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Dear Shadow Minister,

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You wrote :

« Perhaps you could refrain from democratic talking points and seriously consider the following »
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I was not quoting “democratic talking points”. I was quoting the Report of the House of Representatives of the United States of America on the Impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The House of Representatives represents all Americans, not just Democrats. Its members were democratically elected throughout the country by the citizens of whom, according to the latest Gallup poll (2019 Dec 2-15), 41% consider that they are Independent, 28% Republican, and 28% Democrat.
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« Joe Biden withheld aid from Ukraine to purportedly force Ukraine to act against a corrupt prosecutor … that had an open investigation against a company that had his son in a highly paid position for which he was not qualified is a clear conflict of interest.

That Trump was asking Ukraine to investigate this possible act of corruption would be entirely legal with the exception of a possible conflict of interest. Calling Joe and Hunter Biden as witnesses is clearly relevant to Trump's defense.»

The debate on this has been going on for a couple of years now. But there has never been any evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, father and son. As I indicated in my previous post, if they did do anything reprehensible or illegal, they should be brought before the appropriate criminal courts – in Ukraine and in the United States.

Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, ex-Mayor of New York and ex-Associate Attorney General of the United States, have done everything possible to investigate the Bidens. Giuliani made several trips to Ukraine meeting the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as various officials including Ukraine's chief prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko (ten times) who said he told Giuliani he found no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

Logically, they will be on the top of the list of witnesses to be subpoenaed by the Republicans to testify at the up-coming impeachment trial in the Senate.

They are, as you say, “clearly relevant to Trump's defense” !

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Banjo,

"I was not quoting “democratic talking points”. I was quoting the Report of the House of Representatives of the United States of America on the Impeachment of President Donald Trump."

Literally a democrat partisan political document without the contribution of a single republican.

"The House of Representatives represents all Americans, not just Democrats." Bollocks the house is firmly controlled by the democrats with their majority.

"The debate on this has been going on for a couple of years now. But there has never been any evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, father and son. As I indicated in my previous post, if they did do anything reprehensible or illegal, they should be brought before the appropriate criminal courts – in Ukraine and in the United States."

So Trump is justified in investigating them?

If Giuliani and others could not investigate the Bidens fully due to lack of access, your argument for them to be witnesses is weak.

Given the democrat declaration that the evidence produced by the house is overwhelming, there is no need to call further witnesses.

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Dear Shadow Minister,

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You wrote :

« "The House of Representatives represents all Americans, not just Democrats." Bollocks the house is firmly controlled by the democrats with their majority. »
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That’s correct, Shadow Minister. The sad reality is that in the United States, as elsewhere in the world where it exists, “representative democracy” has long been hi-jacked by the political parties – for their own benefit as well as for the benefit of the elite oligarchy that controls and influences them.

As you rightly point out, the elected representatives in both the House and the Senate do not represent the citizens of the United States as they are supposed to. Instead, they represent their own political parties and elite oligarchies : powerful private individuals, corporations and organisations (including religious organisations) on whom they depend and to whom they are held accountable. The elected representatives are just puppets on a string.

The ruling elite operates behind the façade of our democratic institutions in complete impunity. Our representative democracy is, in reality, an oligarchy, a largely invisible oligarchy that we neither choose nor know anything about.

As I indicated in my previous post, according to the latest Gallup poll, in the United States 41% of respondents declare that they are Independent, 28% Republican, and 28% Democrat. What this means is that whoever happens to be in power, Democrats or Republicans, there are always 72% of Americans who are not represented by anybody.
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Apart from that, you ask if Trump is justified in investigating the Bidens. I doubt it, but that’s his business. Apparently, he has targeted the father, Joe Biden, as his principal opponent in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election and is waging a vendetta against him.

Knowing Trump as we do now, the fact that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the Bidens is not a problem.

That is why I expect that the Bidens will be on the top of the list of witnesses to be subpoenaed to testify at the impeachment trial in the Senate.

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Banjo,

The impeachment process has been a partisan effort by the democrats to smear Trump sufficiently to ensure that he does not win the next election.

The next part of the process will go to the republican controlled senate who are so disgusted with the corrupt handling of the process by the democrats, that the republicans are certain to not only not convict Trump but exonerate him and excoriate the articles of impeachment.

Trump would like the Bidens on the stand as Joe is unlikely to walk away not looking corrupt which will sabotage his chances in November. However, I believe that the senate will simply call no witnesses and kill the process.

However, I do not share your complete cynicism of the democratic process just of the politicians.

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Dear Shadow Minister,

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You wrote :

1. « The impeachment process has been a partisan effort by the democrats to smear Trump sufficiently to ensure that he does not win the next election. »

I commented on this in my post on page 4 of this thread :

« As I understand it, the House of Representatives majority leader, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are satisfied that Donald Trump will go down in history as having been impeached by the House of Representatives of the United States. »
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2. « The next part of the process will go to the republican controlled senate who are so disgusted with the corrupt handling of the process by the democrats, that the republicans are certain to not only not convict Trump but exonerate him and excoriate the articles of impeachment. »

In the same post (page 4), I continued :

[ Pelosi declared that the black mark of impeachment on Trump’s record will not be erased – despite the declaration by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that Trump will be acquitted by the Republican-led Senate: "We will have a largely partisan outcome", he said.

McConnell added : « I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision ».

So there you have it : in the eyes of the Republican, Mitch McConnell, the up-coming Senate trial of the President of the United States has nothing to do with justice. No need for impartiality. It is simply a question of partisan politics.

It appears that the elaborate mechanism of checks and balances written into the American Constitution by the founding fathers of the world’s leading democracy is not as water-tight as they imagined : it is open to interpretation.

If that proves to be the case, then representative democracy is clinically dead. And the artificial life-sustaining mechanism that allows it to survive will be switched off definitively sometime in January.]
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(Contunued …)

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(Contunued …)

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3. « Trump would like the Bidens on the stand as Joe is unlikely to walk away not looking corrupt which will sabotage his chances in November. However, I believe that the senate will simply call no witnesses and kill the process. »

In addition to the Bidens, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Trump decides to take the stand himself in the Senate. It’s too good an opportunity to miss. I don’t think he will be able to resist the temptation – even if his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani and others are against it, considering it too risky.
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4. « However, I do not share your complete cynicism of the democratic process just of the politicians. »

Aristotle wrote quite extensively on various forms of democracy in the eight books of his treatise “Politics” in 350 B.C. In seeking to define the best possible political regime, he evoked the limitations of democracy and its potential drift towards oligarchy. In fact, he considered that the best possible regime would be a mixture of oligarchy and democracy, which he called a “polity”.

It was not until 1689 that John Locke produced the second of his “Two Treatises of Civil Government” in which he introduced the concept of “representative government”. Though he was probably aware of Aristotle’s political philosophy, Locke's “representative government” was not a “polity” as conceived by Aristotle. It was not intended to be a mixture of oligarchy and democracy but simply a form of democracy without any oligarchic content.

History records that Locke’s ideas and model of “representative government”, heavily influenced both the American and French revolutions and their subsequent "democratic" regimes.

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