Re: Happy Hunger...er...Trial Games!

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MoscowMitch is controlling the cameras and limiting the view of the process. C-SPAN has requested placement of their own cameras in the Senate but so far haven't gotten permission. They're forced to display only the view approved by McConnell.

Because of the cluster McConnell and the Repubs spun for the trial, they're forcing the Dems to fight the 'process'.

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But McConnell's original plan to cook the trial, in private, caused enough GOP Sens to choke, realizing the optics were going to really, REALLY be bad, bad for the nation, but, worse, bad for re-election of Republicans.
It's quite possible McConnell has lost control of his caucus, because they are putting their own butts ahead of Trump's.

Oh, and Cippoline just lied in the well of the Senate, in front of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Does he really believe that Roberts isn't up to date, that he doesn't follow the news, and that he doesn't know that deliberately lying as an advocate is a disbarment offense? He stated that in the SCIF, Republicans weren't allowed in, which was a lie and he knows it was a lie. But the lie came up because Republicans who were NOT members of any of the 3 committees in the SCIF, WERE denied admittance. NO non-member is allowed in!
He also lied when he said that the House denied that Executive Privilege exists. The truth is that Trump NEVER invoked "Executive Privilege"! And Roberts knows that, too. After all, Trump and his team may assume everyone else is a moron, but Roberts is NOT a moron.

Trump picked a TV team, not a real legal team, and they look like lying incompetent idiots.

Finally, going back to President Polk, it has been clear that impeachment nullifies "Executive Privilege". Polk even stated so.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Happy Hunger...er...Trial Games!

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Now MosCOW Mitch is only allowing the Senators to drink water and milk.
Rules proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will prevent senators from having a Coke and a smile while attending the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told journalist Matt Laslo that senators will only be allowed to drink water or milk during the trial.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/mccon ... al-report/

The questions now arise. Do they get a nappy time in the afternoon, Do they get cookies with their milk? Do they have to raise their hand with one or two fingers to go to the bathroom?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Happy Hunger...er...Trial Games!

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 3:43 pm But McConnell's original plan to cook the trial, in private, caused enough GOP Sens to choke, realizing the optics were going to really, REALLY be bad, bad for the nation, but, worse, bad for re-election of Republicans.
It's quite possible McConnell has lost control of his caucus, because they are putting their own butts ahead of Trump's.

Oh, and Cippoline just lied in the well of the Senate, in front of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Does he really believe that Roberts isn't up to date, that he doesn't follow the news, and that he doesn't know that deliberately lying as an advocate is a disbarment offense? He stated that in the SCIF, Republicans weren't allowed in, which was a lie and he knows it was a lie. But the lie came up because Republicans who were NOT members of any of the 3 committees in the SCIF, WERE denied admittance. NO non-member is allowed in!
He also lied when he said that the House denied that Executive Privilege exists. The truth is that Trump NEVER invoked "Executive Privilege"! And Roberts knows that, too. After all, Trump and his team may assume everyone else is a moron, but Roberts is NOT a moron.

Trump picked a TV team, not a real legal team, and they look like lying incompetent idiots.

Finally, going back to President Polk, it has been clear that impeachment nullifies "Executive Privilege". Polk even stated so.
He goes by the recent “legal” theory, advanced by the Greatest legal minds of Rudy and Alan, of all or none. If one wasn’t allowed in the none were allowed in. This theory was approved by the Stable Genius and Greatest Legal Mind in history Donald Trump. :sarcasm: Is this really needed? :sarcasm:
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Happy Hunger...er...Trial Games!

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Here we are witnessing the final throes of mental gymnastics struggling against facts & reason; of dazzling with BS when you don’t really have any standing whatsoever. When you can’t make an argument with the facts, raise your voice and feign exasperation that the trial is even happening.

There are plenty of people behind bars who maintain their innocence.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

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As a merely half way intelligent, halfway educated and generally decent person, I find it l too exasperating to listen to these nincompoops. They just waffle, redirect and what-about. I just don’t understand how anyone out of elementary school can take them seriously, regardless of party.

Since it’s finally cold in VA, I guess I’ll light the wood stove and try not to let it remind me too much of how our democracy is going down in flames.
'Sorry stupid people but there are some definite disadvantages to being stupid."

-John Cleese

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Some media are saying that since the senators have to check their smartphones in the cloakrooms, that some of them are sporting Apple watches.

I still don't see how this is damaging Trump and will help the Democrats. Collins, Romney, Murkowski...could support Democrats on calling witnesses but in the end they're going to vote to exonerate Trump along with Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and possibly other Democrats. Impeachment seemed to humble Bill Clinton but Trump is the perpetual victim and just pulled up the drawbridge at the WH so only loyalist get close to him. And he'll wear this as a badge of honor.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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Every amendment will be tabled. Somehow Midnight Mitch has gotten every whore in his party to sell out. They can all eat shit and die as far as I'm concerned.

Trump's lawyers can go up there and say "Yeah, he did all this shit, and if he was a Democrat, you'd be screaming for his head. But since he has you all by the short'n'curlies you'll do EXACTLY as he says and pretend all the impeachable shit is perfectly A-OK!" And they'll vote 53 to 47 to acquit him.

I'm surprised, now that he has all his sheep-whores in line, that McConnell doesn't propose a summary dismissal of all charges. If all 53 stick together, he could end it tonight.

And the Red Hats would cheer and talk again about "shootin' Lib'ruls 'fore they kin vote!"

I do believe, now, we WILL see the end of our Democratic Republic and may not even make it to November 3.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Happy Hunger...er...Trial Games!

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Mason wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 4:46 pm As a merely half way intelligent, halfway educated and generally decent person, I find it l too exasperating to listen to these nincompoops. They just waffle, redirect and what-about. I just don’t understand how anyone out of elementary school can take them seriously, regardless of party.

Since it’s finally cold in VA, I guess I’ll light the wood stove and try not to let it remind me too much of how our democracy is going down in flames.
+1. I'll take a night of the shits over listening to any these self important assholes. And I'm out of toilet paper. :)

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featureless wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 7:58 pm
Mason wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 4:46 pm As a merely half way intelligent, halfway educated and generally decent person, I find it l too exasperating to listen to these nincompoops. They just waffle, redirect and what-about. I just don’t understand how anyone out of elementary school can take them seriously, regardless of party.

Since it’s finally cold in VA, I guess I’ll light the wood stove and try not to let it remind me too much of how our democracy is going down in flames.
+1.
+2. not so sure about the rest.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 7:45 pm I do believe, now, we WILL see the end of our Democratic Republic and may not even make it to November 3.
I do believe you may be right. This whole thing is pretty unbelievable. November can't come soon enough.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Happy Hunger...er...Trial Games!

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A good summary from Doyle McManus in Washington.
Trial lawyers have an adage: If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither is on your side, pound the table.

In the impeachment trial of President Trump, the House Democrats — the prosecution — are mostly pounding the facts. The heart of their brief is a well-told narrative of Trump’s efforts to muscle Ukraine into investigating Democratic rival Joe Biden, and then to cover up the details once the scheme was discovered. Their central charge is that Trump abused the power of the presidency by asking a foreign government to help him win reelection. There’s plenty of evidence on their side.

The president’s defense lawyers, in contrast, are mostly pounding the law — their own theory of the law, that is. Their president’s legal brief devotes only 27 pages to contesting the House’s version of the facts. Short version: “The President did nothing wrong.” Instead, the core of Trump’s argument is a novel interpretation of the law: Whatever the president did, it’s not impeachable. Asking Ukraine (and later China) to investigate Biden? Not impeachable. Blocking $391 million in military aid to Ukraine despite a law requiring that the aid be released? Not impeachable. Ordering everyone in his administration to refuse to cooperate with congressional investigations? Not impeachable.

Why? Because, the president’s lawyers argue, none of those acts are clear violations of criminal law. They dismiss the idea of removing a president for abuse of power as “a made-up theory … newly invented [and] ill-defined.”

Many — probably most — legal experts disagree with the argument that a president can only be removed for a violation of the law. “No serious constitutional scholar has ever agreed with it,” Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe wrote last week. Under the Trump defense team’s argument, “the president is free to conduct all manner of hypothetical abuses of the office that are not criminal in nature,” Paul Rosenzweig, a former assistant to Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Clinton, told me. “As I read President Trump’s theory, if he promised to pardon anybody who murdered Joe Biden, that would not itself be an impeachable offense,” Rosenzweig said. “The theory would mean that the president could choose to never appoint any Roman Catholics, and be free from fear of removal from office.”

Moreover, the concept of using impeachment to protect against a president’s abuse of power isn’t “newly invented” — far from it. Alexander Hamilton, one of the delegates at the constitutional convention, wrote in 1788 that impeachment would be a response to “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” In 1974, abuse of power was one of the articles of impeachment that President Nixon faced when he decided to resign. In 1998, when House Republicans impeached Clinton, Starr urged them to include abuse of power among the charges. (They didn’t follow his advice. He’s now on Trump’s defense team.)

It’s no mystery why the president’s lawyers are putting so much weight on the legal argument over what constitutes an impeachable offense. The facts don’t look good. When the first reports of Trump’s pressure on Ukraine emerged last year, at least eight Republican senators expressed mild discomfort with his actions. One, Mitt Romney of Utah, called the president’s conduct “appalling.” If those senators vote to acquit Trump and spare him from removal, they’ll need a rationale. Qualms over whether the president’s actions were impeachable might fit the bill. That’s one reason the Trump team has recruited constitutional lawyers like Starr and Alan Dershowitz to argue on their behalf.

But that outcome will create a long-term problem: If the Senate adopts the Trump team’s prohibitive standard for impeachment, it will set a precedent that future Congresses and presidents will note. “If we accept any version of this,” Rosenzweig said, “we will go a very long way toward undermining the system of checks and balances in a way that is almost irreparable.” If the Senate acquits Trump, as it is expected to do, it won’t explain its decision in any formal way. It will be up to individual senators to explain why they voted as they did. “At the very least they should protect the system of checks and balances by making clear that they are not voting to acquit on the ground of presidential immunity,” Rosenzweig argued.

Otherwise, every future president — including a possible second-term President Trump — will feel emboldened to abuse their powers, ignore traditional norms and refuse to cooperate with congressional investigations. The senators’ duty to protect the Constitution won’t end when they vote to acquit or convict. They may yet need to pound a table or two.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/ ... -the-table
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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i accepted some time ago that we may have to settle for a house indictment without a senate conviction. i think there's still a very good chance of multiple indictments(house impeachments). the senate is doing itself and the country a terrible disservice here. the senate has as much as admitted he's guilty as charged, and then act like it doesn't matter.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

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lurker wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:38 am the senate has as much as admitted he's guilty as charged, and then act like it doesn't matter.
Nothing new there. The 'ol "whatcha gunna do about it?" defense.

I still believe this effort will backfire spectacularly on the Dems with a circling of the wagons. The gun just isn't smoking and too few view prid quo pro as anything other than typical politics. This is not to say that I don't believe Trump is an amoral criminal. To say he was immoral would be to believe there was an indication of a moral compass in that orange mess of hair. There isn't.

Snickering at Robert's admonishing the assembly on their tone. Trump has so badly damage decorum in this county. Everything is now a shit show. Not a swamp. More like a pig sty.

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