AP coverage - #Trump #Impeachment #Briefs

House outlines impeachment case, Trump team has fiery answer By ERIC TUCKER, ZEKE MILLER and LISA MASCARO 1/18/2020 AP

... The House’s 111-page brief pulls together the private and public testimony of a dozen witnesses -- ambassadors and national security officials at high levels of government -- who raised concerns about the president’s actions with Ukraine. Stripped of legalese and structured in plain English, the document underscored the extent to which the impeachment proceedings are a political rather than conventional legal process. The Trump team similarly offered a taste of the rhetoric expected to be deployed by the president’s defenders in the Senate.

... The Trump team, meanwhile, called the Senate’s formal impeachment summons to two articles of impeachment passed by the House last month “a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president.”

“This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away,” the filing states. ...

TRUMP-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report - Summary 1 page - Intelligence House Committee


#AP coverage - #Trump #Impeachment #Briefs - Is Trump a human of #GoodCharacter 

Trump's Plan to win a 2nd term, get a pass on impeachment, and avoid prison.

I think Trump knows he has to run out the clock and to him that means pass-on while in office.  The whole Ukrainian affair illustrates he can think ahead a bit.  It's a simple plan right out of Roy Cohn's playbook, the infamous right-hand of Joe McCarthy.

Getting re-elected is the supreme means.  An Electoral College victory using voter suppression while motivating his base to new turnout levels.

I used to hope that Trump would lose the 2020 election. I thought the plan was in the latter case, resign just before his term ended, Pence would succeed him as President and then pardon him as in Ford and Nixon.  Trump would then continue to litigate his other improprieties and crimes until he passed-on.

I had not thought about starting a war, or at best a major crisis, as a way of wrapping himself in the flag, motivating his base, finding new pro-Trump voters and then getting re-elected.

Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and from 1998 until his death, commander of its Quds Force, a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations. Wikipedia

Iran vows revenge and 'harsh retaliation' after U.S. kills its top general

Jan. 3, 2020, 4:46 AM CST / Updated Jan. 3, 2020, 5:16 AM CST

By Alexander Smith

Iran vowed to seek revenge on the United States on Friday after an American airstrike killed one of the country's most powerful military and political figures.

The U.S. bombing near Baghdad airport killed Qassim Suleimani, the high-profile commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force and sometimes described as the country's second most influential person.

"The great nation of Iran will take revenge for this heinous crime," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tweeted after the news was confirmed.

#Trump 's Plan to get re-elected in #2020 , get a pass on #impeachment, and avoid #prison. #TrumpsPlan #Potemkin #PotemkinVillage

All Roads Lead to #Putin: What's Putin Up To? What's Putin #Trump Up To??

Consider what this tells us about Ukraine ... we still have an unindicted co-conspirator at large !

Former Trump campaign official Rick Gates gets 45 days in jail in Mueller probe By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press Dec 17, 2019

... U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson commended Gates for his cooperation, describing it as an “important public service" that went to the heart of the central question that Mueller and his team sought to answer — whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election.

...Gates is one of a half-dozen associates of President Donald Trump charged in Mueller's investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. All six have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty at trial. The three who have already been sentenced have all received prison time. Two others, former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump confidant Roger Stone, are awaiting sentencing.

Gates was among the first defendants charged in Mueller's investigation. An indictment accused him and Paul Manafort, his onetime mentor and the chairman of the 2016 Trump campaign, of failing to disclose the work they did for then-Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and of hiding their proceeds from U.S. tax authorities to fund lavish lifestyles and pay for personal expenses. 

... Gates is the latest to be sentenced in the Mueller probe, an investigation spanning back to 2017. Here's a look at everyone charged in connection with the case.

All Roads Lead to #Putin: What's Putin Up To? What's Putin #Trump Up To?? #Ukraine At War - Exit #Syria , Crisis #Iran #MoscowMitch aids and abets

UNDERSTANDING THE #COUNTY ROLE IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM - #SNAP

COUNTIES ARE THE LOCAL SOCIAL SAFETY-NET The nation’s 3,069 counties provide vital services to more than 300 million residents. Counties provide and administer federal, state and local service systems to break cycles of poverty, from early childhood development and nutrition assistance programs to workforce and economic development. Counties utilize federal, state and local resources to address and combat the root cause of poverty and provide nutrition assistance and social services to low-income individuals across the country. In every county, SNAP is a crucial aspect to healthy eating, especially for areas lacking access to sustainable and fresh food supplies.

What is the secret of "Soylent Green". 1973

UNDERSTANDING THE #COUNTY ROLE IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM - #SNAP

Has #Twitter changed its #Broadcast Practices ??????

TRUMP-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report - Summary 1 page - Intelligence House Committee

The IMPEACHMENT setup briefs:

House outlines impeachment case, Trump team has fiery answer By ERIC TUCKER, ZEKE MILLER and LISA MASCARO

111 pages versus 7 pages - January 18, 2020

From December 3rd, 2019

Since I have been reading "The MisInformation Age" and a few other sources I have become acutely aware that "what we think we know" has often been told to us and we have no first hand evidence that it is a fact.  Further, we often victimize ourselves with confirmatory bias and motivated reasoning.

Being under oath keeps things closer to fact and truth.




TRUMP-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report  : The Summary - more to come.

The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.  As described in this executive summary and the report that follows, President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign.  The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election.  To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations:  a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.

During a July 25, 2019, call between President Trump and President Zelensky, President Zelensky expressed gratitude for U.S. military assistance.  President Trump immediately responded by asking President Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and openly pressed for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden and the 2016 conspiracy theory.  In turn, President Zelensky assured President Trump that he would pursue the investigation and reiterated his interest in the White House meeting.  Although President Trump’s scheme intentionally bypassed many career personnel, it was undertaken with the knowledge and approval of senior Administration officials, including the President’s Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.  In fact, at a press conference weeks after public revelations about the scheme, Mr. Mulvaney publicly acknowledged that the President directly tied the hold on military aid to his desire to get Ukraine to conduct a political investigation, telling Americans to “get over it.”

President Trump and his senior officials may see nothing wrong with using the power of the Office of the President to pressure a foreign country to help the President’s reelection campaign.  Indeed, President Trump continues to encourage Ukraine and other foreign countries to engage in the same kind of election interference today.  However, the Founding Fathers prescribed a remedy for a chief executive who places his personal interests above those of the country:  impeachment.  Accordingly, as part of the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in coordination with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, were compelled to undertake a serious, sober, and expeditious investigation into whether the President’s misconduct warrants that remedy.

In response, President Trump engaged in an unprecedented campaign of obstruction of this impeachment inquiry.  Nevertheless, due in large measure to patriotic and courageous public servants who provided the Committees with direct evidence of the President’s actions, the Committees uncovered significant misconduct on the part of the President of the United States.  As required under House Resolution 660, the Intelligence Committee, in consultation with the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs, has prepared this report to detail the evidence uncovered to date, which will now be transmitted to the Judiciary Committee for its consideration. ...

And Consider ...

The Mueller Report or "TheGenius President is not above the law and Congress should IMPEACH and remove him from Office."


#TRUMP - #Ukraine #Impeachment Inquiry Report - Summary 1 page - Intelligence House Committee - #IndictTrump 

Do you have an ideal decade for the tag "Make America Great Again" ?

I would pick the 1950s - 1960 plus or minus a few years.  Honestly, what do you think?  Write it down now, before you look at the rest of this post.

What's wrong with the "now"?  Nothing!  But as always we are struggling to know how to deal with change or trends.

The last part of the following program brings out that our constant problem is intrinsically being human and that we like to "share" and we cannot always know everything - so we have to trust.  We have created a super highway of information flow and there are just as many bad drivers as ever.

HIDDEN BRAIN: Facts Aren't Enough: The Psychology Of False Beliefs

As a result of listening to the podcast I bought the book -

The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread


Now for the IRONY !  Let's take just one look at the decade that I chose.  They were great economic times, war was over, GI Bill was putting people through college, employment was good, you would be able to put your kids through college, etc.

I put forward a major character of the times that I think most of us have forgotten or never knew.  A little Wikipedia History lesson - follow the money.



History of taxation in the United States (mostly gov doc)

For tax years 1944 through 1951, the highest marginal tax rate for individuals was 91%, increasing to 92% for 1952 and 1953, and reverting to 91% for tax years 1954 through 1963.^[36]

So am I to conclude that "good times" are associated with high tax rates.

For the 1964 tax year, the top marginal tax rate for individuals was lowered to 77%, and then to 70% for tax years 1965 through 1981. In 1978 income brackets were adjusted for inflation, so fewer people were taxed at high rates.^[37] The top marginal tax rate was lowered to 50% for tax years 1982 through 1986.^[38] Reagan undid 40% of his 1981 tax cut, in 1983 he hiked gas and payroll taxes, and in 1984 he raised tax revenue by closing loopholes for businesses.^[39] According to historian and domestic policy adviser Bruce Bartlett, Reagan's 12 tax increases over the course of his presidency took back half of the 1981 tax cut.^[40]

For tax year 1987, the highest marginal tax rate was 38.5% for individuals.^[41] It was lowered to 28% in revenue neutral fashion, eliminating many loopholes and shelters, along with in corporate taxes, (with a 33% "bubble rate") for tax years 1988 through 1990.^[42][43] Ultimately, the combination of base broadening and rate reduction raised revenue equal to about 4% of existing tax revenue^[44]

Read the book and read the document in Wikipedia.


WI 1848 Forward: Do you have an ideal decade for the tag Do you have an ideal decade for the tag "Make America Great Again" ? #MAGA #FakeNews If only our memories were as good as reality in telling us how it really was?!

Do you have an ideal decade for the tag "Make America Great Again" ? #MAGA #FakeNews If only our memories of the depression were as good as reality in telling us how it really was?! So think "great recession" times 100!