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Impeachment

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1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:

As far as "punishing" Democrats, not sure how that metaphor gets played out?

It starts with rejecting their articles of impeachment. Mitch McConnell gets it. If you missed his great speech today, I recommend listening to the entire thirty minutes.

 

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2 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

It starts with rejecting their articles of impeachment. Mitch McConnell gets it. If you missed his great speech today, I recommend listening to the entire thirty minutes.

Then we can wait for the Democrats to punish the Republicans (although I don't see that metaphor to fit the actions). It will just go back and forth. Neither side actually has the authority to punish, punishment implies that will not be retaliated against, as in when a judge punishes.

McConnell is simply expressing the position of the Republicans, not the US as a whole and that is the weakness of the speech. The same things could have been said by Democrats in the Clinton impeachment. When Bill Clinton became president, Republican wanted to impeach him on day one. That is nothing new.

Multiple years of investigation of Clinton exonerated him on the original investigation. It was only when the Lewinsky stuff happened, they had something on him and it was used. He does acknowledge that Trump does not have to break the law to be impeached, just that it should not be due to  "mal administration" as in bad judgment. The problem is is one looks at how Trump obstructed justice it's hard to not see him NOT crossing the line. Wasn't Nixon being impeached for obstruction?

It's too obvious. Claiming impeachment without proof is not what is going on. We know what happened, Trump admitted it, Mulvaney (chief of staff) admitted. The question at hand is not that there was no proof, but that the actions can be interpreted in different ways, meaning the testimony should be ignored.

He criticizes Pelosi in that she made up her mind before the process. One can accuse Mcconnell and Graham of that too. So it plays to the choir rather than actually making a impartial point.

The claim is that it is a low bar. Clinton's also had a low bar, lying about his sexual behavior. But since both will not have been removed from office, it implies the system has instituted a high enough bar. Impeachment has been used as a loud censure and my be used that way in the future.

Furthermore, one thing that is never mentioned is the if Trump was removed, Republicans would not loose, they would get Pence.

Edited by Easy Truth
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Dr. Brook spends eight minutes (4:00-12:00) talking about the impeachment. Like the Democrats, he apparently made up his mind about Trump's guilt before hearing the discovery, analysis and debate, because, in his view, "there was none of that." He claims that neither Democrats nor Republicans were interested in the truth, that the whole thing was a circus. I believe he focuses on attacking the process because he knows that the facts that were discovered, and the arguments that were made, are against impeachment. But he can't bring himself to admit that, at least not in this segment.

Brook maintains his negative position on Trump, despite believing that the Democrats failed to do basic things like discover the truth. So much for innocent until proven guilty.

For whatever reason, Brook finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place. When he goes full-bore against Trump, he "loses subscribers," and when he takes his foot off the gas, he must feel like he's not being forthright. So, instead of doing some real work on the facts and arguments that were presented in the hearings, he simply finds the impeachment "boring" and doesn't want to spend much time talking about this monumental event in the history of American politics.

 

Edited by MisterSwig
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2 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

So much for innocent until proven guilty.

I listened to the relevant part, I don't know what you're talking about. What's wrong about thinking the present is terrible, while thinking that the impeachment procedures are also terrible? I mean, his opinion isn't interesting, and it's not special, so I really don't care about what he says. But it doesn't seem problematic.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

You never did connect those two points.

You'll have to be more specific. "Terrible" is a bit too subjective. If you're asking me to summarize the facts and debates from the hearings, I'll pass. They are easily found online. I would expect Brook, and others with serious interest, to be very familiar with them by now.

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Sorry, there was a typo. I was saying that you can think the president is bad for the country, irrational, and even worth impeaching over something, but it's no contradiction to think that the process so far has been circus like. You can criticize Brook's presentation of facts, but he's not wrong due to hypocrisy. So I don't think your psychological explanation works.

The better question is why he is being lazy about it. He said he didn't want to talk about it. Then he talked about it. Is it because he has nothing to say, so he just gives a hot take. Is it because he doesn't think anyone would listen to him? To me, it's more like few people have been able to actually analyze what is happening. There is no intellectual leader available. 

 

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

You can criticize Brook's presentation of facts, but he's not wrong due to hypocrisy.

Right. He's wrong because of reality. Hypocrisy is just going against your own stated morals, which he's also doing by evading reality. It's absurd to dismiss the entire impeachment as a "circus." Some of it was ridiculous. But much of it was very serious and informative. 

Edited by MisterSwig
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12 hours ago, Eiuol said:

The better question is why he is being lazy about it. He said he didn't want to talk about it. Then he talked about it. Is it because he has nothing to say, so he just gives a hot take. Is it because he doesn't think anyone would listen to him? 

I wonder if he even watched the hearings. Much of his knowledge is filtered through news sources like NPR. So it could be that he doesn't have much to say because he doesn't know much firsthand.

I make every effort to remove such filters from my knowledge of reality. For example, I watched the hearings in full on C-SPAN. So I know which news sources are full of crap and which ones are being straight.

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10 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

But didn't [Yaron] already go through his position in a previous presentation, I have qued it up you can just click on it

Thanks for the link. I remember that rant. He'd probably consider me one of the "labotomized," since I didn't rush to judgement three weeks before the public hearings started. It's amazing how much he now relies on ad hominem and blatant evasion.

Also, I note that he admits to believing that Biden is corrupt. Yet he wants to protect the man from Trump. Why? Because Biden is a top Democrat in the Democratic primary race, and therefore Trump's political opponent. But like Eiuol indicated earlier, he's not Trump's opponent in the presidential general election--not yet. Biden hasn't even won the nomination of his own party. Also, Trump didn't ask Ukraine to interfere in the upcoming election. He asked them to investigate Biden's past actions. There is a difference.

Maybe Trump is trying to take out Biden early with this appearance of his past corruption. Or maybe he genuinely wants to clean up Washington and our foreign entanglements. After all, he did promise to drain the swamp.

Edited by MisterSwig
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Tim Pool has an interesting take. (Skip to 14:30) If Pelosi delays the Senate trial until January, which seems likely, it might hurt Bernie Sanders by interfering with his ability to campaign before the Iowa caucus in February, since he'll have to return to Washington. Is this bad luck or the establishment Dems intentionally messing with Sanders yet again? It would be ironic if The Squad's favorite candidate ended up being the most harmed politically, by their push to impeach the President.

Edited by MisterSwig
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On 12/13/2019 at 8:08 PM, intrinsicist said:

Trump called the new president of Ukraine and asked him to investigate corruption around the Biden's -- as Vice President, Biden had negotiated in a quid pro quo with Ukraine corrupt money for his son, and possibly himself, to the tune of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

Trump didn't do or intend anything corrupt like that - all he asked was for it to be investigated, which is totally part of his duty as the chief executive. Investigating corruption, even as a quid pro quo with a foreign power, is totally legitimate and within Presidential power. In fact it's the duty of the executive to do things like that. There's absolutely no crime here - at least not by Donald Trump.

. . .
 

Calling President Trump, calling Mr. Trump: Suspend the 500 million dollars in annual aid to Zambia until the prisoners are freed. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50901537

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/21/2019 at 12:50 PM, MisterSwig said:

Tim Pool has an interesting take. (Skip to 14:30) If Pelosi delays the Senate trial until January, which seems likely, it might hurt Bernie Sanders by interfering with his ability to campaign before the Iowa caucus in February, since he'll have to return to Washington.

It looks like Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is convinced of this theory now, that Pelosi is timing the release of the articles to hurt Bernie Sanders. In the second half of the video, he calls it the "dirty little secret that nobody is talking about." Unfortunately we can't pry open Pelosi's head and uncover her true motive for delaying the Senate trial. But the rift between the Establishment Dems and the Democratic Socialists does seem to be widening. Sanders is now openly criticizing Biden's past support for the Iraq War and AOC is refusing to pay her DCCC dues. Also, CNN published an op-ed suggesting that Sanders and AOC don't have the "guts" to leave the Party and run as Democratic Socialists.

Perhaps it's the Establishment that lacks the guts to expel the socialists, and that's the real problem here.

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The "rift" will crack apart quite soon after the next election. Too wide an ideological spread under one roof, and the moderate Democrats are unhappy with all the extremists as fellow passengers. After all, they are all sticking together only to "get Trump" - and when that doesn't work ... 

Much better. Let the socialists/Democratic Socialists go their own way into their own party, and there could be some return to politics as normal, if not total normalcy.

Edited by whYNOT
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  • 2 weeks later...

The Republican Attorney Generals' letter to the Senate makes a strong case for rejecting the articles of impeachment.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ags-urge-senate-to-reject-impeachment-in-stinging-letter-a-dangerous-historical-precedent

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On 1/13/2020 at 8:25 AM, whYNOT said:

The "rift" will crack apart quite soon after the next election.

I wonder if it'll happen before the election. It has occurred to me that, in addition to messing with Sanders' ability to campaign, this impeachment could be used to delegitimize a potential Sanders nomination. The Dems could argue that Trump's interference with Biden's campaign caused him to lose to Sanders.

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