The US House of Representatives have voted to impeach the president of the United States only the 3rd president to be so….
Here is what the House had to say…..
The House has impeached President Trump. After a daylong debate, the chamber voted on the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, and Democrats easily passed it, reports the Washington Post.
First vote: The final tally on the abuse-of-power article was 230-197, with two Democrats (Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and soon-to-be Republican Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey) voting “no” with Republicans, reports the Hill. Another Democrat, 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, voted “present.” No Republicans voted in favor of impeachment.
Second vote: The House passed the second article, obstruction of Congress, by a vote of 229-198. This time, Democrat Jared Golden of Maine joined Van Drew and Peterson in voting no. Again, no Republicans voted in favor.
The history: The votes make Trump the third president in US history to be impeached. Next comes a trial in the Senate, which is expected to end in Trump’s acquittal on the charges.
The votes took place as Trump was holding a political rally in Battle Creek, Michigan. “It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” the president told cheering supporters before the first vote took place, reports the AP. He cited “tremendous support” for him among Republicans and said the nation is “doing better than ever before.” Earlier, he issued an all-caps tweet: “SUCH ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT, DO NOTHING DEMOCRATS. THIS IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA, AND AN ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!”
That Tweet sounds like it could be written by any one of his supporters in their posts…….help spread the words my brothers (that is sarcasm if it was missed). Just regurgitation from the Lord High Chancellor.
The vote was NO surprise…..if it were I ask where the Hell have you been?
The vote was along party lines….the tribes are alive and well…..but there were a few surprises….
The biggest was the Dem candidate that I support for the nomination voted “present”……
The only presidential candidate who had a vote on impeaching President Trump Wednesday decided against giving a yes or no answer. Instead, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted “present” on both articles of impeachment and criticized the process, the New York Times reports. The Hawaii Democrat said in a statement that she wanted to “make a stand for the center.” She said her conscience wouldn’t let her vote against impeachment, because she believes Trump “is guilty of wrongdoing,” but she “also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting president must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country.”
Gabbard slammed Republicans, for abdicating “their responsibility to exercise legitimate oversight” and Democrats, whose “extreme rhetoric was never conducive to an impartial fact-finding process,” CNN reports. She said she had introduced a resolution to censure Trump, which would “send a strong message to this president and future presidents that their abuses of power will not go unchecked, while leaving the question of removing Trump from office to the voters to decide.” Fox reports that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the “present” vote, saying “We are sent here to lead.” “To not take a stand one way or another, on a day of such great consequence to this country, I think is quite difficult,” the Democrat said.
I do not approve of her vote….but I know why she did it….after all she is in there punching for the nomination. (My support remains but just a bit disappointed……but that is normal with most Dem candidates).
Trump can say after leaving office that he is in an exclusive club….he is a president that has been impeached…..that stigma is permanent!
The Trial in the Senate is the next step…..I will be writing my thoughts on that as well…..and so much more.
***This is a lot of information to digest but it will become more and more important in the coming years***
The weaponizing of space has begun for Trump has his funding to establish the “Space Force”…..
Congress has approved a compromise defense policy bill that creates a new Space Force in exchange for establishing paid parental leave for federal workers, as part of $738 billion for the Pentagon for 2020.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill Tuesday, 82-8, just days after the House passed it, 377-48. The bill now goes to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature, and he has signaled he will sign the defense policy measure.
(Military Times)
How much will the Repubs add to the deficit?
His Majesty’s new branch of the military, the Space Force, will do doing something that will violate a long standing treaty.
The Outer Space Treaty was considered by the Legal Subcommittee in 1966 and agreement was reached in the General Assembly in the same year ( resolution 2222 (XXI)). The Treaty was largely based on the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, which had been adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 1962 (XVIII) in 1963, but added a few new provisions. The Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967. The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:
the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;
outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;
outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;
astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;
States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities;
States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.
Does anybody remember SDI? Too young?
Help is here.
Back in the day it was too expensive and nukes in space was unacceptable….well times change…..
There are some that see it as weaponizing space yet again…..
Donald Trump’s announcement of a “Space Force” is by no means a new idea. During the Reagan presidency, a similar idea was proposed in the form of the famous “Star Wars“ program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. It aimed to do away with the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) by positioning anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) interceptors in low-Earth orbit in order for them to be able to easily intercept ballistic missiles during their entry into orbit and before their re-entry phase. The costs and technology at the time proved prohibitive for the program, but military planners retained the dream of negating the concept of MAD in Washington’s favor, especially with the dawning of the unipolar era following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The decisions taken in the years since, such as the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 during Bush’s presidency and from the INF Treaty during Trump’s, follows Reagan in trying to invalidate MAD, a balance of terror that has served to maintain a strategic stability.
Our circling satellites will be armed….say what? I thought they already were….or is that a secret?
the French government accused Russia of an “act of space espionage,” when Moscow’s signals-intelligence satellite Luch-Olymp was steered “a bit too closely” to France’s military communications satellite Athena-Fidus. “It got so close,” France’s Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly reportedly said at the time, “that we might have imagined it was trying to intercept our communications—trying to listen to your neighbors is not only unfriendly, it’s an act of espionage.”
Last week, Parly announced details of a new “defense space strategy” at the Lyon-Mont Verdun air defense operations base. “Having a reinforced space defense is absolutely essential,” she said, “it is our freedom of appreciation, access and action in space that is at stake.” France’s Le Pointreported that in the summer of 2019, space has finally become “a field of action.
Let’s not forget about the Air Force’s secret “space” plane, the X-37B…..
A Dutch skywatcher achieved a rare feat in late June and early July 2019. Using a 10-inch-diameter telescope fitted with a camera, Ralf Vandebergh photographed the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane in mid-mission 210 miles over Earth’s surface.
“We can recognize a bit of the nose, payload bay and tail of this mini-shuttle, with even a sign of some smaller detail,” Vandebergh told Space.com.
So what Reagan could not get done…..Supreme Leader Trump will make it a reality….weaponizing space.
The predecessors of Star Fleet, the US Space Command, is a mere weeks away from reality.
A new US Space Command will formally launch within weeks, the deputy commander of US Strategic Command told reporters July 31.
“I think it’d probably be about weeks—we should see the actual establishment of US Space Command,” Vice Adm. David Kriete said. “I think we’re on a good track in terms of our planning.”
Kriete said the timeline for launching the revived SPACECOM, which will take over responsibility for space combat operations from STRATCOM, will be at the discretion of new Defense Secretary Mark Esper. The Pentagon has not yet announced where SPACECOM headquarters will be, but its two major components will be located at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., and Schriever AFB, Colo. The Senate recently confirmed Air Force Space Command boss Gen. Jay Raymond to lead the combatant command.
Reagan’s dream of the weaponization of space is near completion.
Now comes the war footing mindset….
Is the United States headed for war that begins in or extends into space? We should hope not. As Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein recently observed, “If a war actually starts in space, everybody loses.” But deterring conflict in space requires credible and effective responses to aggression. The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Command, in partnership with industry, are developing options to field the sensors, shooters, and command and control nodes required to fight in, through, and from space by engaging targets. But the development of space-minded warfighters is the best way to make joint space operations more credible and responsive by both enabling and increasing the lethality of multidomain operations, or what the Joint Staff now calls “joint all-domain command and control.” The U.S. military needs to show commanders, partners, and potential adversaries that it can achieve objectives in any domain by executing all the steps needed to be able to take action in space when required. This requires a vastly different mindset than America’s historic focus in space, which has been to optimize space support to operations in other domains. Space operations have historically been split between multiple organizations with varying missions. With the U.S. military’s new commitment to develop a dedicated space force, these diverse agencies should develop a more comprehensive unity of effort.
NATO, the US puppet in international situations, has also jumped on the space bandwagon…..
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization recently declared that space is an “operational domain” for the alliance. Though much work remains to actualize an integrated NATO space posture, the affirmation is an important benchmark as NATO scrambles to meet rapidly evolving space and counter-space threats.
Today, space-based assets are an Achilles’ heel of U.S. military operations, representing a vital enabling mechanism upon which success often depends. In addition, great power adversaries could target civilian space assets to wreak havoc on the homeland in ways that redound far beyond the military realm.
Nothing about this should be seen as a step forward….this will benefit very few other than the people in the industry….and yet could eventually effect us all….and not in a good way.
Since I am one of the few bloggers interested in this situation….all I can say is…..
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman surprisingly attacked the primary point of the papers, that the Pentagon was misleading the public, and used that to dodge questions about whether the Pentagon would be more honest in the future. He said the reports of dishonesty were just what people “believed at the time.”
In other words, he isn’t promising that the Pentagon won’t keep lying in the exact same manner. The only indication that things might be different is that since the papers came out,the Pentagon has been refusing to provide any details at all, which seems to be one way to prevent them from lying to the public for the time being.
Analysts say they don’t believe the Pentagon sees any upside to addressing the complaints, and so they are just ignoring it, and pointing out that most people keeping track of the Afghan War knew about this dishonesty long ago.
(antiwar.com)
If that is the case that it is “no big deal” then the Pentagon should stop hiding numbers and costs….
“I’m not going to get into specifics,” insisted Rear Admiral William D. Byrne, during a recent Pentagon briefing, saying only that the commander is “satisfied” with where things are at.
Indeed, Pentagon officials have refused to provide any metrics at all that might be used to gauge how the war is going. That’s likely because any metrics show the war is generally not going well, and any claim that the war is going fine risks being uncovered as another in decades of lies.
(antiwar.com)
In an attempt to head off any blowback from the release of the “Afghan Papers” the White House will soon announce the removal of 4000 troops from Afghanistan…..
This announcement has been expected for some time, with Defense Secretary Mark Esper saying the drawdown would come with or without a peace deal with the Taliban. The US has paused the Taliban talks, so it appears it will be coming without a deal.
This move will make it better when the 2020 election rolls around…Trump can say that he brought 4000 troops out of Afghanistan…..
But the rest of the story is…these troops may NOT come home for a rest but rather be redeployed…..
Esper says the troops will be sent to the Indo-Pacific “to face off our greatest challenge in terms of the great power competition that’s vis-a-vis China.” It’s not clear where in the Indo-Pacific those troops will end up.
Nor is it apparent what 4,000 more troops scattered around China’s periphery would really do in a challenge sense. China, after all, has the world’s second largest military and is focused almost exclusively on control and defense of its own region.
(antiwar.com)
What purpose and how effective will 4000 troops be in the grand scheme of Trumpian foreign policy?
This would be just one of many, many adventures the Pentagon has decided it is participating in, and between the Indo-Pacific, Iran’s periphery, and eastern Europe, the US is committing a lot of troops to standing around doing non-specific things close to major rivals that they envision future wars against.
In other words …..not much besides pissing people off.
The next question would be why is the MSM ignoring the “Papers”?
The Afghanistan Papers are, in other words, a bombshell. Yet the report has received scant attention from the broader press. Neither NBC nor ABC covered the investigation in their nightly broadcasts this week. In other outlets, it has been buried beneath breathless reporting on the latest developments in the impeachment saga, Joe Biden’s purported pledge to serve only one term, and worldleaders’ pathological envy of a 16-year-old girl.
The relentless news cycle that characterizes Donald Trump’s America surely deserves some blame: This isn’t the first time that a consequential news story has been buried under an avalanche of other news stories. But one major reason that the Afghanistan Papers have received so comparatively little coverage is that everyone is to blame, which means no one has much of an interest in keeping the story alive. There are no hearings, few press gaggles.
All the talk about the Constitution these days leads me to want to help readers understand the entire document and that includes a portion that was added later…the Bill of Rights.
Many of the rights and liberties Americans cherish—such as freedom of speech, religion, and due process of law—were not enumerated in the original Constitution drafted at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, but were included in the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. How much do you know about the Bill of Rights?
Answers to question like why was it added? Where was it written? Who wrote it? And others
Let’s begin with ….What is the Bill of Rights?
The Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendments guarantee essential rights and civil liberties, such as the right to free speech and the right to bear arms, as well as reserving rights to the people and the states.
The Bill of Rights has its own fascinating story as a distinct historical document, drafted separately from the seven articles that form the body of the Constitution. But ever since the first 10 amendments were ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights has also been an integral part of the Constitution.
To help my readers understand the Constitution beyond using the word to make some mindless point…..there is an aid to reading the document that ALL Americans should know front and back…….
There is an old saying….”Democrats have great ideas but suck at politics”. 2020 is showing this very point…..the candidates all have great wide ranging ideas to solve the problems Americans are having.
We have the Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, Free education, etc etc….all are marvelous ideas that this country needs badly but will never get as long as we continue along the path we have been traveling for 50 years.
Democrats need to stop playing checkers and learn to play chess….short term answers are just not a reality…..they need a plan for long term…the long game is the only way to get and sustain all the changes they say they embrace.
Illustrating this point are a couple of issues that should be set in stone….Voters Rights, Civil Rights and Abortion….all 3 are Federal laws and all 3 are being chipped away to they are a mere shadow of their former selves.
Since they cannot take credit for the economy’s high points then they, Dems, should wrap themselves around health care. Why? The other 3 are being destroyed thanks to the concept of state’s rights….the old 10th amendment thing.
While the climate is an extremely important stand the sad thing is that most Americans could care less if their families are hungry….the only hope the climate has is the young for they can see beyond the next meal.
The Dems need to take a step back and start making the state elections more important than the national…..control state legislatures then the national stuff will be easier.
I have always said that the Dems are weak on foreign policy…..and now Trump’s moves in the Middle East is making himself look like he is the anti=war president…..and what does the Dems have in response to this false narrative?
Not A Damn Thing!
I hate to say I told you so, but well … as predicted, in the wake of Trump’s commanded military withdrawal from northeast Syria, the once U.S.-backed Kurds cut a deal with the Assad regime. (And Vice President Mike Pence has now brokered a five-day cease-fire.) Admittedly, Trump the “dealmaker” ought to have brokered something similar before pulling out and before the Turkish Army—and its Sunni Arab Islamist proxies—invaded the region and inflicted significant civilian casualties.
One must admit that a single phone call between Trump and President Erdogan of Turkey has turned the situation in Syria upside down in just over a week. The Kurds have requested protection from Assad’s army, Russian troops are now patrolling between the Kurds and invading Turks, and the U.S. is (for once) watching from the sidelines.
Or….My Baby Wrote Me A Letter! (sorry had to channel my 60s experience)……
The news has been full of the report that Trump has written (?) a letter to Pelosi ahead of the impeachment vote…..
Trump rattled on…the same song that his Tweets reflect…..
Nancy Pelosi was on the receiving end of what the Washington Post calls an “extraordinary letter” written by President Trump. Over six pages that you can read in full here, he voices his “strongest and most powerful protest” against impeachment, writing that “this impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.” The AP reports that the “fiery” letter, which comes a day before his expected impeachment, voices Trump’s displeasure at how the House inquiry was handled, alleging “more due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”
Trump writes that the Articles of Impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee has come up with “include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!” He addresses the claims of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress at length, then goes on to tout a long list of successes that have occurred in his term, writing, “you and your party are desperate to distract” from them. He expresses that he doesn’t believe his letter will change anything, but that he wanted to record his objections “for the purpose of history. … One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.”
I really would like to hear what my readers think about this letter…it is not a long read….only about 6 pages……
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Madam Speaker:
I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.
The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!
My thoughts is it should have been left un-mailed…..it makes the president look like a childish d/bag….it is a rambling piece of manure that would be better on the rally trail and not in the House.
It sounds more like someone afraid their “brand” will be tainted….he keeps thinking that his legacy will always have a stigma about it with a asterisk after his name….a stain on his person.
Most Americans know that Trump has decided that a good trade war is what this country and the world desperately…..
He expanded his “war” with tariffs…first on two South American countries…..
President Trump leaves for a NATO summit in London on Monday, but first he’s making headlines in regard to South America. In an early tweet, the president announced he is restoring tariffs on aluminum and steel shipped from Argentina and Brazil, reports the Wall Street Journal. Trump accused both countries of manipulating their currencies to hurt US farmers, and he paired his action with criticism of the Federal Reserve, notes Bloomberg, which sees the morning moves as significant. Trump says that by these and other nations deliberately devaluing their currencies, “this makes it very hard for our (manufacturers) & farmers to fairly export their goods,” he wrote. “Lower Rates & Loosen – Fed!”
This is the first time Trump has explicitly linked tariffs to currency moves, per Bloomberg, and “as such, it signifies a potential new phase in his trade wars in which foreign-exchange markets are the battleground.” The US initially exempted Brazil and Argentina from metal tariffs put into place in 2018, but that exemption is now being lifted. The New York Times notes that the two countries have benefited from the US trade war with China: Both have been shipping soybeans and other farm products to China, making up for the shortfall of US exports
France is next in the cross hairs….
The Trump administration is proposing tariffs on up to $2.4 billion worth of French imports—including Roquefort cheese, handbags, lipstick, and sparkling wine—in retaliation for France’s tax on American tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The Office of the US Trade Representative charged Monday that France’s new digital services tax discriminates against US companies. The trade office will accept public comments on the tariffs, which could hit 100%, through Jan. 6. The French tax is designed to prevent tech companies from dodging taxes by putting headquarters in low-tax EU countries. It imposes a 3% annual levy on French revenues of digital companies with yearly global sales worth more than $830 million and French revenue exceeding $27.7 million.
The US also criticized the French tax for targeting companies’ revenue, not their profits, and for being retroactive, the AP reports. The decision to pursue tariffs “sends a clear signal that the United States will take action against digital tax regimes that discriminate or otherwise impose undue burdens on US companies,” US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said. He warned that the US is also looking into digital taxes introduced by Austria, Italy, and Turkey. The decision to target France got bipartisan endorsement from GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. In a joint statement, they assailed the French digital tax as “unreasonable, protectionist and discriminatory.”
I have made my thoughts known on Trump’s sanctions and tariffs….(you can find them in IST archives under “tariffs”)….I believe there is a better way to deal with other countries than trying to punish them for perceived violations.
Sorry sports fans but all the efforts by the propaganda machine has made leaving Syria and the quagmire it has created virtually impossible.
I supported Trump’s plan to bring our troops home from Syria but the M-IC put all their assets to work and the plan changed.
There is one think tank that is doing what it is suppose to do…make the case for the Pentagon to stay and stay in Syria.
This is why I do not like or think think tanks are a good source for truth and facts…..they bend the findings of research to suit their benefactors desires….in other words they design their conclusion and then manipulate everything to suit that conclusion….the Syria situation is NO different.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released a report on November 21st titled “Russia’s Dead-End Diplomacy in Syria.” The report focuses on Russia’s role in supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and calls for the U.S. to maintain a presence in Syria.
The ISW presents itself as a “non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization.” In reality, the ISW is a neocon think tank funded by some of the country’s largest defense contractors. The ISW has a significant influence in Washington, and its chairman even has direct access to President Trump.
The report argues that Assad does not have the resources to regain and maintain control of the rest of Syria and that his victory would not bring stability. As far as Russia’s role, the report says, “The Kremlin seeks to thwart any Western effort to replace Assad and to instead reach a superficial political settlement that legitimizes his regime and neutralizes his opposition.”
I admit that I do use the Institute for the Study of War from time to time……our foreign policy is tied to our use of conflict to settle differences so while I do not think the ISW is a good source it does serve its purposes.
Do not take a “think tank” white paper at face value….find out who funds them and you will know how accurate their findings are.
We are in Syria for the foreseeable future and for what?
These are kinda like the mainstay of campaign since god knows when….I am not talking about the beauty contest of candidates taking swipes at each other trying to get the headlines the next day…I am talking about the nominees going head to head in front of the American people.
Nixon lost his support in 1960 when he was shown sweating while debating JFK…and it has been a major campaign stop every since……well maybe not so much in 2020….
Seems on Friday, 13Dec19, that Trump may not keep with the tradition of history…he may not debate his Dem opponent…
Wondering how the general election debates between President Trump and the Democratic nominee will go down? We may never find out. Two sources said to be familiar with Trump’s discussions on the matter tells the New York Times the president is mulling not showing up for any such showdowns—not because he’s intimidated by any of the current roster of contenders, but because he doesn’t trust the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates, which sponsors the events, and because he’s wary of who the chosen moderators will be. Newsweek notes Trump’s debate history has been “checkered, at best,” though in a tweet from this July he bragged he’d won “EVERY debate,” in both the primaries and in the three he had with Hillary Clinton.
The magazine notes polls showed Clinton as the winner of those three, though Trump was correct in suspecting he’d had a technical issue with his microphone in one of those debates (there’d been a volume problem). As for his skepticism on moderators, Business Insider recalls a spar Trump had with moderator Megyn Kelly in a GOP primary debate in August 2015, in which Kelly asked him about his past disparaging remarks on women; that spat reportedly led him to boycott a January 2016 debate on Fox. Not everyone’s so sure Trump won’t show the next time around, though. “Not doing any would not be strategically smart,” Clinton adviser Philippe Reines tells the Times. Daily Beast writer Molly Jong-Fast thinks Trump won’t be able to resist. “I have a feeling that when confronted with the chance for attention the temptation will be too great,” she tweeted
Is he that “thin skinned”?
But wait….as usual Trump has waffled, something he does with all ease these days…..
On Monday, Trump himself clarified his position: He says he wants to debate, but not through the non-profit organization that has traditionally organized the forums, reports the Hill. In a series of tweets, Trump accused the Commission on Presidential Debates of being “stacked with Trump Haters” and biased against him. “As President, the debates are up to me, and there are many options, including doing them directly & avoiding the nasty politics of this very biased Commission,” Trump wrote. “I will make a decision at an appropriate time but in the meantime, the Commission on Presidential Debates is NOT authorized to speak for me (or R’s)!”
He added, however, that he would “very much look forward” to debating the Democratic nominee. In response to the criticism, the commission denied Trump’s accusation of bias and said its record was “one of fairness, balance, and non-partisanship,” per Politico. One of Trump’s specific beefs with the group is that his microphone wasn’t working properly during his first debate with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The commission later acknowledged that “there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall,” but Trump on Monday accused the group of “deliberately modulating” his microphone.
The CPD is a non-partisan group that conducts the debates…..
Sorry but Trump is looking like a coward here. He is making excuses for him not to appear. The easiest way for a coward to hide.
I hope he comes to his senses and debates his opponent…the American people deserve to see and hear their president and his challenger.
When I was in college I took many history courses and one of them the professor would have us students use our brains and come up with a ‘what if’…….
I recently finished that 38 part series on the history of the US….I like series where it takes a little research and hard work to make them…..I found another but this one is about World War 2 and the possibility that the Nazis could have won…if only…..
I am sure that there will be those that will take exception to this series….but remember it is not my research but that of other people…I am just the messenger……I offer it up as a source for discussion….I may or may not endorse the conclusions….
Part 1–Germany could have won WW2 without fighting the Western Allies…..
…
the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, which cost the lives of an estimated 50-60 million people and was the most terrible war in world history. We all know how the war turned out—with an overwhelming Soviet-Western Allied victory over Nazi Germany ending with the destruction and dismemberment of Germany herself and the death by starvation of millions of her citizens. Given the way the events of the war played out, there was no other foreseeable outcome other than her defeat. But as most historians are aware, German defeat in the war would have been far from inevitable had Nazi leader Adolf Hitler refrained from making certain critical mistakes.
This series of articles represents an attempt to summarize the top mistakes and omissions Germany made that cost it victory in this greatest and most terrible of all wars in human history. Of course, the best way for Germany to have won World War II was for it to have avoided fighting Britain, France, and the United States of America altogether. Germany had the military potential to defeat France and likely force Britain to make peace, but with a Navy less than one-sixth the size of Britain’s, it had no means to even attack U.S. territory, let alone defeat it. Here are some actions that Germany might have taken to achieve their territorial objectives without having to fight the Western Powers of Britain, France and the United States of America:
As I stated before….this is offered up as a source for discussion….please let your thoughts be known….but I have written about the Nazi voter…….https://lobotero.com/2017/08/07/the-nazi-voter/
