Impeaching Donald Trump

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Trump had little to do with it, other than proving to be an unreliable partner (which motivated to continue increasing the spending)...

You realize you are contradicting yourself in a single sentence?

[Alan Klein]

I'm not sure whether the European NATO partners will meet the deadline and gradually move closer their pledge of dedicating 2% of their GDP on defense in time, in 2020. Instead of spending more than Russia, perhaps one needs to spend it more effectively, like putting more emphasis on Cyberwarfare and Drones than on traditional equipment.

No matter how often you repeat it, it remains bullshit and it's incorrect. The goal has been to gradually grow to 2% of GDP in 2020 since it was agreed upon, under President Obama. Trump had little to do with it, other than proving to be an unreliable partner (which motivated to continue increasing the spending). The level of US military spending is also a subsidy to the US defense industry, instead of spending it on road maintenance or alternative energy, or affordable health care. It's a choice, not gospel.

https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_06/20190625_PR2019-069-EN.pdf

Exactly my point.  Trump threatened to pull out of NATO if EU NATO did not move up its expenditures on defense which most are now doing.  Obama complained as well that Europe wasn;t doing enough.  This isn't competition between our presidents.  Both wanted you do do more.   It was Europe that hadn't been the dependable partners not the US.  Europe is rich and can afford it.  This isn't 1947 with the Iron Curtain and an impoverished Europe. 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

You realize you are contradicting yourself in a single sentence?

There is no contradiction. 'Little to do' is not the same as 'nothing to do' with it.

If you read the NATO report that I linked to, there was a gradual increase of expenditures since 2012. That has nothing to do with Trump, at all.

[Alan Klein]

There is no contradiction. 'Little to do' is not the same as 'nothing to do' with it.

If you read the NATO report that I linked to, there was a gradual increase of expenditures since 2012. That has nothing to do with Trump, at all.

They've been treading water.

[kers]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/03/macron-clashes-with-erdogan-over-anti-isis-kurdish-fighters

...
The French president asked how it was possible to be a member of the Nato alliance and for Turkey to purchase the Russian S-400 air defence system. “Technically it is not possible,” he said.

Macron, in common with most Nato states’ leaders, maintains that a Russian defence system inside Nato will expose its military hardware, including the F-35 fighter jets, to Russian military intelligence.
Pressed by a reporter about whether the US was going to sanction Turkey for buying the S-400 as the US Congress was demanding, Trump said he was looking at the issue.
He then claimed, incorrectly, that Turkey had been forced into looking at the S-400 because Barack Obama had refused to let Turkey buy the US patriot defence system. “Turkey for a long period of time wanted very much to buy the Patriot system,” Trump said. Obama, he said, “wouldn’t sell” it.
In fact the Obama administration offered the weapon to Turkey repeatedly but Erdoğan refused because the US deal did not include the Patriot’s underlying technology.
...

[BernardLanguillier]

It looks like 75% of the law professors asked about the impeachment relevance think that Mr. Trump clearly violated the constitution in unprecedented ways...

But I assume that the usual whiners will claim that they aren't objective about the situation?

Which is of course akin to saying that they have no ethical values and just let their supposed political inclination drive their expert opinion. The funny thing is that doubting the honesty of the higher form of legal expertise in the US is basically saying that nobody in the US can be trusted... which is a philosophical suicide of the worst kind in that you end up having to claim that the country you love has absolutely no value whatsoever just for the sake of promoting your own political bias.

Unless of course you agree with their expert opinion and finally admit that Trump indeed violated the constitution in a major way.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Alan Klein]

It looks like 75% of the law professors asked about the impeachment relevance clearly think that Mr. Trump clearly violated the constitution in unprecedented ways...

But I assume that the usual whiners will claim that they aren't objective about the situation?

Which is of course akin to saying that they have no ethical values and just let their supposed political inclination drive their expert opinion. The funny thing is that doubting the honesty of the higher form of legal expertise in the US is basically saying that nobody in the US can be trusted... which is a philosophical suicide of the worst kind in that you end up having to claim that the country you love has absolutely no value whatsoever just for the sake of promoting your own political bias.

Unless of course you agree with their expert opinion and finally admit that Trump indeed violated the constitution in a major way.

Cheers,
Bernard

75% of what?  Who picked them?  What does it mean?  What did other say about it?  The fact is Democrats have been trying to impeach the president since the day he was inaugurated three years ago.  They've been looking for something, anything,  to try to pin a crime on him but have only come up with political hijinks, maybe.  Even if he's guilty of it., it doesn;t rise to an impeachable offence.  It's all about politics.  Even the lawyers who claim this or claim that are politically motivated.  Lawyers are use to taking sides and lying through their teeth.  That's what they do. 

[Rob C]

It looks like 75% of the law professors asked about the impeachment relevance clearly think that Mr. Trump clearly violated the constitution in unprecedented ways...

But I assume that the usual whiners will claim that they aren't objective about the situation?

Which is of course akin to saying that they have no ethical values and just let their supposed political inclination drive their expert opinion. The funny thing is that doubting the honesty of the higher form of legal expertise in the US is basically saying that nobody in the US can be trusted... which is a philosophical suicide of the worst kind in that you end up having to claim that the country you love has absolutely no value whatsoever just for the sake of promoting your own political bias.

Unless of course you agree with their expert opinion and finally admit that Trump indeed violated the constitution in a major way.

Cheers,
Bernard

Logic never trumps catechism.

Rob

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

It looks like 75% of the law professors asked about the impeachment relevance clearly think that Mr. Trump clearly violated the constitution in unprecedented ways...

With a claim like this, it is customary to provide a source. Never mind that it resembles the 98% certainty that Hillary would win on the day of the election.

Whether the constitution is violated is for the courts to decide, including the SCOTUS, not someone’s opinions, even if law professors. Never mind that professors in general are mostly loonie left. Impeachment is not a legal matter for the courts, but clearly political, decided by senators’ votes, i.e., laymen opinions.

[Rob C]

With a claim like this, it is customary to provide a source. Never mind that it resembles the 98% certainty that Hillary would win on the day of the election.

Whether the constitution is violated is for the courts to decide, including the SCOTUS, not someone’s opinions, even if law professors. Never mind that professors in general are mostly loonie left. Impeachment is not a legal matter for the courts, but clearly political, decided by senators’ votes, i.e., laymen opinions.

That's a kind of pat on the back, in a way. If profs have bright minds... but then one man's loony is another man's hero.

;-)

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

That's a kind of pat on the back, in a way. If profs have bright minds... but then one man's loony is another man's hero.

Profs tend to live in ivory towers, or model-worlds, as my Econ professor calls it. And yes, I am aware of the irony.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Profs tend to live in ivory towers, or model-worlds, as my Econ professor calls it. And yes, I am aware of the irony.

Then debate their arguments, the logic they use to arrive at a conclusion, if you can ...

[RSL]

Their arguments have nothing to do with it, Bart. It's all "he said, she said." Not a single fact has been brought out in all of this crap. The Dems want to impeach Trump because they don't like him and because Hillary was supposed to win. That's the burden of their "arguments." In a normal trial, facts are what lead to a verdict. Not in this trial.

But I love it. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! The Dems have been doing it with a machine gun. This morning Wussy Nancy made her pitch, zig zagging all over the place in a voice that would put you to sleep. The Dems are gonna lose the house over this, and I think that's great!

[LesPalenik]

Now, Amazon is claiming that Trump killed their Pentagon deal.

Amazon.com Inc. claims it lost a Pentagon cloud contract valued at as much as $10 billion because of political interference by President Donald Trump, according to the judge overseeing the case.

“Plaintiff contends that the procurement process was compromised and negatively affected by the bias expressed publicly by the president and commander in chief Donald Trump against plaintiff,” Campbell-Smith said in a recording of a status hearing released Thursday by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington.

The judge’s comments were the first public confirmation that Amazon cited bias by Trump as grounds to overturn the award to Microsoft. Trump has long criticized Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on everything from the shipping rates his company pays the U.S. Postal Service to his personal ownership of what Trump calls “the Amazon Washington Post.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-suit-claims-trump-bias-175503990.html

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Their arguments have nothing to do with it, Bart. It's all "he said, she said."

Huh? The interviews were about the legal aspects of the Constitution.

[RSL]

Huh? The interviews were about the legal aspects of the Constitution.

They can argue about that all they want, Bart, but if they're actually going to impeach anyone -- especially the president -- they're going to have to come up with some provable offenses on his part. After more than two years of a crookedly established coup attempt on the part of a special prosecutor they were unable to do that. Now they're rattling their heads about what they heard from somebody else who heard it from somebody else, and pretending that's evidence. The House can have at it, but once the thing gets to the Senate they're dead in the water. The House will vote to impeach, though the Dems will lose the votes of some of their members from districts that went for Trump three years ago. Those Dems with shaky support will lose in the next election and the Republicans will take back the House, but for now the vote will be to impeach. On the other hand, since none of these idiots have been able to come up with an impeachable offense, there's a reasonable chance that the Senate will reject the impeachment out of hand and not even discuss it or vote on it.

[faberryman]

They can argue about that all they want, Bart, but if they're actually going to impeach anyone -- especially the president -- they're going to have to come up with some provable offenses on his part. After more than two years of a crookedly established coup attempt on the part of a special prosecutor they were unable to do that. Now they're rattling their heads about what they heard from somebody else who heard it from somebody else, and pretending that's evidence. The House can have at it, but once the thing gets to the Senate they're dead in the water. The House will vote to impeach, though the Dems will lose the votes of some of their members from districts that went for Trump three years ago. Those Dems with shaky support will lose in the next election and the Republicans will take back the House, but for now the vote will be to impeach. On the other hand, since none of these idiots have been able to come up with an impeachable offense, there's a reasonable chance that the Senate will reject the impeachment out of hand and not even discuss it or vote on it.

So basically the constitutional scholars who testified yesterday don't have any idea what they are talking about?

[James Clark]

So basically the constitutional scholars who testified yesterday don't have any idea what they are talking about?

It's cute that you think Russ actually pays attention to what he's ranting about

[RSL]

So basically the constitutional scholars who testified yesterday don't have any idea what they are talking about?

Fab, you're missing the point. The point is that nobody has come up with actual offenses by Trump. Constitutional scholars can testify all they want to about what the Constitution says, but until the Democrats come up with impeachable offenses it's all head-rattling.

[EricV]

It looks like 75% of the law professors asked about the impeachment relevance think that Mr. Trump clearly violated the constitution in unprecedented ways...

I believe 75% of the law professors invited to testify before the House were invited by Democrats.  I only heard part of what they said, but in the part I heard they hedged, saying only something like "if Congress concludes that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine for personal gain, then that is an impeachable offense".  They did not actually claim that Trump committed an offense, they only said that if he committed the offense, it would be impeachable.