StarfishSaver
StarfishSaver's JournalFYI: Markups are NEVER held at night
They're usually held at 10:00 am on Wednesday, but ocassionally take place at 2 pm.
The closest I've ever seen to this is when a markup started in the afternoon and spilled over to the evening and I don't remember that happening in years.
This is not business as usual.
Holding this markup in primetime was a(nother) stroke of genius by Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Nadler and the Democratic leadership.
"When you return to the Senate in a bubble gum pink blazer"
https://twitter.com/meenaharris/status/1204872948118519808When you return to the Senate in a bubble gum pink blazer to call for the investigation of misconduct committed by the Attorney General of the United States. 💅🏽 https://t.co/Bf5HrOyQzf
If you're upset about Dems dealing on USMCA, McConnell walked right into Pelosi's trap
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1204559229505490955Emma Dumain
@Emma_Dumain
McConnell announces at the mics the Senate WILL NOT take up USMCA until AFTER the Senate impeachment trial
Laurence Tribe
@tribelaw
So McConnell wants to hold USMCA hostage so the impeachment trial can be depicted as the obstacle to a bipartisan trade deal. So the turtle is a snake.
If you don't like how Democrats have framed the Articles of Impeachment, help them tell the story!
Disclosure - I totally stole this idea from DeminPennswoods
in terms of bribery when you are out canvassing. Just be sure to understand that when you use the term bribery, the vast majority of people are going to think it means Zelensky tried to bribe Trump, not the other way around.
If you want a simpler message, probably better off using the hostage analogy. Trump held Zelensky hostage in order to get something that personally benefitted himself. Use Schiff's quote, "nice country you have there, shame if anything happened to it".
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=12767973
Instead of complaining that the Democrats didn't include this or that in the Articles of Impeachment, help spread the word about impeachment on the ground with the people you know. The Democrats can't message this all by themselves. And people in the real world aren't going to get all of their information - or even some of it - by reading Articles of Incorporation and watching Pelosi press conferences in the middle of the day. But they're much more likely to listen to their friends and neighbors who are knowledgeable about what's happening.
Tell the story in your communities. Explain to them that Trump abused his power and threatened national security by trying to extort favors from a foreign government. Help them understand what's going on and what this all means.
We all should play a part in this and the Democrats have given us more than enough to work with!
The Impeachment articles wisely focus on the damage to national security not Trump's personal gain
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/documents/Articles%20of%20Impeachment.pdfWhile the behavior described in the articles obviously constitutes bribery, the harm is framed as a threat to national security, not Trump getting something of value for himself. If the charge were bribery rather than abuse of power, the debate and focus would be on whether getting dirt on Biden was justified and whether it was actually of value to Trump. But as drafted, the articles take that minutaie out of the discussion and zero right in on the damage Trump's actions did to national security, whether or not the demand in the end would actually help him or not.
Brilliant, in my view.
Dems just released the draft Articles
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/documents/Articles%20of%20Impeachment.pdfLaurence Tribe has a message for the naysayers:
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1204424967233982466FYI - Professor Tribe spent the weekend advising the Democrats on the articles of impeachment. A few months ago, he was a favorite source among those here trashing Pelosi and the Democrats for not moving fast enough on impeachment. Those same people might want to listen to what he's saying now ...
Before attacking the Dems for not including an Article of Impeachment on Bribery, consider this:
(I posted this in a response in another thread)
After listening to the Democratic press conference, especially Chairman Schiff's remarks, it became clear to me why they did not include a separate article alleging Bribery. It's the smart move.
"Bribery" is a very complicated and charged allegation and is very difficult to prove when it comes to a president. Everything Trump did in his interactions with Ukraine, he's allowed to do and has the power to do under his office, at least when looking at it at face value.
Quid pro quos are a common part of diplomacy and occur all the time. A president has the power to withhold money from another country in return for things he wants them to do - they do it all the time.
The issue here is not that he asked for something in return for something. The issue is what he asked for and his motive for asking for it: Trump withheld the money in order to get a political advantage for himself. The political advantage is something of value to him, like money or goods, so the transaction can be defined as bribery.
That's all pretty clear to us. But that takes a lot of explaining to the average person - lots of "this and then this and then this and therefore this." And when you're explaining, you can easily get stuck in rabbit holes.
I think the Democrats escaped that rabbit hole by charging Abuse of Power. What makes Trump's action not just a simple and permissible "quid pro quo" that all presidents do is the fact that he used his power to get something he wanted for himself personally - i.e., he abused his power. No other person in America has the power to get another country to help them smear a political opponent by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars government funding from them. That kind of power is awesome and sacred and should not be used for individual political gain, which is exactly what Trump did. People can understand that.
In short, I think they actually DID charge Trump with bribery - the abuse of power is the bribery and the bribery is the abuse of power. But doing it this way, they haven't given the Republicans any opening to spend endless hours arguing about the definition of bribery, why looking into the Bidens was justified, etc. They laid out what he did, which is undisputed, and can now cut straight to the chase of proving that Trump abused his power by using government money to pressure a foreign government for help in his political campaign. And since the facts of that are undisputed and there is no precedent in recent American history for such an act (I'm sure they've researched this out the wazoo to make sure), they've set up an easier and much stronger case for the American public to understand and accept.
Tweet of my day
https://twitter.com/itsJeffTiedrich/status/1204141830700486656America 2019: a power-mad demented imbecile is facing impeachment for abuse of office and his loudest defenders are a degenerate half-dressed wrestling coach, Drunk Florida Man and a fake farmer suing an imaginary cow — just as our founding fathers envisioned
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Member since: Mon Apr 22, 2019, 03:26 PMNumber of posts: 18,486
