Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[Peter McLennan]

Trump is going to stiff David Schoen on his fees.

Yep.  Lower-third on CNN has been saying "Trump Reportedly Livid" for the last hour or so.

The defense presentation was so appalling, I went for a walk.  I returned two hours later to the "Trump Livid" lower third.

There's a good reason their presentation was so poor:  Their position is indefensible.

[digitaldog]

Yep.  Lower-third on CNN has been saying "Trump Reportedly Livid" for the last hour or so.

I am admittedly biased but I watched about 20 minutes of Trump's lawyer Bruce Castor and couldn't believe how poor he did, both in content and delivery.
And some fact checking:
https://www.kfvs12.com/2021/02/10/ap-fact-check-trumps-lawyers-constitution/

[John Camp]

Good lawyers, with a bad case, can do presentations that make their positions seem coherent and arguable, or, if not that, can confuse an issue. If that had been done, the Republicans senators voting against allowing the trial to proceed on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, would have had some cover. The wreck of a presentation stripped away any cover -- they're voting against because they're afraid of Trump and his supporters, and they want to keep their jobs at any cost, no matter what that does to the nation and to democracy. To call them weasels is an insult to weasels.

[Robert Roaldi]

Lin Wood resurfaces and doubles down on Pence being a "traitor", https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/09/lin-wood-attacks-pence-roberts-468027. This was in connection with yet another law suit.

Anyone unfamiliar with the USA and who watched social media in the last little while would probably start to wonder why so much of the country's governing seems to take place in courtrooms.

Given how slow the courts seem to be, which is what I constantly hear, it's a wonder anyone bothers with them, especially in civil cases. I've long wondered how many people plead guilty in criminal cases because the alternative of going to court would bankrupt most people or cause so many years of mental anguish for them and their families that serving some jail time might be preferable. I hope my perception is wrong.

[digitaldog]

Too pathetic and funny too:

One of the attorneys on former President Trump's impeachment defense team sued him late last year for making “repeated claims” that mail voting was plagued with fraud despite having “no evidence in support of these claims.”

The Washington Post reports that Michael T. van der Veen, a Philadelphia lawyer with a background in personal injury law, is now a part of Trump’s defense team after having sued him just a few months ago.

[Ray]

I am admittedly biased but I watched about 20 minutes of Trump's lawyer Bruce Castor and couldn't believe how poor he did, both in content and delivery.

Wow! That's good news, that you admit you are biased. 

Reading the posts in this thread, mainly for amusement, I got the impression that you were convinced you were always able to distinguish between reality (facts) and political jargon or fake news, unlike some posters such as Alan. 

[faberryman]

So what have we learned from the first day of Trump's second impeachment trial? That Trump's legal defense team was so unpersuasive that one of the Republicans actually changed his vote on the question of the constitutionality of trying a president for incitement to insurrection after he leaves office. That was the question a week or so ago when the vote was 55-45. The vote yesterday was 56-44. Fortunately, that only took five hours. Today we have to slog through eight hours. Gad.

[PeterAit]

Too pathetic and funny too:

One of the attorneys on former President Trump's impeachment defense team sued him late last year for making “repeated claims” that mail voting was plagued with fraud despite having “no evidence in support of these claims.”

The Washington Post reports that Michael T. van der Veen, a Philadelphia lawyer with a background in personal injury law, is now a part of Trump’s defense team after having sued him just a few months ago.

A constitutional law professor, Brian Kalt, was cited numerous times by Trump's lawyers in support of the argument that he could not be tried by the senate after he left office. The only problem was that Kalt's writings come to the OPPOSITE conclusion. Kalt is, to say the least, pissed.

https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/09/965590112/i-said-the-opposite-criticism-of-trumps-impeachment-defense-intensifies

[digitaldog]

A constitutional law professor, Brian Kalt, was cited numerous times by Trump's lawyers in support of the argument that he could not be tried by the senate after he left office. The only problem was that Kalt's writings come to the OPPOSITE conclusion. Kalt is, to say the least, pissed.

https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/09/965590112/i-said-the-opposite-criticism-of-trumps-impeachment-defense-intensifies

Yes indeed and he was interviewed last night and he's a bit pissed off about this.
The interview:
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/legal-scholar-trump-lawyers-cherry-picked-points-from-my-writing-100783685518

[Alan Klein]

Since we seem to be starting out anew per Josh's post about personal attacks in the other thread, I'm dropping all Ignores to start fresh as well.  I'll do the best I can as well.

[faberryman]

A constitutional law professor, Brian Kalt, was cited numerous times by Trump's lawyers in support of the argument that he could not be tried by the senate after he left office. The only problem was that Kalt's writings come to the OPPOSITE conclusion. Kalt is, to say the least, pissed.

Between mischaracterizing that guy's article, and repeatedly dropping footnotes to a right-wing conspiracy website called the Gateway Pundit, Trump's legal team is out of the running for the best brief of the year award. I think they can probably kiss the best oral argument in a trial award goodbye too, what with the first guy aw-shucksing around for an hour and the second guy reading his brief out of a binder. Their video of Maxine Waters being Maxine Waters wasn't terribly effective either. The only thing Maxine Waters could incite anyone to do is change the channel. I am a somewhat sympathetic because they only had a week to prepare, but that didn't make it any easier to sit through. The House Managers' presentation was better, but I don't think they are in the running for either award either. Where's Perry Mason when you need him? "Isn't it true Mrs. Jones that you slashed your husband's throat with a butchers knife and gouged out his eyes with a barbeque fork?" "I confess, I confess, anything to make you stop." That's all your honor." "You may step down Mrs. Jones."

[Alan Klein]

Sounds like you think Trump's moving 12,000 troops from Germany to Poland, and building a big base in Poland at enormous cost to accommodate them, to punish Germany for not meeting its defense spending goal and reward Poland for meeting its defense spending goal is a good idea? Sounds like an expensive way to reward an ally. What do we get out of the deal? A new base in Poland? I don't remember that being on anyone's Christmas list. How is our strategic interest advanced?

It isn't as good as bringing the troops home, which is what I posted he should do. Germany can afford to recruit another 8000 of its own men.  They're a rich country.  I don't see Russia attacking anytime soon.  Do you?  Pretty soon we'll be forced to reduce troops anyway since we can't afford the military we have. 

[Alan Klein]

Germany deployed the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan, after the US.  Since the Afghanistan jaunt was a response to 9-11, it seems to me that the Germans have been doing their fair share in supporting the US as a NATO ally. Of course you can't expect a real estate dealer to understand how these things work.

We appreciate that.  However, they weren't doing us any favors. They were keeping their commitment to NATO where we've been protecting Germany and all of Europe from the Soviet Union previously, and possibly Russia today.   But they also made financial commitments after Afghanistan that they failed to keep while we kept our word and continued to provide troops into Germany.  Be allies is a two-way street.

[Alan Klein]

The thing I can't understand is why Trump awarded Poland a new military base. There were four countries (in addition to the United States) that spent at least 2% of their GDP on defense.

Greece – 2.38 percent
United Kingdom – 2.21 percent
Estonia – 2.16 percent
Poland – 2 percent

Poland wins the prize for being in fourth place? What's that all about? Seems like maybe Greece, the UK, and Estonia would say screw it, and reduce their level of defense spending to an even 2% as well. Obviously, there is no reason to spend more.

Poland is east of Germany next to Russia, a good place to draw a line.  Also, Poland was going to contribute a lot of money to build the infrastructure to support our troops.  Also note that Congress had previously wanted to put troops in Poland. 

Biden, basically, is just sucking up to Germany, pissing off Poland, and showing NATO countries he's weak.  He's just doing it to show he's not Trump.
The Europeans will now spend even less money on defense than their commitments knowing Biden will not do anything about it.  While Trump raised the bet with the move to Poland to pressure them, Biden just called it quits and folded his hand.  So he's got nothing to say about it any longer.

I found this report on what the move was supposed to be about published last August.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF11280.pdf
 

[Alan Klein]

This is very off-topic, but I suspect it may interest you. Our local cable company has a junction box on my neighbour's front lawn. It is about 2 feet high and has a cylindrical plastic cap on it that is about 1 foot in diameter at its base. The plastic cap broke about halfway up 4 years ago. I suspect it happened during a cold winter when plastic becomes brittle. It gets covered with several feet of shovelled or blown snow for several months per year. I secured it in place with Gorilla tape and this is its 4th winter after the repair. I suspect that the tape will hold longer than the rest of the cap.

That poor woman.

Maybe she could use her head as a wifi hotpot.

[LesPalenik]

Poland is east of Germany next to Russia, a good place to draw a line.  Also, Poland was going to contribute a lot of money to build the infrastructure to support our troops.  Also note that Congress had previously wanted to put troops in Poland. 

Another reason for moving the troops from Germany to Poland is cost savings. It costs much less to build and maintain the facilities in Poland than in Germany. Also the food and other necessities are much cheaper in Poland.

[Alan Klein]

Post-mortem on the pandemic, https://www.npr.org/2021/01/07/954424826/americas-pandemic-failures. This is a 50 min podcast interview from NPR's Fresh Air with Lawrence Wright a staff writer with the New Yorker. They review the high and low points of the USA's response to Covid.

I wish people would do more post-mortems and internalize what they learn. I don't know why so many people want to re-invent the wheel.

The intro blurb "The U.S. has only 4% of the world's population — and yet it accounts for 20% of all COVID deaths. 'New Yorker' writer Lawrence Wright discusses America's "plague year." We'll talk about the mishandling of the outbreak and his novel 'The End of October,' about a deadly pandemic."

America and many European countries as well have huge mobility among their people who travel far and wide. NYC had tens of thousands of Chinese, Europeans,  and others who visited with the virus before we became aware of the problem.  New Jersey where I live got hit hard because many people who live here work in NYC land commute daily bringing the disease home with them. Remote countries and peoples were not exposed the same way. 

A few years back when bed bugs became a nuisance in NYC, they were able to track the worse places in the city based on where the subways ran. 

[Alan Klein]

Another reason for moving the troops from Germany to Poland is cost savings. It costs much less to build and maintain the facilities in Poland than in Germany. Also the food and other necessities are much cheaper in Poland.

The women are very pretty too, always something a serviceman considers when getting assigned for overseas duty. 

[LesPalenik]

The women are very pretty too, always something a serviceman considers when getting assigned for overseas duty. 

Good point. It's also cheaper to take a girl out in Poland than in Germany. It costs about the same to make happy two Polish girls as one German.

[faberryman]

The women are very pretty too, always something a serviceman considers when getting assigned for overseas duty. 

Good point. It's also cheaper to take out a girl out in Poland than in Germany. It costs about the same to make happy two Polish girls as one German.

Good grief.