dimitrig said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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blungld said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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What part of not guilty doesn't register with you?

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He was not found "not guilty" no matter how the GOP tried to reframe the Senate vote. He was found guilty--hence impeached twice by the House. He was THEN released from consequence by Trump loyalists in the Senate. Celebrate whatever you wan to celebrate but at least have the decency to be factually correct and understand what actually happened. Context and bias and political motivation tells the whole story. Go ahead and cheer on Trumpies for finding another weasel way out, but don't act like this is vindication and he did nothing wrong.

The most embarrassing thing about your posts is that you do not seem embarrassed by them.

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Acquitted is the absence of guilt. Please spare me your garbage about "Context and Bias" after the last 4 years. You seem more concerned whether or not I'm celebrating which is honestly kinda weird.

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This is from the leader of the Republican party and the person responsible for choosing not to convict Trump. This will go down in history as cowardice from 43 republican senators who knew Trump was guilty but cowered to his shrinking base at the expense of our country's ideals. Let's not pretend like there is an "absence of guilt" here:

Quote:

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January 6th was a disgrace.

American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.

Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.

They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he'd lost an election.


Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

The House accused the former president of, quote, 'incitement.' That is a specific term from the criminal law.

Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.

And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

The issue is not only the president's intemperate language on January 6th.

It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged 'trial by combat'.

It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president.

I defended the president's right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.

But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.

The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.

This was different.

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

The unconscionable behaviour did not end when the violence began.

Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day whatever reaction he says he meant to produce by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.

A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.

It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.

Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.

But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn't take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.

Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!

Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president.

Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

Later, even when the president did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.

And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.

In recent weeks, our ex-president's associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.

Anyone who decries his awful behaviour is accused of insulting millions of voters.

That is an absurd deflection.

74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.

And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.

One person did.

I have made my view of this episode very plain.

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Maybe he could have made it a little more plain - like with his vote!

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Moscow Mitch is a weasel and a coward. He has blood on his hands and will be regarded poorly in history for putting party over country. He coddled Trump and supported him every step of the way and helped give him the sort of legitimacy that made the Capital Insurrection possible. He also is enabling Republicans (and some Democrats) in future elections to exhibit the same sort of anti-democratic behavior that he condoned in Trump up until his painfully self-aggrandizing final soliloquy. Mitch likes to pick and choose which of his statements to highlight and not-so-surprisingly left out all of the things he said in support of Trump's ridiculous efforts post-election.

MinotStateBeav said:

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blungld said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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What part of not guilty doesn't register with you?

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He was not found "not guilty" no matter how the GOP tried to reframe the Senate vote. He was found guilty--hence impeached twice by the House. He was THEN released from consequence by Trump loyalists in the Senate. Celebrate whatever you wan to celebrate but at least have the decency to be factually correct and understand what actually happened. Context and bias and political motivation tells the whole story. Go ahead and cheer on Trumpies for finding another weasel way out, but don't act like this is vindication and he did nothing wrong.

The most embarrassing thing about your posts is that you do not seem embarrassed by them.

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Acquitted is the absence of guilt. Please spare me your garbage about "Context and Bias" after the last 4 years. You seem more concerned whether or not I'm celebrating which is honestly kinda weird.

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You are playing with words. The House and over half of the Senate found him guilty. But a handful of loyalists voted to acquit in pure politics. You know he is guilty. I know he is guilty. They knew he was guilty. Don't be ridiculous.

And the Mueller Report "totally exonerated" him too, right?

blungld said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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blungld said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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What part of not guilty doesn't register with you?

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He was not found "not guilty" no matter how the GOP tried to reframe the Senate vote. He was found guilty--hence impeached twice by the House. He was THEN released from consequence by Trump loyalists in the Senate. Celebrate whatever you wan to celebrate but at least have the decency to be factually correct and understand what actually happened. Context and bias and political motivation tells the whole story. Go ahead and cheer on Trumpies for finding another weasel way out, but don't act like this is vindication and he did nothing wrong.

The most embarrassing thing about your posts is that you do not seem embarrassed by them.

---

Acquitted is the absence of guilt. Please spare me your garbage about "Context and Bias" after the last 4 years. You seem more concerned whether or not I'm celebrating which is honestly kinda weird.

---

You are playing with words. The House and over half of the Senate found him guilty. But a handful of loyalists voted to acquit in pure politics. You know he is guilty. I know he is guilty. They knew he was guilty. Don't be ridiculous.

And the Mueller Report "totally exonerated" him too, right?

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Just as a friendly advice, I think if you are going to be lecturing someone on the impeachment process, you need to understand it a bit better.

One - the house did not find him guilty because they are not the fact finders or the jury. The house managers are the prosecutors. All they did was impeach him, which, if this were a criminal process, would be tantamount to the DA choosing to prosecute. The senate is the jury and the fact finder. So unless you think everyone who is charged has already been found guilty, you are wrong in your statement. You wrote that couple of times already.

Second it is a bit odd to complain that this was a political trial. That is exactly what an impeachment process is, and is separate from a civil or criminal trial. That is why senators were laughing at the idiot defense attorney who thought it was some traffic case with civil rules of procedure. That is why whether someone is acquitted or convicted in an impeachment trial, double jeopardy does not attach for a criminal case and that is why no criminal laws need to be violated for an impeachment charge to be brought. Impeachment is meant to be a political check by Congress on the powers of the Executive and Judicial branches if they decide in their sole discretion by the necessary vote to exercise the power.

Here are some relevant matters from a supreme court case on impeachment:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/506/224/

Primary Holding
The POLITICAL QUESTION DOCTRINE is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.

Nixon was convicted and imprisoned for making false statements to a grand jury during his tenure as a federal judge in Mississippi. The House of Representatives impeached him for high crimes and misdemeanors, and the Senate convicted him. A Senate committee heard the testimony of witnesses in the impeachment trial under Senate Rule XI. Nixon challenged the constitutionality of this rule on the grounds that it improperly delegated his trial to a committee, rather than requiring the full Senate to try him as provided by the Impeachment Trial Clause. The lower court dismissed the case, finding that it was a POLITICAL QUESTION.

The Senate is vested with the sole power to try all impeachments, but there is no constitutional limitation on the methods that it may use in trying them. Other requirements support a finding that the use of the word "try" does not impose a limitation, such as the rule that the members must be under oath and that a conviction requires a two-thirds vote. The word "sole" in the Impeachment Trial Clause indicates that the Senate was meant to have total authority over this issue. The separate process of a criminal trial is available in the judicial system, which provides the branches with sufficiently independent forms of judgment. Impeachment is considered to be the only check on the judicial powers by the legislature, so it would be improper for courts to review a matter connected with it.