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Comments Posted By MurphTheSurf3

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The Mueller Hearing? Your Response….

Sensible. Principle cannot be the undoing of practical outcome or the principle itself is undone.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 26, 2019 @ 5:57 pm

I suppose animation would have helped a bit but I think that the Trump machine has been expert at creating a null zone around this entire matter….in an age when being uninformed is the norm…null zones stifle the most outrageous of news events.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 26, 2019 @ 4:35 pm

You and I are on the same page in this discussion. Side note…are you going to join us at Vox Populi open chat tonight at 9 CST…could be a hot one. You are quick and very word-worthy…I suspect it would be a proper milieu.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 26, 2019 @ 4:08 pm

I find Pelosi’s reasoning and those of her leadership compelling. You don’t. I see your logic as well…basically the high moral ground, the principles-first position, the “let right be done” point of view. All valid. All strong reasons. Mine has come down to this: without a strong public sentiment in favor of the impeachment hearings, ordering them is a losing electoral strategy. It is a practical necessity.

Frankly, had Pelosi called for an impeachment inquiry on April 19 I doubt we would be much further along even now….the calendar does not work well there either…….

Setting up the committee with its staff is a month. May 19. Hearings called. IF that committee wants witnesses everyone will be a cause for a new battle which, I suspect, ends up precisely where we are now….Witnesses but uncooperative ones who use every tactic to avoid answering with very little public attention.

Of course, she could just charge the committee to review the Mueller report first and then decide to proceed. Very shaky ground without a public groundswell. Let’s say she did that and the House voted on impeachment by June 19…..so now it goes to the Senate and McConnell does nothing….he dismisses the whole thing as a political stunt…what then?

Or he says that it will take considerable time to set up the necessary structure in the Senate….there is no cookie cooker pattern for this…..and that takes us right up to the recess that is upon us…..can the trial be done in the Senate in September?

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 26, 2019 @ 4:00 pm

All of that is true….which is why pulling this off is so damn hard….there is no example where it succeeded.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 1:42 pm

Nate Silver reports that Trump’s resolute base is between 38 and 42 percent. No matter what is revealed that group will not budge.
That is a very solid start.

In the House: Republicans will need to gain 18 seats to win back the majority (or 19 depending on the outcome of a new election in NC-09), and have no shortage of good-looking targets, at least on paper: there are now 31 Democrats sitting in districts carried by President Trump in 2016 and just three Republicans sitting in districts carried by Hillary Clinton.

In the Senate: Senate Democrats face a narrow path back to the majority in the 2020 elections, running through Trump country in a year when the president will be on the ballot galvanizing his supporters.

Republicans cemented a 53-47 Senate majority with victory in Mississippi on Tuesday, and they must defend nearly twice as many seats in 2020 as they did in 2018. But only two of those Republicans are up for reelection in states President Donald Trump lost in 2016 — meaning that Democrats can’t win back the Senate without winning new seats in Trump states in the next election.
That includes some Trump-state targets where it’s been a decade or more since voters picked a Democratic senator. Democrats will need to find candidates who can outrun their presidential nominee, as Trump drives his supporters to the polls in 2020.

Bottom line for me: I just don’t see enough people taking enough interest in the issues that are at the core of the impeachment discussion.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 1:40 pm

Let’s pretend that Pelosi goes your way.

Begin with the calendar. From July 27 through September 10 they are “back in district” for “work.” per the House calendar. Then they return to districts on September 29 returning October 15. Then they have 2 weeks in district in November. They come back for two weeks in December returning in the first week of January. Add in the regular work week for the House (6:30 PM on Monday to 3:30 PM on Thursday. 32 work days.

How does it get done?

Had there been hearings shortly after the Mueller Report was released on April 18 (redacted version) there might have been time to get the ball rolling It has taken to this week to get the “author” of that report before Congress.

The Starr report came out on September 9, 1998. With the House and Senate in the hands of the GOP the House votes for impeachment proceedings on October 8 which lead to a December 19 vote to brings articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. On February 12 the Senate votes. 67 votes were needed to convict him on each charge. They got 45 on one and 55 on the other. 6 months AND the GOP had full control of both Houses.

The Watergate impeachment was a different universe but even there we are looking at a year once the Special Committee is created and it shut down because Nixon resigned.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 12:49 pm

Your post from below read:
Only if it can be done without sucking all the oxygen out of the Congress and the Campaign. I doubt the Dems can be that disciplined and business like once the Impeachment genre is released.

Not enough room there so here is my reply:
If impeachment inquiry becomes the whole agenda for the House…bad news. It will take discipline but we saw that yesterday.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 9:45 am

Yep. Only fools rush in….and Nancy is no fool. When your wrote: “Set Up the Impeachment Inquiry AFTER the current items ( tax requests, subpoenas for live testimony)….” did you mean they should not proceed without the tax info and the subpoenas answered? If so , don’t you think the GOP will use that to throw lots of obstacles in the way just to force a lengthy pause?

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 9:37 am

I have always found her Cherokee claims a bit strange……Agree with your take on the impeachment process…use it as a means and not an end in and of itself….So who does he run with….what woman would fit the bill.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 9:23 am

Warren….eye opening. From WaPo

When Dow Corning faced thousands of lawsuits in the 1990s from women saying they had become sick from the company’s silicone gel breast implants, its parent firm, Dow Chemical, turned to one of the country’s leading experts in corporate bankruptcies: Professor Elizabeth Warren.

Warren, now a Democratic presidential candidate, has never publicly discussed her role in the case. Her campaign said that she was “a consultant to ensure adequate compensation for women who claimed injury” from the implants and that a $2.3 billion fund for the women was started “thanks in part to Elizabeth’s efforts.”

But participants on both sides of the matter say that description mischaracterizes Warren’s work, in which she advised a company intent on limiting payments to the women.

“She was on the wrong side of the table,” said Sybil Goldrich, who co-founded a support group for women with implants and battled the companies for years. Goldrich said Dow Corning and its parent “used every trick in the book” to limit the size of payouts to women. The companies, she added, “were not easy to deal with at all.”

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 9:19 am

Pelosi is cagey and very skilled. It seems to me if they pursue Trump and his minions with the Mueller report as the kind of case building that attorneys do before grand juries. Think of the House as a grand jury. Is there enough in the presentation of cause to proceed? There is. Of course whether grand juries proceed is also dependent on a calculation re. likelihood to convict and that is where the impeachment process is particularly vulnerable. It will not happen in a trial in the Senate (presuming that McConnell even permits that…yeah, he can block that too) so create a case that can be used to play the Senate and to support the Candidate.

I think a Special Committee undertaking an impeachment inquiry that looks to continue building the case while recognizing a trial in the Senate will be a GOP coup would be an adjunct to the campaign against Trump. Go about it in a businesslike manner and use the campaign to publicize findings.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 8:15 am

Pelosi is cagey and very skilled. It seems to me that the document serves as the kind of case building that attorneys do before grand juries. Think of the House as a grand jury. Is there enough in the presentation of cause to proceed? There is. Of course whether grand juries proceed is also dependent on a calculation re. likelihood to convict and that is where the impeachment process is particularly vulnerable.

I agree that Pelosi appears to be moving in the direction you indicate….create a case that can be used to play the Senate and to support the Candidate.

I think a Special Committee undertaking an impeachment inquiry that looks to continue building the case while recognizing a trial in the Senate will be a GOP coup would be an adjunct to the campaign against Trump. Go about it in a businesslike manner and use the campaign to publicize findings.

I like your thinking about the best road being one in which Trump is not removed as tha gives us Pence (which is frightening given his record) and a pardoned Trump.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 8:02 am

It seems to me that the document serves as the kind of case building that attorneys do before grand juries. Think of the House as a grand jury. Is there enough in the presentation of cause to proceed? There is. Of course whether grand juries proceed is also dependent on a calculation re. likelihood to convict and that is where the impeachment process is particularly vulnerable. You name all of that very well.

I think a Special Committee undertaking an impeachment inquiry that looks to continue building the case while recognizing a trial in the Senate will be a GOP coup would be an adjunct to the campaign against Trump. Go about it in a businesslike manner and use the campaign to publicize findings.

As to who the candidates should be……
I am for Joe Biden with……? Kamala Harris would be very strong, as would Cory Booker….. Liz Warren is very bright but I find her shrill (and as you point out she has chinks of some size in her armor)….who else is there right now.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 7:59 am

All of this points to how much our system depends on good will and good faith. When they are lacking the whole thing is so subject to corruption that boondoggles like this one should come as no surprise. I have read all of the summation sections and skimmed the rest. It seems to me that the document serves as the kind of case building that attorneys do before grand juries. Think of the House as a grand jury. Is there enough in the presentation of cause to proceed? There is. Of course whether grand juries proceed is also dependent on a calculation re. likelihood to convict and that is where the impeachment process is particularly vulnerable.

I agree with your descriptors of Trump with one cautionary note: He is wily, natively intelligent, cunning in exploiting others, and glib…and his political instincts are sharp…..he offers himself as the product that those he needs to win and hold power desire….he is well packaged in regard to that.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 7:47 am

I have read all of the summation sections and skimmed the rest. It seems to me that the document serves as the kind of case building that attorneys do before grand juries. Think of the House as a grand jury. Is there enough in the presentation of cause to proceed? There is.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 7:42 am

It is certainly the only constitutional alternative (if one holds that the DOJ guideline on not indicting sitting presidents is constitutional). By the way I see why the DOJ offered this opinion……opposition groups would use the vulnerability of a president to indictment as a way of hamstringing their admins.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 25, 2019 @ 7:39 am

Trump: The Storm Of Our Own Making

I am cross posting here and at the facebook page. Putting the BIG STORY up at The Planet where the posting options are really enormous…I am in a hot and heavy discussion with four people at one of my posts right now. And I have a bit of interaction happening over at New Yabz. What I publish over there is “Planet-Lite”. This site takes some getting used to but I think it has the most potential for hearty and rigorous discussion.

As to the content of your reply….fully agree…..shaping the American mind now so depends upon instruments of empty minded propaganda that the kind of “education” that is being spoken of in an “impeachment” process is not something that many are open to or even capable of taking in.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 26, 2019 @ 6:35 pm

If we had stars or points or claps here I would give you maximum levels in all three.

Of the many fine points you made this one struck me as particularly poignant….

Interestingly, people took the time to read these papers. They engaged in informed debate, had a deep interest in the formation of their government. They asked questions and sought out answers, and as Hamilton hoped, the citizens did make a careful and thoughtful choice.

How times have changed……(the zeal of the Declaration, Confederation and Constitution generation faded rather quickly but I suspect that current levels of disengagement are truly record setting).

How many have read, scanned or skimmed the Mueller report….the polling makes it clear. Here is one from CNN. 3% of those polled said they had read “all” of the report while 10% said they had read “some” and 8% maintained they had read “a little” of it. Three-quarters of respondents — aka the honest ones — said they had read none of the Mueller report.

Just over 1 in 3 Americans in an April Post-ABC poll said the findings of Mueller’s investigation made them less likely to support Trump for reelection in 2020, 14 percent said they were more likely to vote for him, and 46 percent said the findings would not factor into the vote.

In the same poll most said the Mueller report did not clear Trump of wrongdoing and that the president lied about the matters under investigation. In the April Post-ABC poll, a 53 percent majority said the Mueller investigation did not clear Trump of all wrongdoing, though Trump declared “total exoneration” by the special counsel. Thirty-one percent said the report did not clear Trump. Those numbers remain largely unchanged.

A majority of Americans — 59 percent — say in a new survey that Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia and the 2016 campaign has not yet uncovered evidence of any crimes, even though in reality, Mueller has already obtained five guilty pleas and 17 criminal indictments.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 23, 2019 @ 4:55 pm

What do they see in Trump? A Look at the Psyche of the Trump Voter….and why it so mis-leads them

They will declare it fake news, or call Ike a Squish or a RINO…unless they are unusually bright and/or honest.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 23, 2019 @ 3:05 am

Here it is:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956

Highlights
1. Provide federal assistance to low-income communities;

2. Protect Social Security;

3. Provide asylum for refugees;

4. Extend minimum wage;

5. Improve unemployment benefit system so it covers more people;

6. Strengthen labor laws so workers can more easily join a union;

7. Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 6:07 pm

Have you read his two platforms? Inspiring and 180 degrees of difference with the current GOP positions……

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 3:28 pm

Vietnam War……that alone…..makes Iraq look like a backyard scuffle. Yes he got a lot done early on domestically and that was the result of his knowing how to work the Senate in a time where bipartisanship was accepted and expected AND there were solid Dem majorities in both houses AND he had the afterglow from Camelot and the funeral cortege’s dirge playing in the background……I would add that a number of his Great Society programs were patronage boondoggles that made life worse for many blacks.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 10:32 am

And sadly those presidents are from both parties…LBJ comes to mind.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 9:10 am

Remember when that crowd marched with posters of Obama as Hitler, or Mussolini, or Mao…..when they accused him of being an Imperial President….but they are, as a group, incapable of self examination and assessment. Such people cannot cooperate, they cannot be non-partisan because they are fundamentally ahistorical…even living outside of their own personal experiences.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 8:53 am

I shall take a gander!

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 8:32 am

Another connection with the song…..While Cocaine seems to make things better it almost always makes them worse. Same to Trump.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 8:06 am

First….this reply is a really a Main Post…it has that much meat in it. Thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

I did not address the “religious, faith and values based” hypocrisy in my post. I should have as that is one of the things that most disturbs me. Their claim to that name is based on the stance that they are anti-abortion. They are not pro-life as that applies to so much more. But even in that they are so mean spirited and so unwilling to bring others along to their way of thinking……they do not consider the harm they do in their exercise of the “golden rule”.

This is brilliant: TALK ABOUT AN INDICTMENT OF HIS CHARACTER AND A RIPPING OFF OF THE “MAN OF GOD, MAN OF VALUES” LABEL!

[spoiler title=” “]I can barely think of anyone more immoral and even criminal, especially if we’re picking someone to lead our country. He had three wives, all of whom he cheated on, he’s had dozens of women accuse him of everything from rape to sexual harassment (one of the rape victims was at Epstein’s place and was only 13!!!), he was a peeping Tom at his beauty pageants, he lusted after his own daughter and touched her inappropriately at the Republican National Convention for God’s sake!!!, his foundation is closed because it was a sham, he had to pay $25 million to former students ripped off by his “university,” he paid a porn star and a Playboy model hush money during the campaign so the public wouldn’t know he had had affairs with them (and he’s an unindicted co-conspirator in that matter), he cheated many small-business people out of money he owed them for work they did on his behalf, he went bankrupt six times stiffing other businesses and the taxpayers of millions and wrecking Atlantic City, the list goes on and on. And don’t even get me started about all his lies and the fact that he appears to be a Russian asset in Putin’s pocket. What Christian supports someone this vile?[/spoiler]

I too was an Eisenhower Republican (too young to have voted for him but shared in his vision and the vision of the moderate right)….beginning with Nixon and the Southern strategy things went wrong…that the GOP who led the legislative fight for the civil rights bills would become the party of race baiters and hate mongerers is inconceivable is extraordinary.

Obama was and is a very special person. Not perfect by any means but no one is….he was worthy of the office and worked very hard to serve the people in spite of partisan power grabbing. And yes, his middle name is a fitting name for him.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 22, 2019 @ 5:36 am

Jeffrey Epstein’s “A” List

I think you have his number…late here too…I am planning to watch live what I can and to record the rest…..

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 24, 2019 @ 12:23 am

I had not made that connection….is he that sly? It does explain why he has not been betrayed by those he has screwed…I thought it was a bizarre form of misplaced loyalty but your theory carries real weight.

» Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On July 23, 2019 @ 10:59 pm