1. #24776
    Days Work Done! Norton's Avatar
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    What's done is done. Dems want to get even, win back the Senate!

    Including the special elections in Arizona and Georgia, Republicans will be defending 23 seats in 2020, while the Democratic Party will be defending 12 seats. Democrats will need to pick up three or four seats to gain a majority in the Senate, depending on which party wins control of the vice presidency.
    "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect,"

  2. #24777
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    But the comedy and the money spent were surely worth of it. The folk had been entertained and distracted from other problems (are there any?)...

  3. #24778
    Thailand Expat peaches's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    What's done is done. Dems want to get even, win back the Senate!

    Including the special elections in Arizona and Georgia, Republicans will be defending 23 seats in 2020, while the Democratic Party will be defending 12 seats. Democrats will need to pick up three or four seats to gain a majority in the Senate, depending on which party wins control of the vice presidency.
    Start bailing Norton, your country has just hit an iceberg.

  4. #24779
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    Quote Originally Posted by peaches View Post
    Start bailing Norton, your country has just hit an iceberg.
    He is a conservative at the core. Old Norts if I am not mistaken was a fan of Ronny Ray gun.

  5. #24780
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    But the comedy and the money spent were surely worth of it. The folk had been entertained and distracted from other problems (are there any?)...

    Misdirection and distribution of particular Kool-Aid is key.
    Most buy into the importance [one way or the other] of all this shit.

    Doesn't matter who's there and who isn't.
    All remains the same, as proven historically.

  6. #24781
    Days Work Done! Norton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by peaches View Post
    Start bailing Norton, your country has just hit an iceberg.
    Not looking real peachy atm but been through far worse and recovered.

    Hell, the current political divide is nothing compared to the one that resulted in the death of 500,000 Americans.

    Dems lost that one too.

  7. #24782
    Thailand Expat peaches's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    Not looking real peachy atm but been through far worse and recovered.

    Hell, the current political divide is nothing compared to the one that resulted in the death of 500,000 Americans.

    Dems lost that one too.
    keep your head in the sand Norton, Trump is death to America.

  8. #24783
    Days Work Done! Norton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    Old Norts if I am not mistaken was a fan of Ronny Ray gun.
    Been a registered Republican since 1964 cuz dad told me to do so. He was an Ike fan.
    Never once voted along party lines. Yep, voted for Ronnie. Not a fan at all but figured he would do the least harm. Was seriously considering voting for Perot in 92 but voted for Clinton.

    Voted for LBJ, Obama, Hillary, and will vote Dem this time as well.

    That will make 5 votes for Dems on my part. Not bad for a Republican eh!

  9. #24784
    Thailand Expat peaches's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    Been a registered Republican since 1964 cuz dad told me to do so. He was an Ike fan.
    Never once voted along party lines. Yep, voted for Ronnie. Not a fan at all but figured he would do the least harm. Was seriously considering voting for Perot in 92 but voted for Clinton.

    Voted for LBJ, Obama, Hillary, and will vote Dem this time as well.



    That will make 5 votes for Dems on my part. Not bad for a Republican eh!
    G’day Norton, you’re all right by me.

  10. #24785
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    He was an Ike fan.
    My personal favorite president. He soaked the rich and the American middle class had it's largest expansion ever under his presidency. The rich were taxed at 91% of income.



    Quote Originally Posted by Norton View Post
    That will make 5 votes for Dems on my part. Not bad for a Republican eh!
    Well I blame Boon and his bullshit for posting that. He used to love to claim you were a GOP guy.

  11. #24786
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    "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."
    In fact, he did know a thing or two about the "military-industrial complex", didn't he?

  12. #24787
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    In fact, he did know a thing or two about the "military-industrial complex", didn't he?
    ....and he expanded on it, covertly and otherwise, worldwide.

  13. #24788
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    Quote Originally Posted by bsnub View Post
    a GOP guy.
    What does that even mean, anymore?
    I realize both parties are unrecognizable from what they were 30-40 years ago, but the GOP is now officially off the rails. No identity, whatsoever. I find it laughable when they profess to be “the party of Lincoln.”

  14. #24789
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    Quote Originally Posted by beachbound View Post
    I find it laughable when they profess to be “the party of Lincoln.”
    Lincoln would be firing his musket at them of that there is no doubt.

  15. #24790
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Even some of his usual Fox News lackeys recognise what has gone on:

    Judge Andrew Napolitano: Despite his impeachment trial acquittal, Trump clearly guilty of a high crime


    "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." – George Orwell, "1984"


    The Senate impeachment trial of President Trump ended not with a bang but a whimper. What different outcome could one expect from a trial without so much as a single witness, a single document, any cross-examination or a defendant respectful enough to show up?

    Law students are taught early on that a trial is not a grudge match or an ordeal; it is a search for the truth. Trial lawyers know that cross-examination is the most effective truth-testing tool available to them.
    But the search for the truth requires witnesses, and when the command from Senate Republican leaders came down that there shall be no witnesses, the truth-telling mission of Trump's trial was radically transformed into a steamroller of political power.

    And in its wake is a Congress ceding power to the presidency, almost as if the states had ratified a constitutional amendment redefining the impeachment language to permit a president to engage in high crimes and misdemeanors so long as he believes that they are in the national interest and so long as his party has an iron-clad grip on the Senate.

    How could presidential crimes be in the national interest? Here is the backstory.

    When the House of Representatives voted in favor of two articles of impeachment against Trump, it characterized his lawlessness as contempt of Congress and an abuse of power.

    The contempt of Congress consisted of Trump's orders to subordinates to disregard congressional subpoenas. Both Republican- and Democratic-controlled Houses of Representatives have deemed such presidential instructions in an impeachment inquiry as impeachable per se.

    The abuse allegations address Trump's solicitation of assistance for his reelection campaign from a foreign government by holding up the release of $391 million in military aid to the same foreign government. These funds were congressionally appropriated and ordered to be paid by legislation that Trump had signed into law.

    Federal law prohibits such solicitation as criminal and prohibits government officials from seeking personal favors in return for performing their governmental duties. The latter is bribery.
    Because the solicitation that Trump committed was a crime against the government, it is among those referred to when the Constitution was written as a "high" crime. High crimes are a constitutional basis for impeachment, along with bribery and treason.

    The evidence that Trump did this is overwhelming and beyond a reasonable doubt, and no one with firsthand knowledge denied it. Numerous government officials recounted that the presidential leverage of $391 million in U.S. assistance for a personal political favor did occur and the government's own watchdog concluded that it was indisputably unlawful.

    The favor Trump sought was an announcement by the Ukrainian government of the commencement of an investigation of Trump's potential presidential foe, former Vice President Joe Biden.
    While the Senate was hearing House prosecution managers argue their case, and Trump's lawyers challenged those arguments, The New York Times revealed that John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, had authored an as yet unpublished book demonstrating that the House case against Trump was true.

    True because, unlike the senators who shut their eyes and ears at Trump's trial, Bolton saw for himself the presidential tit-for-tat machinations that the House had alleged and, if proven, were criminal and impeachable.
    The Times also revealed the existence of 24 emails sent by Trump aides manifesting indisputably his lawless behavior. But the emails are secret.

    At the same time, two signal events occurred in the impeachment trial. The first was an argument by Trump's lawyers that every president seeking reelection believes his victory will be in the national interest and thus all presidential efforts toward that victory are constitutional and lawful.

    This morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest argument – which effectively resuscitates from history's graveyard President Richard Nixon’s logic that "when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal" because the president is above the law – must have resonated with Senate Republican leaders.

    The leaders coerced their Senate Republican colleagues into embracing the view that – since the president did not want Bolton to testify or White House emails to be revealed – they must bar all witnesses and documents.
    The second signal event was shameful. It was the 51 to 49 Senate vote to bar witnesses and documents from the trial.

    Isn't it odd that a president who clamors for exoneration, who claimed loud and long that he committed no crime and did no wrong, who insisted that his request to the Ukrainian president to seek dirt on Biden in return for American financial assistance was "perfect," would command the members of his own party to block testimony adverse to him – rather than hear it, cross-examine it, challenge it and thereby obtain the exoneration on the merits that he seeks?

    Do innocent people behave this way?

    If Trump really believes he did not commit any crimes and any impeachable offenses, why would he orchestrate blocking evidence? And who – having taken an oath to do "impartial justice" – would close their eyes to the truth? How could such a marathon of speeches possibly be considered a trial?

    Trump will luxuriate in his victory. But the personal victory for him is a legal assault on the Constitution. The president has taken an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Instead, he has trashed it.

    How? By manipulating Senate Republicans to bar firsthand evidence and keep it from senatorial and public scrutiny, Trump and his Senate collaborators have insulated him and future presidents from the moral and constitutional truism that no president is above the law.

    Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling.
    Trumptards meanwhile gonna carry on Trumptarding.

    Judge Andrew Napolitano: Despite his impeachment trial acquittal, Trump clearly guilty of a high crime | Fox News

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    You see, this is the trouble with Trump supporters.
    It doesn't matter that he's lying about not allowing pre-conditions to stop health insurance. Trying to destroy Obamacare with no replacement.
    It doesn't matter that he lied about the tax cuts helping working class voters. 81% of the cuts benefited the super rich.
    It doesn't matter that he's lying about the border wall. Nothing has been erected that wasn't already there before.
    It doesn't matter that he's a proven pathological liar. Even when it's pointed out to him that certain "facts" are untrue, he'll just keep repeating them.
    It doesn't matter that Trump's foreign policy decisions have reduced American influence in the world. The USA is no longer the leader of the free world.
    It doesn't matter that he's tearing up the constitution and behaving like a King.

    The ONLY thing that matters to his supporters is that he's sticking it to the liberals.

  17. #24792
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    Trump is currently on a Power High. He won. He is god. The lemmings at his "speech" today spewed their awe upon him with applause and cheer. Trump is the way, the only way. The Trump sickness will prevail.

  18. #24793
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    Quote Originally Posted by Attilla the Hen View Post
    to the liberals.
    whoever the fcuk they think they are - maybe joos , blacks , mexicans and hippies

  19. #24794
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    Trump unleashed: what's next for a president who feels invincible?

    Trump unleashed: what's next for a president who feels invincible?
    In the wake of his acquittal, Democrats have warned, the country may learn the true meaning of Trump unbound


    Even recently, Donald Trump has shown some capacity to be constrained.


    In September, he released security aid to Ukraine when Congress began asking questions. In October, after awarding his own Florida golf resort a contract to host a G7 summit, Trump reversed course under Republican pressure. The repeated demands he made in November and December for a “full” Senate trial were rebuffed.


    But on Wednesday, Trump was acquitted by the Senate on impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, with many Republicans echoing an argument made by Trump’s legal team: that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense.


    In the wake of that acquittal, Democrat impeachment managers warned, the country may learn the true meaning of Trump unleashed.


    “A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way. He has done it before and he will do it again,” the House intelligence committee chair, Adam Schiff, told the Senate. “What are the odds if he is left in office that he will continue to try to cheat? I will tell you: 100%.”

    Warnings during the impeachment trial about how and where Trump might “cheat” focused on the upcoming 2020 presidential election. Any sense that those warnings were misplaced curdled about one hour after the acquittal vote, with an announcement by Senate Republicans that they would open an investigation of Hunter Biden, the son of Trump’s perceived 2020 rival Joe Biden.

    Two Senate committees will investigate “potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden and his associates during the Obama administration”, their committee chairman wrote in a letter.

    The investigations could supply Trump with headlines akin to the Hillary Clinton investigation headlines that helped drag him over the wire in 2016.

    Trump appears to have now exchanged a bout of self-pity for a can-do attitude about controlling the justice department
    Trump surrogates including his sons and campaign manager, meanwhile, eagerly spread the charge this week that the Democrats’ own nomination process was “rigged” following confusion in the Iowa caucuses. The attack on election integrity probably previews what seemed a sure campaign by Trump to brand any 2020 election result he does not like as “fake” – his precise play when it comes to news.

    But a focus on how Trump might try to cheat in the 2020 election could reveal a lack of appreciation for the breadth of Trump’s vision and the levers of power in his hands, and conceal the potential downside of dangerous fallout from a Trump unbound.

    Already in the weeks leading up to his acquittal, Trump was revisiting and expanding some of the most controversial actions of his early presidency, many of which were blocked or partially blocked by courts.


    Last month, Trump diverted an additional $7.2bn of military funding to construction of his border wall, in a rush to demonstrate progress on his signature campaign promise in an election year. Last week, Trump expanded his travel ban to six additional countries, in a move Amnesty International called “offensive and actually harmful to our national security”.


    On Tuesday, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said in an interview that Trump “absolutely, 100%,” must continue to lean on Ukraine for a Biden investigation. On Wednesday, Democrats announced the Trump administration was withholding $823m for a clean energy program it unsuccessfully tried to cut.


    What’s next for Trump unbound? Many eyes are on the justice department, whose head, the attorney general, William Barr, hastened to claim he had no role in the Ukraine scheme after it was revealed that Trump told the Ukrainian president in a July phone call to coordinate with Barr.


    The question is how much resistance remains inside the justice department to Trump’s open desire to investigate his perceived political enemies, and how long that resistance will last. A year after his election, Trump complained that he was “not supposed to be involved with the justice department,” calling it “the saddest thing”.


    Trump appears to have now exchanged that bout of self-pity for a can-do attitude about controlling the justice department. Last May, Trump said that talking with Barr about opening an investigation of the Bidens would be “appropriate”.


    An announcement by Barr this week of new restrictions on any politically sensitive investigations including into presidential campaigns was either reassuring, because it could narrow the possibility of such investigations, or alarming, because it raised the possibility of such investigations and because it was a reaction to an investigation widely seen as entirely appropriate, of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia


    As the continuing Ukraine episode illustrated, Trump’s will to power has driven out public servants who do not share his expansive view of executive influence. The continued loss of those rank-and-file employees could accelerate his takeover – especially if he wins re-election.

    On Thursday, one of those lifetime employees whose career fell casualty to Trump’s personal ambitions, Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, wrote in the Washington Post about what the events surrounding Trump’s impeachment meant for the national future.

    “I had always thought that our institutions would forever protect us against individual transgressors,” Yovanovitch wrote. “But it turns out that our institutions need us as much as we need them; they need the American people to protect them or they will be hollowed out over time, unable to serve and protect our country.”
    Trump unleashed: what's next for a president who feels invincible? | US news | The Guardian

  20. #24795
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    So I guess those GOP senators who acquitted Trump on the basis that he knew he’d been a naughty boy and would have learnt a lesson from it must be feeling even more stupid than usual.

  21. #24796
    Days Work Done! Norton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    So I guess those GOP senators who acquitted Trump on the basis that he knew he’d been a naughty boy and would have learnt a lesson from it must be feeling even more stupid than usual.
    Giving them way too much credit. Their only concern is getting reelected. They know crossing Trump will ensure they are out of work. The whole lot are drinking thier own bathwater. Fear can make normally rational folks do really stupid things and create a story making an obvious stupid action a stroke of brilliance.

  22. #24797
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    Yes, but by blocking evidence and witnesses which apparently 75% of Americans wanted, and then voting to acquit, the electorate is likely to swing blue.

    Weasely words from the Republican senators about Democrats having wasted three years on impeachment proceedings ring false. Which party controlled the house, senate and presidency during the first two years of the Trump administration? How many bills passed by the house are gathering dust on McConnell's desk?

    Of course, the GOP is banking on the voters having a short memory and being gullible to Republican spin.
    pues, estamos aqui

  23. #24798
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by happynz
    Of course, the GOP is banking on the voters having a short memory and being gullible to Republican spin.
    And they'll likely be right.

    A sizable portion of the electorate apparently like to be fed bullshit, swallow it whole, then ask for more.

  24. #24799
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    A sizable portion of the electorate apparently like to be fed bullshit, swallow it whole, then ask for more.
    So basically you are talking about Repeater666 and the Boontard.
    Last edited by bsnub; 07-02-2020 at 05:17 PM.

  25. #24800
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    ...Yes.

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