Can we get a more credible source than the Daily Mail?

I don't trust a word they say.

given that none of the big MSM sources are running the story my guess is no more credible leads exist yet. and given that these big MSMs need to reach out to Turkish sources to get even a shred of confirmation it might not tie into the impeachment in any case. I can't see Nanci calling a turkish official, even cloaked in aninimity, to testify. the only hope this has of getting added to impeachment would be a trump whitehouse employee corroborating the account. and unlike the quid pro quo phonecalls this is far more damning, and my guess is that person would be Epstien'd before we even knew their name.

One cannot be a faithful Christian and still support someone like Trump. Anything he has done for Christians means nothing when he is the embodiment of a sinner i.e. horrible person, NOT a Christian whatsoever.

Kushner is the reason Trump has been in Erdogan's pocket, going back to Saudi Arabia.

News is breaking fellas.

Drumpf is over #98384

This post was edited by Skinned on Nov 4 2019 11:29am

What I've seen so far the source is anonymous and the story was first reported by the Spectator.

It wouldn't surprise me if it were true, but I'd like to see more confirmation from other angles.

For sure, could be 100% bullshit or could be semi-true with a lot more nuance. we shall see.

while it is not unreasobable to assume that things like military and financial aid are regularly at least suggested to be predicated on certain behaviour or favours in exchange, it is the nature of the demand that trump made which is so problematic here: he did not demand that ukraine behave in a way that benefits america, but he asked for help with his domestic political enemy - that's a huge difference, and illegal in itself, no matter if he threatened to withhold military help (which he obviously did) or not.
so i wouldn't be so eager to buy into the 'this is just common behaviour, we do it all the time' excuse, considering this important distinction.

it is standard behavior by politicians in a semi-recent window. from the time of the cold war (at least) until now US presidents have leveraged our worldly position to get dirt, get weapon's sales deals, oust regimes, etc.

there's 2 paths:

"x, y and z happened" > "that's standard" > "standard means ok"

"x, y and z happened" > "that's standard" > "and that's not ok, either"

saying it's standard isn't an excuse, it's a fact. accepting the standard is an excuse, but not tied to it being standard.

we could add nuance about how Trump promised to be more transparent of a POTUS than past ones, or how he wanted to be a domestic POTUS but is now using foreign countries to gather dirt.

again, my main point is neither if it's 'standard or not', nor if we should accept this 'standard' as 'ok or not'.

my point is that what might not be an entirely unusual occurrence when asking for behaviour that benefits america as a whole, has an entirely different quality if you're asking for personal favours to help with domestic elections - which, again, is illegal in itself, even without the withholding of military aid as leverage.

so just focusing on the question if asking foreign governments to do something is unusual or not, distracts from the real issue, which is what specifically trump asked them to do. that's why it qualifies as an excuse to me.

This post was edited by fender on Nov 4 2019 01:08pm

is it a distraction attempt by Trump? yes. does it do much of anything in reality? no.

if Trump 100% admitted to the worst of the allegations his diehards wouldn't jump ship for 2020, and the senate still wouldn't remove him in impeachment.

when we're dealing with a whitehouse that uses smokescreens 10x a day i try to look at how effective of a distraction it is, rather than if it is or isn't a distraction. it's like trying to call out trump for every factually incorrect statements, what's the point? no one is going to change their mind, he's a known liar.

we can't remove Trump, is my point, but we can highlight scandalous and illegal behavior generally in the hopes this dissuades future leaders from continuing the tradition.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Nov 4 2019 01:17pm