Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The 2019-2020 Impeachment, Trial and Acquittal of Donald John Trump

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
    You have to love a post that is completely dedicated to the notion that Conservatives are victims, yet accuses 'Global leftists' of indulging in 'the narrative of victimhood'. The lack of self awareness would be touching were the author not a fanboy of the sort of politicians who use this confected sense of victimhood to justify all manner of nastiness.

    I guess some people just need to feel like they are victims, no matter how privileged they are.



    On the basis of this observation I am tempted to invest in companies that make adult daipers.



    Because they have a low defecation rate?
    Let me try again, I don't want to be guilty of not debating.

    Narrative: I have not qualified any Leftist narrative to be true. So your rant is a false equivalence.

    Fanboy: This is your only selling point on this board calling others Fanboy. I have lost the count on how many times you have used this adjective. Grow up.

    I guess: Stop guessing and thinking for others especially when you are indulging in one-liners and personal attacks.

    Defecation: 'Typo' Defection I mean.

    Fence-sitter: You made your point in the first quote on Defecation why getting into more trouble to correct me?

    Comment


    • Originally posted by ambidex View Post
      I will tactically back off now.

      My argument was based on legal Jurisprudence and due process of the Law. Implicit bias, Prejudice, criminal history came only into the debate when other side used these principles to make their case against Trump.

      On Legality, I even presented an adage we use in medico-legal cases to decide in favour of the law ignoring clinical outcome even if it costs human life and perceived ethical practices.

      I have been told 'off' that maintaining the sanctity of American democracy and the sanctity of the President's office or disciplining the officer bearer goes beyond the typical legal scope and due process of the Law but predicates on eclectic ideas like brinksmanship and propaganda. In more subtle terms it is politics at play in a confined place called Capitol building where it is absolutely fair to act in a certain way when one side decides that the other side has not acted in the true spirit of the American constitution.
      All of which only betrays your ignorance of the US Constitution even more. But go ahead, this is pretty entertaining. And, because you've obviously jump into the thread without reading it first, I'll help you out:

      The Myth of the Impeachment Inquiry Process
      By Daniel Cotter*

      On October 31, 2019, the House voted along party lines, 232-196, to formalize the impeachment inquiry procedure. Republicans had insisted that the process must be formalized and that a vote was required before the House could conduct an impeachment inquiry. That insistence is misplaced and is a myth of the impeachment process that is not supported by the Constitution or by the past impeachment processes of the presidents.

      Andrew Johnson

      President Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached. His impeachment process moved quickly from his action on February 21, 1868, when Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without congressional consent, in violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Three days later, the House voted along party lines, 128-47, to impeach Johnson. There was no impeachment inquiry, and on February 29, 1868, the House committee reported ten articles of impeachment.

      Richard Nixon

      President Richard Nixon was only the second president for whom the House began to consider the question of impeachment. In his case, the process took place mainly out of the public eye even though we tend to remember the televised investigations. On October 30, 1973, ten days after the Saturday Night Massacre, the House Judiciary Committee voted, 21-17, to give its Chairman, Peter W. Rodin, Jr., the power “to issue subpoenas without the consent of the full committee.” For the next several months, until February 6, 1974, when the House formalized the impeachment inquiry by a vote of 410-4, the Judiciary Committee operated mostly in private.

      On February 6, 1974, the House passed Resolution 803, which “provid[ed] appropriate power to the Committee on the Judiciary to conduct an investigation of whether sufficient grounds exist to impeach Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States.” But even after the vote, the House Judiciary Committee operated mainly in closed session. On May 9, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on the question of impeaching President Nixon. The open hearings lasted for twenty minutes. As Woodward and Bernstein wrote in their book, “The Final Days”:

      “At 1:08 P.M., Chairman Peter Rodino brought down the gavel to open the House Judiciary Committee’s formal hearings on impeachment. The ceremony, following seven months of staff investigation, was carried live on national television for twenty minutes. Then, after a brief debate, the committee voted, thirty-one to six, to close its doors for business- consideration of the evidence.”

      For the next two months, the Committee remained behind closed doors until it began debate on articles of impeachment. The Committee eventually recommended three articles of impeachment against Nixon. Because Nixon resigned before the full House could vote, not much of the actual impeachment inquiry was conducted in the public’s view.

      William Clinton

      President William Clinton’s timeline also does not support the myth of full public hearings and debate over whether to impeach a president. In Clinton’s case, a special counsel was appointed in January 1994. More than four years later, the Starr Report was delivered to the House. Two days later, the House passed Resolution 525, “[p]roviding for a deliberative review by the Committee on the Judiciary of a communication from an independent counsel, and for the release thereof, and for other purposes” and authorizing the House Judiciary Committee to determine “whether sufficient grounds exist to recommend to the House that an impeachment inquiry be commenced.”

      On October 8, 1998, the House adopted Resolution 581 with procedures similar to those for the Nixon impeachment. On November 19, Starr was interviewed by the Committee in a public hearing. But between the time of the resolution and the midterm elections on November 3, the Committee held no serious impeachment-related hearings. Starr’s interview was one of the few efforts the Committee took to do any investigation into Clinton’s alleged wrongdoing.

      An examination of the three impeachment inquiries in our nation’s history is instructive in overcoming the myth put forth by the White House and Republicans that President Trump is being treated differently from other presidents. It is simply not unusual for most of the investigation and activity preceding formal articles of impeachment to occur without public hearings.

      * Daniel Cotter is a lawyer practicing in Chicago. He currently is Co-Chair of the ACS Chicago Lawyer Chapter. He is a frequent writer on the Supreme Court and our judiciary, including on Twitter (@scotusbios) and the author of the recently published book, “The Chief Justices” (Twelve Tables Press).
      ______


      Trump defenders’ misleading claims about the House impeachment inquiry

      “As you know, you have designed and implemented your [impeachment] inquiry in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process. For example, you have denied the President the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses, to receive transcripts of testimony, to have access to evidence, to have counsel present, and many other basic rights guaranteed to all Americans.”
      — White House counsel Pat Cipollone, in a letter to House Democratic leaders, Oct. 8, 2019

      “Even Salem witch trials didn’t use anonymous testimony. The accused had to be confronted by a witness willing to put their name and reputation behind the charges and then had to be available for cross examination. Ah, the Soviet Union had trials with anonymous, unnamed witnesses. Welcome to McCarthy II.”
      — Rudolph W. Giuliani, personal attorney to President Trump, in a pair of tweets, Oct. 8, 2019

      House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “not carrying it out in a fair process. … Think about if you went before a trial, but you couldn’t call any witnesses. This is exactly what she’s working through.”
      — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), in an interview on Fox News, Oct. 3, 2019

      President Trump’s lawyers and allies say House Democrats are running roughshod over his right to defend himself from impeachment.

      As talking points go, this one is constitutionally illiterate.


      Defendants in court have the right to legal counsel and to call witnesses. They have the right to examine the evidence against them and confront their accusers.

      Impeachment in Congress is a different animal. The common analogy is that the House acts as a prosecutor filing charges, and then the Senate holds a trial.

      That’s the process laid out in the Constitution, and the process House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democrats have followed thus far. If the House voted to impeach Trump, he would have the opportunity to mount a defense in a Senate trial, as President Bill Clinton did in 1999 after his impeachment.

      The Facts
      It takes two-thirds of the Senate to remove an officeholder who has been impeached by the House. There’s no appeal.

      Article I of the Constitution says, “The House of Representatives … shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.” To impeach someone, a majority of the House votes for a resolution explaining the allegations of wrongdoing, commonly referred to as “articles of impeachment.”

      But the ultimate arbiter is the Senate. Article I says:

      The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

      Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.


      Article II sets the standard for removing an officeholder on impeachment charges: “The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”


      There’s no hard-and-fast definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 65 that it covers offenses “which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

      That’s really it as far as constitutional rules and guidance on impeachment. “While the framers very clearly envisaged the occasional necessity of initiating impeachment proceedings, they put in place only a very general framework to guide future action,” according to the Senate Historical Office. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 1993 that the Senate had the “sole” power to try impeachment charges and that the courts could not step in to resolve disputes.

      Why did the framers choose the Senate? In the Federalist No. 65, Hamilton wrote:

      Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an individual accused, and the representatives of the people, his accusers?

      Could the Supreme Court have been relied upon as answering this description? It is much to be doubted. … 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.


      When the president is impeached, it falls on the chief justice of the United States to preside over the Senate trial. The House designates members to serve as impeachment “managers,” akin to prosecutors. Briefs are filed by the accusers and the accused. The Senate hears evidence and takes testimony from witnesses. Senators may ask questions in writing. Then they vote up or down on the charges.

      According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service: “At the trial, the House managers, who might be assisted by outside counsel, present evidence against the accused and could be expected to respond to the defense presented by the accused (or his or her counsel) or to questions submitted in writing by Senators.”

      House Democrats began a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump on Sept. 24. Here's how the impeachment process works. (Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post)
      It’s up to the Senate to design specific ground rules, though. “When the Senate decided what the rules were going to be for our trial, they really made them up as they went along,” Gregory B. Craig, one of Clinton’s attorneys for his Senate trial, told the New York Times in 2017.

      The most recent template was set in 1999 by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the 106th Congress.

      “Shortly after Rehnquist takes his chair elevated above the rows of wooden desks, he will ask senators to swear that they will render ‘impartial justice’ as jurors evaluating the fate of a president,” The Washington Post reported at the time. “That oath immediately distinguishes the Senate role from that of the House, since the Constitution gives the House the power to impeach, or indict, a public official, and reserves for the Senate the neutral role of determining whether those allegations are true and what should be done about them.”

      Thirteen House Republicans served as managers in Clinton’s trial. The president’s defense team included at least eight attorneys. Witnesses gave testimony in closed, videotaped depositions that were later played for the senators, sitting as a jury. Clinton was not convicted. (President Andrew Johnson was impeached but not convicted in 1868. President Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974 before the full House voted on articles of impeachment related to Watergate.)

      What happened when the House Judiciary Committee approved the first article of impeachment for Nixon? “During the four days of general debate and amending of the article, the principal witness was the absent President himself,” The Post reported in 1974. “Time after time, committee members picked up transcripts of taped presidential conversations to read back the President’s words.”

      The political debate in 1974 did not revolve around whether Nixon should be allowed to participate in the House proceedings, but whether articles of impeachment required specific citations of evidence.

      Some Trump supporters say the House should hold a vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry, which was done for the Nixon and Clinton cases but has not happened for Trump. However, according to the Congressional Research Service, “In the past, House committees, under their general investigatory authority, have sometimes sought information and researched charges against officers prior to the adoption of a resolution to authorize an impeachment investigation.”

      The CRS report, from August, also notes that House members could approve an impeachment resolution summarily on the floor but that “the House has always chosen to conduct an investigation first.”

      Neither the White House nor McCarthy’s office responded to our questions.

      In a lengthy statement, Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne said: “The Supreme Court has held in no uncertain terms that the ‘sole power’ given to the House regarding impeachment means that the House alone determines the rules of its impeachment proceedings. Thus, White House claims about what is legally or constitutionally ‘mandated’ ring hollow.”

      “If the White House wants to work with the House, we are ready to do so,” Etienne said. “The speaker has said that we want to be and will be fair to the president. But the president’s claims regarding a supposed lack of due process are self-evidently in bad faith. Far from seeking to participate in the House’s inquiry, the president has evinced nothing but contempt for the House’s hearings and other investigative proceedings and has actively used his powers of office to block committees’ access to critical witnesses and evidence.”

      Responding to Giuliani’s point about “anonymous, unnamed witnesses,” Etienne said much of what the intelligence community whistleblower alleged in a complaint has been corroborated by other sources. The whistleblower alleged that Trump improperly asked Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a potential Democratic opponent in the 2020 election.

      “The House cannot and will not facilitate the president’s self-proclaimed interest in identifying and retaliating against whistleblowers whose identities are protected by law,” Etienne said. “That would chill whistleblowing concerning presidents, which this episode has proved is desperately needed.”

      The Pinocchio Test
      It is grossly misleading to say Trump is unable to call or cross-examine witnesses, or have counsel present, in the House impeachment inquiry. The Constitution says the Senate holds impeachment trials. The House, on the other hand, acts as the prosecutor. The founders thought about it, and that’s how they split their roles.

      Especially bonkers is Giuliani’s comparison to the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. But it should not go unnoticed that the White House counsel’s letter, though more sober in tone, makes the unfounded claim that House Democrats are violating Trump’s “constitutionally mandated due process” rights. The Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that impeachment proceedings are different from those in the criminal justice system and that judges could not referee impeachment questions.
      ____________

      Now then, please do continue your learned treatise on Trump's right to due process.
      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

      Comment


      • Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an individual accused, and the representatives of the people, his accusers?
        Those were the days...

        Comment


        • Originally posted by surfgun View Post
          It is clear only one position is acceptable on this thread, where feelings are important (one poster was told “just go away”).
          That's right, ignore his deliberate trolling, because it's damaging to your narrative.

          Originally posted by surfgun View Post
          Witnesses at the impeachment hearing witnessed nothing. They worked off of assumptions and what they were told or “overheard.”
          That's right, ignore the lockstep obstruction of justice from the White House, preventing witnesses and documents from being provided as required by law, because that too is damaging to your narrative.

          But let's be even more honest: You wouldn't believe (or care) what any witness said. What Trump did and continues to do, regardless of the lawlessness, is just fine with you.

          So please, spare the bullshit about "witnesses".

          Originally posted by surfgun View Post
          This thread is apparently a needed “safe space” for those suffering from TDS. It is like a Student Union on a liberal arts university. Have a nice day.
          https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dan-...rry-impeachmas
          Sure does suck when you don't have the comforting echo chamber of Fox News, Breitbart and all rest of that ilk to comfort you doesn't it.

          Sucks even worse when all you have to fall back on is accusing people of being "liberals" when you know damn good and well that it's not true.
          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

          Comment


          • The Constitutional Provisions for impeachment are based on the idea that the House is an elected mob with pitchforks that gets to hold power for 2 years so we don't have another Shay's Rebellion. It's why revenue bills can only originate in the House (you better have the mob on board if you're going to tax them) but appointments and treaties are made under the advice of the Senate (because you wouldn't trust those idiots appointing judges).


            Basically it's a really low bar, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with attacking the process as ridiculous and partisan. Standing behind the bare minimum standard set by the Constitution when the Constitution basically imagined the House as a mixture between frat house and lynch mob is disingenuous.

            Also, the analogy of Grand Jury and prosecutor? Yeah, given America's current prison population and the shit-show that is our court system, not really sure that's the analogy you want to make. Grand juries and prosecutors are both broken indictment-happy institutions in the US that need serious reform.
            Last edited by GVChamp; 27 Dec 19,, 01:19.
            "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

            Comment


            • GVChamp,

              Basically it's a really low bar, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with attacking the process as ridiculous and partisan. Standing behind the bare minimum standard set by the Constitution when the Constitution basically imagined the House as a mixture between frat house and lynch mob is disingenuous.
              eh, there's the mob...and then there's the howling mob.

              given the way House seats are apportioned, there's an enormous incentive for Pelosi to run as legalistic and moderate a process as possible, even knowing that impeachment by definition is going to be a political act. she needs to protect her new moderates whom just won the House for her.

              the House GOP simply has no similar pressure to moderate because -their- base is the likeliest reason for any of their members to get kicked out.

              re: the Senate, it was designed as a more elitist political grouping but the last thirty years have essentially just made them like the House. look at the statements by McConnell and Graham, does that strike you as quote unquote elder statesmen and lions of the Senate behavior?
              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

              Comment


              • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                Now then, please do continue your learned treatise on Trump's right to due process.
                I note that the concerns about 'due process' don't seem to extend to GOP Senators effectively declaring they will clear Trump before the Senate trial even begins. A fella could get to thinkin' the whole 'concern for due process' thingy was just a convenient prop for a politically partisan argument.
                sigpic

                Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                Comment


                • Ah fond memories. The marvellous Mollie Hemingway has been all over this like a rash since Biden first raised his white powder nose.

                  Click image for larger version

Name:	Biden-Biden-McCain.png
Views:	1
Size:	503.7 KB
ID:	1478542

                  May 13, 2014 By Mollie Hemingway

                  Twitter is abuzz with questions about the involvement of Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter with a gas company in Ukraine. The company, Burisma, allegedly appointed Hunter Biden to its board of directors. In late April, around the time the vice president made an official trip to Ukraine, Burisma allegedly appointed Devon Archer, one of Hunter Biden’s business partners, to its board as well. Here’s a brief write-up on the story from the Moscow Times, an English-language news service based in Russia.
                  These dual announcements raise more questions than they answer. The prominence of the individuals involved — Hunter Biden is the vice president’s son, while Devon Archer was a major bundler for John Kerry and also his stepson’s college roommate — raises the question of whether the entire thing is a hoax.

                  1. What is Burisma?

                  Burisma appears to be a Ukrainian energy company with a focus on oil and gas exploration. However, independent information about the company is hard to find and even harder to verify. According to Businessweek:
                  Burisma Holdings Limited engages in oil and gas exploration and production. The company also engages in oil well drilling, production of liquefied natural gas, and undertaking geological studies. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is based in Limassol, Cyprus.
                  2. Is Burisma even a real company?
                  The company’s website is…rough, at best, and the domain does not appear to have even been registered until 2010 even though the company was allegedly founded in 2002 and incorporated in 2006. And as recently as July of 2013, the website was not even written in English.
                  Basic information about the business is also difficult to find. Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider noted on Twitter that the company lacked a profile in Bloomberg, an extensive database of business information, and had no Wikipedia presence whatsoever. Businessweek contained only a brief blurb about the company, stating that it was incorporated in 2006 and based in Cyprus.

                  3. Who is Hunter Biden?

                  Hunter Biden is Vice President Joe Biden’s son. He currently serves as the managing partner of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a financial and policy advisory firm. He was a long-time federal lobbyist, but left his old firm in September of 2008, before his father was elected as vice president.

                  4. Who is Devon Archer?
                  Devon Archer is a wealthy investor and Democratic campaign bundler with long ties to the family of Secretary of State John Kerry. He was the college roommate of Christopher Heinz, Kerry’s stepson, and also served as co-chair of the national finance committee for Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. According to a 2004 profile in the New York Observer:
                  Mr. Archer represents a new breed of fund-raiser. In this age, the person with the most connections, who collects contributions from the widest circle of friends and contacts, has become the new macher in party politics.

                  You could call Mr. Archer a “baby bundler,” a well-connected macher-in-training who has spent every free moment of the last two years tapping friends, family, business partners and even Republicans for contributions to the Kerry cause. Ever since the Massachusetts Senator announced his candidacy in 2003, the dimple-cheeked Mr. Archer has dedicated himself to hosting cocktail parties at old-boy hideaways like the University Club and the Links Club, attending weekly finance-committee pow-wows and dialing, dialing, dialing for dollars. He has coaxed as little as $50 from his friends and cajoled the maximum, $2,000, from his family and business associates. In the process, he has outpaced veteran bundlers more than twice his age and joining the finance committee alongside such finance gurus as Steven Rattner and Richard Holbrooke.

                  Now his hard work is paying off, with the kind of convention access lowly Hill staffers can only dream of. He has a room at the Four Seasons Hotel, tickets to all the hot parties, access to the convention floor and face time with Mr. Kerry. The convention is his induction into the Democratic elite, and when the bunting comes down and the four-day Boston romp is done, there will be little doubt that Mr. Archer is the Democratic equivalent of a made man.
                  According to his company’s web page, Archer also serves on the board of the Howard J. Heinz trust and as a trustee of the Heinz Family Office. Howard J. Heinz was the founder of Heinz foods.

                  5. Did Hunter Biden actually get appointed to Burisma’s board (and if so, did he accept the appointment)?
                  As of this morning, all we really had to go on regarding Biden’s involvement with Burisma is a press release from the company’s website. When Rosemont Seneca Partners, Biden’s firm, was contacted to confirm whether the board appointment announcement was accurate, the company refused to comment on Biden’s involvement with Burisma. However, according to at least one White House correspondent, White House press secretary Jay Carney effectively confirmed the appointment earlier this afternoon.
                  6. What about Devon Archer? Is he actually on the company’s board?
                  Again, all we have to go on is a single press release posted on the company’s web page. Rosemont Seneca Partners also refused to comment on Archer’s involvement with Burisma. However, given the apparent confirmation of Biden’s appointment by the White House earlier this afternoon, it is probably safe to assume that Archer’s appointment did, in fact, happen.

                  7. Why would a Ukrainian energy company want Devon Archer or Hunter Biden to serve on its board?
                  Assuming that they have been appointed to the board, the most innocent explanation is that the company wants to increase foreign direct investment and views Archer and Biden as having the experience to make that happen. Archer, for example, is a long-time investor and financier.
                  The most disturbing explanation is that the company is attempting to curry favor with the U.S. government by enlisting the services of the close family friend and campaign bundler of the Secretary of the State and the son of the vice president. After all, Archer notes on one of his company’s web pages that his firm’s “relationship network creates opportunities for our portfolio companies which then compound to greater outcomes for all parties.”

                  8. How does Joe Biden have anything to do with this?
                  As far as we know, he doesn’t have anything to do with it at this point. However, he did visit Ukraine a day before Archer was allegedly appointed to Burisma’s board. And the White House announced yesterday, shortly before Hunter Biden’s alleged appointment to Burisma’s board was announced, that the vice president would visit Cyprus next week. According to the brief Businessweek profile of Burisma, the company is officially located in Cyprus.

                  9. This has to be a hoax, right?
                  It’s so bizarre that you almost have to assume it’s a hoax. It sounds more like a cliched movie plot — a shady foreign oil company co-opts the vice president’s son in order to capture lucrative foreign investment contracts — than something that would actually happen in real life. But the indications as of this afternoon are that the board appointments actually happened, and that a Ukrainian energy company has retained the counsel of the vice president’s son and the Secretary of State’s close family friend and top campaign bundler.
                  Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway
                  Last edited by Parihaka; 28 Dec 19,, 06:43. Reason: typographical miscalculayshuns
                  In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                  Leibniz

                  Comment


                  • Of course as soon as things got hot for junior, ol smokin' Joe stepped in to have the prosecutor sacked. Not for investigating his son of course, heavens no. Joe always asks for prosecutors to be sacked in countries he visits. It's a thang. Like enjoying children in his lap, while they stroke his leg hair. This year is going to be so much fun.
                    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                    Leibniz

                    Comment


                    • Shokin was sacked because he had not prosecuted a single Maidan case - or for example the crimes at Odessa port or the Mayor of Odessa (known to have a Muscovite passport), nor Kolomoisky - in fact nobody. The IMF wanted him gone - most of the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament) wanted him gone, the Brits, French and other Europeans thought he was a joke, Ukrainian civil society and judicial reformers wanted him gone - just about everyone. If indeed Biden did think a new Prosecutor General was a good idea he would have some way back in a long queue starting with the IMF and the Rada as the most important.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                        Shokin was sacked because he had not prosecuted a single Maidan case - or for example the crimes at Odessa port or the Mayor of Odessa (known to have a Muscovite passport), nor Kolomoisky - in fact nobody. The IMF wanted him gone - most of the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament) wanted him gone, the Brits, French and other Europeans thought he was a joke, Ukrainian civil society and judicial reformers wanted him gone - just about everyone. If indeed Biden did think a new Prosecutor General was a good idea he would have some way back in a long queue starting with the IMF and the Rada as the most important.
                        So we're in agreement that Biden demanded he be removed, or else the aid wouldn't be paid?

                        Here he is boasting of it,,,
                        https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-af...dent-joe-biden
                        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                        Leibniz

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                          Ah fond memories. The marvellous Mollie Hemingway has been all over this like a rash since Biden first raised his white powder nose.

                          [ATTACH]48182[/ATTACH]
                          Mollie Hemingway?
                          THE Mollie Hemingway, celebrated right winger?
                          Politico described Hemingway as "a reliably pro-Trump commentator", while Salon called her The Federalist's "most reliable Trump defender.”
                          THAT Mollie Hemingway?

                          Yawn.
                          Trust me?
                          I'm an economist!

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by DOR View Post
                            Mollie Hemingway?
                            THE Mollie Hemingway, celebrated right winger?
                            Politico described Hemingway as "a reliably pro-Trump commentator", while Salon called her The Federalist's "most reliable Trump defender.”
                            THAT Mollie Hemingway?

                            Yawn.
                            Now that is fucken funny, right there. Having corresponded with you before, I know it's not intentional satire but my word, thank you for the belly-laugh anyway. :-)
                            Last edited by Parihaka; 28 Dec 19,, 18:51.
                            In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

                            Leibniz

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                              So we're in agreement that Biden demanded he be removed, or else the aid wouldn't be paid?

                              Here he is boasting of it,,,
                              https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-af...dent-joe-biden
                              What I am saying is that Biden part of a long list of people who wanted Shokin gone. Yet according to Guiliani Shokin was a paragon of virtue that after he was fired was murdered twice with mercury yet still remarkably lives - nobody in Ukraine heard of his two deaths which would have been the cause of rejoicing in some quarters.

                              Moreover this is NOTHING to do with the impeachment. It is 'whataboutism'.
                              Last edited by snapper; 28 Dec 19,, 19:53.

                              Comment


                              • pressuring a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor (whom, by the way, never even looked at Biden's son to begin with) be fired as part of a US national strategy for bolstering Ukraine is not corruption.

                                pressuring the Ukrainian President to announce (but not actually prosecute) a case against a political rival's son based on no evidence whatsoever, now that is corruption.
                                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X