"Democracy is the theory that two thieves will steal less the one." "The principle virtue of Democracy is that it makes a good show...one incomparably bizzare, amazing, shocking, and obscene." "The Fathers who invented it, if they could return from hell, would never recognize it. It was concieved as a free government of free men; it has become simply a battle of charlatans for the votes of idiots."
In order to have an effective subpeona, you have to have an attorney general that would enforce it. Instead we have on that clearly is on team trump and refused to enforce the subpeonas that had been requested. If the AG won't enforce it then you have to file a lawsuit and then let it bake in the judicial system for however long. Do you think that's fair? I see it as more obstruction.
Yeah that’s boloney for sure. But it’s the politics that create these tactics. AG seem loyal to whomever appoints them. I remember the republicans raising hell over fast and furious and took the AG to court. More politics!
After pondering some more, I'm not sure you are correct about that aspect. If, somehow, the Republican Senate votes to have a witness, there will be much more pressure on the White House to allow that than there was in the House. Political pressure, I mean, not legal pressure. It will be harder to have the person just not show up at all. The R senators who put their necks on the chopping block to vote to hear the witness will not appreciate that. And, of course, it would only add weight to the 2nd article of impeachment, it might make it a lot more 'real' to the senators if they were the ones being obstructed rather than the House. So maybe the witness does show up, but El Prez actually invokes executive privilege. Does that now begin a court battle? Maybe, maybe not. After all, executive privilege is not a blanket that allows a witness to ignore all questions. And it doesn't apply if you are covering up wrongdoing. It's also possible that CJ Roberts could issue an immediate ruling on the validity of the privilege claim. It seems plausible that would be within his powers. It's also possible that the prosecution would tailor their questions to avoid legitimate claims of EP. Of course, all that presupposes that the Senate would vote to hear one or more witnesses, which I do not expect them to do. The argument for documents is similar - there will be more political pressure to provide them if the Senate asks than there was when the House asked. And it's possible that Roberts can sign a document subpoena without it being reviewed by the courts (assuming the Senate permits it). barfo
And since I mentioned the McGahn case earlier, I just saw that the House filed a brief with the court that is hearing the McGahn appeal, pointing out that the DOJ has argued in that case that the House has no right to ask the court to enforce any subpoena against the executive branch, whereas in the impeachment trial Trump's lawyers have argued that the House should have asked the courts to enforce their subpoenas against the executive branch instead of moving ahead with impeachment. Nice when you can have it both ways, I guess. barfo
As part of the Nixon Impeachment, the official record included a study the House undertook. You do not need a crime for an act to be impeachable. Their example was a president who simply stopped performing his duties. That is clearly impeachable, even though no crime would have been committed. The study concluded that the crux of impeachment was the phrase in Article II that defines the president's duty as being to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' I don't see how anyone watching this can conclude anything other than Trump's whole purpose was to make sure our laws (aid to Ukraine) would NOT be faithfully executed. Case. Closed.
Ignore politics and the country will be the worse for it. People ignored Hitler thinking he'd just go away.
As long as excuses are continually made and accepted that it's "just the norm, they all do it" then nothing ever gets accomplished. trump takes the corruption to an all time low and will continue to go lower as long as the republicans refuse to stop him.
Last evening, I watched this movie (21) for the first time. I found this to be pretty interesting....although, I didn't quite understand how Ben derived the solution.
So, Spacey has found value in his life after pedophile engagement. Ben derived a solution without guess or a deep hunch. He used changing mathematical variation to initiate real time decisions based on logical percentage at that time. After choosing door 3...…………..
Yeah, the way Spacey was looking at some of those boys in the movie made me wonder what that real life movie situation was like. May have been making Kate Bosworth a bit jealous. Eww.