That Old Familiar Melody

The McLaughlin Group 12/27/19

Iran vs Trump vs The Media vs The Truth

US and Iranian developments are unpacked by a Freedom Friday Caller with first hand knowledge of the region.

Trump's SHOCKING Admission About Melania

"During a private fundraising event Tuesday night, resident Trump joked that his wife Melania would not cry if he was shot, Politico reports. The dinner, intended for House Republicans who fundraised the most, was held at Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC, and featured a lengthy speech from the president that reportedly devolved into a roast of GOP members, as well as his own wife.

During his speech, Trump used the near-fatal shooting of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) in 2017 during a congressional softball game as fodder for a dig at Melania. Trump reportedly started by noting how tough Scalise was—but warned against getting shot as a weight-loss strategy.

Trump then said Scalise’s wife “cried her eyes out when I met her at the hospital that fateful day… I mean not many wives would react that way to tragedy. I know mine wouldn’t.”*

 Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-jokes-melania-wouldnt-cry-if-he-got-shot

White House Tries To Argue That Trump Wasn’t Really Impeached

The White House is crafting a new message about impeachment: It never actually happened. They are basing this theory on a legal scholar’s op-ed saying that impeachment only happens when the vote in the House concludes AND the articles are sent to the Senate for trial.

Since Pelosi has not sent the articles to the Senate yet, the White House believes that the process has not quite finished, and therefore Trump wasn’t impeached. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.



https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-donald-trump-impeached-white-house-considers-arguing-no-articles-of-impeachment-not-delivered-to-senate/

Lawsuit Tries To Force Kellyanne Conway Out Of White House

A lawsuit filed against the Office Of Special Counsel seeks the removal of Kellyanne Conway from the Trump administration.

According to the lawsuit, Conway has repeatedly broken several laws while in office, and most of these instances have been confirmed by the OSC, with the OSC going as far as recommending her expulsion from the administration.

Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains the lawsuit and reminds everyone about Conway’s nonstop
rule breaking.

https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/lawsuit-office-of-special-counsel-should-fine-and-remove-kellyanne-conway-from-white-house/

Marco Rubio humiliates himself when confronted about Trump’s crimes

BREAKING: Marco Rubio just humiliated himself when asked directly about Trump’s crimes.

Behind The Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days Of Conflict And Confusion

The inside story of resident Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/politics/trump-ukraine-military-aid.html

The Unfairness Of It All

Top Republican gives absurd defense of Trump tweeting whistleblower’s name

Republican lawmaker Steve Scalise just defended Trump tweeting the whistleblower’s name.

Merry Trumpmas

Tulsi Gabbard's Present Vote Unpacked | Tim Black

Tulsi Gabbard voted “present” on both articles of impeachment brought against resident Trump.

Democrats Hit Back Hard Against Mitch McConnell’s Laziness

There are currently close to 300 bills that have passed the House of Representatives sitting on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk that he refuses to bring up for debate. Democrats in the Senate have had enough, and they began tweeting out pictures of the stack of bills this week in an effort to both shame McConnell and fight back against the “Do Nothing Democrat” label Republicans have created. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this strategy.



https://www.newsweek.com/democratic-senators-tweeting-photos-giant-pile-dead-house-passed-bills-mitch-mcconnell-desk-1478047

Rudy Giuliani Wins “Scoundrel Of The Year” Honor

The Republicans might still be bitter about Greta Thunberg winning Time Magazine’s Person of the Year award, but they still got one for themselves: Rudy Giuliani has officially been named as The New Republic’s “Scoundrel of the Year.” And that’s quite a good pick.

Giuliani has managed to be at the heart of all of Trump’s scandals, and has proven through his countless media appearances that he is grossly incompetent and more than a little unhinged. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses Giuliani’s new accolades.

America's Toady

How Nancy Pelosi Should Handle Impeachment

Nancy Pelosi is bungling Trump’s impeachment. Cenk Uygur, Jayar Jackson, and Francesca Fiorentini, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.

"The House’s impeachment debate on Wednesday held surprises for few across party lines – including for viewers of Fox News.

For most of the day, the resident’s favorite channel covered the debate straight; the vast majority of the afternoon deferred to the live feed of the House floor. News anchors such as Chris Wallace and Bret Baier would occasionally jump in with commentary, largely to signpost the oft-used “historic” label and the debate’s deep partisan schism.

“No matter what you think of the resident, after today we will never talk about the 45th resident of the United States the same way again,” Baier said."

Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Jayar Jackson, Francesca Fiorentini

Cast: Cenk Uygur, Jayar Jackson, Francesca Fiorentini

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/18/trump-impeachment-fox-news-response

Joe Biden Democratic Debate Answer Was Amazingly Bad | Tim Black

Joe Biden's answer to this question was so bad it might grind his campaign to a halt.

Note To Democrats: Don’t Fuck Up The Post-Impeachment Process

Posted by Rude One

Every once in an increasingly regular while, I just feel like someone needs to sit Democratic leaders and members of Congress down and explain to them How the World Works Now. See, they are approaching the completed impeachment and the hopefully forthcoming trial of Donald Trump as a solemn and serious occasion for reflection on one’s Oath of Office and the Constitution, hoping that their solemnity and seriousness will be the gravity that brings Americans to earth with the understanding that, yes, obviously, Donald Trump has as much business being resident as he does doing anything other than handing out shopping carts at Home Depot and telling customers about great deals on paint. Even then, he’d probably be a dick about it.

So, while one might think that seriousness is the proper response to the political turmoil and the potential removal of a resident for the first time in our nation’s history, that’s not How the World Works Now.

Right now, Republicans are going full dickhole on opposing Trump's impeachment, trial, and removal. Since well before the vote yesterday, the GOP and allied groups have been running ads about how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is going to use a strap-on on Uncle Sam and the Do-Nothing Democrats are literally masturbating in the House chamber rather than passing everything that their Lord and Savior Trump wants. Democrats and their groups, meanwhile, are essentially buying into the Republican narrative by releasing ads touting all the shit they are doing on health care and other stuff, like little brothers insisting, "We're not do-nuttin'" to their noogying older siblings.

Messaging for Democrats has never been a strong suit. When we have swept into office in wave elections, like in 2006, 2008, and 2018, it's been because Republicans were finally so abjectly awful that most voters could no longer live with themselves voting for them. But the thing is that Republicans are masterful at disinformation, and they will lie and lie and lie some more in order to pound a lie into the brains of anyone paying even scant attention. "Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election" and "Joe Biden got the prosecutor fired to protect his son" will be crammed down the same throats who eagerly swallowed the load of whatever the fuck Hillary Clinton supposedly did in Benghazi, despite multiple hearings exonerating her, and, of course, now and forever, her emails.

Don't fuck this up, Democrats. That's the message here. We already fucked up on the Mueller Report, and now it's an article of faith among the faithless that Trump did nothing wrong in the "Russia hoax," despite the report very clearly and thoroughly explaining that he did a shit-ton wrong and that Congress needed to get off its ass and do something about it. Democrats let it go because it was too complicated and because the Mueller show wasn't entertaining enough.

I cannot begin to catalog all the ways Democrats have fucked up. The list of grievances here would be so long and so enraging that it'd make calm heads burst and spray viscera all over their nice Christmas trees or menorahs or cornucopias or whatever the fuck you have up. It would include the failure of the left to fund a liberal media message delivery system in the same way that the right has talk radio and Fox "news" and its devolved children, OAN and others. All that shit was and still is propped up by rich fucks like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch cocks. It would include the failure to force the country into an electoral reckoning over the 2000 election. It would include the failure to go to the barricades over Merrick fucking Garland.

Time and again, Democrats have played this game like there is honor in it instead of playing it to fucking destroy the opposition. Time and again, we have let Republicans set the terms of the contract and just signed along. Time and again, they dared Democrats to vary from a pre-ordained set of responses, going full force after any Democrat that dared to call "bullshit" on them.

The fact that Nancy Pelosi is holding back on sending the impeachment articles over to the Senate has enraged Republicans because it upset the script and showed that maybe, just maybe, this time Democrats weren't going to accept the Republican rules in this game. It's the smart play, and they have no idea how the hell to respond. Now, it's time to mobilize the public and market the shit out of the removal of Donald Trump from office.

Democrats need to be gearing up for the greatest battle of our recent lives. They need to go big, with everything from billboards on the highways to ads out the wazoo. I mean pounding the fucking message until it drowns out other shit. This is How the World Works Now. We are never out of campaign mode, and nothing is so serious or important that it can't be marketed to the hilt. To pretend otherwise is to cede the ground on convincing everyone to the Republicans. It would once again allow them to set the terms of the argument.

Fuck that. Create a new playing field, one where the dominant message is this: "You are only a good American if you support removing Donald Trump from office." It's that simple. We punish criminals, and Trump is a criminal; ergo, get him the fuck out of there. Hell, the column from Christianity Today that calls for Trump's removal from office is incredible support for that stance.

This will require a massive amount of spending, as well as Democrats sucking up their reticence to really get down in the shit pool with Republicans and slug it out. But if you don't get dirty, the GOP will take it as weakness and exploit that until there is nothing to impeachment and the whole thing will have been just to put an asterisk next to Trump's name.

Sure, it's something. But it's not enough. If you win this messaging war, you can shift the narrative, and that's the real game changer. It means that even if not a single GOP Senator changes their closed, Trump-owned minds, the voters will know what the deal is.

Barring a miracle, Trump won't be removed by the Senate. But if Democrats succeed only a bit at this war, they will finish the job in November.

Trump should be removed from office

It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was.

 

By Mark Galli 

 

December 19, 2019

 

In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Billy Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:

The President's failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.

And this:

Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump. To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.

Christianity Today Editor-In-Chief: Trump’s Character Is Troublesome | Velshi & Ruhle | MSNBC

 

Tulsi Gabbard Mocked For Her 'Present' Votes On Impeachment

Twitter users had a field day, both with her votes and her self-serving "explanation".



Source

Why Can’t Democrats See That Joe Biden Is A Disaster Of A Candidate?

According to the latest round of polling, Joe Biden still holds a lead over all of the other Democratic candidates. This is disappointing, to say the least, as Biden has zero chance to beat Trump in 2020.

The Republicans have already painted him as a corrupt, senile old man, and that image is sticking with Republicans. It doesn’t matter that it is hypocritical, they got there first. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins lays out more reasons why Biden is a horrible candidate.



https://theweek.com/articles/884677/democrats-are-sleepwalking-into-biden-disaster