Is Donald Trump Done for?

[Timsup2nothin]

So, for today's GOP amusement...

In an impeachment trial the senators are not only bound by their oath as a senator, they are required to take an oath similar to the oath taken by regular jurors. The one about not being biased, making their decision based solely on the evidence presented, yada yada yada. Graham has already publicly stated that he will not be an unbiased juror, so does that mean he will refuse to take that oath? How many other Republican Senators are going to openly void their oath once they take it? Will McConnell go looking for some way to waive it under the "special circumstances that everyone already knows the GOP senators are spineless hacks?"

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So, for today's GOP amusement...

In an impeachment trial the senators are not only bound by their oath as a senator, they are required to take an oath similar to the oath taken by regular jurors. The one about not being biased, making their decision based solely on the evidence presented, yada yada yada. Graham has already publicly stated that he will not be an unbiased juror, so does that mean he will refuse to take that oath? How many other Republican Senators are going to openly void their oath once they take it? Will McConnell go looking for some way to waive it under the "special circumstances that everyone already knows the GOP senators are spineless hacks?"

It won't even be discussed or become an issue. The Democrats are too meek in the Senate to fight this effectively and they won't bother in my opinion.

Today Schumer asked McConnell for some say over how the trial is conducted and has asked for Bolton, Mulvaney and two other witnesses who defied subpoena's to be brought to testify. I'm sure if he just asks nicely it'll happen.


Trump was just fined $2 million dollars for charity fraud over the way he ran his foundation but that went completely under the radar. That alone would be a career-ending instant impeachment for a Democrat.

 

[Estebonrober]

E-M-O-L-U-M-E-N-T-S

I can't believe republicans let that crap go on and say NOTHING! Its the most damning thing I've seen their base ignore, eve more damning then budget deficits from here to kingdom come. You can;t cut food stamps enough to make up for 1 trillion dollar tax giveaways.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Lex said he's a Republican and you said his argument was completely disingenuous horse squeeze, so I got the impression you thought he was a Republican too. If he isn't, was Lex lying? Why is that a straw man?

Because trying to make me responsible for your erroneous impressions is the very definition of strawmanning.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Because trying to make me responsible for your erroneous impressions is the very definition of strawmanning.

Its in bad faith as well

 

[rah]

What law did he break? So bribery is off the list,

Are you claiming that withholding money until they did him a personal favor isn't illegal for the President?
Or that he didn't do it. (after admitting that he did)

 

[Sommerswerd]

Are you claiming that withholding money until they did him a personal favor isn't illegal for the President? Or that he didn't do it. (after admitting that he did)

As an aside, it amuses me how Trump's defenders are so quick to see the fact that the Democrats didn't charge a specific article of impeachment for bribery as proof that Trump is innocent of bribery... but simultaneously refuse to see the fact that Biden wasn't charged with any wrongdoing in connection with Ukraine, as proof that Biden is innocent of any wrongdoing.

 

[El_Machinae]

Again, it doesn't matter if the action was 'illegal'. "High Crimes" is a different thing than 'crimes'.

Actually, upthread I linked a Trumpcast podcast. I recommend people listen. I listened to figure out if Dore doesn't do due diligence (he doesn't), but there's an actual discussion of what impeachment is.

If you're going to argue online about it, 30 minutes more of self-education will pay dividends

 

[Farm Boy]

Optimist.

I can't believe republicans let that crap go on and say NOTHING! Its the most damning thing I've seen their base ignore, eve more damning then budget deficits from here to kingdom come. You can;t cut food stamps enough to make up for 1 trillion dollar tax giveaways.

I have to admit it is hard to care about any partisan horsehocky about emoluments and enforcement of the law when our largest online retailer takes loss after loss year after year in its online store, propped up by webhosting. Trusts are illegal. Cut-throat pricing is illegal. Massive monopolies get broken up like Ma Bell. Yeah, people care enough to ...Hah! Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Estebonrober]

Optimist.



I have to admit it is hard to care about any partisan **** about emoluments and enforcement of the law when our largest online retailer takes loss after loss year after year in its online store, propped up by webhosting. Trusts are illegal. Cut-throat pricing is illegal. Massive monopolies get broken up like Ma Bell. Yeah, people care enough to ...Hah! Hahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!

ineffectiveness at enforcing and upholding our principles should never lead to apathy.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ineffectiveness? Nah man, it's unwillingness. And I said it's hard, not impossible. I mean, I'm making an effort to care, but the words of Amazon shoppers are useless. I mean it's an arbitrary personal line, but I just don't gaf about what that cross section cares about emoluments. It's a big cross section. Happy to make personal exceptions, as always, but it's a macro observation not an individual one. Well no, there are plenty of individual ones too.

 

[Estebonrober]

Ineffectiveness? Nah man, it's unwillingness. And I said it's hard, not impossible. I mean, I'm making an effort to care, but the words of Amazon shoppers are useless. I mean it's an arbitrary personal line, but I just don't gaf about what that cross section cares about emoluments. It's a big cross section. Happy to make personal exceptions, as always, but it's a macro observation not an individual one. Well no, there are plenty of individual ones too.

yea I try to bring people’s attention to the fact that we just don’t enforce stuff but it is one of those blank stare discussions.

 

[Farm Boy]

Personally, one of the federal laws I'd like to see(enforced obv) is to make it illegal for local and state municipalities to selectively waive taxes as enticement to for-profit entities. Crooked-ass deals.

Hell, at this point I'd support the judiciary doing it on equal protection grounds if the argument could be made for different samples of population in privately funded and publicly funded school districts. But that's a pipe dream. I'd just like to see the largest cut-throat business shored up like we used to instead of being subsidized to wreck its traditional foe, brick and mortar, en masse. It couldn't, without the help. It couldn't, if we didn't ignore the law. But people love those packages with the horsehocky-eating smirk.

But w/e. Back to the Christmas shopping, rite?

 

[Estebonrober]

Personally, one of the federal laws I'd like to see(enforced obv) is to make it illegal for local and state municipalities to selectively waive taxes as enticement to for-profit entities. Crooked-ass deals.

Hell, at this point I'd support the judiciary doing it on equal protection grounds if the argument could be made for different samples of population in privately funded and publicly funded school districts. But that's a pipe dream. I'd just like to see the largest cut-throat business shored up like we used to instead of being subsidized to wreck its traditional foe, brick and mortar, en masse. It couldn't, without the help. It couldn't, if we didn't ignore the law. But people love those packages with the ****-eating smirk.

But w/e. Back to the Christmas shopping, rite?

I agree with this entirely and the depressing sentiment expressed at the end. I fight against the apathy of it all the time.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh! You're too kind in your interpretation. It's revulsion.

 

[Berzerker]

None of those people were convicted of conspiring with Russian interference in the 2016 election

Mueller showed no such thing what fantasy world are you living in? He wrote out 10 counts of obstruction into the russia investigation. The fact that democrats were too weak to pursue those isn't a sign of Trump's innocence it is a sign of the perpetual weakness of the left.

I think the 10 counts were related to oversight of a corrupted investigation. The IG report shows the investigation was corrupted, the IG report shows Trump not only had reason but justification to demand different investigators. I'd argue he had justification to shut it down and investigate the people responsible. They couldn't impeach him for conspiring with foreigners to interfere - something they actually did - so now they're impeaching him for investigating their interference.

And then they preach the rule of law to us?

Because trying to make me responsible for your erroneous impressions is the very definition of strawmanning.

A straw man is an argument designed to replace an opponent's argument, what argument was I replacing and what argument is the straw man? Like you said, its irrelevant. You accused Turley of malfeasance and shilling for the Republicans, I got the impression you thought Turley was a Republican too, so what?

You've been calling me a Republican for years because I defend Trump or criticize your politicians so I thought it was a habit with you. Wouldn't it have been easier to say you dont think Turley's a Republican? Thats how I responded when yer buddy Lex accused me of lying.

Its in bad faith as well

Why? It wasn't even an argument, just an easily clarifiable miss-impression. I've been clarifying his erroneous impressions for years and he still repeats the same accusations. Yes, your mistakes are honest and mine are the devious ploys of a mustachioed villain. How many Nazi sympathizers have you identified on the forum?

Are you claiming that withholding money until they did him a personal favor isn't illegal for the President? Or that he didn't do it. (after admitting that he did)

It wasn't a personal favor, it was in pursuit of policy. The favor he asked for was an investigation into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. The burden of proof is on you, if you think its illegal, show us the law. I'm agnostic, I dont know and I doubt it rises to the impeachment level. It aint like he asked for a kick back, that would be impeachable. Here's the transcript:

Trump

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.

The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all, I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

perfect

 

[Azem.Ocram]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/impeachment-lindsey-graham-wont-pretend-be-fair-juror

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/politics/mitch-mcconnell-response-schumer-impeachment/index.html

The hypocrisy is hilarious!

 

[rah]

It wasn't a personal favor,

Then why isn't he withholding funds to Russia about their corruption and interference in the 2016 election?

Of course it was personal.

 

[Naskra]

It wasn't a personal favor

This is true. Trump did humanity a service in attempting to drive Biden out of public life. Only yesterday, Barack the Wise cautioned us about toxic senility. Who could he have had in mind? So Trump takes a hit for team blue, and gets no thanks.

 

[rah]

I guess that's no weirder than what the Trumpettes actually believe about this.