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In all fairness

Lutherf said:
What's been closed off? The whole ****ing thing has been all over ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, BBC, Al Jazeera, NHK, RT....others. The only part that hasn't been a public spectacle is Schiff's "witness grooming" sessions before public testimony.
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Trump used his power to subvert the integrity of our elections, he was shaking down a foreign government and he was holding up federally appropriated money. If this isn't impeachable, then nothing is. This trial is going to be about the facts and the most critical issue is whether the trial will actually have witnesses. It's remarkable that we're talking about a rare event in the history of this country and the issue is whether a trial will have witnesses.

The republicans are going to say, "there's nothing here, there's no crime and nothing happened, but we don't want any witnesses". It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
 
lemmiwinx said:
There's too much accusing and threatening going on both sides in our government turf wars. What we need is term limits and soon before these old style politicians start a civil war. They're all old and white why are they even being allowed to speak?
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I'm white and I'm old and thank GOD you aren't making constitutional law that would prohibit me from speaking my free mind.
 
HumblePi said:
Trump used his power to subvert the integrity of our elections, he was shaking down a foreign government and he was holding up federally appropriated money. If this isn't impeachable, then nothing is. This trial is going to be about the facts and the most critical issue is whether the trial will actually have witnesses. It's remarkable that we're talking about a rare event in the history of this country and the issue is whether a trial will have witnesses.

The republicans are going to say, "there's nothing here, there's no crime and nothing happened, but we don't want any witnesses". It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
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With all due respect, if you didn't have witnesses BEFORE he was impeached how the hell did you prove that he was shaking anyone down or trying to rig the 2020 election for that purpose? Aren't you supposed to have witness and evidence and stuff BEFORE you go to trial?
 
Lutherf said:
What part of, "Our elected representatives are accountable to us, the voting public" are you unhappy with? Why do you believe that American citizens should be disenfranchised from the political process? Why do you believe that we shouldn't hold our elected representatives accountable for what they do in office?
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Sounds good on paper. Is it so, though? Or are they accountable to their party first and the people second.
McConnell has promised an aquittal. That seems more ominous than concerns about accountability in a secret vote. A senator must vote as he's told to vote.
Anyway, the people have spoken on the subject. The people impeached the President. Now the States will acquit him.
 
Logical1 said:
In all fairness it seems to me that the four democrat Senators running for president should recuse themselves from voting. Or when it comes to a vote, they should just respond present. We will have to see how honorable those four democrats are, since they have a conflict of interest, and the most to gain if the president was found guilty.
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Considering impeachment is a political process there would be no logical reason for those Senators to recuse themselves.
 
Grand Mal said:
Sounds good on paper. Is it so, though? Or are they accountable to their party first and the people second.
McConnell has promised an aquittal. That seems more ominous than concerns about accountability in a secret vote. A senator must vote as he's told to vote.
Anyway, the people have spoken on the subject. The people impeached the President. Now the States will acquit him.
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The people didn't impeach anyone. The House Democrats did that all by themselves and the people will, come November, decide how well that worked out.

BTW, I read McConnell's resolution and it doesn't appear to exclude the press from anything so I have no idea what you were on about in that other post.
 
Mycroft said:
From the Trump hater's point of view, fairness is a non-issue. They simply don't care about being fair.

The ends justify any means.
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We've seen this already in the House hearing in the Judiciary and Intelligence (now that's a massive irony in and of itself) hearings.
 
Lutherf said:
I guess I'm not aware of them yet. My understanding is that the rules would be released tomorrow.
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Actually Sen. Grassley and others have given hindsight of what the rules will be for the press. The Senate is not going to allow this hearing to turn into a circus.

What members of the Senate have stated is there will be one camera allowed in the Chamber. Most likely C-Span. As they cover all Senate debates and speech in the well of the Senate. There isn't going to be a massive amount of cameras flashing pictures of those who would love to have their pictures taken. There is going to be a group of reporters chosen. Most likely those representing CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, and CNN and their affiliates. There will be journalists selected to represent national syndicated press from different newspapers. AP and Reuters added. They will not be allowed to carry a cell phone or a recording device in the hearing. They are going to have to cover it the old-fashioned way with listening and note-taking. That might be a real challenge for some of the feckless lazy reporters on the beat these days. Hey some of them won't be able to line up their Democratic talking points before they give their take. That's refreshing.

The hearing will be long days and will break for lunch, dinner etc. At that time the press can run to their cameras and give a firsthand report to their affiliates. But the American people tuned in will get to view it firsthand on C-Span before the media outlets have a chance lets just say to embellish things.

The senators will not be allowed to speak during the hearing and they will not be allowed to run to cameras to give their 'opinions' during the breaks.
 
Logical1 said:
In all fairness it seems to me that the four democrat Senators running for president should recuse themselves from voting. Or when it comes to a vote, they should just respond present. We will have to see how honorable those four democrats are, since they have a conflict of interest, and the most to gain if the president was found guilty.
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There's no conflict of interest. The only thing to be decided in the Senate is how corrupt the Republican senators are.

The evidence against Trump is overwhelming, including multiple first-person accounts of Trump approving actions to pressure the government of Ukraine to announce an investigation into Burisma and by association, Joe Biden's son.

The only thing left is testimony from people so close to Trump that if they testify, Republicans will be even more exposed than they already are of thumbing their noses at our laws.

Republicans are hanging by the thinnest of threads, and they know it. Trump is not in prison today only because he's the president.

They send up clouds of smoke, making wild claims that Trump shouldn't be held accountable due to procedural reasons or other flights of fancy. A few even claim that attempting to extort an ally for personal gain is totally fine. But they know that the testimony of John Bolton, if truthful, will be devastating. They know the truthful testimony of Pompeo, Mulvaney, and Barr would be as well.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Is that because "Democrats are only impeaching Trump because they never got over Hillary"?
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I didn't give two ****s about Hillary.
I voted for her only because she was the nominee.
I did not support her run for the POTUS.

And I think that when the Right uses that excuse, which they are currently
using like WALLPAPER, it is primarily to shut down discussion about Donald Trump.
 
jpn said:
There's no conflict of interest. The only thing to be decided in the Senate is how corrupt the Republican senators are.

The evidence against Trump is overwhelming, including multiple first-person accounts of Trump approving actions to pressure the government of Ukraine to announce an investigation into Burisma and by association, Joe Biden's son.

The only thing left is testimony from people so close to Trump that if they testify, Republicans will be even more exposed than they already are of thumbing their noses at our laws.

Republicans are hanging by the thinnest of threads, and they know it. Trump is not in prison today only because he's the president.

They send up clouds of smoke, making wild claims that Trump shouldn't be held accountable due to procedural reasons or other flights of fancy. A few even claim that attempting to extort an ally for personal gain is totally fine. But they know that the testimony of John Bolton, if truthful, will be devastating. They know the truthful testimony of Pompeo, Mulvaney, and Barr would be as well.
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No conflict of interest?
When those same people have already stated a pre-disposition to impeachment?
Really?
When should impeachment be the decision, they stand to gain ground in a presidential election? A crowning achievement in a political career.
No conflict of interest really?

I think that opinion / position strains credibility.
 
Lutherf said:
The people didn't impeach anyone. The House Democrats did that all by themselves and the people will, come November, decide how well that worked out.

BTW, I read McConnell's resolution and it doesn't appear to exclude the press from anything so I have no idea what you were on about in that other post.
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Two houses. One represents the people, the other represents the states. That's what the US Congress consists of.
Have you noticed that the people elected Clinton but the States elected Trump and now the people have impeached Trump but the State's will acquit him? That's what's going on here.
 
Logical1 said:
In all fairness it seems to me that the four democrat Senators running for president should recuse themselves from voting. Or when it comes to a vote, they should just respond present. We will have to see how honorable those four democrats are, since they have a conflict of interest, and the most to gain if the president was found guilty.
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Impeachment is political. There are 100 Senators. If we eliminated all the predisposed jurors here, we would be stuck with just letting Justice Roberts decide. Frankly, that would likely give us all the best and fairest outcome.

As to political, the Republicans get to set the rules.

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthe...befa731d3f337196375/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

Clearly the Republicans aren't interested in fair. Nothing like defining the rules when you are trying to protect the accused. Talk about unfair.... then again, fairness wasn't really your point now, was it?

Moreover, even if Trump were to be removed, the party would continue to control the White House, so they gain nothing. They still have to run on their individual merits. So, I don't understand your concern.
 
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Mycroft said:
From the Trump hater's point of view, fairness is a non-issue. They simply don't care about being fair.

The ends justify any means.
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How is fairness on the side of the Democrats who followed through with this Impeachment in honor of their oaths, our country and our constitution a non-issue? Is hiding relevant documents and obstructing first-hand witness testimonies on the side of the Trump Klan fair? Do you even know the meaning of the word fair anymore under your new Dictator?
 
Grand Mal said:
Two houses. One represents the people, the other represents the states. That's what the US Congress consists of.
Have you noticed that the people elected Clinton but the States elected Trump and now the people have impeached Trump but the State's will acquit him? That's what's going on here.
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Are you serious? Is that the way you understand representation at the federal level?
 
Lutherf said:
With all due respect, if you didn't have witnesses BEFORE he was impeached how the hell did you prove that he was shaking anyone down or trying to rig the 2020 election for that purpose? Aren't you supposed to have witness and evidence and stuff BEFORE you go to trial?
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I carefully listened to each one of the testimonies given under oath by every one of these witnesses. Did you?

191121111319-impeachment-hearing-witnesses-split-1121-exlarge-16.jpg


Who were the GOP witnesses who offered exonerating testimony for Trump other than Jonathan Turley who was only there as a constitutional expert?
 
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Old 'N Chill said:
How is fairness on the side of the Democrats who followed through with this Impeachment in honor of their oaths, our country and our constitution a non-issue? Is hiding relevant documents and obstructing first-hand witness testimonies on the side of the Trump Klan fair? Do you even know the meaning of the word fair anymore under your new Dictator?
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Oh...let's see...

1. Holding secret hearing.
2. Leaking selected testimony from those hearings.
3. Finally releasing full testimony from those hearings...from selected witnesses. Testimony from other witnesses STILL not released.
4. Controlling what witnesses called by Republican members of the committees were allowed to testify.
5. Controlling what questions could...and could not...be asked by Republican members.

And that's just a small part of the list of unfairness perpetrated by the Trump haters.

If you think this stuff indicates "fairness", then I'd say it's you who doesn't know the meaning of the word.
 
duplicate
 
Grand Mal said:
In all fairness the vote should be secret.
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There would be advantages to that, but overall, it would be more of a mistake. Senators need to be accountable. And it might be a little far out, but how much more possible would it be to 'cheat' in a secret ballot? A secret ballot is undemocratic. What if 90% of the public favored removal, and Senators used a secret ballot to secretly vote against their constituents and acquit?
 
Grand Mal said:
In all fairness the vote should be secret.
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I don't think their vote should be secret, not at all. By being secret the public will never know in the following years which US Senators made the choice to screw this country by not abiding by their duty to uphold the Constitution. They will be pariahs in their lifetimes.
 
Logical1 said:
In all fairness it seems to me that the four democrat Senators running for president should recuse themselves from voting. Or when it comes to a vote, they should just respond present. We will have to see how honorable those four democrats are, since they have a conflict of interest, and the most to gain if the president was found guilty.
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Actually, all senators who have made up their minds how they will vote before the trial begins should recluse themselves. That would leave but a handful if that many. 3-4 maybe. These senators are also suppose to take an oath of impartiality if I understand it right. I highly doubt any of them are.

Now one needs to remember impeachment and the trial are a political process. Being a political process one can't expect anyone who belongs to either party to leave their partisanship and partiality at the door.

This whole thing seems rather stupid in that manner. If the democrats didn't want to impeach and remove Trump, there wouldn't be a trial in the senate. Hence the democrats have their minds made up already and are partial, partisan as all get out. Of course several Republicans have also already said how they will vote before hand, along with McConnell working to make sure Trump isn't removed or found guilty. They're not impartial either.

This whole thing has been a very partial and partisan circus from the beginning. How about we just do away with this charade fairness and facade of impartiality and just have the vote since at least 95 out of the 100 have already determined their votes. Except for the hard core political fanatics on both sides, quite a lot of us are suffering from impeachment fatigue already. Enough already.
 
HumblePi said:
I carefully listened to each one of the testimonies given under oath by every one of these witnesses. Did you?



Who were the GOP witnesses who offered exonerating testimony for Trump other than Jonathan Turley who was only there as a constitutional expert?
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At what point did it become incumbent on the accused to prove their innocence? Trump doesn't need to be exonerated. The Democrats need to prove that he's guilty.

It's scary enough that people on political forums don't get that concept but it's absolutely terrifying that guys like Bob Mueller and Steny Hoyer, not to mention every other Democrat in the House, also don't get it.
 
Hari Seldon said:
As opposed to Moscow Mitch who is directly coordinating with 5 deferment cadet fake bone spurs narcissist scumbag.
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the OP speaks of honor while supporting Trump and Mitch's show trial.

i literally laughed out loud.
 
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