The Trump Impeachment

[Joe]

Yeah, Mericans are hopelessly naive about our "democracy."

[Seabass]

Pseudo-democracy!

We should just publicly auction off control of government to our richest corporations every four years. At least it would be honest. We could all have big Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin, and Goldman Sachs signs on our front lawns...

[Joe]

I wonder how much they would pay...

[Tero]

well, it's almost over

[Tero]

51/49
It's over
Roberts is off the hook too

[Joe]

I love this reasoning.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she, too, would oppose more testimony in the charged partisan atmosphere, having "come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate.'' She said, "The Congress has failed.”

[Tero]

Rubio had similar nonsense.

[Seabass]

[JimC]

A criminal declared innocent by a jury of criminals...

[Animavore]

Imagine spending years arguing for gun control that they are needed to fight tyrannical governments and then when one comes up doing absolutely nothing.

Full of shit, America.

[Tero]

The impeachment will fizzle out, but Newsweek did run this little bit:

In the press release announcing his appointment, Hunter Biden was quoted as saying, "My assistance in consulting the Company on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine." Republicans could ask what exactly he did at Burisma that benefited the "people of Ukraine," or promoted "transparency" and better corporate governance.
Were you aware of the corruption allegations that swirled around Burisma and its co founder, Mykola Zlochevsky?

This is a question that actually could serve Democrats seeking to undermine the Bidens-are-corrupt line that's repeated every night on Fox News. The talking point is that Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid from Ukraine unless it fired the country's top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was looking into Burisma. Left out is the fact that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund also wanted Shokin gone because they believed him to be corrupt and ineffective.

But there's more to it than that. Biden could testify that yes, he was very much aware of the allegations, in part because in 2015, a year after he was appointed, the then-U.S. ambassador to Kiev gave a speech calling on the Ukrainian government to step up its anti-corruption efforts, including by looking more aggressively into Burisma's founder, whom he cited by name. Why would Hunter want to bring this up? Because it undercuts the notion that the Obama-Biden administration wanted to snuff out any investigations into Burisma. If the 2015 speech by then Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt is any indication, the opposite appears to be true.

https://www.newsweek.com/hunter-biden-u ... en-1484929

[Scot Dutchy]

Did anyone expect anything else. The USA is more corrupt than an African dictatorship.

Money always wins especially in America.

[Tero]

Greetings from Bella at FB. She had a rant this morning:
At the risk of being divisive, FUCK EVERY REPUBLICAN. Yes, even your great-aunt Pearl who's sweet as pie. I'm so fed up with living in this Crazybackwardsland nightmare I could scream.

Fuck every evidence-denying, money-grubbing, self-aggrandizing, climate-ignoring, immigrant-hating, woman-detesting, gun-fucking, racism-cheering, compassion-killing, hypocrisy-puking, ignorance-embracing, soul-murdering, Constitution-shredding motherfucking one of them.

[Sean Hayden]

Impeachment didn't work out huh, gee, who'da thunkit?

[Sean Hayden]

Did you see Kushner's interview? I only read the transcript. We're fucked. The problem is an old one. We have leaders who manipulate democracy for secret agendas, and they're good at it.

“I mean, if you ask people, do you want more information or no? I think that’s right. If you ask, you know, voters, is impeachment helping your life or does it make a difference or should they actually have an election in, you know, I guess is it 10 months away, I think most people prefer that.”

It's a brilliant bit of manipulation. Rather than address the real problems with their conduct, they appeal to the public's worst instincts. In this case it seems to be two things: our desire to have something of a direct democracy where we literally decide all things together, and our need for swift resolutions to troubling problems. But we can't decide all things together. We can't replace impeachment with an election.

That's a fucking lie. But it appeals to us. Shouldn't we, the people, decide after all?

Well, no, and we won't. It will be decided by the Senate, and you'll know you've been fooled when this "impeachment that wasn't", suddenly becomes the exoneration that matters most.