Impeachment Inquiry Starts Public Hearings

[gsdx]

^ It came across as "You should know better than to even ask that question."

I know McConnell. I know how he has his head so far up Trump's ass that Trump still has only 2 cheeks.

So, after some reading, it comes down to 'nothing says he can't'.

I should imagine that nobody ever anticipated anyone doing such a thing.

 

[gsdx]

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor, tells why McConnell's strategy may backfire:

“You know, it’s an ancient principle — centuries-old, actually over a millennium old — that you can’t be a judge on your own case, and effectively, to allow Donald Trump to call the shots violates that principle,” said the scholar, who has been advising top House Democrats on the impeachment process.

He goes on to say:

The reason it may backfire is that an exoneration, if that’s what emerges by a Senate that is essentially rigged and fixed so that it’s coordinated in this way with the defense, really doesn’t clear the name of the accused so that the president will go down in history as having been essentially found guilty by the House in a proceeding where he had a chance to defend himself but didn’t take advantage of it, and then in a kind of rubber-stamp sort of toss-off, not really given a meaningful trial so that he will have been adjudicated fundamentally by the House of Representatives to have abused his office, abused his oath, and endangered the national security and then blockaded in the inquiry as though he were a dictator.

Interesting read: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/laurence-tribe-mitch-mcconnell-backfire-075916943.html

 

[rareboy]

This is what I think might happen.

But the damage will be profound.

McConnell and the Trumpuppets like Aunt Pittipat Graham will deal another severe blow to the checks and balances principle behind the three equal branches of government. They will even further undermine Americans' confidence and faith in the Legislative branch and help propel the US toward an oligarchical and totalitarian system of government.

 

[gsdx]

"Only One American Political Organization Can Save the Republic Now"

Interesting (and scary) read. Here's a segment referring to Trump's many distractions away from his impeachment:

“A distraction from the truth” is nice, because that’s what the entire presidency of El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago—and his entire campaign before it, and his entire public life before that—has been. He has gone from Manhattan real-estate grubber, to tabloid freak, to bankrupt (again and again), to punchline, to quasi-television star, to, impossibly, President* of the United States. That's where he has treated everything the country thought permanent about itself as though as it were as disposable as the gilded filth of fame in which he has armored himself against the truth that he’s never been more than what Dickens said Scrooge was: a greedy, grasping, covetous old sinner. Except Ebenezer Scrooge never was elected to parliament. He was never prime minister. He ruined lives one at a time. For his part, today, the president* is the country’s distraction from the truth of the fact that it elected him.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/only-one-american-political-organization-201300641.html

 

[Sausy]

Worked early today but checked up on the House activities today leading up to the votes this evening to impeach Donald Trump, and just very disheartened that we increasingly are living in a country where we are so divided we cannot even share the same universe, let alone the same nation. Utterly night and day what Republicans see and what Democrats see... and while the Dems are far from perfect, whatever is going on in the heads of Republicans today they have completely lost it and are enabling and abetting the growing danger posed by an unhinged, out of control, delusional Donald Trump. It is they who are the real enemy of the people giving Trump cover so again, even after he is impeached by a House vote he will rail over it being a partisan Democratic witch hunt/coup/whatever you call it that was motivated by the Democrats seeking to undo the election of 2016. No, the Democrats are trying to make sure Trump doesn't contaminate the 2020 election, as he was trying to do with putting the chokehold on Ukraine until they played ball. God damn it, Mitch and his minions are going to fuck us around with a "bare minimum" impeachment designed not to get to the truth, not to let us heal... but to push everything under the bridge so they can rush right into the 2020 presidential and Congressional elections and demagogue their way to a Republican nirvana of continued control of the Presidency, keeping the Senate and trying to get back control of the House... they already are making huge waves getting more and more control of the judiciary. Mitch and Miss Lindsey and all those hacks just want one thing... continued power, preferably expanded. That's the ONLY thing they care about... not the country, but making sure they keep what they believe they are entitled to.

 

[jaysizzles]

^ I've had it on all day as I've been working. Not one thing I've heard the Republicans say has made me consider changing my mind, as even I can see the their defense of the President is weak. I expect the same would be said by a Trump supporter about the Democrat's arguments. There are a few on each side that are grandstanding and showboating, but I think it's just them having their chance to be on tv and have their constituents see/hear them. Mostly it's been a big bore. It's all too obvious that none of them are going to change their minds and they all know it.

What makes me is when I hear a Republican call out the Democrats as being partisan...as if the Republicans aren't!? And, when the Republicans say that there's no direct evidence to Trump....well, if Trump hadn't blocked testimonies from Bolton and Mulvaney we might have it! This all has a foregone conclusion...like reading a mystery that someone spoiled the ending for you.

 

[TX-Beau]

Well, he's impeached. What an embarrassing episode for all of us. From the necessity to the execution.

 

[TX-Beau]

Fucking Gabbard voted present twice. Fuck off Tulsi, no one wants you.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The Chief Justice is required to preside.

One wonders what he will say to a trial in which the Senate Majority Leader has declared that he will be supporting the Administration rather than trying the president.

How can the Chief Justice preside over a sham proceeding?

 

[rareboy]