The Impeachment Thread

[Larry]

3 hours ago, visionary said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dan T.]

For the life of me, I don't know how anybody can listen to Doug "Foghorn Leghorn" Collins and think "Yeah, I want that guy representing me in Congress."

[NoCalMike]

The Republicans have stated one fact: "The President said he didn't do it"  although on other occasions he admitted to doing it, so that kind of cancels out or at least makes their 1 fact a wash.

[Mooka]

30 minutes ago, EmirOfShmo said:

I'd like to see that list of Republican facts that were stated in these hearings - that support letting Trump off the hook. 

 

Not hearsay, but facts. 

 

Turn on Fox News or read a Trump tweet.

[superozman]

18 minutes ago, EmirOfShmo said:

I'd like to see that list of Republican facts that were stated in these hearings - that support letting Trump off the hook. 

 

Not hearsay, but facts. 

I'd argue the "guilty" vs. "not guilty" lands in my interpretation area.  For both sides.

[NoCalMike]

One of the frustrating parts about this hearing is the Republicans get to use it as an opportunity to continue pushing the lie that the Mueller report showed "absolutely no collusion"  Nonsense.  There are people sitting in jail as well as others waiting for their own trials that show there was.  They also conveniently every single time forget to mention the part about the 10 instances of possible obstruction. 

 

 

[superozman]

8 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

One of the frustrating parts about this hearing is the Republicans get to use it as an opportunity to continue pushing the lie that the Mueller report showed "absolutely no collusion"  Nonsense.  There are people sitting in jail as well as others waiting for their own trials that show there was.  

 

 

Do you mind telling me more about this?  My understanding is the report states:

 

"did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities."

 

[NoCalMike]

9 minutes ago, superozman said:

 

Do you mind telling me more about this?  My understanding is the report states:

 

"did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities."

 

 

Instead of copy/pasting bits & pieces, I will just give you a link.  Read it and let me know what you think and/or disagree with.

 

https://time.com/5610317/mueller-report-myths-breakdown/

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2019/07/23/what-congress-should-ask-mueller/#25b2d2087836

 

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/18/18484965/mueller-report-trump-no-collusion

 

The Mueller report in essence was unable to say for example, "We have video footage of Trump and Putin sitting in a room together laughing in a sinister manner" but it's not like there wasn't a lot of troubling findings.  People are confusing collusion with criminal conspiracy.

 

In fact, what Mueller basically concluded in his report was that there is a ton of shady things going on, now it is the job of congress to go investigate what I have found to get to the bottom of this.  They never did though.

 

The problem is that people watch too many spy movies and read too many Tom Clancy novels so that they think real life works like those fictional sensationalized works of art. In real life, the players involved known damn well what they are doing is illegal or at the least very gray area shady, so they work through proxies and coded words. They don't just hop on the phone and say "please help me win" or "Please interfere" for me.   Anyone who was expecting something like that to be in the Mueller report needs to put down the James Bond movies for awhile.

[Jumbo]

1 minute ago, NoCalMike said:

 

Instead of copy/pasting bits & pieces, I will just give you a link.  Read it and let me know what you think and/or disagree with.

 

https://time.com/5610317/mueller-report-myths-breakdown/

 

 

i thought you were actually going to fall into that bottomless hole 

 

 

 

 

[Simmsy]

I caught some of this on the radio before I remembered why I can't listen to the damn thing. Some GOP congressman basically said the facts aren't facts and we have bigger thangs to worry about...about the giant deficit. We must all forget about this, come together and fix the deficit...cause by the democrats. That was all I could stand.

[mistertim]

56 minutes ago, EmirOfShmo said:

I'd like to see that list of Republican facts that were stated in these hearings - that support letting Trump off the hook. 

 

Not hearsay, but facts. 

 

Fact: Hunter Biden is a person who exists

Fact: He got a high paying job at a company, likely due to his name

Fact: ....well, that's about it.

[superozman]

5 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

 

Instead of copy/pasting bits & pieces, I will just give you a link.  Read it and let me know what you think and/or disagree with.

 

https://time.com/5610317/mueller-report-myths-breakdown/

 

So that is a legal opinion of 2 people, and I can see their points. But it is their inference of the report.  But the actual report stated the quote I did.  We can all come up with our own opinions from things we read.  

 

But I would argue, since it's not an article of impeachment, even the Democrats agree that there is no collusion, OR, no proof of collusion.

 

 

[NoCalMike]

7 minutes ago, superozman said:

 

So that is a legal opinion of 2 people, and I can see their points. But it is their inference of the report.  But the actual report stated the quote I did.  We can all come up with our own opinions from things we read.  

 

But I would argue, since it's not an article of impeachment, even the Democrats agree that there is no collusion, OR, no proof of collusion.

 

 

 

But they were never trying to impeach based on any of the Russian stuff?  Another falsity being pushed.  The impeachment inquiries has not been "going on for 3 years" There was never an impeachment inquiry into anything until the whistle blower story broke about the Ukraine stuff and the story started to snowball.

 

They stated they want to keep the impeachment more narrowly focused, they don't want it turning into what happened with Clinton where you just find different things when something else goes away.   The Russian investigation was not a "Democratic investigation" it was done by the FBI.  The only involvement from Democrats was having Mueller testify on his findings. 

 

And let's be realistic for a moment.  The Democrats could draw up 100 articles of impeachment, all of them with varying degrees of evidence to support them individually.  Would it matter?  Would the GOP vote yes on any of them?

[mistertim]

15 minutes ago, superozman said:

 

So that is a legal opinion of 2 people, and I can see their points. But it is their inference of the report.  But the actual report stated the quote I did.  We can all come up with our own opinions from things we read.  

 

But I would argue, since it's not an article of impeachment, even the Democrats agree that there is no collusion, OR, no proof of collusion.

 

 

 

Collusion isn't even a legal term (though articles of impeachment don't have to be, so there's that). It would have been some sort of conspiracy charge. What Mueller did was extensively document a wide scale top down campaign in Russia to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump as well as the Trump campaign's various acts and apparent intents to use that help to their advantage. What he couldn't do is make enough of a case to say that there was a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

 

I disagree about your point on the Democrats; I don't think it indicates that they don't believe there was any collusion or anything else worthwhile in the Mueller rerport. I think they wanted to keep things narrow and focused and that bringing the Mueller stuff into this would simply allow the Republicans to muddy the waters further and have more things to scream about while not wearing suit jackets.

 

Besides, if they were to put anything from the Mueller report into an article of impeachment it would have been obstruction of an investigation. THAT was incredibly well documented in the report and they did seem to conclude that many of the specific 10 instances demonstrated "corrupt intent" by Trump. However, Mueller said he would follow DoJ guidelines on not indicting a sitting POTUS and noted that it was the duty of Congress to take it up.

 

I'm kinda torn. On one hand I get why the Dems would want to be pretty surgical in their impeachment articles. On the other hand...good god was Trump's obstruction (or attempted obstruction) of the Mueller investigation incredibly obvious and out in the open. For any other person in the USA that would be a slam dunk felony conviction. 

[superozman]

7 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

And let's be realistic for a moment.  The Democrats could draw up 100 articles of impeachment, all of them with varying degrees of evidence to support them individually.  Would it matter?  Would the GOP vote yes on any of them?

 

I would think if there is something that is not disputable, then GOP would.  The problem is, they are bringing articles of impeachment that can be disputed.  And because they are disputable, GOP will not impeach in the senate.

 

[NoCalMike]

1 minute ago, superozman said:

 

I would think if there is something that is not disputable, then GOP would.  The problem is, they are bringing articles of impeachment that can be disputed.  And because they are disputable, GOP will not impeach in the senate.

 

 

So what exactly is there to dispute about the current articles of impeachment?

[mistertim]

5 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

 

So what exactly is there to dispute about the current articles of impeachment?

 

Yes, I'm a bit mystified by that statement as well. The Republicans aren't even bothering to argue the facts. They're just yelling, repeating conspiracy theories, and saying "Burisma" over and over. 

[illone]

28 minutes ago, superozman said:

 

So that is a legal opinion of 2 people, and I can see their points. But it is their inference of the report.  But the actual report stated the quote I did.  We can all come up with our own opinions from things we read.  

 

But I would argue, since it's not an article of impeachment, even the Democrats agree that there is no collusion, OR, no proof of collusion.

 

 

 

 

That was never Mueller's job to begin with, but became a talking point of KingDotard and his horde of ball washers.  it would be like robbing a bank and claiming "no improper touching" occurred as if it had anything to do with, well, anything.  

 

His job was to investigate possible criminal conspiracy, and i'll let you figure out the rest if you care to do your own reading of the facts.

[visionary]

49 minutes ago, superozman said:

 

Do you mind telling me more about this?  My understanding is the report states:

 

"did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities."

 

There was ample evidence of obstruction and a half dozen counts of it just in the report, not including the numerous instances we've all seen.  Conspiracy is a bit more difficult (though I think it was pretty clear in the case of Don JR. (who was given a break because he's a dumbass) Roger Stone and Manafort), and Mueller was not able to prove it with the information and witnesses they were given access to (because of...more obstruction) by the administration.  Let's not forget the dozens of indictments and ongoing investigations.

 

 

 

It's getting close to the wire, folks.  Either he goes, or America does and a lot of us along with it.

[Springfield]

I think terms like collusion and fake news are traps set up by Trump and co to get people to start using these terms that in effect mean actually nothing.  Instead of real terms like “propaganda” and “election interference”, people eat up these $2 words shouted by a huckster.

 

That and the Muller report actually uncovered several impeachable offenses.

[EmirOfShmo]

16 minutes ago, mistertim said:

I disagree about your point on the Democrats; I don't think it indicates that they don't believe there was any collusion or anything else worthwhile in the Mueller rerport. I think they wanted to keep things narrow and focused and that bringing the Mueller stuff into this would simply allow the Republicans to muddy the waters further and have more things to scream about while not wearing suit jackets.

 

Besides, if they were to put anything from the Mueller report into an article of impeachment it would have been obstruction of an investigation. THAT was incredibly well documented in the report and they did seem to conclude that many of the specific 10 instances demonstrated "corrupt intent" by Trump. However, Mueller said he would follow DoJ guidelines on not indicting a sitting POTUS and noted that it was the duty of Congress to take it up.

 

I'm kinda torn. On one hand I get why the Dems would want to be pretty surgical in their impeachment articles. On the other hand...good god was Trump's obstruction (or attempted obstruction) of the Mueller investigation incredibly obvious and out in the open. For any other person in the USA that would be a slam dunk felony conviction. 

My thoughts exactly. 

Will the Democrats use the obstruction during the Mueller investigation to support the same actions during the Ukraine investigation? 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Larry]

48 minutes ago, superozman said:

But I would argue, since it's not an article of impeachment, even the Democrats agree that there is no collusion, OR, no proof of collusion.

 

1)  There is no rule of law that says that "collusion" has to exist in the first place.  It was simply the GOP's talking point when their previous lies got shown to be lies.  

 

They stated that they had never had anything to do with Russia.  Oops, lots of records said otherwise.  

 

Then they said that they didn't know Natalia Veselnitskya was Russian.  (Really?).  Or at least, they didn't know she was representing Russia.  Oops, their oen emails show that the invitation to the meeting stated that the purpose of the meeting was to negotiate how to get the Russian government to help their campaign.  

 

"No collusion" is simply a code for "Well, you showed that we intended to solicit help from the Russian government, but you don;t have a recording of what happened inside the room (we hope).  And therefore our fourth defense is going to be that well, we tried to collude, but those tricksy Russians wouldn't collude with us, and wanted to talk about adoption, instead."  

 

(Thus not only confessing to attempting to deal with the Russian government, and coming out with an obvious lie, but a lie which is a standard Russian lie.  Even had an article posted, I think with the headline "When Russians talk about adoption?  They're talking about sanctions.")

 

2)  What's actually illegal?  Is soliciting or receiving anything of value from any foreign entity.  No collusion required.  

 

3)  But as to "no collusion":  there's a question I'll ask you:  

 

True or false:  One week before the RNC convention, (the biggest event of their campaign to date), the top three members of the Trump campaign cleared space on their calendars, so that the three of them could meet with a person who they knew to be a representative of the Russian government, to negotiate receiving campaign assistance from the Russian government?  

 

[Skintime]

1 hour ago, superozman said:

 

I would think if there is something that is not disputable, then GOP would.  The problem is, they are bringing articles of impeachment that can be disputed.  And because they are disputable, GOP will not impeach in the senate.

 

Why is there always one of these guys that show up asking questions that have been answered over and over?

[Burgold]

34 minutes ago, Skintime said:

Why is there always one of these guys that show up asking questions that have been answered over and over?

and why are they never interested in the answers or pretend that made up conspiracy theories carry the same weight as investigative reports.

 

I mean are people really believing what Devin Nunes or Gaetz or Kennedy  or Lindsey Graham spouts over the summed intelligence reports of every investigative agency? Hell, even the Republican Senate's own report completely dismisses the Ukranian nonsense that they are trying to push.