Impeachment Trial - 2021 Version

[DaShuckster]

Wow. If you didn't watch any of Day 2 of the impeachment trial, I'd encourage you to watch one of the replays on the web. The House managers laid out the actions on January 6th from beginning to end featuring all kinds of videos (many of which had never been seen by the public before) that made for some compelling TV (which certainly wasn't the case the first go-around.)

When it came to presenting its evidence, the House managers star witness was Donald Trump himself. His tweets. His speeches. His media. His interviews. It was all damning. And time after time, Trump left nothing to the imagination either. He was, without question, his own worst enemy.

I seriously doubt 17 GOP Senators will convict unless they suddenly grow a conscience, but those GOP Senators on the jury are going home tonight realizing how badly a vote to acquit is going to look.

And yes, Ucfmikes, I am aware this thread is about Trump. He's gone now and I'm happy about it. I'm talking about it because it's The News of the Week -- and weirdly, nobody here is talking about it.

 

[Crazyhole]

Hopefully this one gets Trump removed from office so people stop obsessing about him.

 

[_glaciers]

if you're interested in something a little more mature and reasonable:

 

[Happy Hands]

I only watched a little bit of it today, but what I watched was nothing but theater. They need to prove that Trump purposely incited a riot. They are showing clips of what the people that broke into the Capital building did, which does nothing to prove Trump was behind it. I did enjoy the clip I saw of the Senator yelling because he was used in a lie.

I hope the Dems call a surprise witness and it turns out to be Jeffrey Epstein or the Statue of Liberty.

 

[Crazyhole]

I only watched a little bit of it today, but what I watched was nothing but theater. They need to prove that Trump purposely incited a riot. They are showing clips of what the people that broke into the Capital building did, which does nothing to prove Trump was behind it. I did enjoy the clip I saw of the Senator yelling because he was used in a lie.

I hope the Dems call a surprise witness and it turns out to be Jeffrey Epstein or the Statue of Liberty.

I think somebody should call John Roberts. If this is a constitutional issue, who better to weigh in than the chief justice.

 

[goodknightfl]

When the dems go after their own, I will care.

 

[Ucfmikes]

And yes, Ucfmikes, I am aware this thread is about Trump. He's gone now and I'm happy about it. I'm talking about it because it's The News of the Week -- and weirdly, nobody here is talking about it.

I promise to not give a shit about Trump from January 20th, 2021, forward. Scout's Honor.

@DaShuckster

 

[Ucfmikes]

Hopefully this one gets Trump removed from office so people stop obsessing about him.

He’s not the president anymore. That’s why this obsession is so bizarre. It’s a sickness

 

[fried-chicken]

He’s not the president anymore. That’s why this obsession is so bizarre. It’s a sickness

Hillary never was president and you chuds been obsessed with her for a decade. We can take a few months to clean up his mess to set a clear boundary for future generations.

 

[Trigeek]

Wow. If you didn't watch any of Day 2 of the impeachment trial, I'd encourage you to watch one of the replays on the web. The House managers laid out the actions on January 6th from beginning to end featuring all kinds of videos (many of which had never been seen by the public before) that made for some compelling TV (which certainly wasn't the case the first go-around.)

When it came to presenting its evidence, the House managers star witness was Donald Trump himself. His tweets. His speeches. His media. His interviews. It was all damning. And time after time, Trump left nothing to the imagination either. He was, without question, his own worst enemy.

I seriously doubt 17 GOP Senators will convict unless they suddenly grow a conscience, but those GOP Senators on the jury are going home tonight realizing how badly a vote to acquit is going to look.

And yes, Ucfmikes, I am aware this thread is about Trump. He's gone now and I'm happy about it. I'm talking about it because it's The News of the Week -- and weirdly, nobody here is talking about it.

The House managers have done a masterful job. Obviously it’s the 50 Republican senators who are really on trail. There is no one who can sit through the presentation and not conclude the Trump incited the riots and did nothing to stop it. He is guilty. The question is how corrupt is the GOP. Will they do their job or remain loyal to Trump. The trail is influencing public opinion against the GOP. So it is being effective.

 

[Trigeek]

He’s not the president anymore. That’s why this obsession is so bizarre. It’s a sickness

Did you watch Day 1? So you believe in a January exception that a President can. Do whatever he wants then simply resign without repercussions?
That’s what you believe?

 

[Trigeek]

Then is Harris guilty of summer riots? Actually much worse since she was encouraging a get out of jail card. Impeachment!

TDS is as strong now as when he was president

Mr one trick pony

 

[Trigeek]

I think somebody should call John Roberts. If this is a constitutional issue, who better to weigh in than the chief justice.

They addressed that. Not relevant

 

[chemmie]

Then is Harris guilty of summer riots? Actually much worse since she was encouraging a get out of jail card. Impeachment!

TDS is as strong now as when he was president

What about this?
What about that?

What about the "party of personal responsibility?"
None of you seem to want to take responsibility for the treason your party supports. You just keep supporting traitors.
Donald Trump > America

We all see it now.

 

[goodknightfl]

What about this?
What about that?

What about the "party of personal responsibility?"
None of you seem to want to take responsibility for the treason your party supports. You just keep supporting traitors.
Donald Trump > America

We all see it now.

Works both ways. Harris > America.
I don't think she should be impeached, and neither should Trump. I am consistent. Some one above mentioned Roberts, he made his belief that this was not constitutional very clear when he decided not to sit in as judge.
And since when is a Senator who believes Trump is guilty and will vote on the matter an acceptable replacement, for what the Constitution requires...

 

[fried-chicken]

Burning cities...no boundary and praised. Oh wait that wasn't Trump.

That's illegal. The boundary exists.

 

[goodknightfl]

TDS makes the Wuhan flu look like small potatoes

That kind of depends on If you have had friends or family die of Wuhan. I agree TDS is off the charts ridiculous, but so is the reaction to the flu.

 

[DaShuckster]

The House managers have done a masterful job. Obviously it’s the 50 Republican senators who are really on trail. There is no one who can sit through the presentation and not conclude the Trump incited the riots and did nothing to stop it. He is guilty. The question is how corrupt is the GOP. Will they do their job or remain loyal to Trump. The trail is influencing public opinion against the GOP. So it is being effective.

No fooling. Any vote to acquit will go down in infamy.

That kind of depends on If you have had friends or family die of Wuhan.

^^^^^ This.

The jokes aren't as funny any more once that happens.

 

[Boosted87]

The case against Trump is far stronger than I was expecting. Let's examine intent. I think there are essentially two perspectives here to compare:

*POTUS mobilizes supporters to exert political pressure on members of congress to vote in his favor...
VS
*POTUS mobilizes supporters with the intent of violently delaying the Constitutional process of certifying his own election loss.

The first has benign intent, the second is clearly criminal - probably seditious leading to an act of domestic terrorism. For impeachment, I don't think intent matters. You're POTUS and need to take responsibility. It's like saying you don't owe child support because you didn't intend to get anyone pregnant. Irrelevant. It was his mob he assembled and directed at a co-equal branch of government. We can't live in a world where elected leaders can send mobs to terrorize their political opponents with violence and not hold the inciters responsible.

So I wasn't really concerned with intent vs plausible deniability for impeachment purposes. But the case is virtually a slam dunk that Trump's explicit INTENT was to delay the certification, via his mob, using force. I wasn't necessarily expecting that case to be so clear.

I don't think Biden's Justice Department will pursue Trump - but I'm fairly confident a non-biased jury would agree that Trump's intent was to delay the certification. From there, I don't think it's that hard to get to really serious charges. Particularly if you had the anonymous sources from media pieces actually testifying under oath to Trump's state of mind during the events.

 

[chemmie]

No fooling. Any vote to acquit will go down in infamy.

But just look at Republicans here. They don't care. They are so brainwashed and think it is all the work of the "liberal media." They have no idea that they are supporting traitors. Trump is more important to them than the foundations of American government.
It won't matter, in the end. Trump said it years ago that he could murder somebody in the middle of the street and he would still keep his followers. Well, now he led a violent coup attempt, where police were murdered, and he still keeps his followers.

 

[DaShuckster]

the case is virtually a slam dunk that Trump's explicit INTENT was to delay the certification, via his mob, using force. I wasn't necessarily expecting that case to be so clear.

Me neither. But the House managers did a brilliant job of making Trump's intentions crystal clear. That's why guilt really isn't the issue - it's obvious. The real issue is whether or not the Senate Republicans are going to cower behind acquit votes and be damned by history or not. Considering they are duplicitous in everything that's happened, a conviction vote would be an admission of their own guilt, so I doubt it.

 

[Crazyhole]

The case against Trump is far stronger than I was expecting. Let's examine intent. I think there are essentially two perspectives here to compare:

*POTUS mobilizes supporters to exert political pressure on members of congress to vote in his favor...
VS
*POTUS mobilizes supporters with the intent of violently delaying the Constitutional process of certifying his own election loss.

The first has benign intent, the second is clearly criminal - probably seditious leading to an act of domestic terrorism. For impeachment, I don't think intent matters. You're POTUS and need to take responsibility. It's like saying you don't owe child support because you didn't intend to get anyone pregnant. Irrelevant. It was his mob he assembled and directed at a co-equal branch of government. We can't live in a world where elected leaders can send mobs to terrorize their political opponents with violence and not hold the inciters responsible.

So I wasn't really concerned with intent vs plausible deniability for impeachment purposes. But the case is virtually a slam dunk that Trump's explicit INTENT was to delay the certification, via his mob, using force. I wasn't necessarily expecting that case to be so clear.

I don't think Biden's Justice Department will pursue Trump - but I'm fairly confident a non-biased jury would agree that Trump's intent was to delay the certification. From there, I don't think it's that hard to get to really serious charges. Particularly if you had the anonymous sources from media pieces actually testifying under oath to Trump's state of mind during the events.

Of course his intent was to delay it. Hard to prove the "violently" part of his intent though.

 

[Cubs79]

Of course his intent was to delay it. Hard to prove the "violently" part of his intent though.

But what other way was there for him to delay it?

 

[Trigeek]

Of course his intent was to delay it. Hard to prove the "violently" part of his intent though.

Have you been watching the House Members Case? I think so far they've made a compelling case.

 

[Crazyhole]

But what other way was there for him to delay it?

There were congressmen and senators making that case on the floor. He wanted those people to support their actions. Anything beyond that is just an assumption based on politics.

 

[Cubs79]

There were congressmen and senators making that case on the floor. He wanted those people to support their actions. Anything beyond that is just an assumption based on politics.

It isn't an assumption based on politics, it is an assumption based on his own words. Secondly, it isn't the presidents job to pressure congressman and senators how to vote with regards to something that is really only mean to be procedural at that point. Plus, by law the vote has to be certified by January 6 unless a law is passed changing that, so he legally had no way to delay it.

 

[knight_tracker]

No longer the president and Trump is still in your heads. The Democrats still fear Trump even though they beat him in an election by millions of votes. In all seriousness, our political system is nothing but a circus of political posturing. I'll start paying attention when they start putting the American people first in their agenda.

 

[Trigeek]

There were congressmen and senators making that case on the floor. He wanted those people to support their actions. Anything beyond that is just an assumption based on politics.

He called down to the house floor asking congressmen to delay and stall so they'd have more time for the insurrection, Look at the timeline presented.

 

[Crazyhole]

It isn't an assumption based on politics, it is an assumption based on his own words. Secondly, it isn't the presidents job to pressure congressman and senators how to vote with regards to something that is really only mean to be procedural at that point. Plus, by law the vote has to be certified by January 6 unless a law is passed changing that, so he legally had no way to delay it.

I understand that. The issue in my mind is that since he didn't direct people to commit a crime, he really isn't guilty by the letter of the law. I'm fine with removing and banning him but I'm also concerned that it might set a precedent we don't really want.

 

[Boosted87]

Of course his intent was to delay it. Hard to prove the "violently" part of his intent though.

That's what I'm surprised about - how obvious the conclusion here is.

1) Excellent evidence that the mob was heavily influenced by Trump's words, viewing them as orders. The Q-Shaman guy is on video saying they left because Trump told them to. You have people on blow-horns reciting Trump's tweet's to the crowd like real-time commands. Trump told them to march to the Capitol and they did.

2) That makes it clear that Trump had the power to de-escalate this at any time. Comparing his Tweet about Pence's lack of courage to what Trump would have been watching on TV at that moment is stark. Instead of choosing to de-escalate an obviously dangerous situation, he poured gasoline on it.

3) Total lack of remorse. A normal human being who UNINTENTIONALLY caused this would stand up and acknowledge what they'd done. They would condemn it, apologize, and seek to de-radicalize their mob. Unless of course you have no remorse because it was on purpose and you liked it.

If you combine the inflammatory rhetoric leading up to that day with the total lack of effort to de-escalate the situation, it becomes clear that Trump was more than willing to harness the violent energy of his mob to delay certification in the moment.

If you had a criminal trial where the media's anonymous sources actually testified to the reporting (that he was enjoying the riot - so assuming that's legit) I think it's a slam dunk for truly unbiased jury.

 

[Boosted87]

I understand that. The issue in my mind is that since he didn't direct people to commit a crime, he really isn't guilty by the letter of the law. I'm fine with removing and banning him but I'm also concerned that it might set a precedent we don't really want.

The far more dangerous precedent is saying that a president can harness violence against their enemies as long as they don't actually specifically ask for said violence.

 

[DaShuckster]

Trump had the power to de-escalate this at any time. Comparing his Tweet about Pence's lack of courage to what Trump would have been watching on TV at that moment is stark. Instead of choosing to de-escalate an obviously dangerous situation, he poured gasoline on it.

That part of the presentation was powerful. Pence, a man that even his most vocal opponents would grudgingly admit was loyal to Trump to the core, was thrown under the bus by his boss (sound familiar?) If Pence would have been killed during the insurrection, his blood would have been on Trump's hands.

A normal human being who UNINTENTIONALLY caused this would stand up and acknowledge what they'd done. They would condemn it, apologize, and seek to de-radicalize their mob. Unless of course you have no remorse because it was on purpose and you liked it.

Instead Trump refused to do ANYTHING about it for hours. By all accounts, he was delighted by it.

 

[DaShuckster]

What a partisan tds filled group of betas in office today. Time to burn cities down again?

Since you're so unbiased, what is your opinion of what happened at the Capitol on January 6th? Are all of us TDS-filled betas making shit up again?

 

[OLearyLastCall]

I saw @_glaciers in the House's video evidence. He's in trouble!

But seriously, you'd think after Republicans lost all 3 chambers, saw their popular vote margin widen in the Presidential race, and have seen their registration numbers plummet nationally post 1/6, that they'd divorce themselves from the Trump cancer. They've yet to do it.

Can't wait for the Patriot Party to get up and running. That'll really show the Democrats in 2022!

 

[DaShuckster]

you'd think after Republicans lost all 3 chambers, saw their popular vote margin widen in the Presidential race, and have seen their registration numbers plummet nationally post 1/6, that they'd divorce themselves from the Trump cancer. They've yet to do it.

Can't wait for the Patriot Party to get up and running. That'll really show the Democrats in 2022!

I wholeheartedly agree, OLearyLastCall. It defies logic that the GOP would self-distruct the way they are. January 6th sealed Trump's fate and place in American history; the final impeachment vote next week will seal the Republican Party's ultimate fate.

 

[Happy Hands]

Bread: stimulus checks

Circuses: impeachment hearings

For real. Left or right. The capital letter by a name doesn’t care about you. It only cares about power.

 

[DaShuckster]

The capital letter by a name doesn’t care about you. It only cares about power.

Only cares about power?

Interesting take in the wake of Day 2's stunning testimony and video in Donald Trump's impeachment trial.

 

[DaShuckster]

Never should of happened.

Why did it happen?

Republicans don't riot. That is a democratic thing since they aren't productive and don't mind destroying public property

Sooooo....these were Dems disguised as Trump supporters?

 

[DaShuckster]

Rare case that never happens. So common with democrats you can't even remember all the cities they looted and destroyed. I'm sure you're cool with that though since it was mostly inter cities and didn't impact you in Nebraska

Wow, what a defense!!! You'd fit right in with Trump's trial lawyers.

 

[Trigeek]

Wow. If you didn't watch any of Day 2 of the impeachment trial, I'd encourage you to watch one of the replays on the web. The House managers laid out the actions on January 6th from beginning to end featuring all kinds of videos (many of which had never been seen by the public before) that made for some compelling TV (which certainly wasn't the case the first go-around.)

When it came to presenting its evidence, the House managers star witness was Donald Trump himself. His tweets. His speeches. His media. His interviews. It was all damning. And time after time, Trump left nothing to the imagination either. He was, without question, his own worst enemy.

I seriously doubt 17 GOP Senators will convict unless they suddenly grow a conscience, but those GOP Senators on the jury are going home tonight realizing how badly a vote to acquit is going to look.

And yes, Ucfmikes, I am aware this thread is about Trump. He's gone now and I'm happy about it. I'm talking about it because it's The News of the Week -- and weirdly, nobody here is talking about it.

Now using Trumps own talking calls and messages for attacking Michigan Governor to build case that it was not first time and he used similar approach on the capital.