Impeaching Trump: Make America Sane Again

[BlueK]

I'm not gonna jump thru hoops, but a simple google search shows that there were headlines discussing impeachment from the beginning. I think the Democrats maybe got the idea from Trump himself, because, LOCK HER UP! But the feeding frenzy for his impeachment started at the beginning and built up steam.

Fox and CNN are becoming two sides of the same coin. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

Reuters says less than half of all Americans want Trump ousted.

if he did something impeachable recently then it doesn't matter that some democrats were prematurely talking about impeachment a couple of years ago. Using his power to withhold Congressionally authorized military funds from an ally currently being attacked by Russia until he can get a self serving political favor is not something Congress should just ignore, IMO. Whatever silly reasons some had for arguing his impeachment early on is not relevant to this situation. There is also the poll below from a couple of days ago, if that matters.


https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...achment-101245

[frank ryan]

I'm not gonna jump thru hoops, but a simple google search shows that there were headlines discussing impeachment from the beginning. I think the Democrats maybe got the idea from Trump himself, because, LOCK HER UP! But the feeding frenzy for his impeachment started at the beginning and built up steam.

Fox and CNN are becoming two sides of the same coin. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

Reuters says less than half of all Americans want Trump ousted.

MSNBC is more extreme than CNN. But I’ll admit I’ll read the websites but tend to avoid watching the news shows.

[frank ryan]

I'm not gonna jump thru hoops, but a simple google search shows that there were headlines discussing impeachment from the beginning. I think the Democrats maybe got the idea from Trump himself, because, LOCK HER UP! But the feeding frenzy for his impeachment started at the beginning and built up steam.

Fox and CNN are becoming two sides of the same coin. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

Reuters says less than half of all Americans want Trump ousted.

That’s pretty vague. Planning or predicting impeachment? Not a bad prediction looking at his corrupt past. Planning is different, and I’m not sure what “the left,” means anymore.

[Eddie]

That’s pretty vague. Planning or predicting impeachment? Not a bad prediction looking at his corrupt past. Planning is different, and I’m not sure what “the left,” means anymore.

Maxine Waters has been saying she was going to impeach Trump since Feb 2017. I remember seeing a clip of her at a rally in Cali saying they were going to impeach him before he was even in office (Nov/Dec 2016) but there's so much stuff out there on impeachment now, it's tough to find stuff from 3-4 years ago. Here's a fair representation of her calling for his impeachment on multiple occasions - LONG before anything happened with Ukraine.

https://www.glamour.com/story/maxine...ment-interview

In May 2017 she asked, “Why would we let…Trump, a con man, come in here and turn it all upside down with his lies and his disrespect?” She would keep at it, she promised, “until he’s impeached.” In September 2017, at comedian Dick Gregory’s funeral, Waters said, “When I get through with Donald Trump, he’s going to wish he had been impeached.” In November 2017 she led more than a thousand people in an “Impeach 45!” chant at Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards. It took some time, but the House of Representatives has begun to heed her call.

Waters really is the one who has taken the lead on this - if you read in that interview, she really doesn't like Trump and it really isn't about Ukraine. It's about how he treats others, it's about past financial issues and racial issues that he seems to have skated by on, it's about him being a "conservative" (She says in this interview that Pence is ultra-conservative and that in the past she has said that if Trump is impeached, Pence should be next. Ultimately she does tie it to Trump and Pence knowing or being involved in whatever Trump was doing.)

Honestly - I get it. I didn't want Trump to win either. And as I've said a hundred times, I didn't vote for him and am unlikely to vote for him this time around. But Bo's point is valid. Part of the reason so many people view the various inquiries and impeachment led by the Democrats as purely political and a bit of a witch hunt is because some, like Waters, were talking about impeachment from the beginning. Even Waters, if you read enough of her interviews talking about it, seemed to take the approach that she just KNOWS that Trump has done or will something wrong and bad enough to merit impeachment, and it's going to come out eventually, so she's going to keep looking for it until she finds it.

That just smells wrong.

I'm honestly OK if Trump is booted. I'm not a fan of his by any measure. But I am also not a fan of how political this whole thing has been from the beginning. The appearance that Dems have been looking for an excuse to impeach from the moment Trump took office, and were simply going to keep holding inquiries and investigations until they found something - like I said, it just smells wrong. And as Bo's has expressed - it is precisely that bad smell of this whole thing and the perception that the Dem's were on a witch hunt from the very beginning...from the moment he took office...to find something - ANYTHING - to use against Trump that has his base supporting him as much as ever. It's also drawn additional support for him.

[Uncle Ted]

Chuck needs to lay off the drugs especially when the senate is in session:

Embedded Tweet

[cowboy]

Interesting opinion piece coming from the New York Times. He makes a reasonable point with some interesting historical examples. I'd like to see Trump go, but I don't see how he's been caught with a smoking gun.

Trump Acts Like a Politician. That’s Not an Impeachable Offense.

[cowboy]

Who said they'd impeach him from the beginning? I hear that repeated all the time like it's gospel. I'd love to know what was said and the context as it plays into the Trump victimhood mythology. I doubt it's like you've decscribed.

All cable news is hysterical to a degree. CNN is the least bad when measured against MSNBC and Fox, but Trump fixates on them.

Absolutely nothing will come of it terms of getting him removed from office because McConnell and Graham have sworn to protect him. Recent polls show the majority of people want Trump gone. It may reengergize his base, but it can also energize his opposition.

Look no further than the start of this thread, 4 months after he took office. Many were convinced he had rigged the election and that would get him removed. Most, like I assume Lebowski was thinking, thought the guy was so crooked there would be no way he would resist the temptation to do something worthy of removal. It doesn't take much of a google search to see that lots of people were talking impeachment before he was even sworn in.

Regarding the media, I know a producer for a major network who wrote for CNN. She is very much a Democrat. She also said that CNN was so fixated on Trump that she became embarrassed to say she worked for them. Just an anecdotal story to show that media bias isn't entirely imagination.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Impeaching Trump: Make America Sane Again

Interesting opinion piece coming from the New York Times. He makes a reasonable point with some interesting historical examples. I'd like to see Trump go, but I don't see how he's been caught with a smoking gun.

Trump Acts Like a Politician. That’s Not an Impeachable Offense.

Sorry, that is not a compelling op-ed piece. The LBJ comparison was dumb. The Lincoln case was arguably more similar, but still a stretch. Furthermore, what constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor” is by definition is subjective question.

I think trump should be impeached as he clearly misused presidential power for personal gain. I can’t believe anyone could honestly believe otherwise. But the senate won’t do anything so let’s wrap up this farce and remove this clown via the ballot box.

[smokymountainrain]

Sorry, that is not a compelling op-ed piece. The LBJ comparison was dumb. The Lincoln case was arguably more similar, but still a stretch. Furthermore, what constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor” is by definition is subjective question.

I think trump should be impeached as he clearly misused presidential power for personal gain. I can’t believe anyone could honestly believe otherwise. But the senate won’t do anything so let’s wrap up this farce and respond this clown via the ballot box.

[beefytee]

Sorry, that is not a compelling op-ed piece. The LBJ comparison was dumb. The Lincoln case was arguably more similar, but still a stretch. Furthermore, what constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor” is by definition is subjective question.

I think trump should be impeached as he clearly misused presidential power for personal gain. I can’t believe anyone could honestly believe otherwise. But the senate won’t do anything so let’s wrap up this farce and remove this clown via the ballot box.

Yeah, this guy lost me in the first paragraph

The precedents set by the articles of impeachment, however, will endure far longer. And regrettably, the House of Representatives has transformed presidential impeachment from a constitutional parachute — an emergency measure to save the Republic in free-fall — into a parliamentary vote of “no confidence.”

This seems much more applicable to the Clinton impeachment than this impeachment.

But apparently this impeachment will be the one that sends us down some death spiral where every president gets impeached.

[cowboy]

Sorry, that is not a compelling op-ed piece. The LBJ comparison was dumb. The Lincoln case was arguably more similar, but still a stretch. Furthermore, what constitutes a “high crime or misdemeanor” is by definition is subjective question.

I think trump should be impeached as he clearly misused presidential power for personal gain. I can’t believe anyone could honestly believe otherwise. But the senate won’t do anything so let’s wrap up this farce and respond this clown via the ballot box.

I don't know enough about the case or constitutional law to say it's compelling, but it's interesting. Like "high crime and misdemeanor", "personal gain" is also subjective. It may or may not include political power, depending on who defines it. Hunter Biden clearly had no business being on the board of directors, and no reasonable person can argue he was there for any other reason than his father's political position. Investigating his position on the board was almost undoubtedly politically motivated, but the evidence seems circumstantial. I've already offered more opinion than my knowledge qualifies, so I'll stop there. Like I said, I'd like to see him go, but I don't know that the evidence we have so far in this case is airtight enough to do it. Even if it was, the senate is so partisan that they'd never convict. The most interesting thing about the article is that the NYT featured it as the lead piece in the Op-Ed section.

[BlueK]

Maxine Waters has been saying she was going to impeach Trump since Feb 2017. I remember seeing a clip of her at a rally in Cali saying they were going to impeach him before he was even in office (Nov/Dec 2016) but there's so much stuff out there on impeachment now, it's tough to find stuff from 3-4 years ago. Here's a fair representation of her calling for his impeachment on multiple occasions - LONG before anything happened with Ukraine.

https://www.glamour.com/story/maxine...ment-interview



Waters really is the one who has taken the lead on this - if you read in that interview, she really doesn't like Trump and it really isn't about Ukraine. It's about how he treats others, it's about past financial issues and racial issues that he seems to have skated by on, it's about him being a "conservative" (She says in this interview that Pence is ultra-conservative and that in the past she has said that if Trump is impeached, Pence should be next. Ultimately she does tie it to Trump and Pence knowing or being involved in whatever Trump was doing.)

Honestly - I get it. I didn't want Trump to win either. And as I've said a hundred times, I didn't vote for him and am unlikely to vote for him this time around. But Bo's point is valid. Part of the reason so many people view the various inquiries and impeachment led by the Democrats as purely political and a bit of a witch hunt is because some, like Waters, were talking about impeachment from the beginning. Even Waters, if you read enough of her interviews talking about it, seemed to take the approach that she just KNOWS that Trump has done or will something wrong and bad enough to merit impeachment, and it's going to come out eventually, so she's going to keep looking for it until she finds it.

That just smells wrong.

I'm honestly OK if Trump is booted. I'm not a fan of his by any measure. But I am also not a fan of how political this whole thing has been from the beginning. The appearance that Dems have been looking for an excuse to impeach from the moment Trump took office, and were simply going to keep holding inquiries and investigations until they found something - like I said, it just smells wrong. And as Bo's has expressed - it is precisely that bad smell of this whole thing and the perception that the Dem's were on a witch hunt from the very beginning...from the moment he took office...to find something - ANYTHING - to use against Trump that has his base supporting him as much as ever. It's also drawn additional support for him.

That the democrats don't like him and have wanted him out I don't see how is relevant to whether he did something wrong or not in this instance. It's a nonsense defense.

[frank ryan]

So Maxine Waters is a very far left individual. She does not represent pulse of the Democratic Party any more than Steve King does the GOP.

[BlueK]

The Democrats are stupid and have done a lot of dumb things, and they obviously hate Trump, and I don't like them, so...

we're going to give Trump a pass on abusing his position as president to solicit a political favor from a foreign ally currently at war with an invading neighbor and from whom he tried to hold back funds allocated by Congress to help them, until they can announce an investigation into the guy I think has a shot at being his opponent in the next election.

Democrats being morons doesn't excuse that.

political polarization and tribalism has made us insane.

[Topper]

I do not intend to watch the trial, only to watch those watching the trial. My reasons are mostly pragmatic and lack of interest. I don't have the time to spend hours watching politicians pontificate, but my initial observations of the trial watchers are that there must be two trials going on, one that the Democrats are watching and one that the GOP voters are watching. So watching the watchers is more fun than watching the trial. Plus, it doesn't take as much time.