Trump finally understands how to treat this sham. And the sham on the Republic it is and will be.

At least since WWII the American education system has been about mass producing good little worker bees not individual excellence. Since some where around the mid seventies it's been about mass producing communist apparatchiks at least nominally incapable of thinking outside the collective box. Read the average sociological paper from today's college grads and you find it general written on a third grade level and so full of really basic logical errors as to be almost laughable, but they always obtain the result they want no matter what the facts say.
And the government doesn't do a good job of much of anything and the further it's slides to the left the worse it gets.

 

Pure sophistry. The only penalty that can be assessed is removal from office. He's no longer in office the only opinion that matters is that of the chief justice. Once he opts out you no longer have an impeachment.

 

Jan 6th was a false flag and maybe the final step in the obvious coup to unseat Pres Trump.

 

The issue is his ability to run again. Hence the importance of moving forward.

 

Doesn't matter a damn. Given his age and eating habits he may not even be alive four years from now.

Further an impeachment without the imprimature of the supreme court will be seen by almost everyone including scotus as iligitimate and penalties from it null and void even if you can find seventeen Republicans willing to sacrifice their careers on the impeachment shibboleth.

 

Ok, your statement above has some truth to it, BUT...
I've read your entire post, and I see you have completely ignored my point about the necessity to understand the basis of the political system, rather than just accepting it as a given.

Here is my proposition again:

"Time to rethink that delusional "sovereignty of the individual" thing...toward community cohesion and well-being".

(ie to achieve a balance between individualism and Marxism, in the nation's governance).

You have history totally back to front. The Keynesian paradigm (1946-1960's) - ie, government spending to promote prosperity via full employment - was usurped by Friedman's neoliberalism (1970's on) which was designed to put control of inflation ahead of a full employment policy.
(Friedman misunderstood the EXTERNAL pressures on the US economy beginning n the 70's eg, the 'push' inflation due to the Arab oil embargo; and increasing competition from low wage Asia eg manifested in Detroit's dramatic decline).

Yes, well I'm afraid you aren't a very good example of knowing the facts of economic development, since WW2.

The private vested interests that forbid the creation and spending of money by the sovereign currency-issuer (via the treasury and Fed) into the economy, are THE cause of "the situation getting worse" in the US.

https://ellenbrown.com/2019/06/14/the-american-dream-is-alive-and-well-in-china/

 

And this farce would likely lead to constitutional challenges in the Supreme Court. The stupidity of this farce plays on itself, by the so-called defenders of democracy. I digress, it's just hilarious.

 

It's in the Constitution. I believe the Framers were defenders of democracy.

 

No harm in shedding light on the causes of the Capitol riot.

But Biden's instincts have so far proved to be correct: his government has more important things to deal with than Trump.

Meantime schools really do need to be looking at the basis of US classical liberalism.

Hint: a 'sovereignty of the individual ' meme needs to be balanced by concern for community cohesion and well-being for all... a Marxist principle.

 

For sitting Presidents, yes. For private citizens? No. That question will likely be raised in the Supreme Court.

 

Already determined. It's been discussed ad nauseum.

Trump is guilty as hell. Process is irrelevant at this stage. Try him on the charges. The Framers would say we need to try Trump, and prohibit him from holding future office, to protect democracy. Hell, everybody but Trump loyalists says that. Trump is exactly who the Framers had in mind when they wrote the impeachment clause. Lying about election fraud is severe enough. Totally impeachable - violation of oath of office. Why are you so worked up about this trial?

 

I mean, I explained my reasoning in the OP. This trial is a farce. Process isn't "irrelevant", it's extremely relevant to the Senate's political legitimacy. If the Senate engages in this farce(and it shall) then the Senate is seen as farcial. In which case, I do think voter participation will go down. Why does it matter at this point, who we elect to the House/Senate? It doesn't change or get any better, so it's not worth participating in. Politicians have been begging for votes forever and it changed with the internet and Howard Dean in 2004. But given the political corruption, I think it's going to go back to normal. People won't give a F about politicians anymore.

 

I know. Doesn't look like a fact based opinion to me. What you see as farcical I see as duty. Voter participation is going up, and a 10 day Senate trial for a criminal ex-president isn't going to change that. Record turnout isn't going away because of a trial.

I don't give a **** about politicians. Who does? What I give a **** about is democracy, the Constitution and a competent government. This trial covers all three.

It's unprecedented, so we can't look to history for clues, but I just don't get why you think this trial holds sway over the entire future of the entire electorate. Makes no sense to me. It will be forgotten as quickly as it started.

 

"It will be forgotten as quickly as it started", that wasn't the argument for proponents of this pathetic display, now it's their argument? Let's be brutally honest: It's their argument now, because they want it to go down that way. Knowing that the Republicans have already committed to a no vote on this catastrophe, this is nothing more than a public stunt show.

Public stunt shows are beneath the Senate, public stunt shows are beneath America. And guess what? Biden inadvertently confessed that yes, this is a public stunt show:
: "He was impeached by the House and it has to move forward, otherwise it would come off as farcical what this was all about." Not having a trial in the Senate would "make a mockery of the system," Biden said.

His reasoning was off, even if the conclusion was ultimately accurate. I don't know about others, but for me, in the words of Nietzsche: Politics is dead and we killed it.

 

Not making a whole lot of sense to me AN. I agree with Biden. If it weren't for Mitch McConnell, Trump would have been tried and removed, as well as prevented from holding future office, before his term ended. It's not our (the American people) fault Mitch McConnell betrayed his oath of office. one impeachment means one trial. We are owed the trial. The Framers would demand it.

 

I don't know how I'm not making sense, and you concur with Biden because essentially, we're saying the same thing with one notable exception: Biden's stating that if we don't hold the trial, it would be seen as farcial. I'm saying that it's farcial because of the trial. We both agree that this is a farce. We both have the political understanding, that it's a farce.

Be that as it may for McConnell, the reality is, is that having the trial now ruined the purpose. Now the only thing the trial affects is the reputation and standing of the Senate. We never did mock trials, but now we held two. The Kavanaugh farce, and now this. The body of the Senate has seen much better days.

 

Should we also have a commission on what happened during the BLM and Antifa riots? I mean, you're talking about one day; the BLM and Antifa riots lasted for months with over a billion dollars in property damage, not to mention more loss of lives. So surely you would be on board for a commission surroundings the monthslong BLM and Antifa rioting, yes?

 

You think it's a farce. I know. Repeating it doesn't explain why.

An impeachment without a trial is incomplete. Something that's incomplete is a farce. Therefore, Biden and I are correct.

You can try again, but repeating your opinion with added rhetoric doesn't follow logically.

 

They impeached on the basis of 'inciting an insurrection', but they cannot meet this standard. They know they can't meet it, and they also don't have the votes for it. Thus, the whole thing is a farce. It's a farce not because it would be incomplete, but because it shouldn't have happened to begin with.

 

Alrighty then.

( I didn't have you pegged as the butt-hurt type.)

 

Where's the butt-hurt? Again, you keep thinking I'm personally vested in this. For the sake of posterity: I am not vested in this, or in anything to do with Donald Trump, a single speck of human beings among 320+ million of us. I am vested(or perhaps was vested) in the health of the US Senate.

But if this is the state of our politics for the foreseeable future, I question whether it's a sane and healthy mental practice.

 

Actually, they will fail to convict, then the next thing will be to see if they try to disqualify him from future office on a majority (rather than 2/3rds) vote.

If they do that, and the GOP retake the House and Senate in 2022, what is going to stop the House from impeaching Biden and Harris, failing to remove them on a 2/3rds vote, and then barring them from Federal Office on a majority vote?

And if Trump can be disqualified on a majority vote "to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States,” then how can Biden and Harris continue to HOLD the office of President/Vice President, much less be allowed to run for either office in 2024?

 

Notice that we still don't know the name of the officer who shot and killed and unarmed woman who clearly was not a imminent threat to the officer? The same folks who loudly shouted to defund the police, when it's THEIR police force who shoots an unarmed woman, a month later, we don't even know the officer's name. How quickly do we know the name and home addresses of city cops who kill the unarmed? Within an hour. But when it's Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats Police force, not a peep. We don't even know if the officer that shot her was male or female.

 

I mostly agree, I've expressed my opinion before that I don't believe there should be an impeachment without criminal conduct, especially if we're talking about impeaching someone who is no longer in office. Not to argue that congress does not have the authority to do so, it is just my opinion that impeaching someone without a criminal act lacks principle, and sets a poor precedence for future generations of governing.

Now that being said, I don't think it should be overlooked how Trump did fail one of his basic duties as an elected official, and that is he went beyond the legal processes for challenging an election's outcome. He not only lost the election, but he lost every legal process for legally challenging the election, yet still tried to remain in office. I think there's a difference between actions that are unlawful, and actions that are criminal. For example, Trump requesting that his vice president refuse to certify the election count is unlawful, but it is not criminal. It is unlawful in the sense that the vice president does not have the authority to take such actions, but at the same time, he was not requesting his vice president to take part in any criminal act. Trump acted unlawfully, he tried to ignore that he had lost the election by every legal measure, and he attempted to take actions which he legally did not have the authority to do.. but at the same time none of these actions were criminal acts in my opinion. While I should hope we never see such conduct from a president or candidate ever again, in my opinion no criminal acts have been proven.

However, if the rumors are true that Trump was refusing to deploy the national guard, and it can be proven that he was refusing to deploy the national guard so he could further delay the election from being certified, I think that would be criminal, and would absolutely warrant an impeachment... but as of now these are just rumors, if the impeachment trial runs its course and none of these rumors are proven to be true, then in my opinion impeachment is not the right course of actions for the senate to take. What Trump did wasn't acceptable, it was bad for the country, bad for democracy, and came with very serious consequences, but it wasn't impeachable in my opinion

 

Even when the 'unarmed' aren't really unarmed.