Impeachment Hearings

[iNow]

 

28 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I thought you said you didn't watch CNN...

 

...or Fox News...

Ha!
I watched it online, C-SPAN3 live feed

Edited December 12, 2019 by iNow

[dimreepr]

we’re up Schiff creek...

becuase we care...

[iNow]

@MigL In the below linked post over in another thread, you suggested that I have not been using reason in this thread, and that other reasonable positions presented here have been ignored by me and only caused me to harden my resolve.

I'm interested in correcting myself when I'm wrong and bettering myself when I'm out of line, and for that reason would welcome from you some clarity around which reasonable arguments you feel have been presented to me here in this thread that I've ignored... or even any clarity on which of my specific positions you feel I've arrived at without using reason of my own.

My intuition here is that this was just a cheap shot and you don't really feel my positions are unreasonable, just firm and sometimes passionate, but would like to clear it up with you out in the open and extend to you an invitation to call me out anywhere you believe I'm potentially misguided or mistaken. Thanks.

 

On another note, after another 14 hours of debate and markup (where they consider amendments) yesterday, the Judiciary Committee voted this morning and approved sending both articles of impeachment to the full House. Vote is likely to happen next week (target Wednesday, but subject to change).

[YJ02]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

My intuition here is that this was just a cheap shot and you don't really feel my positions are unreasonable, just firm and sometimes passionate,

Not trying to 'break in' to your discussion, but I do not think you are unreasonable

You are perfectly reasonable and passion is desired when speaking on things that one is so concerned about

My biggest concern is that there are too many people in America (or any place) that have no passion on political issues; they just take what they are handed/told to think and move on

the lack of passion and interest, IMO, is what those in both parties are counting on. Sure, they want your vote, but then they want you to go away and let them be in their comfortable 'political class' way of living and remain loyal to them no matter what.

[MigL]

In case you don't read it on the other thread...

      6 hours ago, iNow said:

"Apparently, now I'm taking incoming fire even within threads where I'm not participating. Good times..."

No, you're not taking fire, INow.
The people who arrived at their opinion without reasoning are the D Trump supporters. Not you !

The point I was ( unsuccessfully ) trying to make is that, for those people, "contrary evidence only tends to harden their resolve".

Sorry for the misunderstanding; you know I love you   .

[iNow]

41 minutes ago, MigL said:

you know I love you 

Lol. Love you, too, brother. No worries, and thanks for clarifying. 

[Raider5678]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

It’s not, though. A minimum of 13 died due to while Trump was withholding aid. Not zero. 

FTFY

 

 

 

[iNow]

7 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

FTFY

I’ll accept your correction. Seems fair. Will you equally accept that had the aid gotten there sooner and delays avoided that would’ve reduced the likelihood of Ukrainian deaths, especially in context of the signal it sent to Russia about the US having Ukraine’s back in this war?

45 minutes ago, YJ02 said:

definition of lethal vs non lethal

What’s the definition of weapons of ANY type? Just curious...

[Raider5678]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

I’ll accept your correction. Seems fair. Will you equally accept that had the aid gotten there sooner and delays avoided that would’ve reduced the likelihood of Ukrainian deaths, especially in context of the signal it sent to Russia about the US having Ukraine’s back in this war?

To be honest, not really. I highly doubt that that amount of money would have changed much coming in late July as opposed to early September. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ukrainians simply borrowed money using the incoming money as collateral. I suspect the effect of the money being delayed was minimal. Had it been years, or had it been canceled all together, then maybe it would have more of an effect. The total cost of this war is going to be tens of billions of Euro's. 400 million dollars coming in 2 months later then expected wasn't going to do much.

That being said, whether or not it had an effect or not doesn't matter to me.

It's the whole idea that there's a jackass in the white house who thinks doing this type of stuff is perfectly okay.

 

[iNow]

6 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

That being said, whether or not it had an effect or not doesn't matter to me.

It's the whole idea that there's a jackass in the white house who thinks doing this type of stuff is perfectly okay.

Fair enough. It doesn’t matter to me either in this case, but for different reasons.

Trump isn’t being impeached because he delayed the aid, aid that was approved by Congress and every part of his organization. He’s being impeached for abusing the power of his office to pressure foreign nations to interfere in our elections on his behalf, and he’s being impeached for obstructing the co-equal branch of congress when they tried to investigate it despite our constitution directly affording them the power to do so.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

Fair enough. It doesn’t matter to me either in this case, but for different reasons.

Trump isn’t being impeached because he delayed the aid, aid that was approved by Congress and every part of his organization. He’s being impeached for abusing the power of his office to pressure foreign nations to interfere in our elections on his behalf, and he’s being impeached for obstructing the co-equal branch of congress when they tried to investigate it despite our constitution directly affording them the power to do so.

Is this with regard to the request to investigate the Bidens?

Would it make a difference if Hunter Biden's involvements in Ukraine were, say, much much more egregious and much much more obviously corrupt?

[dimreepr]

4 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Would it make a difference if Hunter Biden's involvements in Ukraine were, say, much much more egregious and much much more obviously corrupt?

no, Trump is still guilty as charged.

[iNow]

39 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Would it make a difference if Hunter Biden's involvements in Ukraine were, say, much much more egregious and much much more obviously corrupt?

Maybe, but again here it’s not the egregiousness that’s relevant. The Biden connection was already well known and repeatedly reviewed. Every time it was found that nothing wrong happened, nothing untoward. It had been raised as a concern as early as 2015 and dismissed. Looked at by others later and again later dismissed. It only exists now as a right wing fever dream conspiracy theory. 

Further, Trump released aid to Ukraine in 2017. He the released aid in 2018 again. No qualms and no concerns about Hunter Biden or corruption in general, but then he froze the aid this year in 2019 saying they must announce investigation (not even do the investigation... just announce it).

So, what changed in 2019 relative to years past when the aid went out without obstacle? Hmmm... what could it be? What’s different this time?

Oh yeah, there’s an upcoming election and a Fox News poll conducted on July 21-23 showed Trump losing to Biden by 10pts and then! Voila!! Seemingly out of the blue on his July 25 call with Zelenskiy he asks for announcement of investigation into... yep, you guessed it... Biden!

Wow... What a coincidence! The randomness of the universe and human behavior really blows my mind.  

Edited December 14, 2019 by iNow

[dimreepr]

30 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Is this with regard t the request to investigate the Bidens?

Would it make a difference if Hunter Biden's involvements in Ukraine were, say, much much more egregious and much much more obviously corrupt?

you cant mitigate a murder by claiming the murdered was a murderer.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Clearly a conflict of interest...extremely suspect...but no hard evidence of a crime.

Do you think Trump honestly believed Hunter Biden's business dealings were all above board?

Do you think Trump felt he had been dealt with fairly in the Mueller investigations? That he felt Ukraine had not helped Clinton in any way in 2016?

Do you not think many past Presidents have done the equivalent...but recognized the conflict of interest up front and simply been smarter about it?

 

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

you cant mitigate a murder by claiming the murdered was a murderer.

The rationale is that Trump has an excuse...he could have believed he was acting in the National interest.

You can't call it murder if the "murdered's" still alive...even if he looks like he's in critical condition.

Note that the Democrats, as much as they would like to have, chose not to include bribery in the articles of impeachment. 

They recognized, at least for that, it didn't meet the legal definition.

If the impeachment articles are turned down by the Senate, it won't mean there is no truth to them (no "exoneration", as Trump will no doubt claim), but based on the GOP claim that the evidence doesn't rise to requiring removal of office.

 

 

[zapatos]

2 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Do you think Trump honestly believed Hunter Biden's business dealings were all above board?

Do you think Trump felt he had been dealt with fairly in the Mueller investigations? That he felt Ukraine had not helped Clinton in any way in 2016?

Do you not think many past Presidents have done the equivalent...but recognized the conflict of interest up front and simply been smarter about it?

These are all irrelevant of course as to whether or not Trump's actions were impeachable.

4 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

The rationale is that Trump has an excuse...he could have believed he was acting in the National interest.

You can't call it murder if the "murdered's" still alive...even if he looks like he's in critical condition.

You've taken the analogy too far. The point is YOUR crime is not excused simply because your victim is a bad guy.

[Raider5678]

7 minutes ago, zapatos said:

You've taken the analogy too far. The point is YOUR crime is not excused simply because your victim is a bad guy.

You've taken the analogy the wrong way. I think J.C. was implying if you critically injured a murderer, sure, it might not be okay simply because he's a murderer. It might be okay if he was attempting to murder you.

 

In this case, the analogy is looking at the Bidens. If Trump believed they did wrong, then he had reason to investigate them. That is the excuse Trump is using. Right or wrong, that's basically the gist of it. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

You don't have to be naive to believe Trump thinks that what is good for him is good for the America, or believe that Trump doesn't think everything through.

[iNow]

To be clear, the idea that Ukraine interfered in our election is yet another debunked right wing fever dream. It’s a talking point from Russian intelligence.

One guy (a former Ukrainian ambassador to the US) wrote one op-ed in a newspaper criticizing Trump AFTER Trump dismissed concerns regarding the Russians annexation of Crimea . This ambassador was roughly the 60th international diplomat to criticize Trump for these comments, and that one op-ed represents the entirely of the supposed “Ukrainian interference” in our 2016 election. 

[zapatos]

4 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

If Trump believed they did wrong, then he had reason to investigate them.

But he can't do it in an illegal manner!

2 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

You don't have to be naive to believe Trump thinks that what is good for him is good for the America, or believe that Trump doesn't think everything through.

Which is of course not an excuse to justify a crime.

[dimreepr]

12 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

The rationale is that Trump has an excuse...he could have believed he was acting in the National interest.

You can't call it murder if the "murdered's" still alive...even if he looks like he's in critical condition.

Note that the Democrats, as much as they would like to have, chose not to include bribery in the articles of impeachment. 

They recognized, at least for that, it didn't meet the legal definition.If the impeachment articles are turned down by the Senate, it won't mean there is no truth to them (no "exoneration", as Trump will no doubt claim), butased on the GOP claim that the evidence doesn't rise to requiring removal of office.

and thats where the system is broken.

[Raider5678]

4 minutes ago, zapatos said:

But he can't do it in an illegal manner!

 

I agree. But that's still the excuse Trump is using, no?

[J.C.MacSwell]

4 minutes ago, zapatos said:

But he can't do it in an illegal manner!

 

Did Trump request it be done illegally, and while knowing it was illegal?

4 minutes ago, zapatos said:

But he can't do it in an illegal manner!

Which is of course not an excuse to justify a crime.

It is if the crime requires intent.

[iNow]

Crime is also irrelevant. Trump is the executive in charge of the justice department. He cannot be charged with a crime by a department he commands. This is why impeachment, a political solution, is a power granted to the congress by the constitution itself. 

[zapatos]

14 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

I agree. But that's still the excuse Trump is using, no?

It is. But we all knew that so I'm unsure of the point you are trying to make.

14 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Did Trump request it be done illegally, and while knowing it was illegal?

Again that is irrelevant (although the evidence points to the answer being "yes").

16 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

It is if the crime requires intent.

What crime are you suggesting required intent where Trump didn't have intent.

8 minutes ago, iNow said:

Crime is also irrelevant.

Well, committing a crime is generally considered grounds for impeachment.