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horncyclist

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Posts posted by horncyclist

  1. On 12/8/2019 at 12:06 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

     

    It's just absolutely shocking how clueless these statements are. Sure, in a two party system, it may be natural to have a conservative party and a liberal parties, or two parties split on other policy or ideological grounds. So long as the members of each party have the country and its people's interests at heart, then sure, we need two parties. We do not need the GOP as it exists today, and I think it's beyond repair. We need a candidate that will crush it and the treason it stand for. And I still think Biden, given his history and weaknesses, loses to Trump. God help us. 

     

    • Like 2
  2. 11 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    Red meat for the Qanon tards probably 

    It'll just give them something to spin and distract from the impeachment. How about the timing of this? And Barr once again intervening to help spin what was supposed to be a non-partisan review. Just remember this shit. 

  3. 6 minutes ago, LABEVO said:

    It isn’t naivety about working across the aisle.  Establishment Dems don’t want the status quo to change. 

    Yes. And the status quo have us President Donald J. Trump. This is why Biden or Buttigieg cannot be the nominee and would be a disaster if elected. You have an opportunity to save our government and society and build a future. There's only two candidates willing to do that.

    • Like 4
  4. 4 hours ago, troph said:

    there is very little you stand for that I disagree with, maybe nothing.  I suspect we would find difference on what powers are granted to the feds and maybe the scope of the bill of rights and the 14th, I'm guessing, maybe.  but other than that, I see nothing objectionable.  I'm about as vocal of a democrat now as one can be.  I think an argument can be made that the party most closely aligned with your ideals is the Democratic party.  that seems shocking, but fair and impartial justice?  hello Trump.  strong national defense seems part and parcel with national security, hello Putin and Trump. Fiscal restraint?  government deficits under Trump, wow.  maybe the power of the federal government, maybe that's where Republicans win you back, wait, Trump shouldn't be subject to checks and balances, executive privilege is a broadly applied privilege that means he can do what he wants, wait that's not going to fly either.  not sure your home, and you've already said it, but there's no way you can be a Republican with those values.

    This is interesting discussion. I'd add on national defense that it's important to distinguish a strong national defense from high defense spending. I'd imagine if you got rid of all the bloat and corruption between the Pentagon and military-industrial complex, you'd have a much stronger national defense. It's yet another example of the hypocrisy of the republican party. They've manipulated all these proclaimed values and principles that are central and dear to our nation and used them to enrich themselves. Look at Fed Soc, privatization policies, regressive tax cuts. The list goes on and on. I don't know how anyone who believes in anything--other than selfish greed--could support the republican party today. 

    • Like 3
  5. 15 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

    This post and your previous one last page make a case for drawing out the impeachment process indefinitely in order to act a seatbelt on ongoing Trump criminality.  Look what happened the day after the Mueller testimony to Congress last summer- Trump was emboldened to extort the Ukrainian president to influence the 2020 election in broad daylight.  Handing the case over to the Senate now for acquittal would be a similar green light.

    Pelosi/House are doing both.  They're advancing articles of impeachment based on the House Intel investigation into the Trump/Zelensky bribery scheme right now.  Meanwhile there are 6 different House committees doing impeachment inquiries and a lot more hanging in he courts to build on what they've got.  Have we heard from all 6 yet ?  nope.  Has Pelosi stated a timeline for a full House vote to impeach? nope.  Conceivably the House Judiciary committee could vote on articles of impeachment re Ukraine bribery scheme without progressing to full House floor vote.  Again, they're doing both and it's smart.   Nothing is lost with their current tactics and yet they maintain options.

    I think the best approach is probably to move forward with articles but continue the lower key investigations in hopes that it keeps him check. The founders never envisioned a Senate majority favoring party over the Constitution. 

  6. 4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    I agree that Trump's  arguments resisting subpoeanas are without precedent, and therefore essentially baseless.  They also have never been considered by the courts before, so they aren't baseless to the point of frivolity.  They're just losers, bad arguments.

    Now, for the sake of objectivity, a party who is subpoenaed, including the President, and third parties affected by the subpoena, have the right to challenge that subpoena.  That's pretty fundamental.  They even have the right to advance terrible arguments, that aren't frivolous, in opposition to subpoenas.

    So, while what Trump is doing is uncooperative, even obstructIVE, it isn't obstruction of justice, the crime.**  Absent the time pressure posed by the election, it would be wise to let the McGahn case and others play out and get those witnesses on the record.  It's not NECESSARY, but it would be wise.

    The timing here is pretty unfortunate.  The Dems have to proceed on a semi-incomplete record if they're going to do this before the election.

    **That said, I think it would be fair to have an article of impeachment that the President has obstructed the proper function of government at every turn relating to any investigation of his actions in a way unprecedented in the history of the United States.

    I think we're generally in agreement. The timing sucks but Trump has left democrats no choice. And, despite the obstruction, I think the evidence is compelling enough to move forward. Only big thing I see missing are the full details behind withholding of the aid but even with that most of the key ones are there. Democrats met their burden and Republicans (so far) have put forward no defense. 

    • Like 1
  7. 2 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

    Yeah, I don't really understand why folks are ok with the President's actions. Hypothetically, the next time a disaster hits (Texas, Florida, California, etc), how would you like the President to ask a governor for a favor in return for the aid? What if the favor included looking the other way on carcinogens in your cities' drinking water that was put there due to environmental hazards by companies? Or the announcement that the state of Texas was opening an investigation into Beto and corruption? Once you've allowed a foot in the door, the mob isn't going to suddenly end their racket, and when one mob is eliminated, another branch moves in.

    Yep, and once the traitors in the Senate clear him, Trump will be emboldened. I fully expect more soliciting of foreign interference in our election. He'll do anything to win and knows there are no consequences. He will be King.

    • Like 1
  8. 1 minute ago, EMAWesome said:

    Hmm, I guess there is a limit to the number of quotes you can make in one post.  I think I might have a way around this.

     

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    Feldman mistakenly says the Constitution defines bribery. Where? It defines treason, but not bribery

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    Professor Turley is correct that impeaching a president for demanding judicial review of Congressional subpoenas would undercut our system of checks and balances.
     

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    Prof Feldman is wrong in suggesting that the courts have no role to play in deciding whether Congressional subpoenas are subject to claims of executive privilege in the context of impeachment.

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    Prof. Carlin defines bribery to include “ bad practices.” That would be unconstitutionally vague and dangerous.

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    The expert witnesses should be cross examined by opposing counsel instead of just being thrown softballs by counsel on their side. Cross examination is essential to test witnesses. Otherwise the witnesses are just lecturing about their preexisting views.

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    What a waste of time and resources to have no cross examination of hostile expert witnesses. What a missed opportunity to press witnesses instead of throwing them softballs. Why no cross examination?

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    The open ended criteria for impeachment proposed by the Democratic experts are dangerous and place Congress above the law. That’s why the Framers demanded specific criteria that sound of crime, rather than “abuse of office.”
     

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    The Republicans should have challenged Professor Feldman’s assertion that “abuse of office" is a constitutional basis for impeachment. These words do not appear in the Constitution and such vague criteria were rejected by the Framers.

    Alan Dershowitz
    ?Verified account @AlanDersh

    The Democratic witnesses have wrongly said that Congress cannot move forward because President Trump has resisted Congressional subpoenas. Of course they can. Simply go to court and get a judicial order.That is the proper course, not impeachment for invoking separation of powers
     

    Trump is making baseless arguments. Democrats should not have to go to court to prove that when time is of the essence. It's not that hard.

    Here's a hypothetical to help. As things stand, Trump got caught and so they stopped what they were doing. What if he hadn't gotten caught? What if the pressure is ongoing and Zelensky is moving towards an announcement. Democrats suspect it but they can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt because the key witnesses, Bolton, Mulvaney, Perry and Pompeo are being blocked from testifying. Should democrats have to wait for the courts, as more damage is done in that case? No. And there's no reason they should have to wait now. It's entirely up to Congress--not the courts-- to decide what is impeachable and they shouldn't have to wait for the courts to say the obstruction is based on baseless claims. That's ridiculous, against the plain language of the Constitution, and impracticable. 

  9. 12 minutes ago, Rougarou said:

    Seriously!? I’d like to see ol Donny Trump try to wiggle out of this all the while engage in the exact same thing that has got his neck in a noose 

    As soon as the Senate clear him, why shouldn't he just call up Zelensky and say "oh yeah, you remember that favor...and oh we do a for you...well, we're holding up the aide again, please announce the investigation." Let's all be clear what's at stake here. If the republicans prevail, we're saying that Trump or any president, can do this--and worse--without consequence."

  10. 1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

    OK, let's run with that.  Professor Gerhardt was just on CNN and he clearly believes there is no specified role of the courts in impeachment proceedings.  He cites the language of the Constitution as evidence, with an emphasis on the word "sole":

    The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

    So how do two scholars differ so widely on that simple point of fact?

    It's a legal question, not a fact question. And scholars disagree. I don't know enough about this area or Turley's views to weigh in, but it strikes me as odd to suggest that the courts must weigh in to determine if Congress can pursue a given basis of impeachment. That is counter to the Consitution giving Congress the sole power of impeachment, and with similar questions, the Courts have typically stayed out it, citing a prudential doctrine of avoiding what they refer to as "political questions." Beyond that, I can't really critique Turley's views, though I'm sure the other scholars disagreed yesterday and explained why. As others have said, the democrats not calling a conserative legal scholar that would have sided with them was a mistake. The media seems to be reporting this as another partisan divide, and it's not that. Turley's views would be a small minority among legal scholars. 

     

     

  11. 23 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    As expected, the biggest reaction to yesterday's hearings among my right wing acquaintances is outrage over Karlan's ill-advised example of the nobility clause when discussing limits on a President's allowed behavior.  It's as if nothing else happened during that very long day on the Hill.  They take their talking points like good soldiers and run with them.  No critical thought, no reflection.

    I would think any American who is truly curious and concerned would at the very least wonder how 4 constitutional scholars at elite universities couldn't reach unanimous agreement on a standard for impeachment, regardless of whether they think Trump reached that bar.  I'm curious.  I find it fascinating.  Professor Turley might just be a political hack, but I owe it to myself to dig in a little deeper and determine if that's actually the case, and not just a simple way to dismiss his testimony.  The very fact that he took the opposite tack in the Clinton impeachment hearings tells me he probably is just a hack, but it still bears scrutiny.

    Turley's biggest disagreement wasn't about the standard for impeachment. He admitted that it did not have to be a crime and that a quid-pro-quo withholding foreign aid or an official act to compel an investigation of a political opponent would be impeachable. He disagreed that democrats had sufficiently met their burden of proving that, and that they should wait on the courts to compel the witnesses to testify and the Whitehouse hand over documents. He also said that Congress not letting the courts decide it was an abuse of power. The problem with both of those lines of thinking is that it ignores the baselessness of Trump's arguments for withholding EVERYTHING. And that, even though the arguments are baseless, Trump could use the courts to run out the clock. Considering part of the offense is inviting foreign interference in the 2020 election, it seems reasonable that democrats would want to move before that election, even if there is evidence still out there that they could eventually get. Democrats have also put together a really strong case, despite the obstruction.

     

     

    • Like 3
  12. 23 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:
    October 31, 1908


    By the President of the United States of America

    Thanksgiving Proclamation

    Once again the season is at hand when, according to the ancient custom of our people, it becomes the duty of the President to appoint a day of prayer and of thanksgiving to God.

    Year by year this Nation grows in strength and worldly power. During the century and a quarter that has elapsed since our entry into the circle of independent peoples we have grown and prospered in material things to a degree never known before, and not now known in any other country. The thirteen colonies which straggled along the seacoast of the Atlantic and were hemmed-in but a few miles west of tidewater by the Indian haunted wilderness, have been transformed into the mightiest republic which the world has ever seen. Its domains stretch across the continent from one to the other of the two greatest oceans, and it exercises dominion alike in the arctic and tropic realms. The growth in wealth and population has surpassed even the growth in territory. Nowhere else in the world is the average of individual comfort and material well-being as high as in our fortunate land.

    For the very reason that in material well-being we have thus abounded, we owe it to the Almighty to show equal progress in moral and spiritual things. With a nation, as with the individuals who make up a nation, material well-being is an indispensable foundation. But the foundation avails nothing by itself. That life is wasted, and worse than wasted, which is spent in piling, heap upon heap, those things which minister merely to the pleasure of the body and to the power that rests only on wealth. Upon material well-being as a foundation must be raised the structure of the lofty life of the spirit, if this Nation is properly to fulfil its great mission and to accomplish all that we so ardently hope and desire. The things of the body are good; the things of the intellect better; the best of all are the things of the soul; for, in the nation as in the individual, in the long run it is character that counts. Let us, therefore, as a people set our faces resolutely against evil, and with broad charity, with kindliness and good-will toward all men, but with unflinching determination to smite down wrong, strive with all the strength that is given us for righteousness in public and in private life.

     

    theodore-roosevelt.jpg

    I am 100% certain that our current president disagrees with that second paragraph. And that says everything you need to know about him and the direction of America. 

    • Like 2
  13. Here's an explanation on the  SCOTUS taxes case. TL;dr: (1) they still may not hear it letting the D.C. Circuit decision stand (and would decide whether to by early January) and (2) if they do hear it, would be decided by the end of this Term, so looking at summer 2020. 

     

     

  14. 2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

    Oh, they aren't making it up. Some Democrats are getting cold feet. A handful or more will vote no.

    Only one party is going to be unanimous in its impeachment vote.

    To be fair to democrats, when you're as corrupt as the fucking GOP and most of your members lack critical thinking skills, it's a lot easier to keep people in line.

  15. 1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

    Perfect example of creating their own news and trying to shape the narrative.  Just make it up, some people will think it's the truth.

    You're referring to republicans right? Or the media? I'm shocked democrats don't have $100 million in dark money ads putting Trump's corruption on blast. Wtf? 

    • Like 1
  16. Also, I'd have to think well drawn up articles of impeachment paired with a ton of attack ads would cause permanent political damage to Trump and the GOP. Schiff has proven their case. Give it to the american people in the plainest terms in articles of impeachment--let McConnel do whatever traitorous shit he wants-- and then move on to 2020.

  17. 44 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    Interesting commentary from Smerconish on CNN discussing a Washpo columnist who argued for the Dems to pursue censure instead of impeachment. Only 1 president, Jackson, has ever been censured for misconduct.

    a censure would potentially get some bipartisan support because the theoretical bar is much lower. Voting no to censure is saying the president did nothing wrong at all. Some in the gop have said or hinted they don’t like how the president acted but they don’t think it rises to impeachment.

    going through with impeachment is somewhat a fools errand. The senate isn’t going to convict trump. The evidence isn’t there for them to act because the people with the strongest evidence are never going to talk. Or not until the trump admin is done.

    censure with some republican support might be the best victory for Dems with the 2020 election coming up.

    TThere would be zero republican votes for censure too. Don't kid yourself.  But still might be the way to go to avoid dragging this out and fatigue pushing people away from removal. The problem is that this conduct--jeopardizing national security and disobeying the law to compel a foreign leader to damage your political opponent--is abosolutely deserving of removal. I

    • Like 1
  18. 11 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

    The House has multiple options moving forward.  So much is still in the balance that will inform what path they take.  
     

    Access to Mueller grand jury materials, ability to compel witnesses in Mueller/Trump obstruction, tax and bank financials are all pending with potential final decisions on some matters as early as Monday.  
     

    Hard evidence of Trump tax fraud, bank fraud, and or laundering illicit foreign cash is GOP Senate’s worst nightmare to acquit.

    Seems like they can impeach on the Ukraine stuff while continuing to pursue evidence of other crimes. 

    The corruption of this President--and the degree to which he has made people just accept it--is absolutely staggering. i think the frog in a water slowly coming to a boil here is accurate. If you were to go back to everyone's state of mind in 2015 and dump everything Trump is proven to have done on them all at once, their head would explode. But there's this pattern of (1) something shocking coming out, (2) denial, denial, denial, (3) obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate, (4) deflect/distract, (5) suppress criticism and (6) move on with the behavior normalized. On step 5, you can see it this go around with the attacks against Mitt Romney following some public criticism. Two months later, he's having lunch with Trump to make sure he's in line. It's all insane and I don't know how to respond anymore, other than support politicians willing and able to attack it, and vote. 

     

     

    • Like 1
  19. 35 minutes ago, Bruh Man said:

    You know what's missing? A huge march on Washington. 

    Seriously, a day after the inauguration there was a huge one but since then...not much. 

    There needs to be a public showing of support for impeachment and removal to put some heat on these senators. 

    Other countries citizens march for much less. I wish we'd get in the streets and DO SOMETHING!

    When and where?

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