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Impeachment II thread

Giuliani is representing Trump in the Trial, and is going by the name Castor. It is admittedly, a good disguise.

Most likely Giuliani at Impeachment Trial said:
The political party was complaining about a decision he made as a United States senator. You know, it's interesting because I don't want to steal the thunder from the other lawyers, but Nebraska, you're going to hear, is quite a judicial thinking place, and just maybe Sen. Sasse is on to something. You'll hear about what it is that the Nebraska courts have to say about the issue that you all are deciding this week. There seem to be some pretty smart jurists in Nebraska and I can't believe that a United States senator doesn't know that. A senator like the gentleman from Nebraska whose Supreme Court history is ever present in his mind and rightfully so. He, he faces the whirlwind even though he knows what the judiciary in his state thinks.
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I just watched the first 3.5 hours of the impeachment. I can't take listening to the Trump lawyers any longer because as one might expect, everything is the Democrats fault. They are trying to destroy democracy......blah blah blah......Nothing to see here that you didn't expect. I'm sure the Republicans in the Senate are eating this stuff up. Some of them didn't even watch when the Democrats showed clips of the Jan. 6th invasion on the capital. Just close your eyes and pretend that Trump is an innocent victim of these horrible Democrats. Nothing will change. Republicans aren't going to vote against Trump, as he now owns them.
 
Castor says if you impeach Trump then what's to stop either party impeaching any president they dislike? The slippery slope argument. It's about as daft as "But if a traffic cop writes this guy a ticket then what's to stop traffic jams because now cops are writing everyone tickets?"

If presidents are subject to impeachment trials after leaving office, does that mean they'll all get impeached? That'll stop congress from getting things done, says Castor. Well, NO, if most presidents do not perform egregious acts on the scale Trump has done, it will not be a problem.

He's suggesting this impeachment is an act of whimsy and it sure as fuck is not.

Impeachment trials should be rare, says Castor. THAT'S RIGHT! They should be rare in exactly the way murder trials SHOULD be rare. It's not prosecuting them that is the problem, it's how anyone is put into the position of HAVING to prosecute that is the problem.
 
Senate declares the trial is constitutional. 6 Republican Senators agree:

Bill Cassidy
Susan Collins
Lisa Murkowski
Mitt Romney
Ben Sasse
Pat Toomey

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-impeachment-trial-02-09-2021/

Glad to see Susan Collins on the list. Feared she would say that Trump has learned his lesson - again. Now if 11 more would agree that he deserves to be convicted - that would be great. Not holding my breath.

I should hasten to add, it's so obviously constitutional. What a pathetic argument!
 
I had some errands to run so I recorded it and have only gotten through the first hour and 20 minutes of the Dem's opening argument on the constitutionality of the trial. It's worth it to see how rational, non-political arguments can actually still occur in Washington. So far it's obvious that the founders would agree with them. I'll have to see how much of the Repub arguments I can stomach without zoning out.
 
abaddon said:
Castor says if you impeach Trump then what's to stop either party impeaching any president they dislike? The slippery slope argument. It's about as daft as "But if a traffic cop writes this guy a ticket then what's to stop traffic jams because now cops are writing everyone tickets?"

If presidents are subject to impeachment trials after leaving office, does that mean they'll all get impeached? That'll stop congress from getting things done, says Castor. Well, NO, if most presidents do not perform egregious acts on the scale Trump has done, it will not be a problem.

He's suggesting this impeachment is an act of whimsy and it sure as fuck is not.

Impeachment trials should be rare, says Castor. THAT'S RIGHT! They should be rare in exactly the way murder trials SHOULD be rare. It's not prosecuting them that is the problem, it's how anyone is put into the position of HAVING to prosecute that is the problem.
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Trump was impeached while in office and the only reason he wasn’t tried while in office was the Republicans delaying the trial and then saying it’s too late. Total dick move.
 
SLD said:
...
I should hasten to add, it's so obviously constitutional. What a pathetic argument!
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Yes but in this bizarro world the contrary outcome would have been devastatingly bad. Still scary though that 44 Republican retards can't understand that.
 
marc said:
Impeachment managers video


[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/fb6ZrA0gQaA[/YOUTUBE]
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No Trump no peace? Seriously? Fucked up.

I mean, if I had been in the Capitol Police - especially if my fellow officer was being crushed in a door, I would've said, enough of this shit and started opening fire. I'm stunned they didn't.
 
Castor's arguments were practically non-existent. Disconnected rambling while slipping in the threat that going ahead with impeachment will be met with vindictive retribution, and that Trump could always be prosecuted afterwards in a court of law because, he claims, impeachable offenses are also felonies. Total BS. I also hate it when a speaker subjects me to the sounds of them chugging from a water bottle. He even left Lindsey befuddled.
"I thought I knew where I was going, and I really didn't know where he was going," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday about Castor's performance.
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Schoen argues that the impeachment proceedings will drag down our prestige in the eyes of the world, and that the Dem's have been advocating for impeachment since early 2017. Well if they'd gotten it done back then then Jan. 6th wouldn't have happened and the world wouldn't be so skeptical of our system to begin with. Also, from other reporting on CSPAN he misrepresents statements by Brian C. Kalt, an American legal scholar. In fact it's already become an entry in Wikipedia:
On the eve of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in February 2021, the former president's attorneys filed a brief that made multiple references to a 2001 article on impeachment Kalt had written, asserting he had concluded impeachment of a former president is unconstitutional. Kalt replied “they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly” and that he had actually concluded there is a “solid basis” for post-presidential impeachments. “They suggest that I was endorsing an argument when what I actually did was note that argument—and reject it,” Kalt wrote on Twitter.[6] In an article for Slate magazine, he elaborated: "In several places, they cited me as though I had concluded something when in fact I had concluded the opposite."
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And Congress's impeachment hearings were unconstitutional and sought to deprive Trump of his right to run for office in the future. He seems to be confused and thinks we've already thrown out the old constitution because it's not fair, and adopted the post-apocalyptic version. Then he holds up Mao's little red book and takes another slurp from his water.
 
Treedbear said:
Castor's arguments were practically non-existent. Disconnected rambling while slipping in the threat that going ahead with impeachment will be met with vindictive retribution, and that Trump could always be prosecuted afterwards in a court of law because, he claims, impeachable offenses are also felonies. Total BS. I also hate it when a speaker subjects me to the sounds of them chugging from a water bottle. He even left Lindsey befuddled.
"I thought I knew where I was going, and I really didn't know where he was going," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday about Castor's performance.
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Schoen argues that the impeachment proceedings will drag down our prestige in the eyes of the world, and that the Dem's have been advocating for impeachment since early 2017. Well if they'd gotten it done back then then Jan. 6th wouldn't have happened and the world wouldn't be so skeptical of our system to begin with. Also, from other reporting on CSPAN he misrepresents statements by Brian C. Kalt, an American legal scholar. In fact it's already become an entry in Wikipedia:
On the eve of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in February 2021, the former president's attorneys filed a brief that made multiple references to a 2001 article on impeachment Kalt had written, asserting he had concluded impeachment of a former president is unconstitutional. Kalt replied “they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly” and that he had actually concluded there is a “solid basis” for post-presidential impeachments. “They suggest that I was endorsing an argument when what I actually did was note that argument—and reject it,” Kalt wrote on Twitter.[6] In an article for Slate magazine, he elaborated: "In several places, they cited me as though I had concluded something when in fact I had concluded the opposite."
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And Congress's impeachment hearings were unconstitutional and sought to deprive Trump of his right to run for office in the future. He seems to be confused and thinks we've already thrown out the old constitution because it's not fair, and adopted the post-apocalyptic version. Then he holds up Mao's little red book and takes another slurp from his water.
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You said Eyes of the World
[YOUTUBE]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PdDowYZ28JQ[/YOUTUBE]
 
hyzer said:
Trump testimony we can all look forward to:

"Ahh, but the voting machines! That's - that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with - geometric logic - that a duplicate key to the voting machines DID exist! And I'd have PRODUCED that key if they hadn't've pulled the Trump out of action! I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers -

[breaks off in horror, becomes hesitant]

Umm... naturally, I can only cover these things roughly, from - memory... but if I've left anything out... why, you just ask me - specific questions and I'll be - perfectly happy to answer them... one by one."
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As ideologyhunter points out in the very next post, if Trump were shackled to the witness stand he'd give a very different performance from Capt. Queeg's. The psychosis and criminality would be apparent to intelligent observers, but 70 million Americans would be fooled by Trump's bravado.

Since The Caine Mutiny is 67 years old — older than some TFT'ers? — and young'uns may not be Humphrey Bogart fans, we should as well repeat the link:

[YOUTUBE]KekChFdIe00[/YOUTUBE]

ETA: I clicked my own link. It is not without reason that Mr. Bogart has been ranked 'The most significant American (male) actor ever.'
 
Treedbear said:
Castor[?] ... misrepresents statements by Brian C. Kalt, an American legal scholar. In fact it's already become an entry in Wikipedia:
On the eve of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in February 2021, the former president's attorneys filed a brief that made multiple references to a 2001 article on impeachment Kalt had written, asserting he had concluded impeachment of a former president is unconstitutional. Kalt replied “they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly” and that he had actually concluded there is a “solid basis” for post-presidential impeachments. “They suggest that I was endorsing an argument when what I actually did was note that argument—and reject it,” Kalt wrote on Twitter.[6] In an article for Slate magazine, he elaborated: "In several places, they cited me as though I had concluded something when in fact I had concluded the opposite."​

And Congress's impeachment hearings were unconstitutional and sought to deprive Trump of his right to run for office in the future. He seems to be confused and thinks we've already thrown out the old constitution because it's not fair, and adopted the post-apocalyptic version. Then he holds up Mao's little red book and takes another slurp from his water.
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[Did the little red book part really happen?]

Twisting Kalt's words a full 180 degrees is par for this ilk. They did the same thing on multiple occasions to Hilary Clinton's words. If only so many millions of Americans were not so badly equipped to recognize perfidy.
 
Jarhyn said:
Yeah, that's the real goal.

Picture this: these humans have an open exploit ,called "acceptance of insider authority". This exploit allows the injection of lies into their worldview; all it takes is an insider authority saying something and then they start believing that. Prior to Trump, the only people who had access to this exploit were the republican party, carefully curating a set of beneficial lies over the course of years to further their political aims. You could almost liken this to a large scale botnet running on an open exploit in a computer network. In fact, that's where I'm going to take this, as an analogy.

Suddenly, after years of careful maintanence, someone far more reckless and far less intelligent gets access to this exploit. Instead of quietly manipulating the worldview structures, though, the lies he injects are absolutely fucking crazy. Where the previously (and ironically) conservative manipulation had only involved minor lies like "trickle down", this new group of authority figures is now introducing shit like "they rape and eat babies".

This creates two problems for them. One is that to people that don't really display this exploit, the exploit itself is now painfully obvious and clearly problematic. But the second is far worse for the people who were previously using it: this new authority figure closed a lot of their own access, and pushed so much bullshit into the system that now, all their shit is broken and they have to play nice with this group that wrecked their shit.

They can't close the exploit either: it is still the only thing allowing them to hang onto their "useful idiots", whom they need to win elections and thus maintain any appearance of power.

They can't shut him out without shutting themselves out and they can't afford to shut themselves out, and any admission that they were lying or at fault will do exactly that
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I don't buy it. Aren't we more likely to distrust insider authority? He was the top guy in government. I see it more as the "us vs them" psychological mechanic. Trump says things that his base identify with and then formulate a vision of the enemy and then just relentlessly hammer home how evil they are. Since the base aren't the other he can make up any vile shit about the other and his base will buy it. It's also always smart to portray yourself as the underdog. That's all the deep state bullshit he's been dog whistling about.

It's a simpler story anyway. Your theory makes Trump out to be some sort of tactical genius. Which I find hard to believe.
 
SLD said:
I mean, if I had been in the Capitol Police - especially if my fellow officer was being crushed in a door, I would've said, enough of this shit and started opening fire. I'm stunned they didn't.
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It's pretty basic crowd control. In a revolution the moment uniformed men start shooting at the protesters the revolution gains speed. It's just counter productive. The only way to deal with it is to contain them physically and prevent their movements. Then one by one try separating people from the main group, and pull them away and put them in jail. As protesters get hungry and need to use the toilet they'll lose steam. In fascist dictatorships if anybody opens fire it's from another group than those representing the government. Not even they dare shooting their own citizens during protests.
 
abaddon said:
Castor says if you impeach Trump then what's to stop either party impeaching any president they dislike? The slippery slope argument. It's about as daft as "But if a traffic cop writes this guy a ticket then what's to stop traffic jams because now cops are writing everyone tickets?"

If presidents are subject to impeachment trials after leaving office, does that mean they'll all get impeached? That'll stop congress from getting things done, says Castor. Well, NO, if most presidents do not perform egregious acts on the scale Trump has done, it will not be a problem.

He's suggesting this impeachment is an act of whimsy and it sure as fuck is not.

Impeachment trials should be rare, says Castor. THAT'S RIGHT! They should be rare in exactly the way murder trials SHOULD be rare. It's not prosecuting them that is the problem, it's how anyone is put into the position of HAVING to prosecute that is the problem.
Click to expand...

And if you don't impeach, all future one-term presidents would try coups. Worst thing that could happen it does not work and they retire.
 
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