I add that Taylor's emphasis on how important he saw Ukraine is and his mentions of specific Republican members of Congress being as concern as he was with the hold up of aids is also important. The interest of the US, allies and the rest of the world was put at risk. This itself may flip some Republican congressional members. ('a strategic partner of the United States, important for the security of our country as well as Europe... is under attack right now.... the security assistance is crucial to defense against Russian aggression.... it is possible for Europe to be whole, free, democratic and at peace if Ukraine succeeds in breaking free of Russian influence .... if not, Russia will again become an empire, oppressing its people, threatening its neighbors and rest of the world... so on)
When reading his final comments about our general position towards Ukraine, I couldn't help but think "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Ukraine." Juxtapose that with an earlier statement he shares of Zelenskyy saying, "I don't want Ukraine to become a pawn in your elections."
...I also think that it's important to note, just for the record... ...that this impeachment business is really only ultimately about preserving the integrity of the office of the presidency (and so far as that goes, the nature of our democracy), not necessarily finding the Donald (or anyone else, for that matter) guilty of "crimes", as we are likely to think of them. The Constitution spells out, quite specifically in regards to punitive measures, the only ultimately negative outcome for this for the Donald, and that is removal from office. Everybody else involved is kind of on their own, but that's the point of some of this, isn't it? "Breaking the law" or "violating the Constitution" in this instance (or any of the myriad of others by the Donald) is largely euphemistic...and is concurrent, ironically enough, with part of the sentiment drawn from Robert Mueller's investigation, report and Congressionally testified conclusion. The President (and thusly, the officeholder) is not beholden, while in the office, to the regular writ of law, as are most other citizens. We can all feel how we want to feel about that (and this again, highlights the need to do something about some of these 21st century laws we've got in place—the Patriot Act and Citizens United, for example), but that is where we are as a nation of laws. And that is why the process of impeachment (from investigation, inquiry, formal declaration and exercise) is necessary to enforce the written and unwritten rule of law here. And there's hardly anything "secretive" about the impeachment investigations either. Irrespective of the national security implications of some of the information disclosed in these hearings, or of the Constitutional latitude given to the House of Representatives to proceed as determined by ever-revealing evidence, there are both Republican and Democratic representatives present at these proceedings, as their stations and functions on specific and related committees warrant. It's interesting that no mention was made of anything happening in secret back when Hillary Clinton was investigated about the Benghazi incidents (whose consequences were as much, if not more, about national policy than individual competency)...and she's the ruler of the Deep State and could just as easily have threatened to muck up everybody's pizza order, or held some child sacrifice ritual in service to Moloch and had them all turned into doodlebugs or something... What's really going to be fun is, if the "unthinkable" happens, and Donald Trump is removed from the office of President: how many people grab their guns and storm the streets and kick off this next Civil War so many of us are itching to have, and just where the hell the Donald decides to spend his golden years, because without that office with which he holds (along with just about everything and everybody else) in the highest contempt safeguarding him... ...he is in a world of trouble that I would bet my last nickel on that he had no intention of getting into, with this "I'm gonna run for President!" episode of Celebrity Apprentice that he's conned and huckstered his way into. ...seems to make a lot of sense, now, that he wanted to buy a plot of dirt in Greenland or someplace... ...I hear the winters there are nice...
This is a five-star post, excellent work. It's stuff like this that makes the D&D worthwhile. Please keep contributing.
From his recent posts, it would seem the gentleman at ethicsalarms would disagree. He's a legal ethicist, you know.
@dachuda86 I just got the chance to catch up on the last few pages and I want to quickly say: I know a lot of the liberals (me included) here pile on you, and sometimes unkindly. But the last few pages have a lot of different posters replying directly to you with detailed, good-faith arguments without rancor. I hope you're reading them with an open mind.
Yeah, great points. Obviously the Trump supporters don't care about the dignity of the office and based on their disdain for protecting our Democracy from foreign interenece, that isn't a concern either. This impeachment stuff will possibly make them face their lack of concern.
If elected officials do not respect the rule of law, then why should the governed respect it? All that corruption and greed during Bish lead to zero Wall Street convictions. It’s a weak ass standard of white collar enforcement to begin with. If the senate does not find a compelling reason to Hail Mary to acquit, there will be a lot of people willing to take it a step further on both sides. Our slow drip below Banana Republic status continues
Two-for-one Friday!! Impeachment Inquiry Is Legal, Judge Rules, Giving Democrats a Victory The finding came in an order directing the Justice Department to hand over secret grand jury evidence from the Mueller investigation to House impeachment investigators. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/us/politics/house-impeachment-subpoenas.html
This cannot be stated enough and is an enormous component. Trump is temporary we can let certain things become ok or not so we have to decide now. How ok are we with the things he is doing and being thus far permitted to do? Where is the line between office removal...impeachment for nut on a dress ...and true crimes by trump? To what extent is foreign aid / influence allowed in election? What are we ok with? To what extent is it ok for foreign states to weaponize twitter fb to push an agenda? How far are we going to allow own business emoluments, own business im general, nepotism, saudi/china/nasty foreign actor influence? I wonder the same but supposedly at any given time 200 isis soldiers are ready to mobilize in the usa and we have yet to see much except that one muslim couple on that shooting spree but I think they were just nut bags more than anything. So even a group of rednecks with bobby the great in his mercury loaded to the 9s with ar15s like what are they atttacking? Is this the same revolution that timothy mcveigh and gg allin were on about? So trump is removed, some people drive around and shoot guns in air baghdad style ,and a group of mad cops in north carolina and alabama have stormed the courthouse in greenbow alabama. Now what? Ive heard about revolution but it feels a long way from helter skelter to anything tangible. Im curious now to hear what hypothetical how that would go? What does a govt coup or overthrow or mass broken ness look like?i just dont see enough mobilization for anyone to do much to get off their smart phone. Even if ferguson or compton riots its a pocket a few days and thats it. We are not ticked enough about something like extradition to pull what the passionate folks in Hong kong are on about. Rednecks seem pretty passionate until their first sip of keystone then its into the drunk tank..Maybe im feeling too safe but I havent seen any report or walkthrough of how it would go down.. Curious what that looks like.
I'm surprised no one mentioned Giuliani butt dialing a NBC reporter...maybe he's just trolling at this point. -- The voicemail yielded no details about the meeting. But Giuliani can be heard telling the man that he's "got to call Robert again tomorrow." "Is Robert around?" Giuliani asks. "He's in Turkey," the man responds. Giuliani replies instantly. "The problem is we need some money." The two men then go silent. Nine seconds pass. No word is spoken. Then Giuliani chimes in again. "We need a few hundred thousand," he says. It's unclear what the two men were talking about. But Giuliani is known to have worked with a Robert who has ties to Turkey. --
Days pass, no response by the Trump defense team. Maybe they got sent home like the troops from Syria. Maybe they're hoping the substantive posts get buried a couple pages back and then they can re-appear in this thread. Kind of pathetic really.
They've hung their hat on the investigation of the investigation thread. They really feel they have something there, and will just continue to ignore the crimes our President has committed.
Blame sensationalist journalism describing a Roger Stone interview I think for one of the conspiracy networks.
