Tag: GOP the party of Trump

How can we expect Republicans to judge Donald Trump fairly? Nearly all of them are in on the crime

AlterNet logoAs Republicans love reminding us, in tones that often suggest they feel this outcome is tragic, Donald Trump never fully consummated his extortion plot against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This was because Trump, much like convicted rapist Brock Turner, was caught mid-act and therefore unable to bring his entire scheme to completion. And as with Turner’s father grousing that his son only got “20 minutes of action,” Trump’s Republican defenders like House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., argue that because the conspiracy was unearthed before Zelensky gave in to Trump’s blackmail, it doesn’t really count as a crime to have blackmailed Zelensky in the first place.

Republicans sometimes seem to believe that Trump got cheated out of the very thing this criminal conspiracy set out to get, which was juicing up a bunch of lies about former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads the polls for the 2020 Democratic nomination. And so, in an especially disgusting twist, the Republican strategy for defending Trump appears to center on giving him the very thing he was trying to extract from Zelensky: Extensive media coverage of false allegations of corruption against Biden. Continue reading “How can we expect Republicans to judge Donald Trump fairly? Nearly all of them are in on the crime”

CNN’s John Avlon Completely Destroys GOP’s New Impeachment Strategy: ‘These are Zombie Talking Points’

An internal memo which has been circulating among House Republicans has been made public, having been obtained by outlets including CNN and Axios. This memo outlines four points of evidence which will serve as the crux of the GOP’s argument against impeaching President Donald Trump. But the strategy presented in the plan, according to one CNN commentator, is comically bad.

Appearing on CNN’s New Day Tuesday, John Avlon completely shredded the GOP strategy — which will lean on the president’s “state of mind” in his conversations with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“These are zombie impeachment talking points,” Avlon said. “This is slavish devotion to Donald Trump’s bar which is, ‘I did nothing wrong.’ And they’re going sort of in search of brains because the arguments they’re making are really easy to blow up.”

View the complete November 12 article by Joe DePaolo on the Mediaite website here.

Schumer blasts Paul for calling on media to name whistleblower

The Hill logoSenate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) knocked Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday for urging the media to disclose the identity of the whistleblower at the center of the House impeachment inquiry. 

“I cannot stress just how wrong this is. We have federal whistleblower laws designed to protect the identity and safety of patriotic Americans who come forward to stand up for the Constitution,” Schumer said during a speech on the Senate floor.

He added that he was “appalled” by calls for the whistleblower’s identity to be publicly disclosed.

View the complete Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Stand By Your Man

The impeachment vote wasn’t just another party-line exercise. It’s about to get ugly in Washington.

DEMOCRATS CALLED IT A sad and solemn day – a prayerful one, even. Republicans made it a day of outrage. Democrats wanted to talk about the substance of the allegations against President Donald Trump. Republicans railed against the process. Democrats said they were upholding their oath to the constitution and democracy; Republicans said Democrats were trying to undo a democratic election.

There’s little left on Capitol Hill that is conducted in a bipartisan manner, with most legislation being approved or defeated with few or no crossover votes. But as the House voted Thursday to formalize an in-progress impeachment inquiry, it became clear that this was not just another party-line exercise. It’s the start of something very ugly and very personal, with Trump characteristically in the center of it all.

“The names are bigger than the rest of the question” about whether Trump committed impeachable offenses, says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute of Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, New York. “For lack of a better phrase, facts are going to take a back seat to rooting. No matter what happens, you’re with your guy.”

View the complete November 1 article by Susan Milligan on the U.S. News and World Report website here.

GOP maps out impeachment defense amid messaging stumbles

House Republicans are scrambling to hash out a unified strategy to defend President Donald Trump as the GOP struggles to respond to the rapidly-moving impeachment probe.

With Democrats aggressively pushing ahead with their impeachment inquiry, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) convened a conference call on Monday afternoon where he urged members of his leadership team and GOP committee leaders to get on the same messaging page, according to multiple lawmakers and aides.

McCarthy implored his troops to stay focused on communicating that there is nothing that rises to the level of impeachment in the president’s July phone call with Ukraine, when Trump urged the Ukrainian president to investigate the Biden family.

View the complete September 30 article by Melanie Zanona on the Politico website here.

GOP blocks probe of Mike Pence’s trip to Ireland after VP spent $600,000 on limousine rides so he could stay at Trump’s resort

AlterNet logoVice President Mike Pence’s trip to Ireland — or more precisely his curious stay at one of President Trump’s hotels — has prompted multiple congressional probes. But the Democrat-led oversight investigations have already drawn complaints and pushback from Trump’s loudest Republican defenders on Capitol Hill, including the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

Democrats in both the House of Representatives and Senate have sent official letters of inquiry to the vice president’s office seeking specific information on the costs of Pence’s recent stay at Trump International Golf Club in Doonbeg, Ireland. They have imposed a Sept. 19 deadline for the administration and the Trump Organization to turn over relevant documents. Democrats have raised concerns that Pence’s stay at Trump’s resort could have violated the emoluments clause in the Constitution. They’ve asked for details like the cost of the stay, Secret Service protection, and comparable rates for hotels nearby as well as across the country in Dublin, where Pence held meetings with Irish officials and business leaders.

The vice president’s decision to stay at Trump’s resort can hardly be defended as one of convenience, as Pence previously suggested. Doonbeg is in County Clare on the west coast of Ireland, nearly a four-hour drive from most of Pence’s scheduled meetings in Dublin. According to an analysis by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Pence’s stay cost taxpayers $599,454.36 in limousine service alone.

View the complete September 18 article by Sophia Tesfaye from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Flake on hot mic: GOP ‘toast’ if we become the party of Trump, Moore B

The following article by John Bowden was posted on the Hill website November 18, 2017:

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) was caught on a hot mic Saturday warning that the Republican Party will be “toast” if it becomes the party of President Trump and Roy Moore.

At a tax-reform event in Arizona on Saturday, Flake was caught on a live microphone by ABC affiliate KNXV bashing the president in a conversation with Mesa Mayor John Giles, a friend of Flake’s.

“If we become the party of Roy Moore and Donald Trump, we are toast,” Flake is overheard saying. Continue reading “Flake on hot mic: GOP ‘toast’ if we become the party of Trump, Moore B”