint.

What’s in the transcript really isn’t in the transcript: From “60 Minutes” last night:

CBS News' Scott Pelley: And President Trump replies, “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: You just added another word.

Pelley: No, it’s in the transcript.

McCarthy: He said, “I’d like you to do a favor though?”

Pelley: Yes, it’s in the White House transcript.

In fact, here’s what Trump said per the transcription memo: “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”

</snip>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/30/even-if-senate-wont-convict-impeachment-will-still-punish-deter/


By Max Boot Columnist
September 30, 2019 at 9:26 a.m. EDT

There are good and bad arguments against impeachment. I don’t find either compelling, and I’d like to explain why.

The bad arguments, cynically spread by President Trump and his toadies, go to the substance of the allegations against him. Faced with damning evidence that, as the whistleblower put it, “the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election,” his disingenuous defenders toss out one lame alibi after another.

Trump didn’t break any laws. Actually, it’s a crime for an American candidate to solicit or accept “any contribution” from a foreign national. But you don’t have to break the law to be impeached.

There was no quid pro quo. Wrong. There was. Right after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his desire to buy U.S. munitions, Trump said, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” He then went on to ask Ukraine for its help, first, to clear him of charges of collusion with Russia and, then (“the other thing”), to “find out about” Joe Biden. This demand was buttressed by Trump’s stoppage, at least a week before the call, of nearly $400 million in U.S. aid.

The president is allowed to ask for foreign help with a corruption investigation. True, but there is no investigation of Biden — and if there were, it would be conducted by the FBI, not the president’s personal lawyer. The reason there’s no investigation is that Biden did nothing wrong in pressing Ukraine to get rid of a corrupt prosecutor — who was not, contrary to Trump’s lies, probing the energy company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Trump was asking for the Ukrainians to start an investigation to help him politically.

All presidents politicize foreign policy. True, to varying degrees, but no president has ever so blatantly asked for foreign interference to help him win. The closest parallel is Richard Nixon’s secret efforts in 1968 to encourage Saigon to sabotage peace talks with North Vietnam — but Nixon wasn’t yet president and those sordid machinations weren’t documented till years later.

</snip>