Impeachment hearings

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_moksha
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _moksha »

Icarus wrote:More importantly, he's being an absolute hypocrite in the way he is defending Trump after the way he attacked Clinton.

What if Turley firmly believed that a BJ was unconstitutional?
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_Icarus
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _Icarus »

FOX News' Judge Napolitano basically says his good friend Jonathan Turley is terribly wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uzXmNc67H8
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_EAllusion
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _EAllusion »

Giuliani is out there doubling down on the core impeachment issue while the impeachment inquiry is going on. They’re flaunting their lawlessness.

I do not understand Democrats desire to rush this through. It’s so politically stupid that it seems unbelievable. If they really wanted to, they could at least send articles of impeachment to the Senate in phases. Unlike Turley, I think the evidence is already overwhelming, but his advice to slow down isn’t bad.
_Icarus
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _Icarus »

EAllusion wrote:Giuliani is out there doubling down on the core impeachment issue while the impeachment inquiry is going on. They’re flaunting their lawlessness.

I do not understand Democrats desire to rush this through. It’s so politically stupid that it seems unbelievable. If they really wanted to, they could at least send articles of impeachment to the Senate in phases. Unlike Turley, I think the evidence is already overwhelming, but his advice to slow down isn’t bad.



I seem to remember the Democrats being criticized some months ago for the opposite. Basically for dragging it out too long. The assumption on the Right was that they were trying to prolong it until the election which would make it look more like a political stunt and throw shade on its legitimacy.
"One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that Kevin Graham has blonde hair, blue eyes and an English last name. This ugly truth blows any arguments one might have for actual white supremacism out of the water. He's truly a disgrace." - Ajax
_EAllusion
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _EAllusion »

Icarus wrote:
EAllusion wrote:Giuliani is out there doubling down on the core impeachment issue while the impeachment inquiry is going on. They’re flaunting their lawlessness.

I do not understand Democrats desire to rush this through. It’s so politically stupid that it seems unbelievable. If they really wanted to, they could at least send articles of impeachment to the Senate in phases. Unlike Turley, I think the evidence is already overwhelming, but his advice to slow down isn’t bad.



I seem to remember the Democrats being criticized some months ago for the opposite. Basically for dragging it out too long. The assumption on the Right was that they were trying to prolong it until the election which would make it look more like a political stunt and throw shade on its legitimacy.
That was a bad take then as it is now. That said, I didn’t see much criticism of Democrats for taking too long as they’ve signaled a fast process the entire time. What I saw was some people encouraging them to stay on that path.

This is not to be confused with Democrats dragging their feet to start impeachment investigation. That’s a separate matter.
_Res Ipsa
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _Res Ipsa »

I think this letter clearly explains why what the President did constitutes impeachable conduct. https://medium.com/@legalscholarsonimpe ... 18b5b6d116
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
_EAllusion
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _EAllusion »

I didn't hear who was making it, but the single strongest Republican argument I heard at the recent hearing involved him listing a series of Presidential actions that were gross misconduct. He then asked Turley if, by the other professor's standards, could the President be impeached on those grounds, with the implication being yes.

This point was somewhat undercut by the listed actions being a mix of factual and misleading assertions about US history, but you could reform it to the broader point that multiple Presidents have engaged in impeachable conduct by the standards seemingly being used and were not impeached. The public's sense that it would be bad if Presidents were routinely impeached then does the work by analogy that Trump should also be allowed to "get away with it" so to speak.

For the accurate examples, my response would've been that those Presidents should've been impeached too. By lowering the bar of Presidential abuse of office, we invite future misconduct that fuels the argument that Presidents should be allowed to abuse their office. But it wouldn't be necessary to make this argument, as the more important hole in this argument was that Trump's behavior is about as serious of an example of abuse of office as exists. It's the most important thing impeachment was placed in the Constitution to deter. Trump did (and is continuing to) misuse his office to distort fair elections. Even worse hypothetical examples that come to mind are more examples of degree than kind.
_subgenius
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _subgenius »

So let us put aside the vulgar overbundance of burying heads in the sand about each and every detail on Hunter and creepy Uncle Joe.
The takeaway is that if want to get away with a crime I should run for an office so that I can accuse any incumbenet opponent of wrongdoing for having the audacity to tamper with a future election by investigating my wrongdoing...bonus points if I earlier bragged about said wrongdoing.

Stupid Democrats with absolutely no platform in 2020 other than #TDS.
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_EAllusion
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _EAllusion »

subgenius wrote:So let us put aside the vulgar overbundance of burying heads in the sand about each and every detail on Hunter and creepy Uncle Joe.
The takeaway is that if want to get away with a crime I should run for an office so that I can accuse any incumbenet opponent of wrongdoing for having the audacity to tamper with a future election by investigating my wrongdoing...bonus points if I earlier bragged about said wrongdoing.

Stupid Democrats with absolutely no platform in 2020 other than #TDS.

If there were actionable evidence of Biden engaging in unlawful behavior, you wouldn’t “investigate” it by playing international Scooby Doo with corrupt foreign officials and your personal atty, nor would you be focused primarily on getting a pre-scripted announcement of said investigation into American media.
_Gunnar
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Re: Impeachment hearings

Post by _Gunnar »

subgenius wrote:So let us put aside the vulgar overbundance of burying heads in the sand about each and every detail on Hunter and creepy Uncle Joe.
The takeaway is that if want to get away with a crime I should run for an office so that I can accuse any incumbenet opponent of wrongdoing for having the audacity to tamper with a future election by investigating my wrongdoing...bonus points if I earlier bragged about said wrongdoing.

Stupid Democrats with absolutely no platform in 2020 other than #TDS.

Nothing you claimed here survives even the most cursory honest and critical scrutiny. Whatever Joe Biden and his Son, Hunter were accused of in the Ukraine, even if true, pales into insignificance compared to what Trump has demonstrably been guilty of throughout his Presidency, and even throughout his whole life, even without including the Ukraine bribery, extortion and quid pro quo scandals he is currently accused of. Those who still can't see that are the ones whose heads are buried in the sand or somewhere else that the sun doesn't shine.

I am not a big fan of Joe Biden, and there probably was a genuine potential for and at least the appearance of conflict of interests in Hunter's involvement in Burisma, but don't ignore the fact that Hunter himself was cooperating in the investigation of Burisma's corruption, and was instrumental in the dismissal of the corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor who was refusing to properly investigate the corruption of Hunter's own boss at Burisma! As Sondland and other witnesses made clear, Trump wasn't really interested in actual Ukrainian corruption--only in getting Zelenski to announce on international media that he was investigating Biden, whether he was actually going to do so or not, solely to hurt Biden in public opinion polls. If anything, whatever corruption that was actually going on vis a vis Burisma favored Trump and his cronies, and Trump had no real interest in putting an end to it.

Still, despite my misgivings concerning Joe Biden, I would almost infinitely more rather have him as President than the criminal who now occupies the Whitehouse. And please don't embarrass yourself again by demanding a list of Trump's crimes and misdeeds. You should already know the lists are rather long, and have already been provided numerous times by various participants on this forum, along with rather compelling supporting evidence.
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