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erronis

erronis's Journal
erronis's Journal
November 7, 2019

Imagine. Imagine a single day when trump acted like a real human, a real president.

Can we?

A day with dignity and humor and love for the country?
A day when personal gain is not the top of the agenda?
A day without tweets and tirades?
A day when experts are actually consulted? And advice headed?
A day where allies and other countries can understand our policies?
A day when the word "fuck" isn't uttered from the WH?
A day when "dog" isn't used as a term of denigration?
A day without one of the spawn/relatives aren't involved in a shady operation?

No, I can't either. As long as this family is around.

And I can't imagine most of these if the (R)epuglicons maintain power.

November 6, 2019

White House expects two new hires to bolster Trump impeachment defense -official

Source: Reuters

The White House is expected to recruit two advisers to take a more aggressive posture in defending President Donald Trump in the congressional impeachment inquiry over his dealings with Ukraine, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

The two outside advisers are former Florida state attorney general Pam Bondi, a Trump ally, and former Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh, who had resigned earlier this year after joining the administration from its early days.

“Pam Bondi and Tony Sayegh are expected to join the White House communications team to work on proactive impeachment messaging and other special projects as they arise,” the first administration official said.


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-impeachment-defense/white-house-expects-two-new-hires-to-bolster-trump-impeachment-defense-official-idUSKBN1XG2R8?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews



Scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Who, in there right mind, would defend a psychopath while they are still actively engaging in their destructive behaviors?

What has this hold over the (R)epuglicons?
November 6, 2019

Lindsey Graham said a month ago there was no evidence of a quid pro quo. Now he's refusing to look

at the evidence that shows there was.

https://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-refuses-look-sondland-testimony-quid-pro-quo-2019-11

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is refusing to look at new evidence of a quid pro quo involving President Donald Trump and military aid to Ukraine.

In September, Graham said evidence of Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine in exchange for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden did "not exist."

A transcript of testimony from EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, released by House committees on Tuesday, offers evidence of an explicit quid pro quo in this regard.

Graham on Tuesday told a reporter he wouldn't look at the new evidence and said the entire process surrounding the inquiry was "BS."


Lot of (R)epuglicons and trumpers with heads stuck in dark, moist, smelly places.
November 4, 2019

Danziger: al-Baghdadi whimpers



Project much, Donnie-Boy?
November 2, 2019

John Pavlovitz: This Isn't Christianity

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2019/11/02/this-isnt-christianity/

Keying of another discussion https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212648160 I was struck by the text and image of another from this pastor's site. FWIW, I am an atheist but appreciate truth-telling.


This isn’t Christianity

We need to be really clear on something, because there seems to be confusion out there lately:

This isn’t Christianity.

They may use the word and steal the iconography and cop the aesthetic, but that is where the resemblance diverges and where the similarities end. There remain no other commonalities with which to rightly associate the two.

This isn’t Christianity.

It is spiritual misappropriation: the violent hijacking of something helpful and weaponizing it in order to do the greatest amount of damage in the shortest amount of time. It is a hostile takeover of something beautiful and grossly disfiguring it to terrorize people with.

This isn’t Christianity—that is, not if Jesus was Christian.

If Jesus was Christian, then Christianity is:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
— Jesus (Matthew 5:3-10)

And there is nothing of mercy or humility or purity or peacemaking in this thing claiming to be Christianity.

No, this thing is the antithesis of all of it.

...
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October 19, 2019

The Guardian: Trump the predator - book release

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/19/trump-predator-new-book-fresh-allegations

Will this make any difference to the magapaths? Will this just reinforce the old white men's feeling that the dump is "one of them". A good old boy who knows how to have fun.

A new book uncovers fresh allegations of the president’s inappropriate sexual behaviour.

We all know the story by now. In 2005, Donald Trump was caught on tape bragging that his fame allowed him to sexually assault women. In 2016, as he was running for president, that recording, the so-called Access Hollywood tape, was made public, resulting in a stream of women coming forward and alleging that Trump had groped or otherwise sexually assaulted them. He was elected anyway; the women’s stories didn’t seem to matter. But they should.

If we have understood one thing in the two years since actor Alyssa Milano tweeted #MeToo, sending the then 11-year-old phrase viral, it is that when women are not listened to, men in positions of power are left free to abuse their authority. When the accused abuser is the president of the United States, those allegations and how they are handled matter all the more. Thanks to his bully pulpit, Trump’s words and actions resonate far beyond the deeds themselves.
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Read more

And then there is the question of collective responsibility. If we avert our eyes from the allegations of Trump’s abuse because we find it distasteful, we tacitly endorse his behaviour. When we dismiss or ignore his objectification and denigration of women, we legitimise it. Leaving these attitudes and actions unchecked allows them to proliferate.

Edited and extracted from All The President’s Women: Donald Trump and the Making of a Predator by Barry Levine & Monique El-Faizy, published in the UK on 23 October by Trapeze
October 8, 2019

'Tell the truth ... for a change': ex-President Carter's advice to Trump

Source: Reuters

Former Democratic U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday called on President Donald Trump to cooperate with Congress’ impeachment inquiry, saying his refusal to comply with lawmakers’ requests has left Americans grappling for answers.

The Republican leader faces allegations he abused his office by pushing Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. Earlier on Tuesday, the Trump administration blocked a key witness from appearing before three House committees, prompting a subpoena.

“Tell the truth, I think, for a change,” Carter told MSNBC when asked what advice he would give Trump.



Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-carter/tell-the-truth-for-a-change-ex-president-carters-advice-to-trump-idUSKBN1WN28W?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews



I'm not sure the pResident is even capable of spelling Truth, let alone saying anything truthful.
September 28, 2019

Slate: "A Former ICE Chief Melts Down" - absolutely incredible, appalling, and expected.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/thomas-homan-ice-meltdown-pramila-jayapal.html

Thomas Homan, the Trump administration’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from January 2017 to June 2018, helped to transform the agency into an arm of Donald Trump’s nativist agenda. During his 17 months, ICE escalated its terror tactics against immigrant communities, tormented thousands of individuals in ICE custody, and lied to federal courts. On Thursday, asked to answer for his agency’s conduct and policies in a congressional hearing, he responded with a meltdown that perfectly captured a lawless organization’s rejection of any rules or authority that might limit its power.


The most indelible moment arrived when Homan’s time expired—and he refused to stop speaking. Jayapal attempted to gavel him down, but he continued to insult her. His rant ended with a moment of rage as he lectured Jayapal: “I’m a taxpayer, you work for me!”

Former ⁦@ICEgov⁩ Dir. Tom Homan shows no respect to ⁦@RepJayapal⁩ during a House hearing today after going over his time, shouting out,
“I'm a taxpayer, you work for me!” pic.twitter.com/kVK2VlWinG
— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) September 26, 2019

This was not his first blowup at the prospect of having to answer to criticism. Earlier this month, Homan engaged in a similar performance, attempting to shout down Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after his time expired. Like Jayapal, Ocasio-Cortez had to gavel him down.
September 26, 2019

Intelligencer: The Ukraine Scandal Is Not One Phone Call. It's a Massive Plot.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/ukraine-scandal-trump-phone-call-giuiliani-pence-barr-mulvaney-impeachment.html

...
That is true, as far as it goes. The quid pro quo in the call, though perfectly apparent, is mostly implicit. But the real trick in Trump’s defense is framing the call as the entire scandal. The scandal is much more than that. The call is a snapshot, a moment in time in a months-long campaign that put American policy toward Ukraine at the disposal of Trump’s personal interests and reelection campaign.

Last spring, Rudy Giuliani was openly pressuring Kiev to investigate Joe Biden. Giuliani told the New York Times, “We’re meddling in an investigation … because that information will be very, very helpful to my client.” The key word there was “we’re.” The first-person plural indicated Giuliani was not carrying out this mission alone. A series of reports have revealed how many other government officials were involved in the scheme.

When Trump ordered military aid to Ukraine to be frozen, he went through his chief of staff and budget director Mick Mulvaney. Congress had passed the aid, and Ukraine was under military attack from Russia, a fact that made the halting of the assistance worrisome to numerous officials in two branches of government. As the Times reported, lawmakers and State Department staffers were asking why the money hadn’t gone through.

They were given cover stories: Lawmakers “were first told the assistance was being reviewed to determine whether it was in the best interest of foreign policy,” the Times reported this week. “Other administration officials said, without detail, there was a review on corruption in Ukraine, according to current and former officials. Then, as August drew to a close, other officials told lawmakers they were trying to gauge the effectiveness of the aid, a claim that struck congressional aides as odd.”
September 3, 2019

Intimate portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama - in pictures (The Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/sep/03/intimate-portraits-of-barack-and-michelle-obama-in-pictures

Photographer Callie Shell documented the Obamas at home in Chicago, on the campaign trail and in the White House. Her new book shares candid images from the 10 years she spent photographing the family. Hope, Never Fear is published by Chronicle Books



https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/sep/03/intimate-portraits-of-barack-and-michelle-obama-in-pictures#img-1

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