Politics-What's on your mind?

BullDog · 01-26-2021, 02:54 PM

Rand Paul forced a vote in the Senate today declaring the impeachment trial for Trump was unconstitutional. It failed but only by a 55-45 vote. So only 5 Republican senators voted it was constitutional to hold an impeachment trial for Trump after he incited a violent insurrection to overturn the election and our government, where his own vice president and others were at risk of being executed.

This isn't the final vote - the trial hasn't started yet but we can see where it's headed.

I never thought there would be enough Republicans to convict but this is truly abysmal.

The 5 Republicans who voted that it was constitutional to hold the trial were:

Susan Collins (Maine)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Mitt Romney (Utah)
Ben Sasse (Nebraska)
Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania)

homoe · 01-26-2021, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BullDog

Rand Paul forced a vote in the Senate today declaring the impeachment trial for Trump was unconstitutional. It failed but only by a 55-45 vote. So only 5 Republican senators voted it was constitutional to hold an impeachment trial for Trump after he incited a violent insurrection to overturn the election and our government, where his own vice president and others were at risk of being executed.

This isn't the final vote - the trial hasn't started yet but we can see where it's headed.

I never thought there would be enough Republicans to convict but this is truly abysmal.

The 5 Republicans who voted that it was constitutional to hold the trial were:

Susan Collins (Maine)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Mitt Romney (Utah)
Ben Sasse (Nebraska)
Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania)

I guess Collins realized at some point Trump didn't learn his lesson after all!

But still, in my opinion, she's a little too late!

homoe · 01-26-2021, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by homoe

I guess Collins realized at some point Trump didn't learn his lesson after all!

But still, in my opinion, she's a little too late!

From the lips of Susan Collins around Feb 2020 on her vote NOT to impeach..

Kätzchen · 01-26-2021, 08:52 PM

I read this op-ed this evening. It's message is crystal clear. I hope more people like her will keep voicing their social opinions on the horrors from yesteryear and why it is so important for accountability, right now.

*****************************
************************
*****************

I witnessed the rise of Nazism firsthand. We must act now to protect American democracy.

Opinion by Irene Butter

Editors Note: Dr. Irene Butter is a Holocaust survivor. She came to the United States in 1945. Since the late 1980s, Dr. Butter has been teaching students about the Holocaust. Her memoir,
"Shores Beyond Shores," details that journey. She is a co-founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Medal and Lecture series at the University of Michigan, and one of the founders of Zeitouna, an Arab-Jewish women's dialogue group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The views expressed in this commentary are her own.

(CNN) I am a survivor of the Holocaust and a proud American. I first landed on the shores of this country in Baltimore Harbor on December 25, 1945, under a brittle blue, clear sky. My lifeboat was lowered from a Liberty ship into the watery space between ice floes and I stepped onto the land that welcomed me.

I was a 15-year-old refugee with a sixth-grade education, broken English, no money and a small knapsack of belongings. America allowed me to receive an education, build a career, a family, and a new life -- away from the Nazis.

Just as America was there for me and people like me, we must now be there for America. Ours is the land of opportunity. We must now rebuild and protect it against the current fascism that threatens it.

I was born in Berlin in 1930, a Jewish girl who grew up in Nazi-occupied Europe. My childhood was quite idyllic: I had loving, funny parents and grandparents, and a beautiful, music-filled home. I was three years old when the Nazis came to power and began targeting the Jews, step by step.

Early on, Jews were forbidden from owning or working in banks under Nazi race laws, and my father lost his job. He left for Holland in search of one, as well as to escape Hitler. My family -- me, my mom and older brother -- were able to follow not long after. We settled in Amsterdam.

In 1940, the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands and the persecution of Jews escalated. We were eventually deported in cattle cars to Camp Westerbork in eastern Holland, and ultimately to the infamous Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany.

Having barely survived hunger, forced labor, beatings, disease and cold at Bergen-Belsen, my family was included in a prisoner exchange. We were among the limited number of Jews to be traded for German civilians and boarded a train bound for Switzerland.

On January 23, 1945, my father died on the train from malnutrition and a brutal beating by the Nazis. He had gotten his family to freedom. My mother and brother were so ill that they were hospitalized immediately upon arrival in Switzerland. However, the Swiss would not let me stay with my family. So, at age 14, I was separated from them for the first time in my life and sent to a refugee camp in Algeria, North Africa.

A year later, I landed in America, and eventually was reunited with my brother and mother. Up until that moment on Baltimore's shores, my journey had been by command and not by choice. My parents hadn't chosen to move to Amsterdam -- they were forced to. We didn't choose to be sent to the concentration camps -- we were forced to. I didn't choose to live in Algeria alone as a refugee -- I was forced to.

But finally, in America, I had choices and could exercise my free will. There were no restrictions. No yellow stars on clothing. No men with guns stopping people to see papers. Only opportunity.

Now, 75 years later, I see something I never imagined: echoes of the Nazis and their regime. What happened in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, was an attempted coup of our government and an unraveling of the democracy that protects all of our rights. I saw a T-shirt with the words "Camp Auschwitz," as well as other anti-Semitic symbols and slogans used by the rioters.

Decades earlier, I heard an interview on the radio with Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who said, "If you were in the camps, if you smelled the air and heard the silence of the dead, then it's your duty to be a witness and tell the stories." It took me 40 years to start talking, and I am not finished yet.

The disinformation, distortion and denial of human rights and democracy that resulted in the Holocaust must not happen again. We must speak truth to fascism. The United Nations and UNESCO were founded in 1945, the same year as my liberation, in the wake of the Holocaust. Today, the UN and UNESCO educate the contemporary world about this history and how to recognize threats to democracy when they occur. Their work helps to establish an accurate historical record and encourages witnesses and others to speak out and teach truth.

The massive, violent assault on our Capitol is an awakening for us that our American democracy is vulnerable and needs protection. Democratic institutions need to be strengthened and government officials held responsible and accountable.

Four years ago, we could not have guessed that rioters with Nazi symbols would break into the Capitol to subvert a fairly elected president. None of us can afford to be a bystander to history. We all must confront racism and hatred when we see it. We must establish a record, encourage witnesses and others to speak out, and teach truth. Each of us can and must make a difference.

To me, education is the quintessential endeavor to combat the threat of fascism. The crisis in our country today brings opportunities for positive change. Each of us has the opportunity to make a choice:

to be a survivor defined by the life we make for ourselves, and not a victim defined only by the harm done to us;
to refuse to be enemies, seeking our common humanity;
to never be a bystander to injustice, standing up for others even if we do not know them;
to fill the world with love and hope, not hate and division.

As I share my history through my book, and in schools across the country, I am overcome with gratitude and amazement at students' wisdom and curiosity. Young people are hungry to learn how to stand up against hatred, bullying, oppression and discrimination. They are wise, strong and ready.

Let's stand with these students and continue to educate and involve them -- and allow them to educate us. They will one day be the leaders of this democracy. Let's build a better America and a better world, together.

(LINK)

nhplowboi · 01-27-2021, 07:54 AM

I would like every one of our cowardly Republican politicians, to stand in front of the families of those killed in the insurrection and explain why Donald Trump should not be held responsible. I understand they were all safely ensconced in their own little hidey spots while others were dying but how can they look the other way when these deaths are on the hands of the Republican Trump administration.

homoe · 01-27-2021, 10:34 AM

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will have 'conversation' with Marjorie Taylor Greene after her 'disturbing' comments on social media.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has only been representing Georgia’s 14th congressional district in Washington for a few weeks but she’s already made a big name for herself…as one of the most batshit crazy elected officials in recent history, a title for which there is major competition these days. After voicing her support on the campaign trail for such conspiracies as QAnon, Pizzagate, and one about the Pentagon not actually being hit by a plane on 9/11, Greene has wasted no time making it as clear as possible that she is a dangerous lunatic who should not be allowed anywhere near the halls of power. On her first day in office, which took place on January 3, she wore a mask that read, “Trump Won.” Days later, during the certification of Joe Biden’s win, she objected to counting Michigan’s electoral votes. While sheltering in place during the riot that occurred shortly thereafter, she refused to wear a mask, despite being in close proximity with other people.

Here's just the tip of the iceberg:

A review of hundreds of posts and comments on Greene's Facebook page revealed her past support of and engagement with numerous far-right QAnon conspiracy theories.

In April 2018, on a post she wrote about the Obama administration’s Iran deal, a commenter asked her, “Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???,” meaning Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. To which Greene responded: “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”

Greene repeatedly expressed support on social media for assassinating leading Democrats, once liking a Facebook comment in 2019 that said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should get a "bullet to the head."

CNN reported that in February 2019, Greene broadcast a Facebook Live video from inside Pelosi's office saying the speaker would "suffer death or she'll be in prison" for treason.

The freshman lawmaker also reportedly endorsed conspiracy theories that both the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which killed 26 people, including 20 elementary-school children, and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting - which left 17 dead - were staged.

homoe · 01-27-2021, 05:23 PM

~~
I do wonder what it would or would have taken for those republicans to consider an impeachable offense!

01-26-2021, 02:54 PM	#1
BullDog Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: Dominant Stone Butch Daddy Preferred Pronoun?: She Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: In A Healing Place Posts: 5,371 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 18,160 Thanked 22,637 Times in 4,462 Posts Rep Power: 21474857	Rand Paul forced a vote in the Senate today declaring the impeachment trial for Trump was unconstitutional. It failed but only by a 55-45 vote. So only 5 Republican senators voted it was constitutional to hold an impeachment trial for Trump after he incited a violent insurrection to overturn the election and our government, where his own vice president and others were at risk of being executed. This isn't the final vote - the trial hasn't started yet but we can see where it's headed. I never thought there would be enough Republicans to convict but this is truly abysmal. The 5 Republicans who voted that it was constitutional to hold the trial were: Susan Collins (Maine) Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) Mitt Romney (Utah) Ben Sasse (Nebraska) Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) __________________ Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. - Rainer Maria Rilke

01-26-2021, 08:52 PM	#4
Kätzchen Member How Do You Identify?: As a Brick House (Femme) Relationship Status: Busy (involved with a special someone here at home) Join Date: May 2010 Location: In a small community Posts: 16,277 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 29,277 Thanked 33,638 Times in 10,730 Posts Rep Power: 21474868	I read this op-ed this evening. It's message is crystal clear. I hope more people like her will keep voicing their social opinions on the horrors from yesteryear and why it is so important for accountability, right now. *************************** ******************** ************* I witnessed the rise of Nazism firsthand. We must act now to protect American democracy.** Opinion by Irene Butter Editors Note: Dr. Irene Butter is a Holocaust survivor. She came to the United States in 1945. Since the late 1980s, Dr. Butter has been teaching students about the Holocaust. Her memoir, "Shores Beyond Shores," details that journey. She is a co-founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Medal and Lecture series at the University of Michigan, and one of the founders of Zeitouna, an Arab-Jewish women's dialogue group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. (CNN) I am a survivor of the Holocaust and a proud American. I first landed on the shores of this country in Baltimore Harbor on December 25, 1945, under a brittle blue, clear sky. My lifeboat was lowered from a Liberty ship into the watery space between ice floes and I stepped onto the land that welcomed me. I was a 15-year-old refugee with a sixth-grade education, broken English, no money and a small knapsack of belongings. America allowed me to receive an education, build a career, a family, and a new life -- away from the Nazis. Just as America was there for me and people like me, we must now be there for America. Ours is the land of opportunity. We must now rebuild and protect it against the current fascism that threatens it. I was born in Berlin in 1930, a Jewish girl who grew up in Nazi-occupied Europe. My childhood was quite idyllic: I had loving, funny parents and grandparents, and a beautiful, music-filled home. I was three years old when the Nazis came to power and began targeting the Jews, step by step. Early on, Jews were forbidden from owning or working in banks under Nazi race laws, and my father lost his job. He left for Holland in search of one, as well as to escape Hitler. My family -- me, my mom and older brother -- were able to follow not long after. We settled in Amsterdam. In 1940, the Nazis had occupied the Netherlands and the persecution of Jews escalated. We were eventually deported in cattle cars to Camp Westerbork in eastern Holland, and ultimately to the infamous Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany. Having barely survived hunger, forced labor, beatings, disease and cold at Bergen-Belsen, my family was included in a prisoner exchange. We were among the limited number of Jews to be traded for German civilians and boarded a train bound for Switzerland. On January 23, 1945, my father died on the train from malnutrition and a brutal beating by the Nazis. He had gotten his family to freedom. My mother and brother were so ill that they were hospitalized immediately upon arrival in Switzerland. However, the Swiss would not let me stay with my family. So, at age 14, I was separated from them for the first time in my life and sent to a refugee camp in Algeria, North Africa. A year later, I landed in America, and eventually was reunited with my brother and mother. Up until that moment on Baltimore's shores, my journey had been by command and not by choice. My parents hadn't chosen to move to Amsterdam -- they were forced to. We didn't choose to be sent to the concentration camps -- we were forced to. I didn't choose to live in Algeria alone as a refugee -- I was forced to. But finally, in America, I had choices and could exercise my free will. There were no restrictions. No yellow stars on clothing. No men with guns stopping people to see papers. Only opportunity. Now, 75 years later, I see something I never imagined: echoes of the Nazis and their regime. What happened in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, was an attempted coup of our government and an unraveling of the democracy that protects all of our rights. I saw a T-shirt with the words "Camp Auschwitz," as well as other anti-Semitic symbols and slogans used by the rioters. Decades earlier, I heard an interview on the radio with Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who said, "If you were in the camps, if you smelled the air and heard the silence of the dead, then it's your duty to be a witness and tell the stories." It took me 40 years to start talking, and I am not finished yet. The disinformation, distortion and denial of human rights and democracy that resulted in the Holocaust must not happen again. We must speak truth to fascism. The United Nations and UNESCO were founded in 1945, the same year as my liberation, in the wake of the Holocaust. Today, the UN and UNESCO educate the contemporary world about this history and how to recognize threats to democracy when they occur. Their work helps to establish an accurate historical record and encourages witnesses and others to speak out and teach truth. The massive, violent assault on our Capitol is an awakening for us that our American democracy is vulnerable and needs protection. Democratic institutions need to be strengthened and government officials held responsible and accountable. Four years ago, we could not have guessed that rioters with Nazi symbols would break into the Capitol to subvert a fairly elected president. None of us can afford to be a bystander to history. We all must confront racism and hatred when we see it. We must establish a record, encourage witnesses and others to speak out, and teach truth. Each of us can and must make a difference. To me, education is the quintessential endeavor to combat the threat of fascism. The crisis in our country today brings opportunities for positive change. Each of us has the opportunity to make a choice: to be a survivor defined by the life we make for ourselves, and not a victim defined only by the harm done to us; to refuse to be enemies, seeking our common humanity; to never be a bystander to injustice, standing up for others even if we do not know them; to fill the world with love and hope, not hate and division. As I share my history through my book, and in schools across the country, I am overcome with gratitude and amazement at students' wisdom and curiosity. Young people are hungry to learn how to stand up against hatred, bullying, oppression and discrimination. They are wise, strong and ready. Let's stand with these students and continue to educate and involve them -- and allow them to educate us. They will one day be the leaders of this democracy. Let's build a better America and a better world, together. (LINK) __________________ “The way someone treats you is not a reflection of your worth: It’s a reflection of their emotional capacity,” — Jillian Turecki. ”Without justice, democracy dies,” — Jess Michaels (Epstein survivor). ”The planet can provide for human need, but not human greed,” — Dr Jane Goodall.

01-27-2021, 10:34 AM	#6
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,548 Times in 14,914 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	How did someone like her get elected, it boggles the mind! House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will have 'conversation' with Marjorie Taylor Greene after her 'disturbing' comments on social media. Marjorie Taylor Greene has only been representing Georgia’s 14th congressional district in Washington for a few weeks but she’s already made a big name for herself…as one of the most batshit crazy elected officials in recent history, a title for which there is major competition these days. After voicing her support on the campaign trail for such conspiracies as QAnon, Pizzagate, and one about the Pentagon not actually being hit by a plane on 9/11, Greene has wasted no time making it as clear as possible that she is a dangerous lunatic who should not be allowed anywhere near the halls of power. On her first day in office, which took place on January 3, she wore a mask that read, “Trump Won.” Days later, during the certification of Joe Biden’s win, she objected to counting Michigan’s electoral votes. While sheltering in place during the riot that occurred shortly thereafter, she refused to wear a mask, despite being in close proximity with other people. Here's just the tip of the iceberg: A review of hundreds of posts and comments on Greene's Facebook page revealed her past support of and engagement with numerous far-right QAnon conspiracy theories. In April 2018, on a post she wrote about the Obama administration’s Iran deal, a commenter asked her, “Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???,” meaning Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. To which Greene responded: “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.” Greene repeatedly expressed support on social media for assassinating leading Democrats, once liking a Facebook comment in 2019 that said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should get a "bullet to the head." CNN reported that in February 2019, Greene broadcast a Facebook Live video from inside Pelosi's office saying the speaker would "suffer death or she'll be in prison" for treason. The freshman lawmaker also reportedly endorsed conspiracy theories that both the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which killed 26 people, including 20 elementary-school children, and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting - which left 17 dead - were staged.

01-27-2021, 05:23 PM	#7
homoe Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch Relationship Status: ..... Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: 30 minute ferry ride from Seattle Posts: 38,565 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 20,811 Thanked 33,548 Times in 14,914 Posts Rep Power: 21474890	What a sham the impeachment trial will be in the senate...... ~~ I do wonder what it would or would have taken for those republicans to consider an impeachable offense!

01-27-2021, 07:54 AM	#5
nhplowboi Member How Do You Identify?: FTM Preferred Pronoun?: male pronouns Relationship Status: Divorcee Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: New Hampshire Posts: 999 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 5,327 Thanked 3,882 Times in 825 Posts Rep Power: 21474853	I would like every one of our cowardly Republican politicians, to stand in front of the families of those killed in the insurrection and explain why Donald Trump should not be held responsible. I understand they were all safely ensconced in their own little hidey spots while others were dying but how can they look the other way when these deaths are on the hands of the Republican Trump administration.