The Impeachment Thread

[Jumbo]

1 minute ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Motion to table.

 

 

could just hit them with a table

[tshile]

4 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

I am not ruling out that he is indeed a buffoon, but I also think the other part is true as well. 

 

Absolutely.

 

Which leads me back to my post the other day - there needs to be a serious national conversation about this once trump is gone.

 

Because there's a laundry list of enablers that chose the anti-american, Russian foreign policy to back to the determinant of the United States.

 

There should be some accountability forced on them for that. Real accountability.

 

Like charges of treason.

[NoCalMike]

The other problem with the "you should just wait for the courts" argument is that Trump is just making things up as far as justifications not to turn over information and not allowing witnesses to testify.  There is zero precedent for what he is doing and to be perfectly honest the right thing for the Supreme Court to do is tell Trump they aren't hearing his nonsense challenge because there are already laws on the books to follow for these situations so listen to what the lower courts said and comply with Congress.

[tshile]

Correct. It's a stalling/bully tactic.

 

reminds me of the stories of how he screwed over small business contractors for all his real estate projects... make them take you to court, and throw money at fighting them, even if you're wrong, because odds are they can't afford the fight

 

the democrats couldn't (or chose not to) afford the fight. seems like they feel they didn't need to either. but they knew that fight wasn't worth the cost at the moment.

[NoCalMike]

Tom McClintock, that idiot represents a district up the hill from where I live.

 

Love his attempt to suggest that your expert legal analysis is rendered meaningless depending on who you voted for.   Smh.....

[NoCalMike]

Turley's analysis just keeps getting wackier.  Now he is suggesting, it would seem, that anything Trump does that is unprecedented can't be used as a reason for impeachment because we don't know if it is actually against the law until the courts (seemingly Supreme Court) validates that it is against the law..........EXCEPT.........we already have these laws on the books.  WTF

 

Is Debbie Lesko, Trump in a wig?

[NoCalMike]

Props to Rep. Jayapal for bringing up the point that I don't think is repeated enough.  Trump never cared about any actual investigation into Hunter Biden, he just wanted to pressure Ukraine into publicly announcing an "investigation" in hopes that it would create smoke in the public square.  It was entirely political, zero to do with corruption. It was always just about shoveling dirt on Biden by way of his son. 

[Chachie]

As soon as I heard Turley say, "I've been friends with Bill Barr for years," I knew what we were dealing with.

[bcl05]

I hate Jonathan Turley.  We need more proof?!?  Trump said it on the transcript.  He said it on live TV.  There isn't anything more to prove?  The only question is whether 2+2=4 or if we are just going to deny objective reality. 

[NoCalMike]

Next time one of the GOPers on this committee submits "Trump said he didn't do it, so did Zelensky" as some kind of evidence, the very next Democrat to speak should pull out a list of all the Trump administration officials that have been charged and convicted so far, and ask the entire room if any of them admitted to doing it?

3 minutes ago, bcl05 said:

I hate Jonathan Turley.  We need more proof?!?  Trump said it on the transcript.  He said it on live TV.  There isn't anything more to prove?  The only question is whether 2+2=4 or if we are just going to deny objective reality. 

 

It sounds like the GOP is 75% total denial and 25% sort of saying, "eh maybe he did some of this, but is it really that bad? Yeah he broke the law, but no one got hurt, so who cares?"

[mcsluggo]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

yeah man, been that way for a while

 

and honestly it’s not that unique. Majority of people (at least it’s my understanding) get their news from sources they trust. And they don’t fact check it. And they don’t go to the source the “other side” trusts. They accept what their trusted news source tells them, because it’s their trusted news source...

 

i realize that generally speaking the well-informed-politically demographic here on ES skews heavily liberal, but I think you guys have created your own echo chamber on this topic and have come to believe that many people on your side are as (Generally) educated as you guys, put genuine effort into being informed on politics, etc. 

 

in my experience you guys are the exception. The norm is uninformed. And even if the people on the left happen to be on the right side of things, in my experience it’s not really because (as a whole) they’re more informed. My experience is they’re just as basic about it all as their republican counterparts. The chips just fell that way this time. 

 

 

 

i could buy the argument to a point...   

 

But lets set-up a pretend environment where there is NO actual substantive difference between the 2 side's platforms and candidates, with a starting point where the country is evenly divided between team a and team b  (one team is GOP and the other is Dems... it doesn't matter which); and then we assume that each side randomly draws the same number of booger-eating morons just by random chance, and they make-up x-percent of the electorate (say 30%, but it doesn't matter how much):   so half the country is half team a, half is team b and they have the same number of absolute idiots on each side and the same boring politicians on both sides.      

 

 

 

 

but then... you introduce FOX news.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

that actually changes EVERYTHING from a "dynamic game" standpoint.   

 

 

 

 

One team has the majority of their team information funneled through unadulterated ****.   the other team gets information funneled through competitive  sources subject some degree of  peer-review and fact-checking oversight that is above the level of "pure unadulterated ****".   

 

the funnel affects the platform.   the neutral platform that is  funneled through **** will over time begin to taste and smell more like ****.   over time this will affect the candidates that are successful carrying this ****-smelling platform to their team.   Its quickly becomes a vicious ****ty circle

 

The portion of the population that are ANY level above booger-eating moron, are going to be affected by this disparity in team information (they will become tired of smelling and tasting ****), and will self select towards the relatively less ****ty-smelling platform.       

 

 

from that point on, even if each team has, and maintains 30% of their core constituency as booger eating morons **  the NON-booger-eating morons are going to gravitate away from the ****, and the booger-eating morons will be a much higher proportion of the remaining constituency of the ****ty smelling team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

all of this is obviously complicated by ACTUAL non-neutral platforms (some people will prefer platform a or b .. and will tolerate some deterioration of its relative quality, because of the underlying fundamentals it advances).   but i would also argue that the booger-eating-morons are NOT randomly distributed, and that one team currently actively seeks a higher proportion of them (and it is NOT the "low information inner city constituency" that Matt Bevin was dogwhistling about today)  

 

[NoCalMike]

2 minutes ago, mcsluggo said:

all of this is obviously complicated by ACTUAL non-neutral platforms (some people will prefer platform a or b .. and will tolerate some deterioration of its relative quality, because of the underlying fundamentals it advances).   but i would also argue that the booger-eating-morons are NOT randomly distributed, and that one team currently actively seeks a higher proportion of them (and it is NOT the "low information inner city constituency" that Matt Bevin was dogwhistling about today)  

 

 

I was reading up some on the Nixon impeachment and there is this total revisionist history by the GOP right now to act like that was an example of some big agreement about his impeachment, when in fact the Republicans for the most part were just as against that impeachment as they are against Trump's all the way until the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon vs. The United States, that he absolutely had to hand over recordings and documents pertaining to the impeachment inquiry.  Once that happened, the GOP knew there was zero way to stop the truth and they privately met with Nixon and talked him into resigning. (Likely so it wouldn't have to go down in history that he was removed from office).

 

Trump is basically stonewalling and obstructing much in the same manor, but as of yet, no one or institution has forced his hand.  Every court that has heard his case thus far as ruled against him, but he doesn't care.  This is why the Supreme Court, imo, has an absolute obligation to either take on this case ASAP, or refuse to hear it at all and rule that Trump must follow what the lower court said, which is that he has no make believe immunity to withhold all of this stuff.

[tshile]

yeah @mcsluggo i wasn't trying to engage in some sort of 'both sides are equal' argument.

 

i was really just pointing out that, from my vantage point, the majority of voters are, well, uninformed. 

 

Realistically how many people do you think even understand how their own personal taxes work? The part of the code that's the easiest to understand, discuss, and see direct impact. How much money your government takes from you, and why, should be a pretty critical issue in the subject of 'governance'. I think we're poorly educated on that topic, to say the least.

 

Foreign policy? What about regulations? Pick a sector, banking, environment, you tell me how well it's all understood by the average person. Healthcare? Education? What about infrastructure, does the average person have a clue beyond a generic "agency rated our dams with a D this year" report that crosses cable news?

 

For all the bright people we have in this country, many of them are single-subject-bright. I've listened to high quality doctors that run high quality organizations (not just have practicing rights, but run the organization as a CMO or some such) go on and on about QANON stuff - full fledged believer.

 

Smart guy. For some reason he's also a complete moron at the same time.

 

I know plenty of smart people with good intentions that still draw the majority of their opinions from headlines, with no verification on their part.

 

I mean... follow any political conversation long enough and you're bound to get a lesson and how poorly understood statistics are in this country. I know tons of people that recite 'popular' statistics, and most of them don't know what they actually mean.

Yes. One side appears to have mastered weaponizing this 'trait' of ours.

 

My point was, realistically speaking, if you zoom out to the bigger picture of "How informed are we as a country", that problem exists on both sides and seems to (from where I sit) consume the majority of both sides.

 

And yeah, I think the left could be weaponized just as easily as the right. And i think we have examples that suggest that I'm, at a minimum, not crazy for thinking this. Even some that suggest it's been tried to varying success. (And to that point, I think the weaponizing of it by the GOP is a factor that makes weaponizing the left significantly easier...)

[mcsluggo]

man.. you guys type a helluva lot faster than i do!

[NoCalMike]

Honestly, I don't even think "uninformed" voters are necessarily the problem in itself, it is the combination of being uninformed with having a source such as Fox News to do the informing. You can be uninformed on the details but still use your brain to see what is going on, at the macro level at least. 

 

Obviously I will sound biased here, but I really do think that if the majority of the country actually watched the impeachment hearings from the start up to now, but also watched zero analysis on it from their cable news station/radio/blogs, then the support for impeachment would be off the charts.  The reason I say this is because I don't see how anyone thinking objectively could suggest Trump "did nothing wrong."  If more conservatives were at least acknowledging wrong-doing and then trying to lay out the case why it should not mean impeachment that would be one thing, but just about every GOP elected official along with the voting base are refusing to even acknowledge any of this comes off shady in the least. 

[NoCalMike]

Good job by Joe Neguse. 

[NoCalMike]

It's clever of the GOP to conflate the Mueller report/Russia stuff with the current impeachment proceedings.  The two things are unrelated. 

[Burgold]

9 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

It's clever of the GOP to conflate the Mueller report/Russia stuff with the current impeachment proceedings.  The two things are unrelated. 

It's also ridiculous because the Mueller report showed that Russia did interfere with our elections and illustrated eighteen different ways Trump was guilty of obstruction.

 

The GOP is relying on Barr's summary of the Mueller report that Barr admitted he wrote without reading the Mueller report.

[Jumbo]

i could see a fun campaign event featuring collins and gohmert with those feral hogs in texas enjoying a little meet-n-greet-n-eat with a side of cruz 

 

[Springfield]

So can someone give me a brief description of this committee’s process?

 

Are they calling in a list of witnesses like the last one or is this just a few “specialists” who will give their opinion on already known facts?

 

Also, are there other committees that will hold public impeachment hearings?

 

Lastly, can the dems get someone with some real fire and charisma to become the face of impeachment?

[RabidFan]

1 hour ago, mcsluggo said:

man.. you guys type a helluva lot faster than i do!

 

you must be 'uninformed' with the Qwerty keyboard.

[PokerPacker]

12 minutes ago, RabidFan said:

 

you must be 'uninformed' with the Qwerty keyboard.

You don't use Dvorak?

[twa]

1 hour ago, Jumbo said:

i could see a fun campaign event featuring collins and gohmert with those feral hogs in texas enjoying a little meet-n-greet-n-eat with a side of cruz 

 

 

we going hog hunting?

 

somebody dig a hole.

[NoCalMike]

2 hours ago, Burgold said:

It's also ridiculous because the Mueller report showed that Russia did interfere with our elections and illustrated eighteen different ways Trump was guilty of obstruction.

 

The GOP is relying on Barr's summary of the Mueller report that Barr admitted he wrote without reading the Mueller report.

 

Oh totally. What I am more meaning is the way the GOP is saying things like "they tried to impeach him over........"  Umm, really?  Was I asleep during the impeachment trial that happened in response to the Mueller report? 

[mistertim]

2 hours ago, Springfield said:

So can someone give me a brief description of this committee’s process?

 

Are they calling in a list of witnesses like the last one or is this just a few “specialists” who will give their opinion on already known facts?

 

Also, are there other committees that will hold public impeachment hearings?

 

Lastly, can the dems get someone with some real fire and charisma to become the face of impeachment?

 

It was a group of Constitutional law scholars answering questions about impeachment itself and whether they believe the evidence presented against Trump was grounds for impeachment, in their opinions, and why. Otherwise it was mostly the same as in the investigative phase in the Intel Committee...Dems asking questions that reinforced the facts already put forth and getting clarification, and Republicans screaming at the clouds without making any discernible points. Oh and a bit of completely unqualified people chastising Constitutional law experts for trying to interpret the founders' intents...right before going ahead and interpreting it themselves.

 

There were 4 experts. 3 Called by Dems and 1 by Republicans. The one from Republicans, Turley, seemed to not think impeachment was correct in this case though he didn't seem to be able to make any specific and solid points as to why; it seemed to shift around based on the scenario. He also contradicted himself multiple times and went against his own opinion when he testified for Clinton's impeachment years ago. 

 

As to your last question...I'm not really sure. I actually thought Schiff did a pretty good job at the Intel Committee, as coming across as very serious and capable with a little fire. But Nadler seems a bit of a wuss and kinda always has been. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground. The Rs mostly seem to come across as just screaming lunatics now while the Dems mostly come across as milquetoast politicians without any fire.