Impeachment Hearings

[Belsnickel]

(01-24-2020, 08:34 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, I for one am not. You added interesting detail, bit in general I was aware that it is supposed to be a trial and that the senate is supposed to be somewhat beyond pure partisanship. But that is not the case and what is happening right now is not a trial.

All that makes it so unfathomable to me how folks are 100% certain that your democracy still is absolutely rock solid in its core. This is based on many things that used to be true, but went out of the window, like this trial thing and other things that are supposed to happen, but do not happen.

Well, the people who really understand this stuff are not 100% certain. In fact, many political scientists would argue the opposite. Our democracy has been eroding for years and is a shadow of its former self. I've argued this, myself, in this forum many times.

[hollodero]

(01-24-2020, 08:40 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Well, the people who really understand this stuff are not 100% certain. In fact, many political scientists would argue the opposite. Our democracy has been eroding for years and is a shadow of its former self. I've argued this, myself, in this forum many times.

Mhm... I didn't quite mean you when saying 'folks'. You're well aware of the danger, I get that. Still seemed like a point worth making, since it is an important one.

[BmorePat87]

Conservatives often portray themselves as valuing facts and dismissing liberals as peddling in feelings, but the exact opposite is occurring. Whether it's the hearings, the trial, or a forum like this, the case against Donald Trump is rooted in demonstrable facts and logic while the defense of him is based on opinions and feelings with almost no evidence being given, often times outright lies being told with no moral hesitation in doing so.

Whether it is completely making things up and refusing to give a shred of evidence when asked to defend it or dismissing facts because they compromise your personal narrative, it's sad what we're seeing.

[GMDino]

(01-24-2020, 09:16 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Conservatives often portray themselves as valuing facts and dismissing liberals as peddling in feelings, but the exact opposite is occurring. Whether it's the hearings, the trial, or a forum like this, the case against Donald Trump is rooted in demonstrable facts and logic while the defense of him is based on opinions and feelings with almost no evidence being given, often times outright lies being told with no moral hesitation in doing so.

Whether it is completely making things up and refusing to give a shred of evidence when asked to defend it or dismissing facts because they compromise your personal narrative, it's sad what we're seeing.

And when the elections roll around this year the gop will attack "the left" for "dividing" the country when the simple reality is one side is actually dealing with facts and the other is lying.  Period.

Which will lead to more division.

And will lead to the "well both sides" people.

So sad.

[HarleyDog]

(01-24-2020, 08:16 AM)hollodero Wrote:  Btw. Tulsi is the hottest US politician by far, and I don't like her at all.

Not bad. Not bad at all. 

[BmorePat87]

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-senate-impeachment-trial-judge-andrew-napolitano

Andrew Napolitano blasts GOP Senators who seek to violate their oaths and declares “ What is required for removal of the president? A demonstration of presidential commission of high crimes and misdemeanors, of which in Trump's case the evidence is ample and uncontradicted.”

No one will accuse Judge Napolitano of being a Democrat or unqualified to comment on this issue, but many will still disagree with his nonpartisan take not because it is wrong but rather because it clashes with their partisan desires.

[Au165]

(01-24-2020, 10:48 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-senate-impeachment-trial-judge-andrew-napolitano

Andrew Napolitano blasts GOP Senators who seek to violate their oaths and declares “ What is required for removal of the president? A demonstration of presidential commission of high crimes and misdemeanors, of which in Trump's case the evidence is ample and uncontradicted.”

No one will accuse Judge Napolitano of being a Democrat or unqualified to comment on this issue, but many will still disagree with his nonpartisan take not because it is wrong but rather because it clashes with their partisan desires.

From the comments...

Quote:Nap, rendering opinionated justice at this early stage is unbecoming. What if Trumps lawyers bring CIA or other evidence of a prior communication between the WH and Ukrainian authorities that there was massive corruption, our aid was being stolen, Biden or any US citizen was in on it, etc, etc.

What if some made up evidence magically appears, while disregarding all the actual evidence that says otherwise?! Ironically the guys name is "factsthathurt".

[hollodero]

(01-24-2020, 11:17 AM)Au165 Wrote: What if some made up evidence magically appears, while disregarding all the actual evidence that says otherwise?! Ironically the guys name is "factsthathurt".

Well, I guess now's [it seems, tomorrow's] the time to show this evidence then. We'll see.

Of course I'd put my money on the defense just shouting at Democrats and call Schiff names and claim executive privilege that never was claimed and how subpoenas from Congress are illegal and how unfair the process in the house was and how Zelenski doesn't commit suicide by confirming the extortion and how Democrats wanted Trump impeached from day zero and how the whistleblower needs to be revealed and how much Ukrainians disliked Trump - and I'm 100% positive that Fusion GPS will be mentioned plenty. But we'll see. Maybe there's something of substance as well.

For every mention of Lisa Page I will drink.

[hollodero]

(01-24-2020, 10:21 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: Not bad. Not bad at all. 

I'm glad we could find some common ground :)

[Dill]

(01-24-2020, 08:25 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: If you are familiar with the works of Dr. Jane Mansbridge, she lays out the differences between adversarial and consensus democracies. The way the House and Senate existed up through the mid-20th century was that the House acted in an adversarial way and the Senate in consensus. This was a great paradigm in which the bodies complemented each other and allowed actual governing to occur. Dr. Ross Baker described this in detail and even used the Clinton impeachment trial as a case study on this point because it was that recent that we could see this occur. Dr. Baker has said everything he wrote about how Congress operates in that way, now, is completely out the window. The McConnell era especially has ruined over two centuries of effective governance.

Yes. Total agreement with this.  This is not the Senate and House I saw growing up in the 70s and 80s.

That is one reason why it rings so hollow when one side claims the other cannot get "bipartisan support" for some bill.

(01-24-2020, 08:34 AM)hollodero Wrote: All that makes it so unfathomable to me how folks are 100% certain that your democracy still is absolutely rock solid in its core. This is based on many things that used to be true, but went out of the window, like this trial thing and other things that are supposed to happen, but do not happen.

Which folks?  I think we have reached some kind of tipping point.  I do not recall a point in my memory, which goes back to the fifties, when so many voters were ok with illegal behavior on the part of politicians.  Two wrongs make a right, even if the first "wrong" was just a trumped up, imaginary HannityFoxGiuliani accusation.

Even if Trump loses the coming election, we will still have that angry Trump base electing "breakers" to Congress, not "fixers."

[BmorePat87]

(01-24-2020, 08:25 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: It is a trial because that is the next step according to the Constitution. That is what the Senate is supposed to be doing. The biggest problem right now is that the Senate is not acting as it was intended to. The Senate was intended to be above hyper-partisanship like we are seeing, here.

If you are familiar with the works of Dr. Jane Mansbridge, she lays out the differences between adversarial and consensus democracies. The way the House and Senate existed up through the mid-20th century was that the House acted in an adversarial way and the Senate in consensus. This was a great paradigm in which the bodies complemented each other and allowed actual governing to occur. Dr. Ross Baker described this in detail and even used the Clinton impeachment trial as a case study on this point because it was that recent that we could see this occur. Dr. Baker has said everything he wrote about how Congress operates in that way, now, is completely out the window. The McConnell era especially has ruined over two centuries of effective governance.

(01-24-2020, 01:47 PM)Dill Wrote: Yes. Total agreement with this.  This is not the Senate and House I saw growing up in the 70s and 80s.

That is one reason why it rings so hollow when one side claims the other cannot get "bipartisan support" for some bill.


Which folks?  I think we have reached some kind of tipping point.  I do not recall a point in my memory, which goes back to the fifties, when so many voters were ok with illegal behavior on the part of politicians.  Two wrongs make a right, even if the first "wrong" was just a trumped up, imaginary HannityFoxGiuliani accusation.

Even if Trump loses the coming election, we will still have that angry Trump base electing "breakers" to Congress, not "fixers."

I have mistakenly put equal blame on Harry Reid, but he was dealing with unprecedented obstruction from Mitch McConnell when he was minority leader. 

Record levels of filibusters under McConnell as he stated in 2010 that his number one priority was to ensure that Obama would only be a one term president. 

As a result of of holding up appointments, Reid went nuclear. This was in response to outright obstruction, not legitimate concerns over character or experience of nominees. Fast forward to 2017, McConnell is taking advantage of the change to push through outright unqualified nominees (as rated by nonpartisan groups) into positions, some for life. 

He once lamented that Obama was unwilling to meet them in the middle like Clinton eventually did (though it's not true to say Obama did not move towards to center to deal with the reality of Congress). Now that the power dynamic has changed, he refuses to even give votes on bipartisan legislation and compromises. It has to be Trump's, His, or no one's. 

[Dill]

(01-23-2020, 10:52 PM)HarleyDog Wrote:

Quote: Wrote:The dossier isn't relevant to this.

Why isn't it? Because it's pretty disgraceful and shows the depths the dems will go to get what they want? It's very relevant.

Quote:(01-22-2020, 12:52 PM)Dill Wrote:

Why would you say there has been "no abuse of power" here? A day after the Muller Report could not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice, he began working against US official policy to blackmail the president of Ukraine into producing (not finding) dirt on Joe Biden. 
The Mueller investigation was meant to bury Trump, not try to exonerate him. The report came back with nothing but Mueller added his little tidbit that it didn't prove he didn't. So the dem supporters hung on to that.

I hope you guys have a great evening.

Thanks for responding H-dog.  Now we have a good dialogue going.  Responding briefly to two of your points:

1.  Remember that the focus of the impeachment trial is whether Trump did the things of which he is accused. What can shed light on that, and what not? That is why the Dems want to hear Bolton and Mulvaney--people who directly interacted with Trump regarding the hold. Hunter Biden cannot tell us whether Trump ordered Zelensky to open an investigation into his father. As in a criminal case, if facts support conviction, it does not matter if the prosecutor wanted the defendant charged before the trial started.

A discussion of the dossier would not show to what depths the Democrats will go, and even if it did, that would be immaterial if Trump withheld aid pending Ukrainian interference in the US election. The dossier does not tell us anything about that. 

2. The goal of the Mueller investigation was a) to protect the US from Russian interference in our election, and b) to investigate the UNUSUAL number of contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians.  It was jump started by a tip from an Australian diplomat, and legitimated by the fact that some 17 members of the Trump campaign had met with Russian officials over the course of his campaign--and a number of important ones, like Sessions and Flynn, claimed that they had not.  US intel was already monitoring the Russian ambassador and other Russian operatives/politicians, so they could not help but "overhear" when they spoke to Trump reps. The FBI would be in dereliction of duty if they failed to check out all that smoke--especially while the Russians were so actively trying to hack our election, don't you agree?   What Mueller found was that

  1) the multifarious cooperation/contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia did occur, but did not rise to the level of criminality 
     on that count.
    
     HOWEVER, there was a web of illegal activity connecting members of the campaign to Russia and other foreign countries, hence the conviction 
     of Manafort, Flynn, Papadopolous, Trump "fixer" Cohen, and others.                                                                                              
      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/25/muellers-russia-report-special-counsel-indictments-charges/3266050002/   

  2) Trump could not be exonerated of obstruction. There were ten incidents of obstruction which would merit indictment; the most serious
      of which was Trump's order to McGahn to lie and alter the evidential record. That's Nixon-level obstruction. 
       But it was not within the scope of the report to recommend that. Rather, as Mueller saw it, his job was to turn the evidence over to Congress
       so they could "do their job."  But they did not. 

Here is a PDF of the Mueller Report. https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

P. 328 concerns Trump's direction to McGahn to fabricate a letter for the record.
Page 372 defines "obstruction" involving corruption of the documentary record. Any ordinary citizen should be able to see the application.

Here is the conclusion of the report, on page 394.
"Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. . . . if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

So actually, the Mueller Report proves quite a bit of obstruction. The problem is, Mueller thinks he does not have standing to charge a sitting president with that. Only Congress can "reach that judgment."  But Barr jumped on the report before its release, telling the Fox public that it cleared the president of wrongdoing.  Hannity et al. have been trumpeting that ever since.

I go to some length about this because not only did the Mueller report NOT "prove nothing," but the day after Mueller's testimony finished, Trump got on the phone with the president of the Ukraine and told him that the US had been "good" to Ukraine, and in the context of discussion of aid, said that "however" we "needed a favor" in the form of the announcement of an investigation into Joe Biden.  According to the OMB, Trump had already blocked all aid to Ukraine on July 12. The squeeze was on. Two officials from the OMB resigned over what they saw as an illegal order. The aid was ublocked only after the whistleblower report came out. So far, no clear explanation of WHY the aid was blocked has been forthcoming, and according to the GAO, the Trump administration did BREAK THE LAW in witholding the aid. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/us/politics/gao-trump-ukraine.html

So Dem supporters are not simply "hanging on" to something; they are presenting the public with a pattern of misconduct, a pattern of facts.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/impeachment-hearings-even-the-gops-witnesses-are-hurting-trump

[BmorePat87]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/479787-abc-recording-apparently-captures-trump-discussing-yovanovitch-ouster

A recording from 2018 has leaked in which, during a dinner at the DC Trump hotel, Trump is told by Lev Parnas that former US ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovitch was trash talking him. Trump responds:

“ Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it."

While he’s free to fire and hire ambassadors, it seemingly undermines the claim that he did not know Parnas and provides more evidence to the increasingly clear picture of Trump using back channels outside of the government to handle Ukraine.

[BmorePat87]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/479858-pompeo-explodes-at-npr-reporter-asks-if-she-could-find-ukraine-on-a?fbclid=IwAR0B8j62QgPnMncrDFir2cvIsQtDfyEbamYHOiQedMUmOUaIAzglmxECfdo

“He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this,’”

Mike Pompeo looking like an idiot after the journalist points out Ukraine would be an incredible sight to behold.

[Belsnickel]

(01-24-2020, 09:10 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/479858-pompeo-explodes-at-npr-reporter-asks-if-she-could-find-ukraine-on-a?fbclid=IwAR0B8j62QgPnMncrDFir2cvIsQtDfyEbamYHOiQedMUmOUaIAzglmxECfdo

“He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this,’”

Mike Pompeo looking like an idiot after the journalist points out Ukraine would be an incredible sight to behold.

Yeah, Kelly isn't the reporter you could pull something like that on. She is a stellar journalist.

[HarleyDog]

(01-24-2020, 11:26 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, I guess now's [it seems, tomorrow's] the time to show this evidence then. We'll see.

Of course I'd put my money on the defense just shouting at Democrats and call Schiff names and claim executive privilege that never was claimed and how subpoenas from Congress are illegal and how unfair the process in the house was and how Zelenski doesn't commit suicide by confirming the extortion and how Democrats wanted Trump impeached from day zero and how the whistleblower needs to be revealed and how much Ukrainians disliked Trump - and I'm 100% positive that Fusion GPS will be mentioned plenty. But we'll see. Maybe there's something of substance as well.

For every mention of Lisa Page I will drink.

Lisa Page! (thank me later).

[GMDino]

(01-24-2020, 09:10 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/479858-pompeo-explodes-at-npr-reporter-asks-if-she-could-find-ukraine-on-a?fbclid=IwAR0B8j62QgPnMncrDFir2cvIsQtDfyEbamYHOiQedMUmOUaIAzglmxECfdo

“He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this,’”

Mike Pompeo looking like an idiot after the journalist points out Ukraine would be an incredible sight to behold.

Mike Pompeo has come under criticism — including, at times, from career diplomats in his own department — for failing to more forcefully defend Marie Yovanovitch in the face of political attacks.

When @NPRKelly asked Pompeo if he owed Yovanovitch an apology, he did not answer. pic.twitter.com/NMHrU8GlcF

— All Things Considered (@npratc) January 25, 2020

Here is our full interview with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It's worth a listen. https://t.co/3BQh3Q7lWV

— Mary Louise Kelly (@NPRKelly) January 24, 2020

 

[GMDino]

This “defense” completely misses the point. If Joe Biden robbed banks in Ukraine it wouldn’t justify Trump using foreign aid to extort the government there to investigate him. https://t.co/UweeflonjP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2020

[GMDino]

Trump on January 8: “We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe.”

Pentagon today: Actually 34 troops suffered brain injuries https://t.co/lPZYqPofUj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2020

 

[hollodero]

(01-25-2020, 12:09 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: Lisa Page! (thank me later).

You're a good man.


--- Also, why oh why had Schiff to bring this head on a pike story?