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Kinda puts everything the Republicans claim to be pure, utter, self proclaimed bull***t.............
Originally Posted by Perotista
LOL, okay. There may be only a couple of senators truly unbiased. Every other senators are biased as all get out. I'd say 95 out of the 100 senators vote is cast in stone before the trial begins, before one shred of evidence is offered or one witness is called. [...] Minds and votes have been made up for at least 95 senators since the House began its unofficial investigations back in February. That's 95 senators at the least, perhaps one or two more that are biased as Hades that ought to recluse themselves if being biased for or against Trump is the case.
Even if I grant you everything, the principle of the thing is what counts and when one openly and scurrilously mocks that principle, one is delivering a fatal blow to universal respect for the law.
Tell me, Perotista...why should any criminal take any future oath seriously from here on out? Why should perjury, witness tampering or any malfeasance even be considered a crime from here on out.
It is one thing to have a gut feeling on the odds of a vote or outcome, or to have apprehension or engage in pessimistic advance speculation as to the outcome of a juror's decision.
It is another thing altogether to mock it openly in the light of day, in full view of the American people.
This isn't making fun of your mother-in-law, this is openly dropping a cyanide capsule in her Chardonnay in full view of her and her whole damn family.
Simply put, this is openly announcing that one intends to scoff at the rule of law...while serving as a lawmaker.
Mitch McConnell is inviting the American people to sniff and admire the lunker bowl-winder he has laid on the bench.
There is no defense, none, zero, zip, zilch, nada.
I agree the facade of impartiality, of bias, of having predetermined results have been dropped. No doubt about that. During Bill Clinton's impeachment and trial, that facade remained in place. No senator openly came out and told you his vote ahead of time. But we all knew how 98 out of 100 senators were going to vote prior to any trial. Evidence, witnesses, were irrelevant. Might as well not had any and gone straight to the vote. But the facade was kept in place.
Not so with Trump. There isn't any facade anymore. Impeachment is a political process. One can't expect members of each party to drop their partisanship at the door. I can tell you 45 out of 47 Democrats have their guilty vote set in concrete before one shred of evidence or witness is presented. Manchin and Jones are question marks in my book. I'd say at least 49 of 53 Republicans are the same, their vote is already determined. Collins, Murkowski could vote guilty, perhaps a couple of others who come from blue states up for reelection in 2020.
But the others won't be weighing the evidence, they will be weighing their chances of reelection in Nov 2020. Self preservation. Same for Democrat Jones, Alabama where Trump has a 60% approval rating. 61% in Manchin's West Virginia.
You have perhaps, maybe six senators who will actually weigh the evidence and listen to what the witnesses say. All others have their minds made up, regardless of what is presented, it is all irrelevant. This is the fact of life, politics, in our modern era of polarization and ultra-high partisanship.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
Dueling partisanship is not really the dividing line.
I have been canvassing bloggers on a right wing site, asking what conservative policies they support and it turns out they have no idea. Their partisanship is all rooted in a deeply cultivated emotional hatred for “liberals”. They actually don’t know why they feel that way.
Liberals, however, do, in my experience, more often have an interest in policies and principles. They do not seem to to be much motivated by blind loyalty for the party or for any individuals (see RR for evidence).
In the impeachment process there are a good many obvious facts, which the Dems have documented according to a fairly decent process. The Reeps “defense” of Trump is based on ignoring the facts.
It is true that the left has had it in for Trump since early on, but that is not due to partisanship, it is because he is truly no good - he is a corrupt, dishonest, unethical, incompetent, bullying narcissist. Right-wing politicians who are trying to save his dirty ass are doing so on the motivation of staying in power by continuance of the tried and true techniques of conning the unfortunately large segment of the population that is gullibly susceptible to being conned.
I respectfully reject your premise of hyper-partisanship on both sides as wallpapering over the ugly reality of the situation.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
Presenting a statement that ‘both sides do it’ is a thin version of a false equivalency argument. The con of the false equivalency is also at the root of the ‘butwhattaboutyourguy’ comeback. The fact is that political faults are rarely equivalent, and even when they are, is it rational to defend your guy for doing a bad thing on the basis that somebody else’s guy did an equally bad thing in the past?
No. That defense is nothing more than a willingness to degrade the standards of morality and ethics on which civilization is maintained.
The butwhattaboutyourguy argument is only sometimes useful to highlight hypocrisy, but the user has to have been consistently critical of the misbehavior of the characters involved in order to have any credibility. The false equivalency argument, especially stated as a broad generality, is never honest.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
The case is not about "just" a phone call. There was a large scale conspiracy, led by Mr Trump, using Sec Pompeo, Amb Sondland, CoS Mulvaney, and a host of minor henchmen to leverage US standing as a hegemony over Ukraine by withholding 1) essential, Congressionally authorized,military aid, and proper DoD signoff, 2) WH meeting to solidify allied relationship and enhance Pres Zelenskiy to his people, in consideration of 1) investigations into Burisma, 2) investigations into Crowdstrike in relation to 2016 and hacking DNC, 3) investigation into Hunter and VP Biden for corruption. The investigations had a 2-fold purpose. First to undermine the Mueller Report and the IC determinations Russia was behind the meddling i.e. it was Ukraine, and second, to use corruption investigations as political dirt in the 2020 election against a putative political opponent.
I dunno ... I am not an attorney nor a Constitutional scholar, but that appears to be a FEC violation i.e. solicitation from a foreign etc etc. There was a conspiracy involved in that solicitation ergo there was a criminal conspiracy
You don't have to use the precise words to say the same thing, so I have to ask .... does it sound like a FEC violation and does it appear to be a conspiracy to promulgate that solicitation??? (There is a reason every single Republican does not say it is ok to solicit foreign aid for an election .... it is not just wrong but illegal!!!!!!!)
ignorance is the enemy without equality there is no liberty America can survive bad policy, but not destruction of our Democratic institutions
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
Is that your argument for allowing any president to run criminal enterprises out of the WH?
Why the frak do we even have a Constitution??????
I didn't say a thing about any criminal enterprise. Only expecting one side to recluse itself because of bias when both sides are, that doesn't pass my common sense test. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If one side must recluse itself because of bias, then both sides must.
I don't recall anyone on the other side making such a scurrilous public proclamation in advance of an oath. What IS the "bias" we've observed during the Inquiry phase of the impeachment anyway? Democrats are convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that multiple offenses against the Constitution have been intentionally committed by the POTUS.
So to accuse them of bias is like saying that a Grand Jury is biased because they voted to indict a criminal for running a criminal enterprise. That's bias? How do we ever return an indictment against anybody for anything then?
"The Best of the Leon Russell Festivals" DVD deepfreezefilms.com
Not so with Trump. There isn't any facade anymore.
How long have you actually studied Donald J. Trump? I mean, really closely studied the man and watched him in action? Me? At least fifty years, maybe more.
My maternal grandfather and his son helped build much of Long Island's residential communities both before and after WW2. Before the war it was mostly cabinet-making and wrought iron work but after the war it was full fledged residential construction. If you watch the film footage used during the end credits in "All In The Family", that entire neighborhood and much more, that you see on the screen? That's my grandfather and my uncle's handiwork...they built those homes.
Those neighborhoods you see in "Goodfellas"? They built much of that, too.
Fred Trump, Donald Trump and family have been a thorn in their backsides for nearly three quarters of a century. It's not bias, Perotista! We've just known to the marrow of our bones that Donald Trump is a rotten crook, and we knew that way back in the 80's and 90's when he first started muttering about wanting to be President. Don't confuse bias with firsthand knowledge and instinctual confirmation that you're looking at a really bad person.
"The Best of the Leon Russell Festivals" DVD deepfreezefilms.com
The Regressive arguments about Trump's impeachment are a continuation of a descent into chaos. If everything anyone claims is equally valid, with no recourse to differentiating fact from 'alternative fact', how can anything ever be resolved?
The Founders had some faith that there would always be more honest elected people in the government than there would be dishonest people, therefore things would always eventually work out for the best.
Having all three branches of government being controlled by dishonest and unethical scoundrels was not in the picture. Crazy thing is that the insane people are gleeful about destroying our government.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
From this we can assume with near certainty that Ratcliffe—and, presumably, Devin Nunes, and each member whose campaign may have been a beneficiary of Lev Parnas' Russian cash—considers it acceptable to break those laws himself.
In a time of rampant administration and congressional corruption (see: Duncan Hunter), the blanket assertion by House and Senate Republicans that their candidates are allowed to break U.S. law to advantage themselves in their elections is a crisis of democracy.
"It is a fascist moment."
"The Best of the Leon Russell Festivals" DVD deepfreezefilms.com
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