US Politics, November 2019: These people are truly sick.

xp to shady's bribery comment-- there's some pushback against using names of actual criminal law offenses as claims for impeachment, rather than other "non-legal" but accurate terms, such as "self-dealing." like criminal bribery has elements to prove "beyond reasonable doubt." that's not what needs to be done for impeachment obv, but part of the gops shit-cyclone is to make everything too difficult for anyone to change sides.

one element for criminal bribery is proving trumps "corrupt intent." don't know exactly how, but gop wants to try to make that a "required" proved beyond reasonable doubt element for the impeachment. schiff and co did a nice job getting new direct testimony to SHOW THE CORRUPT INTENT, but the gop is already posing ride-or-die on no-corrupt-intent ('it was anti corruption waah') and will never never never admit to believing it was corrupt. until they don't i guess, i dunno, it's absurd.

at the same time showing abuse of power by self-dealing would involve some proof or basis. it's typically used in civil process i think, for breach of duty type shit, which makes me think that it would be more of a "preponderance of evidence" level burden--if that even applied to impeachment and it doesn't. there isn't even a standard of proof known at all for impeachment, but gop will shitstorm NO PROOF OF CORRUPT INTENT NO CORRUPT NO CORRUPT YOURE THE CORRUPT!1! everywhere, and they OWN the jury. they ARE the jury. not allowing gop to argue for higher standards of proof, by not using criminal offense terms, seems ok to me.

ah. thx for the legal perspective

Collins, Murkowski, and Romney might (MIGHT!) vote to remove

let's get real, Collins will say "my goodness, all of this is very troubling indeed" into every microphone in her vicinity and then cheerfully vote to dismiss

she's underwater in her state and facing a well-financed challenger, she might try to shore up her "independent" bonafides, knowing she can't win re-election with just Republican votes.

but yeah I don't have high hopes, exactly

and Romney hates Trump but is a coward

"I mean it's problematic but lol, u guyz are libs i mean" -Mitt

How dare you, I'll have you know Mitt was voted "bravest Mormon in Michigan" 6 years in a row

"Amalgams of Ambition" = my Tool tribute band

let me just go ahead and program this into the simulation/future by slightly revising the old model

COLLINS, January 2020:

"I listened carefully to Christine Blasey Ford’s several dozen credible witnesses' testimony regarding Donald Trump before the Judiciary Committee Impeachment Jury. I found their testimony to be sincere, painful, and compelling. I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life. Trump acted inappropriately and that he should face consequences.

Nevertheless, the four witnesses she named could not corroborate any of the events of that evening gathering where she says the assault occurred. none of the witnesses could produce a recording of Donald Trump saying "I order the military funding for Ukraine to be held up until they deliver dirt on the Bidens for me, along with Zelensky appearing on CNN to make it appear that there was a real investigation going on regarding Biden in Ukraine." Therefore, I vote not guilty"

alt version: an audio recording of trump explicitly saying he wants dirt on biden and won't give ukraine military funding until they deliver it emerges. nu-Collins: "...um. WITCH HUNT!"

it would be a shame if we could find a way to elevate any personal anti-gop beefs that trump has had along the way, but he's such a loyal republican.

i might just make every comment i made to the senate to include his insults to romney lil marco ted mrs. ted etc etc. over and over and over.

Nixon otm

Murkowski will. I don't have confidence in Romney to cross the street. Collins will probably be forced to. As will Gardner. It won't save his seat. https://t.co/6lvEUW5b3M

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) November 13, 2019

Dislodging a few Republican representatives and senators won't make any difference to the passage of a bill of impeachment by the House or the Senate verdict, but politically speaking it would soften the argument that the process was an exercise in pure partisanship. Of course, loyal Trumpsters won't buy the idea that there was substance to the charges, but it will help a bit with the mushy middle who seldom know what to think about such arcana as "high crimes and misdemeanors".

I don't think they'll pick up any GOP votes in the House tbf

This made me laugh.

Speaker Pelosi: "If the president has something that is exculpatory — Mr. President, that means do you have anything that shows your innocence — then he should make that known ... So far, we haven't seen that, but we welcome it." Via ABCpic.twitter.com/h87oGKqMr7

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 14, 2019

Read the perfect transcript

I normally disapprove of people talking down to children but sometimes it's necessary.

Trump isn't a child, children don't have people killed so that W.A.S.Ps will like them

well that's just cause they don't have the means. don't kid yourself, Billy etc etc

lol at the exculpatory zing

Rudy Giuliani says Trump will stay loyal to him but jokes that he has 'insurance' https://t.co/hXp8oj3jkZ

— Guardian US (@GuardianUS) November 14, 2019

its real folks

quick question regarding withheld military funding to ukraine: $250M or $391M?

both numbers have been used, up to this day. just now, a NYT story about pelosi's bold step of referring to what trump did as a "bribe" included the sentence "They told the committee that Mr. Trump and his allies inside and outside of the government placed the president’s political objectives at the center of American policy toward Ukraine, using both $391 million in security assistance that Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s war with Russia as well as a White House meeting that was coveted by the country’s new leader as leverage.

other stories, including this morning's TPM story by Josh Kovensky (who has been ahead of the curve on Ukraine/Giuliani/etc for months now) refers to Trump "withholding more than $250 million in security assistance from mid-July in a bid to extort Zelensky into announcing investigations into Biden and the 2016 elections."

and i've seen the the $250M/$391M confusion elsewhere, too, for weeks now. i know it's only a matter of $141M, no big whoop, but just curious about why the two numbers are being used.

according to politifact it was $250M for military security and $191M for maritime security

*$141M

Everyone always forgets the coast guard

Meanwhile, it was learned Thursday that a second official from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was present when U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland spoke on a July 26 phone call from Ukraine with Trump that more directly ties the president to his administration’s effort to pressure Ukraine’s new leadership.

yes, David Holmes! he overheard Trump ask Sondland about the 'status of the investigations'

they've asked for his deposition tomorrow, closed to the public I think. I haven't read anywhere whether or not he is expected to appear

xp thanks dan s!

this latest "overheard call" revelation is hilarious because it means trump was yelling so loudly into the phone that at least two nearby people could clearly hear what he was saying

Matt Bevin conceded in Kentucky. Good news considering I was worried this might be a dry run for a potential refusal to accept election results in 2020. Of course that still might happen anyway.

Holmes is the first official that overheard the call:

Suriya Jayanti, a Foreign Service officer based at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, overheard the phone call and also witnessed Sondland’s other interactions during his trip to Ukraine, where the call took place in a restaurant, according to a person familiar with the matter

It's hearsay, he only heard what the President said out loud

yes, David Holmes! he overheard Trump ask Sondland about the 'status of the investigations'

― Dan S, Thursday, November 14, 2019 2:55 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

now that's some 'say what karaoke'

lol

sorry, didn't realize another person came forward

I think really our only hope is that six weeks or so from now the facts are just too heavy and too voluminous even for Lindsay Graham and a group of twenty or more Senators goes to the White House and tells Trump he's got to resign, that not-guilty votes are no longer politically tenable and their Senate majority is in jeopardy.

The difference from Watergate in this case being that they'd be totally bluffing, that none of them would publicly vote to remove.

It would also have to include Pence's assurance of a blanket pardon.

pence could be wrapped up in all this, too. it's hard to believe he would have no awareness of the formal/informal channels of diplomacy, the actions of the "three amigos", etc. i haven't seen any reporter successfully ask him a question about this in weeks.

that might be the linchpin in all of this. maybe the republicans would have sacrificed trump by now if they had pence as a backup. but i don't think they see President Pelosi as an option

yes

he was totally aware, his appearance at Yelensky's inauguration was part of the bribe—and he canceled the trip when they hadn't paid up yet

idk Pence is such a one-of-a-kind bizarronaut that i’d think twice before putting any scenario out of his reach

maybe Nikki Haley isn't so much campaigning for Pence's job as McConnell et al are engineering her succession as potus

xpost Yeah, I was gonna say, if there's anyone in this administration I can believe could be totally unaware of any of this shit, willfully or not, it's Pence.

He's like Gary in "Veep," tasked with Christian outreach or some shit.

was working on site down in South Jersey had to grab lunch in a pub that was filled with what seemed like Trump voters and boy do they love them some Nikki Haley .xxp

You really gotta look out for these loons like her and Sessions that get pressured out of the administration but remain loudly loyal.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/14/trump-judicial-nominee-confirmed-070886

just for shits and giggles they should confirm a potato or a thumbtack or something to one of these positions

this guy is really human garbage

Oh yeah she’d sealed it with them with her sycophancy

You really gotta look out for these loons like her and Sessions that get pressured out of the administration but remain loudly loyal.

if they want to resume their careers, they have to stay loudly loyal. all of their supporters are trump supporters. they have to demonstrate fealty so that later, when they are shocked to find out that trump has actually been committing crimes more or less in the open since the 1970s, they won't get characterized as traitors by the GOP base