Every impeachment incident has been along party lines. Impeachment is a political function.
With one exception.
We've had three presidential trials in US history, one per century. In the Johnson and Clinton trials, no senator of the President's party voted to convict and remove. None.
This time there was something new: a senator of the same party as the President voted to convict and remove.
Therefore, in a historic first we did have a bi-partisan vote to convict and remove Trump.
Of course, Cadet Bonespurs would never have had any training in nor any clue about leadership. And it shows. Every single day!
The US military takes leadership very seriously for obvious reasons. Every level of Professional Military Education, Leadership School, PO and CPO Indoctrination, Senior Enlisted Academy, officers' schools at all levels, etc, directly address leadership, what it is, how it functions, and how to develop it. The US military takes leadership fucking seriously.
Oversimplifying it for this discussion, there are two basic principles in leadership:
Delegation of Authority. You must delegate authority. You must give the subordinates in the chain of command under you the authority to perform the duties that you have delegated to them. Without that authority, they are powerless.
Delegation of Responsibility. That must never happen! While all the subordinates under you in the chain of command are responsible to you, you yourself are still responsible to those to whom you must answer. In the case of the President of the United States of America, you are responsible to the nation, to the people, and to the other branches of the government.
To reduce it to a sound-bite: "You delegate authority, but never responsibility."
The moment that Trump starts whining that he's not responsible for what his administration has done, he announces his complete and utter failure as a leader.
Wow! Trump actually planned ahead for once? I cannot believe it!
Trump has Bill Barr in place and ready for this operation. It was Bill Barr under Bush the First who proclaimed that, after extensive research of international law, had found legal support for invading a sovereign nation and arresting a national leader. He even released a "summary" (13 pages that time, I seem to recall) of what he had found. Oh, you want to see my supporting documentation? But I gave you my summary. Trust me. A couple years into the next administration, Barr's documentation did finally surface and it completely failed to support the conclusions Barr at arrived at in his "summary".
Did anybody else also experience dj vu? Remember, the hyena cannot change its stripes.
One of the news types pointed this out the other day.
Even if somebody is a complete and total moron and completely incompetent, still there is a statistical chance that he could get something right once or twice. As that "genius" from Texas, Rick Perry, said, "even a broken clock is right once a day" (BTW, he immediately followed "Dubya" Bush as governor of Texas, giving Dubya the nickname of "the smart one").
So why is it that Trump is so consistently wrong on each and every single part of this pandemic? What we used to call "the law of averages" when playing pool without skill should result in some balls falling into the pockets. So why hasn't that happened?
Could there possibly be some kind of money-making scheme in operation? I would not put that past Trump.
I am on SS and I received a direct deposit yesterday.
However, I also filed my income tax for 2019 with a refund. DFAS takes out income tax withholding from my military retirement, so I do get a refund for which I provided IRS with my banking information for direct deposit. That would also be the case for SS beneficiaries 70.5 or older who have to withdraw a certain percentage of their IRA and 401(k) accounts each year -- account managers should withhold for taxes, plus the withdrawal is not only taxable but it also makes part of one's SS benefits taxable as well.
Oh, and the deposit entry when I looked at it online mentioned IRS.
So we have a few different scenarios which center around our tax returns:
You filed a tax return, got a refund, and opted for direct deposit. IRS has your bank info.
You filed a tax return, but didn't get got a refund (eg, ended up owing a little, as per Percy's scenario). Assuming that this applies to all your past returns that IRS will keep record of, IRS does not have your bank info.
You did not file a return, IRS does not have your bank info.
So then the plan for SS beneficiaries covered by scenarios #2 and #3 is for the SSA to issue those payments, I take it. The delay in getting those payments out would depend on how late the SSA was informed of this.
Not that it would ever make any difference, because at the end of the day GOP senators will just go ahead and vote against the truth.
For example, in the impeachment trial a number of GOP senators (eg, John Kennedy from Louisiana) admitted that the Democrats had made their case and admitted that Trump obviously did commit those crimes, but at the end of the day all but one of them voted against the truth and for acquittal.
Now within the past few days I heard that Barr is proceeding with his "investigating the investigators" sham. Whether he can actually prove his conspiracy theory or even can bring it to that point doesn't matter, but the goal is to create the mere appearance of wrong-doing. The same as what Trump was trying to do when he was pressuring Pres. Zelensky to merely announce publically on TV an investigation of Biden -- there was never any expectation of any actual investigation, since all Trump wanted was the public image that announcement would give him against Biden.
Personally, in the upcoming Trump Crimes Commission(s), I want to see a ground rule that Trump and his convicted cronies be required to pay all legal and investigation expenses.
Just waiting now for Trump and Pence to both come down with the virus and become intubiated. Then we'll have President Pelosi to try to pull our cookies out the fire. Finally a competent person in that position!
You are supporting that quote I offered in Message 490:
quote:To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. Can I interest you in the chicken? she asks. Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?
After Trump and Pence are taken out of action by their own stupidity, what a President Pelosi would offer us would be someone who is not willing to kill far more of us in order to profiteer even more from this crisis. Someone who will at the very least try to address and solve the problems we're faced with.
Re: Trump Promotes Misinformation on Early Vaccine Availability
First, when Trump markets his TRUMP brand vaccine (with his signature on each vial so that you will know to praise him for it (reference to the checks that were unnecessarily delayed to put his name on them)), where will he find enough snake oil to produce all the doses needed? Or will he just use fake snake oil?
I also noticed his promise to make TRUMP™ vaccine available shortly after the election. Like in 2016 with his promised "best healthcare insurance ever" (and will only cost you $18 per month) that he would bring out after the election. Like in 2016 with his tax returns. Like in 2016 with all his promises of solutions to a wide range of problems (including serious international relations problems), but he wasn't going to tell us anything about what those solutions might be until after the election. Not until after the election, and not even then.
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