Muda69

Trump Is Getting Impeached Today. Should His Complaints About the Process Be Taken Seriously?: https://reason.com/2019/12/18/trump-is-getting-impeached-today-should-his-complaints-about-the-process-be-taken-seriously/ This parsing of us vs. me proves nothing, since us is ambiguous. It could refer, as Trump says, to the United States, or it could refer to Trump and his allies. Trump illustrated that ambiguity during the call by asking Zelenskiy to work with Giuliani, his personal lawyer, as well as Attorney General William Barr. The essence of the allegation against Trump is precisely that he framed a "favor" for him—a Ukrainian investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender to oppose him in next year's election—as a favor for the U.S. government, which was at that very moment withholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine by presidential fiat. Trump's request for that "favor" immediately followed Zelenskiy's expression of gratitude for U.S. aid and his mention of his government's plans to buy anti-tank missiles from the United States. The conjunction of those two issues gives rise to a fair inference that there was a connection between the investigation Trump sought and the assistance that Zelenskiy was counting on. As Turley noted, Trump's conversation with Zelenskiy "was anything but 'perfect' and his reference to the Bidens was highly inappropriate." That Trump still seems oblivious to that point is of a piece with his general lack of self-awareness, disregard for diplomatic norms, and inability to admit when he is wrong. Trump emphasizes that Zelenskiy has said he did not feel "pressure" to comply with Trump's request, which is both highly implausible and completely understandable given Ukraine's dependence on U.S. support. Since Zelenskiy will be dealing with Trump at least until January 2021 and quite possibly for another four years after that, it is perfectly rational for him to worry about the risks of reinforcing the case for impeachment, especially if he views Trump as a mercurial president driven by personal motives. And although Trump claims Zelenskiy "has repeatedly declared that I did nothing wrong," Zelenskiy actually criticized Trump's hold on the military aid, saying, "If you're our strategic partner, then you can't go blocking anything for us. I think that's just about fairness. It's not about a quid pro quo." While Trump may read that as confirmation that he "did nothing wrong," it seems more like a plea from a desperate ally who does not want his country's relationship with the United States to be tangled up in domestic American politics. In Trump's telling, Democrats latched onto his "totally appropriate" interaction with Zelenskiy as the latest excuse for doing something they had long wanted to do: While that history understandably reinforces the suspicion that Democrats are targeting Trump for purely partisan reasons, it is logically irrelevant to the merits of the allegations that actually led to his impeachment. There is a reason why Pelosi and other Democratic leaders resisted impeachment for so long but changed their minds after Trump's conduct vis-à-vis Ukraine came to light. If Trump did in fact abuse his presidential powers for personal gain by pressuring a foreign government to conduct an investigation aimed at discrediting a political rival (and there is compelling evidence that he did), that would be a clear betrayal of the public trust. In defending himself against that charge, Trump complains, "I have been deprived of basic Constitutional Due Process," including "the right to present evidence, to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses." But those guarantees for defendants in criminal trials do not apply in the context of impeachment, and Trump has in any case rejected opportunities to present his side of the story in the House while refusing, based on a sweeping claim of executive privilege, to provide documents or consent to testimony by current or former administration officials. During his trial in the Senate, Trump could avail himself of all the rights he says he has been denied, depending on the rules that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) settles on. But McConnell, who says his approach will be dictated by what Trump wants, apparently plans to conduct a minimal trial without witnesses, leading to a quick and predetermined acquittal along party lines. McConnell is right that he has no obligation to fill gaps in the case against Trump by calling witnesses, such as former National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, whom the House decided not to subpoena in the hope of avoiding prolonged court battles over whether they could be compelled to testify. And Trump is right that charging him with obstruction of Congress seems premature, since the House did not bother to test his executive privilege claims in court, which could have resulted in orders requiring the testimony of Bolton et al. as well as the production of relevant documents. At the same time, the assumption that such highly placed sources would have incriminating things to say is rather telling. The upshot of a hasty impeachment in the House and a hasty acquittal in the Senate is that the question of whether Trump committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" will never be fully considered.

Oh, I am quite well armed friend. It is you who quite frequently has an empty holster.

No, gonzo. It was you. And your clumsy juggling of my previous statements prove it. Just admit it. It's ok.

By finally imposing a penalty for abusing the powers of the office, Congress might reassert some of its own surrendered authority that it has been giving away for decades, and put clearer boundaries around the behavior of chief executives to come. But again this is the uni-party we are talking about.....................

House marches toward Trump impeachment; he claims ‘assault’: https://apnews.com/d78192d45b176f73ad435ae9fb926ed3 Isn't this mostly a true statement?

I don't use Facebook; you do. And you were the first to forward the premise of equating "life" to the GID with these statements:

Good points. The play calling by Nagy almost all season was very strange. The team also missed Jordan Howard. IMHO Montgomery is not a quality replacement.

No consistently good offensive line play to me was a major factor. You can't win if you can't score. Also Trubisky took a step backward in his development as a QB this season. Also losing Hicks and Trevathan for a significant portion of the season didn't help their defense any.

You are mistaken if you believe I consider the GID as "life". It is not. So to you "life" is all about entertainment?

Some good stuff there. Kind of reminds me of the offense Brett Colby and now his son Austin typically run.

Nice picture of you and Gonzo.

Bad Capitalism and Good Socialism: https://mises.org/power-market/bad-capitalism-and-good-socialism

https://mises.org/wire/how-unions-reduce-real-wages A long but very informative read.

? Why are you co-opting quotes from crimsonace1 from what appears to be a different conversation?

Which IMHO is what several here want the GIB OOB forum to become. That and a repository for cat videos/memes. I'm afraid that was not the vision of the late, great Tim Adams.

Because IMHO life is about more than being "entertained". But to each his own, long as it doesn't violate the ZAP.

No, the objective truth.

Texas Schools Use 'Vape-Detecting Technology' To Arrest and Imprison Teens Who Vape: https://reason.com/2019/12/17/vaping-texas-schools-thc-drugs/ The article highlights a few concrete examples. Student Thomas Williams-Platt, age 17, brought a vape pen into school that he had purchased from another student. Police conducted an on-site drug test that determined it contained THC. He was arrested, handcuffed, and booked into jail, where he spent hours in a cell "listening to the screams of other arrestees suffering from drug withdrawal." Texas law considers 17-year-olds to be adults for sentencing purposes, which meant that Williams-Platt could face felony charges. That 17-year-olds in Texas are considered insufficiently mature to vape, but plenty old enough to go to prison, is an absurd and unconscionable hypocrisy. It's also the law. When students are caught vaping, they are often immediately expelled and shipped off to alternative schools for serious wrongdoers. These are even worse environments for young people, described by Williams-Platt as a kind of "super strict kindergarten" where students learn very little, except perhaps to follow capricious and arbitrary rules. The number of Texas kids sentenced to these schools has increased 6o percent since last year, and officials say the war on vaping is largely to blame. To the extent that vaping is harmful, most of the danger comes from consuming illicit, black market vaping products—the very sort of vaping that becomes more common as the industry is driven underground by overzealous legislators. But let's say the health concerns were well-founded. What's worse for the average teenager: vaping, or going to prison? There should be no doubt that the solution to this supposed problem—pulling kids out of good schools to send them to bad schools, treating them like inmates, and charging them with felonies—is significantly more harmful. The war on vaping is a moral panic with terrible consequences for the very people it is supposedly designed to protect. Sadly, it is likely to get much worse. Various Republican and Democratic senators have proposed a federal measure to ban all tobacco products—including e-cigarettes—for everyone under the age of 21. So you can fight and die for your country at the age of 18, but you can't legally consume alcohol or (soon) tobacco products. Something is wrong here.

So no, I never used that word. Thanks for proving that. But I'm sorry that you believe that internet message forums only exist to "entertain" you.

https://medium.com/@Cameron1/taking-back-our-country-reducing-waste-and-corruption-in-government-d2105b4a5753 https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/these-wasteful-government-programs-need-go https://www.rd.com/culture/wasteful-government-spending-examples/ Just 30 seconds of searching google.

Disdain? Where was that word used in our recent conversation? You don't agree that sometimes minds can be changed, or at least thought-provoking questions raised, on a internet message forum?

1. Generally agree. 2. Sorry that choose to keep you head in the sand.

Why just the Department of Defense? Are you saying there is no waste/graft/corruption endemic in other parts of the federal government?

In full agreement. How about a 25% cut in spending across all federal government departments/agencies/bureaus/etc.? That should help out.

I think that there are, one just has to be more discriminating. Most of the news articles I read at places like apnews.com or reuters.com do not have a uni-party bias. Neither does the excellent reporting and opinions at reason.com or the podcast No Agenda. So you believe you can "change the world" from a high school football internet forum?