What’s the impeachment basis this time? Malignant incompetence? Has everyone stopped talking about the Syrian Civil War is my other question - nice little interface in this article back to that.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors would be an easy play. Treason wouldn't be unreasonable either: A high school debate team could make the point that ignoring a foreign power paying to have our troops shot simply because you have business interests with them would be "Adhering to their enemies". I'm with am_Unition. If I were Congress I'd make a run at it for damn sure. Now is a time where Democrats could wrap themselves in the flag all day long.In Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, treason is specifically limited to levying war against the US, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
The House could get it done pretty quick, they're practiced. I think it's a question of if this is egregious enough for folks to step forward, whether to testify, whistleblow, or leak. Then, the Senate GOP squirm. This seems pretty egregious, to me. The strongest case for actual treason yet.
I mean let's suppose it's September of 1971 and Woodward and Bernstein reveal that the People's Republic of China had been paying the Vietcong a bounty for shooting American soldiers, and that William Colby briefed Nixon in June. Nixon knew, but he didn't tell the public because it would interfere with his visit to China in July. FUCK the watergate breakin, yo. That shit would be sorted.
I think he'll do anything to get re-elected, and somehow thinks this is his path. He believes he requires help from Russia this dearly, or is worried of blackmail. It always sounded so conspiratorial to so many people. I don't know how else to explain dereliction of duty in protecting active American soldiers.
You're overthinking it. Trump wants praise. He does what gets him praise. There is a large proportion of the world that will never praise him, so he does what the praisers like. And he knows that owning the libs is what they like the best. At the end of the day, he's our first troll president, elected by trolls, to troll the country.
Maybe I do overthink it. The trolololol is certainly true, to a high degree. I still personally believe the "White House or jail house" narrative best explains his mindset. Maybe we'll even live to find out?
Good questions. Any impeachment basis specific to this is indeed murky, and since the Senate just set a precedent that impeachment requires an actual crime, get ready for "malignant incompetence is not a crime!". Personally, I would say this is "legit treasonous". Before 2020, impeachment was generally considered a political process, unwed to requiring proof of criminal wrongdoing, so long as the House and Senate agreed to remove the president. But with Bolton's latest book, it's clear that there are enough wrongdoings to merit several more investigations. It's a torrent, and it'll be tough to prioritize. IMHO, House dems should initiate these investigations ASAP, and push forwards, regardless of whatever happens in November. Everyone knows damn well that they'll never get Bolton under oath before the election, as Trump will claim executive privilege to block Bolton from testifying, and then use the courts to tie things up for god knows how long. Trump abuses the judiciary possibly more than he does Congress. Edit: of course, McConnell & co. are vvvvvveryyyyyy complicit in the judicial-packing-while-abdicating-legislation scheme. Most of the Western world does largely seem to have given up on Syria, yes. I'm not an expert on Syria, but the continuing pattern of Putin-friendly Trump policies is unmistakable. There's no way that Trump wasn't briefed on a hostile foreign power hiring Afghan mercenaries to kill American troops. God knows what he did to avoid taking action on this. Hanlon's razor looks less and less likely. Stay safe.
There are five factions in Syria: - Assad. Crushed insurrections. Has conditional backing from Russia, Iran and therefore Hizbollah. - The rebels. Crushed. Has conditional backing from the US and therefore Britain, and France. - The Salafists. Various and sundry jihadis. Has conditional backing from other jihadis. Isis goes here. - The Rojava. An ethnic group with territory that would like to be a country please. Kurds, basically, with all the enemies of Kurds, IE Turkey, Iraq, Syria, jihadis. Also Kurds, which means no friends. - CENTCOM. US Spooks and rambo-types doing their black-book kinetic best out in the land beyond accountability. In a reasonable world they'd back the rebels but they only do that sometimes. Sometimes they're against them. Assad would have fallen if it had been "Assad vs. not-Assad" but "not-Assad" is still four factions. Rojava gives no fucks about non-Rojava Syria. Salafists give no fucks about infidels. CENTCOM is pursuing its own fucked up strategy which, frankly, is to mess with Russia (and Turkey to a lesser extent) but ostensibly Turkey is an ally and ostensibly we support the freedom of Rojava and meanwhile the President has been sitting on the fact that Russia's been putting a bounty on our troops for three months and fucking Erik Prince and Rudy Giuliani are extralegal ambassadors of who-the-fuck-knows-what so shit be murky. The '90s and '00s were characterized by "US Troops to X" at which point we imposed order for better or worse and there were two sides to every battle. The '10s were characterized by "US Troops from X" at which point whatever drama cracked loose from the Arab Spring was left to sort itself out into whatever multifaceted catastrophe was most likely from whatever weak response the incumbents had and whatever disorganized skirmishes any given group of rebels felt like putting up. We wanted globalism without imperialism. This is what it looks like.