If we use “true” in the adjectival sense we know what it means. If we use “truth” in the noun sense we do not. Once we change adjectives into nouns we are left trying to search our minds for qualities and other specters that do not exist.

A political sham. Shameful and very dangerous precedents are being set.

A judge who allows a juror to remain despite that juror's public admission that he cannot execute that sworn duty.

Members of the Senate have all taken a sworn oath to uphold the Constitution and execute the powers and responsibilities bestowed upon them by it. Acting as an impartial jurors during presidential impeachment proceedings is one exclusive responsibility given to only members of the Senate.

What needs to happen next is an exodus of recusals.

It's disgraceful.

Three democratic candidates, all of whom are Trump’s opponents in the 2020 election, are in the senate voting on his impeachment. So much for impartial jurors.

But you'd just agreed that these are your preferences, comparable to the preferences of other for different things. Yet here you refer yours to your "conscience" yet the others you labelled "wants and desires". Do you have any good reason to believe that those who want different things to you aren't also acting according to their conscience?

No, we've literally just established it does suggest that exact thing. The fact that you agree other people have different ideas of what a right is, that those ideas are no less subjective than yours, and that the best way to resolve these differences is by democracy. You've just agreed that. So you do, by your own admission have to accept it.

I assume they are acting according to their conscience. But so did slave owners.

It is true that by democratic decree we can name this or that idea a “right” and turn it into law, but what I’m trying to say is I do not accept their reasoning and think they are wrong. I believe there are good ideas and bad ideas. Majorities can and have often been on the side of bad ideas. I do not need to repudiate democracy to know a bad idea when I see one.

And Hitler was an excellent leader too, getting rid of all those undesirables and moving the German economy in the direction he thought best! Until his laws and his thugs that enforced them started taking and killing you and yours.... It's a lesson older that Aristotle: the bad man does not do good things. And you, nos4, are so wrong-headed on all of this that it leaves only the conclusion that you are a bad man. Or a grossly stupid one.

That remains to be seen. I see it more as “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. One of these days a real wolf will come along and, given your track record, no one will heed your cries. You’ve taken the Chicken Little approach and you would destroy the very republic to convince us the sky is falling.

Like you as above. If a state upholds the rights of all individuals/citizens, then that intervention happens in all of those areas in some way or another. How much is the real question. And how much intervention comes from the question what are the rights of the citizens.

Well yes, even a small night-watchman state is a form of statism. But the fact that a state “intervenes nearly everywhere” is no argument that it should.

So you don't agree that democracy is the best way of settling that difference?

Just because you want that type of authoritarianism doesn't mean we have to accept it :razz:

No, I do agree. Their choices should be implemented because of democracy. What I don’t agree with is their beliefs, arguments, and decisions. Those I cannot accept.

There might be some benefit to letting statism play itself out. It still has the opportunity to prove one way or another it’s pros and cons.

Which is bullshit. The best you can argue is that Trump shouldn't be convicted because he acted on bad legal advice.

The best you can argue is that the Trump administration stonewalled Congress. That’s why we have the judiciary settle these kinds of disputes, separation of powers and all that. But the House inquiry team failed to do that.

The evidence was presented in the Senate. We even had Dershowitz, Rubio, and Alexander accept that he's guilty. They just tried to rationalize a reason not to convict him for it. And there's more available testimony and evidence from people like Parnas and Bolton and the Republicans know this which is why they voted not to have more witnesses. They're aware that it'll be devastating to Trump's defence so they need to protect him from it.

And I don't know how you can claim that there's no evidence that Trump obstructed Congress. It is a fact that the House subpoenaed testimony and evidence and it's a fact that Trump didn't comply.

The evidence was presented in the senate and failed to establish any wrong doing, let alone anything impeachable. It’s funny that people might say Trump’s wrong doing is established by evidence, but then go on saying we don’t have all the evidence, such as more testimony and documents.

It is a fact that the administration was following advice from DOJ legal counsel and that many of the subpoena’s were invalid. Correspondence proves that the Whitehouse was ready to cooperate as soon as the House’s subpoenas were valid. So no, Trump did not obstruct Congress. Congress instructed itself.

I think the distinction between positive and negative rights is spurious and usually just a rhetorical trick to make some rights sound more 'default' than others. The positive right to housing is just the negative right to not die from exposure. The positive right to health care is just the negative right to not be left to die.

Your 'negative' rights to free speech is just a positive right to say what you want.

So you're agreeing that your list of "rights" are no more objective than any other.

So given that we all disagree about what rights we think a society ought to provide us, we use democracy to decide, right? So you don't have a legitimate complaint against the system. You simply disagree with the majority of people about your list, but (unless you're authoritarian) you agree that democracy is the best way of resolving that difference. So everything is fine and nothing need change, right?

Yes, I disagree with statism and statists nearly across the board, except for maybe the night-watchman idea. But no, as a matter of conscience I refuse to say everything is fine when a government demands by threat of force that I give what’s mine so that it can distribute it to others. So unless you believe a government should steal and plunder from its own citizens, I do not see how one can say this is fine and not evil. The fact that most people want this kind of authoritarianism does not suggest that I need to accept it.

It's not a charade or a false investigation. Trump illegally withheld aid to compel a foreign country to investigate a political rival to help his reelection. That's an abuse of power. And Trump refused to comply with, and ordered others to refuse to comply with, lawful subpoenas. That's obstruction of Congress.

Trump is going to be acquitted because Republicans won't remove a Republican president. That's " hollow[ing] out constitutional processes for their own political ends."

I don’t see how any of that is true and simply repeating the accusation does not suffice for me. The burden of proof still lays at the feet of the accusers and they could not prove it.

You call your wants and desires "rights" too, that's the point. Do you think your "rights" come from somewhere other than what you want/desire?

What I mean by “wants and desires” is that proponents of positive rights believe it is someone else’s duty to provide them with things they want and desire, for instance housing, healthcare, a livable wage. They believe it is someone else’s duty (a state) to interfere in their life. What I am speaking about are so-called negative rights, which is essentially someone else’s duty to not interfere in my life.

But yes, it is my desire that states should not interfere in our lives.

An investigation that accurately identifies a serious wrongdoing is not a "witch hunt." The irony is that the wrongdoing consisted of Trump asking Ukraine to conduct a witch-hunt of a political rival.

One of the rationale Republicans have claimed for acquitting him was that the American people in the next election, not the Senate, should decide whether or not Trump should stay in office. Clearly, we need as much information as possible to judge him fairly. The impeachment and trial contributed to this body of information, and rational, open-minded person who considers all this information would surely agree that Trump's actions were wrong.

Yeah, I just don’t understand how his actions can be misconstrued as “wrong-doing”. At best they can accuse him of thought-crimes, which in my mind is wrong. At best they can waste tax-payer dollars on political charades, false investigations and almost hollow out constitutional processes for their own political ends. That to me is wrong-doing.

Right, so as I said everyone sees government as defending rights, property and freedom. Its just that you disagree with others about what those rights and freedoms are. Since there's no objective authority to defer to with regards to rights and freedoms we must resolve these differences somehow so that we can live together with a minimum of fighting, yes?

The best way we've found to do that so far is democracy, yes? So the government we have is the one resulting from a system which you entirely agree with. It's your fellow voters who are your problem, not your government.

Of course, plenty of my fellow voters believe the government has a duty to provide for their wants and desires, and they often call these “rights”. Hence the big bloated bureaucracies and cradle-to-grave infantilization of entire populations.

Yes, but not at random. Only to defend the rights property and freedoms of its citizens.

Economic interventions defend rights to employment, sufficient income, and rights to property. Environmental interventions defend rights to clean air, sustainable supply of basic needs. Private life interventions might protect the rights of children or neighbours.

I suspect what you mean is that some people disagree with you about what rights and freedoms people should have, or can you give an example of a government intervention which is universally agreed to be nothing to do with rights, property or freedom?

By “defend rights” I mean with state force. For instance the police would defend someone’s property rights by protecting him from thieves, or the police would defend someone’s free speech rights by protecting him from a violent mob, and so on.

No, I don’t consider your version of rights to be human rights at all, but merely wants and desires.

Who is proposing that a state do anything else?

Statism takes many forms. Many believe the state should also intervene in economics, the environment, and even private life.

It’s looking more and more like Trump is going to be acquitted by the senate, and another anti-Trump witch-hunt and conspiracy theory revealed to be a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. So how many times can one be duped by these failures before finding another avenue through which to participate in politics?

During this show trial Trump was able to continue working, for instance killing a top-ranking Iranian terrorist, presenting an ambitious Middle East peace plan, signing into law massive trade deals. The anti-Trumpists, on the other hand, have given us division, a distracted house and senate, and a massive waste of time and money. How much of this failure can the anti-Trump mind withstand before it cracks?

A small government would be the sort of night-watchman state proposed by libertarians and minarchists, where a minimal state is required to defend the rights, properties and freedoms of its citizens.

What makes a government small is the deregulation and dissolving of state power and bureaucracy.

Watching the Senate Trial. The House managers are arguing testimony and documents are still required. Is this a tacit admission that they lack the evidence to prove their case?

Last ditch deep-state effort to influence the Senate trial.

Trump Told Bolton to Help His Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Book Says

Trump serves to those that give him campaign donations!

It was the idea of the same guy that purposed to Trump that moving the Embassy to Jerusalem would be a great idea (which Trump obediently did). But hey! He gave Trump over 80 million campaign donations!

Give money to Trump, Trump does what you want.

Everyone from Clinton to Bush to Obama promised to move the embassy only to break their promises. Not Trump. He finally moved the embassy after senate reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act. :up: :ok:

Happy Brexit day. Congratulations on regaining sovereignty.

While it's true Mulvaney tried to deny saying what he said, his motivation for doing so is obvious. This his statements aren't dispositive, it's suggestive coming from the man who is both head of OMB and acting chief of staff.

That’s the problem with contextomy because all one has to do is look at what was left out to see the truth of the matter, and to notice the bad faith intentions of those who took it out of context. Much of that press conference was spent explaining why the aid was held up.

We do that all the time with foreign policy. We were holding up money at the same time for what was it? The Northern triangle countries. We were holding up aid at the Northern triangle countries so that they would change their policies on immigration.

Clearly by “We do that all the time” he was speaking about holding up aid for reasons of foreign policy. Why did they hold up aid according to Mulvaney in the same press conference?

Reporter (F): (25:44)
And you’re drawing the distinction. You’re saying that it would be wrong to hold up money for the Bidens?

Mick Mulvaney: (25:46)
There were three factors. Again, I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily. Okay. Three issues for that. The corruption in the country, whether or not other countries were participating in the support of the Ukraine, and whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department Of Justice. That’s completely legitimate. Yes, sir.

On investigating the Bidens

Reporter (F): (25:30)
No. No. On the call the president did ask about investigating the Bidens. Are you saying that the money that was held up, that that had nothing to do with the Bidens?

Mick Mulvaney: (25:40)
No. The money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden. There’s no question. That was the point I made to you.

It’s clear how was quoted out of context, and the intentions for doing that are obvious.

The whistleblower complaint had been made before this alleged motivation was given to him. There's no evidence this concern was raised prior to that - Sandy had tried to find out the cause of the hold in July, and Duffy didn't have an answer.

A rooster crows before sunrise therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise. The timing of these events is not enough to establish a connection. In terms of likelihood, it is more likely that the bipartisan demands of Congress to release the funds was a contributing factor. Not only that but the explicit reasons given by all those involved suggests otherwise, that the Whitehouse wanted to know about burden-sharing. Is this so out of the realm of possibility and invalid that the mere accusation and presumption of some nefarious scheme suffices to impeach a sitting president? Who has the burden of proof here? How is this not a conspiracy theory?

If Bolton's testimony is consistent with reporting from the leaked manuscript, it will show that Trump's guilty of wrongdoing. It's another matter as to whether of not that wrongdoing constitutes a crime or whether or not it is adequate reason to remove him from office. My complaint with you is that you refuse to acknowledge that the evidence shows it likely Trump engaged in wrongdoing.

Bolton lying? Who has better credibility - Bolton (particularly if testifying under oath) or Trump, who has uttered thousands of falsehoods since taking office. John Kelly, who knows them both, believes Bolton. Testimony has already established that Bolton strongly disagreed at the time with what was going on - terming it a "drug deal", whereas the President has taken extreme measures to avoid letting the facts get out.

In my defense no evidence shows trump was engaged in wrong doing, and evidence shows the opposite: good-doing. In fact I don’t think he did enough. I truly believe this, because why the hell are we sending hundreds of million in aid to Ukraine? This behavior is exactly why I want him as president. I want someone to question the useless spending of money. I want to know someone is making sure that the weapons are being made by American companies. I want to know if our allies are helping. I want to know that we are not just handing tax-payer dollars to a corrupt s-hole. As an added bonus I get to see career bureaucrats, globalists and technocrats watch their failures get defunded, go down the tubes along with their jobs, especially scum like Bolton.

A Customs and Border Protection agent told CNN that the wall was newly installed and had been set in concrete that had not yet hardened.

He assumed it because he could see no other explanation, and he kept the State department and NSC apprised. " The State Department was fully supportive of our engagement in Ukraine affairs, and was aware that a commitment to investigations was among the issues we were pursuing." Sondland also testified he told Pence that he believed there to be a tie. Why did no one correct him, if his assumption was wrong? Why has Trump blocked all testimony and documents? If these were exculpatory, why not release them?

He was corrected by Trump himself.

Also recall that Mulvaney admited a quid pro quo in his famous "get over it" press conference. He only specifically attached the investigation into the Crowdstrike conspiracy theory, not the Bidens, but it seems clear that Bolton can connect the final dots. Trump's defense is to claim he's lying.

With these facts in mind, I see no rational basis for claiming it likely there was no quid pro quo.

Mulvaney clarified that he was not in fact speaking about a quid pro quo, claiming the media misconstrued his statements. Of course no one includes the clarification in impeachment because that would be telling both sides of the story.

You're missing the relevance: the excuses that were used to hold up aid were contrived and do not reflect Trump's post hoc rationalizations Trump (general corruption concerns and aid from Europe).

You're assuming a motive based on questions Trump asked. No one involved, including Cooper, has testified that this was the reason for holding back aid.

Mark Sandy of the OMB testified that Duffey "attributed the hold to the President's concern about other countries not contributing money to Ukraine" in "early September". He does not recall the exact date. The reasons that were given to the OMB match up to the initial questions on Ukraine aid. It matches up with the transcript and Trump's complaints about EU not doing enough. It matches up to Sandy and his NSD staff receiving a number of email requests from Duffey, at Robert Blair’s prompting, asking for data about the contributions of other countries to Ukraine. The aid was released after the questions were answered, after the data was given. Add on top of that Trump's general aversion to foreign aid and the previous times aid was held back. There is no evidence the OMB sent the aid because of a whistleblower complaint.

Do you agree that Bolton's testimony could potentially establish Trump's guilt? We have a right to know what Bolton has to say. This is particularly important in light of the Republican claim that removal is inappropriate this close to an election. Sure- let the voters decide, but give them the complete information needed for ab informed decision.

I'd like to see what Bolton has to say, yes. But I do not think it will establish guilt because, as we know, there is no crime. It could establish that the administration was lying or Bolton is lying.

Here’s Bolton talking about the call in earlier interview.

That was a horrific argument. Very disappointed with the old civil libertarian on that one. The press will chew it up.

The conflict of interest laws apply specifically to government employees, their spouse, and minor children. It does not apply to Hunter Biden.

I stand corrected. His minor children benefitting from his position would present a legal a conflict of interest, but his elder son benefitting from his position doesn’t. Quite odd, but you’re right.

Executive branch employees are required to agree to a stringent ethics policy, which includes addressing cases where there's merely the APPEARANCE of conflict of interest. This gives the government the right to look into these matters without there being probable cause to investigate a crime. The ethics policy is not applicable to asking Ukraine to investigate a non-government employee.

Except in the case of Biden’s son. As we now know according to Vindman’s, Jeniffer Williams’ and George Kent’s testimony, questions of Biden’s conflict of interest were a concern, but these same stringent ethics policies didn’t apply. They were legal, as you’ve shown, but they didn’t pass the appearance test apparently.

Testimony shows there was a quid pro quo:
Gordon Sondland tells House impeachment panel ‘we all understood’ there was a quid pro quo

Sondland was wrong, as his own testimony shows. They did not all “understand” there was a quid pro quo. Sondland only presumed it.

We also know that OMB held up aid without valid reason, in violation of the Impoundment act. Related to this is that Trump's post hoc claims about "pausing" the aid because of corruption concerns or concerns about what other nations were giving are not reflected in the documentation, and there is no other evidence that these were established priorities.

Everytime The GAO says the administration violated the Impoundment act, the administration says it disagrees, as did the Obama administration, the Bush administration, and so on. They have no binding power over the Whitehouse and the world goes on. The aid was sent nonetheless.

But there is evidence of Trump’s motives here. An article compelled Trump to put hold on the aid according to released emails. The first indication of the White House taking a focused interest in military aid to Ukraine was a July 19th email with the article attached, “The President has asked about this”. Laura Cooper of the Pentagon testified she received 3 questions from the president about Ukraine aid around that same time, and the questions were about which American companies were making the weapons, what are other countries paying, and where is the money coming from. There’s the burden sharing question.

As for corruption, Trump’s concerns about Ukraine corruption were well testified to by at least Sondland, Volker and Yovanovitch. “ It was a generic, as I think I testified to Chairman Schiff, it was a generic corruption, oligarchs, just bad stuff going on in Ukraine”, as Sondland said in his testimony.

What about Bolton's alleged claims? You said you'd like him to testify, and it seems he'll testify there was a linkage.

I’d need to read the manuscript or hear a testimony.

False.
Ukrainians Contacted U.S. Officials in May About Aid Fears
Trump pressure weeks before July call: reports

When I say “ Ukrainians say they were not pressured”, I mean by Trump on the phone call, not that they “felt pressure” about concerns of Giuliani in May 7th meeting. If you don’t remember, Trump is being impeached for his phone call.

Faithful execution requires being consistent with due process and equal protection. Criminal investigations are predicated on there being crimes to investigate. There is no evidence of a US law being broken (and only US law is pertinent) and the Ukranian prosecutor said he's aware of no Ukranian laws being broken. This leaves only two possible reasons to investigate: a fishing expedition to see if some crime can be pinned to him, or simply an effort to dig up dirt. Fishing expeditions are unconstitutional and dirt digging is an abuse of power.

That’s not the case because there are conflict of interest statutes on the books, violations of which are criminal offences. As I’ve said before, investigations into various Trump administration employees resulted in resignations despite here being no evidence of a crime being committed. To say those investigations were not warranted because there is no evidence laws are being broken is absurd.

You're parrotting Republican talking points and emulating their ignoring of evidence. I've addressed all those with you before, and yet you repeat your statements without rebutting what I said.

Stopping a crime in progress does not exonerate the criminal. A quid pro quo was established, and Bolton will likely add credence. There were indeed Ukranians who expressed concerns, and it's obvious why Zelensky would refrain from stating it.

They aren’t just Republican talking points, but facts. A quid pro quo was not established and you’re basing your own presumption on someone else’s presumption. It’s not obvious why Zelensky would refrain from stating it because you aren’t a mind reader. So to levy the same accusation, you’re just repeating House talking points.

Yes, I know you've said that, but you're wrong. In no sense was this "required", and it was clearly wrong because it did real damage to Ukraine. We could debate just how bad the damage, but there's zero evidence it was helpful to anyone in Ukraine or the U.S.. It's also further exposed Trump's low moral character.

Interpretation of the Constitution was inevitable, and always will be in an impeachment. There is no Constitutional bright line, and I think reasonable people could reach different conclusions about that. Not that I think everyone in Congress is being reasonable. The facts have been against Trump from the beginning, and most Republicans have turned a blind eye to that from the beginning.

I say it’s “required” because the president has a duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. So it is clearly right that he make sure government officials weren’t engaging in corruption.

The only “real damage to Ukraine” is the mess Trump’s accusers have brought upon them. For instance they are weary of investigating Burisma because they do not want to be accused of influencing America politics by helping Trump or damaging Biden. These accusers have effectively damaged US/Ukraine relations.

The facts have been against the accusers from the beginning. The facts favor Trump. No investigations. No public statements. No quid pro quo. Aid was released on time. Ukrainians say they were not pressured and were unaware of pause.

I think equality, as an ideal, should only apply in matters of law and justice. But outside of that I cannot see equality as anything worth striving for, and given your examples, even terrifying to consider.

Lol I love your avatar. Just noticed it.

And/or the Dershowitz defense that this does not constitute a "high crime". I've always felt this was the backstop that Republicans could use, but would only use as a last resort. Reaching that point, and having some Republicans admit Trump did the deed- and that it was wrong, was as much as anyone could realistically hope for.

I’ve always said that Trump asking Zelensky to investigate Biden’s possible corruption and Ukraine meddling in the 2016 election was certainly not impeachable, and even a good thing, required by the office. Had they made this case since the beginning they wouldn’t have to argue for this or that interpretation of the constitution.

It’s clear that the “premises of life” are actually the premises of their author. Therefor Life isn’t the one in need of justification and reform.

In some cultures suicide was honorable and even heroic. Nowadays it’s difficult to imagine that once upon a time some would commit suicide to maintain honor rather than to escape shame.

In the case of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima he did it for profound and troubling philosophical reasons.

To continue the metaphor, let us picture a single, healthy apple. This apple was not called into existence by words, nor is it possible that the core should be completely visible from the outside like Amiel’s peculiar fruit. The inside of the apple is naturally quite invisible. Thus at the heart of that apple, shut up within the flesh of the fruit, the core lurks in its wan darkness, tremblingly anxious to find some way to reassure itself that it is a perfect apple. The apple certainly exists, but to the core this existence as yet seems inadequate; if words cannot endorse it, then the only way to endorse it is with the eyes. Indeed, for the core the only sure mode of existence is to exist and to see at the same time. There is only one method of solving this contradiction. It is for a knife to be plunged deep into the apple so that it is split open and the core is exposed to the light—to the same light, that is, as the surface skin. Yet then the existence of the cut apple falls into fragments; the core of the apple sacrifices existence for the sake of seeing.

When I realized that the perfect sense of existence that disintegrated the very next moment could only be endorsed by muscle, and not by words, I was already personally enduring the fate that befell the apple. Admittedly, I could see my own muscles in the mirror. Yet seeing alone was not enough to bring me into contact with the basic roots of my sense of existence, and an immeasurable distance remained between me and the euphoric sense of pure being. Unless I rapidly closed that distance, there was little hope of bringing that sense of existence to life again. In other words, the self-awareness that I staked on muscles could not be satisfied with the darkness of the pallid flesh pressing about it as an endorsement of its existence, but, like the blind core of the apple, was driven to crave certain proof of its existence so fiercely that it was bound, sooner or later, to destroy that existence. Oh, the fierce longing simply to see, without words!

The eye of self-awareness, used as it is to keeping a watch on the invisible self in an essentially centripetal fashion and via the good offices of words, does not place sufficient trust in visible things such as muscles. Inevitably, it addresses the muscles as follows:

“I admit you do not seem to be a illusion. But if so, I would like you to show how you function in order to live and move; show me your proper functions and how you fulfill your proper aims.”

Thus the muscles start working in accordance with the demands of self-awareness; but in order to make the action exist unequivocally, a hypothetical enemy outside the muscles is necessary, and for the hypothetical enemy to make certain of its existence it must deal a blow to the realm of the senses fierce enough to silence the querulous complaints of self-awareness. That, precisely, is when the knife of the foe must come cutting into the flesh of the apple—or rather, the body. Blood flows, existence is destroyed, and the shattered senses give existence as a whole its first endorsement, closing the logical gap between seeing and existing... And this is death.

– Sun and Steel

Mishima planned his suicide for 5 years and in dramatic fashion (while trying to stage a coup) disemboweled himself, finally able to see his “core”, before his comrade beheaded him in the old Japanese way.

Deferring to the defense? A stark confession of bias.

I hope they never call you for jury duty.

You wouldn't listen to the defense attorney's arguments because he from the defense? Wow.

A stark confession of bias. Let's hope they never call you for jury duty.

Creativity may be a decent conduit through which to sublimate ones suffering.

So barring cliched suicide responses and an appeal to therapy, is there any philosophical insights for people who simply dont like the premises of life?

It's difficult to compare the premises of life to anything else because the premises of life are all we know. I think disliking the premises of life is akin to, if not the same as, disliking the premises of oneself.

I actually like Bernie, but I apologize for shining a light on your sacred cows.

The articles accuse that he did. I’ll quote them again:

(2) With the same corrupt motives, President Trump — acting both directly and through his agents within and outside the United States Government — conditioned two official acts on the public announcements that he had requested —

(A) the release of $391 million of United States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated on a bipartisan basis for the purpose of providing vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression and which President Trump had ordered suspended

I'm not a lawyer so I'll just defer to Judge Ken Starr.

Big News.

Trump releases long-awaited Middle-East peace plan

His proposals are:

- The US will recognise Israeli sovereignty over territory that Mr Trump's plan envisages being part of Israel. The plan includes a conceptual map that Mr Trump says illustrates the territorial compromises that Israel is willing to make

- The map will "more than double the Palestinian territory and provide a Palestinian capital in eastern Jerusalem", where Mr Trump says the US would open an embassy

-Jerusalem "will remain Israel's undivided capital"

- An opportunity for Palestinians to "achieve an independent state of their very own" - however, he gave few details

- "No Palestinians or Israelis will be uprooted from their homes" - suggesting that existing Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will remain

- Israel will work with the king of Jordan to ensure that the status quo governing the key holy site in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims is preserved

- Territory allocated to Palestinians in Mr Trump's map "will remain open and undeveloped for a period of four years". During that time, Palestinians can study the deal, negotiate with Israel, and "achieve the criteria for statehood".

Trump releases long-awaited Middle-East peace plan

Bernie doesn't even slightly seem like "one of us."

Is it the 3 houses? All power to him. Even a self-proclaimed democratic socialist can make it big in America.