Tag: Trump/Ukraine Investigation

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 6, 2019

Regarding the omnipresent Trump/Biden news, virtually all Republicans are on the same page:

  • The Bidens are guilty of something
  • They should be investigated
  • Trump committed no crime
  • The Democrats are out to get Trump

The right has worked with Fox State News to neutralize facts, so every issue is up for grabs, even things you know is true. Global warming? It’s undecided. Biden’s activity with Ukraine? Every newspaper has debunked it. And it wasn’t just Obama and Biden who wanted that Ukraine prosecutor gone, all of the European leaders and the head of the IMF wanted him out too.

But for Republicans, those aren’t facts, because something must have been going on. Now, Biden’s let Trump and the GOP define him. They say he should be investigated, because he must have done something wrong, everyone says so.

You’ve got to fight to win the news cycle these days. We can’t remember what happened yesterday, let alone last month.

But, once again, it looks like the Dems plan to work very slowly, sacrificing the narrative. All they have to say is, “he did it”.

Will they again grab defeat from the jaws of victory? On to cartoons. Here’s the meme of the week:

Views differ on what the Ukraine thingy means:

GOP is strangely silent on Trump’s actions:

New movie hits theaters this weekend. Most would like to wipe this horror show from their minds:

It’s more likely that Trump would say: “It would be unfortunate if somehow, he got shot in the leg“:

 

Rudy plans a spirited defense of whatever this is:

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Is The Trump/Ukraine Story A Trap for Dems?

The Daily Escape:

Hopkinton NH — September 2019 photo by Karen Randall

Wrongo has been skeptical of the House Democrats’ ability to investigate an administration that has zero interest in playing by the old rules.

He was skeptical of the effort to make Russian interference in the 2016 elections a means of impeachment of Trump. He was skeptical of Robert Mueller as the potential savior of the Democratic Party in 2018.

Now, we’ve stepped back into the waters of impeachment because of the Ukraine president’s convo with Trump. Are Democrats once again placing false hope in impeachment? Trump is corrupt in a completely ham-fisted way that makes his efforts at self-dealing blatantly obvious. Here’s Trump, talking to the Ukraine’s president Zelensky:

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great….Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

That fired up Democrats, since it appears that Trump was trying to pressure Zelensky by withholding US military aid unless Zelensky agreed to investigate both Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Here’s Wrongo’s take. For the past few months, Americans were finally concentrating on subjects like healthcare and college debt forgiveness. These ideas were getting both air time and traction, via the debates. The battalion of Democratic candidates were telling us their positions on these ideas, and others, like a wealth tax.

But the Democrats have now introduced impeachment 2.0, focused on the Trump/Ukraine story. By doing that, they have also rehabilitated a debunked Biden/Ukraine story, something that has been high on the GOP’s radar for years.

What’s the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden/Ukraine story? It begins with the 2014 appointment of Hunter Biden to the board of Burisma Holdings, a small Ukrainian energy company. In late 2015, VP Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine, in part to send a message to the Ukrainian government that it needed to crack down on corruption.

That message was somewhat undermined by Hunter’s work with Burisma Holdings, and with its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky had been Ukraine’s ecology minister under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Hunter had joined the board of Burisma the same month that Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, an independent government agency, was conducting a money-laundering investigation into Zlochevsky and Burisma. But the British investigation ended after Ukrainian prosecutors refused to cooperate. They wouldn’t turn over documents needed in the British investigation, and without that evidence, a British court ordered the assets unfrozen.

According to an Intercept piece on May 10th, Biden, during a visit to Kiev in late 2015, did threaten to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees unless the then- prosecutor was dismissed. But the Intercept argues that Biden did Ukraine a favor by hastening the prosecutor’s departure, because he had failed to properly investigate corrupt officials, including Zlochevsky.

By getting the prosecutor fired, Joe Biden made it more, rather than less likely, that Mykola Zlochevsky, the oligarch who Hunter worked for, would be subject to prosecution for corruption. Yet, it never happened.

There is no evidence that Joe Biden did anything to shield Hunter or Burisma Holdings from scrutiny, as claimed by Trump and Giuliani. But it is true that Hunter continued to work to repair Burisma’s reputation. That isn’t a praiseworthy activity for a presidential wanna-be’s son.

And Hunter’s no saint. In 2014, he was discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. Later, he was involved in a hedge fund with his uncle, James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother, that went belly up.

This story isn’t going to die. As long as the impeachment inquiry against Trump lasts, the Biden story will be linked to it for many Americans. Even if impeachment happens, the Republicans will use this against Joe Biden if he’s the nominee. Joe has said that he never discussed Hunter’s business interests in Ukraine with him, but maybe he should have.

A question that Democrats should be asking is whether this is the hill that they are prepared to die on: Is Trump’s Ukraine effort sufficient for an impeachment? Is it anything more than a “he said, she said” debate?

Are the Dems prepared for another investigative loss, much like in Russiagate and the Mueller Report?

Presidents know that they have few constraints on their activities. GW Bush (or perhaps Cheney) realized that, and went on to exploit presidential power in ways that radically changed America. And when the Dems came into power, Obama and Pelosi ruled out pursuing Bush and Cheney.

Trump is on a much more dangerous path than Bush and Cheney.

Would taking Trump down restore the balance of power in our politics?

Is that worth the downside risk to the Democrats?

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 29, 2019

Demo Memo reports that the average worker works 4.77 days a week. But 19% of workers usually work on Saturday, while just 12% work on Sunday, according to the BLS American Time Use Survey. The vast majority, 68% of workers, work Monday through Friday.

Workers without a high school diploma are most likely to work weekends: 31% usually work Saturdays and 17% on Sundays. Those in service occupations are much more likely to work weekends: 39% usually work Saturdays and 28% Sundays.

And here’s Wrongo doing a little service work on the weekend! This week, the cartoonists were understandably focused on impeachment.

Dems really, really want to believe they’ve got him this time:

The GOP will say they’ve found absolute proof even if there’s nothing:

Fall, when the Congressperson’s thoughts turn to impeachment:

Some see only what they are told to see:

Don’t be surprised if it comes down to this:

Maybe we could advance the climate discussion if the message was clearer:

 

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Saturday Soother – September 28, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Salt Marsh, East Galveston Bay, Texas – 2019 photo by patrickbyrd

We can’t let the week end without talking about the Trump/Ukraine phone calls. Wrongo’s hot take is that it seems that Trump may have stepped on a rake, and he’s hoping that the bruise on his face won’t leave a permanent mark.

It is also possible that instead, it’s the Democrats who found a new rake to step on. Democrats are lazy. They want Trump out of the White House, but they don’t want to do the hard work of beating him in 2020.

And just when it was clear that the Mueller investigation couldn’t deliver for them, we have the Ukraine “favor to ask” story to move the impeachment ball toward the goal. Is it possible that Trump has baited the Dems into this? He’s been amazingly forthcoming.

Despite all the smoke, the investigation must answer three questions:

  • Did the President do something that rises to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard?
  • Was there also a cover up?
  • Who managed the cover up?

It remains to be seen what the answers are. Let’s hope the truth comes out. That is extremely important, regardless of the final outcome for Trump, or the Democrats.

This week was also the 50th anniversary of the Beatles “Abbey Road”. Were you around to hear it in 1969? Wrongo sure was. He remembers hearing their “Meet The Beatles” in 1964. The debates about which is their best album endures, but Wrongo lists “Abbey Road” and “Rubber Soul” as his faves.

Opinions may differ, but “Rubber Soul” (1965), “Revolver” (1966), and “Sergeant Pepper” (1967) was one heck of a three-album streak. Later, like all streaks, the Beatles lost their mojo, and broke up in 1970.

To many, the Beatles albums are music for Boomers. And some think the generation got stuck there. They believe any music that played after they turned 30 isn’t worth listening to. This says a lot about them. Just look closely at our current politics and politicians if you require an example.

But it’s a combined problem: Around 1980, rock radio stations stopped playing new music and put Boomer classics into a heavy rotation. Even Springsteen didn’t get much airtime until “Born in the USA” in 1984. If you weren’t listening to alternative radio you thought that nothing had changed.

Truthfully, many in each generation appear to be convinced that the world’s best music was recorded sometime between their 13th and 25th birthdays. Most people kind of turn into their parents along the way, criticizing whatever flavor of new music comes along. Meanwhile, after watching PBS’s Ken Burns’ “Country Music”, Wrongo is more convinced than ever that American pop music is a mostly unbroken chain of evolving and branching genres.

Fall has begun in earnest on the fields of Wrong. Tomatoes are done, the only thing still growing in our little garden is parsley. Today, around 7:00 am, we had a large, healthy coyote trot through the back 40. We’ve been hearing them howling nearby at night for years, but see them infrequently.

Sadly, we have to start our fall cleanup in earnest this weekend. But before we do, it’s time to begin our Saturday soothing ritual. Start by going online and buying a few pounds of Panama Elida Estate Catuai Natural ASD coffee ($32/16 oz.) from Branford, CT’s own Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea. The roaster says it has flavors of guava, red grape, pineapple, lychee, mango, ripe berries and red wine.

Since there can be no way to stop thinking about what’s going on in DC this weekend, let’s gear up for it by listening to something that isn’t on your Spotify or Pandora play lists, or on any of the middle-of-the-road stations you listen to, its Gary Clark Jr.’s song “This Land”.

From the LA Times:

“Protest and social justice haven’t previously been the central focus of Clark’s songs, with a few notable exceptions on his first two studio releases for Warner Records. He’s been celebrated mainly as a next-generation master of molten blues guitar and a new hope for old ways in the digital era, but his latest album, “This Land,” begins with a title song of genuine anger and deep, raging funk.”

The song is about being angrily profiled in his own home in rural California by a white neighbor, in front of his son and daughter. The neighbor asked Clark to take him to meet the real owner, or he’d call the police.

The song is about what was said to him, how he was treated, and how he felt after being treated that way. Clark didn’t join a hate group. He didn’t say death to all white people. He wrote a protest song about his experience:

The video is a must watch, and the music is a blend of blues rock, reggae, and hip-hop all in one. Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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