12-05-2019, 07:45 PM
(12-04-2019, 01:05 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 04-Dec-2019 Windman
(12-04-2019, 12:16 PM)David Horn Wrote: > Really? One witness attended the infamous phone call: LTC
> Windman. He testified to what was said from direct personal
> knowledge, and it tallied directly with what the other witnesses
> said. This is enough by itself to convict in a court of law. If
> other witnesses weren't refusing to testify out of fear of Trump,
> I suspect the corroboration would be even greater.
So you believe that a court of law would convict someone of a crime
because of Windman's feelings, or on what you "suspect." All the
so-called evidence is feelings and assumptions, but under Republican
cross-examination, they all had to admit that there was no actual
evidence to support their dreams, fantasies, wishful thinking,
feelings and assumptions.
Every single witness was forced to admit under Republican
cross-examination that they had no evidence whatsoever to support Adam
Schiff's charges. It was all made up. It was all garbage.
Windman's testimony was especially comical because Schiff freaked out
and cut him off to prevent him from revealing the name of Schiff's
pal, the so-called whistleblower. What a farce.
You'd make a good CNN commentator. You should apply.
In a court of law a jury is expected to weigh testimony for credibility, corroboration, and impartiality. Lt. Colonel Vindman heard something shocking to him, and he could report only what his unbiased senses could recognize. Others corroborated it.
No, it was not a joke. Donald Trump is no joker; even if he is a fool he is deadly serious in all that he says.
Adam Schiff handled the investigation well. Republicans alleged that the process was a witch-hunt several times, but never established backing for such. No, it is not about nullifying an election; it is far too late for that. Besides, however shady some facets of the election were, we have no proof that Donald Trump did not win fair and square... sort of. We are much closer to the 2020 election than to the 2016 election, and we Americans can solve much of our discontent (if we are dissatisfied) in the next election even with an Electoral College in which winning the 'right' votes means more than does winning a plurality.
It is about the next and subsequent elections!
I see a cult of personality with a political leader holding political rallies before adulating fans, a party that treats the Other Side as completely irrelevant, that has turned Big Government into a means of enriching the well-connected loyalists... it has happened elsewhere, and anyone who expect any better results in America because this is America is a fool.
We have checks and balances, rule of law, and separation of powers to prevent the concentration of power in someone unsuited to trust with it. It is not enough that one dislikes the agenda; people who dislike the agenda of Donald Trump probably disliked the agendas of either Bush and Ronald Reagan, too.
Democracy does not mean that those who win get their way. Maybe a majority of Germans thought Hitler wonderful for creating economic stability rare then in the West, believed that he could renegotiate the Treaty of Versailles without starting a war, and thought that marginalizing the Jews was a good idea. Of course, there was no rule of laws, there were no meaningful elections, and anyone who ran afoul of the Nazi Party or even his employer could end up beaten or get shipped to a concentration camp in which he learned to appreciate work as a desirable thing in itself even if it implied toil to exhaustion on starvation rations. If one survived, one knew what to say, and one came out of it a more diligent and less demanding machine of meat. Annexing Austria, incorporating the Sudetenland, dismembering Czechoslovakia and Poland, and restoring Alsace-Lorraine to the Reich all should have been popular. Media were strictly one-sided, with anything countering Nazi propaganda no longer available or illegal.
If people are foolish enough to vote for a bad businessman who has shown horrible character by his bigoted and sexist remarks, who holds objective reality in contempt when such runs afoul of his will, then they deserve someone like Donald Trump and the consequences. People who dislike such who have the means can emigrate, and there are nearly 200 sovereign entities to which to go. Those who lack the means can make their adjustments. If one lives in China and knows what is good for one, one avoids getting involved with the Falun Gang. If one enjoys ouzo or slivovitz but works for Aramco in Saudi Arabia, one knows that one wisely looks for local sources -- as in Greece or Bulgaria, which are not part of Saudi Arabia. That's before I even discuss the madness that is Syria or North Korea.
Donald Trump more resembles Fidel Castro than he does George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or even Ronald Reagan.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
