Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

The reality of the nonsensical Pelosi grandstanding and D hand-wringing is this -- they know it's a political process and they want as many witnesses as possible saying shit that they hope will move the needle. But, we all know what happened. I don't even think it's contested at this point. Well, I mean with the real article -- the one about Ukraine. And it hasn't moved the political needle. The House impeached on what happened. All that's left is for a Clinton-esque presentation of the evidence.

I'm not even sure they're going to get 50.

[Dr. Strangelove]

LOL. What are they gonna do -- impeach him again? LMMFAO.

In any event, the House conducted an exhaustive, thorough investigation. The House concluded that PDJT should be removed from office (and that's exactly what they were voting on, not some half-assed legally illiterate indictment analogy). Now we find out if the Senate agrees with the conclusions of the House.

Either that, or that House ran a half-assed RUSHED investigation for entirely partisan purposes and voted as such. They could have waited for the courts to rule on privilege challenges (the Clintons made basically every privilege challenge ever). Instead of letting the legal process run its course -- in a government of checks and balances -- they instead rushed to get it done AND threw in an utterly laughable "obstruction of congress" article.

Fuck them. Stand by your work.

Stuff will continue to come out and Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, Thom Tillis, ought to be asked again and again all through November, why did you fight to keep new evidence and testimony from being presented at the trial?

Trump's legal challenges would've pushed the impeachment trial into 2021 (if he won reelection). Because he would've taken everything to the Supreme Court and there was no way they were going to hear arguments this term on any of this stuff before it had even cleared District court. Like I said, Trump would've just done the same process that he's done on his tax cases.

Fight in District court. Delay as much as possible. Lose. Appeal to Circuit. Delay as much as possible. Lose again. Demand an en banc verdict. Delay as much as possible. Lose again. Appeal to the SC. Between the start of the district court case in late November (I think?) and the SC agreeing to take the case there's no way the SC would've granted writ in time to make a decision before the election. So to the extent that the Dems didn't want this election taking place before impeachment was concluded, yes, it was a political calculation. Had this all happened in fall 2018 instead I imagine they would've let the court process play out.

[iam416]

Trump's legal challenges would've pushed the impeachment trial into 2021 (if he won reelection). Because he would've taken everything to the Supreme Court and there was no way they were going to hear arguments this term on any of this stuff before it had even cleared District court. Like I said, Trump would've just done the same process that he's done on his tax cases.

Fight in District court. Delay as much as possible. Lose. Appeal to Circuit. Delay as much as possible. Lose again. Demand an en banc verdict. Delay as much as possible. Lose again. Appeal to the SC. Between the start of the district court case in late November (I think?) and the SC agreeing to take the case there's no way the SC would've granted writ in time to make a decision before the election. So to the extent that the Dems didn't want this election taking place before impeachment was concluded, yes, it was a political calculation. Had this all happened in begun in fall 2018 instead I imagine they would've let the court process play out.

Right. The "obstruction of Congress" count is a fucking joke. FUCKING. JOKE.

Stuff will continue to come out and Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, Thom Tillis, ought to be asked again and again all through November, why did you fight to keep new evidence and testimony from being presented at the trial?

I'm sure "new" stories will come out -- that say the same fucking thing. Those 3 know what they're voting on. Everyone knows what the issue. I don't give a flying fuck if John Bolton gets up and says, yeah, all that shit you already have and all that shit PDJT has basically conceded -- that's true.

New and duplicative.

But, hell, how about more directly -- won't PDJT have to run in November against all these "new" strories? I mean, the name of the game right now for the Ds is to take him out before he beats them in November or, at a minimum, try to damage him for November. It's a political process. 100%. And when the Senate tells the House to fuck off, it's a political process. Fair is fair. And if certain Senators pay the price, such is life. Gardner is a dead man, anyway. Might as well Doug Jones it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The reality of the nonsensical Pelosi grandstanding and D hand-wringing is this -- they know it's a political process and they want as many witnesses as possible saying shit that they hope will move the needle. But, we all know what happened. I don't even think it's contested at this point. Well, I mean with the real article -- the one about Ukraine. And it hasn't moved the political needle. The House impeached on what happened. All that's left is for a Clinton-esque presentation of the evidence.

I'm not even sure they're going to get 50.

Look, both sides are playing politics here (obviously). I could say the same thing about Jim Jordan or Doug Collins grandstanding. And every Republican in Congress is contesting the facts here. Trump was acting heroically as a longtime opponent of corruption. Haven't you heard?

[Dr. Strangelove]

And yeah, people like Gardner and Collins may be reaching the point where their only hope of being reelected is total reliance on Trump base turnout and in the process, raising a middle finger to Independents and moderates on both sides.

[iam416]

Look, both sides are playing politics here (obviously). I could say the same thing about Jim Jordan or Doug Collins grandstanding. And every Republican in Congress is contesting the facts here. Trump was acting heroically as a longtime opponent of corruption. Haven't you heard?

Well, we're 100% agreed if the position is that this thing is brazenly political. I happen to think that's ok. In fact, I think impeachment is almost always brazenly political. Certainly in the 3 we've had (Nixon would have been less so).

So, man, I don't know -- the Senate is going to represent its basic constituencies. That may mean that Collins or Gardner have to vote yes. I don't know, But it also means that about 45 Senators have to vote no -- in that sense that their constituents are against impeachment by a WIDE margin.

So, let's get this shit done and move on. It's obvious that the House,based on their investigation, believes PDJT should be removed. Let's do the pro forma constitutional shit and have the Senate say we disagree and be done.

[Ghengis Jon]

Not that the law makes any difference to Trump, but the GAO has found withholding Ukrainian aid as a violation of the law.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/16/politics/gao-report-administration-violated-law-withholding-aid/index.html

[iam416]

Unfortunately, precedent has been established that it's the act itself that matters, not the legality of the act -- at least when it comes to impeachment.

[Dr. Strangelove]

One reporter says that it took about 2 seconds to find a Republican Senator willing to say he hadn't read the GAO report, but knows it's wrong

[Dr. Strangelove]

BTW funny timing. We were speaking of endangered Republicans going full MAGA and here comes Martha McSally, telling a CNN reporter he's a liberal hack and she won't speak to hacks. And her staff just happened to be ready to record the whole thing.

McSally has been getting killed in fundraising in Arizona and is absolutely the underdog in that race. She has probably made the calculation that she's got nothing to lose by shrugging off her few independent supporters and start looking under rocks and in dumpsters for votes instead. And hey! Might work! MAGA world is already loving the clip of her telling that liberal puke reporter to piss off! YEAH! AMERICA!

[Dr. Strangelove]

The FBI has arrested 3 white supremacists on gun charges. Well, and one of them's an illegal alien from Canada (lol). They are allegedly members of "The Base", a white nationalist group. May be tied to the supposed threat made that's caused Gov. Blackface in Virginia declare a state of emergency for Monday as a bunch of wingnuts plan to hold a Gun Rights rally in Richmond.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-arrests-3-suspected-white-supremacists-on-federal-gun-charges/

[iam416]

Interesting reading up on GAO and the US code violation and provision at issue. Most GAO issues involve repayment of something or some other corrective measure. Here, of course, the aid got there. So, there is no corrective measure. There's also no other penalty. Interestingly, the violation wasn't "impounding" the aid (or the quid pro quo), but not notifying Congress of it.

So, in terms of violating the law, it's a far lesser transgression -- as measured by penalty -- than, say, perjury. Or jaywalking.

So, eh...LOL. Really.

Again, you either think the act was impeachable or you don't. We all know what happened. Let's get on with it.

[Jeff Buchanan]

NAFTA ...... it isn't filet mignon but it ain't shopped liver either. I see some good stuff in here, not slam dunk good, but not worthless trade grandstanding either for the US and another feather in the cap of of Lighthizer and his trade rep team. Summary of the details:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-usmca-changes-factbox/factbox-how-the-north-american-trade-deal-will-affect-autos-digital-trade-drugs-idUSKBN1ZF2P0?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Meanwhile the Ds march on with the political process to get rid of or hurt Trump while offering not a single reasonable, moderate D to run against him. Once this stupid impeachment shit is over, Trump is going to Trump and on a ground swell of good national economic news, negotiating a pause in the trade war with the Chicoms (along with serving notice to them that not only the US but the world is watching them), publicly killing an Iranian thug dressed up as a legitimate soldier who was directly responsible for the attack on the US Embassy in Iraq and the death of US military personal at his direction - pay-back is a mutha - Trump goes into the spring and summer on a high note with his political opponents having shit on their faces.

[Hannibal]

The FBI has arrested 3 white supremacists on gun charges. Well, and one of them's an illegal alien from Canada (lol). They are allegedly members of "The Base", a white nationalist group. May be tied to the supposed threat made that's caused Gov. Blackface in Virginia declare a state of emergency for Monday as a bunch of wingnuts plan to hold a Gun Rights rally in Richmond.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-arr...l-gun-charges/

If only they were organizing for Bernie Sanders instead.

Calling for violence and riots if Bernie doesn't get the nomination. Calling for Trump supporters to be sent to reeducation camps if Bernie wins.

[iam416]

You see, Hanni, that's just an one-off nut unrepresentative of the Ds. White supremacists, however, are the backbone of PDJT's base.