House Impeaches President Trump For Abuse of Power, Obstruction of Congress (nbcnews.com) 1183
The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, marking the third time in the nation's history the House voted to impeach a sitting president. NBC News reports: Trump was impeached on two articles. The first vote, 230-197, was to impeach him for abuse of power and was almost entirely on party lines; it was followed quickly by a second 229-198 vote that the president obstructed Congress. One Democrat, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is running for president, voted "present" on both articles. Two Democrats, Reps. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted with Republicans against both articles of impeachment, while another Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted yes on abuse of power and no on obstruction of Congress. No Republicans voted against Trump.
The trial in the GOP-controlled Senate on whether to remove the president will begin in early January. It is likely that Trump will be acquitted since a two-thirds majority is required for conviction and removal from office. "It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached," Trump said at a campaign rally minutes before the vote. "The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican party like we have never had before. Nobody has ever had this kind of support."
The impeachment vote centers around President Trump's call with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky, urging him to contact Attorney General William Barr about opening an inquiry tied to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The trial in the GOP-controlled Senate on whether to remove the president will begin in early January. It is likely that Trump will be acquitted since a two-thirds majority is required for conviction and removal from office. "It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached," Trump said at a campaign rally minutes before the vote. "The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. And we have tremendous support in the Republican party like we have never had before. Nobody has ever had this kind of support."
The impeachment vote centers around President Trump's call with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky, urging him to contact Attorney General William Barr about opening an inquiry tied to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
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It won't have any affect (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically If the Dems want to win there's two choices: Sanders or Warren. Anyone else is going to crash and burn just like Hilary did. And no, Corbyn's loss is not a bell weather. There is no Brexit for Trump to lean on.
Oh lord, the things that get modded up around here (Score:5, Insightful)
What is wrong with you? I'm serious. There is no way you did not understand this. There just isn't. Why would you post that?
For anyone else still reading, NOBODY is suggesting "free stuff". What's being suggested is that things that cost more for worse outcomes when left to the private sector (healthcare & climate change response) should be left to the Government.
Like I keep pointing out, if your choices are A, B and doing nothing and A costs less than both B _and_ less than doing nothing then you pick A. In this case "A" is single payer healthcare. It costs less than the current system and less than doing nothing.
Re: It won't have any affect (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more-complex than all that. The issue is structural.
The minimum wage is attached essentially to inflation. Tracking the updates, they all seem to trend with the 1960 minimum wage plus inflation.
That has caused minimum wage to fall as a portion of per-capita income. Mean wages and median household incomes have also fallen, but more slowly. Higher wages are more-immune to this (e.g. mean wage falls, but slower than minimum; top incomes are approximately on-par with per-capita income growth).
As a result, the gap between any wage and any higher wage has increased. That has an impact on productivity: where it was once cost-effective to replace 2.25 minimum-wage workers with a highly-productive process on 1 worker's worth of mean wages, it's now 4.25x. The benefits of productivity gains must be higher for them to be adopted, and so productivity growth slows.
If the minimum wage were 2/3 GNI/C, which is comparable to the 1950-1970 rate of 67%-78% GNI/C, it would be $20.32/hr today in current 2019 dollars. The mean wage would be only 2-2.25x higher, around $95k; median household income would be around $105k.
With the productivity gain factor, this goes up by around 35%-40%, to $27.50/hr-$28.50/hr minimum wage and a mean wage of around $110/year. Median household incomes would be about $120k-$135k. The rich would be about 35% richer, too.
The sag caused by minimum wage falling behind is immense. The United States is running on like half the GDP it should have, and people have half the standard-of-living they should.
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Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:5, Interesting)
Joe Biden Brags about getting Ukranian Prosecutor Fired [youtube.com] Talk about hypocrisy from the left!
I have a question. If Joe Biden committed a crime, why hasn't the Department of Justice opened an investigation against him? Why was it a condition of getting the aid money that the President of the Ukraine make a public statement about it? The DoJ actually has a process for asking other countries to assist them in such investigations, in fact they have a whole organization dedicated to doing just that. There was no rational reason for Trump to do what he did when he has the resources to conduct the investigation himself, unless his intention was criminal.
We are passed the point where we are trying to determine if Trump did what he is accused of doing, which was trying to extort a foreign nation for assistance in influencing our election, this is illegal and it should be illegal. We know he did this, he admits he did this, his chief of staff admits he did this, his personal lawyer has admitted he did this. The case against him is not weak, in fact if he were a poor black man being investigated for murder in Texas, and the police had this much evidence against him, he would already be on death row. The question before us now is, should he be removed from office for doing it.
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
Here you go. You may not believe it it accurate, but that's your problem. I can also not believe you are an earthling just as accurately. https://www.scribd.com/documen... [scribd.com]
From page 1 of your link:
"A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion."
It's not a transcript.
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
At what point do you stop simply being an idiot, because someone points out that a candidate for the presidency has done exactly what they accuse the sitting president of. And unlike in Trump's case, not only is there video evidence, but written and verbal proof of him engaging in it. Not only from one group of media, and government aligned agencies - but from the media and government agencies that were directly involved.
Good god it's disappointing so many appear to be so confused about such basic concepts.
The use of carrots and sticks to let other countries have your way is called Diplomacy. Nobody is saying Obama, Biden or Trump can't conduct diplomacy. It's perfectly acceptable to hold shit over other countries heads to get them to do what you want them to.
The problem is in no way shape or form the act of diplomacy itself. The problem is **WHY** it was done. It's such a basic concept... It's so brain-dead simple and yet so many appear not to understand.
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that this dude you claim everybody knew was corrupt was in the process of investigating Burisma, where Biden's Son was employed.
No, he was not.
That's not true. Why the fuck do you say it?
He was in fact being investigating for extorting Ukrainian companies after seizing their assets, and then sending his underlings to investigate the prosecutors who were actually tackling corruption.
But even if the guy Biden demanded to be removed was corrupt as hell. The fact stands that Biden did exactly what the Democrats are so upset that Trump did. Except that the Ukrainian president Biden made his demand of, knew that money was on the line and followed through on what was demanded in order to get the money. Pure quid pro quo. In President Trump's case, Zelinsky did not know money was riding on the demand, and never did what was requested. There was no statement that an investigation was being started and the money that Zelinsky didn't know was being held up was released.
Not remotely.
One is an instance of nearly half the world applying political pressure to have a corrupt official that was going after the people trying to clean up corruption removed.
The other is an instance of one guy trying to get another guy in another country to announce investigations that there are no known grounds for on his political rivals.
Shame on you. You know damn well those aren't even closely related.
The point stands, if anything Biden's instance is clear and plain quid pro quo, demanding action from a foreign power with aid held up until it was accomplished.
No one's arguing that... I'm confused why you think that is a problem?
The problem isn't that Trump held up aid to get what he wanted. It's that he did so to get a foreign country to throw a stink bomb at his domestic opponent.
Your outrage at Trump while trying to waive off Biden for a much more egregious example of the same type of act is telling. They are not the same thing. Biden actually demanded and got his quid pro quo. Trump didn't. Who is lying now?
You're seriously fucking stupid. I don't think you can be helped.
They are not the same type of act. You're simply removing circumstances until they are. Hell, playing your game I can say that shooting someone is the same and pissing in the wind within 6 miles of someone.
Most Democrats want Biden kicked to the curb (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
Except that this dude you claim everybody knew was corrupt was in the process of investigating Burisma, where Biden's Son was employed.
Not really. An investigation had been officially started on Aug 5, 2014, but it was a sham. No evidence was ever turned up and the investigation was ordered to be shut down in 2016, for lack of evidence (note that I'm not saying there was nothing to be investigated, just that the investigation wasn't done, or was incompetent). During most of the time Joe Biden was calling for Poroshenko's removal, the Burisma investigation was officially dormant.
Here's a timeline [justsecurity.org] of events.
The fact stands that Biden did exactly what the Democrats are so upset that Trump did.
Biden did what he did as a part of official US policy, pushed by the state department and by Obama. There is no evidence that Joe Biden somehow convinced all of those other people that Poroshenko needed to be removed, and no reason to believe that any of the other people would have been doing it to protect Hunter Biden. Hunter's employment was an obvious attempt by Burisma to gain influence (note that they hired him before the so-called investigation began, so it's highly unlikely they hired him to gain Joe Biden's protection), but no evidence has surfaced to indicate that they got any.
Further, what Biden did in Ukraine was part of a larger Obama policy to discourage corruption in many countries. It was a broad strategy [brookings.edu]. There is no evidence that Trump has engaged in any anti-corruption initiatives other than this Ukraine thing. On the contrary, he has been quite friendly to many deeply-corrupt leaders because he likes strongmen, and many strongmen are corrupt.
Moreover, the Biden/Obama Ukraine anti-corruption efforts were about corruption in Ukraine, by Ukrainians and therefore had to be addressed with foreign policy. Trump's concern is about alleged corruption by a US citizen. The proper -- and easiest! -- approach for addressing that sort of problem would have been for Trump to ask the DoJ to open an investigation. The DoJ would have used the established international channels for requesting whatever aid from Ukraine was needed.
Instead, Trump sent his golfing buddy and donor, who was ambassador not to Ukraine but to the EU (and to do that, the ambassador to Ukraine was removed for no reason that anyone has been able to articulate), and his personal lawyer to ask Zelensky to "go to a microphone" and announce an investigation. (Aside: It seems likely that Giuliani's free work for Trump constitutes an illegal campaign donation to Trump's campaign.)
Why did Trump choose this weird and ineffective approach (note that no investigation was ever done!) rather than simply ordering the DoJ to investigate? Obviously, because not even Trump believed there was any evidence of wrongdoing by Biden, and the DoJ would have kept the investigation as quiet as possible. What Trump wanted was clearly not to have Hunter Biden's relationship to Burisma and Joe Biden's relationship to Poroshenko investigated, what Trump wanted was to have the investigation announced.
It's abundantly obvious that Trump's goal wasn't to fight corruption, either in Ukraine or the US, but to get Ukraine to make a public announcement that would damage his political opponent.
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:4, Informative)
You're forgetting that we ACTUALLY HAVE A TRANSCRIPT OF THE CALL.
No, what you have is a cleaned up memo regarding specific points in the call. That memo supports the charges. Do I need to quote the relevant lines to you?
So, show us how they "lied".
He lied regarding his claim of there being proof of Joe Biden doing something analogous. Were you too stupid to piece out what I was talking about?
This is why they "convicted" him of the nebulous "abuse of power", instead of the specific charge of colluding with a foreign government.
A) They did not, and can not convict. They impeached him.
B) Abuse of Power isn't nebulous for an impeachment. It's one of the outlined meanings in the Federalist Papers and other early writings for impeaching a President under the High Crimes and Misdemeanors criteria.
C) There is no specific charge of colluding with a foreign government. Doing so is generally legal (outside of election finance laws). Doing so is also a High Crime, and an impeachable act.
Put up or shut up.
Put up what? You demonstrated an inability to even follow the argument, on either side. Should I cater to every moron who can fling spaghetti at the wall?
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that he used economic coercion to actually get someone fired (especially someone who was in the process of investigating his son) is a clear conflict of interests and abuse of power.
He was sent there by half the god damned civilized planet, including the united states congress, to do exactly that! What, do you think he was on vacation? Just popped by for tea?
Trump simply ASKED if the situation could be looked at. With NO threats of withholding aid, etc.
....while withholding aid....
Re: Thanks for the Presidency in 2020 (Score:4, Informative)
Clinton was impeached for lying under oath in a federal court, and suborning perjury.
That he chose to act that way while he was the sitting President shows a questionable character.
That he soiled the young intern's dress wasn't actually the issue, that he, a member of the Arkansas Bar, the sitting President swore to tell the truth under penalty of law, then proceeded to lie about it *is* the issue.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democrats don't have a unifying candidate that's not angry or insane.
That is nothing new. "Democrats" and "unifying" don't even belong in the same sentence. As Will Rogers said in 1935: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
This will back-fire.
It is already backfiring. Trump's approval numbers are up.
The Democrats were unable to get a single Republican in the House to support the Articles of Impeachment, while several Democrats either defected to oppose it or abstained from voting.
In the Senate, they are unlikely to get even a majority and have no hope of getting 2/3rds.
In case anyone cares, here are the Democrats who defected or abstained:
Minnesota Rep. Collin C. Peterson
New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew
Maine Rep. Jared Golden
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (abstained)
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So now four out of two hundred fifty or so is "several"? "Almost a handful", I can buy - charitably, even "a few"... but "several"? My how the language is being devalued.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
So now four out of two hundred fifty or so is "several"?
If I type "define:several" into Google the first definition is: "More than two but not many."
So yes, four is "several".
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
William Howard Taft
Barack Obama
Theodore Roosevelt
Barack Obama (Again)
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton (Yep, again here too.)
Calvin Coolidge
Warren G. Harding (Often regarded as one of the worst Presidents we ever had)
George H. W. Bush
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Every)
Woodrow Wilson
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Single)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Fucking)
Lyndon B. Johnson
Ronald Reagan
Richard Nixon (Oh, man.)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (Term!)
Ronald Reagan (Annnnd again)
No, he didn't clean up.
I'm unsure what you think a supermajority means in the context of federal presidential elector counts, but his count is not even unimpressive- it's impressively bad.
As it sits right now, of 58 elector counts for President, he is the 46th worse in terms of winning margin.
You're a gaslighting fuckstick.
Logical Fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice example of the Tu Quoque Fallacy [wikipedia.org].
But I'm getting really tired of it. I don't care how many times and how many wrongdoings there have been in the past. Here, in the present, we have wrongdoings committed by the President of the United States. Let's act on it now before an unacceptable precedent gets set for future presidents.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
A republic is a kind of democracy. And we don't want the cities to entirely rule the country in America: that has never been our way.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Interesting)
Mr. MADISON. If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty. It is essential then that the appointment of the Executive should either be drawn from some source, or held by some tenure, that will give him a free agency with regard to the Legislature. This could not be if he was to be appointable from time to time by the Legislature. It was not clear that an appointment in the 1st. instance even with an eligibility afterwards would not establish an improper connection between the two departments. Certain it was that the appointment would be attended with intrigues and contentions that ought not to be unnecessarily admitted. He was disposed for these reasons to refer the appointment to some other source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
From the constitutional convention of 1787.
Did they stop teaching this in civics class?
If you learned that in Civics class, you had a really bad civics teacher who made up stories instead of teaching you civics history. That's pretty sad.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
In my book, pressuring foreign governments to investigate your political enemies' children ranks right up there with asking other governments to spy on your citizens to get around wiretapping laws in terms of violating one's oath to defend the Constitution.
If there was credible evidence, he should have asked the justice department to investigate it. And if necessary, he could then justify applying pressure to get a foreign government to cooperate with such an investigation, assuming the justice department asks him to do so. The problem is that he skipped the investigation and went straight to putting pressure on foreign governments to try to dig up dirt that he thought could help him in his next presidential run. And that's quite clearly not negotiating with foreign governments in a manner consistent with his responsibilities as POTUS, even if we assume that his reasons for doing so were entirely noble.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:3)
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Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Informative)
Name ONE person who was an actual witness to the call who says it was about pressuring foreign governments to investigate political enemies.
"I was concerned by the call, what I heard was inappropriate, and I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg" -Vindman
"It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a US citizen and a political opponent." -Vindman
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
Name ONE person who was an actual witness to the call who says it was about pressuring foreign governments to investigate political enemies.
Mick Mulvaney.
But Trump won't let him Testify.
Next!
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
inherently a legal conflict of interest.
False. You want the Justice Department to look at it? That's part of the Executive - you know, the White House. This is ENTIRELY the domain of the White House.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
No, the executive branch != the White House. The POTUS and immediate staff are the White House. The executive branch, apart from the people at the very top, are civil servants, not political appointees, so despite the fact that to some degree, the POTUS can direct them to do or not do things, they still largely operate fairly independently and apolitically, unlike the White House per se, which is, by its very nature, political.
It would be inappropriate for the President to order the DOJ to look into a political enemy, but it would not be inappropriate for the DOJ, operating independently, to determine that an investigation needs to occur, and then initiate it. That said, the DOJ has strict rules about investigating political candidates for high offices and their families, precisely because the potential for a conflict of interest is so high, i.e. even if Pres. Trump had ordered them to do so, they probably would have refused. That makes it doubly horrible that he would ask a foreign government to do so (pressure or not, quid pro quo or not, justified or not, and regardless of his reason for doing so).
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Really? Here is the video of Joe Biden proudly bragging [realclearpolitics.com] about pressuring Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden's employer (emphasis mine):
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the prosecutor wasn't investigating Biden's son's company. In fact, he wasn't seriously investigating anybody! Biden pressured the Ukranian government to fire the prosecutor because he wasn't actually going after corruption. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Pres. Trump wants him back because he personally benefitted from the political corruption that the new prosecutor is going after. He certainly doesn't want him back because he was doing a good job.
Obama was wrong for doing that, too, but Assange was not running against him for the presidency. The two aren't even remotely comparable. And nobody is talking about extraditing anyone here, so that's a pure red herring. That said, the request to Assange came from the U.S. D.O.J., not from Pres. Obama himself. Any pressure occurred afterwards. That is completely different from a sitting President independently applying pressure on a foreign government to get them to investigate someone that the Justice Department was not even investigating.
No, it really isn't. It is completely inappropriate for someone with a personal stake in the outcome of an investigation to be involved in that investigation in any way, shape, or form, and investigating somebody you are likely to end up running against is about as big a conflict of interest as you could possibly get. It is a fundamental conflict of interest, to such a degree that were this an actual investigation by law enforcement that resulted in criminal prosecution, a judge would likely throw out the entire case. Being directly involved in investigating someone who is running against you is something that you absolutely do not EVER do. It is grossly unethical. As such, those actions were a very direct violation of the oath of office that Pres. Trump took on inauguration day.
So no, that is most certainly NOT "perfectly appropriate".
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Does anybody really believe that Hunter was doing anything there on the board of that Ukrainian gas company other than collecting a fat paycheck?
Nope. That said, convincing one of your friends to give your kid a cushy job might not have been the smartest thing to do, particularly when it involves a foreign country and a sitting VP, but it likely doesn't violate any laws, even if it is a bit on the icky side.
His dad got him a nice cushy job in exchange for doing a few favors in Ukraine, and while I can understand that the establishment dems are a little mad about Trump asking for an investigation to be opened and trying to turn it into a federal case you have to consider that Biden was out there in public bragging about getting that prosecutor fired.
Except that's not what happened. The prosecutor in question was not, in fact, investigating Biden's son's company. And he was fired for failing to do his job, which was investigating corruption. Pres. Trump took a crackpot theory, based on a
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Informative)
The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.
...
The President: Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.
Do you guys just...not read any of this stuff? Despite telling everyone to read the transcript? Where does this misinformation keep coming from?
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, technically, what we do have is a witness ( Sondland ) who confirmed Trump told him there was no quid pro quo. That, plus the Ukraine saying they were unaware of any deal, makes the articles that much more of a joke.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, technically, what we do have is a witness ( Sondland ) who confirmed Trump told him there was no quid pro quo. That, plus the Ukraine saying they were unaware of any deal, makes the articles that much more of a joke.
Why are you fools always relentlessly wrong?
https://www.foxnews.com/media/... [foxnews.com]
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"Impeached" doesn't mean removed. There is ZERO chance he is removed by the Senate. In fact the Dems just guaranteed his reelection.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm so mixed on this. I don't like Trump, but I don't like the parties either. Democrats could spend more time and get a bigger lock on evidence, but as it is they're reproducing the same silliness as the Clinton impeachment. The Republicans on the other hand are offering the lamest of lame excuses, either believing in conspiracy theories or else parroting this because they follow orders, and very hypocritical as well since they also forget the Clinton impeachment and how the same arguments they are giving now were what Democrats were giving then. It's so much deja vu all over again.
Overall, it's dysfunctional. And most dysfunctional is the person at the top who's throwing a tantrum. There do not appear to be adults in the room.
Re: Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)
The farcical nature of the past three years is the best validation of the conservative position on limiting the power and size of the federal government that's ever been presented in history.
Another unintended positive consequence of Trump winning in 2016. Not even the Left can defend the bloated establishment now and wanting an ever-expanding state controlling more and more aspects of our daily lives is their only reason for existing.
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Re:Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score:5, Funny)
the President will likely get the highest TV ratings an impeachment has ever seen.
I can just see that now....
Biggest impeachment ever. Much bigger than Clinton's, most winningest impeachment of any US president. I impeached more than any other president, my peaches are bigger and orangier than anyone else. Best impeachment ever!!!!!
Re:You lost it in the first place (Score:5, Informative)
Which part do you hate the worst? The record high stock market, the 50 year best unemployment numbers, or no new wars?
This idea the person in office is responsible for the economy is what I hate the worst. It's a concept that is equal parts ridiculous, insane and meritless.
The stock market is always reaching record highs. Take 5 seconds to look at long term multi-decade trends of ANY of the major indicies. It's always going up.
Look at the fucking trend lines on economy and jobs from Obummer administration.
Or just say whatever sounds good to you. It's your choice.
Re:Not about feelings. (Score:5, Informative)
Slight correction to the summary (Score:5, Informative)
The allegation against Trump was that he wanted a public announcement of an inquiry by President Zelensky, coordinating with Rudi Giuliani and William Barr. It is unclear whether an actual investigation was required.
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Re:The transcript (Score:4, Informative)
And none of the people who testified had first hand knowledge or could act as a witness to the phone call. Pope, you've gotta do something about your rat problem.
Uh, this is plainly wrong, is this intentional disinformation or do you simply not know any better?
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman [cnn.com] listened into the the call with Ukrainian President Zelensky and testified about it, which may be what you are referring to. Another call, between EU Ambassador Sondland and Trump was listened into (unintentionally as a result of how loud Trump was talking) was testified to by David Holmes. [cnbc.com]
If this "hearsay" defense wasn't simply wrong, it would amount to doublethink, because Trump is actively preventing more central witnesses from testifying. Hence article II of his impeachment.
Re:The transcript (Score:5, Insightful)
Of those willing to testify under oath, not a SINGLE ONE could identify a crime that Trump committed.
They were mostly diplomats not fucking lawyers. They were there to tell what they know not pass judgment on the president. Republicans kept pulling this shit on purpose so they can use it as a talking point later even though it's completely irrelevant. It was never the witnesses fucking job or reason they were called to testify.
Of those on the phone call, not a SINGLE PERSON said there was a quid pro quo offered; in fact, Ambassador Sondland was explicit that there was NO request for anything.
This is squarely in willful ignorance territory. Sondland was relaying what the president had told him he wanted **AFTER** the president knew he was being investigated. "No quid pro quo"... Sondland testified he believed there was condition on whitehouse meeting to investigations.
OMB director said publically aid was held up because DNC corruption investigations. Trump said publically he wants the president to investigate the Bidens. According to Holmes Sonland said Trump only cares about "big stuff" meaning the Bidens. They delivered message to Ukraine military aid was conditioned on investigations. There is evidence. You can argue there isn't enough or that it sucks or that you don't care... but dismissing it all and asserting there is nothing is willful ignorance. It's a conscious choice.
Re:Slight correction to the summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire purpose of foreign aid is to get something you want. There is no foreign aid WITHOUT a quid pro quo. And that isn't even what happened here. Nothing was withheld on the basis of investigating Biden.
Re:Slight correction to the summary (Score:4, Insightful)
No, because an investigation was started because of a whistle-blower, which made it very clear that that plan was bust.
The problem that you and a whole lot of other people don't seem to get is that trying to do something criminal and failing because you're caught in the act is still illegal. You can't hand back the cash you just stole from the bank when the cops show up and walk out like nothing happened.
And on top of that, our public servants are held to a much higher standard than the average Joe. They take an oath to not enrich themselves using the resources of the government. If Trump was making deals as a private citizen, no big deal. If he's doing it to benefit himself as a representative of the government, that's unconstitutional.
Why in god's name he thought that releasing a transcript where he said, "I'd like you to do us a favor though.." I will never know. It's like Bill Clinton producing a dry cleaning slip showing he paid to clean the dress.
Re:Slight correction to the summary (Score:4, Interesting)
"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue..." (Score:3, Insightful)
"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and I still wouldn't lose any voters"
This is probably the truest thing that ever came out of the mouth of that miserable piece of garbage. Nobody knows better than the republicans in congress themselves what a rotten shit pile Trump is. And yet, they still voted to protect him, because he's the guy on "their side". Whores.
As for the people who keep defending and supporting Trump no matter what, well, now you know exactly what your God thinks of you.
Re: "I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue.. (Score:4, Funny)
No such thing as bad publicity (Score:4, Insightful)
This is generating a lot of publicity for Trump, this whole thing looks like his election campaign. Don't forget there is no such thing as bad publicity and I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is driving the effort to get himself impeached so that voters stay focused on him. Don't forget, he registered as being on the campaign trail the day after he became president.
Here is my prediction: The impeachment process with fail which will generate great sympathy for Trump. Trump will be elected in with an even greater majority than before and he will be the first President to break the precedent of two terms as president set by Washington. In doing this he will overshadow all other presidents that have come before him. Does anyone here believe that this man hasn't already planned such a move or is capable of it? He's certainly tricked everyone into believing he is a buffoon, which clearly he is not.
I hope I'm wrong.
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It will hurt Trump in the short term but the longer the public has to think about it and look into the supposed evidence the more they will perceive the impeachment as the Democrats abusing the constitution for the sake of a publicity stunt and Trump will end up the sympathetic victim of a witch hunt.
It's almost like the Democrats want Trump to be re-elected as much as Trump does.
A unmitigated disaster for the democrats (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of what Trump did, these impeachment proceedings are going to ultimately fail and in the mean time the news coverage has been almost 100% focused Trump (just the way Trump loves it).
This has been disastrous for all the Democratic presidential candidates, their campaign dollars will gain them almost no purchase whatsoever in environment in which the media frenzy is more focused on Trump than ever. Only the leading Democratic contender, Joe Biden is getting any airspace and it's almost entirely negative.
This has got to be one of the biggest political tactical blunders US politics has ever seen.
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Unfortunately, doing nothing wasn't an option. The real problem is that they delayed too long and weren't able to give it the full effort it deserved. Everyone who was issued a subpoena should have been taken to court, but at this late stage, it would take too long. If they had started a year ago, using obstruction of justice and other crimes detailed in the Mueller report, they'd be voting on impeachment today but the result would probably be better for them. They would have had time to sue everyone wh
Re:A unmitigated disaster for the democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an unmitigated disaster for the people of the US as it shows so many of them to be completely unthinking when it comes to this. They just believe the headlines that get blasted to them repeatedly from whatever the main source of news they watch and that's their opinion.
The fact is that Trump has committed a large number of impeachable offences that any one of which is worse than what the Republicans tried to remove Clinton from office for. Yet 30%+ of the citizenship are blindly throwing their support behind this train wreck of a Presidency. They show outrage at Biden's son but there's no spark of madness at Trumps' children for doing the same thing (taking advantage of their parents position to make money and gain power).
americans (Score:3, Insightful)
How the hell can he still have that much support. So you re-elected bush and that worked out so well right? Might as well double down again eh?
gamblers, the lot of you. 200k dead in iraq and the international economy in shambles the last time you supported a retard. And before that, with reagan, sold you out to china and killed the middle class. Now your man is a senile internet troll. And every day he is fed well.
You are riding for a fall in this here century.
Re:americans (Score:5, Informative)
Really. Even liberals nowadays admit that Bush saved more lives in Africa than he cost in Iraq. [vox.com]
Look on the bright side, Trumpers... (Score:4, Funny)
Donald Trump has now finally accomplished something Barack Obama couldn't.
Trump supporters see this as a badge of honor (Score:3, Informative)
Considering Trump's had a great few weeks ...
First came news that the U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs in November, far exceeding economic forecasts. Not only that, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised the August and September jobs reports upward, adding 41,000 more jobs to the Trump economic record. And a new Quinnipiac poll found that 57% of Americans said they are better off financially since Trump took office.
In a move that will further bolster the economy, Trump reached agreement with House Democrats to move forward on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), giving the president a major win. Within days, Trump also reached a “Phase 1” trade deal with China, postponing new tariffs on Chinese goods that were set to kick in and cutting tariffs on some Chinese products he had previously imposed in half. The administration expects a $200 billion boost in exports over two years from the deal. Both deals will certainly bolster the president’s standing with the rural and working-class voters who defected to Trump from the Democrats in 2016.
That’s not all. Trump also reached agreement with Democrats on a spending bill averting a government shutdown. He secured Democratic support on a tax bill that would repeal three Obamacare taxes, including the “Cadillac tax” on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance—a major win for union workers. And the House approved a $738 billion defense spending bill that would authorize the creation of his Space Force and his parental leave policy for federal workers, while not including restrictions Democrats had threatened on use of defense dollars to build a border wall.
Trump also got good news from across the pond, when Boris Johnson’s Conservatives trounced the Labour Party by effectively following Trump’s 2016 campaign script—appealing to working-class voters with an anti-globalist message, promises to protect entitlements and make “colossal” investments in infrastructure. The Tory victory showed that Trump’s brand of conservative populism is still potent.
The Democrats' answer? 2020 political suicide
Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you live in a Red State you should be calling your Senator and demanding his removal. He really went to far this time. This isn't funny anymore. This isn't owning the libs. We will all be owned if this is allowed.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump used the office of President to solicit opposition research against an opponent and an American Citizen
Actually you mean the Obama administration did that, against Trump. The Obama FBI and the DOJ abused the FISA process to investigate and spy on the Trump campaign.
In this case Trump asked the Ukrainian president to look into Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election, and then he asked them to look into the influence Biden exerted that led to the firing of their prosecutor. There's no disputing either of those things took place, and there is nothing wrong with investigating them. That's why this is nonsense. They cant even decide what the crime is. Quid Pro Quo? Bribery? Extortion? They accused him of all these things repeatedly but didn't charge him with anything but the vague "abuse of power" and nonsensical "obstruction of congress". The real power abuse is what the House has been up to for the last three years.
This will backfire badly on the Democrats. Trump will get re-elected, and the next Democrat president will be hounded and impeached as payback.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
"Obstruction of Congress" is not a crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time the President vetoes a bill he's obstructing congress.
This is just crazy.
Re:"Obstruction of Congress" is not a crime (Score:4, Interesting)
Every time the President vetoes a bill he's obstructing congress. This is just crazy.
I would argue that it's practically his job to obstruct congress.
The Democrats have been calling for impeachment since election day 2016. When they couldn't find anything to impeach him for, they decided to try to convince everyone that a conversation with the Ukraine was worthy of it.
This is sad, and it makes them look pathetic. That's not a good way to win the next election.
Watching US politics is much like a horror movie (Score:4, Insightful)
It's fun to watch, it's kinda thrilling, but you wouldn't want to trade places with anyone in it for anything.
Pass the popcorn.
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok. If Trump is innocent, you should welcome a trial and presentation of the evidence. Otherwise, something doesn't add up.
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:4, Informative)
Really? Innocent people should welcome being tried for crimes?
I didn't say Trump should welcome it. I said his supporters should.
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's not what's happening here, so why bring it up?
This isn't a criminal trial. This is a political trial, which is why it's held in congress and not in a court. And in politics, optics are king.
If you are innocent and want the people going after you to look bad, you have the trial and show that their garbage investigation is garbage.
What's very telling about this is that all the Republicans are attacking the process, and nobody is even mentioning the evidence. "I'd like you to do us a favor though..." is pretty black and white, especially if your people have been hitting your partner hard with your demands leading up to that call.
And the process for impeachment outlined in the constitution is incredibly vague. The house gets to impeach, and the senate holds the trial. There's not much more than that outlined, so throwing a fit about the process is definitely a smokescreen. This isn't like a regular criminal trial where how it works is clearly spelled out.
The combination of screeching about the process and ignoring the evidence is pretty transparent. It's great theater for the base and anyone not really paying attention, but ten seconds of critical thought makes it seem like panic and throwing shit against the wall.
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
What's very telling about this is that all the Republicans are attacking the process, and nobody is even mentioning the evidence.
"If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table."
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
The republic became in danger the day people freely, wilfully and knowingly voted a well known psychopath, narcissist, compulsive-liar, con-man, sexual predator and child molester in the white hoiuse.
If that's what the american people have sunk down to, then they deserve neighter a republic or democracy. What they deserve is to be struck across the head with a large cast-iron frying pan. Repeatedly.
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Yet you have to wonder on the state of things where that became the preferred option.
I'm no Trump fan, but I've been expecting someone of that nature to hit post for a long time now, and I don't see signs of it getting better.
If Democrats win, it'll likely be on the ticket of an ultra-left zealot who'll make the Spanish Inquisition look like play time. And that'll lead to an even further right than Trump loon who'll be out to scorched earth the political opposition.
Currently, it seems like a political game
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The republic became in danger the day people freely, wilfully and knowingly voted a well known psychopath, narcissist, compulsive-liar, con-man, sexual predator and child molester in the white hoiuse.
This isn't about Bill Clinton...
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The republic is now in danger (Score:5, Insightful)
All this impeachment has done is made a mockery of the constitutional intent of impeachment. A still officially secret whistleblower was used as a pretext to draft articles of impeachment for leaps of logic that are neither high crimes nor misdemeanors.
Trump was already convicted in a court of law for defrauding charities. Is that not a high crime or misdemeanor? What sort of logical leap does it take to see him abuse his personal charity to defraud the U.S. government and still consider him fit to run our country? I've seen third-world dictators who were less flagrantly corrupt than this administration. These charges are probably the tip of a very large iceberg.
The Soviet show trial style hearings of the House Democrats will lead to the abuse of the impeachment process in the future for frivolous reasons.
No, that happened when the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blow job. Accusations of abusing presidential authority to withhold foreign aid to pressure a foreign government to investigate your political enemies is a million times closer to what the founding fathers were worried about a President doing. And anyone who is claiming that this is "frivolous" is being disingenuous at best.
Republicans in high places are preventing key people from being compelled to testify and seem to be desperately trying to avoid a real Senate trial. A properly reasoning person would ask him/herself why that is. After all, we've been told by our government for years that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. So it seems far more likely to me that the reason for their behavior is not because they think that the charges are baseless, but rather because they believe that the charges are NOT baseless, and more to the point, because if the D.C. swamp truly gets drained, many of them would likely get indicted alongside Pres. Trump.
It's only a matter of time before someone follows the money, and I expect to see a lot of dirty politicians (possibly on both sides of the aisle) wearing orange when all this is over. That's all I'm saying.
Re:Fake news man (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of those Snopes articles like:
Legend: Did person X rape and murder 45 children on Tuesday?
Rating: False
Details: Person X merely beat the people, and it was only 12 people, and it was on a Wednesday.
Your post is titled "Fake news man" but the article corroborates what melted and dgatwood are saying: Trump ran some largely phony charities, and the judge ruled that he must dissolve the foundation, give the money to real charities, and there is certain oversight in place if he tries to run another charity. The part snopes is calling "Fake" is the legend that he is "barred" from running a charity and that he "stole" from a cancer foundation.
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Re:This is not news for nerds! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A lot of us non-Americans wonder..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now this is a straight up lie. Who ever respected the US President? Did you like LBJ when he bombed Vietnam? Nixon when he bombed Vietnam? Carter when he greenlighted the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution? Reagan when he bombed Libya? Bush when he bombed Iraq? Clinton when he committed the Moagidishu Massacre? Bush when he bombed Iraq? Obama when he did nothing to stop the wars? When, exactly was this mythical era of respect?
The truth is that nobody much cares about getting your respect. Respect is a two-way street, you have to give it to get it. You've been so overwhelmingly negative for so long, and very ugly and rude about it, that nobody cares. It's like a movie franchise with an unpleasible fan base. The only thing left to do is close your ears and ignore them.
Re:A lot of us non-Americans wonder..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A lot of us non-Americans wonder..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Im pretty sure other leaders were not constantly laughing behind any of those presidents back. Sure there will always be disagreements about policy, but they could all still be taken seriously. Their fitness for office was never a question.
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Perhaps "respect" is the wrong word. Most world leaders viewed most US Presidents as competent and calculating peers.
Trump, on the other hand is like a child avatarring in an adult's body*. He's chaotic, unpredictable, narcissistic, rude, and ignores much of his own staff's advice on foreign policy.
* Trek O.S.: "The Corbomite Maneuver"
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why are you foreigners always so concerned about another country
We have no choice but to deal with you. Even if your leader is completely untrustworthy.
Conservative defense baffles me (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why 40% of the population tolerates such immature and unprofessional behavior and antics. It's baffling to me.
Possibilities include:
1. They believe ends justify means. As long as he does things such as reduce illegals coming in (or appears to), they don't care if he lies and cheats; results are results. Likewise, and/or if the economy is doing well. (Whether he deserves credit is another topic I won't go into.)
2. The red herrings tossed up by the GOP work on them. For example, GOP likes to point out that some Democrats have been "trying to impeach him as soon as he won the election", or "Democrats are mis-characterizating the call". But what comes out of Democrats' mouths is irrelevant. The trial is about Trump's actions, not about Democrats saying stupid shit. It's bad logic to tie the two, and two wrongs don't make a right. But much of our population is not educated on common logic and debate fallacies, and thus may be successfully duped by them.
3. They honestly believe that since there is no known explicit quid-pro-quo (QPQ) statement (IF-THEN), it's not impeachable. But the call can clearly be mistaken for QPQ even if by chance T didn't intend it. But the fact he doesn't seem to know or care that it COULD be mistaken for QPQ is very concerning in itself. (After all, it's a "perfect call".) Further, he did ask multiple countries to look into possible Biden crimes in front of TV cameras. Even without a possible QPQ connection in the TV case, it's still very wrong. (He did similar concerning "finding Hillary's emails" before the election.) If the GOP argued T was clearly wrong but it's not up to the level of impeachment, they could at least appear to have some integrity. For example, a GOP Congress member could say, "I agree his statements are unprofessional and that he should apologize, but are not bad enough to justify impeachment." Instead, most of GOP use deflections and logical fallacies. However, GOP politicians and T-supporting voters may be applying different arguments. Has anybody seen a supporter "reason poll" that would answer that?
Re:Conservative defense baffles me (Score:4, Funny)
I don't understand why 40% of the population tolerates such immature and unprofessional behavior and antics.
It's what happens when you grow up watching reality TV?
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