The attempted coup

[RB 60]

The funny thing about this whole shitshow is that the person who the Dems say Trump bribed says Trump didn't bribe him. What do they know that he doesn't?

[katzgar]

The real value of the impeachment proceedings is anything to keep trump preoccupied keeps him from doing stupid s***

[FUCK THE POLICE]

It is labelled in the first line as an OPINION.

More importantly, the writer quotes Alexander Hamilton: “A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly or inimical, to the accused.”

So what? Like Hamilton is clearly going over the cons of impeachment here and presenting its possible vices. He does this throughout the Federalist papers with nearly every subject he approaches. He is not presenting a fatwa on passionate or political emotions or motivations in impeachment trials. This is him setting up the rest of the essay trying to allay these fears and explain why the system set up in the constitution is indeed the ideal one. As he was trying to persuade people into accepting it. His arguments in the actual essay are mostly along the lines of why the process set up will tend to minimize the chance of impeachment being abused in such a way.

Never, not once, does he say that the presence of partisan sentiments or passionate agitations in congress should invalidate an impeachment trial. That's never how the constitution or the federalist papers worked. He is presenting the above as a fact of human nature, and he then argues as to how the system in the constitution will help minimize this. It is a grave misinterpretation to take the above as prohibition on said behavior. Due to the nature and subject matter of impeachment, it is essentially impossible that any impeachment could conceivably take place where partisanship or passionate emotions don't play a role. He argues for a process to minimize this. That process, is the one described in the current constitution. He knows well enough not to try to ban human nature, obviously any provision directly prohibiting partisanship or passionate emotions would be unenforcably vague and self-defeating, it can always be said to be present and so would nullify any impeachment. That's why, if you'll notice, no such clause was in fact included in the constitution. The actual constitution lists a procedure for impeachment. If the house passes and the senate agrees, their office is terminated. That is final and can never be questioned. This is the due process of the procedure.

From later in Federalist 65:

This can never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense by the prosecutors, or in the construction of it by the judges, as in common cases serve to limit the discretion of courts in favor of personal security. There will be no jury to stand between the judges who are to pronounce the sentence of the law, and the party who is to receive or suffer it. The awful discretion which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.

This is like a tangent in an argument about the ideal size of the court, but it makes some pretty clear and definite statements here. Impeachment courts can't have strict rules, it will not have a jury to stand between its judgement and the defendant, and most importantly, it must necessarily be entrusted with an "awful discretion". The purpose of 65 is not to argue for a limitation as to the impeachment courts discretion, impeachment by definition has unlimited discretion. It's advocating for why the process defined in the constitution for the impeachment court, is in fact fit to h old this awful discretion.

Now you may disagree with Hamilton here, and think the current congress and senate under the constitution in fact is not fit to hold this discretion. But don't mutilate Alexander Hamilton in doing so. Leave Alex alone. You should know very well that the sentence you quoted describes yourselves just as much as the Democrats. The Democrats are the party inimical, you are the party friendly. Please don't deign to place yourselves above it all.

While on the subject I just have to point out how this is again why it's so poisonous that the right has this practice of basically worshiping the founders and treating every single word as revealed, infallible word of God. Like seriously you guys just bust out a quote out of context you don't even understand and, bam, that's the word of God you know, gotta obey that. When you clearly haven't even read nor understand the whole work you claim to worship. You almost gleefully excise it from context to support your own point in ways often entirely opposite the actual clear and intended meaning. You guys do the same shit with the fucking bible. All that matters is that these words have power right, they're the absolute truth, so if I quote them the right way that seems to support my argument, they give me power. And that is all you really care about, the power the words have the ability to grant you. It's so baffling and selfish and bad faith, how can you guys pretend to worship God or the constitution doing this stuff? There is almost no actual attempt on your part to actually think critically about the work. No you clip out a handful of bible verses in ways that support your worldview, now your worldview is supported by God, isn't that convenient. And quotes from the founders or even the constitution are the same shit, almost every time you hear someone quote a founder, they are trying to mislead.

Federalist No. 10, the one on factions, is abused in an almost exactly similar fashion as you've just abused 65. Like while it's setting up the argument in the introduction, it lists all the various evils of factions and harm they can cause. 99% of the time when I see No. 10 mentioned, it is this introduction just copied and pasted (likely the author has never read a single other word outside of it). Anyway, they use it to make a boring and trite argument like, bam, factions proved bad and evil forever, should be banned and suppressed along with all political parties, having any partisan affiliation at all, or ever for a moment displaying it, is literally treason by the word of God don't you know. If you read even just a little further you'd run into statements like "liberty is to faction as oxygen is to fire", clearly and obviously poopooing on the idea of solving the problem by just try to suppress and prohibit factions. In fact hiding behind such a pretentious declaration is usually just the desire to suppress all factions behind the authors own, wanting to do away with all the parties is practically a red flag sign of a tyrant in waiting. No, the actual point of the paper is that a broad union, with a multiplicity of factions, will minimize the dangers of faction by reducing the chance that a single one will get an unbreakable stranglehold on power. He was in fact arguing for a (gasp) *Diversity* of factions and interests all balanced against each other. Not a quixotic attempt to do away with them. Which is like the first notion he dispels after the intro.

Boomers never read past that intro though. No like half of you are somehow totally independent actors and haters of all parties and all the evil politicians, even though your at the same time psychotic devotees of Donald Trump and spend all of your time on internet forums spouting delusional conspiracy theories targeted at certain factions you disagree with. Your boomer self, of course, you're above all of that, you have no faction at all. It just turns out that objective, non-ideological, nonpartisanship happens to look almost exactly like reactionary fascism. Who would've thunk. And of course you have no greater fantasy that totally doing away with all your factional enemies so that finally the good people can be in charge. Good people who conveniently have political opinions all exactly mimicking your own, purging the corruption that is those other *factions*. You gerrymander and rig elections in pursuit of this goal, pack the courts, go to almost fanatical lengths to cling on to it.

You guys are precisely the people that Madison warned us about.

[MAGA MAN]

So what? Like Hamilton is clearly going over the cons of impeachment here and presenting its possible vices. He does this throughout the Federalist papers with nearly every subject he approaches. He is not presenting a fatwa on passionate or political emotions or motivations in impeachment trials. This is him setting up the rest of the essay trying to allay these fears and explain why the system set up in the constitution is indeed the ideal one. As he was trying to persuade people into accepting it. His arguments in the actual essay are mostly along the lines of why the process set up will tend to minimize the chance of impeachment being abused in such a way.

Never, not once, does he say that the presence of partisan sentiments or passionate agitations in congress should invalidate an impeachment trial. That's never how the constitution or the federalist papers worked. He is presenting the above as a fact of human nature, and he then argues as to how the system in the constitution will help minimize this. It is a grave misinterpretation to take the above as prohibition on said behavior. Due to the nature and subject matter of impeachment, it is essentially impossible that any impeachment could conceivably take place where partisanship or passionate emotions don't play a role. He argues for a process to minimize this. That process, is the one described in the current constitution. He knows well enough not to try to ban human nature, obviously any provision directly prohibiting partisanship or passionate emotions would be unenforcably vague and self-defeating, it can always be said to be present and so would nullify any impeachment. That's why, if you'll notice, no such clause was in fact included in the constitution. The actual constitution lists a procedure for impeachment. If the house passes and the senate agrees, their office is terminated. That is final and can never be questioned. This is the due process of the procedure.

From later in Federalist 65:



This is like a tangent in an argument about the ideal size of the court, but it makes some pretty clear and definite statements here. Impeachment courts can't have strict rules, it will not have a jury to stand between its judgement and the defendant, and most importantly, it must necessarily be entrusted with an "awful discretion". The purpose of 65 is not to argue for a limitation as to the impeachment courts discretion, impeachment by definition has unlimited discretion. It's advocating for why the process defined in the constitution for the impeachment court, is in fact fit to h old this awful discretion.

Now you may disagree with Hamilton here, and think the current congress and senate under the constitution in fact is not fit to hold this discretion. But don't mutilate Alexander Hamilton in doing so. Leave Alex alone. You should know very well that the sentence you quoted describes yourselves just as much as the Democrats. The Democrats are the party inimical, you are the party friendly. Please don't deign to place yourselves above it all.

While on the subject I just have to point out how this is again why it's so poisonous that the right has this practice of basically worshiping the founders and treating every single word as revealed, infallible word of God. Like seriously you guys just bust out a quote out of context you don't even understand and, bam, that's the word of God you know, gotta obey that. When you clearly haven't even read nor understand the whole work you claim to worship. You almost gleefully excise it from context to support your own point in ways often entirely opposite the actual clear and intended meaning. You guys do the same shit with the fucking bible. All that matters is that these words have power right, they're the absolute truth, so if I quote them the right way that seems to support my argument, they give me power. And that is all you really care about, the power the words have the ability to grant you. It's so baffling and selfish and bad faith, how can you guys pretend to worship God or the constitution doing this stuff? There is almost no actual attempt on your part to actually think critically about the work. No you clip out a handful of bible verses in ways that support your worldview, now your worldview is supported by God, isn't that convenient. And quotes from the founders or even the constitution are the same shit, almost every time you hear someone quote a founder, they are trying to mislead.

Federalist No. 10, the one on factions, is abused in an almost exactly similar fashion as you've just abused 65. Like while it's setting up the argument in the introduction, it lists all the various evils of factions and harm they can cause. 99% of the time when I see No. 10 mentioned, it is this introduction just copied and pasted (likely the author has never read a single other word outside of it). Anyway, they use it to make a boring and trite argument like, bam, factions proved bad and evil forever, should be banned and suppressed along with all political parties, having any partisan affiliation at all, or ever for a moment displaying it, is literally treason by the word of God don't you know. If you read even just a little further you'd run into statements like "liberty is to faction as oxygen is to fire", clearly and obviously poopooing on the idea of solving the problem by just try to suppress and prohibit factions. In fact hiding behind such a pretentious declaration is usually just the desire to suppress all factions behind the authors own, wanting to do away with all the parties is practically a red flag sign of a tyrant in waiting. No, the actual point of the paper is that a broad union, with a multiplicity of factions, will minimize the dangers of faction by reducing the chance that a single one will get an unbreakable stranglehold on power. He was in fact arguing for a (gasp) *Diversity* of factions and interests all balanced against each other. Not a quixotic attempt to do away with them. Which is like the first notion he dispels after the intro.

Boomers never read past that intro though. No like half of you are somehow totally independent actors and haters of all parties and all the evil politicians, even though your at the same time psychotic devotees of Donald Trump and spend all of your time on internet forums spouting delusional conspiracy theories targeted at certain factions you disagree with. Your boomer self, of course, you're above all of that, you have no faction at all. It just turns out that objective, non-ideological, nonpartisanship happens to look almost exactly like reactionary fascism. Who would've thunk. And of course you have no greater fantasy that totally doing away with all your factional enemies so that finally the good people can be in charge. Good people who conveniently have political opinions all exactly mimicking your own, purging the corruption that is those other *factions*. You gerrymander and rig elections in pursuit of this goal, pack the courts, go to almost fanatical lengths to cling on to it.

You guys are precisely the people that Madison warned us about.

2 long, didn't read

[Micawber]

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/...-murder-a66433

This is what a coup looks like ^^^

Trump is being impeached using processes YOU have used against Bill Clinton. Was that a coup?

My, aren't you just the ignorant hillbillies.

[Earl]

The funny thing about this whole shitshow is that the person who the Dems say Trump bribed says Trump didn't bribe him. What do they know that he doesn't?

Indeed.







If this sham Democrat circus had anyone of integrity (they do not or are afraid), there would be a notice of termination, a summary judgement and there would be an apology forthcoming from these fanatics (which includes most of the radical, Socialist Democrat party) to President Trump who has now been cleared by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Vadym Pyrstaiko.

Don’t hold your breath.

Summary Judgement:

“A court order ruling that no factual issues remain to be tried and therefore a cause of action or all causes of action in a complaint can be decided upon certain facts without trial. A summary judgment is based upon a motion by one of the parties that contends that all necessary factual issues are settled or so one-sided they need not be tried. The motion is supported by declarations under oath, excerpts from depositions which are under oath, admissions of fact and other discovery, as well as a legal argument (points and authorities), that argue that there are no triable issues of fact and that the settled facts require a summary judgment for the moving party. The opposing party will respond by counter-declarations and legal arguments attempting to show that there are "triable issues of fact." If it is unclear whether there is a triable issue of fact in any cause of action, then summary judgment must be denied as to that cause of action. The theory behind the summary judgment process is to eliminate the need to try settled factual issues and to decide without trial one or more causes of action in the complaint. The pleading procedures are extremely technical and complicated and are particularly dangerous to the party against whom the motion is made.”
dictionary.law.com

[Eagle_Eye]

Quoting a moron just means you're a moron

Pot calling the kettle black.

[Earl]

The funny thing about this whole shitshow is that the person who the Dems say Trump bribed says Trump didn't bribe him. What do they know that he doesn't?

Indeed.

U.S. envoy Sondland did not link Biden probe to aid: Ukraine minister


KIEV (Reuters) - "Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Thursday that U.S. ambassador Gordon Sondland did not explicitly link military aid to Kiev with opening an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Interfax Ukraine reported.

Trump and his allies are accused by Democrat opponents of freezing nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations into Biden, Trump’s main rival for the 2020 presidential race.

Trump calls the inquiry a witch hunt.

“Ambassador Sondland did not tell us, and certainly did not tell me, about a connection between the assistance and the investigations. You should ask him,” Prystaiko said about Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

Prystaiko’s comments came a day after William Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, testified in the first televised hearing of the impeachment inquiry.

In a disclosure that drew the most attention, Taylor pointed to Trump’s keen interest in getting the eastern European ally to investigate Biden and reiterated his understanding that $391 million in U.S. security aid was withheld from Kiev unless it cooperated.

Taylor said a member of his staff had overheard a July 26 phone call between Trump and Sondland in which the Republican president asked about investigations into the Bidens, and Sondland told him that the Ukrainians were ready to proceed.

That call occurred a day after Trump had asked Zelenskiy during a phone call to conduct the investigations.

“I have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance,” Prystaiko was quoted as saying by Interfax. “Yes, the investigations were mentioned, you know, in the conversation of the presidents. But there was no clear connection between these events.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...ter-idUSKBN1XO

No quid, no pro, no quo...nada.

[Micawber]

The CIA did it in Iran in 1953. I understand there were no impeachment hearings for Mossadegh before he was arrested in the middle of the night and jailed for life.

Feel free to use the hyperventilating coup narrative though.

[Earl]

No quid, no pro, no quo...nada.

[CFM]

The real value of the impeachment proceedings is anything to keep trump preoccupied keeps him from doing stupid s***

In other words, you want things overall to get worse so you have cover for being a failure in life.

[MAGA MAN]

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/...-murder-a66433

This is what a coup looks like ^^^

Trump is being impeached using processes YOU have used against Bill Clinton. Was that a coup?

My, aren't you just the ignorant hillbillies.

Definition of coup d'état
: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics
especially : the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group

m-w.com

Hence "non-violent coup". Since American politics has historically tended towards non-violence, shorted to "coup".

My, aren't you just the ignorant hillbilly.

[katzgar]

In other words, you want things overall to get worse so you have cover for being a failure in life.

in other words he panders to racists and homophobes less.

[Earl]

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/schi...jason-chaffetz

Jason Chaffetz: Why Schiff's whistleblower claims at Trump impeachment hearing are impossible to believe
Jason Chaffetz
By Jason Chaffetz:

"Schiff ends impeachment hearing insisting he doesn’t know whistleblower

Rep. Adam Schiff sticks to his story that he doesn't know the whistleblower

Americans had a front-row seat for Day One of impeachment inquiry hearings in the House on Wednesday. But missing from the testimony on Capitol Hill was the “witness” who started it all. Six grueling hours of testimony by two hearsay witnesses shed little light on the allegations against President Trump.

Neither George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state for Europe nor William Taylor, the charge d’affaires in Kiev had firsthand information and both clearly had an ax to grind over their differences with the president on foreign policy.

More interesting than their testimony was the complete whitewashing of any reference to the original whistleblower, whose second-hand allegations so deeply concerned House Democrats that they opened an official impeachment inquiry – a process they had three times explicitly rejected in previous House votes.

DAVID BOSSIE: IMPEACHMENT CASE AGAINST TRUMP IS FALLING APART – DEMOCRATS WANT TO HURT HIM IN 2020 ELECTION

What was so compelling about the testimony of this witness that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had long held that impeachment should only proceed as a bipartisan effort, would abandon her position and pursue a one-sided inquiry?

Americans still don't know.

In the first day of testimony, there was barely any mention of the original witness or the transcript of the call that lies at the center of the allegations.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff went to great lengths to suppress any reference to the witness during the first day of testimony, even going so far as to claim (laughably) that he doesn't know who the witness is.

Let’s think about that for a moment. We know that the whistleblower met with Schiff’s STAFF. Are we supposed to believe that the Congressman stepped out of the office when he arrived or hid in another room when the whistleblower meeting took place?

The notion that Adam Schiff doesn't know the identity of a whistleblower so many in Washington can already identify by name is laughable.

Is Schiff trying to tell us that his staff told him, “We’ve just met with the whistleblower.” To which he replied, “don’t tell me his name! I don’t want to meet him! But let me use everything he just told you to impeach the president.” Who could believe that? Such a scenario is not only ridiculous, but it would also be irresponsible.

Remember, this is the same Schiff whose promises of "ample evidence of collusion in plain sight" were repudiated by the final Mueller Report. He is hardly a beacon of credibility, but the notion that he doesn't know the identity of a whistleblower so many in Washington can already identify by name is laughable.

He Who Must Not Be Named is not expected to testify at all. That's totally unacceptable.

The American people cannot be expected to accept a partisan impeachment inquiry in which only one side calls witnesses, exculpatory evidence is suppressed, and the primary witness cannot be identified, much less questioned. Particularly given the fact that the whistleblower is no whistleblower, having no firsthand knowledge of the allegations. But he or she does have firsthand knowledge of the machinations within the White House designed to thwart a sitting president. That testimony is relevant.

We know what justice looks like. This is not justice. The House Intelligence Committee is neither an impeachment committee nor a Grand Jury.
More from Opinion

Tucker Carlson: It’s never been clear what Dems believe is Trump’s impeachable offense. Now we know. It’s THIS
Leslie Marshall: Trump, impeachment and the future – Here's what I tell my Democratic friends
Andrew McCarthy: Elections, not impeachments are how we resolve policy disputes in this country

With great fanfare, Speaker Pelosi initiated the formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump in September promising that, "no one is above the law." She claimed the president's actions "have seriously violated the Constitution."



That’s not what viewers saw on this first day of public testimony. If there are violations of the law or the Constitution by this president, these witnesses couldn't testify to it. Their accounts were based on hearsay, opinion and media reports.

If anyone has been treated as though they are above the law, it is this so-called whistleblower.

[CFM]

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/...-murder-a66433

This is what a coup looks like ^^^

Trump is being impeached using processes YOU have used against Bill Clinton. Was that a coup?

My, aren't you just the ignorant hillbillies.

Clinton was impeached for lying, something he admitted to doing. Trump is being impeached because Democrats can handle the ass kicking they received.