The biggest question surrounding Nunes is his unquestioning allegiance to Trump questioning whether he is fit to lead to an impartial investigation into possible ties between Trump’s associates and Russian officials.

https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article238047674.html?fbclid=IwAR285xtVgYk5p40WmmxK_eaSgOMQLfkMqSkTv9NjCu4XODeazma9mPWtRGs

“There are no words to describe how dangerous a slope this is for our republic.”

So said Rep. Devin Nunes Wednesday on Ray Appleton’s radio talk show in Fresno. Nunes spoke about the impeachment proceedings now occurring in the House of Representatives that are focused on President Trump. Nunes, the Republican from Tulare, spent several minutes denigrating the proceedings as the “impeachment hoax.” Appleton gave him carte blanche with no challenge.

But danger to the nation equally applies to Nunes’ obsession to further Trump’s re-election next year. As has been true for nearly all of Trump’s first term, Nunes has relinquished his proper role as an independent representative of Congress and has instead acted like a member of the Trump 2020 re-election team.

The latest revelation deals with Ukraine, the focus of the impeachment hearings, and phone calls Nunes made.

On Tuesday, House Democrats released phone records that show Nunes made multiple calls to Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani and one of his associates, the now-indicted Lev Parnas. The calls came last April during a period when Giuliani was leading a pressure campaign to remove the American ambassador to Ukraine. That campaign was ultimately successful.

Nunes did not immediately say what the calls were about. But the fact he had them led some top Democrats to consider formal discipline against him.

The attorney for Parnas has also said Nunes had meetings with a Ukrainian prosecutor to get political dirt on Democrat Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who was once on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Nunes has said that report, first aired by CNN, is false, and he has reportedly sued the cable news channel over it.

Trump_Impeachment_67114.jpg
Lev Parnas arrives to court in New York, Monday, Dec. 2, 2019. Parnas and Igor Fruman, close associates to U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, were arrested last month at an airport outside Washington while trying to board a flight to Europe with one-way tickets. They were later indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of conspiracy, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsification of records. Seth Wenig AP PHOTO
For months, Nunes has badmouthed Democrat efforts to uncover whether Trump tried to get Ukraine’s president to launch a corruption investigation into the Bidens. Doing so would inflict political damage on Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“There was the Russia hoax,” Nunes told Appleton, referring to the Mueller investigation into whether the Trump campaign worked with Russian officials to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. “Then there is the Ukraine hoax, and now the impeachment hoax.”

Actually, all three “hoaxes” represent legitimate investigations into serious questions. Did the Trump campaign collude with Russia to harm Clinton? Special counsel Robert Mueller left the question open, but provided ample examples of Russian disinformation to influence the election. The president’s call to Ukraine, in which he bargained congressionally approved military aid for an investigation into the Bidens, is a fact verified by the president’s own acting chief of staff. And the impeachment proceedings are trying to determine if that quid pro quo rises to the level of an impeachable offense — a responsibility that rightly falls to Congress.

As the ranking Republican on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, Nunes holds one of the top posts in Congress. Nunes should have disclosed to his committee colleagues that he had those phone calls last spring. One expert on government ethics took it a step further and said Nunes should have recused himself from the impeachment hearings, rather than acting as No. 1 Trump defender.

To advance the cause of getting at the truth, Nunes should come clean on the phone calls and tell the House what was discussed. He should also provide travel records to debunk the charge that he met in Vienna last December with the Ukrainian to get information that might hurt Biden; Nunes says he was in Libya and Malta.

Short of that, his actions continue to reduce him to being a mere partisan — the label with which he loves to tarnish his Democrat colleagues. Meanwhile, his 22nd District has critical needs, like easing the trade war challenges with China for farmers and helping those struggling in poverty. On such issues, Nunes has been absent; he’s been traveling to Europe.

It should be obvious to even the dumbest of trump supporters that pumpkinhead is afraid of letting his 'supporters see his tax returns, you know the ones he promised to release 3 years ago.

And he keeps telling the same old lie that his is constantly under audit from the IRS. Which the IRS says isn't true, but even if it was, pumpkinhead could release his records.

So now he runs to the SC, and if they vote against him, pumpkinhead will be exposed for being the liar that he is, and that he is nowhere as rich as he claims, and that he cannot explain where the money from Russia is still coming from.

But the impeachment will go forward, and pumpkinhead will have to spend 2020 campaigning, and not screwing things up.



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-trump-records/trump-turns-to-u-s-supreme-court-as-last-chance-to-keep-his-finances-secret-idUSKBN1Y9292

Simple question for you lou, which is worse, losing 14,666 farms per year during the most severe recession in 70 years or losing 6,000 per year when the economy is as you say wonderful???

Only the most irresponsible and ignorant could accomplish letting that happen in a time of plenty..

But it has been done before.. In the 80s, Ronnie came up with the "freedom to farm" which made access to money the single biggest factor in farming and all time record of family farms going bust..

If you are going to whine about any subject you best know the differing circumstances, other wise you are
only comparing apples to oranges..

It seems to go reight over your head, the Orange slime that you are so proud of sitting in our oval office tried to get Ukraine to make a public announcement of an investigation of Biden son..
No interest in any truth, he wanted the claim so he could to the "lock him up" chant which he loved so much from the false hoods about Hillary.. he wants to do it again..

Truoble is, the corruption is all from the red haters and that is what is being investagated, the Bidens are not any part of it..

But you will have your way, congress may well impeach the criminal wallowing in the white house, but the senate will not remove him.

trump has mountains of money to spend on his attempt at reelection. after all he has a clear record of rewarding his fans.. send a million dollars and get to be an ambassador.. no less the 5 so rewarded..
Money for favors, that is the life of the orange Nair do well..

All his life money has made him Teflon... When he squandered daddy s money, the nice guy Putin produced more millions for him to cover his ass and now we see the payment from trump to Putin..

Love it don`t you!!

Lou,,,

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/as-a-businessman-trump-was-the-biggest-loser-of-all?fbclid=IwAR2jocxUFX_GGpNta7c74iOMZG7GFSc5jV989emmMiq4tfVw2A_ZI_u3vR4

As a Businessman, Trump Was the Biggest Loser of All

ast October, the New York Times published a monumental exposé of how Donald Trump and other members of the Trump family engaged in sham financial schemes during the nineteen-nineties, including what the newspaper described as “instances of outright fraud,” to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on the real-estate fortune that Fred Trump passed on to his children. Last month, the three reporters who wrote the story—David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner—were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting.

On Tuesday evening, the Times dropped another story that delved into the President’s financial past. Written by Buettner and Craig, and based upon “printouts from Mr. Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service transcripts” that the reporters obtained, the story further undermined the assiduously promoted fiction that Trump, before he became a reality-television star and entered politics, was a highly successful self-made businessman. He was anything but.

Just like his money, trump had nothing to do with making the economy we now have. It is the extension of the 7 years of growth under the President Obama administration.

He made himself and the ultra rich a mountain of money.. now it is near its end and the rest of America may end up paying for the gift.. Just like we pay for the tariffs which he loves to think worked.
ask farmers how things are going for most of them..

https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=business_&linkId=77820351&fbclid=IwAR1ZiwWjTHf9ZGxNVF1pN2WFV8a7zi37psw25oY5KUOoeFUbb_AJZwe4FOg

They're Trying to Wipe Us Off the Map.' Small American Farmers Are Nearing Extinction

In the American imagination, at least, the family farm still exists as it does on holiday greeting cards: as a picturesque, modestly prosperous expanse that wholesomely fills the space between the urban centers where most of us live. But it has been declining for generations, and the closing days of 2019 find small farms pummeled from every side: a trade war, severe weather associated with climate change, tanking commodity prices related to globalization, political polarization, and corporate farming defined not by a silo and a red barn but technology and the efficiencies of scale. It is the worst crisis in decades. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies were up 12 percent in the Midwest from July of 2018 to June of 2019; they’re up 50 percent in the Northwest. Tens of thousands have simply stopped farming, knowing that reorganization through bankruptcy won’t save them. The nation lost more than 100,000 farms between 2011 and 2018; 12,000 of those between 2017 and 2018 alone.