…but not unexpected. That phrase gets a lot of exercise when we’re talking about the behavior of Comrade Donald Trump. The president’s response was irregular, but not unexpected. The president’s comments were undiplomatic, but not unexpected. It’s a nice way of saying ‘Yeah, as usual, Trump is being an asshole’.
Friday evening, Trump announced he was firing Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community. In his letter, Trump stated, “[I]t is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General. That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General.”
What’s actually vital to Trump is that everybody in his administration MUST be willing to publicly support whatever crazy-ass thing Trump wants to do. Anybody who disagrees or challenges him has to go. When it comes to following the law or following Trump, the law has to step aside.
Comrade Trump signing the two-trillion-dollar covid-19 stimulus package.
Atkinson followed the law. When he received a complaint from a whistleblower in the intelligence community about Trump’s communications with the president of Ukraine, he had an obligation to determine if the complaint was credible and urgent. He decided it was, so he notified Congress — which is exactly what he was legally required to do.
From that moment on, Atkinson’s career in federal government was doomed. He followed the law instead of ‘protecting’ Trump. Same thing happened to James Comey, to Andrew McCabe, to Jeff Sessions (who actually deserved to be fired, but for other reasons), to Col. Alexander Vindman (and even his brother, for fuck’s sake, whose only sin was to be born a twin). Trump attempted to fire Robert Mueller, but couldn’t. All of that was wildly inappropriate. But not unexpected.
Trump didn’t fire Atkinson just to be vindictive. He’s also sending a message to other Inspectors General — including the newest one. That new two-trillion dollar stimulus package? One reason it was delayed was Democrats insisted the bill include a Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery — somebody to monitor how the Treasury Department hands out the loans and loan guarantees to businesses. Somebody whose job was to keep Trump corruption to a minimum. The bill also states the new IG MUST notify Congress IMMEDIATELY if the Trump administration withholds information requested by investigators. Because if there’s one thing we know for certain about Trump, it’s that he’s going to pull some sort of nasty-ass scam and then refuse to answer any questions about it.
Trump really really didn’t want a new IG to oversee the stimulus loans, but eventually he had to give in. At least in theory. But this is Comrade Donald Trump (remember in the last paragraph we said he’d pull some nasty-ass scam? Here we go.). In addition to signing the bill, Trump also issued a signing statement…you know, to ‘clarify’ how he interprets the bill. He told Congress he intended to treat the “requirement to consult with the Congress regarding executive decision-making” as “hortatory but not mandatory.” Yeah, I know…there’s no way Trump knows what ‘hortatory’ means. But basically Trump is saying he’s going to consider that ‘requirement’ to just be an earnest suggestion, which he can ignore if he wants to. He also said he won’t “treat spending decisions as dependent on prior consultation with or the approval of congressional committees,” which is a nice way of saying he intends to hand out the money to whoever the fuck he wants to and Congress can kiss his ass. He ends his signing statement by saying, “my Administration will continue the practice of treating provisions like these as advisory and non-binding.” This, in essence, is Trump making farting noises in the direction of Congress.
Comrade Trump signing a statement saying he’ll do whatever the fuck he wants regardless of the law and Congress can pull his finger.
With that signing statement and the firing of Atkinson, Trump is basically telling the new stimulus IG, “Dude, you’re just there for show. Stay quiet, don’t ask too many questions, don’t interfere, just sit in your office, look out the window, and continue to cash those sweet sweet government checks. Or say goodbye to your career and your pension, because, dude, you know I will fire your ass in a skinny minute.”
What Comrade Trump is doing is borderline illegal, immoral, pathologically unethical, utterly reprehensible, and corrupt as fuck. But not unexpected.
gregfallis.com 
I don’t blame Trump….. I blame his supporters, those who voted for him, and especially those who are still going to vote for him this year, no matter what.
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and I blame all of you with TDS for being a bunch of whiny crybabies. Every president in history has fired people who disagree with them or publicly disagree with them. It is amazing how Trump has made your hypocrisy so exposed now.
Even today when the entire world is dealing with this pandemic you still have such TDS that you cannot let a day go by without attacking Trump. It truly is sad.
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Billy, is that you? It’s been a long time. I see you haven’t changed at all.
The thing is, most presidents recognize the value of having folks around them who disagree — because disagreement is critical. Disagreement forces any leader to clarify and justify their decisions. Disagreement can cause a leader to avoid making a mistake.
The problem isn’t just that Trump fires folks who disagree; it’s that he fires folks whose legitimate governmental function is to act as a check on the power of the president. Any president, not just him. An inspector general who is afraid to exercise their authority is just a puppet. It’s not just that Trump wants folks to agree with him; it’s that he wants to make sure nobody CAN or WILL disagree with him. That’s called tyranny.
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There is a difference between disagreement and challenging your boss, which Trump actually welcomes, and doing the same thing publicly. The administration has be riddled with more internal leaks and mistrust because Trump made the mistake of actually thinking he could work with the other side and kept many of the Obama people in their roles. Only to of course most all of them stab him in the back with leaks, lies, and mistrust.
This is the norm in DC as everyone is out for themselves and their own power. Trump was naive in thinking as a businessman that the gov. all had the same goal and that was to improve the nation. Instead he realized it was all about those who wanted to be in power and they would stop at nothing to do it.
This is yet another example. They way you hear the left speak about Trump, if you believed all the rhetoric and hyperbole, there would be tanks rolling down every city as Trump took over the nation to become king. All he has done instead is loosen the reigns of government over the people and business and because of it, the economy boomed.
The crappy hypocrisy of those anti-Trumpers is the worst. Just the latest example where everyone called Trump a xenophobe for closing travel to china and then a month later claiming he did not close it fast enough. it’s old.
The man has done more good for this nation than any president in recent memory. While there may be policy differences which is common in every administration, he has done nothing to bring teh country down but instead is always looking at ways to make America first. I wish people would just stick to policy differences. I did not like Obama because of his policies but I did not spend every waking moment trying to make sure he was impeached for his impeachable offences. Instead I waited for my turn to vote for someone I likes… which was not Romney, never like the man.
I’m telling you if I listed all of his accomplishments on paper and attributed those accomplishments to Obama or Clinton, leftist would be singing the praise of those two past presidents.
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The grim satisfaction of his having been impeached seems so long ago… and so meaningless. November can’t come soon enough. And then I PRAY, to all the gods there ever were and ever will be, that he gets booted out.
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It’s because the impeachment was 100% meaningless because it was based in bullshit. I too cannot wait for the November party to celebrate 4 more years of the best President in US history.
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I disagree that the impeachment was meaningless. It’s an historical stain on the Trump administration; it can never be removed. It demonstrates that at least SOME facets of government resisted the disgrace Trump has brought to the office of the presidency. The impeachment may not have removed him from office, but it left him with a tattoo of shame. That’s a good thing.
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You realize everyone who even watched anything about the impeachment has forgotten and that number was pretty small already. Nobody cared except for the leftist with TDS who wanted Trump removed with their bloodless coup d’état attempt, and that is all it was, an attempted coup.
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Billy, I think your understanding of a coup d’état is a tad wobbly. It involves the illegal and forcible overthrow of the government, replacing it with a new one.
Impeachment, on the other hand, is a lawful and peaceful constitutional process by which the chief executive is held accountable. Had Trump been found guilty, he would have been replaced by the Vice President, Mike Pence — not by a new government.
And if nobody cared, then you wouldn’t have brought it up.
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Don’t play dumb Greg, You know exactly what I meant. There were no high crimes or misdemeanors to be spoken of in their impeachment circus. Everyone involved in the call, even the person the call was made to confirmed it. But Schiff made up an entire phone call and quoted it as if it were real and it was nothing more than a movie script. I guess him being the rep from Burbank has got his writer juices flowing and he thought he was writing the next Aaron Sorkin film. How come no one called him out on those lies on the left? Schiff knew full well all he had to do it say it and all of the sheep would take it as gospel and run with it.
It was an attempted coup. Trust me, had they removed Trump they would have gone after Pense next so that Pelosi could ascend to the White House. Even now they cannot stop.
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“There were no high crimes or misdemeanors”
Yes, there were. It is wildly wrong for POTUS to ask the president of a foreign nation — a nation at war and in need of US military support — to start an investigation a political rival as ‘a favor’.
“Everyone involved in the call, even the person the call was made to confirmed it.”
No, they didn’t. Several aides from different US agencies who listened in on the call immediately contacted their superiors about the call as soon as it was finished to express their concerns.
“It was an attempted coup.”
It was nothing like a coup. A coup is done in secret; the impeachment was debated openly. A coup is an illegal attempt to overthrow a government; impeachment is included in the Constitution of the US as a mechanism for checking the power of high ranking officials. A coup installs a new ruling party; impeachment retains the ruling party. And finally, a coup is grounded in violence or the threat of violence; impeachment involves open debate and public voting.
In fact, the ONLY threats of violence were made by supporters of the president against the leaders of the impeachment process and against the men and women who testified in public.
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1. Where is the law that says it is illegal to ask another nation to investigate someone you think it corrupt and possibly doing something illegal in said nation?
2. No again, not a single aide who “expressed concern” had first hand knowledge of the call, not a single one.Each and every one was at best 2nd hand knowledge or even 3rd. Plus the call transcript was released and there was nothing there even close to something that looked like a crime.
3. This impeachment was most certainly a coup attempt and was done in secret. Do you know remember the secret meetings that republicans were not allowed to attend? Do you now remember how this imaginary whistleblower’s name was not allowed to be told to anyone and how Schiff lied that he never met the man? Now you are just bending yourself into a pretzel to defend this farce.
4.Bloodless coup not ring a bell to you at all? Not all coups need to be grounded in violence. A violent coup would almost never take place in this nation in this day and age, it would have to be a bloodless coup like the one attempted by the dems. I already told you that Pense most certainly would be next to be impeached if Trump was removed because of course Pense was privy to this call and also defended the president so he would not be fit to serve and would be removed in favor of teh Speak of the House, thus a full removal of the party in power.
5.Threats of violence only by supporters of the president… oh that is rich and lovely re-write of history.
6. Why was biden’s quid pro quo not illegal?
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Hey Billy, I’m going to respond to all of your comments about the impeachment, but not today and not in this forum. In a day or two, when I have time, I’ll write a blog post dedicated to those questions.
For now, I just want to say that although I think you’re absolutely wrong on almost every issue, I appreciate your willingness to exchange views here. I respect the fact that you’re willing to read a site you clearly disagree passionately with and engage in a conversation about it.
I hope you and yours are staying safe.
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Greg is there is one thing I hope that we do agree on is the free exchange of ideas with hindrance. Even beyond that government control of speech, but people’s willingness to listen and engage in conversation and hear views and opinions different than their own.
I am adamant about my views and I do as much research as this father of 4 has time to do and I am not a party hack guy, I have been a registered Democrat for more than 20+ years, defended Clinton during his impeachment, and was even married to a vegetarian at one point. 😉 But in the end, I never turn anyone away from speaking their mind. I have been unfriended (both on facebook and in real life) by life-long friends because of my support of Trump. The TDS is real with those people.
So in the end here, yes, I do try to read as much opposing views as I can to understand the mindset and underlying foundation of those on the opposite side of the spectrum as I. In some rare cases I can have my mind changed on some views, others I am steadfast.
Thank you for having the open forum and your willingness to accept views different than yours and I also hope, and am assuming, that you are not the type to assume that all Trump voters are xenophobe, racist, homophobes, or any of the phobes all the ladies of The View seem to think we all are. You should hit up a Trump rally one day and see how genuine, open, and accepting the vast majority of Trump voters truly are.
Lastly, speaking of Trump supporters, I live here in Southern California, definitely not an area that supports Trump, but I can say that I get more “I like your hat” comments from all walks of people when I am out shopping or walking around with my Trump hat on. Men, Women, black, brown, white, etc. There is a lot of silent support for what the an is doing. Not everyone likes his style per se, but they like what he is doing. take that anecdotal evidence for what it is but I think most everyone who hates us Trump supporters have no clue who the hell we all are.
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