Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

We'll see how things shake out but the Iowa poll with Bernie having that big a lead seems to be a bit of an outlier. I've seen a lot written about the age samples in these polls and the more you sample older voters, the more they skew Biden. Traditionally primary voters tend to skew older than the general election but there's no guarantee that'll happen in Iowa obviously.

I hope you're right.

There's not one Republican Senator in that chamber that has ever considered removing Trump.

There's not one D who has considered not removing PDJT. In the House or Senate. Your point that this is entirely partisan and political is correct. As it SHOULD BE.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I hope you're right.



There's not one D who has considered not removing PDJT. In the House or Senate. Your point that this is entirely partisan and political is correct. As it SHOULD BE.

There were a couple Dem votes against in the House and one present (lol, Tulsi). I'm not at all sure that Manchin won't defect.

[iam416]

The NRO has a writer that does a "Happy Warrior" column dedicated to how fucking insanely awesome human advancement is. Today I learned that MIT has discovered a way to shrink objects to nanoscale -- implosion fabrication. Of course, it came out in December of 2018 to probably little fanfare, but holy fucking shit. The potential applications are mind-blowing -- including, e.g., smart techology for your body that can discriminate between cancerous and non-cancerous cells.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/17/us/mi...rnd/index.html

SCIENCE!

[iam416]

There were a couple Dem votes against in the House and one present

I know Tulsi voted present, but were the others on BOTH articles? The very existence of Article 1, IMO, lays bare the political nature of this whole thing.

We'll see how Manchin votes. I think it's far, far more likely that at least Article 2 peels off a R or two than it peels off a D (Manchin....Sinema, but she's like borderline 0%).

[AlabamAlum]

DSL,

Until you review a Kris Kristofferson movie, that abortion of an unnecessary movie thread of yours will be illegitimate.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I know Tulsi voted present, but were the others on BOTH articles? The very existence of Article 1, IMO, lays bare the political nature of this whole thing.

We'll see how Manchin votes. I think it's far, far more likely that at least Article 2 peels off a R or two than it peels off a D (Manchin....Sinema, but she's like borderline 0%).

I think the one Rep from from Minnesota voted against both articles (can't remember his name). But you're right, he may have been the only one to vote no on both.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Never mind, Jeff van Drew was still being counted as a Democrat in those vote counts I remembered. Collin Peterson is the Minnesota guy I was thinking of, voted against both articles. So really there's only one Dem who broke on both. The Dem who reps the Maine 2nd voted FOR Article 1 and AGAINST Article 2.

[Dr. Strangelove]

DSL,

Until you review a Kris Kristofferson movie, that abortion of an unnecessary movie thread of yours will be illegitimate.

I believe I reviewed Convoy at some point. Or maybe I just posted the trailer. KrisKris Tofferson's magnum opus.

[iam416]

The Dem who reps the Maine 2nd voted FOR Article 1 and AGAINST Article 2.

Appalling.

I believe I reviewed Convoy at some point. Or maybe I just posted the trailer. KrisKris Tofferson's magnum opus.

The review is not on your thread ergo it never happened. APPALLINGLY APPALLING.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I hate to break it to you, but challenging subpoenas in court is neither illegal nor unconstitutional. And when the Executive challenges Legislative subpoenas in the Judicial branch, the act is, in fact, fundamentally ESSENTIAL to our concept of separation of powers. The fact that the Ds didn't want to wait until the court process ran it's course is their prerogative. It doesn't make going to court or appealing the decision illegal or uncontitutiional.

That Article is total fucking god awful bullshit that should be rejected 100-0. Instead it'll be 53-47 meaning that Democrats do NOT think that the Executive can seek refuge in the Courts from Legislative inquiry. Given that the Ds want to destroy most of the Constitution, that doesn't surprise me.

Beating a dead horse here but I'll point out once again that the DOJ and Trump's lawyers are arguing two totally contradictory things based solely on what benefits them within the particular venue.

The lawyers are arguing that the House Dems did a shitty investigation because they should have gone to court and let the process play out over whether Trump has to comply with the subpoenas or not. I've stated repeatedly that these court cases were unlikely to be resolved before the 2020 election and to the extent that it's a political calculation to want this over before then, the decision to not pursue the subpoenas in court was a political calculation. But Trump's lawyers have been very clear: the courts are where these fights over subpoenas should take place, not in the Senate. The Senate is for political fights; the courts are for legal ones.

The Trump DOJ, on the other hand, has been arguing the complete opposite in court with regards to the McGahn case and every current subpoena battle more or less. The DOJ has argued that the courts have no business stepping into a dispute between the Legislative and Executive branches over what is essentially a political fight. They claim the disagreement over the validity of subpoenas is essentially a political question, not a legal one.

[Dr. Strangelove]

BTW, fun times hearing Trump's lawyers say yesterday that the reason Trump didn't go to Poland wasn't because he wanted to snub Zelensky; it was because he had to stay in the US to monitor Hurricane Dorian.

The dude went golfing several times that weekend while "monitoring" things. This was also the time of the infamous Sharpie Map.

Look, I don't think he skipped the Poland trip to snub Zelensky. I think he skipped because he hates the international trips in general (by all accounts) and just didn't want to go. Especially not to visit Poland. But the idea that his presence was needed on the homefront is pretty hysterical.

[Jeff Buchanan]

DSL, I wrote the post in which I opined that Trump has proven that he is unfit for the presidency due to his easily cataloged reprehensible behavior from a cruise ship with shitty internet. I'm back in Fort Lauderdale now, at a decent computer with decent internet service. Here is my reply to your post:

What prompted that poorly written post you took issue with was the numerous arguments, both in this thread and in the press in general, that have NOTHING to do with the debate, at trial, by the Senate of the two articles of impeachment forwarded by the House to the Senate.

My view is that the House worked hard to give the articles they forwarded to the Senate a legal basis. When the House did that, they opened the door to legal challenges to their claims, especially those related to the evidence they provided to support those articles. Crazy stupid becasue Impeachment and trial to acquit or remove from office is an entirely political process. I believe if House principals were to have correctly argued for impeachment in the House, they should have done so by starting from Trump's presidential campaign and going through the long list of stupid shit he has gotten away with in the 3.5y he has been president. You know these. You post about them all the time. In total, they are convincing proof that he is unfit for office and he should be removed. That he is underhanded (corrupt) in his dealings with both state/national and sovereign/international persons and organizations is enough. You don't need legally defined proof based on evidence to assert that his conduct as president supports his commission of high crimes in the context of how the founders intended that term to be defined.

Instead, we're getting both legal arguments between the two sides in this debate in the Senate and a continuous flow of allegations asserting questionable presidential conduct issues that, I suppose, are intended to support the political positions of the Ds. These are juxtaposed with defense or rationalization of that conduct by the Rs. If you remove the legal debate, what we are left with is essentially what should have been cataloged by the House in an organized way to form the basis of a high crimes charge which rises above the bar required to remove Trump from office.

I'll go back to a post I made a few months ago about the House making a mistake by not starting the impeachment process much earlier in Trump's presidency over his conduct - his business dealings and entanglement with the Emoluments Clause is just one example. His harmful relationships with various foreign political leaders is another. His recent connections to Rudy Gullini and his apparently underworld associates sent out to do Trump's bidding outside of any appropriate diplomatic channels also comes to mind. The list is long and again, DSL, you post about them all the time. If the House had started to build a case by cataloging these missteps and gradually building to the case that the damage Trump is doing internationally and at home has to be contained, both public opinion (voter sentiment) and the direction of political winds would have made it a lot easier to remove Trump.

As it stands now, the possible ground-swell of dislike for the President that would overwhelm any defense from his supporters that could have taken place isn't even remotely there. That is because of the public's fatigue over barely understandable legal and process wrangling about the House articles and the Senate trial going on in the forefront of the national conscience. That is juxtaposed with the strong argument that, as voters see it without really understanding the complexity and pitfalls of making such judgements, things are going pretty well and Trump has been at least partially responsible for that.

So, yes, the Ukraine Affair is bad but it is simply part of a much larger history of 3+ years of presidential misconduct. Instead of its wide ranging negative implications being understood by politicians and the voting public, we have narrowly framed misconduct in the context of the Ukraine affair. Instead of a three year, organized undertaking by House Ds to make their case and shape both political and public opinion in their favor we have the ongoing farce that is occurring in the Senate trial.

[lineygoblue]

There's not one Republican Senator in that chamber that has ever considered removing Trump. Not one.

And there's not one Democrat in the House or Senate that has ever considered him anything less than guilty. All of the Senators who are running for president have all spoken on the record stating that Trump is guilty. I haven't heard even one of them say that they are waiting for the trial to end before they make up their minds. Not one.

So, here we are. He's guilty or not guilty based on your politics.

[CGVT]

He's guilty based on he's fucking guilty.

Jesus

[lineygoblue]

Got it. You're not waiting for his constitutionally protected right to defend himself.

Get on with the hanging.