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Post by Farmduck on Nov 18, 2019 14:50:24 GMT 10
This whole impeachment process won't produce any winners, although Trump will claim to have been vindicated again. The Democrats really had no choice. If someone commits an obvious crime right in front of you and every bit of available evidence supports their guilt you can't ignore it even though it's complicated enough to make it difficult to convince a large chunk of the public. It's like trying to find a suitable jury for a white-collar crime - most people won't absorb hundreds of pages of accounts and bank transfers and many won't even be clear on what the actual crime is.
I've watched a few pro-Trump YT commentators expound their versions of these proceedings and, for them, it's so easy to paint this as a purely political manoeuvre. The cast of characters among the witnesses is too big and has too many nobodies, in the eyes of the public. Nobody has heard of George Kent or Fiona Hill so it's easy to discount their testimony because they can be portrayed as partisan hacks lined up by the Dems. There's no public history to establish them as credible in the eyes of Joe Public.
Then there's Hunter Biden and Burisma. The Dems needed a full exposure of all the circumstances of that case before they started these proceedings and they didn't do it. This makes it too easy for the Trumpists to say the whole impeachment saga is a circus to distract from Joe Biden's corruption - which is partly true although, as I said above, the Dems can't ignore Trump's actions simply because it may be uncomfortable for Biden.
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Post by Farmduck on Dec 6, 2019 23:28:35 GMT 10
I haven't seen any evidence that Biden did anything illegal but I don't clear him completely. He should have known how inappropriate it was for anyone in his family to take any job with Burisma. If his son had insisted on taking the job Biden should have made a public statement about it and recused himself from participating in any talks or decisions involving Ukraine or Russia. He also should not have taken his son on an official trip to China. (For all I know, the son may have paid for his flight, accommodation and expenses which makes it legal but still highly inappropriate.)
If you know the history of Burisma, it stunk from Day 1. Russia had been selling gas to Ukraine for years. Putin made a decision that all future sales would need to go through a middle man and Burisma was set up as the middle man. Its very existence was questionable and the most likely reason for it to exist was to siphon a commission of the Russian gas sales to Putin or to a "black ops" budget for pro-Putin activities.
However, this is all completely irrelevant to Trump's illegal behaviour in relation to Ukraine. If anyone has legitimate evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or his son, give it to the FBI and they can investigate. Trump didn't want an investigation. As Sondland said in his public testimony, Trump only wanted Zelensky to announce an investigation, not conduct one. This immediately blows the "corruption-fighter" garbage out of the water. Trump also had no authority to hold up the money because that is a decision for Congress, as evidenced by Congress's previous decision to cancel payments to Ukraine until the Government there distanced itself from neo-fascists like the Azov Batallion.
All the other Fox News red herrings are too tedious to dissect. The process hasn't been flawed in any way. The identity of the whistle-blower is completely irrelevant now, given the volume of testimony from other sources, including from witnesses called by the Republican members of the Intelligence Committee. The Fox News line about, "Why isn't this being done by the Judiciary Committee?" is also bogus since the Intelligence Committee didn't attempt to indict Trump, merely gathered information to pass on to the Judiciary Committee which has now commenced impeachment proceedings.
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Post by Farmduck on Dec 24, 2019 14:29:28 GMT 10
I've been watching some pro-Trump videos on YT and I have to try very hard to restrain myself from commenting. I couldn't be bothered getting into an endless slanging match in the YT comments. But, being me, I wouldn't be able to ignore it once it kicked off. Of course a lot of it is just Fox News talking points but the failure of logic and the lack of understanding by (mainly) Americans of their own system makes me sad.
It's unconstitutional/undemocratic: No it is laid out in the Constitution. No lawful act conducted by the duly-elected Congress can be undemocratic. Nothing the Democrats in Congress have done is illegal. The undemocratic part here is Trump ordering his inner circle not to cooperate with Congress. Congress isn't there to serve the President. It is a co-equal branch of government, one of the reasons why it is the body which was given the power to impeach a President.
Why hasn't the whistle-blower testified? He doesn't need to. There has been so much other testimony by people who were in the room or on the phone during all the relevant moments that the whistle-blower doesn't need to testify. If you have 10 eye-witnesses to a murder, does it matter who called the cops?
But what about the Bidens? Well if you have sufficient evidence to prosecute Joe and/or Hunter Biden then give it to the FBI. It is irrelevant whether or not the Bidens are investigated/convicted. If there is a murder where police don't find a case against any person and no prosecution results, does that mean I shouldn't be prosecuted for the murder I committed last week?
Why are they covering for the whistle-blower? Because they are required by the whistle-blower legislation to keep the name confidential. So why didn't they cover for Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning? Because they didn't go through the whistle-blower process laid out in the legislation.
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