REEE: [US Only] Impeachment Vote

[theymos]

I dunno. Sounds pretty bad. Sounds like Trump is using his position of the presidency to ask another president to investigate his political rival. I'm not the only one who thinks this.
...
But as we all know, even when Trump loses, he wins. I don't think its enough to proceed with the impeachment, or if they do, he will probably be acquitted.

It'll be another thing like the Mueller report: Democrats will claim that it proves that Trump is basically a dictator, while Republicans will say that Trump was only doing his job in pushing for the investigation of a credible case of corruption. (IMO the truth is somewhere in the middle here, but the truth doesn't matter in politics.) If no other facts appear making this a bigger deal, then I think that Trump will come out even cleaner from this than he did from the Mueller report, while Biden will be substantially hurt.

Trump would have to literally strangle a baby on live TV in order for him to be convicted of anything in the Senate. Even if he'd said in the transcript, "Biden is a political threat to me. If and only if you fabricate & publish official Ukrainian reports making him look bad, I promise to use my authority as president to give you military aid and provide other favors," he'd still probably be acquitted. (Though in that case it might end up being a political win for the Democrats.)

[squatz1]

I dunno. Sounds pretty bad. Sounds like Trump is using his position of the presidency to ask another president to investigate his political rival. I'm not the only one who thinks this.
...
But as we all know, even when Trump loses, he wins. I don't think its enough to proceed with the impeachment, or if they do, he will probably be acquitted.

It'll be another thing like the Mueller report: Democrats will claim that it proves that Trump is basically a dictator, while Republicans will say that Trump was only doing his job in pushing for the investigation of a credible case of corruption. (IMO the truth is somewhere in the middle here, but the truth doesn't matter in politics.) If no other facts appear making this a bigger deal, then I think that Trump will come out even cleaner from this than he did from the Mueller report, while Biden will be substantially hurt.

Trump would have to literally strangle a baby on live TV in order for him to be convicted of anything in the Senate. Even if he'd said in the transcript, "Biden is a political threat to me. If and only if you fabricate & publish official Ukrainian reports him look bad, I promise to use my authority as president to give you military aid and provide other favors," he'd still probably be acquitted. (Though in that case it might end up being a political win for the Democrats.)

I think that this is bad timing on the fact of the Dems.

They had a real chance to do this, and support from their causus on the fact that Donald Trump has obstructed justice. As there had been multiple times throughout the Mueller investigation where the guy had obstructed (If I'm not mistaken, that's what the whole second half of the report was about?)

This -- in my mind -- is a nothing burger. Trump is saying that the clear conflict of interest between Biden being the point man on the Ukraine, and Bidens son working for a company that had been under scrutiny from Ukrainian officials - then this just dissapearing, is suspicious.

I don't agree with Trump bringing it up in a call. But it doesn't seem like anything had come out of that phone call anyway. Seems like Trump had been doing what Trump does, and spit-balling, with nothing coming out of it.

Both sides are wrong here. I just don't think this rises to an impeachable offense by the POTUS.

[theymos]

They had a real chance to do this, and support from their causus on the fact that Donald Trump has obstructed justice.

They could impeach him over real things, like:
 - Waging wars without a declaration from congress.
 - Supporting the Saudi genocide in Yemen.
 - Emoluments issues with Trump's hotels, etc.
 - Wiretapping and other executive overreach.

But they don't want to impeach him for this sort of stuff because Democratic presidents have done the same things (even emoluments), and furthermore they like having an all-powerful presidency which they can exploit when they get into power and use as a scapegoat when they're out of power. So instead of pushing a powerful impeachment case which the public could actually get behind like, "bombs made in the US are as we speak being used to blow up children, at Trump's order and without congressional approval," the Dems instead search for these little "gotcha!" things which are totally Trump-specific and meaningless in any wider context, and which nobody actually cares about.

One of the most harmful trends has been the centralization of power into the presidency. Donald Trump is the ultimate head of an organization with ~4 million employees, and congress has in the past and present basically given him free reign to do whatever he wants with this insane amount of power. I'd love it if outrage over Trump leads to removal of executive powers and more skepticism of the status quo, but so far I'm not seeing any effective move in this direction.

IMO there's some chance (not a high chance, but some) that the loser of the next election will attack the legitimacy of the election, which will result in some serious chaos not seen in our lifetimes. And this will just be ridiculous bickering over who the next emperor will be, rather than actually trying to fix the problem at its source by making the presidency less powerful or otherwise fixing things fundamentally.

[nutildah]

So if in my opinion the memo looks fine, let me ask this. How would someone like Trump ask ANYTHING of another president, such that it could not be accused that he was asking for help in "investigating a political rival?" The only way I can see is for him to stay quiet.

To answer your question, he could have said ANYTHING other than "Can you please investigate Biden?" Basically it was extremely tacky to bring up Biden during what was supposed to be a congratulatory phone call and ask for help. Of course Trump being Trump said the phone call was "perfect."  

There is no give-me-this and i'll-give-you-that in that conversation. There are no threats or anything that could be construed that way...

I realize that, and legally speaking you are correct. Which is why Trump's handlers cleared him to release the memo. However, when Bill Lumberg asks you to come in and work on the weekend, you do it if you know what's good for you.


"Yeah if you could just go ahead and investigate my political rival for me, that would be just great."

Lumberg isn't making any demands, nor is he making any promises. He's just implying that something needs to be done. And if you know what's good for you, you'll do it. Of course the relationship between the two parties isn't boss/employee, but the inference being made is relatively the same. Nothing illegal going on, but it is tacky as fuck.

RAR!

You're a steaming bowl of nuts. I don't even like Biden.

[TECSHARE]

So if in my opinion the memo looks fine, let me ask this. How would someone like Trump ask ANYTHING of another president, such that it could not be accused that he was asking for help in "investigating a political rival?" The only way I can see is for him to stay quiet.

To answer your question, he could have said ANYTHING other than "Can you please investigate Biden?" Basically it was extremely tacky to bring up Biden during what was supposed to be a congratulatory phone call and ask for help. Of course Trump being Trump said the phone call was "perfect."  

There is no give-me-this and i'll-give-you-that in that conversation. There are no threats or anything that could be construed that way...

I realize that, and legally speaking you are correct. Which is why Trump's handlers cleared him to release the memo. However, when Bill Lumberg asks you to come in and work on the weekend, you do it if you know what's good for you.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/9ef6/screens_feature3-1.jpg
"Yeah if you could just go ahead and investigate my political rival for me, that would be just great."

Lumberg isn't making any demands, nor is he making any promises. He's just implying that something needs to be done. And if you know what's good for you, you'll do it. Of course the relationship between the two parties isn't boss/employee, but the inference being made is relatively the same.

RAR!

You're a steaming bowl of nuts. I don't even like Biden.

I see, so now Trump's crime is being tacky? No one said you liked Biden, but you have made it more than apparent you suffer from Trump derangement syndrome. According to you the fact that Trump asked for an investigation into corruption that happened during the previous administration is a crime while a vice president explicitly demanding the removal of an investigator looking into the illegal activities of his son "or else" is less of an issue clearly demonstrates your hypocrisy.

Three years of politically motivated unending accusations and investigations over Russiagate resulting in nothing is no issue at all, but a single request for an investigation and this is grounds for impeachment is it? You are a steaming bowl of horse shit.

[TECSHARE]

You're a steaming bowl of nuts. I don't even like Biden.

I see, so now Trump's crime is being tacky?

Did I say it was a crime?

Three years of politically motivated unending accusations and investigations over Russiagate resulting in nothing is no issue at all, but a single request for an investigation and this is grounds for impeachment is it? You are a steaming bowl of horse shit.

Hey asshole. Did I begin the impeachment inquiry? Again, this is what I said:

I don't think its enough to proceed with the impeachment, or if they do, he will probably be acquitted.

Get a grip.

Irrelevant. You pretend to be against politically motivated investigations but I haven't seen a peep of protest from you over the Russiagate clusterfuck over 3 years, but this is worthy of criticism? You still are pushing the narrative that the real issue is Trump's action's and not Biden's.

[nutildah]

Irrelevant.

How is pointing out the several ways in which you are mistaken irrelevant?

You pretend to be against politically motivated investigations but I haven't seen a peep of protest from you over the Russiagate clusterfuck over 3 years, but this is worthy of criticism?

I stayed out of the whole Russia mess because I could care less about it. This issue speaks directly about Trump's character. Which is slimy. Nothing new here, or technically illegal.

You still are pushing the narrative that the real issue is Trump's action's and not Biden's.

Wrong again. As I've been saying since the beginning, both are non-issues.

I just realized you've now shifted the focus entirely on me. This is lame. I'll be back when something new happens.

[TECSHARE]

Irrelevant.

How is pointing out the several ways in which you are mistaken irrelevant?

You pretend to be against politically motivated investigations but I haven't seen a peep of protest from you over the Russiagate clusterfuck over 3 years, but this is worthy of criticism?

I stayed out of the whole Russia mess because I could care less about it. This issue speaks directly about Trump's character. Which is slimy. Nothing new here, or technically illegal.

You still are pushing the narrative that the real issue is Trump's action's and not Biden's.

Wrong again. As I've been saying since the beginning, both are non-issues.

I just realized you've now shifted the focus entirely on me. This is lame. I'll be back when something new happens.

Exactly, you didn't give a fuck about these kind of politically motivated investigations, that is until they aligned with your values, then suddenly it is worth calling out demonstrating you don't actually hold this principle. "both are non-issues" but lets talk about how Trump doesn't look good and conveniently create false equivalency between being tacky and actual corruption. Not sure how I am going to point out how full of shit you are without focusing on your double standards. Of course you haven't focused on me personally at all during this exchange right? Standards are only for everyone else are they?

[Spendulus]

So if in my opinion the memo looks fine, let me ask this. How would someone like Trump ask ANYTHING of another president, such that it could not be accused that he was asking for help in "investigating a political rival?" The only way I can see is for him to stay quiet.

To answer your question, he could have said ANYTHING other than "Can you please investigate Biden?" Basically it was extremely tacky to bring up Biden during what was supposed to be a congratulatory phone call and ask for help. Of course Trump being Trump said the phone call was "perfect."  

There is no give-me-this and i'll-give-you-that in that conversation. There are no threats or anything that could be construed that way...

I realize that, and legally speaking you are correct. Which is why Trump's handlers cleared him to release the memo. However, when Bill Lumberg asks you to come in and work on the weekend, you do it if you know what's good for you.


"Yeah if you could just go ahead and investigate my political rival for me, that would be just great."

Lumberg isn't making any demands, nor is he making any promises. He's just implying that something needs to be done. And if you know what's good for you, you'll do it. Of course the relationship between the two parties isn't boss/employee, but the inference being made is relatively the same. Nothing illegal going on, but it is tacky as fuck.
....

I agree with your point of view here (with one exception to follow), but that is why I phrased my question the way I did. Because the only thing that would have satisfied media-spin crazed Democrats would be for him to have not mentioned it at all.

But there is one more issue, which is that in that same breathe Trump said that he understood that the prosecutor who was fired was a good man, and that perhaps he was fired unfairly. I'm unable to exclude this from the analysis, and I agree with it. If the guy was fired because of pressure from the US former administration related to the VP's son's affairs, I would like to see him reinstated with full back pay.

This has been overlooked in the discussion, and yet the prosecutor does seem to be an innocent victim in these power plays.

Then again the situation may have been more complex than that and we don't have the whole story. For example  Biden may have been confronted with a coercive demand and responded with a bigger coercive demand.

[squatz1]

They had a real chance to do this, and support from their causus on the fact that Donald Trump has obstructed justice.

They could impeach him over real things, like:
 - Waging wars without a declaration from congress.
 - Supporting the Saudi genocide in Yemen.
 - Emoluments issues with Trump's hotels, etc.
 - Wiretapping and other executive overreach.

But they don't want to impeach him for this sort of stuff because Democratic presidents have done the same things (even emoluments), and furthermore they like having an all-powerful presidency which they can exploit when they get into power and use as a scapegoat when they're out of power. So instead of pushing a powerful impeachment case which the public could actually get behind like, "bombs made in the US are as we speak being used to blow up children, at Trump's order and without congressional approval," the Dems instead search for these little "gotcha!" things which are totally Trump-specific and meaningless in any wider context, and which nobody actually cares about.

One of the most harmful trends has been the centralization of power into the presidency. Donald Trump is the ultimate head of an organization with ~4 million employees, and congress has in the past and present basically given him free reign to do whatever he wants with this insane amount of power. I'd love it if outrage over Trump leads to removal of executive powers and more skepticism of the status quo, but so far I'm not seeing any effective move in this direction.

IMO there's some chance (not a high chance, but some) that the loser of the next election will attack the legitimacy of the election, which will result in some serious chaos not seen in our lifetimes. And this will just be ridiculous bickering over who the next emperor will be, rather than actually trying to fix the problem at its source by making the presidency less powerful or otherwise fixing things fundamentally.

Right as I was reading your first few points, I was thinking the SAME exact thing. There's no way in hell that the Dems are going to go after him for that sort of stuff, because all of those things are common things that the POTUS does at this point. Not something we like to admit everyday, but Congress has ceded large amounts of control to the President for no real reason -- just because it helps their party?

The President should NEVER be this powerful, but we're so caught up in the day to day bullshit that we're never going to attack the real issues in government.

Some of these include but are not limited to
1. The President being immensely powerful, being able to do whatever he wants with his pen and his phone.
2. Congress continuously failing to limit the deficit. Both parties yell about it when they don't hold the Presidency (or Congress) but when they actually take control they don't care enough to actually ensure the country is saved for long periods of time.
3. Congress fails to do much of anything.

[BADecker]

Read the article to see where the emphases are placed.


Impeachment Odds Plummet As Trump Releases Ukraine Transcript

The Trump administration has released a White House transcript of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the heart of a whistleblower complaint.

Among other things, the transcript shows Trump discussing former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Here's the 'pressure' Trump put on Zelensky:

"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."

Earlier in the conversation, Trump says: "I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible."

The Trump administration has released a White House transcript of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the heart of a whistleblower complaint.

[Spendulus]

....
Some of these include but are not limited to
1. The President being immensely powerful, being able to do whatever he wants with his pen and his phone.
2. Congress continuously failing to limit the deficit. Both parties yell about it when they don't hold the Presidency (or Congress) but when they actually take control they don't care enough to actually ensure the country is saved for long periods of time.
3. Congress fails to do much of anything.

1. Really? How about that measly 5B for the wall?
2. This is 100% the voters' fault.
3. A feature, not a bug.

[squatz1]

....
Some of these include but are not limited to
1. The President being immensely powerful, being able to do whatever he wants with his pen and his phone.
2. Congress continuously failing to limit the deficit. Both parties yell about it when they don't hold the Presidency (or Congress) but when they actually take control they don't care enough to actually ensure the country is saved for long periods of time.
3. Congress fails to do much of anything.

1. Really? How about that measly 5B for the wall?
2. This is 100% the voters' fault.
3. A feature, not a bug.

Yeah, I think the President is wrong here. But many presidents before him have also abused the office of the Presidency -- so what do you want him to do? Sit there and be the one President in history that doesn't use the powers that Congress has literally handed over to him.

I wasn't attacking any one particular President in my post -- I was talking about overarching ideas.

Congress was supposed to do things -- even if it wasn't supposed to be done fast. They literally get little to nothing done due to hyper partianship and a gridlocked congress.

We have issues in this country that Congress can try to fix -- but we'll never get to any of that when the President is being investigated for 15 other things by all of the committess in Congress that are supposed to be working for the nation instead of working for their party above everything.

[TECSHARE]

....
Some of these include but are not limited to
1. The President being immensely powerful, being able to do whatever he wants with his pen and his phone.
2. Congress continuously failing to limit the deficit. Both parties yell about it when they don't hold the Presidency (or Congress) but when they actually take control they don't care enough to actually ensure the country is saved for long periods of time.
3. Congress fails to do much of anything.

1. Really? How about that measly 5B for the wall?
2. This is 100% the voters' fault.
3. A feature, not a bug.

Yeah, I think the President is wrong here. But many presidents before him have also abused the office of the Presidency -- so what do you want him to do? Sit there and be the one President in history that doesn't use the powers that Congress has literally handed over to him.

I wasn't attacking any one particular President in my post -- I was talking about overarching ideas.

Congress was supposed to do things -- even if it wasn't supposed to be done fast. They literally get little to nothing done due to hyper partianship and a gridlocked congress.

We have issues in this country that Congress can try to fix -- but we'll never get to any of that when the President is being investigated for 15 other things by all of the committess in Congress that are supposed to be working for the nation instead of working for their party above everything.

Lets assume for a second that the accusations of corruption against the Bidens are legitimate. How exactly should Trump have done this?

[eddie13]

Whistle-Blower Is a C.I.A. Officer Who Was Detailed to the White House
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/us/politics/who-is-whistleblower.html


More deepstate coupe attempt..

[TECSHARE]

Whistle-Blower Is a C.I.A. Officer Who Was Detailed to the White House
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/us/politics/who-is-whistleblower.html


More deepstate coupe attempt..

Apparently his lawyer has also worked for the Clintons in the past...

[Spendulus]

...

We have issues in this country that Congress can try to fix -- but we'll never get to any of that when the President is being investigated for 15 other things by all of the committess in Congress that are supposed to be working for the nation instead of working for their party above everything.

My opinion is that the Democrats are currently destroying their party.

If they believe they are "working for their party" that's foolish and naive.

International, outside influences are definitely at work in this.

[TECSHARE]

...

We have issues in this country that Congress can try to fix -- but we'll never get to any of that when the President is being investigated for 15 other things by all of the committess in Congress that are supposed to be working for the nation instead of working for their party above everything.

My opinion is that the Democrats are currently destroying their party.

If they believe they are "working for their party" that's foolish and naive.

International, outside influences are definitely at work in this.

I will give you a hint. It starts with C and ends with hina.

[eddie13]

Saw this..




https://www.scribd.com/document/427618359/Shokin-Statement

[nutildah]

If the guy was fired because of pressure from the US former administration related to the VP's son's affairs, I would like to see him reinstated with full back pay.

This has been overlooked in the discussion, and yet the prosecutor does seem to be an innocent victim in these power plays.

Then again the situation may have been more complex than that and we don't have the whole story. For example  Biden may have been confronted with a coercive demand and responded with a bigger coercive demand.

This is a fair and logical viewpoint. Yes, its true none of us know exactly what happened, and its easier to make assumptions and jump to conclusions based on our own political leanings.

The way I read thing was the prosecutor was (supposed to be) fired for being corrupt and reasons wholly unrelated to Biden's son, and of course he would say otherwise in an official statement. But we just don't know the whole story at this point.

Its going to be hard to find a non-partisan source that can put all the information together without introducing political bias; perhaps impossible.

It was personally fun for me to watch Adam Schiff grill Joseph McGuire, from an entertainment standpoint, and I still believe Trump is going to come out of this a lot more battered than Biden, but we can only wait and see what happens next.