Impeachment hearings

[_Icarus]

I'd like to hear res ipsa chime in on Dershowtiz's argument

[_Gunnar]

It seems that Ken Starr is just flat out arguing that cheating elections is a legitimate excerise of power for the President. I don’t know. Seems bad.

Assuming there is a Democratic President again, I can’t wait to see what manufactured nonsense Republicans impeach that person over.

It's like many have been saying. They no longer even seriously try to argue that Trump is innocent of what he is accused of. Now their argument seems to be, in effect, that it doesn't matter what he has done. It is somehow wrong and even unconstitutional to remove a sitting President from office for any reason, no matter what, except by defeating him in the next general election. I have a growing apprehension that even that will not be enough for Trump. He may even go so far as to try to nullify or even suspend the next election by declaring or creating some emergency that he claims would justify martial law if he loses or it appears that he might lose the election. Would the current GOP attempt to go along with even that? I am no longer confident that they wouldn't. I have no doubt that Trump will try to contest the election results through litigation via the Federal court system if he loses, no matter by how great a margin he loses, but especially if it is a close election.

[_Gunnar]

Trump is setting new precedents for presidential behavior and the GOP seems to think the Democrat party won't use these newly sanctioned tactics when they're back in the white house.

In other words, they are counting on the Democrat party being more honorable and less hypocritical than themselves, thus giving the GOP the advantage because of their own lack of scruples and willingness to cheat.

[_moksha]

A blow job?

That is one thing that Ken Starr will not put up with. All other corruption is fine (as long as it is Republicans being corrupt).

[_moksha]

... thus giving the GOP the advantage because of their own lack of scruples and willingness to cheat.

Lack of scruples is only a temporal Republican advantage. In a just universe, they will be plunged into a lake of unethical behavior while everyone else gets to go to Disney World.

[_Some Schmo]

The more people talk about the GOP, the more they remind me of an unstable adult you have to speak slowly to and treat with kid's gloves.

Don't say anything to upset them.
We need to win by a landslide.
We need to be an example; when they go low, we go high.
You're defying the will of 63 million people (never worrying about the 66 million who had the opposite will).

[_mikwut]

I really don't understand Doc's reddit post presented as if it is just uncontroversial.

The rhetoric and actions taken by the President - from continuing to berate the fourth estate by referring to the media as "the enemy of the people"[1]

There is something disingenuous about making this statement but making no clarifying context that the media did indeed flout such divisive rhetorical devices as the President is a puppet of Putin, a literal traitor to his country the equivalent in politics of being called a pedophile extensively, relentlessly for over two years and had no evidence to be publicly making such accusations. That is shameful and a shameful response should be given.

to calling his political opponents traitors[2]

Umm. In the cited article he used the word treasonous and in the article it was only contextualized as the legal wartime definition. The term has a commonly used basic definition of betrayal or disloyalty. In the context of the President making a state of the union speech and his opposition not even applauding what should be considered nonpartisan good accomplishments for the country does fit into that definition of the term. This is where our rhetoric on both sides needs to come back down to some simple we all Americans.

while he attacks the judicial branch of government[3]

This article is ridiculous. The Courts are criticized by public figures all the time when a ruling is disagreed on. For God's sake the Court itself often criticizes rulings harshly in dissents. Courts are well aware the public and politicians don't believe they can do whatever they want and the Courts shouldn't be able to get involved when a ruling is disagreed with. The article changes disagreement by Trump to, "As the leader of the free world, I should be able to do what I choose. The court shouldn't be able to get involved." He never made an equivalent statement to that.

are just a few examples of his egregious attacks on democratic institutions and norms.

That's part of the insincerity, these weren't "egregious" unless a dark eye is looking at them in a distorted fashion. And just a reminder the Presidency is well, one of our democratic institutions.

President Trump has referred to the minority party as un-American simply for not applauding his speech.

This is simply repeating the number two above, it refers to the same state of the union speech. un-American might be a better word.

Here is a video compilation of President Trump openly inciting violence at public events.[5]

I watched to video. For Christ's sake. We have empirical evidence of whether these kind of cheesy, old style machismo statements incite violence. They never have. They are silly not violence inciting. I would have never said to you Doc that when you challenged a board member here to a boxing match that was violence inciting.

For example following Saudi Arabia's assassination of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey,[6] President Trump encouraged assaulting reporters and journalists at a rally in Montana.[7]

Ok, dang it! Here is where total agreement could have been had. Respecting the applauding behavior of Trump respecting the Montana congressman, where Trump was endorsing violence against reporters he used a wrong example to call the congressman tough. Really poor choice of an example and right for criticism. Just couldn't then have a good criticism of Trump, had to go and make it so dark to conflate the Saudi assassination of a journalist to the Montana comments is grossly overdone.

President Trump has joked about wanting to consolidate his power like his dictator colleague in China, President Xi.[8]

Jesus. It's the exaggerated nature of anything he says with no context. First, the lack of term limits (although I agree with them) before a constitutional amendment didn't make Roosevelt a dictator, nor did Roosevelt yucking it up with Stalin. That was politics and so was Trump's remarks towards the Chinese leader who at that time he was attempting his trade deal that he just recently got the first phase of.

President Trump has repeatedly joked about serving for more than the legal limit of 2 terms or 10 years as president.[9]

The further problem here is, so what? The articles are conflating all of Trump's jokes about removing term limits with a simply state granted lifetime term of a dictator, usually applied by the dictator himself. Trump is joking that through democratic process he could be re-elected beyond the now constitutional two terms. That's extremely different than a dictator's permanent rule. Is congress a dictatorial branch without term limits? This is just ridiculous. His statements are clearly to be taken as fluffing his presidency as a good thing going and wouldn't it be great to keep it going. You can just say no thanks. Even if term limits were constitutionally abolished (which is silly to really imagine) he still has to win at the ballot box with what he is even joking about. These exaggerations, conflations, and and falsehoods promote fear and division which I thought is the value your reddit crush is relying on to begin with.

President Trump has repeatedly praised dictators including Putin, Duterte, Erdogan, and el-Sisi.[10]

As is often necessary to invoke change in foreign relations. The Berlin wall was brought down because of some praise and some criticism towards communist leaders. Stalin was congratulated for heaven's sake.

In 2018 President Trump praised brutal dictator[11] Kim Jong Un calling him "strong, funny, and smart."[12]

And short and fat, and has harshly criticized him. Does anyone really believe Trump thinks highly of him? Disagree with how, but don't imply ridiculous motives and umbrella fears about it.

At last years G7 summit President Trump loudly asked "where's my favourite dictator?" as he awaited for the Egyptian dictator.[13]

Honestly. I think that is rather funny and brilliant. It dismantles the "dictator" (a pejorative for God's sake), it brings things down to a rooted reality and takes any unwarranted clouds out of the room, and out of the sky of pomp that history has unwarrantedly bestowed on some leaders.

I might ask, where is the Bible that your reddit crush refers to that makes that statement unquestionably horrible? It's so opinion oriented and filled with presumption its not even funny.

The rest is the whistleblower and the whole Ukraine impeachment stuff. But this whole post is just fluff and exaggeration. Even the one line I would have totally criticized the president for an additional pile on that was unnecessary had to be added.

We know he is an egoist. Do you realize how much of an egoist Roosevelt was? We know he likes to freestyle at rallies. But, we also know your reddit crush has a certain exaggerated flair to his own words.

These kind of ideas are the mirror equivalent of when Bernie Sanders' democratic socialism is distorted into some kind of dark eastern bloc socialism or something instead of being taken issue by issue how Bernie presents it and under meanings Bernie ascribes to it not the distorted lens.

mikwut

[_canpakes]

The rhetoric and actions taken by the President - from continuing to berate the fourth estate by referring to the media as "the enemy of the people"[1]

There is something disingenuous about making this statement but making no clarifying context that the media did indeed flout such divisive rhetorical devices as the President is a puppet of Putin, a literal traitor to his country the equivalent in politics of being called a pedophile extensively, relentlessly for over two years and had no evidence to be publicly making such accusations. That is shameful and a shameful response should be given.

mikwut, this is a strange defense. The President takes issue with some characterizations of his actions by reputable press members, and you see that as a reason to call them “the enemy of the people”? And to do so from the ultimate bully pulpit?

Are you sure that Trump’s issue isn't actually that the press may not always agree with him - and for good measure - as opposed to the press being the enemy of the general public?

And then you liken legitimate complaints against the President’s behavior as accusing him of being a pedophile? Hmm.

Should I expect that the rest of your defense of Trump is similarly skewed into the same kind of hysteria and unrestrained Trumpian apologia? I haven’t read it yet; had to stop and clean the coffee off of my keyboard after reading just that first part.

(on a side note, I can hardly imagine how repulsed you were when Fox News spent 8 years blaming Obama for every bad thing under the sun and pushed both the birtherism and ‘secret Muslim’ accusations against him. Lol.)

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Here's a link to all of Mikwut's posts on this forum:

https://giphy.com/explore/dismissive

- Doc

[_DarkHelmet]

There is something disingenuous about making this statement but making no clarifying context that the media did indeed flout such divisive rhetorical devices as the President is a puppet of Putin, a literal traitor to his country the equivalent in politics of being called a pedophile extensively, relentlessly for over two years and had no evidence to be publicly making such accusations. That is shameful and a shameful response should be given.

When the intelligence agencies of the US say all the evidence points to Russia meddling in the 2016 election, but Trump disputes them and publicly sides with Putin repeatedly even as the evidence mounts, how is the american press supposed to respond? Are they wrong to call him Putin's puppet? What would be a better description? Or should the press just shut up and let Trump do whatever he wants?