Kansas Crimson

Feral wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:46 pm

Dear Nancy Letter

As people like to say - let's break it down.
Of course some on here will discount the break down due to the source.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... c5yVSOwt_k#

Mitch: “I’m not an impartial juror.”

(But bear in mind, it’s the democratic house that’s running the kangaroo court)

Impeach Trump. Save America. It is the only thing to do if our country’s democracy is to survive.

Impeaching a president is the most consequential thing our Congress can do — other than declaring war. So, after great consideration, I say: President Trump not only should be impeached, he must be impeached if America’s democracy is to remain intact.

Why? Because the facts here are not in doubt — indeed Trump’s allies in the media and Congress have largely given up disputing them: Trump held up congressionally directed taxpayer funding to strengthen Ukraine’s military against Russia until the new Ukrainian president agreed to do what Trump called a “favor” — announce that Ukraine was investigating Trump’s most likely opponent in the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, and his son, who was involved with a Ukrainian gas company. Trump apparently thought that just the announcement of such an investigation would kill Biden’s campaign in its crib...

If we say, as Republicans do, that what Trump did is not an impeachable offense, we are telling ourselves and every future president that — in direct contradiction of what the founders wrote in the Constitution — it is O.K. to enlist a foreign power to tilt the election your way. Can you imagine how much money candidates could raise from Saudi Arabia or China to tilt a future election their way, or how many cyberwarriors they could enlist from Russia or Iran to create fake news, suppress voting or spur outrage?

The integrity of our elections would be shattered, and we would never again have a legitimate president — a president, who, whether or not you liked him or her, was at least seen as legitimately elected. That would be a prescription for permanent political chaos, as no future presidents’ authority would be respected if they were elected on the basis of foreign interference.

But that is what Republicans are courting by blindly defending Trump’s indefensible enlistment of Ukraine’s help to take down Biden and by echoing Trump’s conspiracy theory — originated by Russian agents — that it was Ukraine that hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails in 2016, not Russia. They also argue that the D.N.C.’s server was shipped off to Ukraine before the F.B.I. could look at it.

This is right out of the Twilight Zone.

Folks, can you imagine what Russia’s President Putin is saying to himself today? “I can’t believe my luck! I not only got Trump to parrot my conspiracy theories, I got his whole party to do it! And for free! Who ever thought Americans would so easily sell out their own Constitution for one man? My God, I have Russian lawmakers in my own Parliament who’d quit before doing that. But it proves my point: America is no different from Russia, so spare me the lectures.”

If Congress were to do what Republicans demand — forgo impeaching this president for enlisting a foreign power to get him elected, after he refused to hand over any of the documents that Congress had requested and blocked all of his key aides who knew what happened from testifying — we would be saying that a president is henceforth above the law.

We would be saying that we no longer have three coequal branches of government. We would be saying that we no longer have a separation of powers.

We would be saying that our president is now a king.

[...]

I will be curious to know how many people (and what percent of the electorate) are represented by representatives who vote yes today.

I heard an interesting take on the radio just now:

They suggested all the senators who are bragging that they aren’t “impartial jurors” are pandering to a party of one — basically telling Trump they’ve got his back.

We can only hope.

Cuz otherwise I’m afraid they’re pandering to “the base” — some substantial enough portion of the electorate who just plain don’t care about the facts, or justice, or what’s best for the republic, or even their own best interests, as long as they feel like their side is winning?

ETA or perhaps even more cynically, as long as they feel like the other side is loosing?

jfish26 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 8:10 am I will be curious to know how many people (and what percent of the electorate) are represented by representatives who vote yes today.

What is unbelievable is that Republicans who would be limiting a family member's ability to manage their affairs if they exhibited the level of dementia of either Giuliani or Trump are completely supportive of these two men and their dementia inspired conspiracy theories about Ukraine, CrowdStrike and the Clinton servers.

Republicans are loathe to admit that their president, that the white supremacist base loves, has entered the increasingly oppositional phase of dementia, because they don't want to lose the power over that group. So they'll allow Trump to go right on with his unhinged rages, and will find someone to scapegoat, like Adam Schiff.

Timely:

ousdahl wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 9:27 am

This would be true -- if anybody in the GOP in Congress actually gave a shit about any of those ideas anymore.

He's giving them what they want. Which is sorta the point.

"When republicans have power, they cram it down your throat."
Thomas Friedman

Republicans have spent their time trying to pass off Trump's increasingly obvious dementia as just politics as usual. DC does a great job of demonstrating their desperate gambit to continue to pretend that Trump is simply a bad guy, instead of one losing his faculties.

Unfortunately, Trump is not Ronald Reagan, who had spent much of an adult life taking direction and saying the words of others and who seemed to be in the group of dementia patients who react more passively. Trump will only grow more oppositional and childish, as we saw recently with his tantrum because the Europeans no longer were willing to cover for his impaired mental faculties, as Republicans are and continue to daily explain away his increasingly childish and irrational actions as "just politics" or "they all do it".

I know this is true, cuz Jeff Long tried to hire Trump.

Am I on the wrong board? I thought the topic I mentioned was Trump's current, obvious demonstrations of his descent further into dementia.

Yes. We know what you said. In 3 consecutive posts now.

Stable genius

Geezer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:27 pm

Biden does get excited when there is excess malarkey. Or when he's in Iowa talking to an elderly farmer.

So dumb.

Trump's pettiness is his greatest threat.