#this has Joe Hills energy in a way i would struggle to explain

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 3, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

We’re in this weird eddy where Republicans are trying to cling to past politics to gain advantage and the Biden administration is trying to move forward. On top of this struggle are stories about how the previous administration pushed the boundaries of our laws or, worse, broke them.

Yesterday, two Republican governors, Greg Abbott of Texas and Tate Reeves of Mississippi, ended the mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions for their states. So far today, the Johns Hopkins University tracker has reported 88,611 new cases and 2,189 new deaths. The numbers are dropping, but they are still wildly high compared to other nations. Texas and Mississippi are both in the top ten states in terms of deaths per capita.

It is hard not to see the reopening of Republican-led states as a deliberate affront to President Joe Biden, who asked for a 100-day mask mandate and who has sped up vaccine production to end the pandemic before new variants throw us back into a crisis. The Biden administration has tried to take politics out of the national response to the coronavirus, and made it a point to respond quickly to the crisis in Texas two weeks ago, when the unregulated Texas energy system froze. Health officials worry that a rush to reopen will undo all the progress we have made against the virus, and they are begging Texas and Mississippi to reconsider.

Nonetheless, Abbott has reopened his state and today tweeted: “The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities. The Biden Admin[istration] must IMMEDIATELY end this callous act that exposes Texans & Americans to COVID.”

While Abbott is mired in past politics, the Biden administration today laid out a new approach to foreign affairs. Shortly before the White House released a paper explaining its national security policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a speech reiterating the administration’s belief that the world needs American leadership and engagement to help create order, and that countries must cooperate with each other.

Blinken promised to stop Covid-19 both at home and abroad, and to invest in global health security. He said we would address the economic crisis and the climate crisis and create a more stable, inclusive global economy. We will “renew democracy,” he said, “because it’s under threat.” Blinken promised to “incentivize democratic behavior” overseas without “costly military interventions or attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force.”

Blinken identified China as the greatest modern rival of the United States and promised to “engage China from a position of strength,” working with allies to counter that nation’s rising power through diplomacy.

The Secretary of State emphasized again how the Biden administration sees domestic and foreign issues as complementary. “Beating COVID means vaccinating people at home and abroad,” he said. “Winning in the global economy means making the right investments at home and pushing back against unfair trading practices by China and others. Dealing with climate change means investing in resilience and green energy here at home and leading a global effort to reduce carbon pollution.”

“[D]istinctions between domestic and foreign policy have simply fallen away,” Blinken said. “Our domestic renewal and our strength in the world are completely entwined.”

Biden’s paper was even clearer, noting that we are at an inflection point that will determine whether democracy will fall to autocracy. “I firmly believe that democracy holds the key to freedom, prosperity, peace, and dignity,” he wrote. “We must now demonstrate — with a clarity that dispels any doubt — that democracy can still deliver for our people and for people around the world. We must prove that our model isn’t a relic of history; it’s the single best way to realize the promise of our future.”

Meanwhile, stories continue to break about the previous administration.

Tonight, we learned that the Department of Justice under Trump loyalist Attorney General William Barr refused to investigate or prosecute Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, even after that department’s inspector general asked for a review of what it said was a misuse of her office. The inspector general found repeated instances of Chao using her office to benefit the Chao family company, Foremost Group, a shipping company run by Chao’s sister. Chao is married to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Also, today, the inspector general for the Department of Defense issued a review of Representative Ronny Jackson, who was Trump’s White House physician before he was elected to Congress from Texas in 2020. The review says he has an explosive temper, made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a woman who was his subordinate, created a hostile work environment, and drank alcohol and took Ambien while on duty. The inspector general recommended that the Navy take “appropriate action” with regard to the retired officer. Jackson said, “Democrats are using this report to repeat and rehash untrue attacks on my integrity.”

Today’s biggest story about the previous administration, though, came from the Senate hearings about the January 6, 2021, attack, held before the committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the committee on Rules and Administration. While there is still confusion about what happened when, it became clear that there were some serious lapses in the protection of the Capitol, and it appears those lapses originated with Trump appointees in the Pentagon.

Because the District of Columbia is not a state, its National Guard is under the control of the Defense Department, and it is overseen by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The Commander of the D.C. National Guard, Major General William Walker, told the Senate that, in response to a request from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the director of D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, Dr. Christopher Rodriguez, Walker requested approval for the mission from McCarthy on January 1.

McCarthy’s approval did not come until January 5, when the event was already upon them. And, in what Walker saw as an unusual move, McCarthy withheld approval for Walker to deploy the Quick Reaction Force, guardsmen equipped with helmets, shields, batons, and so on, to respond to civil disturbance, without the approval of the Secretary of Defense.

Then, at 1:49 pm on January 6, then Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, called Walker to say that the Capitol had been breached. “Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many guardsmen as I could muster,” Walker told the Senate. Walker immediately called the Pentagon for approval to move in his troops, but officials there did not give the go-ahead for 3 hours and 19 minutes. Once allowed in, the National Guard troops deployed in 20 minutes. But by then, of course, plenty of damage had been done.

The delay in deployment stood in dramatic contrast to the approval accorded to the National Guard to deploy in June 2020. Today’s testimony suggests that the Pentagon placed unprecedented restrictions on the mobilization of the National Guard on January 6, preventing it from responding to the crisis at the Capitol in a timely fashion.

The House will not meet tomorrow out of fears that militants will attack the Capitol again, expecting that March 4 will see former president Donald Trump sworn in for a second term.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[malecftw]

Hiking’s fun and all that - Brother Billy x reader x boyfriend Steve

A/N: That gif melted my heart fr even tho Joe looks like a creep lmfaooo I miss being able to talk to him someone ship him over to me tyvm. Hope you like it!

Word count: 2700

Warnings: angst, cursing, reader x injury, cliffhanger

Masterlist.

Requests open!

The sun was tanning your skin and the dust was flying around as you walked down from the mountain you’d just hiked. Your boyfriend Steve was a couple feet in front of you. His shorts clinging to his muscular legs as his hair bounced up and down, feet planting themselves heavily caused by the steepness of the walk down. Although you loved any and every contact with him, today was just too hot to be all over each other in the middle of nowhere. It was more likely that you’d suffer from heat stroke than that you’d get to enjoy his presence that little bit more.

Hawkins has always had nice summers, but this one really hit it out of the park. A constant layer of sweat coating your skin, no matter how many times you’d shower. The only comfort was that there was no exception. Everyone was aching for the weather to cool down. A couple of days ago you’d gotten the notice to start being cautious with drinking water as the forecast didn’t predict any improvement any time soon.

This heat also gave you the perfect excuse to keep your boyfriend and brother from attacking one another every time they saw each other. It just was too hot to invest any energy in anything other than trying to cool down and after a couple of months of dating Steve, they were starting to become more tolerant towards each other.

Billy didn’t like Steve, Steve didn’t like Billy. You had no intentions to be the main figure that’d change that but... Shit happens? The only reason they didn’t tear each others heads off, was you. Both loving you more than their wish to hurt the other.

The sun was slowly starting to set, which gave you an impeccable view of the small town you’d started calling home. You basked in the feeling of a slight gust of wind passing by, anything and everything that was the tiniest bit cooler than your skin brought you relief.

You’d gotten to the part of the trail that was surrounded by high bushes that came up to around your knees, all on the brink of catching fire you felt like. Steve stopped in his tracks and looked back at you. ‘You wanna walk in front of me or would you rather stay behind me?’ He asked, knowing you weren’t a fan of not being able to see the ground you’d plant your feet on. ‘Can I just walk closely in front of you?’ He nodded and waited for you to catch up, not being able to resist touching your waist as you passed him.

He always found little ways to touch you or show you his affection. Right now it was carefully guiding you down this damn hill you’d grown to resent in the last couple of hours. He took his hand in yours so you were assured he’d catch you if you fell. Your balance was probably one of the strangest things about you. It’d fluctuate so much. One moment you’d be perfectly fine and the next you’d be sat on your ass on the ground cause it decided to be like: ‘Naaaa not today.’

Your body was turned slightly as you started walking again. Instead of walking straight, you’d walk sideways causing more friction between your feet and the ground causing you to be more steady. Something you’d learned a long time ago when your family went hiking in the mountains when you were young. A time that you’d consider the best time of your life many years later. Back then, everything was simple. You had a loving mother, a loving father, and a loving brother. After the divorce, everything changed. Billy had started growing cold towards his father, feeling betrayed for giving up on his mother. The only thing that didn’t change was his love for you.

Out of the blue, a sharp stinging pain made it’s way up your leg starting at your ankle. You winced and stopped walking, slightly bending down in pain. ‘What’s wrong y/n?’ Steve asked worriedly, one hand on your back comfortingly as he held your hand tightly. ‘I don’t know. I think something bit me. It really burns.’ You groaned as you tried to stand up straight again. All of a sudden a wave of dizziness came over you and if it wasn’t for Steve’s arm around you, you definitely would not still be standing. ‘Woah easy, can you walk?’ You nodded grimacing, trying to focus on keeping the tears that were threatening to roll down your cheeks at bay. ‘Okay hold on to me, we’re not too far from the end of the trail.’

After about 5 minutes of hiking you halted Steve, really not being able to walk any further. The heat, dizziness and now nausea was starting to get too much. ‘Steve I literally can’t walk anymore. I’m so tired and I feel sick.’ Your weak voice said, struggling to reach the needed volume for Steve to hear you clearly. Thankfully he did cause he was stood so close to you.

He didn’t say anything but he bent down slightly, guiding your arms towards his neck and grabbing your thighs. You got what he was trying to do and in any other situation, you would heavily deny the gesture. However, right now you were genuinely feeling unwell so you obliged.

He quickly made his way down to the parking lot of the trail where his car stood parked in the shade of some trees. He carefully placed you into the passenger seat and turned on the car, allowing you to listen to some music as he observed your ankle. Two small, identical punctures were visible, small droplets of blood coating your ankle in a line down the rest of your ankle and foot.

‘Y/n?’ He asked when he didn’t get a response to him slightly palpating the hurt area. You vaguely responded to your name and groaned out some incoherent words. That’s when he knew this wasn’t just a normal bite. 

He kissed your forehead softly, muttering he’d be back soon and stalked over quickly to the phone booth a couple feet away. He silently thanked you for forcing him to learn his number in case anything was ever wrong. 

Anxiously tapping the device as it rang he cursed him for not picking up faster, he let out a sigh as he heard him pick up. ‘Billy, it’s Steve. You need to get to the hospital. It’s y/n.’ The other end of the line was quiet for all of 5 seconds before a worried, already on edge Billy spoke. ‘What? What the hell happened Harrington.’ 

‘We were hiking and she got bit by something. I’m sure it’s not a big deal but I’d just rather be safe.’ He lied through his teeth. Billy didn’t need to know how much Steve was freaking out. Especially with Billy’s reckless way of driving, Steve needed him to get to the hospital in one piece to be there for you. Plus, he figured maybe Billy would react better if he thought Steve didn’t know the severity of the situation and he let the doctors explain. After all, it’s not like he could’ve done something. Right?

Billy sighed and Steve heard him grab his keys. ‘Alright, I’m on my way. Take care of my sister Harrington.’ Billy said, being forced to put his trust in him. ‘Always Billy.’ Steve said reassuringly before hanging up and running towards his car. Your face was covered in sweat, a pained grimace on your face the entire ride to the hospital. Steve assumed Billy would get there first, considering the hiking trail was a little bit out of town.

Steve’s screeching tires came to a halt right in front of the door of the emergency room and he noticed Billy immediately coming over from his spot next to the door, awaiting his arrival. He never even looked at Steve, straight up going for the passenger door, eyeing his sister worriedly. He crouched down enough to be able to look at you directly. ‘Hey, y/n. It’s Billy, don’t worry okay I’m here.’ You groaned in response, squeezing your eyes as you tried your hardest to open them. You managed to look at him through hooded eyes and you started to cry a little. ‘It hurts so bad. I can’t breathe.’ You whispered with great effort. Billy swallowed, trying to stabilize his voice before speaking. ‘It’s okay baby, we’re going to make it all better.’ 

He kissed your forehead as he picked you up, carefully minding your head as he took you out of Steve’s car. With Steve hot on his heels, he ran into the hospital where a bed was already waiting for you, thanks to Billy telling them Steve was coming with you. As doctors began to run all kinds of tests, Billy and Steve were forced to wait outside of your room. Steve was sat down on one of the plastic chairs that were placed against the wall, fatigue coming over him as his adrenaline levels evened out, Billy was pacing around. Too nervous and worried to be still.

‘I’m sure she’s going to be okay Billy.’ Steve said, fiddling with a bottle of water as he took in Billy’s complexion. ‘You don’t know that.’ Billy said harshly. He still didn’t like Steve and sure as hell wasn’t going to pretend that he did right now. Steve looked down in acceptance of Billy’s answer. A tremendous amount of guilt washed over him as he started talking. ‘I’m sorry.’ Billy looked at him, eyes rolling and arrogance evident on his face yet he didn’t say anything and motioned for Steve to continue. ‘It’s my fault. I suggested we go hiking today. I asked her if she wanted to walk in front of me. If I hadn’t, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten hurt.’ Steve’s voice cracked and he rubbed at his irritated eyes, looking down again like a beaten dog.

Billy looked up at the hospital ceiling, not sure what to do with this apology. He knew what you’d want him to do with it though so he decided the answer that was the most abnormal for him. ‘It’s not your fault Harrington. I know she’d been bugging you for weeks to go hiking. It could’ve been anyone.’

Steve looked up in surprise but kept quiet, not wanting to push his luck. Even more to his surprise, Billy walked over to him and sat down. ‘I may not like you Harrington, but my sister loves you enough for the both of us, and that’s something I can respect. I’m not gonna make her hate me cause I can’t accept you. Hell, if you are good to her I might even consider not kicking your ass at basketball next time.’ Billy smiled. This was odd, something he could’ve never predicted, but it felt good. Knowing his sister would be proud of him. All he ever wanted was for you to be proud of him. Proud to be his sister.

The door creaked open, a significant noise but not loud enough to wake you. Your breathing was still heavy, your expression still looked pained but less so than before. Both boys quietly made it into your room, taking a seat on each side of you. Steve carefully rubbed circles on your hand, trying to comfort you in your medicinal haze. Billy, on the other hand, didn’t touch you. You seemed so fragile. Like you could break at any given moment. The two boys straightened their back as the doctor came in, speaking in a mellow voice. ‘So I have been informed that you are miss Hargrove’s brother? Are you comfortable having this man in the same room when I inform you about her condition? Billy looked at Steve quickly before nodding yes to the doctor.

The doctor took a seat at the edge of your bed and started talking once again. ‘So after a couple of blood tests, we can confirm the bite was that of a snake, more specifically a timber rattlesnake. Now, the venom is lethal but considering we were able to treat her moderately fast it’s very likely that she will recover with no lasting side effects. However, we do need to keep a close eye on the coagulation of her blood (blood clotting). She’s scheduled to have another dose of the antivenom and we have hope that she will respond well to that.’

Both Steve and Billy let out a breath they didn’t realize they were holding. ‘Do you know when she could be discharged?’ Steve asked, knowing how much you hate hospitals. The doctor shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. We’ll have to see how she reacts to the second dose first but right now there are no talks about being discharged. She’s young and strong but her body still took quite the hit. The next 24 hours will determine the process of her recovery.

After answering a couple more questions, the doctor left the room, leaving Steve and Billy alone with you. Your mouth was covered by an oxygen mask and your arms were littered with bruises, nurses having to try numerous amounts of times to find a decent vein to give you an IV. All they could do now was wait.

White. White with black spots. White turning into a light brown. A light brown with a strong light in the middle of it. You squeezed your eyes, pain searing through your body as if you’d just run a marathon without breathing. You felt tired, deprived of oxygen. As fast you’d come to your senses, as fast would you be able to fall asleep again you felt like. But you fought. You wanted to ask what had happened. How long were you out for.

You winced and slowly opened your eyes, seeing both your brother and boyfriend on each side of you. And you were thankful to have them, considering your parents had left on vacation with Max a couple of days prior to this. ‘Steve?’ You croaked out and he looked up from playing with your fingers. ‘Hey stranger.’ He said, eyes red and filling up with tears a little bit. ‘I love you.’ You said immediately, not knowing what came over you to say that in front of your brother but you didn’t care. He kissed the back of your hand, squeezing it lightly as he mouthed ‘I love you too.’ Probably not wanting Billy to beat his ass. Billy, however, saw the exchange between you two and couldn’t help but smile. You really had Harrington wrapped all around your little finger.

‘You both make me feel sick.’ Billy exclaimed, not being able to wipe the grin off of his face. You jokingly glared at him but the nurse walking into your room stopped you from making a snarky remark. ‘How are you feeling sweetie?’ ‘I’m okay thank you. Still a bit tired but I’ve been worse. The boys and the nurse all smiled at your response, you’d just been bitten by a poisonous snake yet here you were taking it like a champ. ‘So this is the second dosage of the antivenom.’ She said as she started injecting the medication into your IV line. 

As the nurse was taking your vitals you started getting an itch in the back of your throat. Steve started pouring some water for you but the nurse stopped him, keeping a close eye on your behavior as the coughing got worse and worse.

You felt like your lungs were on fire and all the oxygen available was being used to fuel the flames. You zoned out, not really sure what was happening other than the horrifying feeling of the life slipping out of you. The boys were ushered out of the room as the nurse called out into the hallway: ‘CODE BLUE.’ 

Immediately all available nurses stormed into your room, leaving the two boys out in the hallway traumatized and terrified. 

Panic and terror visible on their faces as they witnessed another nurse push in a crash cart.

But the doctor said you were going to be fine?

Taglist: @constellationsolo @synonymforlame

[the-shipping-machine]

MTF Mr. Brass AU Part 2

After what seemed like hours, our helicopter reached a small village that was close to our target. Ironically, the village was also close to the site that Joe nuked. I wonder why the foundation only found him now.

They lived in a caravan on the hill at the far side of the village, next to a forest.

“Shall I send a dragonsnail to scan the area?” Money asked, pulling out his case full of these tiny creatures.

“Send the tracker,” I answered. “It’ll be easy for us to catch Mad, but Joe’s gonna be a bit more difficult. Send it after him.”

“Got it, cap!” Money said as he ordered a tiny grey dragonsnail to fly.

“It’ll send me a sign when it lands on Joe.” Money explained.

“Good.” I said. “Jeffrey, prepare your molasses-magic-thing. It’ll help us in case of a chase.”

“Already working on it, B!” Jeffrey giggled.

“Sweetie, I’ll need you to distract Mad.” I said.

“Why, because I’m a woman?” she asked.

“No, Sweetie. He’s gay and ace. And also, he’s YOUR BROTHER.” I sighed. “You should do it because you’re the one with the best relationship with him.”

“I was kidding, mate.” she said. “Fine.”

“Don’t do this again, please.” I said.

“I’ll wait in the helicopter and be in charge of the communication, right?” Soap asked.

“Correct,” I said. “You’ve gotten used to that job, aren’t you?”

He giggled.

“It landed successfully!” Money suddenly said. “I got their location now!”

“Okay, everyone.” I said. “It’s showtime.”

Jeffrey and I hid behind a bush and watched as Sweetie lured Mad outside of his trailer. Joe seemed suspicious of this, yet said nothing.

Neither of them seemed to notice the grey dragonsnail on Joe’s back.

“Now!” I told Sweetie on the communication device, and without waiting, she pushed Mad on the floor and tied him up.

Joe noticed us and seemed to understand what’s happening. 

“They work for the SCP!” Mad yelled. “Run!”

And so Joe did.

“Money, Soap, we got a chase,” I said. “ Sweetie, bring Mad to the helicopter. Jeffrey, come with me. Money, update us on his location.”

Sweetie carried the struggling tied man to the helicopter, and Jeffrey and I started to run after the other.

“He’s running to the forest!” Money said on the radio. 

“Of course he would,” I said. “Pretty expected.”

The forest was filled with eucalyptus trees, and seemed to be used as one of the village’s parks. There were roads, camping sites, benches and signs everywhere.

Joe was fast, but we could hear him breathing. He wouldn’t be able to run for so long without wasting energy. He’s a human, after all.

“2428 has been successfully brought to the helicopter, cap!” Sweetie said. “Although he’s a bit shocked.”

“Good job, girl!” I said.

“Brass, he’s running towards the parking ground number B3. Turn left on the camping site and keep running.” Money said.

“Jeffrey, is the molasses ready yet?” I asked as we followed Money’s instructions.

“It’s been ready for a few minutes, man!” Jeffrey answered, showing off some tricks on the run.

“When I tell you, use it as a barrier,” I told him.

We saw Joe. He mannaged to break a car’s window and got in. He’s got the engine running and...

“Now!” I yelled.

With one movement of his hand, Jeffrey delivered a wave of the slimy goo and turned it into a flying circle around the car. Joe wouldn’t be able to drive out of it.

As soon as he got out of the car, I charged at him and pressed him against it. We tied him up and brought him to the helicopter, where the rest of the team was waiting.

“Brass, what’s the mission status?” Dr. [REDACTED] asked on the radio.

“2428 and 1504 have been successfully captured,” I said. “We’re on our way back.”

“Good.” he answered.

“What the fuck, Brass?” Mad asked. “Were you all working for this bullshit?”

“Yup.” I answered.

“Since when?!” Mad asked.

“Three months after you escaped, there was a mass containment breach.” I began to tell. “The church of the broken god took part in this. Some of the misters took this opportunity to escape. We did the smart thing and helped to end this mess. The broken god is now terminated.”

“You terminated a fucking GOD?!” Joe asked.

“Yeah. It felt good.” I said. 

“Are any of the other misters still in there?” Mad asked. “Are they also in the MTF?”

“Well, Shapey, Chameleon, Forgetful and LD stayed,” I answered. “Neither of them is in the MTF, but Shapey and Chameleon are researchers now.”

“Wow, y’all really are morons.” Mad answered.

“Excuse me?” Soap asked.

“You guys rather be in a fucking prison instead of living a normal life.” Mad said.

“Mad, we’re SCPs,” I answered. “Neither of us would ever have a normal life, no matter how hard we try. We weren’t born to be normal.”

“Plus, you’re the one who fell into my trap. Not us.” Sweetie added.

The dragonsnail jumped off of Joe’s back and flew over to Money, who gave it a treat.

“What the fuck?” Joe yelled. “Is that how you guys found me?”

“Kinda?” Money said. “We knew about the village, just didn’t know where to look.”

“Are we going to be re-contained?” Mad asked.

“Unless you guys would like to join us, then yes.” I said.

Mad and Joe remained silent.

“Take your time to think about it, okay?” I suggested.

Shapey waited for us on the landing site, along with some security staff members. He wore a lab coat that somehow mannaged to fit onto his amorphic body shape, and had his famous poker face. 

“Were you worried about us, Shapey?” I asked as the guards took Joe and Mad to their cells.

“Prehaps.” Shapey said. “Even if I were, I wouldn’t admit it.”

“Chicken.” I laughed.

“You’ve done a good job today.” Shapey said. “Congrats on your first, actual mission, guys.”

“Thanks.” I said.

Jeffrey walked over to Shapey.

“Are there any news about the Miss’s whereabouts?” he asked.

“Since you’re unable to give us any details about her appearance and stuff, we’re currently stuck.” Shapey said. 

“Jeffrey, when you’re ready, I can gain access to your memories in order to help.” I suggested. 

“Yeah but... how can you guys figure out anything?” Jeffrey said. “Everything is black and white.”

“I’ll try my best to decode the memories,” Shapey said. “Whenever you’re ready, kiddo.”

“Okay, Dr. Shapey!” Jeffrey said and skipped over to the entrance.

“He’s a good man.” I said as I watched him. “I can’t imagine what it’ll do to him.”

“What are you talking about?” Mad asked.

“He doesn’t realize he’s been abandoned, Shapey.” I said. “I just... I know the feeling, but I don’t know how to help him.”

“I can see that you care for him, Brass.” Shapey said. “Right now, you can be there for him.”

“I know.” I said.

“Now you should get some rest, kiddo.” Shapey said. “You’ve worked hard today. Maybe get some coffee or something.”

“Someone should fix the machine, then.” I said.

Shapey rolled his eyes as I walked over to my room, taking off the uniform and went to bed.

That was one hell of a mission, eh?

---

First part

Next part- Coming soon

[gogocrazygo]

Soooooo in these already boring times ( being stuck at home due to COVID-19), I have decided to get my running game on. I just bought new pair of running shoes so there is no stopping me right, or at least that’s what I thought.

When the lockdown started just under 2 months ago, I have moved in with my parents and started working from home. I feel lucky to be able to work this way, since I am aware that a lot of people have been put on furlough, lost their income completely or physically have to go in to work, putting their and others health at risk. To stay fit and generally SANE in these very different times, I have decided to run at least 2 – 4 times a week, normally 5 km, and sometimes even getting my little brother to tag along but on his bike. Other physical activities I would include in my stuck at home fitness venture  would be resistance exercises, finger strength training for climbing and yoga for flexibility.

Unfortunately few weeks ago, a pain in my left shin (which I have had already for few weeks) has become so unbearable I could not walk on that leg after a run. I gave it some rest for a week and tried running again. That was a mistake! The pain came back even worse and sometimes I would struggle to even fall asleep. I gave myself another week off from running and tried to do it for the second time. Again, very silly mistake! Pain was so bad I through I must have shine splints of some sort, or damaged muscle.

Luckily one of my fellow climbing club buddies is a Podiatrist, so I thought I’ll seek some advice over the phone. After explaining my pains and what I have been doing around the time it started, he have unofficially diagnosed me with tibia stress fracture.

All  joys, no more running for 6 weeks, just loads ice and chill for my leg 😦

So what can I do if I can’t put much pressure or consistent impact on my left tibia?

Some yoga and exercises can’t be bad right?

Anyways, I have decided to dedicate 30 min to 2 hours per day, 4 times a week at least for exercises including upper body and arms, loads core strengthening, yoga flows in morning and evening, and even some Joe Wicks with my little brother.  I also thought there must be other things I can do to improve my fitness if I can’t do much cardio, so I have come up with few points that can help expand genera fitness and well-being knowledge:

Food for writing inspiration

gain a bit more understanding about physics behind running and exercise. How does the body work and what to do, to get the most out of your workout (check out these free online courses with  Open University)

get more information about the right nutrition for your own little fitness plan ( check out these free online courses with Further Learn)

explore and map out exciting running events. These are normally inexpensive and fun to complete alone or with a team (one that I have been introduced to and attended 2 times already is the Wolf Run which is a 10 km mud run)

research what to do to get back on track in the most stable and safe way, and create a recovery plan. I find Youtube is very good tool for this type of research, with loads good reviews and ideas from other fitness individuals.

challenge different parts of the body with resistance training.

if running was your main fitness training, maybe look into working out your upper body, work on core or try and become more flexible. To do this successfully I would suggest giving yourself some goals e.g do 5 pull ups after 2 weeks training for it, train to plank for 2 minutes, get closer and closer to a split every week, hold yoga poses for few extra breaths etc.

add weights where appropriate into your normal workout .This will help you keep pushing your body where you can

turn to cycling if you have a bike

try and do some meditative practices. Simple 15-20 min relaxing body scans can really make you aware of sensations you have in your body. I think it helps me to concentrate energy in areas I want to work on

explore some nice new running routs for when you are back in the runners shoes

other activities I could think off all include being in closer contact with people or include being in public space like a swimming pool, which is most likely to be closed off during COVID-19

I think these areas are worth looking into if you want to keep up with good fitness practice and make yourself feel good, especially if you cant run. Of course if you already have a fitness plan in place, or following instructions given by physiotherapist, these might not fully apply to you.

If you are recovering from an injury like me, during COVID-19, I suggest not pushing it. Rest and recover to avoid further damage. If I have stopped, stepped back from running weeks ago and seek help, I might be at the end of my recover period. Instead, I have about 4 more weeks to go if not longer since I have made it worse by thinking it’s nothing serious.

I can imagine the lockdown or an injury could have some negative impact on our motivation, but this is the best time for self reflection and exploration of new challenges to set your mind to. Goal setting is very good for mental health, especially if you are reviewing them on daily bases and pushing yourself that little bit extra.

The above photos are from my random adventure, where I went to explore possibilities for a new and longer running rout. This was almost 10km, with good mixture of on and off road running. Best time for a walk right now is very early Sunday morning, unless you are isolating.

  Fitness Channels I recommend:

MadFit real time workout channel (targeted at females, also include vegan food ideas)

Yoga With Adriene my favourite yoga channel with some awesome easy flows

HASfit fitness for all

  Podcasts I listen to while getting ready for work, driving or running:

The Plant Proof Podcast by Simon Hill. His passion for plant based diet got him to interview doctors, nutritionists, sports people and individuals who have turned their life around thanks to plant based nutrition. My favourite podcast of all as he is so genuine and some of the interviews he has got are just mind blowing.

NutritionFacts Podcast by Dr Michael Greger- well renown physician, public speaker and advocate for whole-foods, plant based diet gives fact and figures on different foods we can eat or avoid to improve our health.

Generation V by Nimai Delgato is all about plant based nutrition in sports and fitness sector. Again very factual and interesting to listen to.

What to do if I can’t run? Soooooo in these already boring times ( being stuck at home due to COVID-19), I have decided to get my running game on.

[bountyofbeads]

Bolton Knows About ‘Many Relevant Meetings’ on Ukraine, Lawyer Says https://nyti.ms/2Q0res7

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Bolton Knows About ‘Many Relevant Meetings’ on Ukraine, Lawyer Says

The former national security adviser would be an important witness in the impeachment inquiry, but his lawyer wants a court to rule on whether he should testify.

By Peter Baker | Published Nov. 8, 2019

Updated 3:17 PM ET | New York Times | Posted November 8, 2019 |

ATLANTA — John R. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, knows about “many relevant meetings and conversations” connected to the Ukraine pressure campaign that House impeachment investigators have not yet been informed about, his lawyer told lawmakers on Friday.

The lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, made that tantalizing point in a letter to the chief House lawyer in response to House committee chairmen who have sought Mr. Bolton’s testimony in their impeachment proceedings, arguing that his client would be willing to talk but only if a court rules that he should ignore White House objections.

Mr. Cooper did not elaborate on what meetings and conversations he was referring to, leaving it to House Democrats to guess at what Mr. Bolton might know. Mr. Bolton has been one of the most anticipated witnesses because other current and former officials have described him as deeply disturbed by the effort to pressure Ukraine to provide incriminating information about Democrats to help the president’s domestic political prospects.

Mr. Bolton did not show up for a deposition scheduled on Thursday because, his lawyer said, he wants a judge to determine whether he and his former deputy, Charles M. Kupperman, should testify in defiance of the White House. In effect, Mr. Bolton and Mr. Kupperman are asking for a court ruling on competing demands by the executive branch, which does not want them to testify, and the legislative branch, which does.

House Democrats complained that Mr. Bolton was stiff-arming them even though other national security officials have complied with subpoenas or requests for testimony, but the lawmakers have withdrawn a subpoena for Mr. Kupperman and indicated they would not seek one for Mr. Bolton because they said they did not want to get dragged into lengthy court proceedings. Instead, Democrats have suggested that they may cite the refusal to testify by Mr. Bolton and Mr. Kupperman as evidence of obstruction of Congress by the president, which could form its own article of impeachment.

In representing Mr. Bolton and Mr. Kupperman, Mr. Cooper denied that they were trying to delay proceedings and insisted that their legal position was not coordinated with the White House. Mr. Cooper argued that if the House was serious about an inquiry, then Mr. Bolton would be a logical person to question.

Mr. Bolton “was personally involved in many of the events, meetings, and conversations about which you have already received testimony, as well as many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed in the testimonies thus far,” Mr. Cooper wrote in the letter.

Many witnesses who have testified so far have placed Mr. Bolton at the center of key events, describing him as exasperated by the efforts by people around the president — led by his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani — to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats. Mr. Bolton said he wanted nothing to do with the “drug deal,” as he put it, that other presidential advisers were orchestrating and called Mr. Giuliani a “hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” according to testimony by Fiona Hill, the president’s former top Russia and Europe adviser.

Mr. Bolton directed Ms. Hill to report to a White House lawyer her conversation with Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who was involved in the pressure campaign. And he objected to Mr. Trump’s decision to suspend $391 million in security aid to Ukraine and the decision to call President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on July 25.

During that call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to “do us a favor” and investigate Ukrainian connections to Democrats in 2016 and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, even though other administration officials had concluded there was no basis for such investigations.

Unlike most of those who have testified so far, though, Mr. Bolton would bring knowledge of what the president himself said about the matter. Most of the witnesses have described what people around the president said, but few recounted any direct conversations with Mr. Trump. As his national security adviser who saw him daily, Mr. Bolton presumably could take investigators into the Oval Office as none of their witnesses have.

Mr. Trump seemed to reference that himself on Friday during comments to reporters before flying to Atlanta for campaign events.

“I’m not concerned about anything,” he said, shrugging off the impeachment inquiry. “The testimony has all been fine. For the most part, I never even heard of these people. I have no idea who they are. They are some very fine people. You have some never Trumpers. It seems that nobody has any firsthand knowledge. There is no firsthand knowledge.”

House Democrats have argued that ongoing court proceedings to compel Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s former White House counsel, to testify on other matters should guide Mr. Bolton and Mr. Kupperman. But Mr. Cooper said any final judgment on Mr. McGahn would still not answer the question about whether his clients should testify because they would be asked about national security matters in a way that Mr. McGahn would not be.

Mr. Cooper cited the House Judiciary Committee’s own brief in the McGahn case, which made the point that the panels interest in the former White House counsel “did not involve the sensitive topics of national security or foreign affairs.”

“Here, unlike McGahn, information concerning national security and foreign affairs is at the heart of the committees’ impeachment inquiry, and it is difficult to imagine any question that the committees might put to” Mr. Kupperman or Mr. Bolton “that would not implicate these sensitive areas,” Mr. Cooper wrote.

Moreover, he wrote, the aides who have agreed to testify in the impeachment inquiry so far did not face the same constraints that Mr. Bolton and Mr. Kupperman because “they did not provide direct advice to the president on a regular or frequent basis.”

Only a court can decide in their case, Mr. Cooper added. “If the House chooses not to pursue through subpoena the testimony of Dr. Kupperman and Ambassador Bolton," he wrote, “let the record be clear: That is the House’s decision.”

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Top White House official told Congress ‘there was no doubt’ Trump sought quid pro quo with Ukrainians

By Shane Harris | Published November 08 at 3:59 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted November 8, 2019 |

In vivid and at times contentious testimony before House impeachment investigators, the senior White House official responsible for Ukraine described what he believed was an unambiguous effort by President Trump to pressure the president of Ukraine to open investigations targeting American politicians in exchange for a coveted Oval Office meeting.

Under questioning from Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and other Democrats, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman said “there was no doubt” about what Trump wanted when he spoke by phone on July 25 to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — particularly in contrast with an April call between the two shortly after Zelensky’s election.

“The tone was significantly different,” Vindman said, according to a transcript of his Oct. 29 deposition released Friday. Vindman went on to tell Welch, “I’m struggling for the words, but it was not a positive call. It was dour. If I think about it some more, I could probably come up with some other adjectives, but it was just — the difference between the calls was apparent.”

Welch asked Vindman if he had any doubt that Trump was asking for investigations of his political opponents “as a deliverable” — in other words, as part of a quid pro quo.

“There was no doubt,” Vindman said.

In a crucial discussion of what constitutes a quid pro quo, Vindman was grilled by a Republican member of the committee about why he believed Trump had made a “demand” that Ukraine launch an investigation of Hunter Biden in return for a White House meeting for Zelensky. Biden is the son of former vice president Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and was once employed by a controversial Ukrainian energy firm.

Vindman, explaining what he called the vast “power disparity” between Trump and Zelensky, told Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) that Trump’s request for a “favor” from Zelensky was fairly interpreted as a demand.

“When the president of the United States makes a request for a favor, it certainly seems — I would take it as a demand.”

“Fair enough,” said Ratcliffe, who went on to express doubts about the premise.

Vindman said that his reasoning was that “this was about getting a White House meeting. It was a demand for him to fulfill … this particular prerequisite to get the meeting.”

Ratcliffe pressed Vindman on the word “demand,” saying “we’re talking about an allegation that there was a quid pro quo significance, and demand has a specific connotation.” Ratcliffe stressed that Trump and others have denied there was any such demand.

But Vindman stood by his description, saying “it became completely apparent what the deliverable would be in order to get a White House meeting. That deliverable was reinforced by the President. … The demand was, in order to get the White House meeting, they had to deliver an investigation.”

Many of Vindman’s concerns about politicizing the relationship with Ukraine, which the U.S. sees as a bulwark against Russian expansion in Europe, were shared by Fiona Hill, who previously served as the top Russia policy official on the National Security Council.

Hill, whose deposition testimony also was released Friday, testified that Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his business associates, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, were trying to use the powers of the presidency to further their own personal interests. Fruman and Parnas were arrested last month and face federal charges of funneling foreign money to U.S. politicians while trying to influence U.S.-Ukraine relations.

Even before Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky, during which Trump said Ukraine’s president should be in touch with Giuliani about investigations, “there was a lot of usurpation of that power,” Hill told impeachment investigators, characterizing Giuliani and his associates as “trying to appropriate presidential power or the authority of the President, given the position that Giuliani is in, to also pursue their own personal interests.”

Hill said that, in hindsight and with the benefit of a rough transcript of the July 25 call and media reports, she believed that her “worst nightmare” for U.S.-Ukraine relations had come to pass.

“My worst nightmare is the politicization of the relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine and, also, the usurpation of authorities, you know, for other people’s personal vested interests,” Hill said. “And there seems to be a large range of people who were looking for these opportunities here.”

Mike DeBonis, Greg Jaffe, Michael Kranish, Elise Viebeck, Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey, Rachael Bade, Ellen Nakashima, John Hudson, Karen DeYoung, John Wagner, Colby Itkowitz and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

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[viralhottopics]

Is anti-Trump furor papering over Democrats’ working-class woes?

Detroit (CNN)Gobsmacked by their base’s ferocious rejection of Donald Trump’s presidency, the candidates to chair the Democratic Party scrambled Saturday to show how devoted they are to the cause.

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez bragged to the Democratic National Committee’s “future forum” about racing to airport protests in Houston and then San Francisco. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, made sure everyone knew he was the only one to skip David Brock’s donor summit to participate in the Women’s March in Washington.

Put him in charge, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison pledged, and “We will be asking Democrats all over the country, ‘Bring coffee to the marches. Be in the marches yourself. Carry a sign.’ “

As for those white rural and exurban voters who so brutally rejected Democrats in November — well, bringing them back into the fold is also a priority for those vying to lead the party.

If the base allows it.

After three weeks of anti-Trump protests, Democrats are still stunned by the sudden burst of energy. The party’s organs are all racing to keep up as dozens of events pop up — often on Facebook, without any party chapter or progressive organization’s involvement at all — each weekend.

“The activism of people who are concerned about the Trump administration’s threat to the country is very energizing to us,” said US Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee and one of the swing-state senators up for re-election in 2018. “We don’t view that as threatening — we love the energy.”

The energy, though, is all rooted in ferocious opposition to Trump — the same strategy that failed Hillary Clinton in 2016.

That reality has some Democrats on Capitol Hill fretting that the rising anti-Trump fervor is putting the party at risk of papering over the same problems with voters in rural and exurban America they woke up with on November 9.

“If you can’t get them back to where they’re looking and thinking, ‘The Democratic Party still represents me,’ then you’ll always be in the minority,” said US Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia.

“The anger that people feel is righteous and justified, but it can’t just be a party against Mr. Trump,” said US Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia.

“I understand the righteous anger against some of the President’s policies, but we also need to lay out a narrative that’s more than just a series of position papers — that gives us an overarching theme,” Warner said. “And that’s what I’m looking for.”

The 2018 map vs. the base’s demands

Manchin and nine other Senate Democrats are up for re-election in 2018 in states that Trump won.

Four of those Democrats — Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp and Montana’s Jon Tester — are in states where Trump crushed Clinton.

Just how much latitude those senators need — and should be given by the base on votes like Cabinet and Supreme Court confirmations — is the challenge confronting Democrats now, as the party frantically searches for ways to protect those red-state Democrats without jeopardizing the base’s energy and enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, much of the base is demanding total opposition to Trump — no matter the political costs for Democrats in red states.

And there are no sacred cows, as US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, learned when she voted in committee to confirm Ben Carson for Housing and Urban Development secretary. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, was the target of protective protesters who recently marched to his home, chanting an expletive that rhymed with his first name.

These progressives see the party’s future in energizing women, minorities and young people in cities and suburbs — particularly in Sun Belt states, including Georgia and Arizona.

“Those working-class white voters aren’t the future of the party,” said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal blog DailyKos.com, which has already raised $400,000 for a Democratic candidate in the expected runoff for the US House seat in Georgia soon to be vacated by Tom Price, Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.

“Most of them are stuck in fake-news land anyway, and no amount of reality will penetrate that bubble. They think 1.5 million people attended Trump’s inauguration. They think Obama only needed 50 votes to pass his Supreme Court nominees,” Moulitsas said. “They’re lost. It’s a waste of time to try and win them back when there are so many core-Democratic-base who didn’t register or vote last cycle. Almost half the country didn’t vote, and the bulk of the non-voters were liberal-leaning people many of them now marching in the streets.

“So instead of trying to chase people trapped by Breitbart and its cohorts in conservative media, give them a reason to get excited about rallying around Democrats,” he said.

Alternate political universes

Democrats’ short-term fate, though, rests in part on whether the party can hold onto Senate seats in Trump states.

In those areas, senators are struggling to wrap their minds around the alternate universes of the Trump presidency so far.

In one — where the women’s marches, airport protests and pro-Obamacare town hall turnout are the dominant storylines and former alt-right Breitbart news executive Steve Bannon is seen as a shadow president — Trump has walked himself into repeated controversies and revealed himself to be just what the Clinton campaign warned he was.

In another — where rural and exurban voters with little economic opportunity sought to send someone to shake up a political world they thought had lost touch with their needs — Trump has pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, jumpstarted the Keystone pipeline, taken steps toward renegotiating other trade deals, hosted top labor union leaders at the White House and is fulfilling some of his top campaign promises.

“You folks have been terrific to me,” Trump told union representatives as they joined Harley-Davidson executives in a recent meeting at the White House. “Sometimes your top people didn’t support me but the steelworkers supported me.”

Many left-leaning organizations are still trying to feel their ways around the new White House.

“It’s like ‘Game of Thrones’ right now in the Trump administration — it’s kind of hard to tell who’s going to come out on top,” said Thea Lee, the AFL-CIO’s deputy chief of staff.

US Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who represents many of those “downriver” voters, said she is focused on how to use language that makes clear that “I am inclusive of everybody, but I’m also fighting for those UAW workers who think we’ve forgotten them, or those Teamsters whose pensions are being threatened to be cut.”

Dingell added: “Those are our constituents who we have to be a voice for, too. We’ve got to find a way to talk about it so they know we are the fighters for them and that we will stand strong, and that we care about those issues.”

The populist solution

Increasingly, Democrats are moving toward a message styled after populist stalwarts such as Warren, Bernie Sanders and US Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Their case: The problem wasn’t Trump’s promises, or what his campaign represented — it’s that in office, he’s promoting his billionaire friends and failing to take care of those who carried him to the presidency.

US Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, another Democrat up for re-election in 2018, said 9,000 people turned out in January at a pro-Obamacare rally in Macomb County — a key swing region that helped tip Michigan for Trump.

“There were people that I know that attended that supported President Trump that didn’t really believe he was going to take away their health care or cut their Medicare,” she said. “People thought they were voting for change, and now are saying, ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t mean that.’

“I’m still fighting for the same people in Michigan that want a shot to stay in the middle class,” Stabenow said. “I think this is really more about (communicating) that.”

Other Democrats made a similar argument — saying the activist energy is increasingly pushing them toward populist policies.

US Rep. Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat who easily won in a district Trump carried, said the party’s problems can be addressed partially through simple moves such as “supermarket Saturdays,” job-shadowing blue-collar workers and sitting through lengthy appearances on rural radio stations.

“We’ve also got to make sure that we’re disciplined about what our values are. We know that our policies resonate with people — with these folks who want to try Trump,” she said.

“Our theory right now is that they’re going to have buyer’s remorse — that they tried him because they wanted something different; they were tired of the status quo; they felt left behind by this wage stagnation,” Bustos said. “We have the right policies to address that. But we haven’t always gone deep into the kind of districts where people have felt left behind.”

The Supreme Court problem

A particular cause of heartburn for red-state Democratic senators is the upcoming confirmation battle over Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

It was, after all, the expectation that Trump would appoint conservative justices — whose tenures would long outlast his presidency — that kept many moderate Republicans behind his candidacy.

It’s a conundrum: Do Democrats risk undercutting their own cause by waging war over Trump’s most conventional decision yet?

So Senate Democrats are slow-walking their way around Gorsuch, promising to give him due consideration — buying themselves more time to figure out whether they have 41 out of 48 Democratic votes necessary to block him, and whether it’s even the fight they want.

“Explaining anything having to do with courts or law is a challenge — not because it’s inconsequential but because it can’t be dramatized with a picture and a face and a voice,” said US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut.

“So we need to make sure the American people understand what’s at stake,” Blumenthal said. “The gobbledygook and the legal jargon are very confusing. And just now as I’m talking to you, I’m realizing that I’m sort of going off into the ether.”

Moulitsas said red-state Democrats should forget using those votes to try to prove themselves as moderates.

The likes of Donnelly and Heitkamp “aren’t going to win re-election on the strength of Trump voters impressed by their confirmation votes,” he said.

“The best chance they have to win in their tough states will be by riding this incredible wave of energy. It may not be enough, but pissing off the base certainly isn’t the better bet. You either ride in with the people who brought you, or go down fighting honorably,” Moulitsas said. “Pretending to be a ‘Republican, but a little less bad’ has never inspired a dramatic re-election victory.”

Read more: http://cnn.it/2jSsdqp

from Is anti-Trump furor papering over Democrats’ working-class woes?

[bountyofbeads]

Impeachment inquiry shows Trump at the center of Ukraine efforts against rivals

By Ashley Parker | Published October 18, 2019 8:06 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Two Cabinet secretaries. The acting White House chief of staff. A bevy of career diplomats. President Trump’s personal attorney. And at the center of the impeachment inquiry, the president himself.

Over two weeks of closed-door testimony, a clear portrait has emerged of a president personally orchestrating the effort to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on a potential 2020 political rival — and marshaling the full resources of the federal bureaucracy to help in that endeavor.

On Thursday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney waded further into the morass, saying during a rare news conference that he understood Trump to be asking for a quid pro quo with his Ukrainian counterpart — only to attempt to retract those comments in a bellicose statement six hours later.

“We do — we do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mulvaney said when asked about a quid pro quo during the news conference, adding moments later: “And I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”

Contrary to weeks of denials from the president and his defenders, a growing body of evidence makes clear it was Trump himself who repeatedly pushed his own government and a foreign power to intervene in domestic political concerns, enlisting and ensnaring a growing number of administration officials in a way that increasingly made even some members of his own team uncomfortable.

The wave of witnesses reflects the growing peril enveloping Trump amid the burgeoning inquiry, which he and some top aides have tried to block by refusing to abide by congressional subpoenas. Not only are a growing number of officials and longtime employees choosing to come forward with damaging evidence, the narrative they are laying out points to potential violations of law, including prohibitions on accepting campaign help from a foreign entity, that bolster the case for impeachment.

The prepared testimony Thursday of Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, showed how deeply the president involved himself in the Ukraine negotiations that are the focus of the inquiry, and the extent to which he outsourced Ukraine policy to his personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani. 

“I would not have recommended that Mr. Giuliani or any private citizen be involved in these foreign policy matters,” Sondland said, according to his prepared remarks. 

Yet despite his discomfort, Sondland said that because he and his team had been “given the president’s explicit direction,” the group “agreed to do as President Trump directed” and involved Giuliani in the ongoing Ukraine discussions. 

At the core of the impeachment inquiry is Trump’s request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — while the United States was withholding nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine — for “a favor” in the form of investigating former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as detailed in a rough transcript of a July 25 call between the two leaders that was released by the White House under public pressure.

Sondland’s prepared remarks depict an atmosphere where diplomats at times felt trapped, torn between what they believed was right and the directives the president was issuing. Returning to the United States after attending Zelensky’s inauguration, Sondland said that he and the U.S. delegation urged Trump to arrange both a phone call and an Oval Office visit with Zelensky — only to be told by the president that he had concerns about Ukraine, and that they should talk to Giuliani about them.

“Based on the president’s direction, we were faced with a choice,” Sondland wrote in his testimony, explaining the Ukraine envoys felt they could either “abandon” their effort to improve relations between the two countries, “or we could do as President Trump directed and talk to Mr. Giuliani to address the President’s concerns.” (Ultimately, they chose the latter.)

Finally, Sondland’s prepared notes made clear that after he called Trump to specifically ask about allegations that the president was withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for a political favor, Trump was upset with the mere question of impropriety. 

“The president repeated: ‘no quid pro quo’ multiple times,” the remarks state. “This was a very short call. And I recall the president was in a bad mood.” 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry also clarified just how adamant Trump was in ensuring that Giuliani be included in Ukraine discussions. 

“Visit with Rudy,” Perry paraphrased the president as saying.

Perry told the paper that after he contacted Trump’s personal attorney as part of an effort to facilitate a meeting between the president and Zelensky, Giuliani relayed to him unsubstantiated concerns that Ukraine — not Russia, as the U.S. intelligence community has concluded — had interfered in the 2016 presidential elections. 

On Thursday, Perry notified Trump in writing that he planned to resign soon.

As early as May, Giuliani began publicly pushing theories involving Ukraine for which he had no reliable evidence. He urged, for instance, a corruption investigation into Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, while his father was vice president. So far, there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden or his son.

At the time, many viewed Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine as something of a personal passion project — the extracurricular schemes of an aging lawyer whose behavior even some in Trump’s own orbit considered erratic. 

Now, however, as Giuliani has said himself and as a number of other witnesses have made clear, Giuliani was working at the behest of his client, the president of the United States.

In rough notes released by the White House of Trump’s controversial call with Zelensky, the president seems to view Giuliani as almost interchangeable with Attorney General William P. Barr, telling Zelensky he hoped the Ukrainians could work with Giuliani and Barr to root out corruption there, including investigating the Bidens.

Mulvaney, too, acted as an enabler, organizing a meeting in late May that stripped control of Ukraine policy from experts at the National Security Council and State Department. He reassigned control to Perry, Sondland and Kurt Volker, then the special U.S. envoy to Ukraine — a trio that called themselves “The Three Amigos.”

Even those with fewer one-on-one interactions with Trump have offered testimony painting a picture of dysfunction at best — and malfeasance at worst — emanating from the president. 

Last Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told congressional investigators that she had been forced out of her post by “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.” Yovanovitch specifically named associates of Giuliani — two of whom have since been arrested over campaign finance violations — who she believe regarded her as a threat to their financial and political dealings. 

On Monday, Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top Russia adviser, told investigators that on Ukraine, Giuliani ran a shadow foreign policy that bypassed traditional channels and career diplomats. Then-national security adviser John Bolton was so alarmed by Giuliani’s actions that he instructed Hill to alert White House lawyers about his efforts, she testified.

Hill also testified that Bolton said he wanted no part of any “drug deal” that the president’s allies were pursing with Ukraine, and that Bolton described Giuliani as a “hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.” 

As for Sondland — a wealthy Oregon hotelier — Hill told investigators that she believed he was a possible national security threat because he was so out of his depth when it came to handling the administration’s Ukraine policy. 

Then, on Wednesday, Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, testified that he had resigned the previous week in protest over how he believed the State Department had become politicized under Trump and Pompeo. McKinley, according to his prepared testimony, also cited his concerns over the administration’s efforts to pressure Zelensky into investigating the president’s political rivals.

“I was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents,” McKinley said in his prepared remarks. 

The steady stream of closed-door testimony, as well as public statements, contradicts Trump’s repeated claims that his phone call with Zelensky was “perfect” and “totally appropriate,” and that he did nothing wrong. 

Nick Akerman, a prosecutor who investigated President Richard Nixon, said that unlike Watergate, when prosecutors struggled to figure out Nixon’s role in the events they were investigating, a growing body of evidence points directly to Trump.

“Here, you’ll have that in spades,” Akerman said. “All these individuals, all testifying that this is what happened. . . . It’s just cascading at this point.”

Akerman said that unlike Nixon’s loyal cadre of aides, Trump’s outer circle of aides and advisers is increasingly unwilling to shield him from what some view as his own dubious behavior.

“This is a situation where you’ve got a lot of people who are career people, extremely smart people who certainly don’t want their reputations smeared,” Akerman said. “Trump had to use these foreign services people and professionals. He didn’t speak Ukrainian and Russian. He couldn’t communicate his threat without these people. He was forced to use people whose loyalty was to the U.S. government and Constitution and not to him.”

And, he added, each new witness and detail seems to reveal a common thread: “You’ve got Trump clearly involved.”

Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

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Diplomat tells investigators he raised alarms in 2015 about Hunter Biden’s Ukraine work but was rebuffed

By John Hudson, Rachael Bade and Matt Viser | Published October 18 at 7:44 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer, according to three people familiar with the testimony.

George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality rules surrounding the deposition.

Kent said he had concerns that Ukrainian officials would view Hunter Biden as a conduit for currying influence with his father, said the people. But when Kent raised the issue with Biden’s office, he was told the then-vice president didn’t have the “bandwidth” to deal with the issue involving his son as his other son, Beau, was battling cancer, said the people familiar with his testimony.

The testimony by Kent offers a reminder that as Democrats probe President Trump’s alleged actions in pressuring Ukraine to dig up compromising information on Biden, the impeachment inquiry also threatens to keep alive questions about the former vice president’s handling of his son’s foreign work at a precarious moment for his 2020 presidential campaign.

Kent, who also testified about how Trump’s associates raised unfounded allegations about the former ambassador to Ukraine, is the first known example of a career diplomat who raised concerns internally in the Obama administration about Hunter Biden’s board position. The Washington Post has previously reported that there had been discussions among Biden’s advisers about whether his son’s Ukraine work would be perceived as a conflict of interest, and that one former adviser had been concerned enough to mention it to Biden, though the conversation was brief.

During his testimony this week, Kent did not name the Biden staffer he said he communicated with, according to people familiar with his remarks.

Although many of Trump’s charges regarding Hunter Biden have been unfounded, the elder Biden has faced questions about why he didn’t anticipate concerns about potential conflicts of interest as he took a leading role in carrying out U.S. policy toward Ukraine. Polls show Biden with an advantage over Trump in a potential general election matchup, and Biden has sought in recent days to focus attention on the actions of a president many Democrats see as corrupt and unfit for office.

A former senior Biden national security aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, had no recollection of hearing about Kent’s concerns, and also never heard a concern raised by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time. The first time the aide recalls Hunter Biden’s involvement surfacing as an issue was in December 2015, when the vice president traveled to Ukraine to deliver an anti-corruption speech and the New York Times wrote about his son’s role. Hunter Biden’s board appointment had been publicly announced the previous year and reported by the media at the time.

The aide said that Hunter Biden’s position had no substantive impact.

“I don’t understand what the optics thing means other than someone thinking it looked bad in a political way,” the aide said. “Did it have any effect on US policies, either on what we were doing or what the Ukrainians were doing? It didn’t…. In the aggregate it didn’t have any discernible effect.”

The aide said that Joe Biden was dealing with a lot during Beau Biden’s bout with cancer, but that it had a minimal impact on his work.

“Day to day the vice president was at work and he was pretty focused,” the aide said. “Does that mean it’s inconceivable that someone said, ‘Hey look it’s not the time to raise a family issue?’ I guess it’s conceivable. But I never saw evidence he wasn’t capable of doing the VP role and dealing with his family at the same time.”

Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, said in a statement that “on Joe Biden’s watch, the U.S. made eradicating corruption a centerpiece of our policies toward Ukraine.”

Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company — which was headed by a former government minister investigated for possible corruption — in 2014, at the same time his father was leading U.S. efforts to crack down on corruption in that country.

The issue has erupted in recent weeks amid revelations about a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s president to “look into” the Bidens, particularly whether Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor whose office had been investigating Burisma. The Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is seeking to determine whether Trump withheld military aid and diplomatic support to Ukraine in an attempt to get information to use against Biden.

Trump and his allies have made the unsubstantiated claim that Biden pressed for the prosecutor’s firing to protect his son. In fact, according to former U.S. officials and Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, the investigation of Burisma was dormant at the time. And Biden, adding to the calls from others in the U.S. government and Western institutions, was urging Ukraine to tap a new prosecutor who would be more aggressive in combating corruption.

Biden has said that he never spoke with his son about his dealings with Ukraine and has said that he only learned of his position on the Burisma board when he read about it in news reports.

Hunter Biden told ABC in an interview this week that he did “nothing wrong at all” but that he showed “poor judgment” in accepting the position on the Burisma board.

Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday that he wouldn’t have changed anything about his actions, including discouraging his son from joining the board, and said he had no regrets.

“No. No, I don’t,” he said. “Because I never discussed with my son anything having to do with what was going on in Ukraine. That’s a fact.”

Biden has pledged that, if president, no one in his family would have “any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or foreign country.” During the presidential candidates debate on Tuesday night, he twice dodged a question about why he did not have a similar policy as vice president.

But on Wednesday, he said his new policy was developed not because of anything Hunter Biden did but because of the actions of the Trump family.

Daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, hold senior White House jobs, while Trump has retained ownership of his real estate business, which is being run by his sons and has been the subject of lawsuits alleging that the company has been a conduit for foreign governments to enrich Trump in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. On Thursday, the White House announced that Trump had awarded the 2020 Group of Seven summit of world leaders to his golf resort in Miami, using his public office to direct a large contract to his private company.

“In my White House, none of my children or family have offices at the White House,” Biden said. “They will not be invited to sit in significant meetings of a Cabinet-level post and they will have no foreign investment, and the reason to do that is not because of anything that went on in our administration. It is because of what Donald Trump has done. He has so debased the standard of what constitutes ethical behavior that the next president has to make it absolutely clear — absolutely clear — this will not happen again.”

Biden’s campaign has been attempting to move past any discussions about Hunter Biden, and his team considers most questions having already been addressed. Biden aides also pointed toward the debate on Tuesday night, where no candidate criticized Biden on the issue, as a sign that it is not resonating on the campaign trail.

“It’s been asked and answered,” Kate Bedingfield, his deputy campaign manager, told reporters after the debate. “Democratic voters know that these lies are not getting traction and it's not the conversation they want to hear. And I think that was reflected in the fact that it was not a significant piece of the discussion.”

Michael Kranish, Josh Dawsey, Greg Jaffe and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

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Sorry, Mick Mulvaney. I can’t ‘get over it.’

By Max Boot | Published October 18 at 1:58 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

“Get over it.”

— Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney

Sorry, Mick Mulvaney. No can do. I refuse to “get over it.” I refuse to normalize your administration’s aberrant, even criminal, behavior. I refuse to revise deviancy downward and accept that what you and your boss are doing is somehow normal. It’s not. It’s conduct for which President Trump should be impeached and removed — unless the 25th Amendment is invoked first.

I can’t get over your admission (later retracted) that Trump conditioned aid to Ukraine on that country’s willingness to help him politically — specifically by investigating “what happened in 2016” to clear Trump of collusion with Russia. Aid was also conditioned, as other administration officials have testified, on Ukraine’s willingness to investigate the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings — a code word for investigating Joe Biden, because his son was on that company’s board of directors. Yes, the United States regularly conditions foreign aid on a country’s willingness to cooperate with U.S. foreign policy. But no previous president has ever conditioned aid on a country’s willingness to help his reelection campaign.

I can’t get over the president’s blatant profiteering from his office. As The Post noted, Trump’s decision to hold the next Group of Seven summit at a hotel he owns “is without precedent in modern American history: The president used his public office to direct a huge contract to himself.” How can your boss complain about Hunter Biden profiting from his father being vice president and then so blatantly use his power as president to enrich himself?

I can’t get over the president’s decision to turn over U.S. policy toward Ukraine to Rudolph W. Giuliani, who holds no government post and is surrounded by crooks. (Four of his associates have now been arrested.)

I can’t get over the president espousing demented conspiracy theories as Trump did again on Wednesday, when he claimed that the Democratic National Committee’s server had somehow wound up in Ukraine — and that obtaining this server will somehow show Russia wasn’t really responsible for the 2016 hacking, as the U.S. intelligence community and Justice Department have concluded.

I can’t get over the way the president has drawn the most senior officials of the U.S. government into his web of insanity. Attorney General William P. Barr went to Italy, for example, in a failed attempt to show, as the Intercept noted, that a professor named Joseph Mifsud “was an Italian intelligence operative used by the CIA or the FBI to entrap [a] Trump campaign adviser by pretending to act as a Russian agent and offering to share information about Russia’s efforts to tip the election in Trump’s favor.”

I can’t get over the president smearing dedicated public servants by accusing them of “corruption” without any factual foundation — as he did again on Wednesday with former president Barack Obama, former FBI director James B. Comey and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

I can’t get over the president betraying and then insulting our Kurdish allies. On Thursday night, Trump made light of the atrocities being carried out by Turkish forces against the Kurds: “Sometimes you have to let them fight, like two kids in a lot. You have to let them fight, and then you pull them apart!"

I can’t get over a president who gets rolled by dictators and then proclaims, as he did following his deal with Turkey, that “This is a great day for civilization.” Actually, it’s a great day for Turkey, which sees its occupation of northern Syria blessed by Washington. The Post reported that “the Turkish side was surprised and relieved at how easy the negotiations were.” An adviser to the Turkish foreign ministry said, “We got everything we wanted.”

I can’t get over a president who praises anti-American dictators such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (“a hell of a leader … a strong man”) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (“very smart … a real leader”) while disparaging distinguished Americans such as former defense secretary Jim Mattis (“the world’s most overrated general”) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (“There is either something wrong with her ‘upstairs,’ or she just plain doesn’t like our great Country. ... she is a very sick person!”).

I can’t get over the president trying to turn the U.S. armed forces into mercenaries without morals or honor. Having sold out the Kurds, he has now sent more troops to help Saudi Arabia, because, he explained, “Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay us.” Oil must be thicker than blood, because the Kurds paid in blood to defeat the Islamic State.

I can’t get over the president writing a “Dick and Jane” letter to the leader of Turkey: “Don’t be a tough guy! Don’t be a fool.” As a historian, I have read countless presidential letters. I have never seen one as puerile as this. I have an 8th-grader at home whose writing is more sophisticated.

Most of all, I can’t get over a president who betrays his oath of office, engages in blatant corruption, undermines our democracy and turns our country into a global laughingstock — and who isn’t even capable of understanding what he did wrong.

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More bad news for the survival of the Republican Party

By Jennifer Rubin | Published October 18, 2019 11:45 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Republicans have made a demographic bet: By artificially inflating the white percentage of the electorate (by throwing up barriers for poor and nonwhite Americans to vote) and driving white Christian turnout sky-high with a combination of cultural resentment and xenophobia, they figure they can extend the lifespan of their increasingly rural, male, non-college-educated base. After a while, however, you run out of white evangelicals. That is precisely what is happening at an unexpectedly speedy pace.

Pew Research finds: “The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade.” The ranks of the most progressive segment of the electorate, religiously unaffiliated ("atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular’ ") have risen to 26 percent, a nine-point bump since 2009.

Among white, non-Hispanic Americans, Christian identification is down 12 points, while the population of religiously unaffiliated is up 10 points. The problem for Christian affiliation gets worse with each generation: “More than eight-in-ten members of the Silent Generation (those born between 1928 and 1945) describe themselves as Christians (84%), as do three-quarters of Baby Boomers (76%). In stark contrast, only half of Millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four-in-ten are religious ‘nones,’ and one-in-ten Millennials identify with non-Christian faiths.”

Considering how reliant they are on white Christians — evangelicals in particular — Republicans are unlikely to survive outside deep-red confines when they lose 12 points in the pool of the most reliable Republican voters. Republicans have created a zero-sum game wherein the increasingly racist and radical appeals to white Christians needed to drive high turnout alienates a substantial segment of the growing nonwhite and/or unaffiliated electorate. They are doubling down on a diminishing pool of voters as they crank up fierce opposition among the fastest-growing segments (millennials, nonwhites) of the electorate. Soon, the math becomes impossible outside of highly gerrymandered congressional districts and rock-ribbed conservative states.

A Pew analysis from March highlighted just how critical this shrinking pool of voters — white evangelicals — is to the survival of the Trumpized Republican Party. About 70 percent of this segment of the electorate supported Trump, with a huge dropoff when one moves from white evangelicals to mainline Protestants (48 percent of this group in Pew’s January 2019 poll supported Trump). It gets worse for the GOP from there: “Religiously unaffiliated Americans consistently express among the lowest levels of approval of Trump’s performance, ranging from 17% to 27% across the polls the Center has conducted since the president assumed office. Most black Protestants and nonwhite Catholics also have disapproved of the way the president handles his job.”

We saw how hyper-reliance on a shrinking portion of the electorate played out in 2018. Red states (which happened to have incumbent Democratic senators on the ballot) such as Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri got redder, while the rest of the country, especially in the suburbs, shifted to the left. That is how Democrats picked up a net gain of roughly 40 House seats and captured more House votes nationwide (53.4 percent vs. 44.8 percent).

When a different set of Senate seats are up for grabs in 2020 — that is, many blue or purple states with GOP incumbents — the Republicans’ bet on white evangelical voters does not look so smart. Hence, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) go onto the endangered species (Republicans without enough votes from white, rural Christian voters) list.

The electoral college artificially inflates the value of those red, rural states, but you cannot win the presidency based purely on the Deep South and Great Plains. With each election, the Republicans’ situation becomes more precarious. No wonder they are so enamored of voting barriers that artificially depress turnout among nonwhite voters.

Watch: ON WEBSITE

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Trump is struggling with one of the most basic concepts in government

By Henry Olsen | Published October 18 at 2:07 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

President Trump’s decision to host next year’s Group of Seven summit at his own resort in Doral, Fla., is probably not a violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. That doesn’t mean it’s not a troubling decision that reveals a serious defect in his character.

The emoluments clause prevents a sitting president from receiving money from a foreign government without congressional approval. While governments attending the summit will pay the Trump Organization money to stay at his property, their payments would be only incidental to their participation in a regular and important meeting. The clause was intended to prevent a foreign government from bribing a president, or any other government officer, to betray the public trust in their official acts. No one could seriously argue that any government that attends the summit would be using its funds with the intent of swaying a presidential decision.

That doesn’t mean the decision isn’t morally wrong. A fundamental feature of modern liberal democracy is that the public interest is separable from an officeholder’s private interest. Officeholders in pre-modern governments frequently became wealthy by using their official positions to line their pockets by awarding themselves valuable monopolies or contracts. Modern democratic officeholders are supposed to act in the public interest and spurn such temptations, with both laws and public norms designed to prevent someone from acting to enrich himself or herself rather than the public at large.

Trump seems not to grasp this. In both this and in his actions regarding Ukraine, he seems to believe that his interests are the public interests. He thus has no compunction about using government power to advance goals that can benefit only him rather than Americans more generally.

This might have been how he acted at the Trump Organization, but that is a privately owned business that has no public shareholders to please. The U.S. government is something else entirely. It is the ultimate publicly held business, with each one of us an equal “shareholder” who elects officials to steer it in our best interests. Trump should be acting to please us, not himself.

That principle is violated by acts such as hosting an official, globally prominent summit at one of his privately owned properties. It is also arguably violated by acts such as Vice President Pence staying at a Trump-owned property in Ireland hours away from his official meetings in Dublin, or by the Air Force’s scheduling of up to 40 overnight stays at Trump’s property in Turnberry, Scotland. The president of the United States should not be steering public funds to prop up his own bottom line.

The amount of money involved is not the issue. Unless there is much more government usage of Trump-owned properties than previously reported, the amounts involved are little more than a rounding error in the president’s fortune. But the principle being violated by his conflation of public and private interest is invaluable.

Every president tries to use public policy to improve his or her chance at reelection, but that is entirely different. A president does this calculating that his acts will be what the people actually want, and the policies themselves are subject to public review and approval. This is arguably exactly what democracy is supposed to produce — officials who compete for our support by offering us the type of government we want. This is not what Trump is doing in a case such as this.

A man who does not even understand the difference between public and private interests could be tempted to do other immoral things, many of which could be illegal. The Watergate break-in that led to the impeachment process against President Richard M. Nixon and his eventual resignation was a case in point. Nixon directed and then attempted to cover up his involvement in an illegal burglary of a political opponent, the Democratic National Committee. Trump’s petty corruption with regard to his own properties simply makes it more believable that his and his agents’ attempts to push Ukrainian authorities to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden were not legitimate attempts to uncover possible corruption, but instead were illegitimate attempts to use government power to manufacture dirt on a likely opponent.

Trump’s incredulity that anyone could question the propriety of his call with the Ukrainian president or his shameless plugging of his commercial properties shows how deeply ingrained this belief is. It doesn’t matter that his call was polite or that his properties are nice and classy. Leaders of democracies aren’t supposed to use public power to advance private interests, full stop.

Public pressure and the reaction of foreign governments might cause Trump to change the location of the G-7 summit. But public pressure will likely not force him to change his spots. The only question we need to consider next year is whether the public interest is safe in the hands of a man who doesn’t seem to understand the concept to begin with.

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Trump takes another serving at the financial all-you-can-eat buffet

By Helaine Olen | Published October 17, 2019 6:25 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

At the most recent meeting of the Group of Seven this past summer, President Trump said he knew the perfect location for the June 2020 session scheduled to take place in the United States: the Trump Doral golf resort located in South Florida. “A great place,” he called it. “Tremendous.”

On Thursday, the White House announced the decision. After considering about a dozen sites, the winner is — wait for it — the Trump Doral. “It’s almost like they built this facility to host this event,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney claimed someone on the site evaluation team told him. It’s “the best place,” he said with a straight face of the Doral, an establishment that’s racked up multiple health-code violations over the past several years, including one for a roach infestation.

One of the many lies of the Trump presidency is the idea that the president is so rich, he can’t be tempted by the conflicts of interests and penny-ante corruption other mere mortals couldn’t resist. This has almost certainly turned out to be the opposite of the truth, never mind Mulvaney’s claim that Trump has never profited from the presidency. Trump refused to put his holdings in a blind trust. Trump laughs in the face of lawsuits alleging violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause and any claims resembling conflict of interest. He’s traveled to and stayed at properties he’s owned well over a hundred times since he moved into the White House, running up monster bills every step of the way. Lobbyists flock to the Trump hotel in Washington, while others ranging from conservative interest groups to payday loan lenders book events at Trump properties around the country. This past summer, Vice President Pence, on an official state visit to Ireland, felt a compelling need to stay at the country’s Trump golf resort even though it was located more than 100 miles away from the site of his meetings. The president, his staff told the press, made the “suggestion” he stay there.

In fact, Trump is pathological when it comes to vacuuming up the small change, something obvious from the beginning of his career. He’s stiffed small contractors and big banks alike. He ripped off pensioners for three- and four-figure sums with Trump University and took money to promote scammy multilevel marketing schemes. Heck, he once cashed a check for 13 cents, sent to him as a joke by Spy magazine.

Mulvaney claimed on Thursday that the G-7 would be hosted “at cost,” a claim that likely will be rather difficult to confirm since Mulvaney also said the White House is “absolutely not” releasing any paperwork regarding how it made the decision. There’s also the marketing opportunity itself — for the resort, known to be struggling financially, the event is like a long commercial, a days-long episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” running on news programs around the world. This is banana republic stuff.

Common sense would say that Trump, in a mess of trouble right now, would think twice about this decision. Instead, he’s daring his critics to come after him yet again. But why would we expect anything else? Hypocrisy has never stopped him. Fear of consequences has never stopped him. He just doubles down. For Trump, the presidency is like an all-you-can-eat financial buffet. He’s going to keep returning for more servings until he’s forced to stop.