riversedge
riversedge's JournalTop diplomat in Ukraine gave "damning" testimony, Democrats say -- live updates
Source: cbsnews
Updated on: October 22, 2019 / 2:27 PM / CBS News
Key facts and latest news
William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, is testifying before lawmakers behind closed doors. One congressman who heard the testimony called it "very troubling."
President Trump referred to the impeachment inquiry against him as a "lynching."
Russ Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), tweeted Monday morning that he and Mike Duffey, another top OMB official, will not comply with congressional requests for interviews.
On a July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump urged Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
Washington -- ............................................
William Taylor, the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Kiev, is a key witness in the investigation into the Trump administration's efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating the president's political rivals. In messages with other diplomats from August and September released earlier this month, Taylor raised concerns about the U.S. withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, saying it was "crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."
Democrats emerging from his deposition on Tuesday called his 15-page opening statement "very dramatic," "detailed" and "lengthy." Representative Andy Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, said the U.S. diplomat's account was "very troubling."
"All I have to say is that in my 10 short months in Congress -- it's not even noon, right? -- and this is my most disturbing day in Congress so far," Levin said.
Taylor, a career diplomat who was once the ambassador to Ukraine, emerged as a key figure in the scandal upon the release of messages he sent to Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, two other diplomats at the center of the controversy who have testified before the committees. The State Department tried to block Taylor's deposition on Tuesday, ................................
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/trump-impeachment-inquiry-latest-william-taylor-ukraine-testimony-2019-10-22/
Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch said after leaving the SCIF that Bill Taylor’s testimony “is a sea change.”
“This testimony is a sea change. I think it could accelerate matters,” he said. “This will, I think, answer more questions than it raises. Let’s put it that way.”
https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1186697732272074756?s=20
https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1186697966364581888?s=20
https://twitter.com/AngrierWHStaff/status/1186699733793939457?s=20
Senator Lindsey Graham defends Trump's use of 'lynching'
Source: BBC
The Republican senator came to the president's defence after Mr Trump called the impeachment inquiry "a lynching" in a tweet.
But Democrats were outraged at the president for invoking such a grim and racist chapter from US history.
Speaking to reporters, Graham claimed it's a "lynching in every sense.".....................
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-50146215/senator-lindsey-graham-defends-trump-s-use-of-lynching#
Lindsey is clueless
https://twitter.com/TPMLiveWire/status/1186654296185683969?s=20
ALSO see:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212609819
Lindsey Graham has no idea why Trump saying he's being lynched is offensive
.....................When asked if he could understand why African Americans might be offended by the reference, Graham doubled-down on defending Trump's words.
"No, I think lynching is being seen as somebody taking the law in their own hands and out to get somebody for no good reason," Graham said.
Graham was reacting to Trump's words earlier in Tuesday where he described the House impeachment inquiry as a lynching.
....................
Trump claimed the decision to host the G7 at his luxury Florida resort wasn't about PR, because he a
Source: businessInsider
Trump claimed the decision to host the G7 at his luxury Florida resort wasn't about PR, because he already gets 'more promotion than any human being that's ever lived'
1 hour ago
President Trump, in remarks at a Cabinet meeting Monday, hit back at critics who had claimed he had sought to benefit from the publicity of using his his golf resort in Doral, Florida, to host the G7.
"They say, 'Oh, you get promotion.' You don't think I get enough promotion? I get more promotion than any human being that's ever lived," Trump said. "I don't need promotion."
Despite his argument, Trump nonetheless scrapped his plan to host the summit there over the weekend, after from within his own party......................
.....................According to The New York Times, it was when moderate members of his own party said that they could not defend the decision that Trump announced that a different venue was being sought.
Publicly Trump blamed the reversal on "crazed and irrational" hostility from Democrats and the media. ..................................
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/defending-florida-g7-plan-trump-already-more-pr-than-anybody-2019-10
I read that Trumps Republicans in congress really pushed him --via Phone calls---over the weekend to reverse his decision on his G7 Florida site!! BUT, these Republicans in congress would NOT condemn Trumps decision in Public! Cowards all
https://image.businessinsider.com/5daee014cc4a0a2e501a3352?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Trump
President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Monday, Oct. 21, 2019, in Washington. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Trump warns U.S. 'may have to get in wars'
Source: Politico
The president specifically threatens to hit Iran "like they've never been hit before" if the regime provokes Washington.
Donald Trump
Updated: 10/21/2019 03:19 PM EDT
President Donald Trump on Monday offered a confusing description of his foreign policy priorities as commander in chief — insisting that he is working to bring home American soldiers, while warning the U.S. may soon enter into new military conflicts.
“I'm trying to get out of wars. We may have to get in wars, too. OK? We may have to get in wars,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“We're better prepared than we've ever been,” he continued. “If Iran does something, they'll be hit like they've never been hit before. I mean, we have things that we're looking at.”
.
...................................
Trump in recent days has sought to promote a temporary cease-fire agreement Vice President Mike Pence negotiated last week with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, aimed at halting the slaughter of U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria by Turkish forces.
..........................................
The more than 700 evacuated U.S. soldiers will be relocated to western Iraq, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday, although new media reports indicate Trump is considering keeping a few hundred soldiers in northeastern Syria to counter advances by Syrian and Russian forces into the country's lucrative oil fields.
Esper also announced earlier this month that the administration would be deploying another wave of troops to Saudi Arabia to help protect the kingdom from Iran’s regime, despite Trump’s campaign trail pledge to halt U.S. involvement in “endless wars.” .........................................
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/21/trump-united-states-wars-iran-053341
Poll: 14 percent of GOP voters say Trump should be impeached
Source: TheHill.com
10/21/2019
Fourteen percent of Republican voters said in a recent Hill-HarrisX poll that President Trump should be impeached and removed from office.
The survey, released Monday, was conducted before acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said last week that aid for Ukraine was linked to Trump's desire for the country to pursue a political probe related to the 2016 election.
Still, the 14 percent GOP support for impeachment marks a 2 percentage point increase from a Sept. 26-27 poll that was taken just days after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump over his dealings with Ukraine.
Overall, 47 percent of voters in the Oct. 11-12 survey support impeachment, a 4-point increase compared to the September poll.
Support for impeachment among Democratic voters also increased, to 81 percent from 75 percent in the previous survey. Meanwhile, the share of independent voters who favor impeachment rose 4 percentage points to 41 percent................................
Read more: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/466768-poll-14-percent-of-gop-voters-say-trump-should-be-impeached
Also note the Independents have a 4% increase.
Amy Klobuchar---- Coming up on Maddow in a minute or so........
The use of the US Justice DEPT -the power of the STATE-is the new thing being used by TRUMP against
his political enemies--primarily Biden at this point. Hope people are watching Maddow.
Inside Trump's 1st Pentagon Briefing What I saw there that foretold the coming rift between Mattis
excellent article==
Inside Trump's First Pentagon Briefing
What I saw there that foretold the coming rift between Mattis and the president—and today's foreign policy crises.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/21/inside-trumps-first-pentagon-briefing-229865
By GUY SNODGRASS
Guy Snodgrass is former chief speechwriter for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. He is the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon With Secretary Mattis, from which this article is adapted.
Long before real planning for it began, and long before the first news stories about it, those of us in the top levels of the Pentagon heard President Donald Trump demand the military parade he would eventually get. The bizarre request was one of the first signs I had of the enormous rift between my boss at the time, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and the president.
The clash came in the middle of Trump’s first Pentagon briefing on America’s military and diplomatic “laydown”—a term of art used to describe all of the locations around the world with U.S. forces and embassies—on July 20, 2017. Mattis, for whom I was working as chief speechwriter, had hoped the briefing would educate Trump on the United States’ longstanding commitment to the rest of the world. That is not at all what happened.
Instead, the president burst out in the middle of the meeting.
“I just returned from France,” he said. “Did you see President Macron’s handshake?” he asked no one in particular. “He wouldn’t let go. He just kept holding on. I spent two hours at Bastille Day. Very impressive.”
A pause.
“I want a ‘Victory Day.’ Just like Veterans Day. The Fourth of July is too hot,” he said, apparently out of nowhere. “I want vehicles and tanks on Main Street. On Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to the White House. We need spirit! We should blow everybody away with this parade. The French had an amazing parade on Bastille Day with tanks and everything. Why can’t we do that?”......................................................
Jeffrey Toobin expresses regret over 'mistakes' in Clinton email coverage [ "false equivalencies"
Too late -the horrible damage is done and we see it every day with Trump deranged behavior.
That said, I begrudgingly am glad he is speaking out.
Jeffrey Toobin expresses regret over 'mistakes' in Clinton email coverage
By MICHAEL CALDERONE
10/21/2019 04:03 PM EDT
Link
More
The New Yorker and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin now says he devoted too much attention in 2016 to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, becoming the first big-name journalist to acknowledge having second thoughts about the story since a State Department probe cleared Clinton of serious breaches of rules on Friday.
Toobin told POLITICO he has been flooded with responses since his surprise admission Monday morning on CNN. The feedback have largely fallen into two categories, he said: “Thank you for saying this” and “You’re a jerk, you shouldn't have done it in the first place.”
Story Continued Below
The conclusion on Friday of a nearly three-year State Department investigation into the Clinton email saga has reignited criticism among Democrats of the news media’s heavy coverage of the issue in the 2016 election. The claims that she had exposed classified secrets through her use of a private server dogged Clinton down to the final days of the campaign, when a surprise admission by then-FBI Director James Comey that the bureau was reopening its probe into the emails corresponded with a last-minute downturn in her polling numbers.
Nonetheless, the State Department found that there “was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” by any officials while Clinton was serving as secretary of state, a conclusion that Democrats quickly seized upon to bemoan the campaign coverage.
“Great job American Media!” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior Obama adviser and “Pod Save America” co-host,” tweeted along with the news.
“We spent an entire election on this inane story four years ago because a lot of otherwise intelligent people deemed it important,” Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith tweeted. “Many of them still run media outlets today.”
obin
“I got into the trap of false equivalence during the 2016 campaign. Comparing Donald Trump’s record of ethical problems with Hillary’s emails lent a misleading impression.”
- Jeffrey To
Jeffrey Toobin
Oct 21: New Poll Shows Most Dem Candidates Would Defeat Trump In Minnesota, Including Klobuchar
moved from GD
https://twitter.com/StarTribune/status/1186257309812609024?s=20
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/10/21/new-poll-shows-most-dem-candidates-would-defeat-trump-in-minnesota-including-klobuchar/
New Poll Shows Most Dem Candidates Would Defeat Trump In Minnesota, Including Klobuchar
By Esme Murphy
October 21, 2019 at 2:53 pm
Filed Under:Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Esme Murphy, Iowa, Joe Biden, Local TV
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A new Star Tribune-Minnesota poll shows top Democratic candidates doing very well in one-on-one match-ups against President Trump, among Minnesota voters. The poll comes just over a year before the 2020 election and four months before Minnesota’s March 3, 2020 primary.
According to the poll, Joe Biden would beat Trump, 50% to 38%. Sen. Bernie Sanders would beat Trump, 49% to 40%. And Sen. Elizabeth Warren would beat Trump, 51% to 40%.
However, Sen. Amy Klobuchar would beat Trump by an even larger margin than all of them, 55% to Trump’s 38%. The margin of error was 3.5%.
One note of caution, in the run up to the 2016 election nearly every poll underestimated the Trump’s support.
“It is still definitely possible that support for Trump could be missed, that all those who support Trump are still underrepresented in this poll or any poll,” University of Minnesota professor Kathryn Pearson, with the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, said.................................
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