I see the Trump retaliation purge is in full swing now. So far it's Lt. Col. Vindman (witness) and his brother, also a Lt. Col., and Ambassador Sondland (witness).

Impeachable but not convictable, obviously. ****ing corrupt.

Not everything is fake but this Trump Ukraine impeachment charade was just that. Now it's over and we're in the lauding Mitt Romney stage.

If you think it's just semantics, feel free to adopt my terminology.

Ok you got me there. I will not be adopting your terminology.

Doug Jones could have voted to acquit to save his own skin but voted to convict

Grandstanding obv

What part of it was fake? The part where every witness said that Trump did it?

Maybe the part where every republican basically admitted that he did it, but he "learned his lesson"?

Name one.

That depends on what you mean by "it". If you assume that Rudy was working on Trump's instructions then literally all of them said that Rudy was saying the funding and White House meeting were both dependent on the investigation. If you mean specifically Trump ordering a quid-pro-quo then Sondland explicitly said that he was told that White House meeting was dependent on the investigation.

Besides, why don't you trust the Republican senators who have publicly stated that the Dems proved beyond doubt that it happened? The excuse for not having witnesses at the trial was that it had already been proven - the acquittal was purely based on the claim that it wasn't an impeachable offence, not that it didn't happen.

The fake part is assuming that Democrats actually had any sort of intention of removing Trump from office and that the whole thing wasn't designed to be political theater. I assume that things happened like they say it happened but we have no actual way of knowing that and those assumptions could easily be wrong.


Why would you ever trust what a senator (Republican or democrat) says?

Sondland

Sondland said it appeared to be quid pro quo to him. He also said Trump told him something like "I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo, tell him to do the right thing" so I don't think Sondland hurts Trump as bad as you think he does.

Do you guys remember when this whole story broke and then the White House was like "woah....we're gonna nip this whole thing in the bud" and then they put out an edited transcript of what was supposed to be a 30 minute call that looked like it could have taken place in 5 minutes--that showed Trump basically super guilty and everyone was like "wtf why would they they put out this transcript that shows him doing it?..lol Trump is really dumb"
Well--was he really dumb or did it all work out for him?
And that raises the question too of what ever happened to the recording of the actual call? Did that cease to matter or did democrats just decide to not worry about it?

He testified the aid was being held in July for an announcement. Everyone testified to this. The foreign policy experts all testified to the fact that there was no foreign policy interest in holding the aid.

Actually, at least two, the ambassador and Hill, testified to the undisputed fact that the prior Ukrainian administration was blatantly corrupt and Trump had no problem signing those checks.

I can buy that there was in fact an interest in investigating the Bidens. I just dont think that matters.

But there's no need to re-hash the entire case into a circular discussion where we disagree what constitutes an abstract abuse of power. I'd rather participate in what constitutes privileged communication between a president and his cabinet/advisors. That's far more interesting to me.

Fresh off the Muller fiasco, I personally believe Trump was just very confident. I don't fully believe he understood what he was doing, considering how many people were around. This is what happens when you hand the keys to a drunk teenager.

Ok, got it. Thanks.

THIS!

LB, does the intent of the Dems matter?

For the purposes of this thread/reality, then definitely. For whether it matters about whether Trump should be removed from office--then I would say it makes it case for why they should all be removed.

Because it both did happen and it didn't happen. When it did happen then either everyone is equally bad or it wasn't really bad. When it didn't happen any evidence is a conspiracy and everyone else is in on it. And no, that is not sarcasm or me being clever. Pretty much everyone who has defended Trump in this thread has argued along these lines. Similarly for the political defense of Trump we have seen in congress.

The ability to internalize contradictory statements is a necessity to follow political leaders with no integrity. It's not about rationality or evidence, it is about loyalty and not asking questions.

You can even flame the fires by using a rhetoric that suggests questioning these contradictions is the same as abandoning your own political principles. This is the dangerous price of following a person instead of an ideal.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...burisma-113401

sort of a fitting last post to this thead, at least it will be mine!

Don't quit.
You're the only reason I hang around here with all those other losers...

I think I'm unsubscribing from this thread until Bolton has his coming out.

Not you too. I still haven't figured out why you asked me if I liked the NBA.

They are trying to figure out if you are a racist.