Adam Schiff, Founding Father The highly anticipated new feature film by Alan Smithee coming soon to theaters and streaming on Netflix.
during a discussion on Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his potential 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden allegedly in exchange for withheld military aid, Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe said “I think it’s about time that people pay more attention to the Constitution and to the purposes of our democracy than to the trivial business of getting reelected,” “If your office is so important to you that you’re going to violate your oath and vote for someone who violates his oath every day and who uses the office of the presidency to enrich himself and to enhance his power, then I really think you are a pathetic excuse for a human being,” Tribe added. Tribe explained how he believes Trump is setting precedents in the White House, and not in a good way. “We’ve had corrupt presidents before, presidents who have trimmed the sails this way or that, but we’ve never had somebody whose whole purpose in holding that office is to enrich himself and enhance the power of his family and the wealth of his family,” “This is not just a marginal violation. This is essentially an anti-president.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/laurence-tribe-donald-trump-defenders_n_5dce5ee2e4b029474814d0f2 Meanwhile, Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano delivered some sobering news to the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” who did their best to spin impeachment hearings as a win for President Donald Trump, ROFLMAO. During an interview, co-host Ainsley Earhardt argued that much of the testimony given by witnesses Bill Taylor and George Kent revolved around merely their opinions of the president’s actions in withholding aid from Ukraine. “The law is not on the president’s side,” Napolitano said. “The law says asking for a campaign favor, whether it arrives or not…” “But it’s not a campaign favor!” Kilmeade objected. “Well that depends on how you look at it,” Napolitano replied. “Is he investigating 2016 or does he want dirt on Biden… for 2020?” https://www.rawstory.com/2019/11/fo...-trump-the-law-is-not-on-the-presidents-side/
The laziness or intellectual dishonesty of this writing is pathetic, as is the reliance or citation of it. The article wholly ignores what the testimony indicates -- Trump was beating the drum for a PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT of an investigation, on CNN no less. That is the something of value that (not might) would benefit the moron in chief politically. The investigation's result or how it would proceed, or even WHETHER it would proceed, didn't matter. Liar-in-chief wanted material for Fox, Brietbart, and his twitter account. Fundamentally, Trump supporters and defenders don't care about reason, or logic, or facts. Like their leader, it is win at all costs and beat back the liberals. It doesn't matter what you do, how you do it, what law you break, what public servant you smear, what lie you tell, how many lies you tell.
The Trump defense has fallen back to a defense of his intent -- that Trump wanted to investigate corruption in Ukraine and wasn't trying to dig up dirt on a political rival for his political benefit. The statement by Holmes last night is a nut-punch to that defense. Sondland told Holmes that Trump didn't "give a ****" about Ukraine, and only cares about "big stuff" that helps him politically, like digging up dirt on Biden. That is a direct shot at the bullcrap Trump intent defense, which already fails to survive any objective examination of circumstantial evidence. Trumpers will certainly come out and say, that's hearsay, Sondland didn't know, blah, blah, blah. If Sondland comes out and corroborates this, Trump's bullcrap intent defense is shot. If sondland refuses to testify, it is all but an admission that Holmes was right. If sondland takes the fifth, same thing. Trump defense: - Obstruct: nobody testify - Object: Hearsay; process; blah blah blah - Ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president --- so yeah, it's totally fine for Trump to remove all obstacles to his shadow Ukraine policy. It's totally fine for Trump to lie about the credentials of career diplomats who served under multiple administrations and won multiple service awards over decades. It's perfect. - Trump's intent was to root out corruption. Uh oh - There was no impeachable crime. This is the defense they do not want to use. It's a bad look politically. It's an admission that he did bad stuff. It hurts politically. It hurts not just Trump, but those who defend him unequivocally.
I re-read that sentence. Actually, the mistake is what follows: Original: "The laziness or intellectual dishonesty of this writing is pathetic, as is the reliance or citation of it." Fixed: "The laziness and intellectual dishonesty of this writing is pathetic, as is the reliance on or citation of it." I'll try to do better. I don't proofread my posts.
That's a long winded way of saying that 100 percent of the people on the planet are subject to confirmation bias. Welcome to decision science and information processing 101. Unclear to me how this is relevant to what we're discussing, but confirmation bias is not novel or a secret.
Laymen are prone conflate or misunderstand the impeachment and removal from office process. - First there must be investigation. - Then, based on the evidence (and in reality politics), there must be a decision to submit articles of impeachment. - Then, there is a House vote on whether to impeach. - Then, there is a senate trial. We are at step 1. And based on the whistleblower and the transcript alone, there had to be a House investigation. It would be a dereliction of duty to fail to do so. There was no legal debate. The real debate was a political calculus by the House - can the Dems do enough political damage to outweigh the almost certain outcome that the Senate republicans will not remove Trump from office, no matter how bad the evidence is. For those who care anything about the law, the House had to proceed. Enough is enough; political consequences be damned. I'll happily fall into this group. At least I'm intellectually honest and care about our institutions/laws, and do not take positions based purely on political gain, regardless of how badly I need to twist logic, facts, or reality. Frankly, I respect those who flat out say they don't give a crap about law or institutions, it's about advancing the Republican agenda and beating the Dems, no matter what the price or strategy. At least they are being honest. It's the losers and liars who refuse to admit what they are really about. There are plenty of them here.
I'll go a step further. The House had declined to move forward in light of the whistleblower allegations, what does that mean? That signals that they are going to allow the Trump administration operate however it wants, regardless of well founded concerns substantiated by a review by Trump appointees. Many trump followers are incapable thinking things through and just regurgitate dear leader's twitter feed.
LOL... not true. Justin Amash also voted for the impeachment inquiry. Amazing how ignorant and/or dishonest trump and his republican congressional enablers are, counting on the gullibility of his supporters.
As much as I hate saying it, Mr trump might be right, on a technicality. Congressman Amash left the Republican Party earlier this year, so technically, he’s an independent. If we decide to list an independent as an Independent, in other words, as a separate political party, then trump is wrong. If we list Congressman Amash as belonging to no political party at all, then trump may be right. If it’s “option #2” and trump got it right, all I can say is that it’s the first time this year that I can remember the lunatic being right about anything.
Your providing justification for trump directly lying, or at the very least, dishonestly painting this as being only approved by Democrats. Which is clearly not the case.
I’m not “justifying” anything trump is doing. I’m Just saying that he may have been right when he tweeted “true!” in response to GOP representative Collins’ tweet, to paraphrase, that this is the first time “in modern history” that a presidential impeachment inquiry was approved by only one political party, depending on how Congressman Amash, now an independent, is viewed. I don’t think that’s something trump or any other Republican should be proud of. In fact, my guess is that a large number of the Republicans in the House would support impeaching trump if they weren’t so damned afraid of his “tweets” leading to either a primary defeat, or a defeat in the general in 2020.
Trump is pushing marketing, not truth. Trump is marketing that a rigged, deep state is out to get him and that the Democrats are trying to overthrow the results of the 2016 election. The Criminal in Chief should have realized that breaking the law has consequences. Alas, the CiC’s very big brain has let him down.