Schiff doing exactly what he accused trump of doing

opening quote from this psychopath.

Yeah, that was one ridiculous statement.

It’s a standard expression of mainstream American foreign policy thinking.

And it’s not really wrong. Putin would be happy to re-constitute the Russian empire if we let him.

regurgitating talking points,and attempting to pass them off as critical examination,is a horrible tactic when engaging with me.

"it is a standard expression of mainstream American foreign policy"

it sure is if you are a war-mongering neo-conservative,and it flies in the face of our own national security operatives,analysts and inspectors.

you literally just vomited propaganda all over me.
gross....
your comment is Pompeo approved.

Russia invaded Georgia in ‘08, and more recently Ukraine, with the intent of gaining territory and keeping them out of NATO and the E.U., and they succeeded both times.

The Baltic states are subject to cyberattacks, infiltration, and buzzing and if they weren’t already in NATO they may have been invaded by now as well

Russia is expanding its influence in the Middle East and mostly playing their hand a whole lot better than we are. They will be there to pick up the pieces as we wind up our slow-motion retreat.

Our Democracy is looking weaker and less like a beacon of light to the world than ever before.

Putin and Trump are simpatico, and he is laughing at us and our country on a daily basis.

Sorry if this information makes you uncomfortable.

and quite passive aggressive to boot!

none of what you posted makes me uncomfortable in the least,and is predicated on not only your wounded ego,but assumptions you have made in regards to me.

first assumption is that I lack the historical knowledge,and politics of that region.
second assumption is that you have somehow performed a gotcha!
neither are true,or accurate.

in fact,you are only making my case that you have massive blind spots in regards to foreign policy,and history.
you are making my point stronger,and your position has become weaker

I have no issues with you personally,but I also have no compunction in dissecting your propaganda talking points.

the picture is far bigger than you have been taught,and the history goes back further than you appear to even be aware.i am not trying to make the case that Russia is some innocent,virginal maiden.

but there is historical precedent,and obviously in your case,propagandized misinformation that is meant to paint a particular picture.one in which you have swallowed whole.

don't be so invested in being "right" that you are blinded to the possibility that you have been gaslit.

*note* I chose the template of my comment carefully.
I wanted to see if you would notice.
you didn't.
and that..is very telling.

Woah there! Let's take a time out.

So far in this conversation, I have accused you of one thing: Being "uncomfortable" about certain facts and opinions I've offered.

Things you've accused me of:
--"regurgitating talking points"
--being a "war-mongering neo conservative"
--"vomiting propaganda"
--being "passive aggressive"
--having a "wounded ego"
--having "massive blind spots"
--presenting "Propaganda talking points" and "propagandized misinformation" that I have "swallowed whole"
--possibly being "gaslit"

Between the two of us, who is making more assumptions about the other and engaging in more rhetorical sophistry?

I stand by the rest.

but if I have offended..don't want to assume anything here...then I sincerely apologize.
was not meant as an attack,but rather an observation.

as I have repeatedly stated,i am not interested in prosecuting this on a meme site,nor am I interested in the inevitable slogfest of disseminating your points (which are propaganda..just sayin).

I come to this site for laughs,and mess with neo-nazis and partisan muppets.
although I will engage with people who I think have something to say,and are humans.
which I count you as one.

on this particular nugget we disagree.
no biggie.
I stated my reasons.
you stated yours.
we disagree on the particulars.
so be it..i am not investing a whole lot of energy here..
you are not going to sway me,and it appears I will not sway you.
but at least we understand that we disagree.
I am ok with that.

can we leave it at that?
or do you really wish to take this to the next level?
up to you mate.
i am fine either way.

I just get tired of promising conversations going off the rails into insult territory, so I thought I’d point out some of the rhetoric before it went any farther

Thanks for acknowledging that. I respect you and don’t care at all that we disagree on any issue. I don’t count my success here by how many people I persuade — because who really knows? — but whether I believe I successfully conveyed my viewpoint.

For years, I have been a libertarian-leaning independent critical of both Dems and Reps, but the events of the past year have pushed me more firmly into the Democratic side of things than I have probably ever been in my life.

I will say this: you are correct in assuming I’m a lawyer, but wrong about the rest :)

i suffer from the same malady of wanting to be understand above all else.sometimes to the point of absurdity.
i can get lost in my own ramblomatic prose,and lack an economy of words at times.

many here project their own understandings of me based on their own biases and prejuduces.something we all do from time to time.it is very human.

but this is a meme site,and is incredibly limited in certain aspects to fully communicate complex and complicated ideas.

but it is AMAZING at firing off quick,biting jabs with images that add a subtext and subtlety that is quite impressive.
which is why i come here to mess with Nazis,and muppets.

i am confident that you and i would have wonderful conversations that would lead into the wee hours of the morning.this shite is just utter shite to do that.

cheers mate!

Congrats on hitting the front page!

Congress critters get voted into office.... Ironic

On this, I agree.

I have read the articles,and am still of the opinion that the case is flimsy at best,and will ultimately fail.

my speculation is that Schiff is alluding to "russiagate" which is still a thing in some circles,even though it has been thoroughly debunked.

*note* was there a modicum of influence by Russian assets?
yes.
and again,not new or novel.
every major world power engages in this tactic to varying degrees of success.
the united states of America has been engaging in election tampering,over-throwing duly elected leaders to install dictators for more favorable leaders to US interests for decades.

again,not new.

the real question,and one of the main reasons russiagate was debunked was "to what extent"
and on that note it was barely a blip in the American political sphere.

do you know who had the BIGGEST impact on the 2016 presidential election?
mark Zuckerberg
corporate media
the Clinton campaign rigging the primaries both for trump and against Bernie.
the DNC
the DCCC
third way

but I never saw Rachel maddow rail night after night against those entities.
but she gets paid 30k a night to gaslight her audience,while julian Assange gets to rot under the pressure of the state department for revealing the truth.

but,you do you boo.
I truly love your contributions here on imglfip,but I am not interested in prosecuting russiagte all over again,nor one of the most ill-thought and politically suicidal moves by an absolutely inept democratic party.

Russiagate and Ukrainegate are at once two very different things, and products of the same cynical mindset.

I agree Russiagate was overblown to an extent. Yes, American media (both left and right) has a tremendously greater effect on the public than any propaganda coming out of Russia.

However, the Mueller probe generated real indictments and convictions. And while evidence did not tie Trump directly to these activities, the close brush with the law should have deterred Trump from going further.

What did Trump do then — and I think it was actually literally the day after Mueller’s testimony? He hopped on a phone call with the Ukrainian President and asked him to open an investigation on a political rival’s son.

The difference between Russiagate and Ukrainegate is basically this: 1. Campaign staffers having careless conversations with Russian lawyers about alleged election dirt on HRC that ultimately went nowhere; 2. A sitting U.S. president specifically asking (and basically threatening) a foreign president to open an investigation on a political rival’s son to engineer said election dirt out of whole cloth.

I slept on the former. I am all awake at the latter.

And: it appears that Trump will not trouble himself to testify in connection with either. And will invoke executive privilege at every turn to stop everyone else close to him that may have been a firsthand witness. What a disgrace.

you are making good points,but nothing inherently opposing my opinion.

let us clip the extenuous tautology.

you are of the opinion that the impeachment case has a constitutional basis,and the democrats have brought a strong case.
I am of the opinion that the impeachment case has a constitutional basis,but the case brought by the democrats is weak.
yet we both believe their is a constitutional case,we just differ on the strength of that case.

that's it.
that is the extent of our disagreement.

next,let us look at how we approach this subject.
I approach from a political perspective,and the inherent fallout.
you approach from a more legality,and the inherent precedents it may present,both good and bad.(which,in it's own way,is also political).

on this we are pretty much talking past each other here.
I think,my opinion,we are making decent points.
but are only disagreeing in application,and not foundational.

we are not that much in disagreement that may appear on a surface level.
but we do disagree.
which is perfectly fine.

but seriously,i am not interested in prosecuting this case on a meme site.
you are free to be the johnny appleseed of imgflip and prosecute to your hearts content!
now go my free bird!
and spread that litigation across imgflip!

Zelensky said, "We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes."

Trump then asked Zelensky about Crowdstrike, the prosecutor Biden had fired, ambassador Ivanovich (sp?) who did not cooperate with Zelensky, and the matter with Biden's son. He asked then Zelensky to do whatever he could to help us out, and asked him to work speak with Guiliani and the AG.

I can see where you might think this is a deal between two men made by inference because they know they are being listened to. But that doesn't sound any more likely to me than Trump chasing down Guiliani's conspiracy theories about corruption.

If anything, it seems like it exposes a larger circle of corruption. If you are the child of a US politician, other countries will pay you ridiculous money in hopes of influencing your parent's perception and policies towards that company. How many sitting congresspeople have children working overseas?

I mean, I would readily agree that Hunter Biden was very likely appointed to the Burisma board and that other Chinese board because of his Biden family name.

The problem with terms like "corruption" is that they are thrown around so often and in so many contexts that it starts to lose its meaning. I would call Hunter Biden's appointment to the Burisma board possible evidence of "nepotism," and while unsavory perhaps, that's not illegal. Frankly, Hunter Biden could have gone to work in any position of prominence anywhere in the world, and in some sense be accused of "nepotism" merely because of who his father is. Is that corrupt or not? Debatable.

I would say *real* corruption is stuff like: stealing from a company, stealing from taxpayers, leveraging political connections to unfairly win government contracts, expensing unnecessary travel and other luxury items, etc. I've seen no evidence that Hunter Biden was doing these sorts of things, or even any allegations of such, honestly.

There are thousands of Hunter Bidens around the world, honestly: men and women of dubious merit collecting sizable paychecks for sitting on company boards. Who knows if they all truly earned it? What's clear is that Donald Trump was only interested in one of those "Hunter Bidens": and his name happened to be Hunter Biden.

What's a lot clearer theory of misconduct than the "corruption" allegations against Hunter?

What Trump's been accused of: Using his office as President (including the tacit threat of withholding of billions in congressionally-appropriated aid) in an attempt to persuade a foreign country to open an investigation of a political rival's son half a world away. That's an abuse of power.

Trump's accusers have used their office to open investigations against their political opponent to sway an election. Let's get rid of them all and start over.

As I understand nepotism, Joe would have to hire Hunter directly for some job that he isn't qualified for it to be nepotism. Kinda like Trump hiring his kids. Maybe even exactly like that. Instead, Burisma hired a guy with no energy experience who doesn't speak the language. Hey, I know, how about if I hire your kid and you hire mine? Then it won't be nepotism! You know, per se, wink wink. Oh wait. I don't have kids.

In terms of corruption, I was suggesting that foreign countries recruit political children and pay them for very little actual work to gain favor with US politicians. To the extent that politicians are aware of this process, invite it and/or take steps to protect or shield in involvement in it, they are engaging a sly form of bribery.

If so, he and Nancy and Chuck as guilty as anyone. A case could be made that this and the Russia investigation are an attempt to influence the election.