(10-30-2019 02:46 PM)Fountains of Wayne Graham Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The house is going to vote to impeach, with or without supporting facts. The we will see how it plays out when actual facts have to be introduced into evidence. The bureaucratic establishment is out to get Trump, just as Chuck Schumer promised, and as long as that is the case I am going to question the honesty and credibility of any witness they trot out.

Ok.

Accepting the framing of the Politico article, do you believe that Trump was acting in good faith and in the best interest of the country in his pursuit of an investigation of his political opponent by a foreign power?

The trickier question is what if there are elements of both present? I will agree that there may be at least some portion of 'self-help' present in such a request.

If it were shown that the request was based solely on 'self-help' that is an easy question to answer. As is the inverse of that. The answer to that question gets sticky for me (as it should anybody who isnt a 'true blue' anti-Trumper or a 'true-red' Trumpista to begin with.)

My personal viewpoint is based on two avenues: a) respect for a co-equal branch of government; and b) the absolute political monopoly granted to the Executive in terms of foreign affairs.

If we decide that the answer is 'even a smidgeon of, or must be less than half of', then the burden of persuasion (a very legal construct) is drawn way too shallow at the expense of both the President as an officer in general, and more particular, at he expense of the almost plenary power of the Executive in foreign affairs.

In my point of view, the burden of persuasion and the burden of proof should have to weigh to essentially: if there is at least some in the national interest, then the burden cannot be met. Of the overwhelming amount of the act is 'for self-interest', by all means there should be a question as to whether there is a "*high* crime' or misdemeanor at issue.

The converse makes the impeachment process a clown show, and suited more for fun countries like Brazil and Venezuela who seem to relish and are enormously adroit at the blood sport of changing out leaders at the drop of a hat.

But, perhaps we frame this as well in terms of the 'Russiagate' issue -- more particularly against that portion that deals with General Flynn. I think Flynn's current judicial filings lay quite the bombshell on the intelligence/security apparatus' pursuit of him; a zealousness that go well beyond any type of prosecutorial/investigative conduct I would ever have imagined prudent or possible.

(10-29-2019 10:05 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-29-2019 09:05 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-28-2019 08:08 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Actual reporting would have followed up with those they stung and found out, that say, in ACORN’s case, the undercover acts were immediately reported to authorities...

And what difference would that make? Would it change the fact that the people speaking actually said the words that they said?

If the only complaint is "editing," then why is that same complaint not lodged against ever other news agency in the world, because every one of them edits selectively? One of the most celebrated and long-running news shows, 60 Minutes, does it repeatedly.

You're going to have to get more substantive than "edits selectively" to get much of a response from me. Now, Person XYZ didn't say the words that Person XYZ is shown on video as having said, that would be a different matter. But so far I haven't seen any indication of that. If I've missed it, please provide a link.

My question to those who say "edited selectively" or "taken out of context" is very simple. In what context would those words be appropriate?

In ACORN's case, my understanding is that the ACORN employee was basically trying to entrap O'Keefe because he thought O'Keefe was a legitimate actor and therefore wanted a criminal to be behind bars.

So, yeah, it would completely change the context of what the employee was saying and make it 100% ok.

That’s what they always say after they’re caught.

(10-30-2019 03:25 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:46 PM)Fountains of Wayne Graham Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The house is going to vote to impeach, with or without supporting facts. The we will see how it plays out when actual facts have to be introduced into evidence. The bureaucratic establishment is out to get Trump, just as Chuck Schumer promised, and as long as that is the case I am going to question the honesty and credibility of any witness they trot out.

Ok.

Accepting the framing of the Politico article, do you believe that Trump was acting in good faith and in the best interest of the country in his pursuit of an investigation of his political opponent by a foreign power?

Such an investigation would help Trump only if it showed corruption on their part. If it did, then would the Democrats still want Biden as their nominee?

If the Bidens were innocent, what would they have to fear from an investigation?

Having this question cleared up one way or the other certainly was and is in the best interests of the country.

I think he had as much good faith as the Democrats did when they made their investigation in the Russia collusion question.

In any case, a non happening. Ukraine got their aid and did not have to perform an investigation to get it.

Somehow, we keep forgetting (ignoring?) that Ukraine helped the Clinton campaign. Was that in good faith?

Couched in criticism of dems, but essentially a yes on both accounts.

(10-30-2019 04:21 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:46 PM)Fountains of Wayne Graham Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The house is going to vote to impeach, with or without supporting facts. The we will see how it plays out when actual facts have to be introduced into evidence. The bureaucratic establishment is out to get Trump, just as Chuck Schumer promised, and as long as that is the case I am going to question the honesty and credibility of any witness they trot out.

Ok.

Accepting the framing of the Politico article, do you believe that Trump was acting in good faith and in the best interest of the country in his pursuit of an investigation of his political opponent by a foreign power?

The trickier question is what if there are elements of both present? I will agree that there may be at least some portion of 'self-help' present in such a request.

If it were shown that the request was based solely on 'self-help' that is an easy question to answer. As is the inverse of that. The answer to that question gets sticky for me (as it should anybody who isnt a 'true blue' anti-Trumper or a 'true-red' Trumpista to begin with.)

My personal viewpoint is based on two avenues: a) respect for a co-equal branch of government; and b) the absolute political monopoly granted to the Executive in terms of foreign affairs.

If we decide that the answer is 'even a smidgeon of, or must be less than half of', then the burden of persuasion (a very legal construct) is drawn way too shallow at the expense of both the President as an officer in general, and more particular, at he expense of the almost plenary power of the Executive in foreign affairs.

In my point of view, the burden of persuasion and the burden of proof should have to weigh to essentially: if there is at least some in the national interest, then the burden cannot be met. Of the overwhelming amount of the act is 'for self-interest', by all means there should be a question as to whether there is a "*high* crime' or misdemeanor at issue.

The converse makes the impeachment process a clown show, and suited more for fun countries like Brazil and Venezuela who seem to relish and are enormously adroit at the blood sport of changing out leaders at the drop of a hat.

But, perhaps we frame this as well in terms of the 'Russiagate' issue -- more particularly against that portion that deals with General Flynn. I think Flynn's current judicial filings lay quite the bombshell on the intelligence/security apparatus' pursuit of him; a zealousness that go well beyond any type of prosecutorial/investigative conduct I would ever have imagined prudent or possible.

I don't know enough about law to take issue with anything you've said here. Is it fair to read this as disagreeing with how simply the Politico article frames things?

(10-30-2019 07:32 PM)Fountains of Wayne Graham Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 04:21 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:46 PM)Fountains of Wayne Graham Wrote:  

(10-30-2019 02:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The house is going to vote to impeach, with or without supporting facts. The we will see how it plays out when actual facts have to be introduced into evidence. The bureaucratic establishment is out to get Trump, just as Chuck Schumer promised, and as long as that is the case I am going to question the honesty and credibility of any witness they trot out.

Ok.

Accepting the framing of the Politico article, do you believe that Trump was acting in good faith and in the best interest of the country in his pursuit of an investigation of his political opponent by a foreign power?

The trickier question is what if there are elements of both present? I will agree that there may be at least some portion of 'self-help' present in such a request.

If it were shown that the request was based solely on 'self-help' that is an easy question to answer. As is the inverse of that. The answer to that question gets sticky for me (as it should anybody who isnt a 'true blue' anti-Trumper or a 'true-red' Trumpista to begin with.)

My personal viewpoint is based on two avenues: a) respect for a co-equal branch of government; and b) the absolute political monopoly granted to the Executive in terms of foreign affairs.

If we decide that the answer is 'even a smidgeon of, or must be less than half of', then the burden of persuasion (a very legal construct) is drawn way too shallow at the expense of both the President as an officer in general, and more particular, at he expense of the almost plenary power of the Executive in foreign affairs.

In my point of view, the burden of persuasion and the burden of proof should have to weigh to essentially: if there is at least some in the national interest, then the burden cannot be met. Of the overwhelming amount of the act is 'for self-interest', by all means there should be a question as to whether there is a "*high* crime' or misdemeanor at issue.

The converse makes the impeachment process a clown show, and suited more for fun countries like Brazil and Venezuela who seem to relish and are enormously adroit at the blood sport of changing out leaders at the drop of a hat.

But, perhaps we frame this as well in terms of the 'Russiagate' issue -- more particularly against that portion that deals with General Flynn. I think Flynn's current judicial filings lay quite the bombshell on the intelligence/security apparatus' pursuit of him; a zealousness that go well beyond any type of prosecutorial/investigative conduct I would ever have imagined prudent or possible.

I don't know enough about law to take issue with anything you've said here. Is it fair to read this as disagreeing with how simply the Politico article frames things?

My read on the Politico is that it talks about the outcome of an impeachment trial based on whether there is self-dealing present or not, and the problems each side faces with 'proving the point'. And I think you accurately stated that point, and posed the question 'do you think Trump self-dealed or not'.

I think the outcome would (should) be obvious with both the case of 100% self-deal, or the case of 100% national interest.

I dont think the motivation question is quite that simple of 100% one side or the other.

If the answer is (as you and Politico) put it (i.e. if there is *any* self-dealing present, there are impeachment ramifications) that presents some real problems.

The first is in the operation of the Presidency. *Every* Presidential decision and action has some amount of either self-dealing or party self-dealing behind it.

The other is in the appearance of hypocrisy. The legal proceedings with General Flynn's case are generating documents that are tending to show an enormous amount of self-dealing actions by an Administration, albeit one that was outgoing.

As to your explicit question, I wouldnt be surprised in the slightest if there was at least some aspect of self-dealing in the request for an investigation by Trump. But the full answer is that, for me, there wasnt enough to engender a conviction by the Senate, let alone an impeachment count by the House.

So my position is that the question that both you and Politico ask isnt the question that should really be asked or analyzed.

Why do they call the process an impeachment inquiry? They know they will impeach. They have spent the last three years looking for a reason ti impeach. Collusion didn't work. OOJ didn't work. Campaign finance didn't work. Time is running out to find a reason.

(10-31-2019 10:50 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Why do they call the process an impeachment inquiry? They know they will impeach.

Sounds sort of like an "investigation" by a typical campus student affairs office.

(10-31-2019 01:34 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(10-31-2019 10:50 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Why do they call the process an impeachment inquiry? They know they will impeach.

Sounds sort of like an "investigation" by a typical campus student affairs office.

My Dad used to joke that he could be an impartial juror if they would just bring in the guilty bastard and get on with it.

I heard an interesting analogy last night.

This liberal journalist went to a small town in the Texas panhandle, reputedly the most pro-Trump town in the nation. he was surprised by what he he found - nice people, being nice to each other and taking care of their own business.

One of them tried to explain to him why so many of them supported Trump despite not liking his tweeting and bluster and other things about him.

"When your house is overrun with cockroaches, and the exterminator who comes is crude and loudmouthed and his butt crack is showing, you go with the exterminator who will get rid of the roaches and not worry about if he is presentable or not".


Kind of sums up my attitude and probably the attitude of many others - I don't care about how crass he is, I care about results, and the results are good.

I always wonder why some of yall think exaggerating the size of his inauguration or his hands trumps (little t) highest minority employment in decades or any of the other good things. Sometimes I think you don't care about economic prosperity if you can just put one of your people in power.

(11-02-2019 12:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Kind of sums up my attitude and probably the attitude of many others - I don't care about how crass he is, I care about results, and the results are good.

I am in a somewhat different position. I am not quite as happy with all his results. I agree with the balance of trade problem, but I don't think the tariffs are the right solution. That's just trying to impose a band-aid instead of fixing the underlying problems. And I favor more legal immigration while eliminating illegal immigration. I would have traded the wall for a rational immigration policy.

But while I am not totally happy with the results, I am quite certain that the results under any of the current crop of democrat contenders would be catastrophic. At least, as long as they elected supermajorities in both houses and--unilke Obama--were actually able to work with people to get things done. One big difference--a fair portion of the supermajority that Obama had to work with were blue dogs who at least had some sense, but they got purged over Obamacare, and what's left on the donk side are wild-eyed radical collectivists/socialists/communists.

What I find amazing about Trump's actions on trade are the responses to them by the Democrats --- much in the same line that Trump's national security decisions have done the same thing, and his anti-illegal immigration policies have done so for the state's rights proponents.

Trump: I want to have a limited pullout in Syria.
Dems: How dare you remove troops.

Trump: I am putting the pressure on cheap Chinese imports via tariffs.
Dems: How dare you employ tariffs.

Trump: I am stiffening enforcement of deportation of known felons.
Dems: Local rules and law enforcement decisions prevail over Federal requests to bind over illegal alien detainees.

Trump single handedly has transformed the Democrats to a pro-military action, pro State's rights/primacy of local laws, and anti- trade union voice in a literal heartbeat each.

Maybe Trump should come out for higher taxes given that track record.

(11-02-2019 01:47 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-02-2019 12:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Kind of sums up my attitude and probably the attitude of many others - I don't care about how crass he is, I care about results, and the results are good.

I am in a somewhat different position. I am not quite as happy with all his results. I agree with the balance of trade problem, but I don't think the tariffs are the right solution. That's just trying to impose a band-aid instead of fixing the underlying problems. And I favor more legal immigration while eliminating illegal immigration. I would have traded the wall for a rational immigration policy.

But while I am not totally happy with the results, I am quite certain that the results under any of the current crop of democrat contenders would be catastrophic. At least, as long as they elected supermajorities in both houses and--unilke Obama--were actually able to work with people to get things done. One big difference--a fair portion of the supermajority that Obama had to work with were blue dogs who at least had some sense, but they got purged over Obamacare, and what's left on the donk side are wild-eyed radical collectivists/socialists/communists.

I didn't say I was happy with ALL his actions, words, and results. But I favor substance over form, and no amount of leftists trying to persuade me to abandon results over manners is going to make me change.

I represent an individual that has two serious commercial ventures going.

In one he has self-funded a building project that translates to 35 man-years in the cost, but will have only about 1.5 jobs / year.

In the other he has funded a commercial project with about the same 35 man-years in the buildout, and will generate about 40 jobs per year.

This is the guy that the progressives say should pay more. Just amazing.

He is putting in 2+ million dollars in each project, and will provide direct employment for 40 people on a continuous basis. And yet, this person is the front and center target of the 'we need more' honey paws that seem so prevalent in modern liberalism. This just reinforces what is utterly astounding about the progressive agenda.

(11-02-2019 01:47 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-02-2019 12:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I heard an interesting analogy last night.

This liberal journalist went to a small town in the Texas panhandle, reputedly the most pro-Trump town in the nation. he was surprised by what he he found - nice people, being nice to each other and taking care of their own business.

One of them tried to explain to him why so many of them supported Trump despite not liking his tweeting and bluster and other things about him.

"When your house is overrun with cockroaches, and the exterminator who comes is crude and loudmouthed and his butt crack is showing, you go with the exterminator who will get rid of the roaches and not worry about if he is presentable or not".


Kind of sums up my attitude and probably the attitude of many others - I don't care {as much, as it would be nicer if he wasn't} about how crass he is, I care about results, and the results are good.

I always wonder why some of yall think exaggerating the size of his inauguration or his hands trumps (little t) highest minority employment in decades or any of the other good things. Sometimes I think you don't care about economic prosperity if you can just put one of your people in power.

I am in a somewhat different position. I am not quite as happy with all his results. I agree with the balance of trade problem, but I don't think the tariffs are the right solution. That's just trying to impose a band-aid instead of fixing the underlying problems. And I favor more legal immigration while eliminating illegal immigration. I would have traded the wall for a rational immigration policy.

But while I am not totally happy with the results, I am quite certain that the results under any of the current crop of democrat contenders would be catastrophic. At least, as long as they elected supermajorities in both houses and--unilke Obama--were actually able to work with people to get things done. One big difference--a fair portion of the supermajority that Obama had to work with were blue dogs who at least had some sense, but they got purged over Obamacare, and what's left on the donk side are wild-eyed radical collectivists/socialists/communists.

I think this is one of OptimisticOwls' best posts ever. It succinctly explains the divide in our country right now.

I don't mind President Trump's approach to trade with China and others, as I understand he is trying to regain some levearge that has been given away for decades in order to force them to come to the table with some real concessions instead of platitudes. As with weightlifting: no pain, no gain. The pain will be worth it in the long run, and it is a longer term strategy he is pursuing in these areas, which is refreshing to see from a President.

I am in favor of fixing our immigration problems, but unlike you I am in favor of less immigration overall: zero illegal immigration, and less legal immigration. We need a break from relying on outside, as we have more than enough people here that if we focused on empowering our weakest links we would have a much stronger nation that always seeking to import cheap solutions in this area that seem to always leave our problems with our weaker citizens festering. To wit: there would be less crime and drug use if we focused more on the root causes of those problems, that lead directly to the economic and societal problems concentrated (but by no means exclusive to) our current lower classes.

One big remedy would be to fix the American family, as it is the instability, selfishness and waste caused by no-fault divorce laws that has greatly exaggerated the supposed need for bigger government, and has led directly to the increased crime and drug use that steals so many of our resources and requires so much unnecessary intervention. The basic flaw in progressivism, socialism and communism is that they at their heart seek to replace the responsibilities of intact families that function more or less normally with the divisive government programs, authorities and inequalities that lead directly to societal dysfunction. Divorce rates in this country around the turn of the previous century (1900) were only around 10%. Presently we are near 50-55%, depending on the particular study. Something close to 75-78% of black children grow up in broken or non-existent families. They also happen to make up the majority of the prison population. Not a coincidence.

Taking fathers out of families by incentivising single motherhood or by discouraging the value of marriage and family stability overall was and is the one big mistake that has lead directly to the over-expansion of failing government. At least with respect to where children of the parents are involved, we should seek to require grounds for divorce, at the same time we concurrently strengthen the incentives to get and stay married by expanding (doubling or tripling) the tax benefits for being in a stable and long-term marriage to the same partner). Perhaps having bonus tax-credits for being married to the same person at the 10, 20, 30, 40 50 and 60 years marks. It has taken generations and half a century of a downward-spiraling futility to create the mess where we are at, so overnight it won't magically change, but with this one idea, in just a few generations, Americans of all backgrounds and classes could again be the strongest on earth.

As someone once famously said: "if you don't know where you're going, the path of least resistance will get you there." The Great Society was a fallacy and a mistake, no-fault divorce should only be reserved for childless couples who have made a mistake. Where there are children involved, there should be a requirement of responsibility and to take the agreement seriously, as all other agreements are enforced where the one who breaches is the one who bears the cost. "Family" Courts should be dissolved and moved back into the civil court system, and marriages should be registered as fully enforceable contracts with whatever terms between two adults they wish. (eg "I marry you for a term of three years as long as you wear your orange shirt every Tuesday afternoon from 3-4pm" would be just fine as an enforceable agreement as long as both parties agree to it in advance.) Most of the problems in our country, and the need for greater "security" come from taking away the basic rights and responsibilities of intact, married families, and the serial marriages and divorces that teach younger generations of children that promises and responsibilities don;t matter, so do whatever you want 'cause the gub'ment will bail you out somehow, which is a complete lie, and not what this country was ever founded to be. The new slaves are just as much the left-behind spouses and their offspring who inevitably are 60-70% more likely to be involved in our worst societal problems: the #1 common denominator in prisons today is coming from a divorced or non-existent family, not race, not social class, not religion, not education. Lets' fix it, reduce the size and cost of government by 50-60% as we won't need all the extra garbage that just wastes valuable people and resources. Then we also won't need to try to import others to do what we all should be doing for ourselves.

(11-03-2019 09:40 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(11-02-2019 01:47 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-02-2019 12:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I heard an interesting analogy last night.

This liberal journalist went to a small town in the Texas panhandle, reputedly the most pro-Trump town in the nation. he was surprised by what he he found - nice people, being nice to each other and taking care of their own business.

One of them tried to explain to him why so many of them supported Trump despite not liking his tweeting and bluster and other things about him.

"When your house is overrun with cockroaches, and the exterminator who comes is crude and loudmouthed and his butt crack is showing, you go with the exterminator who will get rid of the roaches and not worry about if he is presentable or not".


Kind of sums up my attitude and probably the attitude of many others - I don't care {as much, as it would be nicer if he wasn't} about how crass he is, I care about results, and the results are good.

I always wonder why some of yall think exaggerating the size of his inauguration or his hands trumps (little t) highest minority employment in decades or any of the other good things. Sometimes I think you don't care about economic prosperity if you can just put one of your people in power.

I am in a somewhat different position. I am not quite as happy with all his results. I agree with the balance of trade problem, but I don't think the tariffs are the right solution. That's just trying to impose a band-aid instead of fixing the underlying problems. And I favor more legal immigration while eliminating illegal immigration. I would have traded the wall for a rational immigration policy.

But while I am not totally happy with the results, I am quite certain that the results under any of the current crop of democrat contenders would be catastrophic. At least, as long as they elected supermajorities in both houses and--unilke Obama--were actually able to work with people to get things done. One big difference--a fair portion of the supermajority that Obama had to work with were blue dogs who at least had some sense, but they got purged over Obamacare, and what's left on the donk side are wild-eyed radical collectivists/socialists/communists.

I think this is one of OptimisticOwls' best posts ever. It succinctly explains the divide in our country right now.

I don't mind President Trump's approach to trade with China and others, as I understand he is trying to regain some levearge that has been given away for decades in order to force them to come to the table with some real concessions instead of platitudes. As with weightlifting: no pain, no gain. The pain will be worth it in the long run, and it is a longer term strategy he is pursuing in these areas, which is refreshing to see from a President.

I am in favor of fixing our immigration problems, but unlike you I am in favor of less immigration overall: zero illegal immigration, and less legal immigration. We need a break from relying on outside, as we have more than enough people here that if we focused on empowering our weakest links we would have a much stronger nation that always seeking to import cheap solutions in this area that seem to always leave our problems with our weaker citizens festering. To wit: there would be less crime and drug use if we focused more on the root causes of those problems, that lead directly to the economic and societal problems concentrated (but by no means exclusive to) our current lower classes.

One big remedy would be to fix the American family, as it is the instability, selfishness and waste caused by no-fault divorce laws that has greatly exaggerated the supposed need for bigger government, and has led directly to the increased crime and drug use that steals so many of our resources and requires so much unnecessary intervention. The basic flaw in progressivism, socialism and communism is that they at their heart seek to replace the responsibilities of intact families that function more or less normally with the divisive government programs, authorities and inequalities that lead directly to societal dysfunction. Divorce rates in this country around the turn of the previous century (1900) were only around 10%. Presently we are near 50-55%, depending on the particular study. Something close to 75-78% of black children grow up in broken or non-existent families. They also happen to make up the majority of the prison population. Not a coincidence.

Taking fathers out of families by incentivising single motherhood or by discouraging the value of marriage and family stability overall was and is the one big mistake that has lead directly to the over-expansion of failing government. At least with respect to where children of the parents are involved, we should seek to require grounds for divorce, at the same time we concurrently strengthen the incentives to get and stay married by expanding (doubling or tripling) the tax benefits for being in a stable and long-term marriage to the same partner). Perhaps having bonus tax-credits for being married to the same person at the 10, 20, 30, 40 50 and 60 years marks. It has taken generations and half a century of a downward-spiraling futility to create the mess where we are at, so overnight it won't magically change, but with this one idea, in just a few generations, Americans of all backgrounds and classes could again be the strongest on earth.

As someone once famously said: "if you don't know where you're going, the path of least resistance will get you there." The Great Society was a fallacy and a mistake, no-fault divorce should only be reserved for childless couples who have made a mistake. Where there are children involved, there should be a requirement of responsibility and to take the agreement seriously, as all other agreements are enforced where the one who breaches is the one who bears the cost. "Family" Courts should be dissolved and moved back into the civil court system, and marriages should be registered as fully enforceable contracts with whatever terms between two adults they wish. (eg "I marry you for a term of three years as long as you wear your orange shirt every Tuesday afternoon from 3-4pm" would be just fine as an enforceable agreement as long as both parties agree to it in advance.) Most of the problems in our country, and the need for greater "security" come from taking away the basic rights and responsibilities of intact, married families, and the serial marriages and divorces that teach younger generations of children that promises and responsibilities don;t matter, so do whatever you want 'cause the gub'ment will bail you out somehow, which is a complete lie, and not what this country was ever founded to be. The new slaves are just as much the left-behind spouses and their offspring who inevitably are 60-70% more likely to be involved in our worst societal problems: the #1 common denominator in prisons today is coming from a divorced or non-existent family, not race, not social class, not religion, not education. Lets' fix it, reduce the size and cost of government by 50-60% as we won't need all the extra garbage that just wastes valuable people and resources. Then we also won't need to try to import others to do what we all should be doing for ourselves.

I think this is one of GoodOwl's best posts ever. Good to hear from somebody on my right.

Agree about the trade policy. As an importer, I hate the idea of tariffs. But with Trump, I think he uses them as a tool to get what he wants, what we need, not as an end-goal in themselves. If everybody gets in line with Trump's goals, the tariffs will disappear.

Agree that we need to correct the immigration problems brought about by decades of turning a blind eye.

I think it is too late to save the families.

Good to hear from ya, GO.

Apparently Rendon was one of 8 Nationals who did not attend today’s event at the White House.

Edit: saw somewhere else that he had committed to attend Rice’s RBI golf fundraiser, so perhaps it wasn’t a political statement.

The Dems have planned to impeach since 11-9-16, long before Trump even took office. They have just been looking for good reason. So far, they have failed time after tie to find one. Russian collusion. Nothing there. OOJ. Nada. Paying off bimbos, failure to release tax returns, bad hair, mean jokes, whatever. Nothing to hang their hat on.

I firmly believe they will impeach, even if they have to impeach on the grounds he eats oatmeal cookies. Or that he doesn't. Doesn't matter.

But on the specific charge du jour of asking Ukraine to investigate Biden, I can find little wrongdoing whether he did or he didn't.

After all, he didn't ask them to make up stuff, as the DNC did with Steele. he just asked for it to be checked out. If Ukraine had investigated (they didn't) and found Biden free of corruption, wouldn't that be a good thing for Biden? And if Ukraine investigated (they didn't) and found he was corrupt, isn't that a good thing for America, to find that out prior to nominating him for president?

So the Dems want to impeach for asking for an investigation that never happened, supposedly with a threat to withhold aid they did get. Some quid pro quo.

the whole thing is a puzzler until you realize that the Dems have to impeach on something, and time to get it done while it can still impact the 2020 election is growing short. So this is what they have at the moment, and they cannot wait to see he shakes a German's hand or laughs when a reporter trips or something else horrible.

Of course, they cannot remove him, so the impeachment in and of itself is the goal. It is totally a political move, aimed at influencing the outcome of an election.

But AFAIAC, nothing egregious happened or was wanted to happen, and this would be true if Obama had acted identically (maybe he did - we never investigated).

(11-05-2019 03:26 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  The Dems have planned to impeach since 11-9-16, long before Trump even took office. They have just been looking for good reason. So far, they have failed time after tie to find one. Russian collusion. Nothing there. OOJ. Nada. Paying off bimbos, failure to release tax returns, bad hair, mean jokes, whatever. Nothing to hang their hat on.
I firmly believe they will impeach, even if they have to impeach on the grounds he eats oatmeal cookies. Or that he doesn't. Doesn't matter.
But on the specific charge du jour of asking Ukraine to investigate Biden, I can find little wrongdoing whether he did or he didn't.
After all, he didn't ask them to make up stuff, as the DNC did with Steele. he just asked for it to be checked out. If Ukraine had investigated (they didn't) and found Biden free of corruption, wouldn't that be a good thing for Biden? And if Ukraine investigated (they didn't) and found he was corrupt, isn't that a good thing for America, to find that out prior to nominating him for president?
So the Dems want to impeach for asking for an investigation that never happened, supposedly with a threat to withhold aid they did get. Some quid pro quo.
The whole thing is a puzzler until you realize that the Dems have to impeach on something, and time to get it done while it can still impact the 2020 election is growing short. So this is what they have at the moment, and they cannot wait to see he shakes a German's hand or laughs when a reporter trips or something else horrible.
Of course, they cannot remove him, so the impeachment in and of itself is the goal. It is totally a political move, aimed at influencing the outcome of an election.
But AFAIAC, nothing egregious happened or was wanted to happen, and this would be true if Obama had acted identically (maybe he did - we never investigated).

That's about the size of it.