Yes, even further than this: (smile)
In his Sept. 29, 2019 ‘CIA sets terms for Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump’s crimes’, Joseph Kishore reports in part:
“The scandal over the Ukraine call has been instigated by the intelligence agencies. It was a CIA agent in the White House who prepared the report that is the basis of the inquiry. It was the decision by a group of Democrats drawn from the military and intelligence agencies that led Pelosi and Schiff, both with longstanding ties to these same agencies, to shift from their previous opposition to impeachment.
The Democrats have made clear that they intend the impeachment inquiry to be exclusively focused on Ukraine and Trump’s undermining of US “national security”—that is, the basic strategic imperatives of American foreign policy. For this reason, the inquiry will be carried out by the House Intelligence Committee and its chairman, Schiff.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that Democratic leaders “are eyeing a fast-paced investigation.” A meeting of the Democratic caucus “urged the leadership to keep the messaging around impeachment on national security and the Ukraine probe” led by Schiff, “not on the litany of potential Trump offenses investigated by other panels, including the House Judiciary Committee, which traditionally takes the lead in impeachment proceedings.”
Some senior Democrats, the Post reported, “are even arguing that other committees should forego potentially explosive hearings that could distract from the intelligence panel’s work.” There will be “very few hearings, if any,” according to a senior Democratic Party aide, with most of the investigation taking place in “closed-door interviews.”
The Democrats do not want a repeat of the Watergate investigation into Richard Nixon, with its extensive public hearings, broadcast live on television. They are even sidestepping a full vote in the House to authorize the initial inquiry, as was done in the impeachment drives against both Nixon and Bill Clinton.” [snip]
“The impeachment inquiry, the Times wrote, should remain confined to the Ukraine phone call and “the integrity of the next election.” The latter means connecting Ukraine to the allegations of Russian “meddling” that have been at the center of the Democrats’ opposition to Trump since the beginning of his administration.
Beyond Ukraine and Russia, the Times concluded, “much of Mr. Trump’s behavior should remain outside the scope of the inquiry.”
The Democrats are seeking to frame the Ukraine issue as an extension of their neo-McCarthyite anti-Russia campaign. Pelosi argued along these lines in an interview with MSNBC on Friday morning. After noting that she “prays for the president all the time,” Pelosi declared, without evidence, that “Russia has a hand in this.”
Kishore rightfuly argues that it’s a gangster v. gangster comparison, then notes:
“The warring factions in Washington express in different forms the terminal crisis of American democracy. The cesspool of reaction is the product of unending war, the criminalization of foreign policy and the extreme growth of social inequality. Trump himself is not the cause, but rather a symptom of the disorientation and desperation of the ruling class in the face of a series of geopolitical, economic and social crises for which it has no solution.
The immediate backdrop for the eruption of the impeachment crisis is a series of geopolitical debacles for US imperialism. The CIA-backed regime-change operation in Syria has failed. The Trump administration, facing a disastrous stalemate in Afghanistan, sought, and then rejected, negotiations with the Taliban. The regime-change operation in Venezuela has floundered.” (the rest again, is here)
From the most tireless and estimable diplomat on the planet, ‘Obvious paranoia’: Lavrov responds to Pelosi claim Russia ‘had a hand’ in Trump-Zelensky impeachment scandal’, RT.com, Sept. 27, 2019
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claims that Russia was involved in the Trump-Zelensky phone conversation scandal as “obvious paranoia” and yet another “deadly sin” to pin on Moscow.
“Russia’s been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some,” Lavrov said at a press conference at the UN General Assembly on Friday, addressing a question about Pelosi’s claims that his country was somehow involved in the alleged quid pro quo between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In an interview with MSNBC that aired earlier on Friday, Pelosi had claimed that Russia “has a hand in” what she referred to as Trump’s “shakedown” of the Ukrainian president during a telephone conversation back in July – released this week by the White House – as well as the subsequent “cover-up of the cover-up.”
Trump is “undermining our national security” by withholding military aid from Ukraine, she insisted, and “violated the constitution by overriding an act of Congress.”
The Democrats claim that Trump threatened to withhold military aid unless Ukraine restarted a corruption probe into the gas company that employed Hunter Biden, the son of then-vice president and current Democratic front-runner Joe Biden.
Pelosi launched an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday while admitting she had not read a transcript of the fateful call between the two leaders. She nevertheless accused Trump of betraying his oath of office, national security, and “the integrity of our elections.”
The call transcript, released the following morning, did not include any discussion of military aid, and mentioned the Biden investigation only in passing – a subject that was broached by Zelensky, not Trump.”
Yes; from a previous diary I’d posted on the elections in the Ukraine, these were the 2017 roll call votes to sanction Russia and to to arm Ukraine however much will be necessary in order for Ukraine’s Government to conquer the two rejectionist parts of former Ukrainian territory ((419 to 3 in the House, and at first 97 to 2 in the Senate and then 98 to 2 there):
[2017 House roll call vote for H R 3364, Senate roll call vote]
And just for the hyuk, hyuks of it: ‘Real Ukrainegate: America midwifed the mess, and now wants Europe to pay’, Sept 24, 2019, RT.com
I was tempted to bring the photo, but resisted due to who’d not in the photo, but invested in the Maidan putsch: George Soros, Pierre Omidyar, Obomba, and of course the Spooks. But the ‘who gives how much to Ukraine’ graph’s pretty cool.
A lot of you have watched this Duran video; Café commenter juliania had somehow dug out my 9/11 diary on ‘Barr and Durham to investigate the Spooks’, asked me to go to b’s most recent thread on Nancy Pelosi’s folly inquiry, and find the link by commenter el sid; she says if it’s so…it’s huge! I did, and the section on the investigation begins at about 13 minutes. While I’d listened to a lot of it (while doing chores), what I’d gleaned from it doesn’t seem to match what one other C99er had concluded. Any brief Cliff’s notes would be wonderful, as admittedly I may have been extrapolating a bit while searching my two longish diaries on the Ukrainian election, and I really can’t imagine having the time to listen again. : (
(cross-posted at caucus99percent.com)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
I’m glad he stuck this in there:
“the warring factions in Washington express in different forms the terminal crisis of American democracy. The cesspool of reaction is the product of unending war, the criminalization of foreign policy and the extreme growth of social inequality. Trump himself is not the cause, but rather a symptom of the disorientation and desperation of the ruling class in the face of a series of geopolitical, economic and social crises for which it has no solution.”
That’s why I haven’t really paid any attention to it, it’s just another example of how our political system is all a giant game between the rich and powerful, everyone else are just props. The sad thing is the country is so divided by this political system that it literally cannot end unless we end the system. To keep pretending we live in a democracy grows more absurd each day.
it really does amount to the duopoly ‘thugocracy v. thugoracy. doesn’t it? and yet so many woke d’s claim that if the Ds don’t allow _ to win a primary, or if D__ can’t get into the ‘debates’….i’ll just vote Green!
Ain’t ya glad, big al, that we Dm-exited long ago?
ending the system to me means: capitalism, not that it’s comin’ in the near future. nuclear WW III may come before that, but then i’m a cynic. others reckon that even if big bidness, oligarchs galore, and banks support profit from, extinction rebellion and #climate strike fridays, that’s what’s most important.
i’m sorry to rant; i’m just so fucking tired of it all, including ‘the panic’ factor.
There’s nothing left to do but rant. Actually, I was never a democrat, I’ve always been against the system, since the early days of watching people march around the capital building in Olympia, WA in the sixties. Struck a cord with me back then that hasn’t changed.
Relative to “woke democrats”, like on C99, well, there’s really no such thing. If they’re still thinking that Tulsi Gabbard or Bernie Sanders or any other democratic party politician is going to save them while proclaiming they know the “deal” or the “truth”, then they ain’t woke in the least. If fact, they’re the most dangerous among us who help to perpetuate a bad system.
I noticed Sanders had come out again for taxing the billionaires/rich and making them pay for “our” health care and college. Like right, keep this unbelievably unequal capitalist system going and let them have their mansions and islands, but they need to help the little people out more. I’ve consistently been against that because it doesn’t solve the problem, which as you know, is this greedy, lustful capitalist system. But of course the progressives eat it up while also claiming they know about the problem with capitalism.
Saying I’ve used for a long time, “no guts, no glory”. We used it in sports but it can apply to the situation we’re in being ruled by the rich. People don’t want to have some guts about this, it just won’t change. I think the biggest chickenshits are those that know the truth but still cling to the democratic party.
Me too, sorry for the rant. The break from that other blog has clarified some things for me.
(i edited in some paragraph breaks to read better.) lord, i worked D campaigns for two or three decades, but even the ‘good ones’ became other people once elected. as buffy sainte marie said: ‘if the bad guys don’t get ya, the good guys will’.
i had the discussion about democratic socialists being ‘reform capitalists’ again this week, maybe twice. that’s fine to want an FDR dem for prez, as long as that distinction’s clear. but actual socialists are both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist in all cases, not just ‘no regime change’ rubbish. speaking of which, i saw R2P VZ and R2P cuba hashtags on twitter yesterday poking about for my evo morales = jair bolsonaro diary. (thanks, progressives and DSAs.)
it’s hard for me to tell sometimes if belief = hope, yanno what i mean? but on this thread over yonder i was talking about a goofy dream i just had about a winner-take-all election volleyball game (?) i was reffing, then offered that in the end i reckon i’d rather duopoly elections be decided by rollerball, last man, motorcycle left alive wins.
good rant, though; you deserved to make it, ad me to hear it.
Thanks for mentioning the Lavrov press conference, wendye. It’s late and RL has intruded here, but I will have a look at that tomorrow if it’s available at all. I do respect him, as also I respect less disruption in an admittedly chaotic power struggle that pretends to be democracy in the US these days. I’m old fashioned that way, and I know you and many have a different take. But thanks very much also for revealing the focus of the Pelosi so-called impeachment process – it looks more like an intelligence orchestrated coup that I for one devoutly hope won’t succeed. Flawed as it is these days, the creaky system does ‘war’ against such fine tuning and my instinct is that it’s worse, far worse than anything Trump dreams up, bad as the latter has been for his first term. We have avoided destroying other countries and that would have happened with Hillary I have no doubt.
So, I’m queasily on the side of staying with what we presently have; though urging more citizen action as time goes on. None of the D’s appeal to me whatsoever. I fear them all. I think Trump gives the rest of the world breathing space. Just me, but I do.
first, the RT link was some of what lavrov had said *at the UN*. second, it’s always vexed me that you profess to know what i believe, and esp. on this thread. of course her impeachment inquiry won’t bear any fruit, especially as 67 senators would have to vote to convict and impeach.
this move was a cheap form of the D’s McResistance against trump; what the cia dems and brennan are doing in limiting the process to *only this phone call’ the whistleblower© hadn’t even heard is al a psyop that will take up a lotta news cycles. and all behind closed committee doors, as i understand it.
it will likely cause trump to be seen as so victimized, he’ll win again. what it has to do with clinton would have made more wars..may be true, but trump’s been making wars of other kinds by sanctioning iran, cuba, VZ, russia, et.al. almost to death. no shooting wars save for sending weapons of war to the sauds to destroy yemen, same for syria (not a civil war, but an astro-turfed proxy war against russia).
i’d guessed you may have signed up for emails of comments on my barr-durham investigation, and i had added what i’d *thought* i’d gleaned from the duran interview. speaking of which, it would have saved me some time had you just brought the link. ;-)
I’d just meant I thought I was saying something different from the posted excerpts. Sorry, I didn’t mean it as me right that wrong, just an alternative view. I certainly don’t know your thoughts, wendye, much as I admire your ability to present things in a different way from what I find elsewhere, and I thank you for that. Didn’t mean to be confrontational.
Again thanks, wendye – this morning instead of church I was able to find the UN link for Lavrov’s press conference:
http://webtv.un.org/watch/sergey-lavrov-russia-%E2%80%93-press-conference-27-september-2019/6090131178001/
I think it’s important even though long and some questions weren’t translated into English, so I had to go by the answers Lavrov was giving. But as Russia has now the chairmanship of the Security Council, his emphasis in answering all questions was on diplomatic solutions, as also territorial integrity of all nations. On the question of Palestine vs. Israel he made the suggestion that unity among factions for Palestine would enable solutions to their ongoing persecution, kept bringing up the idea that fragmentation and instabilty as far as public pronouncements is all really being orchestrated by the US.
oh, it was a separate press conference, not his official speech to the UN. yes, it would be great to red the notes, but hopefully not too many of them, as i can barely find time to answer comments over yonder, as well, as there for once were so many.
here was what i’d pasted in to you under your comments on the barr-durham thread about what i’d gleaned from the mercouris duran interview and had said to gator ed:
“to the gator:
“.i must say that your interpretation isn’t what i’d gleaned, though. i’m going to mix this up, as i’d watched all those hours ago…but i do remember, but couldn’t find, in my several reports on that election, that zelenskiy was a front man for the oligargch___ (zolomosky?) [on edit: Ihor Kolomoiskyi], and that he’d included him and several corrupt others left over from the US-approved list after the maidan putsch arranged by soros, obmama, omidyar, nuland, the atlantic council], et.al.
all of which is short-hand for the fact that in order for zelenskiy to fight the Bear in the Ukraine, his cabinet would be helping to tank trump who campaigned on rapprochement with russia. so my take was that it’d the D team who’s terrified they’ll be caught in the vortex of the durham-barr investigation, not the Rs.
but in the end, zelenskiy had campaigned on ‘peace in donbass’, go figure, after his earlier scathing indictments against the russian separatists. at least that’s the way i’d written it up, partially by way of again, the atlantic council. funny, as well, is that his heritage is jewish, and he speaks russian, not ukrainian.
but as i said, given my propensity for lamus brainus, or brain bread, as you’d put it, i may have it all akimbo. i’l sure hope those two really do some good diggin’. another church committee? no, prolly not. ; ) ”
is that anything close to what you’d taken from it?
No, sorry wendye, I don’t usually sign up for anything so just when I have time come along, and as you’d posted this up top, here’s where I came, after reading quite a bit at MoA. I found your take refreshingly different, that was all, sorry. I did post back there first up with the link to The Duran interview, as I didn’t want to disrupt any of the other threads. But this was current, so I had missed this comment. Funny though, I was wondering about Zelensky, didn’t know much about him or how he would be taking all this attention. And there’s the curious resignation of the McCain Institute guy as well, right after he’d gone to ‘explain’ Trump’s phone call to Zelensky. But I think I’m way out of my depth – you can keep a much better handle on these things.
Thanks anyway. I enjoy all this Russia stuff because I admire them a lot.
my lame partial synopsis of the duran interview makes no sense as i hadn’t included the back and forth, but i do reckon what pelosi et.al. fear is the Ds (past and present) parts in it all being sucked into the maelstrom if they widen the impeachment ‘inquiry’ past the phone call. and look what the spooks have changed already to accommodate the witch hunt; good grief, the calumny.
anyhoo, there were lots of great additions to this conversation at c99%, and i almost always note the way to get to my cross-posts there at the bottom of an OP.
i don’t like any D running, although what does scare me a bit is the zeal with which some folks promote and defend their favorite candidates…in the face of how said candidates have actually voted. as i said above: when hope turns to belief.
guess i’ll write up the next iteration of russia gate by the wapo, msnbc, some of it featuring sergei lavrov, of course.
dialogue, dialogue, dialogue was his constant refrain. Plus his mom says that phone calls are like letters, should be confidential, but that wasn’t a comment on the Zelensky/Trump transcript situation.
Now I’m gonna have my pancakes.
I took notes, so as there were about a dozen far ranging questions can give a short cliff note for most of the ‘hot topic’ answers if needed.
The Israeli issue one was particularly helpful.
wow; the spooks rally want to nail him:
‘They got caught!’ Trump reacts to report that whistleblowers exempted from need to have firsthand info as part of ‘RECENT’ update’, sept 29, RT.com
“‘US President Donald Trump has cried foul after reports suggested a whistleblower complaint form, which allows second-hand information to be submitted, is the result of a recent revision of intelligence community guidelines.
“WOW, they got caught. End the Witch Hunt now!” the US President wrote on Saturday evening, tweeting a link to the Federalist report.
The Friday bombshell alleges that the intelligence community “secretly gutted” the requirement for whistleblowers to be in possession of firsthand knowledge of whatever they want to report.
It appears that the crucial requirement was struck from a ‘Disclosure of Urgent Concern’ form sometime between May 2018 and August 2019, the paper reports. The newest version of the form that allows a whistleblower to “disclose” information they “heard about from others” was uploaded to the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) website on September 24, as the document’s PDF properties show.’
@ClimateAudit
5/ reader @LT51552424 sharply observed that the Urgent Disclosure Form (with Sep 25, 2019 modification datestamp) contains footer “Rev: August 2019″. So in the midst of this unprecedented CIA leak/”whistleblow”, the DNI changes its Urgent Disclosure Form. What was it before?
The whistleblower complaint that focuses on a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is dated August 12. Within a fortnight, on August 26, the ICIG determined that the complaint was legitimate. In a letter to Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire, the ICIG said that the complaint “appears credible” and constitutes “an urgent concern.”
However, a screenshot of the May 2018 document outlining the conditions for such a complaint to be considered “credible” by the ICIG says it must contain “reliable, firsthand information,” while the whistleblower openly admitted that he “was not a direct witness to most of the events described,” including an ill-fated call between Trump and Zelensky.
The White House released both the transcript of the call and the complaint itself on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. The complaint, which is largely based on media reports about contacts between US and Ukrainian officials and second-hand accounts of the conversation between Trump and Zelensky, alleged that Trump was pressuring his Ukrainian counterpart into reopening a corruption investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter in return for US military aid. However, the transcript has revealed no quid pro quo arrangement.’