Impeach Obama?! Why? Because you hate him?

It's funny how the Trumpies just ignore all that. I guess they gotta make room for all their misconceptions and that resounding chorus of "they just hate Trump - whaaa!" LOL.

BTW. they probably don't know ANYTHING about the bills McConnell is sitting on 'cause Fox won't tell them about it.

I stopped watching by 11:00p. (us old guys need our sleep - lol) But I heard about the abrupt end this morning. I'd say your guess at what's behind that rare situation is as good as mine.

Theoretically, yes.

IMO, there is the "fake" war and the "real" war and I think we are being polarized by the fake war. If we can understand the real war better I think we can find common ground and unite, but it's a really tall order.

The fake war is of course the partisan war. (Republicans vs Democrats... conservatives vs liberals... etc...) The stuff that Fox and CNN and so much discussion on OPP is concerned obsessed with.

The real war (and not everyone will agree with me on this) is between the 99% and the 1%. Occupy Wall Street is the closest movement I have seen to addressing the real war.

Every now and then I will see someone stating that the Republicans and Democrats are as bad as each other and I find that hopeful in the sense that it could lead to the realization that the partisan war is fake. But every view of the real war gets blocked as soon as MSM (controlled by the 1%) notices anyone looking and resentment is quickly redirected back to partisan politics.

To understand the real war means we have to look deeper into that 1%... deep enough to see that the 1% itself is fragmented into competing factions that use the political parties as leverage against each other. There are two theaters of conflict in this "real" war... foreign policy, in which the factions of the 1% make their moves on the global stage and domestic policy where the big dispute appears to be over how much blood can they squeeze out of the 99%.

The Republicans seem confident that with a "bread and circus" strategy the 99% can take much more abuse before reaching a point of rebellion against the 1%. The Democrats, having to contend with a greater level of diversity and education seem less convinced and prefer a more compromising path, but ultimately, it's just a matter of how the reins are held.

I think that if a movement could arise out of the 99% that recognizes the common plight of the people and the fact that the Constitution created the government for The People, not just the 1%, we could unite as a single nation.

But the fake war has put up a LOT of barriers that we have to clear for that to happen. We have to stop being so easily manipulated by rhetorical narratives and learn how to infer the truth though critical thinking rather than subscription. We have to get over all those corn-fed prejudices and put ideology back in context.

Again... I think (at least for now) this is a tall, tall order. But I do hope that changes before we lose our democracy and the prison-industrial complex takes over from where the patronizing and the bread and circuses leave off.

Actually, that bribery is the basis for the first article "abuse of power" that says... "Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election."

I'm not sure what you mean by losing. As I've stated, the Democrats have the votes to win. Trump WILL be the third president in history to be impeached. From the Democratic perspective this is not a loss.

As for the claim that Trump did nothing impeachable, all I can say for certain is that it's a point of contention based on what either side considers sufficient evidence.

Did OJ really kill his wife? Well, they didn't actually catch him in the act, he never admitted to it and ALL the evidence was circumstantial so according to the logic the Republicans are currently applying to the impeachment hearings, OJ would be innocent. But the jury concluded otherwise based on the weight of the circumstantial evidence. In another words, our justice system doesn't depend on catching criminals in the act. There can be a point where if there is enough circumstantial evidence to infer guilt and that's what the Democrats have done in this impeachment hearing.


There will dissent on both sides. I've heard stories of life-long Republicans switching sides in reaction to the impeachment spectacle too. The media is pretty good at picking these rare exceptions out of the crowd to support their specific narratives.

My first thought... Delivery; the Republicans kicked ... aaass! The Democrats were... *sigh*

... let's just say, disappointing.

Still, none of the Republicans, despite all their swagger, were able to get their fallacies past me. Especially now that I've had time to get familiar with the issues. But hats off to their confidence game. Basically, half of what they say is solid fact, another 48% is conjecturing upon those facts (cue patriotic music) and the remaining 2% is where I always find the fallacies that of course expose the fraudulence behind the entire argument. The most common fraud being a near total lack of relevance to the item of discussion, which tonight would have been any one of the edits to the articles of impeachment.

My second thought comes from my overall disappointment with the performance of the Democrats. I started to think how fortunate we are that it doesn't really matter because the votes are pretty much locked in. It doesn't get any more partisan than this so the Democrats will win by virtue of simple math.

So why are they even bothering with the debates? Oh, yeah, formality. But then why are they sweating it? Why stress the rhetoric?

And why ARE the votes so locked in?

Oh yeah, because so many of the seats in the House are taken by representatives who were elected by a highly contentious population. I guess that also explains the endless rhetoric on the House floor.

This is just as much about November 2020 as it is about Trump.

This impeachment will go no further than the House. The same simple math insures a successful block in the Senate. But by insisting on the prosecution the Democrats WILL restore a lot of faith among their voters. The Republicans... well, they need to do the same thing and their voters want them to save Trump.

Folks, our representatives (and by that I mean America's representatives) despite all their faults ARE in fact doing their jobs. They are acting in the interest of those who voted for them. They are polarized because WE are polarized.

LOL... I guess when all you have is a hammer...

That's because it fires up his base. He doesn't know how to solve problems, he only knows how to put on shows. As long as he keeps attacking anything associated with liberals his base will rally behind him. That IS is legacy.


Of course.. This is why I used to suggest that he just keep Obamacare and rename it to Trumpcare. That would solve the entire healthcare issue right there. The left would be happy with the content and the right would be happy thinking it was all Trumps idea.


No, they are a LOT better. I agree that both parties can be childish at times but Trump is a clear exception to "normal" politics.


It may seem that way... but I usually find more respectable reasons when I dig in. The wall, as you said being a good example. The Democrats did indeed push for border fences in strategic locations, but that doesn't mean they were asking for the kind of wall Trump was proposing.


Eh, to a degree.

Yeah, he's a true con man.

I suppose that's something I can give him credit for. He actually conned his way into the WH.

LOL. It wouldn't be so bad if he just admitted to being out of his league and accepted some help from experienced people. Dealing with world politics is not the same as haggling with real-estate investors and city councils.

He's a Pop Warner player on an NFL field and he's telling everyone to play HIS way. It's no wonder he was laughed out of the NATO conference.

LOL - I just spent the last two minutes trying to think of something to give him credit for. Honestly, he's the first president in my lifetime where I can't find ANY redeeming quality.

Well on one hand, yes... Of course it's a situation where a woman intentionally goes to a clinic to abort her pregnancy. On the other hand, no... I think in most cases (probably pretty close to all the cases) the woman didn't intend to get pregnant in the first place. Whether it was carelessness, stupidity or something unforeseen, she found herself in a difficult situation that she didn't see any way out of other than aborting her pregnancy.


Yes, Nixon created the EPA and I would also agree that not ALL conservatives are against protecting the environment. But our political parties have never been consistently anchored. In 1972 Republicans weren't as entrenched in the fight against regulation as they are now, even Reagan, the Republican who kickstarted the war on regulations allocated vast stretches of land to federal protection, which today are being reversed by the Trump administration. Things change bro.


Extremists go to the extreme. Progressives, just like conservatives, have their share of extremists.

That being said, I agree with the idea that we need a balance between the environment and the economy, but the economy is too often used as an excuse to let big business get away without having to sacrifice anything. Meanwhile, the environment is getting so depleted and toxic that we are starting to feel the repercussions. This is why progressives are getting more and more antsy about it.

It's time to stop playing paddy-cake with the carbon industry. Economies can be destroyed and rebuilt in a matter years, the environment cannot. If the carbon industry wants to keep playing games, fine, green technology is already at the point of viability, so we have options, we don't HAVE to submit ourselves to the abuses of the carbon industry.

First step... GET RID of that OAF currently in the WH.

It sounds like you're getting hung up on the attitudes of a few which is precluding you from seeing the rest of us.


The appeal to simplicity is a common fallacy. The reality is far more complex. 'ever try to explain to a liberal how cutting taxes results in greater revenue despite how ironic it sounds?


Likewise, people get hysterical over abortions but are quite cavalier about the innocent children that die from gun violence, air pollution and our military operations.

You seem a little preoccupied with your resentment towards your opponents. Try focusing on the issue.


Most people are hypocrites to some extent. But there's a difference of scale between what an individual can do by himself and what a nation can do together through government intervention. As an individual, you can certainly recycle your cans, but you can't tell a corporation to stop dumping tons of toxic waste in the river and expect them to comply. For that, along with most of the biggest culprits in pollution you need government regulation or it's not going to stop. And which party is slashing environmental regulations right now Rose?

I think you know the answer to that one.


Every crowd has it's screamers, they just aren't screaming the same things. I think the applause for loosening restrictions probably means different things to different people. For me it means women have a safer path to professional help which might even include an alternative to abortion.


Well, abortions aren't illegal right now, right? The concern that the pro-legal-abortion folks have is if/when abortions do become illegal.


since when is death an antonym for choice?


Well, here we agree. I would much rather see all that effort focused on fixing the underlying problems that put people in situations where they seek abortions.

If you mean it's a service that makes money then sadly, yes. Kind of like root canals, people don't really want them but they feel they have to get them and so they become a lucrative business anyway.

Of course products have a tendency to get even more lucrative once you send them to the black market.