Skip to main content

Copies of John Bolton's new book are out and whew boy, it's alot



(unenthusiastically) He did what?

Today numerous media outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wallstreet Jurnal got their hands on copies of former National Security Advisor John Bolton's new book "The Room Where it Happened." The controversial book, which the Trump Administration is currently suing to block outlines several concerning actions that President Trump has taken during the last few years.

The Wall Street Journal published an entire chapter of the book about Trump's dealings with China. You know it's bad when the Wall Street Journal says "to hell with it," and publishes an entire freaking chapter of the book. Can you imagine a journalist being so exhausted from the kind of things that this administration has done that they just straight-up publish the source material to make it easier on themselves?

Here are some of the things the book outlines:
-President Trump tried getting Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy more domestic product to help him win over farmers for the 2020 election. He even offered to drop a federal investigation into Huawei to sweeten the deal.
-Showed a willingness to halt federal investigations for dictators he liked including Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan who has been lobbying to end a federal investigation of a Turkish lender for violating sanctions against Iran.
-Tried giving a signed copy of Rocket Man to North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un to convince him the title was not an insult.

That last point isn't as terrible as the first two but still - huh?

I don't think a comedy written by Armando Iannucci could top this stuff.

The book also offers some insight into why the 2019 impeachment probe may not have worked as well as Democrats hoped it would:

“...had Democratic impeachment advocates not been so obsessed with their Ukraine blitzkrieg in 2019, had they taken the time to inquire more systematically about Trump’s behavior across his entire foreign policy, the impeachment outcome might well have been different.” - He writes.

What's coming out of this book is crucial because it further paints a picture of corruption that democrats and media analysts have painted of the Trump administration. Before this book was released the president was impeached because he had urged the president of Ukraine to find political dirt on his opponent former Vice President Joe Biden.

Whether or not this will do anything is yet to be seen. Historically we know that despite scandal after scandal President Trump's base is often bolstered by a number of people that constantly sing his praise. Even during the impeachment there came a point when polls showed that the President's favor hadn't changed much - neither going down or up.

On top of that, given everything that's going on, I'm sure something will happen that will change the news cycle and essentially bury everything this book talks about. I mean we're dealing with a pandemic, Police reform as well as an election year and at this point I'm not sure this information will really matter in the next few weeks.

Despite all of this one question still nags me: why didn't he testify if he had all of this information? 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Democrats introduce overhaul of police reform

Today house democrats introduced t he Justice in Policing Act, which would hold police departments across the nation more accountable for their actions by stripping away some of their protections. The legislation would also c reate a national database of excessive-force incidents and ban police chokeholds. The legislation would also  revise the federal criminal police misconduct statute to make it easier to prosecute officers who are knowingly involved in reckless misconduct and seek to provide greater transparency on police behavior according to the AP News. To put it bluntly, as much as I want this legislation to get make ground, it is a long shot pipe dream to get put into law. This is because the senate is majority Republican and will more than likely shoot it down or have it stripped or include poison pill amendments to it, despite Senator Lindsey Graham and Majority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell vowing to look at the issues.  What do you think? -Alex 

Statehood, the coronavirus and how the U.S. sets the standard for policing

With everything going on in the world, it's easy to lose track of the important issues going on in the world. For this edition of Articles that Make You Smarter, I wanted to share three articles that would give some perspective on three major issues in America. I hope you read and enjoy: Why statehood matters: The House of Representatives approved a bill that would recognize Washington D.C. as the 51st state of the country. While the Senate will more than likely shoot the bill down, here's an article by The Gaurdian that explains everything surrounding the bid for statehood:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/25/washington-dc-statehood-bid-house The United States and Policing: What's going on in America with policing doesn't just happen in a bubble. Here's a great article by The New Republic about how our country sets the standard for policing across the world: https://newrepublic.com/article/158297/america-exports-police-violence-around-world A new surge

Politics unusual

I've been called a lot of things in life. Liberal hack, fake news media and jackass ranks up there pretty high. Some of the things that I've been called few and far in between are dishonest, liar, coward. My hope as the creator of The Statesmen, a news/politics/and opinion blog, is that those words lacking in what defines who I am reflect this website. But first, a small introduction of who I am and why I'm writing this. My name is Alex and I am a moderate liberal/populist that studied journalism at Kent State University and developed a love for politics during my senior year. I grew up in a conservative house, car rides homes with my father involved long quiet rides as Rush Limbaugh filled the car. For most of my life I considered myself a Republican until I didn't anymore. That isn't to say that I hate everything they do and I certainly don't like everything that Democrats do either. It goes without saying (but I will anyway) but the