Lurker > red sox 777

Mitch is apparently signaling that there aren't enough votes to block witnesses right now.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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And as for all the money he took from banks.....I think he can give a speech on the lines of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina," in which he talks about how he grew up poor and has been dedicated to them his whole life, and he may have taken tens of millions of dollars from banks to give speeches to them but it never impacted his heart or decisions. And in fact, since it was all after he left office, he had no decisions to make, since Hillary wasn't listening to his advice anyway.

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Bill was acquitted. I think he's fine as long as he apologizes for NAFTA and his move to the center. I want him to say that he did it because his economists and Republicans told him that it would be good for the country, and, being young and inexperienced, he heeded their advice and ignored Bernie's warnings. But he now recognizes how wrong he was.

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And specifically I want Hillary impeached on a charge of lese majeste, for insulting the sovereign (The American People).

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

*puts on Red Sox hat*

Fine, Republicans can have the Bidens testify, and in exchange both Joe Biden and Donald Trump get impeached and removed for abuse of power.

An interesting proposal. I think Hillary needs to be impeached too though, at least.

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If they call Bolton, I want:

Joe Biden
Hunter Biden
Victor Shokin
Whoever in the Ukrainian government fired Victor Shokin

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https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-28/trump-team-wraps-impeachment-defense-with-an-elephant-in-the-senate-john-bolton

Out of left field, Dianne Feinstein says she may vote for acquittal!

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Don't think anyone here thinks that!

Thankfully you don't need to be a good person to be a good witness

But if you are known to be dishonest, then you are probably not a very good witness.

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I wonder if Paul Ryan and co. regret not impeaching Obama. If Biden gets elected, as soon as the GOP takes back the House they are probably going to impeach him for Ukraine corruption.

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I wonder if Pelosi will retire if the Democrats lose the House in November.

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Although, Trump is still better than Hillary since he didn't blame things on a Youtube video.

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Someone has also launched more attacks on our embassy in Baghdad. It looks like Iran has escalated instead of backing down. Quite an embarrassing episode for Trump since his action against Soleimani didn't produce the results we wanted and he criticized Hillary hard for allowing the Benghazi attack to happen. Turns out defending our embassies in dangerous countries is not that easy.

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Well yeah, of course Obama did quid pro quo with Russia. So did Kennedy (Russia removed its missiles from Cuba and the USA removed its missiles from Turkey). Completely non-impeachable.

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I'm not sure if it's possible to charge someone for attempt to conspire to commit a crime and googling isn't giving an immediate answer. Maybe someone else knows.

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FFDragon posted...

wouldn't the coordination with another person be covered when he literally tells the goon to "go ahead, get rid of her"

But if the other person doesn't agree to join the conspiracy, then no conspiracy was formed. I guess you could charge attempted conspiracy? But it would be very hard to believe that the President was trying to put a hit on her instead of ordering her firing.

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FFDragon posted...

Conspiracy to commit murder is still a thing, I'm p sure

Conspiracy requires some act in coordination with another person in furtherance of the conspiracy. Attempt requires well, an attempt to commit the crime. Talking about it by itself does not constitute either of those.

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metroid composite posted...

When you say "source of our success" what do you mean exactly? Source of specifically Trump's success in 2016? Or something else?

Cause it's entirely possible for a Democrat to lose the popular vote and win the election, and be a reverse of 2016.

Something exactly like this happened in Canada in our most recent election. The Conservative party got the most votes, and ended up in a pretty big loss in the parliament split (157 to 121). They won in massive 80-20 blowouts in some parts of the country (mostly Alberta), and lost by narrow margins in the rest of the country.

(Of course, a bunch of them got on social media bitching about how Canada should switch to a popular vote system, which is funny cause most of them also followed the 2016 US election and were against the popular vote at that time).

Anyway, I'm in favour of the popular vote, not because I expect it to benefit one party or the other (it's a fairly neutral) but because I don't live in a battleground state and feel pretty ignored over here. It would be cool to have politicians campaigning near me, maybe a rally every once in a while, or something.

I mean what has made America great over 200+ years and the UK great for hundreds more years. The principle that all elections must be local and tied to land, that the national popular vote should count for nothing.

This principle works precisely because it gives no advantage to winning some areas 80-20, and forces politics to focus on the places with a healthy division in public discourse. And I think the UK conservatives made a huge mistake in abandoning this principle and holding 3 national referenda in 5 years - which I think they have learned not to do again after seeing the results!

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So are there any Dems who don't want to abolish the Electoral College? I think this is probably my most important issue- getting rid of the source of our success is not negotiable.

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That's called making a deal. If you want something from another country you have to offer them something in return. Or you can just give speeches and get nothing like Obama did, or go to war like Bush.

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About the 18-year-old Georgia boy who was deported to Mexico who came to the US at age 1 and most of whose family are US citizens - he is remarkably collected when talking to the media and blames himself for making some small mistakes that led to getting arrested for very minor crimes. I think he should be allowed to return.

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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Unless there is a specific act of Congress, the Commander in Chief can do whatever he wants with military personnel, at any time. He can fire all transgendered soldiers, he can make all left-handed privates generals. He's the boss.

Maybe that will make people think harder about how they vote next time?

I don't think we were talking about legality. And if we were, the commander in chief at a minimum owes his soldiers the same duty the King owed to those serving under him.

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FFDragon posted...

didn't he try to ban transgender people from the military on twitter

Is that different from the other 44?

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Corrik7 posted...

As less of the population is religious and the republican party clings to the religious aspect, it will bleed women support. In presidential elections, women I think tend to trend towards their husbands (if they have one) which is why I think Presidential elections are likely closer than what I expect from off year ones.

Presidential elections for better or worse are viewed as having more of an impact on the family's jobs and finances.

The day and age will come when this will change, but I don't think we are quite there yet.

Women tend to be more religious than men. Go to an evangelical church and you'll find that women by and large run the operation - although they have men to be the public faces of the church.

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On a different note, Trump has unquestionably been the best President for LGBT people. He is literally the only President who supported their equality with other people. Even Obama ran on a platform to the contrary, until he later "evolved" years into his presidency.

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I thought the rhetoric sounded far below the usual standard for SCOTUS opinions. An actual quote from the Gorsuch opinion: "If all of this is confusing, don't worry, because none of it matters much at this point."

Like really? That sounds like shoddy journalism from Yahoo News or CNN. Gorsuch and the majority are probably right about the inappropriateness of district court judges trying to issue national injunctions, but that writing is disappointing.

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Ashethan posted...

Trump's policies are just as bad as those Republicans want though! Well at least for people who aren't billionaires who's last name is "Trump"

That's just not true. Trump has saved the average American household thousands already through his tax cuts. Trump has renegotiated our trade deals to be better for American workers.

Do 80% of the benefits of Trump's policies go to the rich? Sure, but it would be 100% with any other Republican.

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And now that I think about it, even if Republicans prefer Bernie to his VP, they might still impeach him thinking that Bernie is likely to win reelection while the VP is sure to lose as Bernie's supporters won't be voting Dem again after the party impeached him.

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Bernie should also strongly consider a "poison pill" VP like Jill Stein if he's nominated to ensure that Democrats don't impeach him. But even that is no guarantee, and the GOP might impeach the next Dem president as a matter of principle (proportional retaliation).

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Literally gave a speech to the UN extolling the ideological merits of nationalism but go off

Dems should copy him and talk about identity through policy proposals. Instead of talking about privilege vaguely, talk about reparations. Talking about nebulous concepts like privilege without spelling out what you propose to do just makes people afraid. Maybe you aren't talking about what you would do because it would be really awful!

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One reason to vote for Trump over Bernie on a policy basis is that he can get the entire Republican Congressional delegation in support of any of his policies simply by saying he supports it. Even if the policies run counter to what those Republicans have said for decades.

Whereas Bernie is going to be fighting Congressional Dems from day 1. They hate him so much Bernie is going to have to keep Republicans friendly just to avoid being impeached. Don't doubt the Congressional Dems would sell out Bernie to get his VP made president the first chance they get.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

If only Generic Dem existed:

https://twitter.com/politics_polls/status/1221267954689564672?s=21

Generic Dem is a unicorn. It's people's dream candidate, but that party no longer exists. The modern Dem party is so deep into identity politics that candidates get attacked for even trying to talk about actual policies.

You'll note Trump's strategy of always talking about policy even when you think he's really talking about identity (build the wall, lock her up, send her back are all concrete policies that evoke a feeling of identity).

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Class is important but it's about intersectionality with that, and it seems obvious to me that Bernie is not very good at reconciling the two even though he tries.

What policies does intersectionality propose? I haven't heard any that are the slightest bit appealing to the electorate and actually is an actionable policy as opposed to a statement of beliefs.

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Like you gotta understand that it's not possible to stand for everything. That's what Hillary tried - she took the most popular position on every single issue. And people just thought that meant she was dishonest. Which she was. Because anyone who decides their positions by taking the most popular position on every issue is dishonest.

Bernie has a position on class that he feels strongly about. He'll hammer it home. It hasn't worked too well for decades, but we are now at a point where class inequality has gotten to the point where it's a powerful national message.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

He didnt change his message, yeah. But I'm criticizing the one he has! Bernie has a history of being tone-deaf on how marginalized groups see him because he's so focused on class issues. This is him continuing to not quite understand or care about the qualms people have with him. He's a politician and he could stand to do better. That's all.

If anyone feels that way they don't have to vote for Bernie. But he's the only one talking about class, while everyone else focuses on the other issues, so you can understand why his supporters feel strongly about him.

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And I say this as someone with a substantial amount of student loans myself - since graduating I've strived to pay the minimum possible. I have no desire to pay a penny more than I have to, and I don't see much benefit in getting the loans paid off a day before they have to be. Why should I? The bigger the balance is on the loan, the more benefit I'll get when someone like Warren comes and forgives it all.

This kind of behavior is completely rational and also should not be encouraged.

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Like, the problem I have with most of the Democrats and liberals in general is that they lack any kind of workable strategy for fixing the problems they see in society, even when they accurately identify the problem. Their strategy consists of nothing more than screaming and yelling and launching character assassinations of others. And maybe just confiscating wealth from some people and giving it to others (if we're lucky - if we're not, they'll siphon off 99% of the money they steal and give it to themselves).

Elizabeth Warren's tone deaf student loan strategy is a great example of this. Does she think people with student loans are categorically more needy than those without them? Who needs help more, a well educated college grad who makes 150k a year or a high school grad who makes 30k a year? Under Warren's plan, that college grad still gets student loan relief even if he has 500k in his brokerage account. Which itself isn't a problem, but remember, that person who didn't go to college because they couldn't afford it gets nothing. Zero. Because they didn't want to go into debt to pay exorbitant salaries and build palatial campuses for professors and administrators like Elizabeth Warren.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Sure, but this is an ideological issue, not just a political one, and I'm told that Bernie has the purest ideology and that's what makes him different from a normal politician.

He's got the purest ideology? I guess I'll get a cease and desist letter any day now then telling me I can't support him because I have too many conservative views.

I think politicians should be really really tolerant of their supporters' views. Any ideological purity tests should be applied to the candidate, not his supporters.

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Because Bernie doesn't have a long history of troubling associations with the center. Bernie hasn't given speeches to Wall Street banks for 250k a speech. Bernie hasn't been paid 300k by an Ivy League university to teach one course. Bernie has walked the walk for decades.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1220829061859237895?s=21

57% think what Trump did was legal? And 65% of the all-important independents? He's looking like a huge favorite to win reelection then.

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banananor posted...

red sox, you are so full of shit.

you're now blaming democrats for being gerrymandered

Gerrymandering didn't force Democrats to focus 90% of their efforts on cities. We have this rural/urban divide elsewhere in the world but maybe nowhere else is there as big a divide as here. The conservatives are always able to win a bunch of seats in London even with winner take all FPTP districts. Ahmadinejad won a slight majority in Tehran per the official vote count (if you don't believe that count, there's little question he at least did way better in Tehran than any Republican does in a major American city).

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

This is a great argument but it's undermined by the Republican Party actively seeking to harm democracy as an electoral strategy. Also, Democrats HAVE historically tried to argue for votes outside their party - by fighting over the center, and by trying to form a diverse coalition. It's led to where we are now.

The facts are just that the Democratic Party is the only electorally viable alternative to the Republicans right now. Bernie and Yang both understand this and know the stakes, and that's why they're running as democrats. But a lot of people haven't and that's where Para's argument comes in.

Not true. The Republican Party is the only one that actually listens to the voters. When the voters wanted Trump and protectionism in 2016, the Republican Party followed even though it went against what they had said for decades.

The Republican Party is of course against the strategy of winning elections by running up votes in areas that are voting 90/10 for one party. There is no debate, no public discourse, in that kind of election. Republicans want elections to be decided by areas that are competitive, with good public debate.

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Espeon posted...

So the second richest is Steyer.

I'm reading that Steyer's net worth is only $1.6 billion. I could see Trump being over that, especially after 3 years of forcing an army of federal employees to stay at his hotels and pay way above market rates.

That being said, we are talking about people whose primary criterion for voting is the candidate's wealth. So uh.....don't expect the best reasoning?

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Wanglicious posted...

no, the 2nd richest is Steyer.

Not if you believe Trump's 10 billion claim.

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About Bloomberg- there are people who are supporting him because he's a billionaire and they think being rich means you are smart. Their 2nd choice is going to be the 2nd richest person in this thing, Trump.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Worth watching:

https://twitter.com/repadamschiff/status/1220559375938609152?s=21

Gonna be weird explaining to my future kids how Donald Trump got acquitted despite everything!

It's simple. Impeachment is a political process that can remove a highly unpopular president. Donald Trump has about 50% support in the country and therefore, is way short of the threshold to be removed from office.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Sekulow also lied and said that Trump wasn't allowed counsel in the House Judiciary committee. His co-counsel Cipollone provably knows this, as he sent a letter responding to the invitation, saying that Trump would not participate.

Well, I dunno if you can impute the knowledge of co-counsel to each other. Especially when they have a client like Trump who is probably directly managing the case.

Assuming we can get around that, he/they might be in trouble after this case is over then. Which happens to a lot of people after working for Donald J. Trump. But as far as the Senate is concerned, they don't know much, if any, of these facts. No witnesses have been called yet. No witnesses have been cross-examined. I think the House record was conditionally admitted, subject to objections which would be resolved by a vote, but even if admitted that does not mean that evidence has to be believed.

Also, maybe the House set unacceptable conditions on White House counsel appearing, so they effectively did not allow the President to have counsel. Maybe that's what he meant. It's not really something that can be resolved right now and will probably need to be decided later by a different court.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Not just lies about the facts of the case. Cipollone lied and said that Republicans weren't allowed inside the SCIF in the House.

But how is the court supposed to know if that's a lie? Where is the evidence of that? I mean sure, it's all over the media - but the court is not supposed to be considering that. As far as admissible evidence goes, I don't think any has been presented so far that contradicts that statement.

And yes, I'm aware of the unfairness that could be created if the Senate refuses to listen to the very witnesses who could provide that evidence. But also, Cipollone could face discipline before a separate tribunal which would probably be much more receptive to the idea of hearing witnesses than the Senate.

As I said, I think it'd be very hard to show that he lied as opposed to being misinformed. Trump has probably worked with thousands of attorneys over the decades and I'm sure he knows he rules of legal ethics well enough to know that it's not entirely true that you can tell your attorney the whole truth because it's privileged and confidential. It is both of those, but ethics rules prevent your attorney from knowingly telling a lie to the court.

Whereas if you lie to your attorney, it will probably reduce their ability to effectively prepare your defense, but you will be able to present whatever defense you want. And at this point, Trump, after being a party to 3600+ lawsuits, has more experience with litigation than nearly anyone, So I don't doubt that Trump is running the show here, and is handing out bits and pieces of the case to his various attorneys, none of whom (well, maybe Rudy) may even know what the overall strategy is. I doubt people like Rex Tillerson ever knew what Trump's full plans were about diplomacy either.

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Yang is probably drawing a large number of Republicans and independents. Among his supporters who are Democrats, the percentage who will vote for the nominee is probably similar.

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I know that sounds like a catch-22, and it really is. But it's also the reality - no judge will sanction a lawyer for lying to the court until after there is evidence to prove the statement is a lie.

And in practice, it's hard to show that a lawyer lied as opposed to simply believing a lie his client told him. And given what we know about Donald Trump, it seems entirely reasonable that he lied to his lawyers. And if they repeated plausible things he told them without independently verifying that it was true, well, that's not unethical.


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LordoftheMorons posted...

Well I mean he's not doing anything about Trump's lawyers provably lying so are there really any rules at all?

Well, I don't think it is provable without more witnesses. Certainly it isn't provable until more evidence is presented.

Whereas direct contempt does not need proof because it does not depend on anything other than the words used in the court itself. You don't need to reference any external facts.

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