Monday, December 16, 2019

Some obviously scummily unfair process from House Demo-rats



So I'm only a few minutes into Mark Levin's interview with Prof. Alan Dershowitz and he raises the fact that House Judicary Committee had 3 pro-impeachment law professors testifying and the Republicans were given one anti-impeachment professor.  Now, just think about that for a moment.  I mean, really give it a bit of careful thought if you have to.

Let's say that on the committee there are roughly 12 Democrats and 10 Republicans.  Shouldn't the number of for- and against-witnesses be as close to representative of the composition of the committee, as someone motivated to (within reason) bend over backwards to demonstrate fairness and accountability might very well call for?  Wouldn't it be simply a matter of basic, commonsense fairness that the Republicans be invited to call at least 2 if not 3 witnesses?  Dershowitz suggests equality.  Some Demo-rat-like apologist might rationalize this little bit of cutting of corners in the fairness department with some version or other of "elections have consequences, we run the show."  But is that the attitude of someone with dual motivations probably in conflict with one another: getting to the truth from as broad a range of credible adversarial input as one can bend over backwards to consider; and then the motivation to damage Trump and empower Demo-rats politically.  And this scummy little 3-to-1 witness ratio shows their biased and partisan hand right on its face; how could it not?

Philosopher's question: if this doesn't fall into the "at least somewhat scummy, beyond any reasonable doubt" category, then how much more biased does it have to be before it does?  A 10-to-1 witness ratio?  Let's get some non-disingenuous specifics about where to draw the line.  All I know is, the Demo-rats crossed that line here, in at least this instance.

It's obvious that they're being at least a little scummy here and that they should bend over backwards and remove any doubt about act-cleaning commitments.  If you can't accept that obvious truth, what other obvious truths won't you accept?

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of contemporary Demo-rat (and fellow leftist social-circle travelers') scummery and intellectual and moral bankruptcy.  Hopefully the Republicans in the Senate can brings themselves to support at the very least some overwhelming bipartisan denunciation of Trump's Ukraine policies as they were done (and for the reasons that they raised alarms among so many ambassadors; does Trump have a corrupting dual motivation there very akin to the one described just above and about which he failed, Swamp-like, to bend over backwards to avoid? Gee, ya think?), and put him on notice.  I've heard the word "censure" in the context of what sort of compromise the Senate may come to, short of a very-high 2/3 threshold for removing the president.

Maybe a fair Senate trial might involve the GOP inviting the Democratic law professor and Clinton donor Alan Dershowitz to testify, with plenty of rigorous cross-examination from fellow Democrats?  (Philosopher's question: Why wasn't Dershowitz among the 4 professors last week?  Or at least the 5 [with 2 for the minority] that would have met a grudgingly minimal fairness threshold?)

[Addendum: House Republicans said that they were promised a minority-run hearing day.  One day.  Whether or not they were indeed promised that, why didn't they get one?  Part of the answer is that the Demo-rats were in such a big fucking hurry to "conclude its inquiry" before a full House vote before Christmas.  I guess they also figured that the GOP-led Senate would be sufficient obstacle to their aims that one day for House GOP-led hearings wouldn't be necessary.  But we're only left to guess here, given our knowledge of how corruptly partisan things are nowadays.]