Impeachment now certain

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I have to wonder if these impeachment proceedings are merely the revolt or the Mandarins.
Consider the Solarian League government as summarized here:

https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/Solarian_League

The SL Assembly is effectively neutered by the Veto clause.

The President and Prime Minister seem to have zero involvement in dictating much less implementing foreign policy much less military operations. All executive power has been surrendered to the top bureucrats.

How did the SL degenerate into an oligarchy ruled by unelelected bureaucrats? I can just imagine the scene centuries earlier when some mid level SLN officer who objected to the policies of a new President accusser him of corruption.

I'm afraid that the SL pretty much started out as we find it in Weber's books. The veto came into play because none of the member worlds were willing to surrender enough of their sovereignty to create a workable constitution which left things to the bureacrats by default. So instead of rule of law, we get rule by regulation on steroids. The check on that should have been budget. But the League's expansion into the fringe gave the bureaucrats a new source of funds independent of any checks and balances which eventually gave us what we see in Weber's books.

As for the matter of Trump, the issue isn't policy. I can remember conservative presidents going all the way back to Eisenhower. I didn't necessarily agree with them. But if I lost the election, I shrugged my shoulders knowing that my side would get another try in the next election. And I trusted that no matter how misguided I might find any given policy, the president had the best interest of the country at heart and would seek to defend the constitution and enforce the laws of the country as passed by Congress. And, with the exception of Nixon, they were honest men.

With Trump I don't have confidence in any of that. The man is stone cold guilty of the things he has been accused of. Worse, what he has been accused of is only a tiny sliver of what he could be charged with. The man has spent an entire lifetime skirting the edges of the law and then when caught on the wrong side, using his money to paper over it. If there is justice, the man will eventually find himself in front of a no nonsense judge and a jury. That is what would happen to either of us if we acted like Trump.

Don

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Oopsie.

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/27/21083195/ ... mpeachment

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claims that, contrary to President Trump’s denials, the president said outright that he was blocking aid to Ukraine unless Ukrainian officials helped with investigations into the Bidens.

That’s according to an unpublished book manuscript written by Bolton and reported on by the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt Sunday night. And this revelation is enormously significant for Trump’s unfolding impeachment trial — since Bolton has offered to testify to the Senate. It may throw a wrench into Senate Republicans’ hope of wrapping up the trial quickly without any witness testimony.

And even now, even with it out in the public what people paying attention already knew from listening to the testimony of his aides... that Bolton would testify Trump was guilty of exactly what he is charged with... I give it less that 50/50 odds Republican Senators who have sworn an oath to do impartial justice in this trial will allow him to be called to testify and will instead make excuses to continue their really not very successful cover up and then vote to acquit.

The problem for them is, every additional piece of evidence of Trump's guilt that breaks out into public view makes the price they will have to pay in the upcoming election for openly conspiring to let him get away with his crime that much steeper.

Any of you beginning to understand the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a representative republic?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Any of you beginning to understand the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a representative republic?

Well, the latter is looking kind of dysfunctional at the moment...

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Any of you beginning to understand the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a representative republic?

The former deals with corruption better?

Eric Flint has quite an extensive article on this topic on his website.
From a distance I recommend that the US look at changing it's system. Not a lot, but enough to make it functional.

Eyal wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Any of you beginning to understand the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a representative republic?

Well, the latter is looking kind of dysfunctional at the moment...

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Any of you beginning to understand the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a representative republic?

We all know how to spot a red herring when we see one.

It appears the GOP is now expecting a Bolton testimony and they're starting to gear up their "pay no attention to the man on the witness stand" sales pitch...

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/12 ... 9096440834


GOP Logic: "Finding the murder weapon in the defendant's closet does nothing to change the key facts.

-His car
-His office
-His suit pockets
-Under his bed
-In his sock drawer

In NONE of those places did we find the murder weapon! ZERO murder weapons there! AHA!!!! THOSE are the facts we need to focus on!"


(Never mind that he's also lying about there not being discussion of linked aid in the meetings he did list)


In the meantime, Lou Dobbs who is mentally unbalanced even by Fox News standards, is attacking John Bolton as a liberal tool.

John.

Freaking.

Bolton.


https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/stat ... 5800862730


Exactly how much does it take for the realization to dawn on the Trump defenders here that they are living inside a deliberately manufactured self contained propaganda system when they get their news from places like Fox?

I think that the right wingers are heavily preoccupied with their war on liberals. For them we have become the enemy rather than simply people with whom they disagree. Since we are the enemy, anything that they can do to smear the reputation of a liberal is fair game no matter how made up it might be. In that right wing bubble, they not only believe it, they want to believe it. Think of birtherism, climate change denial, all of the mud pitched at Hillary, and most lately at Adam Schiff.

Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, The opinion side of Fox. Think of all those websites like Breitbart. The point is that this stuff wouldn't flourish unless there was a market for it. That is the real problem we should be discussing. The real reason they are willing to believe Trump rather than their own eyes is that they want to.
And they seem to want to go around playing with matches and gasoline no matter who they hurt and what they destroy...

None of this stuff even qualifies as being conservative. Conservativism with its small government, traditionalist point of view is a respectable point of view and can be thoughtfully presented. I think of the giants like Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirkson, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole. Or even in the present like George Will, Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Bill Crystal. Or think Jeff Flake, Justin Amash. I hope Mitt Romney fits in this mold. I respect all these folk and hope that the conservativism they represent returns. We need it so that there can be ongoing discussion and counterpoint to liberalism. Nobody should be getting their way all the time.

Don

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TFLYTSNBN wrote:Any of you beginning to understand the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a representative republic?

It's funny how you use terms you don't fully understand the implications or etymology of.

• Republic: A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives.
• Democracy: A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.