You are not logged in.
Offline
Like button can go here
Almost comical in that Trumps's lawyers denounced the impeachment case as constitutionally and legally invalid, and driven purely by a desire to hurt Mr. Trump in the 2020 election.
Trump’s Defense Team Calls Impeachment Charges ‘Brazen’ as Democrats Make Legal Case
The president’s lawyers did not deny any of the core facts underlying Democrats’ charges, conceding what ample evidence has shown: that he withheld $391 million in aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine and asked the country’s president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter Biden.
Impeachment Trial Puts Susan Collins, Stung by Kavanaugh Backlash, Under Scrutiny
“I, too, was furious at President Clinton and felt that he had lied under oath, but it didn’t reach the constitutional test of high crimes and misdemeanors, and was not sufficient to overturn an election and throw him out of office,” In the case of Mr. Trump, she said, she would be “applying that same standard.”
hundreds of lies versus just the one....
Offline
Like button can go here
Senate impeachment trial: How to watch and what we don't know
The trial will start Tuesday, January 21, at 1 p.m. ET, after which it will run six days a week, Monday through Saturday, starting at 1 p.m. ET and ending usually between 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. ET, according to the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
But the first session of the trial on Tuesday when they deal with the organizing resolution, may go past 6 p.m., according to aides in each party.House Intelligence Chair Rep. Adam Schiff of California as the lead manager, and the six will be:
Judiciary chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York
Chairman of the Democratic Caucus Rep Hakeem Jeffries of New York
Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, who is on the Judiciary Committee and has also worked on three House impeachment inquiries
Rep. Val Demings of Florida who is on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees
Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas, a freshman who is on the Judiciary Committee
Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, also a freshman lawmaker who is a former lawyer
Effort to keep the america's people uninformed as to what is going on...
Even C-SPAN Is Piqued: Senate Puts Limits on Trial Coverage
No escape: Senators to be quiet, unplugged for Trump trial
Instead of unfettered access to the hallways and corridors surrounding the Senate chamber — a tradition for decades — journalists will be confined to roped-off pens while the trial is in session. Walk-and-talk interviews with senators, a staple of congressional reporting made famous by TV shows like “The West Wing,” will be curtailed. Journalists have long been barred from entering the Senate chamber, relegated to an overhead view from the press gallery above. Now, to enter the upstairs gallery, they will need to queue up for a magnetometer meant to sniff out illicit electronics, raising concerns about their ability to quickly relay to the public what is happening inside.
What should happen since the senate is in capable of a non party line that the electorates should be the ones for the jury as they are the ones that cast the vote to make a president even when the number of votes say other wise.
Offline
Like button can go here
How to make a trail not a trial... The White House doubles down on its dumbest impeachment defense
Indeed, it reads as though it was written by a ninth-grader who saw an episode of “Law & Order” and learned just enough legal terms to throw them around incorrectly. It makes no attempt to contest the facts, instead just asserting over and over that the president is innocent and the entire impeachment is illegitimate, calling it “unlawful” and “constitutionally invalid,” with no apparent understanding of what those terms mean. The articles of impeachment, Trump’s lawyers say, “fail to allege any crime or violation of law whatsoever, let alone ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors,’ as required by the Constitution.”
Trump Legal Team to Ask Senate for Speedy Acquittal in Impeachment Trial
President Trump’s legal team will call on the Senate on Monday to “swiftly reject” the impeachment charges and acquit him, maintaining that he committed no impeachable offense and has been the victim of an illegitimate partisan effort to take him down.
wow crime committed and admitted to with it not being a crime at all...
We should expect party stonewalling Trump impeachment: How the Senate trial's first day may proceed, hour by hour as McConnell lays out rules for Trump's Senate trial, allowing for vote on witnesses, documents
The McConnell rules don’t even allow the simple, basic step of admitting the House record into evidence at the trial, "in ways that are designed to prevent the Senate and the American people from learning the full truth about President Trump’s actions that warranted his impeachment."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will allot each side a total of 24 hours to present their arguments in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, but the time must be confined to two working days, according to the text of his organizing resolution.
House impeachment managers prosecuting the case against Trump would deliver their arguments first, Once the prosecution's time is up, Trump's defense team will take over.
After both sides present, senators will then have the opportunity to ask questions in writing for a period of 16 hours. Once that concludes, the Senate will consider "the question of whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses or documents." Senate Republicans “trying to hide the president’s misconduct in the dead of night rather than putting it in the light of day.”
All testimony will be deposed of first before being accepted for others to hear.
How the Senate is divided on Trump’s trial
The Republican triumvirate of Sens. Susan Collins (Maine.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) have been the center of a media frenzy for weeks.
Only these republicans would want to hear the truth of testimony... then this in a farce of a trial.
Offline
Like button can go here
What *were* the high crimes and misdemeanours specified by the House?
Use what is abundant and build to last
Offline
Like button can go here
There were two articles of impeachment against Trump for high crimes and misdemeanours specified by the House.
Charges brought by the House articles of impeachment include: one for abuse of power and the other for obstruction of Congress.
Trump was caught by a whistle blower soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election, compromising national security, threatening the integrity of the upcoming election and concealing evidence from Congress and the American people. Trump, he said, violated his oath of office.
Trump "corruptly solicited the government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations" into the Bidens and a conspiracy theory alleging Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. Trump also "conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he requested," Democrats wrote, citing nearly $400 million in military aid and an official White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Trump "sought to arrogate to himself the right to determine the propriety, scope, and nature of an impeachment inquiry into his own conduct, as well as the unilateral prerogative to deny any and all information to the" House.
The Government Accountability Office reported that the hold on the money violated federal law because the Trump administration withheld the money for policy reasons rather than programmatic reasons.
Offline
Like button can go here
Terraformer,
With respect to President Trump's actual high crimes and misdemeanors, he had the moxie to switch from the Democrat Party to Republican Party and win election to the highest office in our land by very plainly illustrating the Democrat Party and many in the Republican Party to be the subversive, often criminal, America-hating bunch of miscreants that they truly are. In simple terms, he made both the Democrat and Republican aristocracy look like the fools that they truly are. As such they feel the need to put we, the electorate, in our proper place for not voting as they told us to.
We haven't had Presidents who even gave a damn about ordinary Americans since Reagan and Carter. The media hated them, too, so go figure. President Trump is just a breath of fresh air for those of us who have waited our entire lives for someone to come along who isn't so enamored with his or her own personal or political agenda that they can't be bothered to think about how it affects everyone else. After President Trump's next 4 years in office, we'll return to our normal collection of war-mongering America-hating evil clowns who are more enamored with their own voice than listening to anyone else, so there's nothing much to worry about. It'll be business as usual before ya know it.
For awhile I was suitably entertained by watching the Democrats and their propagandists throwing tantrums every time President Trump said something, but now I just feel sad for them because their lives are so hyper-focused on a single individual who has highlighted their political failures. They're like a bunch of psychotic groupies who follow someone around that they absolutely hate. That seems like a miserable existence to me, but maybe they're masochists. A split second later, I think about all the wonderful things that have happened to our country's people since their ilk have been driven from our nation's highest office and that cheers me right up.
The rest of what follows is an accurate characterization of what the Democrats have wasted their time doing whilst not deigning to do what the People of the United States elected them to do, which was to govern. The essence of their argumentation is that they're subversives trying to reverse the results of an election they lost and that since they were elected to office and everyone knows or should've know that they were subversives, we deserve what we get.
The "whistleblower" never heard any part of the call between President Trump and President Zelensky, nor did the person who contacted the "whistleblower". Some part of that might matter if executive privilege was asserted over the call, yet President Trump released the transcript of that call to the House. Unless President Trump was "whistleblowing" on himself, then he knew full well that this was just another political game that the Democrats were trying to play. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats' latest political game has backfired in spectacular fashion, just as the Mueller Investigation and Steele Dossier did.
President Trump did ask President Zelensky if he would investigate potential Ukrainian interference into the 2016 election, which is a law enforcement duty that our President is sworn to uphold, and he also wanted to know whether or not former Vice President Biden improperly demanded the firing of an Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the criminal conduct of the Ukrainian oil company his son was working for that the prosecutor was investigating for corrupt practices at that time. The only probable cause for that second request was that former Vice President Biden bragged about getting the prosecutor fired in a public speech.
Strangely enough, Ukraine received lethal aid in the form of FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles to fight Russian invaders from President Trump's administration, albeit a couple months late, even though former President Obama's administration refused to provide such aid during his entire tenure in office, which was when the Russians decided to invade Ukraine. President Trump was very upset over the fact that the US keeps providing most of the aid to Ukraine, none of our supposed European allies have given them much of anything in the way of weapons, and he's not even sure that the people he's giving the money and weapons to are using it for their stated national policy objectives, which the US feels obligated to support to deter Russian aggression in Europe. Much like the entirety of our foreign policy, our President has sole discretion for providing weapons to any foreign government.
The only political party that has threatened the integrity of both the 2016 and 2020 elections has been the Democrats. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned over her manipulation of the election results after a criminal complaint was filed over her behavior with the Federal Elections Commission. Apart from the Democrats' interfering with their own elections process for the Democratic nominee / candidate for President of the United States, they also paid money to a foreign national, via Fusion GPS, to interfere with President Trump's election campaign.
Former President Obama's administration actively spied on President Trump during the 2016 Presidential election and used lies (aka, "The Steele Dossier") that the DNC and former Secretary of State Clinton's Presidential election campaign paid a foreigner to promulgate that Bruce Ohr's then passed on to the FBI, apparently failing to mention that he was sleeping with his source (his wife)- who worked for Fusion GPS, which then used those lies (which they never investigated, yet later turned out to be totally false according to the OIG) as the basis for obtaining a FISA warrant. As a result of the FBI's conduct, numerous federal crimes were committed by our FBI, to include providing false information to a federal judge that even they believed to be false, despite never investigating the substance of the Steel Dossier's false allegations.
President Trump is under no obligation to assist the House Democrats in impeaching him. Shocking, but true.
Offline
Like button can go here
I guess feeling the pressure to have a legitimet trial McConnell backs off, abruptly eases impeachment trial limits
Ukraine Said No to Trump’s Political Hit Job. Will G.O.P. Senators Say Yes? with more evidence of the crimes still yet to be heard. In true form thou they follow party first as Republicans Block Subpoenas for New Evidence as Impeachment Trial Begins which eveidence is being condense so as to not hear what did happen. Not once but 3 times U.S. Senate blocks Democratic bids for evidence, witnesses in Trump impeachment trial
Offline
Like button can go here
SpaceNut,
What evidence?
Every new piece of "evidence" turns out to be a Democrat media / propaganda concocted con-job that flies about as well as a lead balloon. They breathlessly make new claims about once per day and then never produce anything of substance. I've been waiting for nearly 4 years to see the evidence. Democrat politicians and propaganda keep claiming it's there and then it all falls apart the very instant it's exposed to a little sunshine.
The House Democrats really don't seem to grasp how this impeachment process works. They gather evidence to make their case, draft articles of impeachment using the evidence they've collected, they send it to the Senate, the Senate reviews the evidence, and then decides to impeach or not to impeach. If the House Democrats didn't have the evidence they thought they needed before drafting articles of impeachment, then it was incumbent upon them to gather the evidence and present it to the Senate for a trial.
Offline
Like button can go here
Trumps emails, Giulianes emails , phone recording, transcripts and admisions of trump that he did it.. multiple accounts of testimony which at this time is not being heard...from even there once man Bolton...
Offline
Like button can go here
SpaceNut,
That link you just posted was completely free of evidence of anything at all, much like the claims of the House Democrats.
P
o
s
t
T
h
e
E
v
i
d
e
n
c
e
P
l
e
a
s
e
!
Offline
Like button can go here
The Ukraine funds had been approved by Congress, signed by Trump, and cleared by the DOD, as provided for in the law. For Trump to hold them up, especially without telling Congress, was illegal. Though Republicans during the hearing trotted out multiple reasons for the hold, the emails show that those excuses were all fabricated after the fact. The communications about President Trump’s order to hold up military assistance to Ukraine were released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-tr … 019-09-25/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11 … kraine-aid
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump- … e-n1106201
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/us/p … hment.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/p … e-aid.html
Offline
Like button can go here
SpaceNut,
Section 503 of the Foreign Assistance Act granted the power to withhold foreign aid to President Trump. Perhaps Congress should've given more forethought to the potential ways that authority could be used, but that's legislation they voted on and a previous President signed into law. If Congress didn't like what President Trump did, then they have the power to vote on new legislation amending Section 503 of the Foreign Assistance Act.
Similarly, it didn't matter one little bit if Congressional Republicans didn't like former President Obama sending pallets of cash to Iran, a country that was and is listed by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. Former President Obama, much like President Trump, had the authority to conduct foreign policy pursuant to international agreement or treaty on behalf of the People of the United States. No President in the past has been required to consult with Congress to conduct foreign policy in that manner. In point of fact, SCOTUS has already found that those powers are delegated to the Executive Branch.
For goodness sake, please read something of substance for a change (Vanity Fair doesn't pass muster here, nor do all the regressive media outlets, which have become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party since they themselves are all Democrats):
Skip to Page 314 and start reading the relevant text or maybe just read the entire thing to gain a better understanding of what the Congress and President can or cannot do as it relates to foreign affairs. Much of what is described in the text has already been presented before a trier of fact (a court of law; SCOTUS to be more specific) and determined thus, though just as much has not and may never be. However, this question of what POTUS may or may not do with foreign aid money was decided upon long ago. If House Democrats don't like it, then they have the power to change the relevant laws, which will no doubt be re-litigated in court.
Edit:
The total ignorance of the law that so many people have is just, well, stunning to be honest. Congress doesn't get to make "special laws" that only apply to one person because they don't like that one person. That kind of farcical nonsense is facially unconstitutional and will not fly in the Supreme Court. The court of public opinion is free to try and convict anyone and everyone as the public sees fit, but that's as far as it goes.
The very fact that Democrats can't or won't maintain focus on a single issue that they take umbrage with is proof positive that they simply have a personal vendetta against President Trump for their own personal reasons. I think he offends their sensibilities by saying what a lot of us are thinking when we see what we consider to be profound absurdities with the way our nation is run (a nation with no borders is not a nation at all, allies that don't even pretend to behave as allies aren't really your friends, helping people who say they hate you is just stupid, your own people are who you swore your oath of loyalty to rather than foreigners who invaded our country against our laws- whether properly enforced or not, our core values are immutable else they are just passing fads subject to the whim and fancy of the day, etc).
Democrats are just prejudiced against the man because he won an election after every last one of them said he would never win. He made them look stupid because they're so unbelievably arrogant and out of touch with reality that it's hard for most ordinary people to wrap their heads around. Why anyone would vote for people who spend every waking hour for more than 3 years looking for anything and everything to attack one person they disagree with, and by extension anyone who had the gall to simply vote for that person, is completely beyond my understanding. I think that kind of toxic behavior has no place in our society, but that's because I value the civility that Democrats claim to want yet never demonstrate any time they get told "no, you've gone too far". When President Obama was President, I didn't spend every waking hour looking for things to reinforce my beliefs that his policies were bad, nor did I take offense to every silly thing the man said or did. That's the kind of behavior that should be relegated to children throwing tantrums, rather than people who are as old as I am.
Like it or not, no President, Democrat or Republican, is under any obligation whatsoever to appeal to the sensibilities of the other political party. I think people across the political spectrum would do well to remember that. Sometimes life is not all about you.
Last edited by kbd512 (2020-01-23 01:24:15)
Offline
Like button can go here
I have to agree with Kbd. Democracy only works if the losers accept the result. The US impeachment tirade and UK anti-Brexit movement, both illustrate in full ugliness the attributes of the far left that most appal any sensible person. They are fundamentally undemocratic and basically totalitarian. They subscribe to ideologies that rule out any hope of moral pluralism. They have a quasi-religious obsession with things like equality, green politics and one world government, which makes it impossible to reach compromise. They are comfortable with oppression, and will stamp all over things like freedom of speech, so long as it delivers the result that they want. They are uncomfortable with individual gun ownership, because it might allow individual citizens to defy the monolithic perfection of the socialist state. These things make them fundamentally evil.
For all of his faults, Donald Trump is the elected president of the United States. If you cannot accept that, then you are basically refusing to accept the will of the voting public. And you are challenging their right to elect their leadership.
It also seems rather pointless. One way or another, Trump will be gone in another 4 years. And the Dems will get another crack at wrecking America and filling it with third world filth. Why not just be patient?
Last edited by Calliban (2020-01-23 08:10:55)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
Offline
Like button can go here
For Calliban re #115
You have so much to offer this forum, it would be a shame for you to be missing.
This forum is open to the entire world, and my impression is that management of the Mars Society is inviting participation from every nation.
You have the opportunity to edit your post #115, and I hope you will consider doing so.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
Law journal opinion of law for back in 1970....Foreign Assistance Act was placed into law back in 1961...and seems to be even older...
Its the Government Accountability Office (G.A.O.) Report that Says Trump Administration Broke Law in holding up the funds for military security assistance to Ukraine. The White House budget office notified federal agencies that the Ukraine aid was being withheld at the direction of the President on July 18, 2019, according to testimony from the House's impeachment inquiry. The White House budget office violated the Impoundment Control Act, a 1974 law that limits the White House from withholding funds that Congress has appropriated on Trump's order. The Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.
Republicans have spent the impeachment trial alternatively arguing that the House had not produced enough evidence to prove its case, and that more evidence is unnecessary. Last night, they introduced a novel new argument: It would be pointless to introduce more evidence, because the White House will simply block it in the courts. “A growing number of Republicans are pointing to President Donald Trump’s threat to invoke executive privilege in order to make their case against subpoenas sought by Democrats for key witnesses and documents
Offline
Like button can go here
There is an obvious truth about Trump that his supporters and haters alike never really talk about. That truth is that he is just too darn old to do the job. Why do the dems not like to talk about it? Because their candidates are fossils as well. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden look like they escaped from the old folks home. Even Trumps arch rival, the mafia hag Hillary Clinton, is an old woman. Pelosi looks like a rubberised caricature of a human being. When is US politics going to get younger blood? Or at least, young enough not to be senile?
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
Offline
Like button can go here
As GW has indicate it comes down to the voter choosing the lesser of all of them for what would be the worst to vote in by the electoral college for america. Its popularity versus weighting skew of districts and counting that corrupts the voting to be finally cast by the elector which may go against their own choice in which they may cast that vote in.
Offline
Like button can go here
There is an obvious truth about Trump that his supporters and haters alike never really talk about. That truth is that he is just too darn old to do the job. Why do the dems not like to talk about it? Because their candidates are fossils as well. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden look like they escaped from the old folks home. Even Trumps arch rival, the mafia hag Hillary Clinton, is an old woman. Pelosi looks like a rubberised caricature of a human being. When is US politics going to get younger blood? Or at least, young enough not to be senile?
After Wuhan's.
Use what is abundant and build to last
Offline
Like button can go here
The president’s team spent only two of the 24 hours allotted to them so that senators could leave town for the weekend before the defense presentation resumes on Monday, but it was the first time his lawyers have formally made a case for him since the House opened its inquiry in September. The goal was to poke holes in the House managers’ arguments in order to provide enough fodder to Senate Republicans already inclined to acquit him.
President Trump’s legal defense team mounted an aggressive offense on Saturday as it opened its side in the Senate impeachment trial by attacking his Democratic accusers as partisan w***h-hunters trying to remove him from office because they could not beat him at the ballot box. Which of course is the Mueller report in which he could not be charged in and should have been outed then.
With the odds stacked against him in the Democratic-run House, Mr. Trump refused to send lawyers to participate in Judiciary Committee hearings last month, complaining that he was not given due process. But he faced a more receptive audience in the Senate, where the White House has been working in tandem with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader. Hence the obstruction article for impeachment.
Trump Team, Opening Defense, Accuses Democrats of Plot to Subvert Election for the future. President Trump’s legal team in his impeachment trial began its defense on Saturday morning with a slightly more lawyerly version of one of Trump’s favorite tweets: read the transcript.
“They didn’t talk a lot about the transcript of the call,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone told the assembled senators in the Senate chambers at the outset of his remarks, “which I would submit is the best evidence of what happened on the call.”
Not true as the audio tape of the conversation could be even better but will it see the light of day as it was not available when the impeachment articles were created. The recording contradicts the president's statements that he did not know the Giuliani associates Lev Parnas or Igor Fruman, key figures in the investigation who were indicted last year on campaign finance charges. How long Ukraine Trump asks in the call would they be able to resist Russian aggression without U.S. assistance
Not surprising Senate GOP leaders are strongly considering a move to quickly end President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial next week if a motion to call additional witnesses is defeated with limited time as senators face key procedural votes and the final vote on whether to convict the president of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Out comes the threats on all opposing Trump suggests Schiff will pay a 'price' for pushing impeachment which is in his tasks to do as a House manager. Trump abused his power by seeking electoral help from Ukraine and sought to pressure the country into announcing an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and Democrats as he withheld military aid and an official White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They accused Trump of trying to "cheat" in the 2020 election and said he was acting in a manner inconsistent with his presidential oath of office.
Offline
Like button can go here
Mueller report?
Unlike most who pontificate about it, I actually read the damned thing. The whole thing. And then spent some days deciding what it all really meant. Several days.
Mueller Volume 1:
(a) It was the Russians (NOT the Ukrainians) who meddled in the 2016 election. This is the virtually unanimous conclusion of multiple intelligence agencies. Anything since claiming Ukraine had anything to do with that, is just plain wrong. Just plainly a reprehensible political lie. The report summarizes exactly what was done, who did it, and how it was done. This led to some indictments of Russian citizens.
(b) No, the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russians to influence the 2016 election. That "conspiracy" is a narrowly-defined crime, pretty much requiring getting together ahead of the crime, to plan it together. That simply did not happen, and the report says this in no uncertain terms. But it also documents just how eager the Trump campaign was to accept help from the Russians (which is a crime on the part of the Russians), and just how "un-eager" the Trump cammpaign was to turn the Russians in to the FBI for attepting to commit that crime. While not the crime of "conspiracy", that most certainly meets the non-legal public notional definition of "collusion". Which is not a crime, no matter how reprehensible a behavior it might be. Hence no indictment. But Trump and his supporters claiming "no collusion" is wrong. Just plain wrong. Trump's people colluded, but they did not "conspire". And that's the actual truth of it.
Mueller Volume 2:
(a) This volume documents in some detail some 10 instances of "obstruction of justice" in the sense of attempted coverup, or attempting to derail ongoing investigations. Most of these trace to Trump himself, the rest trace directly at least to his close minions. Which means he ordered these things.
(b) The report issues no indictments, citing the DOJ letter that makes policy of the notion that sitting presidents cannot be indicted for committing crimes (something I think we all can agree needs change). The report makes the explicit statement that this is not (repeat "not") exoneration! The very clear implication was for Congress to impeach, for at least some of these obstructions of justice. Congress utterly failed to do so. Not Mueller's fault that they (Congress) failed so egregiously. Not Mueller's fault that the media dropped the ball so egregiously on this, too.
Steele Dossier?
I still hear the same lies repeated that this was a flawed, erroneous smear document funded solely by the Democrats. Debunked, but they still say it. As near as I can tell by reading closely and between the lines, the Steele Dossier is largely but not entirely correct (typical, actually). It was initially funded by a PAC of Never-Trump Republicans, then languished for a while after Trump clinched the GOP nomination. Then the Dem party funded its more-or-less completion. But, it appears they never really used it in the 2016 election: the only people I ever heard mentioning the "pee-pee tape" were late night comedians, not anybody associated with any of the candidates.
The 2019/2020 impeachment?
I heard enough of the long and boring presentations of the House prosecution managers to understand that their case is founded upon actual and verifiable data. The GOP defense has not yet been entirely heard, so the "jury is still out" as far as I am concerned. But what I did hear so far is founded more on lies and conspiracy theories than on verifiable facts. And so far, the AP fact-checks back that assessment up. Thus, so far, it looks to me like the Dems made their case fairly well, and the GOP cannot make their case without telling lies, because they don't have much of a defense case. That suggests Trump really did these impeachable things. Yet, the Senate still looks inclined to acquit. So much for swearing to be objective jurors. Oath-breakers, the lot of them!
An issue no one debates anymore?
What pisses me off about the long and sordid history of all this impeachment stuff, is that treason or near-treason is no longer talked about. The last public utterance was by John Brennan, costing him his clearance. Treason or near-treason should still be talked about. Weakening the alliances, particularly NATO, while sucking-up to our enemies, is definitely "aid and comfort to the enemy", witnessed by millions if not billions on TV.
Narrowly avoiding war with Iran?
The other recent thing that pisses me off is the near-war with Iran that didn't need to have ever happened in the first place! Something that reportedly did traumatic brain injury to some 34 of our troops. Things would never have gotten that tense if Trump hadn't walked out on a nuclear deal that was working: even a bad deal is better than no deal at all! With lower tension, we could have killed Soleimani without nearly provoking a major war. Killing him was a good thing. How we did it was a really bad thing: egregiously incompetent. And they lied every which way about it, which is utterly intolerable. Period!
I am seriously pissed-off at both parties, but more pissed at the GOP for selling-out to extremism and Trumpism. I definitely recommend imposing de-facto term limits in November by not voting for any incumbents. Period. How could you do worse? I mean, really?
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
Offline
Like button can go here
GW,
Mueller Volume I:
It's amazing that you trust anything coming from our intelligence agencies. There was also unanimous agreement within our intelligence agencies that the Iraqis had WMD's. How'd that work out?
BTW, what specific investigations were there into what happened in Ukraine? So far as I know, the Russians invaded Ukraine under former President Obama's watch and he did nothing at all effective to deter their aggression, despite the fact that Ukraine agreed to give up many of its more advanced defense capabilities, which included possession of nuclear weapons, in return for a guarantee of protection from Russia from the United States. Why was lethal aid, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, only given under President Trump's watch?
Many in upper management in the FBI are now have active criminal investigations pending into their activities leading up to and after the 2016 Presidential elections. Was President Trump just supposed to trust in the good will of former President Obama's political appointees, despite the fact that their own writings indicated that there was none? Is President Trump supposed to trust the judgement of people claiming that they're actively looking for ways to undermine his administration?
Mueller Volume II:
Can you indicate which crimes those who surrounded President Trump were charged with that related in any way to his election campaign?
If guilt by association is how you want to play this, is former President Obama guilty of conspiring with the Russians to invade the Ukraine since he did nothing to stop it?
How is it that any report from an investigator could ever, in any way, exonerate a President of anything at all at any time, whatever the suspected crime?
Courts of law / triers of fact are the only entities in our government that may exonerate and they may only do that in instances where cases are brought before them that lack sufficient evidence to even support an indictment. Unless Bob Mueller recently became a court of law / trier of fact, he never had any power to exonerate anyone of anything at all. Writing something in a report doesn't amount to tangible evidence sufficient for criminal prosecution.
You said it yourself and so did Bob Mueller's report. They found nothing amounting to a crime. Behavior you dislike which breaks no laws is still not a crime. Since President Trump committed no crime during the process of winning the 2016 Presidential election, the rest of this is just whining and crying and temper tantrums over who won.
Steele Dossier:
The FBI made no attempt to verify anything in the Steele Dossier before it was presented to a FISA court. That was the finding of someone appointed by former President Obama. Submitting that kind of thing to a FISA court to obtain a surveillance warrant without making any attempt to verify even some part of it is, in point of fact, a federal crime.
Impeachment:
Anything founded on verifiable information doesn't require the absurd theatrics of the Democrats to present to the Senate. Congresswoman Pelosi and Schiff got in front of the cameras and claimed everything from bribery to preventing the Sun from rising the next day and then they presented a load of pure crap to the Senate. This was and is a Democrat Party political coup, in which not even all of their party could agree to perpetrate the farce, to remove our President from office because he made them look like the stupid and feckless wastes of tax payer money that the House Democrats have always been since I've been alive.
Treason:
Telling our "allies" who all signed documents many years ago agreeing to spend just 2% of GDP on their own defense isn't treason and it isn't weakening alliances nor helping Russia in any way since the Russians know that none of those nitwits leading the mainland European countries could all agree to fart if they were so constipated that the BS was oozing out of their eyeballs. If they're too self-centered and uninterested in spending money on anything other than their massive welfare states to mount a credible defense against Russian aggression, then America shouldn't have to foot the bill for their defense while they all criticize us for spending enough on our military to defend them from the Russians.
BTW, who the hell is "sucking up" to our enemies? President Trump has signed executive orders for more damaging sanctions against Russia than ever existed while former President Obama was President.
Iran:
If any Americans are dumb enough to think Iran would ever go along with anything that's in America's security interests, then they deserve what's coming if we permit them to continue to doing what they're doing. The Iranian government wants to "Death to America!". They're pretty clear on that point.
When the hell were we going to get rid of Soleimani? That little turd was over there directing the insurgent groups who were killing Americans for the better part of a decade. 34 Americans with traumatic brain injury vs the 600 to 700 that the insurgent groups under his command had already killed? Yeah, what a terrible deal for us. Former President Obama conducted more drone strikes on these terrorists than former Presidents Bush and Trump combined and you never said a word about it. In point of fact, former President Obama used a drone to kill an American citizen instead of arresting him and his son (and no, I could care less that he's gone because he was a murderous terrorist thug just like Sole-what's-his-name). Again, I never heard a word from you about it.
How could America do worse?
Well, we did do much worse under the Democrats when they had control of everything. Their ideas of what America is supposed to be don't correlate with anything at all that came from The Founders. I can't say that most of the Republicans are any better because they're not, but at least they're not presently actively trying to turn America into another single-party socialist utopia dictatorship.
In simple terms that I hope you can understand, the Democrat Party's ideas on liberties and economics all suck. They're very trite and tired old ideas that have never worked anywhere else they've ever been tried in all of human history. When you're all out of ideas to make life better for the average citizen and your "new ideas" are very old and reprehensible ideas that don't work and get lots of people killed because of your refusal to accept that your ideology doesn't square with human nature, it's time to let someone else with better ideas take over. All of our founding ideas (not necessarily adhered to) are as correct today as they were when they were first committed to paper.
All of this huffing and puffing is pointless. The Democrats lost one election because their candidate was so arrogant and condescending to the American people that the electorate in the overwhelming majority of districts decided to vote for someone else. Everything that followed was the greatest temper tantrum of all time. If the Democrats worked diligently to put forward better ideas, they could've easily won the next election. Small minds focus on people. Average minds focus on events. Great minds focus on ideas. Every Democrat politician and propaganda talking head has focused their attention on one man, to the exclusion of all other issues, because he made them all look like the small-minded people they truly are. They're worried that some of their followers who weren't small-minded took notice. Too late.
Offline
Like button can go here
Little wonder why Bolton went all the way to the courts to ask if he would need to testify if subpena'd and was told he would need to as his testimony was already in draft print John Bolton Draft Book Manuscript
President Donald Trump informed his former national security adviser John Bolton that he would freeze military aid to Ukraine until the country takes steps to investigate the Bidens, according to an unpublished Draft manuscript by Bolton....
Only need a few more that want to hear the truth as Mitt Romney Says He'll 'Likely' Vote in Favor of Witnesses Following Trump Defense Team's Opening Arguments
The future as told by Trumps lawyers ...Trump lawyers turn tables at impeachment trial, accuse Democrats of election interference Not any interference as he would not be on the ballots...unlike the FBI harponing while voting...
Offline
Like button can go here
Trump denies explosive new Bolton allegations Monday morning that he “NEVER” communicated to John Bolton that military aid to Ukraine was conditioned on the launch of probes into his domestic political rivals, as the president's aides and allies sought to beat back intensified calls for Bolton's testimony at the Senate impeachment trial.
John Bolton’s bombshell gives the GOP a glimpse of its nightmare scenario
Bolton writes that he heard Trump say explicitly that the withholding of military aid would continue until Ukraine announced an investigation involving the Bidens — implicating Trump directly in a quid pro quo for the first time and contradicting the Trump team’s defense.
Giuliani actually said publicly that these investigations weren’t about foreign policy but were instead about helping “my client.” There are also several confirmations that these were quid pro quos — including both military aid and a White House meeting — and that the quid pro quos were communicated to the Ukrainians, even if previous witnesses couldn’t say whether Trump explicitly signed off on them.
5 Takeaways on Trump and Ukraine From John Bolton’s Book
At least four Republicans would need to vote alongside all Democratic senators in order to secure new testimony. Romney, Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., are considered to be most likely Republicans to vote in favor of witnesses.
A day earlier, on Sunday, Graham told Fox News that seeking witness testimony would "throw the country into chaos," and said the Senate should get testimony from witnesses Trump seeks, like former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and the whistleblower, outside the impeachment process.
Republicans have spent the impeachment trial alternatively arguing that the House had not produced enough evidence to prove its case, and now Republicans: There’s No Point in More Evidence, Trump Will Just Obstruct It
The Utter Ridiculousness of the U.S. Senate behaviours are childish
Offline
Like button can go here
Kbd512:
I have not the time or inclination to respond to every point you tried to make to "refute" what I wrote. Suffice it to say that I disagree with the "facts" you implicitly presume, which are foundational to the hostility you display to all who do not share your politics.
There is one thing I am personally quite familiar with: the reliability of the intelligence community. You said something that presumes this community is worthless and lied to us about Iraq before the 2003 invasion. Quoted:
"It's amazing that you trust anything coming from our intelligence agencies. There was also unanimous agreement within our intelligence agencies that the Iraqis had WMD's. How'd that work out?"
You are quite wrong about that!
The consensus was if there was a WMD capability, it wasn't much. It wasn't nuclear, and it wasn't biological. The lies were told by the VP and advisors to Bush 43, not by the intelligence agencies! That's because Bush 43 was foolish enough to choose all save one, from a single political group usually referred-to as "neocons".
That's a group to which many things have been attributed, but the one constant over multiple decades was that these folks advocated never-ending war-for-profit over mideast oil. Afghanistan had none. Iraq did.
That's why they kept insisting Iraq had something to do with 9-11, when it so very clearly did not. Iraq had oil, so it just had to be invaded. Despite the fact that Saddam was "our boy against Iran", which is exactly why Bush 41 left him in power after the 1991 Gulf War.
The lone non-neocon on Bush 43's staff was Colin Powell. He and Bush 43 were lied-to 24/7, and ultimately convinced of the neocon cause. (Same classic "big lie" technique as Trump's defense today.) That is why Powell disgraced himself talking about Iraqi WMD's before the UN, and why Bush 43's coalition was so much smaller than Bush 41's coalition in 1991. Which in turn is why these wars have cost unbudgeted trillions.
That's not to say the intelligence agencies don't get things wrong, because they do. But, the errors tend to be technical mis-estimates about what this or that system can or cannot do. Where more than one agency is involved, the consensus effect tends to minimize (but not totally eliminate) the errors. Where only one agency is involved, you inherently get more errors. That's just life.
That's why the reports to the President come from a consensus of multiple agencies. Not perfect, but as good as humans can make it.
For one example I saw from the inside: the SA-6 "Gainful" anti-aircraft SAM first appeared in public in the 1967 May Day parade in Red Square, after the supporting technologies disappeared from the unclassified literature in 1962. The CIA misidentified it as a rocket system with "exaggerated fairings". This SAM was really a ramjet missile with 4 side-mounted supersonic inlets.
By the 1973 6-Day War, this system had been given to client states, notably Egypt. Because it had about 3 times the "legs" of a rocket system of that size and 1950/1960-vintage vacuum-tube electronics, it knocked down Israeli Phantoms like ninepins, and cost them about 30% of their air force in only those 6 days.
That was a technological "Pearl Harbor" that really upset the entire west. They do happen. And that has not been the only one during my lifetime.
The Israelis captured damaged SA-6 hardware on the battlefield, took it apart, made drawings, and tried to understand what it really was. They didn't understand what proved to be a ramjet that was NOT liquid-fueled. So they went to the CIA with it.
The CIA went to DOD, and this foreign technology exploitation project became a joint Army-Navy program under the name "Group Work". Different pieces went to different contractors, among them the ramjet fuel supply and combustor to the plant where I worked.
Being the "ramjet guy", I worked on it. This was 1978. I had the Israeli drawings (they were labeled in Hebrew, by the way) plus examples of the hardware and fuel propellant to work with.
I was not the program manager (those always claim credit for work done by others), I was the only mechanical engineer among 3 chemists who actually figured out this gas generator-fed ramjet with a pressed-propellant fuel grain. We duplicated materials, processes, and did airbreathing ground tests of the ramjet.
We did so well that we got a second contract (1979) to use other contractors' results along with our own, to characterize the actual engagement envelope of the SA-6 weapon system. I was the working engineer for that, too. It's just another part of what I did for ramjet work in general. (And I also did rocket work.)
Although decades obsolete, SA-6 is still a potent weapon today. The only F-117A stealth fighter ever lost to enemy fire was lost to an SA-6 in the Balkans. I know how and why, but can't really talk about that.
If chemist Moshe Gill is still alive in Israel, then he and I are the only two still alive in the west who know how to make that fuel propellant. I am the only one left alive in the west who knows how that ramjet works, and why flameholding (as distinct from mixing) was not an issue with the magnesium-rich fuel effluent from its gas generator unit. I also know how every piece of that engine and fuel supply was constructed, and why they were done the way they were.
I had interviewed with CIA about the time of the 6-Day War, but did not take the job because I didn't like the pay versus cost-of-living in the DC area. That was too late for the 1967 estimates they got wrong on the SA-6. But they did need people like me. They still do.
Yeah, they (the intelligence agencies) get things wrong now and then, and at a cost in lives, too. But they do not deliberately lie to anyone! The neocons did lie to everyone (and still do).
Sorry if that assessment is at extremely-strong variance with what you prefer to believe. But life is just more complicated and nuanced than in your preferred politics.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2020-01-28 13:06:57)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
Offline
Like button can go here