gonzoron Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 13 minutes ago, Muda69 said: Which IMHO is what several here want the GIB OOB forum to become. That and a repository for cat videos/memes. 2 hours ago, crimsonace1 said: You can go run your own site, since you are never going to run this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 20 minutes ago, gonzoron said: ? Why are you co-opting quotes from crimsonace1 from what appears to be a different conversation? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonzoron Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 2 hours ago, Muda69 said: Because IMHO life is about more than being "entertained". But to each his own, long as it doesn't violate the ZAP. This is where we differ for sure. I do not consider the GID as "life". I'm sorry that you do. IMHO there is a lot more to life than an internet message board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 17 minutes ago, gonzoron said: This is where we differ for sure. I do not consider the GID as "life". I'm sorry that you do. IMHO there is a lot more to life than an internet message board. You are mistaken if you believe I consider the GID as "life". It is not. So to you "life" is all about entertainment? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swordfish Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 BTW - While you 2 are in the middle of a cat-fight, the Congressional Democrats are debating the horribly obvious partisan impeachment of our current President while (out of the other side of their mouths) accusing the Senate of partisanship......🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonzoron Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 25 minutes ago, Muda69 said: So to you "life" is all about entertainment? There you go again, equating "life" to the GID and Facebook. 10 minutes ago, swordfish said: BTW - While you 2 are in the middle of a cat-fight, the Congressional Democrats are debating the horribly obvious partisan impeachment of our current President while (out of the other side of their mouths) accusing the Senate of partisanship......🤣 It feels like I've stepped back in time 20 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swordfish Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 1 minute ago, gonzoron said: It feels like I've stepped back in time 20 years. I didn't know about the GID 20 years ago....... Oh and President Clinton did actually lie under oath.....and he did attempt to influence a witness (Monica)....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonzoron Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 14 minutes ago, swordfish said: I didn't know about the GID 20 years ago....... Oh and President Clinton did actually lie under oath.....and he did attempt to influence a witness (Monica)....... It's a historic day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 55 minutes ago, gonzoron said: There you go again, equating "life" to the GID and Facebook. 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: 1 hour ago, gonzoron said: This is where we differ for sure. I do not consider the GID as "life". I'm sorry that you do. IMHO there is a lot more to life than an internet message board. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 House marches toward Trump impeachment; he claims ‘assault’: https://apnews.com/d78192d45b176f73ad435ae9fb926ed3 Quote The U.S. House marched toward a historic evening vote to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday, with Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisting Congress must “defend democracy” by evicting him from the White House. Trump would be just the third American president to be impeached, a distinctive dark mark on his tenure. Trump said that despite the Democrats’ patriotic talk, they were actually perpetrating “an assault on America.” Pelosi invoked the the Pledge of Allegiance and the Preamble to the Constitution in arguing that the Founders’ vision for a republic was threatened by the actions by Trump in the White House. “Today we are here to defend democracy for the people,″ she said to applause from Democrats in the chamber. “I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the president of the United States.” Republicans swiftly came to the president’s defense. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia warned that the Founders were just as concerned about a purely partisan impeachment, as this one is on track to become, wielded by the power of a majority party. “This is not a solemn occasion,” he mocked. “You’ve been wanting to to do this ever since the gentlemen was elected.″ .... Isn't this mostly a true statement? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 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..................... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonzoron Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 4 minutes ago, Muda69 said: 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: Wrong. It was you: 4 hours ago, Muda69 said: But I'm sorry that you believe that internet message forums only exist to "entertain" you. 4 hours ago, gonzoron said: Why are you sorry about that? 3 hours ago, Muda69 said: Because IMHO life is about more than being "entertained". But to each his own, long as it doesn't violate the ZAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 2 minutes ago, gonzoron said: Wrong. It was you: No, gonzo. It was you. And your clumsy juggling of my previous statements prove it. Just admit it. It's ok. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gonzoron Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 10 minutes ago, Muda69 said: No, gonzo. It was you. And your clumsy juggling of my previous statements prove it. Just admit it. It's ok. Next time you want to engage in a battle of wits, please come armed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 11 minutes ago, gonzoron said: Next time you want to engage in a battle of wits, please come armed. Oh, I am quite well armed friend. It is you who quite frequently has an empty holster. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swordfish Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Dudes...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 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/ Quote Donald Trump's angry six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) offers both frivolous and plausible grounds for questioning his impeachment. Once you get past the bluster, bragging, idiosyncratic capitalization, and other Trump tics, it offers a useful summation of the reasons Republicans are so outraged by a process that Democrats portray as a straightforward fulfillment of their constitutional responsibilities. Trump calls impeachment an "unconstitutional abuse of power," "an illegal, partisan attempted coup," an "election-nullification scheme," and an "attempt to undo the election of 2016." In practical terms, of course, Trump's removal from office through impeachment would not "undo the election," since his party would still control the White House, with Vice President Mike Pence, who was elected on the same ticket as Trump, taking over his position. That's not exactly a coup. What about the claim that impeachment is illegal and unconstitutional? Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says the president "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Article I, Section 2 says the House of Representatives "shall have the sole power of impeachment," while Section 3 says "the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." Trump thinks the House does not have a good reason to impeach him, but that does not mean it lacks the constitutional authority to do so. Trump claims "the Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence," because "they include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever." But while impeachable offenses can include criminal offenses, they also include abuses of power that betray the public trust but do not necessarily violate any particular statute. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, the lone Republican witness at the House Judiciary Committee's December 4 hearing on impeachment, made that point repeatedly during his testimony, which Trump cites when it supports his arguments. Trump's own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has conceded that impeachable offenses are not necessarily illegal, citing a pre-emptive self-pardon as an example of conduct that "would just be unthinkable" and "would lead to probably an immediate impeachment," even though the Constitution imposes no limits on the president's pardon power. The question, as framed by the articles of impeachment against Trump, is not whether he has broken the law but whether he has abused his powers in a way egregious enough to justify his removal. Turley, who harshly criticized the impeachment process as rushed and incomplete, worries that abuse-of-power allegations can be dangerously amorphous when detached from the elements required to prove a crime. He nevertheless concedes that "the use of military aid for a quid pro quo to investigate one's political opponent, if proven, can be an impeachable offense." Trump does himself no favors by continuing to insist in his letter to Pelosi that his July 25 telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was "perfect" and that the reconstructed White House transcript of that call refutes the claims against him: I said to President Zelensky: "I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." I said do us a favor, not me, and our country, not a campaign. I then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States. Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America's interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky. 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: Nineteen minutes after I took the oath of office, the Washington Post published a story headlined, "The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun." Less than three months after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, "I'm going to fight every day until he's impeached." House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our country's best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports)—who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest cops our Nation has ever seen. A ranting and raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours after she was sworn into office, "We're gonna go in there and we're gonna impeach the motherf****r." Representative Al Green said in May, "I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected." Again, you and your allies said, and did, all of these things long before you ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to Ukraine. 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swordfish Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 (edited) The inquiry is over - All the Dems (except for 3) voted for it, and the President was impeached by the House of Representatives as a result. Do you think they woke up the sleeping giant kinda like the Japanese did the US at Pearl Harbor? Lest we forget: "well Son of a Bi#@$"...... Edited December 19, 2019 by swordfish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 19 minutes ago, swordfish said: The inquiry is over - All the Dems (except for 3) voted for it, and the President was impeached by the House of Representatives as a result. Do you think they woke up the sleeping giant kinda like the Japanese did the US at Pearl Harbor? Lest we forget: "well Son of a Bi#@$"...... Tulsi Gabbard Votes 'Present' on Trump Impeachment, Slams 'Purely Partisan Process': https://reason.com/2019/12/18/tulsi-gabbard-impeachment-present-vote-trump/ Quote Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii), a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted "present" on the two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday. This made her virtually the only the Democrat to effectively vote against sending the president's removal to the Senate. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D–NJ) voted no on impeachment, but is expected to switch parties. Gabbard is the first-ever representative to vote "present" during an impeachment inquiry, according to The Daily Beast. In a statement, Gabbard said that Trump is guilty of wrongdoing, but that she could not endorse a "purely partisan process." "When I cast my vote in support of the impeachment inquiry nearly three months ago, I said that in order to maintain the integrity of this solemn undertaking, it must not become a partisan endeavor," said Gabbard. "Tragically, that's what it has been." Gabbard characterized her actions as a "stand for the center"—a center that neither excuses Trump's wrongdoing, nor supports his ousting mere months before a presidential election. Regardless of whether you agree with Gabbard's stance, it's quite refreshing to see a politician who is willing to go against her own party. The same goes for Rep. Justin Amash (I–Mich.), who left the Republican Party and voted for Trump's impeachment because he puts his limited government principles before partisanship. In these incredibly tribal times, such independent thinking is incredibly rare. Most members of Congress seem obligated to either defend Trump at all costs—no matter how contemptible his behavior—or advocate his immediate removal from office by any means necessary. Agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BARRYOSAMA Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 The SF prediction of a democratic mass exodus on the impeachment vote did not materialize so he must deflect to the fake and debunked Biden angle. Very predictable and sad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howe Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swordfish Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 On 12/13/2019 at 8:12 AM, swordfish said: 1 hour ago, BARRYOSAMA said: The SF prediction of a democratic mass exodus on the impeachment vote did not materialize so he must deflect to the fake and debunked Biden angle. Very predictable and sad https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/13/21011471/house-democrats-impeachment-vote-trump And let the defections start........Surely won't be enough defections to get this to drop, but fun to watch the dems in the red states squirm....... A SF Prediction of masses? Hardly.......But squirming they are this morning........ The "debunked" Biden angle? The fireworks haven't even begun yet........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BARRYOSAMA Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 2 minutes ago, swordfish said: A SF Prediction of masses? Hardly.......But squirming they are this morning........ The "debunked" Biden angle? The fireworks haven't even begun yet........ Squirming they are not. Yes. Debunked. Fake news. The only fireworks will be in Trump's rambling nonsensical rallies, letters and twitter posts. Lots of huffing and puffing to distract from Trump's criminal behavior. McConnell knows better than to call any witness in the trial that will address Trumps abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BARRYOSAMA Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 8 minutes ago, swordfish said: A SF Prediction of masses? Hardly.......But squirming they are this morning........= By the way the 2 dems that voted against were from .... New Jersey and Minnesota - Neither would be considered even close to a red state. New Jersey guy was a DINO anyway. On one article a rep from Maine voted for impeachment. - Maine is purple, not red. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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