Impeachment hearings

[_moksha]

Hate that Trump seems to be escaping justice. Like it gives him more chances to turn the Republic into the Empire with his dark force thing.

[_canpakes]

Next up, we can watch what happens to John Bolton, and his soon-to-disappear manuscript.

[_Icarus]

Icarus,

You have cognitively fixed your mind where everything from the defense side is just lies to you. But one has to allow for the backdrop of the defense when reading Dershowitz's comments not an insistence that the house managers are simply correct about everything.

It is too tedious to respond to you when your so wrapped around that and only that narrative because any response is just met with - I'm lying and dishonest, I'm willing to support Trump if he murdered someone in broad daylight and the like. That isn't interesting to me. It's just an echo chamber.

Best, mikwut

You've done nothing to demonstrate your case other than to copy and paste Dershowitz's entire comments and say "See I told ya so." Now you're accusing me of being "cognitively fixed" because I don't see what you fail to explain.

No, that's not how this works. If you think the context somehow turns the plain meaning of the red statement on its head then you need to explain how that is. Just asserting it over and over makes you look incompetent as a reader. Surely if this is so obvious you shouldn't have much of a problem explaining it.

I never said you would support Trump if he murdered someone. Now you're just making an excuse for excusing yourself from the thread because what you need to explain cannot be done so with a straight face.

[_Markk]

Hate that Trump seems to be escaping justice. Like it gives him more chances to turn the Republic into the Empire with his dark force thing.

Do you believe that the trial is unfair? If so why and how? How is he escaping "justice" in your opinion.

[_mikwut]

Icarus,

Dershowitz' statement was given within the context of the question he was asked, i.e. do legal unimpeachable quid pro quos happen all the time? And, the backdrop of mixed motives given they happen legally, unimpeachably and in an impeachable manner. He gave examples that provide counter examples to your opinion that he doesn't believe any thing could be done by the president as long he says it is in the public interest. For example, he gave an example of saying if the President would withhold aid unless a country built a Trump hotel with his name on it in the country's capital city, that would be corrupt, only financial gain to the President personally, and only for personal gain not a public civic good and obviously impeachable.

Next, considering the arguments given by the Defense team, Trump had many motives going through his mind. He had campaigned on a platform of rooting out corruption and not wantonly spending taxpayer funds. He had told many around him about burden sharing and how he hated being the world payor when we have our own issues that need funds. He was really hurt and pissed about all the ongoings surrounding his campaign and Russia collusion and wanted to get to the bottom of it (Even if he was wrong, he didn't trust the intelligence that had burned him). He learned, well before Biden announced running for president, that some kind of nefarious sh-- was going on with Burisma and the Bidens. He wasn't convinced that Zelensky was the real deal against corruption and was hyper aware of Ukraine being the epitome of corruption. All of that was a process cycling his mind as he went through the time period at issue. Not a single motive found in an isolated primary vacuum of his mind of smearing a political rival. Now, I get you can say all that is BS and Trump was only setting up in a vacuum a smear on biden (even though he learned of it before he even knew he was a political rival). But that IS his Defense that is being presented. Dershowitz is working within that framework. When a question is asked of him that is the Defense presented previously to the Senate.

Therefore, Dershowitz is saying, when you are presented with a situation that the Defense team is arguing - what do you do with all those many motives found in the rumblings of the President's mind? Dershowitz's argument is that, of course, you can't isolate one motive that he is just trying to smear Biden. He argues, given all the possible mixed motives the President could be found holding within that cacophony of thought, if the president believes he is legitimately doing something in the public interest (burden sharing, avoiding waste, vetting corruption isn't at play etc..) then a mixed motive of his that might also hurt a political rival doesn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense. The math of all those mixed motives can just never be done and that's the problem with trying to mind read.

Now, I get you believe that everything out of his mouth and his defense team's mouth is just planned lies, black whole cloth lies. That's your cognitive place with it all. That's your opinion, your absolutely entitled to it. You don't care about Dershowitz's argument anyway because you think you know the one basic primary motive that was constantly on Trump's mind and that was just a smear job plain and simple. But, others are entitled to differing opinions. Dershowitz' argument presumes differing opinions in the Senate exist. I, for example, do think that it is meaningful that Guiliani was looking into the Biden matter before anyone even knew Biden was running for president. That implies previous corruption in our government was the concern. I do happen to think all the facts we know about Hunter are not trivial or irrelevant. Guiliani has recently presented the actual bank wire transfers that were being investigated in Cypress where millions and millions of dollars were going to Rosemont Seneca a seemingly shell investment firm Hunter Biden and his partner Deven Archer had set up. That was outside of the salary paid to Hunter and Archer. That with the given conflict is prima facie evidence that could be money that is being funneled to Joe Biden. Or that Joe is protecting his son from investigations into. I don't know if Joe did something corrupt but that happened and it looks bad to many people, it looks so conflicted and possibly nefarious with all the facts that one can't just be told that's conspiracy talk and nothing to see here. No. That raises serious red flags with me. And I can place myself in the Presidents head that he wasn't focusing on election and Biden smear but a real possibility of swamp corruption using taxpayer dollars.

Finally, you can say all you want Trump didn't go through the correct channels, Guiliani weirdness, and did things inappropriately with those mixed motives. Fine. But, if his motive is mixed in the way of real public interest of what I listed above then Dershowitz's argument would apply. It would not mean the president can simply do whatever he wants and just say that was in the public interest.

Dershowitz doesn't have to try to retrace that back because pressure on him. He isn't that way to begin with. That is apparent to those looking at his argument with that backdrop.
mikwut

[_canpakes]

Hate that Trump seems to be escaping justice. Like it gives him more chances to turn the Republic into the Empire with his dark force thing.

Do you believe that the trial is unfair? If so why and how? How is he escaping "justice" in your opinion.

Trump is experiencing no blowback from what can reasonably be called a boneheaded move in the least, with arguably more serious consequences than many of his followers want to believe. The Republican Party has essentially signed off on and endorsed his behavior. Should nothing but that come out of this impeachment exercise, along with Trump incessantly tweeting “TOTAL EXONERRATION!!1!” or some other similarly misspelled screaming exclamation, then it seems as if that outcome does not bode well for our political system and national security in the long run.

Do you believe that there exists no problem with what Trump has done, either as it concerns his (or any future President’s similar) action carrying no accountability?

[_canpakes]

... he gave an example of saying if the President would withhold aid unless a country built a Trump hotel with his name on it in the country's capital city, that would be corrupt, only financial gain to the President personally, and only for personal gain not a public civic good and obviously impeachable.

Trump asked a country to ‘look into’ and publicly announce an investigation of an opposition party candidate in particular and by name (as opposed to corruption in general) when no corruption evidence exists connected to that person. This only benefits Trump personally and financially. This is not a public civic good. By your own rationale, this is a corrupt and impeachable action.

So, we have:

1. No evidence.

2. No need to request this ‘favor’ in a conversation in which other benefits to Ukraine were being discussed.

3. No need to investigate a particular person who just happens to be an opposition candidate, and who was not the supposed subject of interest anyway,

4. No need to have another country publicly announce to a US audience any investigation regardless of the claim.

Trump’s action was determined by Trump to serve only Trump. Otherwise, how did it serve the public good of this nation?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

This is a pattern I've noticed:

Both parties are guilty of projection.

The GOP projects their shittiness onto the Democrats, which is why they're always convinced the Democrats are corrupt, cheating, partisan assholes that are trying to defraud elections, trying to install sharia law, and turn the US into a muslim theocracy.

The Democrats, until recently, projects onto the GOP the idea that Republicans just have an honest difference of opinion, but have the best interests of the country and its people at heart and might be interested in reasonable compromise.

- Doc

[_Markk]

Canpakes
I asked if the trial was unfair and why?

I would like to see full blown trial, with the Biden's, Joe and Hunter, John Kerry's son, Joe's brother James and his sister, which would establish a motive and pattern of dirty business. And Bolton, Shiff, the whistle blower, Pilosi, Trump, Rudy...and anyone else that is involved in this mess. And then get a real jury that has no bias, either for or against. I want to see them all under oath. But practically that would tear the country apart worse than it is.

So in my opinion we should just, per party rules and privilege of those with the majority...get this circus over with.

Joe Biden is as dirty as the come, start a thread and I will feed you talking points to dig into...and shiff just lies and gets the blue base fired up over his lies, and Trump's laughs and feeds the fire with tweets, firing up his base...stop, think... and move on and concentrate on getting a opponent that can bet him cancakes.

But especially stop with the it's not a fair trial BS...especially when three of the jury are running for president against the defendant and their platform is mostly Trump is guilty. LOL...I feel like this is all a episode of Green Acres.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Canpakes
I asked if the trial was unfair and why?

I would like to see full blown trial, with the Biden's, Joe and Hunter, John Kerry's son, Joe's brother James and his sister, which would establish a motive and pattern of dirty business. And Bolton, Shiff, the whistle blower, Pilosi, Trump, Rudy...and anyone else that is involved in this mess. And then get a real jury that has no bias, either for or against. I want to see them all under oath. But practically that would tear the country apart worse than it is.

So in my opinion we should just, per party rules and privilege of those with the majority...get this circus over with.

Joe Biden is as dirty as the come, start a thread and I will feed you talking points to dig into...and shiff just lies and gets the blue base fired up over his lies, and Trump's laughs and feeds the fire with tweets, firing up his base...stop, think... and move on and concentrate on getting a opponent that can bet him cancakes.

But especially stop with the it's not a fair trial BS...especially when three of the jury are running for president against the defendant and their platform is mostly Trump is guilty. LOL...I feel like this is all a episode of Green Acres.