Trump Impeachment

[samedm9]

8 minutes ago, remember said:

@samedm9 well i guess there is some kind of diplomatic protocol if it wasn`t like that it would be easy to become a diplomat, wouldn`t it. what do you think how politics work?

Wwttff ?

17 minutes ago, samedm9 said:

 

so evidence, with reference to the transcript, that trump asked Ukraine to help his administration, to win the 2020 election.

^^^^^^^^^^ this is all, the discussion is frozen until you show your side.

[whoareyou]

If Biden is not corrupt and has nothing to hide, then wouldn't he just come out and clear himself?

The focus shouldn't be on Trump asking for a political investigation, but on the fact that a potential candidate who is running for president, should NOT be running, since he is a criminal!

A criminal is a criminal, doesn't matter weather he is your political opponent or not, Of course the Democrats want to shift the focus away from Biden's corruption to Trump's apparent breaking of the law?

The double standards are beyond hilarious,.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Etherial Cat said:

Thanks Emerald for this thorough answer. This is extremely instructive. I wish that keeping up with the news would be as effective as reading your posts. I figured out that someone was fishy, and they were likely causing chaos and impeaching him as a political move, but couldn't figure out exactly why. 

So if I got it right, they are doing this solely for the purpose to obfuscate the Biden scandal, by creating noise in the media so the general attention is divided? Lol.

Politics is really the house of devilry. All I see is little demons everywhere. That level of corruption and collective insanity keeps on baffling me and I'm not exactly learning anything new.

Oh, another question, you said that the establishment democrats are about to lose money if Bernie is elected.

Is it because Bernie has a clear focus on getting the money out of politics and would threaten their lofty pipelines of lobby cash and other suspicious financial practices which are held so dear by them? 

 

Yes. That's exactly why. And Bernie Sanders is the candidate who is most adamant about changing structures to get rid of corruption. He's been talking about it his entire career of 40 years. And he would certainly have the mobilizing power and grass roots support to hold politicians accountable for their corruptions.

And he would make moves that would really disturb Big Pharma, the private health insurance industry, Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the private prison industry, and other corporate entities.

And since 99.9% of politicians are bought and paid for by these industries, they really would be in a pickle if they have these industries pressuring them on one side to do some corrupt laws and Bernie Sanders leading a grass roots march against them in their home-state because they voted for said corrupt laws on the other side. 

And you can see his effect already from just a few years ago. All the candidates have to talk about his policy proposals like $15 minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges, forgiveness of student load debt, Medicare for All, and getting money out of politics. Before, they weren't talking about these things.

But Bernie has conjured up so much grass roots support around them that other politicians are having to talk about and consider these policies. And many are even pretending to be more progressive and creating sneaky policy proposals that sound like Bernie's proposals but are really just more corruption. Like there are politicians creating proposals called "Medicare for America" and "Medicare for Everyone" that's basically just a re-hashing of the current system dolled up to look like Bernie's proposal of a single payer health insurance system he calls "Medicare for All". 

[remember]

@samedm9 i still try to look into it - actually i was not really into the details but the whole drama is in that sense indeed dubble standard from an external observer point of view as i see more the overall effects of all of it. i just see fingerpointing in all directions and it doesn`t make sense to finger point to the opponent while using international politics to secure ones personal interests, that make fingers pointing back. it`s like asking who has the most dirt on the shoe instead of seeing the mudhole they are standing in. i just tried to make some sense out of the almost notorious question about that single coincident, no one was answering, because it`s so clear what you where aiming at, to support your own perspective - while from my perspective having an image about american right wing policy from the outside, and it`s overall effect, also having a picture about corruption taking place in politics in general. i really don`t care who has more dirt on the shoe. if they want to smear each other and strangle each other, may they. let`s hope that makes it more possible for a more serious and more coherent politician who shows more integrity to win the next election.

a judge usually uses a hammer to bring silence into a court. just about that.

Edited September 30, 2019 by remember

[samedm9]

4 minutes ago, remember said:

@samedm9 i still try to look into it.....actually i was not really into the details......

Obviously not.

[YaNanNallari]

 

[Emerald]

6 hours ago, whoareyou said:

In that case, we certainly have different definitions of "charisma".

Not only that, but just like in the last elections the DNC did not allow Bernie to be the nominated candidate, the same will happen in this election. 

Nothing has changed, DNC is as corrupt as they come.

Because the focus is on Trump's corruption, it takes the focus away from the corruption of DNC.

I agree that the DNC is corrupt. And they certainly love to hide their corruption behind Trump's more colorful corruption, and pretend to be the good ones.

But I would imagine that Bernie will have a plan for such an occasion. 

 

[whoareyou]

44 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I agree that the DNC is corrupt. And they certainly love to hide their corruption behind Trump's more colorful corruption, and pretend to be the good ones.

But I would imagine that Bernie will have a plan for such an occasion. 

 

What about the media? The media is corrupt as well, it will be a tough battle for Bernie to win.

[Consilience]

@The Don Are you serious? Do you realize the ecological damage Trump is causing? Do you realize the amount of damage to the white house he’s doing? Lies upon lies upon lies. Inarticulate egomaniac, narcissist. Yeah Trumps not a probkem huh? Tell that to the immigrants at the border camps, tell that to those with chronic health conditions who get fucked over by big pharma’s price gouging which he wont over do anything about, tell that to the shrinking middle class due to the increasing wealth gap, tell that to the homeless veterans who get shit on while all our military spending goes towards the military industrial complex. The problems go on and on. To claim the left is part of the problem when the United States is overwhelmingly more conservative is myopic and misinformed

It’s so funny... Trump’s grabbed his fanbase by the p*ssy and they dont even know it. Lolz 

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, whoareyou said:

What about the media? The media is corrupt as well, it will be a tough battle for Bernie to win.

It will be tough because the media is corrupt. I saw an ad the other day from some news outlet. And it had a picture with four boxes. In the first box it had Biden with his name above it, the second box had Warren with her name above it, the third box had Kamala Harris in it with her name above it. And in the fourth and last box, it had Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders sharing one box and above it it just said "Other". And I was like, "Bitch! Bernie is out-polling Kamala by a ton"

That said Bernie ranks to be the most popular politician in America. And he has a ton of grass roots support. This is why he's set the record for most individual contributions (over a million donors) at this point in the race. He is the only Democratic candidate that has more individual donors than Trump.

Bernie dominated the map they drew out on where financial support is coming from so much, that they had to create a second map to give a picture of how the other Democratic candidates are doing in relation to one another.

Also, Biden will continue bleeding support because he's just such a terrible candidate. He started with a 25 point lead over the next person in the race, but is now at like a 2 point lead over Warren and a 3 point lead over Sanders. 

The more Biden talks, the more his support wains. The more Bernie and Warren talk, they more they go up. It won't be long before Biden is polling third.

 

 

[Forestluv]

3 hours ago, whoareyou said:

The focus shouldn't be on Trump asking for a political investigation, but on the fact that a potential candidate who is running for president, should NOT be running, since he is a criminal!

A criminal is a criminal, doesn't matter weather he is your political opponent or not, Of course the Democrats want to shift the focus away from Biden's corruption to Trump's apparent breaking of the law?

The double standards are beyond hilarious,.

The law states that a president cannot solicit a foreign government for a thing of value toward an election. The term "value" is relative, yet I think most people agree that an investigation into a political opponent in an election would be a thing of "value". So there are two parts, the solicitation part and the value part. No one is debating the solicitation part. Even Trump himself has admitted this. As well, very few people are arguing the value part. The argument that an investigation into Biden is not a thing of value toward Trump's re-election is extremely weak. Republicans aren't even arguing for this. So Trump directly solicited Ukraine (which Trump himself admits) for a thing of value toward his campaign (which virtually noone is arguing against at this point).

So, this is a crime - unless one can argue no thing of value to Trump was involved. However, just because it is a crime doesn't mean it wasn't justified. This is a separate issue. One can commit a crime in a justified manner. Or, there can be two opposing laws. The whistleblower Edward Snowden found himself in such a dilemma. There were laws of confidentiality within the NSA as well as laws to uphold the constitution. Edward Snowden broke a confidentiality law to uphold a higher law of the constitution. There can be other situations in which it is justified to break a law. For example, suppose Biden was plotting with Ukranian terrorists to drop nuclear bombs on the United States in a week. Trump could have decided that this matter was so important and urgent he had to call Zelensky and ask for help. He would be breaking the law to do so, yet believe he is justified in doing so, because going through the proper channels of the CIA or Justice Department would take too long. . . Here one could argue that it is justified to break the law to save the country from nuclear destruction. In this context, I would agree.

The argument that Trump didn't break this law is incredibly weak. Trump and his defenders are not arguing that there was no thing of value - they are arguing that Trump's behavior was justified. They are also trying to conflate breaking the law with justification. These are two separate issues, yet Trump's team is trying to conflate the issue that justification means no law was broken. However, there is a distinction. . . So, was Trump breaking the law justified? I can see an argument both ways, yet I would lean toward "no". If Trump believed this was a matter of national concern, he could have gone through the proper channels - yet he did not - he called Zelensky and directly solicited. I don't think this is justified. This is not a case of such impeding urgent danger to our national security that Trump could not have worked through proper channels. We are talking about wether Biden's son should have been on a Ukranian gas company board making lots of money. Hunter Biden was obviously unqualified for this position and only received the high paying position due to being the son of the vice president. This is unethical and worthy of investigation, yet imo not at a level of such extreme national urgency to justify Trump breaking a law. . . The second issue is that Biden spoke in favor of firing an Ukranian prosecutor. This Ukranian prosecuter was seen a corrupt by the Western World. All international groups were calling for his termination, including the IMF for goodness sake. One could claim that Biden was speaking on behalf of the international community. There is a lot of support for this - in particular the international community wanted the prosecutor fired and wanted the vice president of the U.S. to speak on behalf of the international community.

As well, there are criminal issues regarding extortion and cover ups. In cases of extortion, the power dynamics are very important. The Ukraine is a very small country with a small military (on the level of Sri Lanka) trying to defend itself from it's neighbor - Russia, which is imperialistic and much more powerful. The U.S. is orders of magnitude more powerful than Ukraine. So the context here is that there is an extreme power imbalance. The U.S. is thousands of times more powerful than Ukraine. And Ukraine is in dire need of 400m of U.S. military aid. There survival is dependent on this aid. The House has authority to allocate this aid to the Ukraine. Trump took an unprecedented step and blocked this aid. Again, this is not the proper channel. The House determines foreign aid. Days after blocking the aid, Trump called Zelensky to ask for two favors. The power dynamic is important for determining extortion. . . Trump starts off by saying how good the U.S. has been to the Ukraine and that Ukraine has not reciprocated to the U.S. Zelensky brings up the issue of military aid and Trump pivots toward asking for favors. . . To me, this sounds like a strong case of extortion - which would be a second crime. Extortion cases don't involve the perpetrator specifically saying "I'm going to cut you off from all aid unless you do me a favor". No extortionist is that stupid, including Trump. Extortion cases lay out just like this one. There is a power imbalance and the more powerful player witholds something from the weaker player. Then says something like "We've been good to you and you haven't been doing enough. I want a favor. . . ". Or they may make a "suggestion" or "request". Yet in the larger context it is extortion and this seems to be a strong case of extortion. 

[Hansu]

@Serotoninluv

22 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

Sure, this is related to what you wrote in an earlier thread about left and right. We could consider this on a left vs right axis. Yet there are other axes we could draw as well.

In terms of SD, this gets into Yellow. It is the reason why Green level progressives get so frustrated with blue/orange regressives. However, Green is not fully aware of the underlying dynamic. This gets fully revealed at Yellow.

It’s not about making a claim and not providing a source to back it up. It’s about the underlying orientation and personal energetics. There are a lot of things going on with attachment/identification, survival, fear etc. Yet to get it simple, one way this is revealed is through the underlying orientation and energetics of “show me”. Those that are in touch with their intuition know this intuitively recognize this dynamic. As well, it becomes obvious to anyone that has introspected and personally worked through it. This isn’t a left or right dynamic. It is on another axis. It is about resistance to development.  It commonly occurs in progressive vs regressive discussions due to resistance to evolve. For example with Green and Blue/Orange. 

I’m willing to have an Orange level discussions, yet when this dynamic pops up it takes precedent over the underlying topic. There can be no discussion of the underlying topic due to orientation and energetics. Trying to engage usually makes things worse and is counter-productive. The personality goes into debate mode and hyper-contracts. Engaging in debate at an Orange level will only intensify the contraction through various defense mechanisms. There needs to be at least a little bit of  openness, curious and willingness to make progress. When I see this dynamic, the dynamic itself becomes more important in the contraction the person wants to defend. In terms of developing higher consciousness, if there is a basic level of openness/willingness one can use rational thinking to guide a person through it. Yet this takes an extraordinary amount of patience and skill. There are all sorts of land mines that can get triggered. And I generally don’t like this approach.

Imagine someone acting like a dog. You see them on their hands and knees sniffing other dog butts. The person wants to debate with you whether bulldogs have the best smelling butt. They say “show me evidence that bulldog butts aren’t the best”. However, you realize that this person actually thinks they are a dog. You ask: “You realize you are a human and not a dog, right?”. The person then gets defensive and says things like “You think you are at a higher level and better than me. You are being dishonest and won’t show me evidence that bulldog butts don’t smell the best”. At this point, it becomes obvious that they are contracted within a personality dynamic of thinking they are a dog. So. . . What becomes more important:  to debate whether bulldog butts smell the best or to reveal to them that they are a human, not a dog? For me, expanding consciousness toward self actualization is much more important. Orders of magnitude more important. So I will pull out a mirror and say “Look. That is you. You are human not dog”. If the person refuses to look and says “You think are some special human calling me a stupid dog. And you haven’t even shown me evidence that bulldog butts don’t smell the best”. There is nothing an do. I can’t force them to self actualize. I may give in and provide evidence that St. Bernard butts smell better than bulldog butts. .  . and how will the person respond? “Now way!! That doesn’t validate the superiority of St. Bernard butts!!! How many bulldog butts have you even smelled?? Are long have you studied butt aroma??”. . . .Do you see the problem? Engaging in this debate can cause further contraction into the dog fallacy. The are missing the more important point that they are not a dog - they are human.

I still dont fully understand what you mean. Is there a book perhaps that would help understand, or do I learn this by following politics mindfully?

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Hansu said:

@Serotoninluv

I still dont fully understand what you mean. Is there a book perhaps that would help understand, or do I learn this by following politics mindfully?

It's not just a politics thing. And I'm not aware of a book pointing to it. Various speakers point to it in various ways. It's not just intellectual. Also intuitive. 

A simpler example would be: Imagine a person that believes the moon landing was fake. He is full-on deep believing it was a government conspiracy. You say that there seems to be evidence that the moon landing was real. He says all that evidence is bullshit and part of the government conspiracy. He demands that you"show me" the evidence. . . With this orientation, how will any evidence be interpreted? As fake of course. This person has a lens through which any evidence will be interpreted as being fake. If you show him video footage of the moon landing. . . fake. If you introduce him to the astronaut that landed on the moon, he will say this astronaut is fake and part of the conspiracy. With this filter, everything that supports the conspiracy is "true" and anything that argues against the conspiracy is "fake". . . At this point, whether the moon landing was real or not is a secondary issue. The primary issue is for the person to become aware of their lens. Without that awareness, they won't be able to see clearly.

This is why Trump's "Fake News" crusade is so effective for his followers. They can dismiss any evidence counter to the pre-conceived reality as fake.

This example is very either / or for simplicity. There are further nuances like relativity of truth that could be further explored. 

[Bodigger]

56 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

This is why Trump's "Fake News" crusade is so effective for his followers. They can dismiss any evidence counter to the pre-conceived reality as fake.

This example is very either / or for simplicity. There are further nuances like relativity of truth that could be further explored. 

For two years much of the media and many high ranking politicians claimed evidence that Trump colluded with Russia.  Is this still true or was this "Fake News"?  Not according to Mueller.

I don't think Trump would have released the telephone documents so quickly if there was a possibility of illegalities in them.  Are there thoughts of incriminating documents still out there?  

[remember]

9 hours ago, Emerald said:

I saw an ad the other day from some news outlet. And it had a picture with four boxes. In the first box it had Biden with his name above it, the second box had Warren with her name above it, the third box had Kamala Harris in it with her name above it. And in the fourth and last box, it had Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders sharing one box and above it it just said "Other". And I was like, "Bitch! Bernie is out-polling Kamala by a ton"

not that i say you should do what i ask you now or that anyone should do what pictures my third eye strike me buuuut...

DIDN`T YOU HAVE A BLACK OR PINK MARKER WITH YOU?

i mean if everyone already is smearing around who says it`s fair play? or is a news outlet a part of a newspaper?

Edited September 30, 2019 by remember

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Bodigger said:

For two years much of the media and many high ranking politicians claimed evidence that Trump colluded with Russia.  Is this still true or was this "Fake News"?  Not according to Mueller.

As I said, I simplified the example and there are nuances. As you state, there can be a continuum between "Real News" and "Fake News". It's not a simple binary thing. As well, plenty of progressives would consider FoxNews as "Fake News". I've seen the term "FauxNews". Trump constantly labels all news he sees as personally unfavorable as "Fake News", this allows his supporters to dismiss any news not favorable to Trump. . . Does that mean Trump is 100% wrong and all news is 100% accurate? Of course not. It's not a bimodal thing like that. Part of what makes Trump so effective with his supporters is that there are nuggets of truth in his devilry. 

In terms of SD conscious levels of news, I would rank FoxNews as red/blue/orange, CNN/ABC as orange and Majority Report and TYT as green. Each level higher, there will be less demonization and "Fakeness". Yet no one level is pure. It's like saying 12th graders and more mature than 6th graders. This doesn't mean that 12th graders cannot be immature. However saying "both sides" are immature removes an aspect of relativity and creates a false equivalency. The 6th graders will love this false equivalency and the 12th graders will detest the false equivalency. Similarly, red/blue conservatives will use more false equivalencies than green progressives to equalize the relatively unequal conscious levels. And it will bother progressives. 

Regarding the Mueller. . . Mueller has repeatedly stated that he did not investigate "collusion" - which is not a legal concept. "Collusion" is a nonlegal media concept. Regarding illegal conspiracy, Mueller stated he found insufficient evidence to establish an illegal conspiracy. There were improper interactions between Trump's team and Russia, yet illegal conspiracy is a high specific bar and there was insufficient evidence for the specific crime of illegal conspiracy. Yet this does not mean that there was not improper and concerning interactions between Trump's team and Russia.

1 hour ago, Bodigger said:

I don't think Trump would have released the telephone documents so quickly if there was a possibility of illegalities in them.  

Well he did. Trump admitted directly soliciting help from Ukraine for a thing that was of personal value and the telephone document validates his admission. That is illegal. At this point, Trump and his defenders are arguing that his behavior was justified. Sometimes acting illegally is justified. In this case, I don't think his justification for committing a crime is sufficient. In another context, I would say that Edward Snowden's illegal acts were justified. 

For those that think the conscious level of  FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC etc. is too low, there is a thread of higher conscious news sources in this subforum. 

[Emerald]

29 minutes ago, remember said:

not that i say you should do what i ask you now or that anyone should do what pictures my third eye strike me buuuut...

DIDN`T YOU HAVE A BLACK OR PINK MARKER WITH YOU?

i mean if everyone already is smearing around who says it`s fair play? or is a news outlet a part of a newspaper?

It was on the internet on Facebook as part of major news outlet's feed. And literally 98% of the comments below the ad were criticizing the clear manipulation that was going on. So, it was already well marked upon. But this is just one example of many. Most of it actually happening on news shows of exaggerating Biden's successes and diminishing Bernie's successes and criticizing his "electability".

[remember]

13 minutes ago, Emerald said:

It was on the internet on Facebook as part of major news outlet's feed. And literally 98% of the comments below the ad were criticizing the clear manipulation that was going on. So, it was already well marked upon. But this is just one example of many. Most of it actually happening on news shows of exaggerating Biden's successes and diminishing Bernie's successes and criticizing his "electability".

well, maybe trump will clear some boxes, in that sense it`s definitely interesting. what about petitions from voters and stuff to the dnc? do they want to win or do they want to loose? of course i don`t know who has the better chances in reality but a poll before the poll could help. in theory.

Edited September 30, 2019 by remember

[Bodigger]

I believe I am observing some intellectual dishonesty in this forum/topic and perhaps I may be included in that.  This is something I am working on being mindful of.  Would we have similar statements if Trump was a Democrat and the five page document read the same?

President Obama said "he would have more flexibility to move missile's out of Europe after the election" to Medvedev.  This statement may have been interesting to discuss on here at the time, but I get the impression it would be similar, just switched around.

@Serotoninluv I used to be very liberal and as I get older and do more research I find myself moving to the right.  I don't think I was really liberal, just misinformed.  Now, does this mean I am going from a big tree to a sapling?  LOL

[remember]

@Bodigger hä the missiles in europe what do they have to do with his personal politics to his favour? even if he would do that after his presidency... it`s an international political thing, do you think europe likes that so much the living shield thing, europe is trying to hold the peacful balance between the forces, what would you say if europe would install such a shield in the us? - europe is also a partner and maybe it was about an agreement of a more international community. i don`t know enough about it but that`s at least what a lot of europeans would probably think. it was probably not a private conversation but something that was on the agenda for the second term.

Edited September 30, 2019 by remember