House Judiciary announces impeachment witnesses

[Teallaura]

I finally got TV - no way am I watching a symposium masquerading as congressional hearings!

[Cow Poke]

The woman, in particular, looked like a very angry prosecutor.

Pamela Karlan - and she took a cheap shot at Trump's kid, for which she later issued a jackeywalled apology. She didn't have the class just to say "I was wrong", but had to insert yet another gutless attack at Trump.

She ranted "While the president can name his son Barron, he can't actually make him a baron." An idiotic statement during her "testimony".

“I want to apologize for what I said earlier about the president’s son,” she said. “It was wrong of me to do that. I wish the president would apologize, obviously, for the things that he’s done that’s wrong, but I do regret having said that.”


She must be a JOY to live with. But, then again, she's woker than everybody else.

[Mountain Man]

I didn't know 11-year olds taught in law school. That's how my daughter would apologize.

[Cow Poke]

I didn't know 11-year olds taught in law school. That's how my daughter would apologize.

I don't think she could be any more partisan activist.

[lilpixieofterror]

I finally got TV - no way am I watching a symposium masquerading as congressional hearings!

I’ve been working on Catching them All, wandering the wasteland, and building my Minecraft empire myself. All better uses, for a TV.

[NorrinRadd]

I suppose there's some value in laying the groundwork, but that should have been done at the start of the process and not months later, and I have serious questions about the objectivity of the list of "witnesses". At the very least, it seems the case should be presented by two legal experts who agree with impeachment, and two who disagree. As it is, it's three against one, and the one is a bit of a wildcard rather than firmly opposed. This has all the appearances of simply continuing Shifty Schiff's circus, where they're not following the evidence where it leads but trying to back-fill the case to prop up the verdict that they want.

I think this is actually good for the Republicans.

1) Turley is a (classical) liberal who voted for both Obama and Hil, and is openly troubled by Trump's phone call, but does not favor impeachment, especially in the way it's been pursued so far.

2) The three clearly rabid partisans vs. the one restrained and circumspect non-partisan really hurts the optics for the Dems.

[NorrinRadd]

Seriously? They're holding a symposium in the guise of congressional hearings?!?!?!

Well, if rock bottom ratings are the goal, this should work...

Jowly Nadless actually nodded off a few times.

[NorrinRadd]

The woman, in particular, looked like a very angry prosecutor.

Yes, she is particularly bat-guano loony. There's a clip of her saying she crosses the street to avoid walking on the same side as the Trump hotel. Triggered!!!

[JimL]

Agreed!



Correct -- Schiff did that.



Nope - I'm fully prepared for whatever is proven with regards to Trump. I'm ready for President Pence, if it comes to that.

Politics, however, is the number one thing driving this impeachment sham. For you to deny that is just your way of hand waving away the political circus the Democrats have foisted on the American people.

It's politics - on BOTH sides.

That doesn't even make sense, CP. If you believe it to be a sham on the one hand, then you can't be prepared for whatever is proven with regards to Trump. You'd have to believe that a conviction would be a sham as well. Besides that, Pence isn't safe here either.

[NorrinRadd]

I just caught about 30 minutes of it just then which was the 5 minute question stage and I was pretty disappointed that no one is taking the opportunity to explore and clarify concepts but just using it to make their political points, which I think in hindsight was naive of me to think otherwise.

I’ll go back and hear their opening statements later but I was just thinking what are the republicans doing? They are part of congress and they are arguing that they should limit their powers. It seems crazy to think that anyone would willingly argue to put restrictions on themselves. They should be arguing solely about why this particular action isn’t impeachable instead of saying things that hurt the legitimacy of their impeachment power.

The position of president is a huge amount of power given to one person and impeachment and removal should always be on the first thing on the presidents mind when making any decision. Any reductions to impeachments only increases the presidents potential to abuse their power.

It was argued in the past that one side of the legislative will inevitably become just an extension of the executive due to the partisan nature of politics. It’s why the executive and legislative are merged in Australia. The opposition party has the official job of criticising the majority party and given a shadow position with the same security access and briefings for every executive position. Just a thought.

You talk about the possibility that "one side of the legislative will inevitably become just an extension of the executive due to the partisan nature of politics," but your view has the executive as an extension of the legislative. The Founders had the opportunity to create a parliamentary system, but specifically chose otherwise. This would seem to be a fundamental difference in perspective between "you" and "us."

While often inconvenient and inefficient, we generally consider it healthy for the Legislative and Executive branches to each hold on to as much power as possible, and let the Judicial branch sort out intractable conflicts.

And no, it should not be easier to remove POTUS or anyone else, and he or she should not always be in fear of being impeached over each and every decision. Impeachment should be only a last resort in the most dire of circumstances. It is good, not bad, that no POTUS has ever been removed from office.

[JimL]

But Pence hates women because he won't be alone with them! He would be impeached too!

No, but as Sondland testified, everyone was in the loop.

[JimL]

I finally got TV - no way am I watching a symposium masquerading as congressional hearings!

Yeah, just watch FOX NEWS, they'll tell you what happened.

[JimL]

What I'm seeing so far is that the liberal law professors are invoking very loose, ad hoc definitions of otherwise specific and well-defined legal terms in order to make the case that Trump should be impeached.

Yeah, the republicans should have had you in there to rebut the Constitutional scholars.

[Mountain Man]

And no, it should not be easier to remove POTUS or anyone else, and he or she should not always be in fear of being impeached over each and every decision. Impeachment should be only a last resort in the most dire of circumstances. It is good, not bad, that no POTUS has ever been removed from office.

This is why the Founding Fathers rejected "maladministration" as a reason for impeachment and explicitly limited it to "high crimes and misdemeanors". They didn't want a president who was beholden to Congress since that would effectively give Congress all the power.

[JimL]

The liberal law professors don't even seem to be TRYING to show any "balance", but seem to be gung-ho pushing for impeachment. Now, I've not seen the whole thing, but the times I've peeked in, it's like the only reason they're there is to amen and encourage the political speeches the liberals are giving.

They are not there to show balance, CP, they're there to give their perspective as Constitutional scholars who believe that the president violated the Constitution. Turley was there to present an opposite view, but Turley is a fraud and a republican shill, probably the only one they could get to defend Trump. He contradicted his own past stated views including in his 2010 defense of Judge Porteous who was accused, impeached and convicted of bribery as well as his testimony in the Clinton Impeachment trial which he argued for conviction.