monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I alluded to this McConnell move earlier but Lockhart gets it right too

Quote:

@ReliableSources
Fmr. WH Press Secy.
@joelockhart
on press access to Pres. Trump’s impeachment trial: “There’s nothing that’s going to be happening in the Senate that changes the security dynamic… This is about Mitch McConnell and Republican Senators trying to control the flow of information.”

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

In 2013, Ed Meese suggested that Obama was impeachable if he took action on gun control

Some people think that it's wrong for progressives to violate everyone's civil liberties for fun.

blatham wrote:

As I've said before and as is utterly transparent, the GOP cares only about gaining and maintaining power. Bi-partisanship... ha ha ha.

You say all sorts of nonsense. Speaker Boehner did his best to reach a deal with Mr. Obama. Then Mr. Obama gave in to extremists and undermined the deal.

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Famous traitor speaks about Trumpish behavior

Quote:

Captain "Sully" Sullenberger writes, "What might a child who stutters, as I did, feel when they hear a grown-up on a public stage trying to make a bunch of other adults laugh by ridiculing a public figure who also stutters?"

NYT

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@blatham,

The point you made was indeed simple. It was also a fatuous tautology - necessarily true and without relevance to the issue you raised - just as I noted. Unfortunately you merely tried to evade that obvious truth here.

That some of the objections I raised are common to many who oppose your political views does not mean either that they came from Fox news, or that it is the source of my observations. You appear to rather insultingly believe otherwise. Consider the obvious facts that you really don't know my motives and thoughts, or indeed the sources for my information. Instead you merely rely on your rather sophomoric assumption that anyone who holds a view opposing yours must necessarily be in the hidden control of some nefarious Svengali - and Fox news appears to be your favorite choice here. This is both offensively condescending and revealing of your own one-sided consideration of available facts on these issues. In short you are projecting your own faults on those who disagree with you.

That efforts to unseat Trump by various Democrat Leaders began soon after his election, and have continued on a continuous basis ever since, is beyond dispute. The additional fact that the recent impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, was, unlike those the preceded it, totally the work of a single party, and the votes to Impeach came exclusively from Democrats is a verifiable fact known to us both. These facts do indeed distinguish this Impeachment from those that preceded it, just as I affirmed, and notwithstanding your deceitful efforts to obscure them.

I'm trying to deal logically with issues you raised in your earlier post, and not to attack or embarrass you. Unfortunately you do that yourself with your evasions and prevarications - though your remaining faithful claques here may profess otherwise.

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I am convinced that:

1) even if it became incontrovertible that Trump did in fact withhold funds from the Ukraine precisely to coerce the government there to announce an investigation of Biden as a means to help his campaign and

2) that he clearly obstructed justice in hiding documents and keeping staff from testifying to these facts

... that not a single conservative here would support impeachment and removal. Not a single one. All would be excusable. Guilt is irrelevant.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

That efforts to unseat Trump by various Democrat Leaders began soon after his election,

Not nearly good enough. How is it, george, that you can make such claims and provide absolutely no supporting evidence for the truth of them? It's lazy or it's cowardly or it's just shallow discourse because you don't know better.

And of course it presents the obvious question - from where did you encounter the idea, george? Where did you read it? Who said it?

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@blatham,

Quote:

I am convinced that:

Talk about a "who cares" moment. Laughing

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@blatham,

The President is charged by the Constitution with leading and conducting our relations with other countries. That duty stands whether there is associated political benefit to him or not. Given our strategic interests in the independence of Ukraine, the aid that we are providing them, and the longstanding record of unsavory corruption within it, Trump had many legitimate reasons to want some self-examination of these longstanding problems on the part of its newly elected President, and would have been derelict in meeting his responsibilities had he no done so.

The Executive privilege with respect to the privacy of communications among the President and his various advisors and Executive Department Heads, is a long-established legal principle that protects precisely the information the House Committees were seeking. The normal constitutional process in a dispute over this Privilege is to refer the matter to the Federal courts, charged with resolving disputes between the other two branches of our government. The Democrats in the House chose not to do that, and instead mate the President's legitimate claim of Privilege an article of Impeachment. This is a meaningless and legally empty charge.

We don't yet know the voting results in the Senate, though it is likely to follow party lines fairly closely, given the totally partisan nature of the process to date. There is an ample, indeed overwhelming, basis for the immediate dismissal, by the Senate, of both articles of Impeachment, hastily approved by the House of Representatives in a totally partisan manner, and a stunning departure from past Impeachment procedures.

Mere blather about what you suppose "conservatives" will or won't do doesn't change these facts.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Not nearly good enough. How is it, george, that you can make such claims and provide absolutely no supporting evidence for the truth of them? It's lazy or it's cowardly or it's just shallow discourse because you don't know better.
And of course it presents the obvious question - from where did you encounter the idea, george? Where did you read it? Who said it?

Setting aside the fact that we were all here watching when the Democrats launched their witch hunt, and the fact that you were right here yelling "Look everyone! I think what those witch hunters think!" when the witch hunt started, I just provided links to counter your denial of reality.

Not that this will stop you from denying reality, but everyone can see the truth.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

I am convinced that:

1) even if it became incontrovertible that Trump did in fact withhold funds from the Ukraine precisely to coerce the government there to announce an investigation of Biden as a means to help his campaign and

2) that he clearly obstructed justice in hiding documents and keeping staff from testifying to these facts

... that not a single conservative here would support impeachment and removal. Not a single one. All would be excusable. Guilt is irrelevant.

Of course.

That's because:

1) there is nothing even remotely wrong with trying to get people to investigate the Biden crime family, and

2) the Democrats were just fine with Bill Clinton obstructing justice.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
That efforts to unseat Trump by various Democrat Leaders began soon after his election,
Not nearly good enough. How is it, george, that you can make such claims and provide absolutely no supporting evidence for the truth of them? It's lazy or it's cowardly or it's just shallow discourse because you don't know better.

Perhaps not good enough for you, but OK with me. I believe the now well publicized flaws in the Origins of the Mueller Investigation, and its failure to find any legally actionable charges, not to mention the well known, contemporaneous press reports of the expressed intentions of numerous Democrat leaders, provide ample support for my statement.

You raise this issue of "needed citations" frequently when you are cornered, but you only rarely provide them yourself.

blatham wrote:

And of course it presents the obvious question - from where did you encounter the idea, george? Where did you read it? Who said it?

Where did I get these Ideas? That's getting to be a rather tiresome refrain of yours. Does it really matter? I have been pretty clear about the facts and logic supporting them -- certainly far more than have you in the posts to which I was responding.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

Quote:
Not nearly good enough. How is it, george, that you can make such claims and provide absolutely no supporting evidence for the truth of them? It's lazy or it's cowardly or it's just shallow discourse because you don't know better.

Perhaps not good enough for you, but OK with me.

Ok. I'm sure you can find someone who thinks that stacked assertions with no evidence provided is worthy of attention and engagement.

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@blatham,

Quote:

Ok. I'm sure you can find someone who thinks that stacked assertions with no evidence provided is worthy of attention and engagement.

Are you speaking of the House majority? That is exactly what they are doing.

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@coldjoint,

I don't usually find us to be in disagreement, coldjoint, but the House investigation turned up plenty of evidence — and eyewitness testimony, if allowed, would have turned up more.

Going forward, it's likely that Mulvaney or Bolton will offer evidence which will clear the president. I know you and I both are looking forward to their testimony. Hunter "No Account" Biden has got nothing to offer. It's the eyewitness accounts of Trump's trusted staff that will surely exonerate the president.

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@hightor,

Quote:

but the House investigation turned up plenty of evidence

That was hearsay. There is no need to give executive privilege away. It will weaken the office of president forever. The Constitution gave the president this power for a reason. This crap is a Hell of a reason. You seek to destroy that apparently necessary power. The Constitution means nothing to Democrats.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

the House investigation turned up plenty of evidence -- and eyewitness testimony, if allowed, would have turned up more.

Evidence of acts that are perfectly legitimate and are in no way wrongdoing.

hightor wrote:

Going forward, it's likely that Mulvaney or Bolton will offer evidence which will clear the president.

hightor wrote:

It's the eyewitness accounts of Trump's trusted staff that will surely exonerate the president.

There is no need for exoneration when the behavior in question is not a crime.

hightor wrote:

Hunter "No Account" Biden has got nothing to offer.

He can show that the Biden crime family is worthy of investigation.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Ok. I'm sure you can find someone who thinks that stacked assertions with no evidence provided is worthy of attention and engagement.

Plenty of evidence has been offered. And we were all here witnessing it when it happened anyway.

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@hightor,

Most of the evidence developed in the House Inquiries were 2nd hand or hearsay testimony that wouldn't be admitted in any legal proceeding. The one or two bits of first hand testimony they yielded appeared to clear Trump of any acknowledged untoward intent.

Beyond that the case for impeachment based on the Ukrainian matter has a very seriously defective logical and factual basis. For example;
The unspoken assumption, prevailing throughout the House investigation, was that any Trump recommendation or interference into Ukrainian corruption was necessarily and exclusively intended to damage VP Biden, and not at all motivated by specific concerns about long-standing and pervasive corruption in Ukraine - a nation important to our Strategic interests and for which Trump had initiated a significant increase in the amount of aid and military equipment being provided . This is an unreasonable presumption of intent for which no evidence was found or presented. Trump was making his first contact with a newly-elected Ukrainian President who had campaigned on an attack on that same prevailing corruption, and it appears obvious to me that an affirmation of that goal was indeed a suitable, and even necessary goal for the call.

Separately the Constitution assigns the President the exclusive duty to conduct our Foreign Relations. That duty exists whether the process involved is either beneficial or harmful to the President politically.

There can be no doubt that former VP Biden's actions, both in Ukraine and China to enable or facilitate financial benefits to his wayward middle aged son, as a very minimum, created the appearance of a self-serving conflict of interest, that I believe would not be normally tolerated on the part of any senior official of the Military or Government. Oddly, virtually no acknowledgment of that obvious fact has come from Trump's Congressional opponents.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

The one or two bits of first hand testimony they yielded appeared to clear Trump of any acknowledged untoward intent.

Exactly! So lets get more than "one or two bits" of firsthand testimony and clear the president unambiguously and decisively.

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...and not at all motivated by specific concerns about long-standing and pervasive corruption in Ukraine...

No, I think "digging up dirt on Biden" is perfectly legitimate. As is tracking down the Ukrainian origins of the Steele dossier. That way we're not involving ourselves with the internal affairs of another country but instead, actively, openly, and honestly pursuing the president's political interests, which is totally legal. Who gives a damn if the country's a cesspool of corruption? We shouldn't be involved in "nation building", we should be looking out for the USA.

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That duty exists whether the process involved is either beneficial or harmful to the President politically.

Yup, that's what I'm getting at. If anything, strengthening the chief executive's political power is ultimately strengthening American power.

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Oddly, virtually no acknowledgment of that obvious fact has come from Trump's Congressional opponents.

What did you expect? I've got a feeling that once this sham has run its course, Trump is going to grab the bull by the horns and push for tighter ethical standards in government, especially concerning lobbyists, the so-called "revolving door", fraud and waste in the military, and nepotism. The country will be better off for it.

1 Reply

@hightor,

Quote:

Trump is going to grab the bull by the horns and push for tighter ethical standards in government, especially concerning lobbyists, the so-called "revolving door", fraud and waste in the military, and nepotism. The country will be better off for it.

There's a thought that bears repeating.

There's an "arab spring" happening globally, and the US of A won't miss out.

The Australian govt has exposed themselves for the corrupt mob of misfits and arseholes, during our recent bushfire crisis, and people are becoming more aware of just how bad things became.

Bravo.

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