The impeachment charade -- are you following it? Or have you tuned it out?
Although Benster's football picks have more or less taken over the blog, I am trying to stay on top of what's happening in Washington. An impeachment should be a historic moment, but this just doesn't seem like anything historic. My personal opinion of Bad Orange Man hasn't changed that much, but there's no question his tormentors are incalculably worse people than he is. Why anyone would believe Adam Schiff or Nadler or any of the other grotesqueries parading about is beyond me.
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Powerline yesterday had most of the transcript of Trump's speech in Davos. It's a good read - and not likely to be found in any newspaper or covered on the TV programs. (Couldn't say for sure about TV, as I haven't watched a "news" show on the tube since Clinton was in office.)
I continue to listen to some NPR when I drive. It's a bit masochistic, but it gives me a little insight into what's going on on that side of the aisle. This morning, in two totally separate stories, they were concerned to emphasize their credibility and, in one of them, to downplay the credibility of, in this case, OAN.
My first reaction to this is to laugh at them. I have noticed how they reported on the Russian Hoax and all things Trump. Then I get angry. They have to KNOW that they are flogging one side of every issue and hiding their advocacy behind smooth voices and here they are attacking others for "conspiracy theories"?
But then I thought, isn't it interesting that they're are taking time to assert what was once presumed. They're feeling their grip slip. They're hearing back from people that it is THEM who lack credibility.
It is going to be fascinating to see/hear the press freak out when Schiff sits down, and Trump goes on the attack. The center of my faith is God's mercy. But I want no mercy shown to these people. Hit them hard and make them pay.
And when Trump does, the narrative will go back to what a meany Trump is, and how "unpresidential" his behavior is.
It's all theater, and not even good theater. I'm trying to follow the highlights but there doesn't seem to be anything new. Maybe it'll get better when Trump's team takes the stage.
From what little I've paid attention to it appears they are now moving on to the "Trump and the Russians stole the election" phase of their fact-based argument, mostly to appease their base that it wasn't their fault Clinton lost. The election was stolen from them and unless Trump is impeached and removed the next will be too.
This quote comes from the son of a friend (now in his late 30s) that seems to reflect the acceptance that Americans are incapable of making an informed decision in an election when there is the hint of foreign involvement (by anyone other than a Democrat)
"No the position is that foreign interference removes the ability to make an informed decision. Remember the context here is the president illegally withholding aid to compel a foreign leader to announce a fabricated investigation against his likely political opponents"
I am loving it and I find the evidence that Schiff and others are sharing to be compelling. Trump's team does not have any real evidence to defend Das Leader, but they will throw whatever spaghetti they can to see what sticks. What I would really like to see is Guiliani get up there and we could watch his descent in to madness. He's got a podcast now and I can only imagine it is like listening to Alex Jones. To top it off it is wonderful to see the Trumpster get all wound up and tweet all morning while someone is getting his hair and orange facial completed.
I did not see his Davos speech at all though I heard it was not too bad. I will have to look it up!
I’ll bite — what’s compelling about Schiff’s presentation?
You are too kind to bite at this, Mr. D and I do not really have too much, but like Lindsey Graham has stated to the congressman, he has done a great job putting the timeline in order so it is concise and a consistent narrative. His prosecutor talents shine much better here than asking questions of witnesses and having to control Jordan, Nunes and the rest of the group and he has made some compelling arguments regarding convicting the President.
Yes, there was a lot of repetition but that is part of making a case as there will be duplicate information in the different segments and you want to push home some points.
Now like the proverb says, one side of the argument sounds convincing until the other side is heard, we will see what the defense states. I am wondering though how many people will watch the defense as the viewership has come down from the initial day. Since Fox News has not been showing the trial I believe the audience will go up if FN decides to air this stage so the true believers can cheer on their leader.
That doesn't answer the question, though. What specific points is Schiff making that you find compelling? What points of law?
The other issue should be obvious if you think about it. A consistent narrative means nothing if it's not based on facts. I've been listening to the Democrats since this began. In what way did Ukraine suffer? Has not Ukraine received more aid and support under Trump than it did under previous administrations? Do you know?
This whole thing is based on imputing bad motives to the Bad Orange Man. We now have a three-year sample of his administration and there's nothing he's done to suggest we are in some sort of existential crisis. He will stand before the voters in nine months.
My apologies, but I will probably not have the time to list all of the facts that were given, but to say that Ukraine received the aid does not negate the fact that an attempt was made. If you try to rob from a bank and get caught before you can get the money, you are still tried and convicted on bank robbery.
And no, the Trump Administration has not given more aid than the Obama Administration (at least what I have read) and no it was not just blankets that Obama gave to them. If the Washington Post article had not come out revealing his plan he would have continued on his extortion plan. To think he would have done otherwise would be foolhardy to believe.
As for the points of law: To my understanding not being a lawyer the legal arguments have been consistent to not only the law, but also to what Lindsey & Dershowitz argued during Clinton's impeachment. To all of a sudden change your opinion because it does not suit your political bias does not make those past points invalid.
I would recommend reading Supreme Court lawyer and former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal's book, Impeach The Case Against Donald Trump. He is a brilliant legal mind and his analysis of this impeachment case makes sense to me.
You’re talking about thoughtcrime. Trust me, we don’t want to go there. Trump will be gone eventually, but the precedent will be set. We do not have a parliamentary system and a one-party vote of no confidence would put every future president on a knife’s edge. That is far more destructive, and much more dangerous, than the Trump presidency.
Beyond that, Trump is in charge of foreign policy. All presidents are. How the hell can any foreign leader trust that any agreement or negotiation will mean a thing if half of one chamber of Congress can negate it because they impute malicious motives to the person who is head of state? Do you really think this genie will stay in the bottle after this is over?
No we are not talking about thoughtcrime. To use my earlier example, if a person walks in to a bank with a drawn gun and shouts it is a bank robbery and then all of the people turn and face him, 2 things would happen: The gun rights people would say, "See, a good guy with a gun DOES stop a bad guy with a gun!" and the person would be arrested for attempted robbery. He cannot say, "You know I caught gun and I wasn't really going to rob the bank. No money or harm was done so everything is fine."
Intent, motive and actions are what defines law. DT had intent, he had motive and we have evidence that he was withholding aid before the Washington Post article came out and revealed his actions. Now we have a tape from Lev Parnas (DT doesn't know him though, wink-wink) and an admission from Bolton in his book that sure as hell, Trump was tying Ukraine aid to the inquiries he sought.
The whole argument of the aid was distributed so no harm, no foul is ridiculous. It was attempted extortion of a foreign country and DT got caught. If he had not gotten caught it would have continued to go forward just as it was already moving ahead. And even after he gets out of office he will continue to be pressed for illegal actions because he simply does not believe the law applies to him. I believe he is in for a rude awakening once he is not President.
Good grief, dude. The aid was given. Trump didn't rob a bank. It's absurd to make that argument. Yet you persist in doing so. It is thoughtcrime, but you aren't willing to think about the implications because you want to bring down the Bad Orange Man. Believe what you want, but if a President Biden or Warren did the same thing, my guess is you wouldn't be particularly exercised about it. And we already have evidence of that; Biden is on tape admitting (hell, bragging) he got the Ukrainians to shut down an earlier investigation. But I am told that's not relevant. We either have one standard of behavior for all, or we don't. And if we don't, we don't have rule of law, we have rule of man. And if we have rule of man, we have tyranny. We have Nadler going around claiming Trump is a dictator. If that were true, Nadler would have been up against the wall months ago. Trump is being held to a completely new standard of behavior because he's icky.
Nor is it extortion. The money didn't belong to Ukraine. It belonged to the United States. If you extort someone, you threaten to take away something they already have. "Nice country you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it (like a missile strike)" -- like that. Ukraine was coming hat in hand for aid. Maybe it would have been wiser to give it without any conditions. Maybe it wasn't. But in the end, the Ukraine government got what it asked for.
And you still haven't addressed the other issue, which is whether or not presidents are allowed to pursue an agenda of their own, or do they have to first seek permission from an unelected bureaucracy. Or do these strictures only apply to Bad Orange Men? Obama fired an inspector general/whistleblower named Gerald Walpin, because Walpin was pursuing the impropriety of one of Obama's friends, Kevin Johnson. This is a matter of historical record. Our current whistleblower is treated as a holy of holies and cannot even be discussed. I personally hated Obama's diplomacy/payoffs to Iran, but I didn't argue that he didn't have the authority to make those decisions. He did. He was wrong, because the money enabled Iran to make IEDs that killed and maimed our countrymen. But that didn't mean he should have been impeached for his stupidity. The proper remedy was to remove his party from the presidency via the ballot box. And that's what happened.
You have nine months left to remove Bad Orange Man from the office via the ballot box. Get to it.
Bad Orange Man got elected talking about issues that have long been forgotten by the political class. Try addressing these issues and you might beat him the right way.
Gino
Sorry, Mr. D, but you are incorrect and the facts show it. You can get as frustrated as you would like, but to state there was no crime is as you stated of me, absurd. I cannot understand for the life of me why rational people are bending over backward to say what Trump did was just normal foreign policy decisions when it was not that at all. Did you not see any of the testimony from the House Impeachment trial? Do you think they were all just making up shit while they were under oath? Even Gordo Sondland turned against the Don.
And please don't accuse me of saying I would say something different if it was Biden or Warren. That is a dismissive argument and a cop out. You know I did not support Clinton or Trump. With Obama I did not vote for him in his first term, but I did for his 2nd term. I spoke out against his Syrian Policy as well as him increasing the use of drones. The cool thing is none of his staff went to jail and he was not impeached. Isn't that something?
Yes, a President can make foreign policy decisions, but not if you are using extortion. And yes it was extortion because people were losing their lives fighting the Russians. And, to use your example, it would be, "You have a nice country here and nice people, it would be a shame if more people lost their lives and Russia took over more of your country. So (as Trump said) I am wondering if you could do me a favor..." And according to testimony, and now information from Parnas and it appears Bolton we see that is what Trump was doing. Do I think Parnas and Bolton are heroes? No, because they are trying to save themselves. But I do believe their information and it is consistent with other testimony. And if more witnesses are called then the rats will start to flee the sinking Bad Orange Man's ship because it will not be politically expedient for them to stay.
I'm being dismissive because it's a ridiculous argument. You don't have any facts. You have a crapload of suppositions. I did see the testimony, by the way. Sondland admitted under oath that it was his opinion and a guess, and that he didn't have direct evidence of anything.
I spoke out against his Syrian Policy as well as him increasing the use of drones. The cool thing is none of his staff went to jail and he was not impeached. Isn't that something?
And thank you for making my point -- the rules have changed and it's not because we've become more ethical; there's all manner of evidence to the contrary about that part. There's not much ethical about constructing an impeachment inquiry that doesn't allow the president to mount a defense, either, but I don't hear anyone on your side of the aisle acknowledging that. And by the way, check the record on how Democrats voted where military aid to Ukraine was concerned.
Make your argument on the hustings. Shout it to the housetops. Get the voters to agree with you. Get a better candidate and elect that individual. I won't miss Trump when he's gone, but I can't countenance by any means necessary behavior. And that's what you are endorsing. Step back and look at the big picture.
More video of Joe Biden's diplomacy.
https://youtu.be/pOoqlrhDabw?t=204
Ridiculous arguments? Wow, you sound like you are doing the Dershowitz Dance! First the argument was we shouldn't listen to an anonymous sources and it was all hearsay, then we start getting witnesses - even ones called by the Republicans - who gave great evidence but they weren't there on the phone call, then we get someone on the phone call and he gets called a traitor, then we have a bunch of very credible witnesses who are able to show Sondland was lying so he comes back and states that yes there was a quid pro quo, then they are dismissed because they are not primary sources, then Parnas comes forward, then a video is released and now Bolton wants to speak. And this is all suppositions? I call it continually moving the goalposts because you are not getting the outcome that you wanted.
And stating that Trump did not get to mount a defense is ludicrous. The same procedures were followed by the House that were done for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. The Republicans were allowed to call witnesses, question witnesses and be a part of the process. If you look at the transcripts from the closed door meetings you will see that the Republicans hardly said anything. I would argue it is because Jordan, Nunes, Collins and the rest are not the brightest bulbs in the world so could not think of questions to ask and decided to just mount a show when the cameras were rolling.
Oh and I already am arguing to get DT out of the White House. But that does not preclude him from being being impeached if crimes are committed. And there were crimes committed as the facts have already shown.
I will address this later today.
Looking forward to it, Sir! :)
What crimes were commitmed? Cite the criminal code or go away.
This is Gino.
Read the part of the constitution where it talks about Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors and answer the question for yourself.
This is Paul.
That's not a criminal code violation. You stated that crimes were committed. Back your words up. It's not hard if you are not pushing bullshit.
Paul, if you’re going to accuse Trump of treason, you really need to define what the term means. Same with bribery. Argument by assertion isn’t particularly compelling.
While you consult Black’s Law Dictionary or somesuch, you may also consider looking up hearsay.
By the way, was Parnas in the room?
I have more questions, but it’s time for dinner.
Sorry, I am not the one pushing bullshit. You know as well as I do that it has been argued before that for a President to be impeached he/she does not need to violate a criminal code to be impeached. That is why I referred you back to the U.S. Constitution.
But, if you are insistent because I used the word "crime", let's look at extortion: Federal Penal Code 878: Threats and extortion against foreign officials, official guests, or internationally protected persons.
Which then makes up the Abuse of Power Impeachment Article as Trump tried to extort payments.
Just because something is argued doesn’t mean it’s true, or wise, or even practical. Again, I ask — if we’re going to start impeaching presidents for reasons of the sorts you have been offering, every president going forward will be impeached. And if you’re concerned about the Constitution, I would suggest a bit more fealty to the system the Founders envisioned, which was not a parliamentary system. The Trump presidency will end, either in a year or in five years. The damage taking place now from Schiff and his pals will last much longer.
I understand the anger. I hated Clinton and was cheering for his impeachment 20 years ago. I was wrong. Once you get some distance from these events, I am hopeful you will see things differently.
Oh, and a point of order — is it extortion or bribery? You really need to make up your mind on that one. Or is it piracy, or leprosy, or something else?
One other thing — it was not the same process. The Intelligence Committee had no role in Clinton or Nixon’s proceedings.
Clinton was charged with 8 felonies, that he pled guilty too as he left office.
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