Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Democrats Wastin’ Time: Impeachment the refuge of Sore Losers



Well thanks to the disingenuous, undemocratic Wall Street Bankers’ party, the Democrats are cruising for a losing in the 2020 election.  Since taking over the gavel in 2016 they have done nothing to address the extreme distress the American people have been suffering since the financial meltdown of 2008.  The new Democratic Party couldn’t care less about America or the American people.  The sore losers are just wastin’ time on impeachment as a way of achieving that which they couldn’t in the election.  The media has already winnowed down the DNC 2020 roster of candidates to a group of about five bankers’ handmaidens to go up against President Trump. 

The latest undemocratic Democrat to join fray is the lying, corrupt, fake “lunch box” candidate Joe Biden.  His laughable disingenuous film clip condemning Trump for “supposed support of Nazi’s” in Charlottesville is hilarious given Biden’s support for real Nazi’s in Ukraine.  In 2014 as Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden and buddy Victoria Nuland instigated a bloody coup against the elected government of Yanukovych after he rejected a Biden-negotiated World Bank loan that would enslave the people of Ukraine.  From Mint Press:


Excerpt:

Joe Biden Launches Campaign with Charlottesville Condemnation after Supporting Neo-Nazis in Ukraine

While working behind the scenes to shape the post-Maidan Ukrainian government to their liking, powerbrokers in Washington — Biden included — have done all they could to downplay the U.S. role.

Former Vice President Joe Biden launched his candidacy for the American presidency on Thursday morning with the release of his first campaign video, ‘’America Is An Idea.’ The first word from the candidate’s mouth — “Charlottesville,” a town now synonymous with neo-Nazi hate in the U.S. — is the overwhelming focus of the ad, which attacks Trump for his widely criticized “moral equivalence” between neo-Nazis and anti-fascists.

Biden argues that “We are in a battle for the soul of this nation,” after bloviating over b-roll of the infamous torch-lit march the night prior to the murder of activist Heather Heyer by a supporter of Adolf Hitler. “Folks, America is an idea,” Biden says.

Heather Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, seemingly condemned the exploitation of her daughter’s untimely demise, saying “I wasn’t surprised. Most people do that sort of thing. They capitalize on whatever situation is handy.”

Biden’s centering on the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville has also been roundly denounced by Charlottesville locals and activists who bore witness to it on Twitter and other social media. Yet, the candidate has received little scrutiny over the years for his role in abetting the neo-Nazi renaissance in Ukraine that followed the fascist takeover of the government, known as the Euromaidan.

Blowback from the U.S. government support for the far-right coup has already struck Charlottesville. The U.S. previously gave military assistance to the Azov Batallion, a neo-Nazi paramilitary organization that has been incorporated into the Ukrainian national guard. One neo-Nazi contingent present in Charlottesville, comprised of four men indicted by the FBI last year, trained under Azov…

Meanwhile, the slayer of 50 Muslims in a white supremacist attack on a mosque and Islamic center in New Zealand earlier this year claimed in his manifesto to have trained under Azov and had a symbol associated with the group on his flak jacket.

 Biden’s role in fueling the revival

It is widely known by international observers of Ukraine that Joe Biden, as vice president, served as Obama’s chief operative when it came to matters pertaining to the country.  In late 2013, Biden seemed to have been a key player in former President Victor Yanukovych’s bid to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Later, Biden would go on to boast that, “after three months into the demonstrations,” he personally told Yanukovych to “walk away” from Ukraine. Yanukovych has lived in exile in Russia since the takeover.  As the U.S. and violent protests were turning up the heat on the government, the U.S. was doing all it could to mold the government to its liking, and Biden played a pivotal role in this process.

In February 2014, leaked recordings emerged of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, plotting to unite the Ukrainian opposition to take over the government. They sought to use Biden as an intermediary with the three main leaders of the opposition, hoping he could get the details of the U.S. plan for the country to “stick” with the trio.  “So Biden is willing,” Nuland assured Pyatt.

Washington had its favorite of the three picked already. The most popular of them had little political or economic experience (he was a professional boxer), while the other guy, Oleh Tyahnybok, had longstanding ties to neo-Nazis, which would have legitimized Russian claims that the uprising was of a fascist nature. Tyahnybok is the leader of the Svoboda Party, a fascist organization that refers to the Holocaust as the “light period” and bans Jews from participation…  This is the plan that Nuland said Biden was “willing” to help further.

By April, Biden was delivering aid packages personally to the opposition. In Ukraine, he met with “leading members of parliament, including several candidates for the presidency — speaking to them of Ukraine’s “heroism” and humiliations. “We want to be your partner, your friend in the project. And we’re ready to assist,” Biden reportedly said.  Among those he met with: Oleh Tyahnybok…

Continuing corruption after the coup

Like his stance on neo-Nazism, Biden’s stance on corruption seems to change with the political winds.  As journalist and lawyer Kevin Zeese recently noted, WikiLeaks previously reported that Biden “pledged U.S. financial and technical assistance to Ukraine” for fracking projects.

Just months after Yanukovych was ousted and forced to flee to Russia, Biden’s son, Hunter, was put on the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, the largest private gas company in the country.

As the coup ended, the Washington-backed government eventually took shape under the auspices of billionaire Petro Poroshenko, who became the president in June. Biden may have gotten what he wanted — an ostensible end to corruption in Ukraine’s energy sector. At least that was the goal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who opened an investigation into Burisma Holdings.

And so daddy came to the rescue. Here is Joe Biden, in his own words:

I got all the good [assignments]. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to — convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t…I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch — he got fired…

Yep, Joe Biden’s coke-snorting loser son Hunter was placed on the Board of Directors of the  Ukrainian energy corporation Burisma Holdings along with John Kerry’s stepson Chris Heinz.  Once the Ukrainian State Prosecutor started looking into the corruption at Burisma old black hearted Joe bribed the unelected, illegitimate, US installed government to fire the prosecutor.  According to Zero Hedge:

Excerpt:

Biden Funneled $1.8 Billion To Ukraine While Son Bagged 'Sweetheart' Government Deal: Report

Joe Biden allegedly directed $1.8 billion in aid money to Ukraine as Vice President while his son Hunter received millions of dollars from Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings, according to Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and senior Breitbart editor-at-large.

As The Hill's John Solomon reported Monday, Hunter Biden was paid upwards of $166,000 per month to sit on the board of Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015…

"There’s all kinds of questions and implications. Is there a Russian component to this, because Burisma is such a corrupt company?" Schweizer added.

"The bottom line is Joe Biden was the Obama administration’s point-person on policy towards Ukraine," said Schweizer. "He steered $1.8 billion in aid to that government and while he was doing so, his son got a sweetheart deal with this energy company – that we’ve been able to trace over just a 14-month period – paid $3.1 million into an account where Hunter Biden was getting paid." 

Schweizer highlighted Hunter Biden’s lack of professional or experiential bona fides in terms of his board position at Burisma Holdings.  “Suffice to say, Hunter Biden has no background in Ukraine,” stated Schweizer. “He has no background in energy policy. There’s really no legitimate explanation as to why he got this deal with this energy company, other than the fact his father was responsible for doling out money in Ukraine itself.”

Schweizer went on, “It’s a huge problem, and it goes to this question of corruption and potential payoffs and bribes that these foreign entities were making to the Bidens in exchange for hopefully getting favorable treatment.”

Despite the Robert Mueller-led operation’s ostensible pursuit of “collusion” between President Donald Trump and the Russian state, Schweizer noted actual financial dealings between the Biden family and foreign interests. -Breitbart

"One of the phrases that has been tossed around as it relates to the Russian collusion hoax was ‘obstruction of justice’ by Trump, and there’s been no — at least in my mind — evidence that that ever happened, and it doesn’t seem that Mueller felt any charges should be brought on that count.

But in this case, you would have a pretty clear-cut case of obstruction of justice, where Joe Biden is saying to Ukrainian officials, ‘We are not going to give you this billion-dollar loan guarantee unless you fire this guy.'" added Schweizer.

Ha, ha.  Where’s the charges of obstruction of justice against the corrupt Biden cabal?  That is the problem with the Democratic Party, they are not democratic.  They are the opposite, they have done more to destroy America than any foreign power.  It was the Democrats like Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer who eagerly destroyed the global banking system through deregulation. 

The Democrats never launched impeachment hearings against George W. Bush for lying America into war in Iraq.  There were never hearings regarding the Bush Administration’s failure to protect America from the 911 attacks after numerous warnings.  Not only was the Bush Administration not held accountable for their crimes, but under the Obama/Biden regime the crimes and illegal wars escalated to new heights.   

There were never impeachment hearings for Obama after allowing “Fast and Furious” illegal gun running, bailing out the corrupt bankers and paying them bonuses out of taxpayer money or the myriad of unconstitutional, criminal activities.  Why?  Because they are but one corrupt party. 

This “new” Democratic Party continually slaps down any populist agenda that the new members pursue.  They have unapologetically supported every trillion dollar expansion of the military industrial budget while slashing funds for education, social security, healthcare and jobs.  The Obama era was more anti-union than any administration before them.  From The Intercept:

Excerpt:

JOE BIDEN KICKS OFF CAMPAIGN WITH UNION FACING PENSION CUTS DRIVEN BY OBAMA-ERA LAW

JOE BIDEN IS kicking off his presidential campaign Monday afternoon alongside a local labor union in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as part of his strategy to engage working-class voters in states that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. But even as Biden basks in their image, the workers in the local union are locked in a battle with their bosses over cuts to their pensions — cuts enabled by a law passed during the former vice president’s time in the Obama White House.

Biden will speak to members of the Teamsters Local 249 alongside United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, a man Biden has previously said he “work[s] for.” Gerard himself opposed the Obama bill, and the USW has since called on Congress to pass legislation to protect benefits with alternative funding. Gerard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former President Barack Obama signed the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 into law as part of an omnibus spending bill that also rolled back some Dodd-Frank consumer protection regulations on Wall Street and lifted limits on campaign contributions to national political parties. The measure allows sponsors of pension plans who can demonstrate they are in declining or critical financial condition to cut promised workers’ benefits in order to remain solvent.

Thanks to that Obama-era law, members of the Teamsters Local 249 are facing up to 30 percent reductions in their retirement benefits — the type of economic setback prone to produce the anxiety so heavily discussed in 2016. All participants in the plan will have the chance to vote on it, but the Treasury Department has the power to veto that decision if employees reject it. Many unions backed the plan as the only way to save retiree pensions in the long run, but individual workers have expressed frustration when faced with the prospect of cuts and have since called for revisions to the original bill allowing for cutbacks.

Biden’s campaign and his supporters peddle the former vice president as an antidote to President Donald Trump’s right-wing populism, a role he plays not with sweeping policy proposals designed to take on the malefactors of great wealth, but largely through tough-sounding rhetoric. He famously threatened to take Trump “behind the gym.” His trip to Pittsburg fits with an archetypal tour of working-class areas that conjure Biden’s nostalgic image of the United States, a journey that has also included Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Youngstown, Ohio, where Trump won in 2016.

Biden situates himself in the rust belt by citing his ties to Scranton, Pennsylvania; his working-class upbringing and Irish Catholic heritage. The idea is that the six-term Delaware senator can use that special connection to repurpose the burgeoning class anxiety Trump was able to tap into and translate it back into energy for the Democratic Party. But in the same way that Trump styled himself as a working-class hero despite his massive inheritance and a career of reckless investing and wage theft, Biden’s desired image stands in stark contrast with his political record — and the elite and anti-labor interests backing his 2020 bid.

Despite some union backing for the law, a significant number of Democratic senators opposed it in 2014, including Sen. Bernie Sanders — one of Biden’s top opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar all saw fit to oppose it.

Sanders has repeatedly proposed legislation to repeal the provision that allows hard-won pension benefits to be cut. Sanders introduced the 2017 Keep Our Pension Promises Act with Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, with Democratic Senate co-sponsors Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Gary Peters, Jack Reed, Debbie Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse, and former Sens. Claire McCaskill and Al Franken.

“Before the law was changed, it was illegal for an employer to cut the pension benefits retirees have earned,” reads a statement on Sanders’s website issued alongside the proposal. “The new legislation establishes a legacy fund within the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to ensure that multi-employer pension plans can continue to provide pension benefits to every eligible American for decades to come. This legislation is paid for by closing two tax loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.”

The looming pension issue illustrates a fundamental distinction in how the two septuagenarian politicians approach labor issues. “If Congress could bailout Wall Street and foreign banks throughout the world, we certainly can protect the pension benefits of American workers,” Sanders wrote in a statement on the legislation.

Perhaps nothing more accurately captures Biden’s essence in the tradition of corporate-friendly Democrats than the high-dollar fundraiser he hosted to kick off his campaign with help from Republican donors and corporate lobbyists. Or the one he held last Thursday at the home of Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen in Philadelphia alongside Steve Cozen, founder of the union-busting law firm Cozen O’Connor. Biden plans to hold another elite fundraiser in Los Angeles next month with DreamWorks co-founder Jeff Katzenberg; actor and director Rob Reiner; entertainment investor Peter Chernin; and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Biden’s campaign didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The Western Pennsylvania Teamsters and Employers Pension Fund, which sponsors pension plans for members of the Local 249, applied in October for permission to cut benefits to more than 21,000 people working in the Pittsburgh area. The Treasury Department will rule on the application by May 7, and any approved cuts would be effective August 1. The Local 249 represents United Parcel Service employees, freight workers, and school bus drivers. Other participants in the Pension Fund include toll workers, prison staff, food service employees, and mechanics.

Yes, old black hearted Joe, touting his “every man” persona is really a bankers’ bag man who has nothing but disdain for “working folks.”  A word to the wise any politician who refers to American citizens as “folks” are fakes.  We are not “folks” we are hardworking people.  Joe Biden has done more to destroy the working class and middle class than any other politician.  From Stephen Lendman:

Excerpt:

Biden represents virtually everything ordinary people deplore, a longtime establishment figure hostile to peace, equity and justice for all.  His political career spans over four decades, serving wealth, power, and privileged interests exclusively, including two terms as Obama regime vice president.

Between them, they did Lincoln one better, fooling most people most of the time, promising hope and change, delivering betrayal.

They spurned popular rights and well-being, looted the nation’s wealth for Wall Street and other corporate favorites, wrecked the economy for ordinary Americans, consigning millions to unemployment, underemployment, and poverty — the nation’s leading growth industry on their watch.
They institutionalized tyranny beyond Bush/Cheney destruction of fundamental rights — on the phony pretext of combatting international terrorism the US created and supports.

They targeted more whistleblowers than all their predecessors combined, deported more unwanted aliens than any previous US regime, terror-bombed seven countries in eight years and bragged about it, ignoring their responsibility for mass slaughter and destruction.

They were money power’s point men, force-feeding neoliberal harshness on the nation’s most disadvantaged when economic stimulus was needed to help them, prolonging main street Depression conditions throughout their tenure, continuing under Trump/Pence.

Like their predecessors and DLT et al, they’re serial liars and moral cowards. Their notion of “shared sacrifice” was letting wealthy Americans share at the expense of ordinary people sacrificing to more greatly enrich them.

As Delaware’s longest serving undemocratic Dem senator, Biden twice failed to become party standard bearer for president.  Will he be third time lucky or a three-time loser? Establishment media are promoting him over co-frontrunner Bernie Sanders — for not being undemocratic Dem enough.

Biden fits the bill. He’s polar opposite “hope and change.” He’s everything that political corruption too debauched to fix is all about.   As a longtime Delaware pol, his top priority was and remains serving banking and other financial industry interests, as well as other corporate favorites, supporting legislation serving their interests.

He represents what the late Gore Vidal meant by saying: “By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.”  Biden long ago sold his soul to powerful interests that own him —  that could propel him to the White House, knowing he’s safe.

He’s an anti-populist closet neocon/law and order hardliner supporting wars of aggression, corporate handouts, neoliberal harshness, and intolerance of dissent.  He’s polar opposite the lunch bucket/middle class Joe image he tries to portray, everything progressives deplore, beholden to interests harming ordinary people.

Biden never met a war of aggression, corporate handout, or police state law he didn’t wholeheartedly endorse and cheerlead.  A closet racist, he opposed busing and school integration. As Judiciary Committee chairman in 1991, he prevented testimonies from key witnesses, corroborating Anita Hill’s accusations of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings — letting a supremely unqualified right-wing extremist join the High Court, spurning justice instead of affirming it.

He cheerled US/NATO naked aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, supported three preemptive Israeli wars on Gaza, and joined the Russia bashing crowd following the Obama regime’s 2014 coup in Ukraine, replacing democratic governance with Nazi-infested fascist rule.

Endorsing super-wealth, he once said “I don’t think five hundred billionaires are the reason we’re in trouble. The folks at the top aren’t bad guys.” They amassed super-wealth the old-fashioned way — by grand theft and other devious means.  Biden relies on deep-pocketed donors for support, courting them rabidly. They love him for backing their interests at the expense of ordinary Americans he and they deplore.

Among an array of about 20 undemocratic Dem aspirants for the nation’s top job, it doesn’t get any worse than creepy Joe.  None deserve support, Biden least of all. What ordinary people value most, he opposes — notably peace, equity, justice, democracy the way it should be, human and civil rights, collective bargaining rights, affirmative action, a woman’s right to choose, gender equality, elder rights, along with governance of, by, and for everyone, not just the privileged few.

Anybody but Joe and DLT in 2020 — even though no duopoly standard bearers deserve support in a nation where democracy is pure fantasy, never the real thing.

Amen, Brother Stephen.  All the Dems are doing is wastin’ time there will be no impeachment.  It is all a big scam to weaken Trump before the 2020 election.  From Jonathan Turley:

Excerpt:

The Black Jersey: How Trump And Congress Are Competing For Last Place 


In Washington, the race is on for the “black jersey.” That was the jersey awarded in the early 1900s to the slowest rider in a bicycle race. The renowned champion, Luigi Malabrocca, took so long to race a course after stopping for lunch and an aperitif that most of the fans went home before he crossed the finish line. But Malabrocca is about to be outdone, as both Congress and the White House strive to slow down investigations to prevent any real impeachment.

The hope is that the public will eventually go home, or at least to the polls, with the prepackaged narratives of the two parties. From privilege fights to legislative investigations, the goal is to slow down the impeachment process without appearing to do so.

President Trump is promising to challenge any impeachment proceeding. It would be a meritless claim, but the White House is likely more interested in the ultimate delay than the ultimate decision. While I do not see a compelling case for impeachment, this would constitute a frivolous challenge to Congress under Article I.

Impeachment, after all, is a process that the framers left to Congress, and there is little basis for judicial review or intervention. The White House knows that, but it also knows it has key allies in slowing down impeachment. Those allies are the Democrats.

It has been apparent for months to many of us in Washington that the Democratic leadership is opposed to actually impeaching Trump rather than simply going through the motions of investigations...

The great danger is that House committees could inadvertently stumble over an impeachment offense that forces their hands. However, with all of the mutually desired litigation, the calendar is likely to protect members from actually having to fulfill their pledges.

The strategy is to continue investigating as a matter of oversight rather than impeachment. This will eat up time while hopefully damaging, but not removing, Trump. Pelosi can then claim at the end of the year that there is no practical time for impeachment. It is all meant to satisfy Democratic voters still being told that the party wants to impeach, if only there was more time or evidence. 

However, it will take time, and that is the point. So welcome to the “corsa al ultimo posto,” or the “race for last place.” The sad part of all this is that the voters, as the “marks” in this Washington con game, are likely to buy the whole thing. The key with any good con is to use the fantasies of the marks to carry out the scam. This political shell game is designed to keep voters believing they can still win. There never was an impeachment pea under any of the three shells, but that is not likely to matter in the end.

So while the nation suffers, over $70 trillion in debt, unemployed, underemployed, broke, hungry, crumbling infrastructure, orchestrating a bloody coup in Venezuela, the undemocratic Democrats are just wastin’ time.  Under the undemocratic tutelage of Nancy Pelosi nothing will change.  By the time the 2020 election gets rolls around the Democrats will be lucky if they have any voters left.  We’re sick of it, quit wastin’ our time on an impeachment that will never come.



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