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Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

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BobTheCoward said:
He isn't. "your" president unless you work for the executive branch. We are not in some chain of command. He can't give us orders.
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Fast Eddie B said:
I think I might qualify as a “Never Trumper”. I found him repulsive since very, very early on in the Republican primary as he mocked and belittled his primary opponents.

Yet when he won, I had mixed feelings. I was energized in the manner of “living in interesting times” - which is itself a Chinese curse. Still, I had no thoughts of getting rid of him through impeachment - the vagaries of the electoral college made him “my” president, for good or ill. I had hopes he would surround himself with good people and listen to their counsel, and, being a fiscal conservative, hoped he could find a way to rein in spending and get a handle on burgeoning deficits and debt.
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Remember what all fiscal conservatives know as expressed by Dick Cheney "Deficits don't matter". They are just a way to scam the voters.
 
The Greater Fool said:
They'd claim the contact with the iceberg was perfect and the Titanic was working better than ever. Even if there was something wrong it wasn't a sinking offence.
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:D

Sideroxylon said:
We learnt pretty early on what a slimy little worm Nunes was but participating in an inquiry into this dirty Trump/Giuliani scheme that he took part in is next level. Hope this ******** ends up in the slammer.
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Shouldn't he be required to recuse himself?
 
pgwenthold said:
I heard an interesting take the other day. The Republicans are going to whine that the impeachment is all political. OK, fine. But then again, their defense is also just political. So let's not let them get away with pretending that they are taking some pure high road or anything.
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Impeachment is a political process by its very definition. Why should they be whining about it? It's just a narrative they want to project, of course.
 
kellyb said:
Worth watching live now. The House has GOT this. I found their pre-impeachment letter thingie flawless (personally.)
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You make the common mistake of thinking that the facts matter.

It's like a scientist debating a creationist or an anti-vaxxer. They think that they have the advantage because the facts are on their side. They don't. What they discover is that the other side just goes up and spews a pile of lies to overwhelm their supposed facts, and it buries the discussion.
 
pgwenthold said:
You make the common mistake of thinking that the facts matter.

It's like a scientist debating a creationist or an anti-vaxxer. They think that they have the advantage because the facts are on their side. They don't. What they discover is that the other side just goes up and spews a pile of lies to overwhelm their supposed facts, and it buries the discussion.
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Not only that, but the huge pile of evidence is dry and boring whereas simple statements like "Coup against the President" are exciting and easily consumed and repeated.
 
We're only at the Ranking Member's opening statement and if only reinforces my opinion that I ******* hate Republican politicians.
 
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pgwenthold said:
You make the common mistake of thinking that the facts matter.

It's like a scientist debating a creationist or an anti-vaxxer. They think that they have the advantage because the facts are on their side. They don't. What they discover is that the other side just goes up and spews a pile of lies to overwhelm their supposed facts, and it buries the discussion.
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There are a lot of independents and impeachment agnostics out there. This is for them.

It's going perfectly so far. The first constitutional scholar they brought on was AMAZING.
 
alfaniner said:
We're only at the Ranking Member's opening statement and if only reinforces my opinion that I ******* hate Republican politicians.
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"Constitutional SCHOLARS are the problem!!! LAW is the problem!!!"


These people are desperate. That's not going to cut it.
 
And all of that would be great if this was a traditional trial where you can be "technically correct" and had some higher authority to make the other side acquiesce.

I don't doubt that any Legal Scholar with more then 3 neurons in his skull could prove that Trump has done things that meet "the definition" of impeachable offense. That's on the level of proving there's at least one water molecule in the Pacific. I'm sure you can do it.

But the "technically speaking" part that is being missed is technically... impeachable is whatever Congress says it is. If Congress votes that buttering your toast is an impeachable offense it is, if they vote that selling us to Ottoman Empire is not, it isn't. That's it. That's the highest level of "technically speaking." A legal scholar can't tell Congress they are wrong about what is impeachable because what is impeachable is by definition whatever Congress says it is. That's why the language in the Constitution was so vague and didn't spell out line by line was offenses counted. That's a feature, not a bug.

When a prosecutor "proves" (in the legal sense) that an event occurred the defense can't just go "Nope, don't care." The judge, the jury, the greater and broader legal system, a higher court, something, will override it and make the defense believe it, or at least make the defense act as if they believe it.

In this case, that's exactly what can and will happen. The "Prosecutor" is going to prove their case, and the "Defense" isn't going to care. Note I didn't say the defense is going to say they didn't prove it, I said the defense is not going to care. And we're already at the top level. There's no higher court or process to appeal to. There's no Ref to stop this fight after the Republicans lowblow you again while you lay on mat going "But the rule book says you can't do that..."

Proving something and convincing someone of something are two very different thinks. The Dems are wasting all our times proving WE ALL ALREADY KNOW.

Yes a child with a sliderule could prove Trump has committed impeachable offenses. But the same child can prove Brett Hart didn't tap to Shawn Michaels in Montreal but Shawn left with the Belt.

There is no force in the machinations of everything going on right now that is going to hold the Republicans to anything the Democrats prove no matter how well they prove it.

Stop proving, start convincing. If you can't do either, give up, and start the revolution. Either way stop wasting our time.
 
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alfaniner said:
Impeachment is a political process by its very definition. Why should they be whining about it? It's just a narrative they want to project, of course.
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The problem with emphasizing the political nature of impeachment is that it suggests the trial in the Senate is merely political. If these issues are all merely political, then a refusal to remove the president legitimately comes down to political considerations. It's bad for the Republican party (at least in the short term) to remove Trump from office, and so they have good reason not to.

I don't think this is a merely political act. I think that Trump's behavior is legitimately bad for the nation whether it's good for the GOP or not. Anyone who refuses to remove Trump because it's politically inexpedient to do so is failing in his duty.

Now, I may be interpreting the word "political" differently than you, but if so, I'm not sure how you mean it.
 
I read a Fox article saying the Republicans witness is going to blast the impeachment. That's all the right needs to bombard their base and the base will never think of it again.
 
kellyb said:
There are a lot of independents and impeachment agnostics out there. This is for them.
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How many of them are even watching?

And you miss the point: creationists win the creation/evolution "debates" all the time, even when the audience is "independents and agnostics." Because it's not about facts. Even with independents and agnostics, rhetoric matters.
 
plague311 said:
I read a Fox article saying the Republicans witness is going to blast the impeachment. That's all the right needs to bombard their base and the base will never think of it again.
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I heard that he said at the time that Clinton lying about a private affair was clearly an impeachable offense, but that there is nothing here that rises to that level.

Good luck with that.
 
pgwenthold said:
How many of them are even watching?
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Enough, I hope.

The only chance we've got is that this mythical neutral party of very, very quiet people turns out to actually exist.

Everyone who's already been "in the discussion" is not changing their mind, I think that's the one thing that has been proved to all of our satisfaction by this circus.

For the first time in my life I hope the "Silent Majority" concept has some real truth to it.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I heard that he said at the time that Clinton lying about a private affair was clearly an impeachable offense, but that there is nothing here that rises to that level.

Good luck with that.
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Yeah, that Turley guy was hilariously disingenuous. He didn't even seem to be trying, honestly. Not sure what his deal is, but his heart wasn't even in his words, it seemed to me, at least.
 
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