The Trump Impeachment

[Sean Hayden]

Nope. That's not my thinking.

--//--

Jim, who's quibbling over semantics?

[Scot Dutchy]

The American political system at every level is corrupt and totally undemocratic which is why it is in the mess it is in but it will never change because it cant and wont as too many profit from this mess. The 1% have the power they want and they are not going to give it up. Both parties are as bad as each other just that one is more blatant about it and could not care less as they have the system sown up.

[JimC]

Jim, who's quibbling over semantics?

Whether the term "legitimate" is appropriate or not to the current process?

[pErvinalia]

Sean's impeachment thinking is that we should never start any impeachment unless the votes are there in the senate to impeach.

My thinking is that it has never hurt a party to impeach. If the president is crooked, the house has (or had) the power to investigate and expose him for what he is. Maybe there are some independents that need to know.

The impeachment process also brings new evidence to light. Who knows, it may swing some Repubs.

[JimC]

Swing from a lamp post, come the revolution?

[pErvinalia]

[Brian Peacock]

Sean's impeachment thinking is that we should never start any impeachment unless the votes are there in the senate to impeach.

No it isn't.

My thinking is that it has never hurt a party to impeach. If the president is crooked, the house has (or had) the power to investigate and expose him for what he is. Maybe there are some independents that need to know.

The impeachment protocols only work if representatives put the the interests of the people and the constitution above party or personal interests. The political culture in the US is so toxic now that this seems highly unlikely to ever happen again. For one, you can't have a robust impeachment process if one or other side of the house don't play with a straight bat. And two, everything in US politics now seems to be played against the backdrop of identity politics, such that even an independent enquiry initiated at the highest levels by the government is constantly lambasted in the House and in the media as a opposition witch hunt by that same government. As I once said to our erstwhile GOP PR expert, when the only argument a party has is that the other side are responsible for all the badness then you've basically descended into political sectarianism.

[Tero]

Sean's impeachment thinking is that we should never start any impeachment unless the votes are there in the senate to impeach.

No it isn't.

My thinking is that it has never hurt a party to impeach. If the president is crooked, the house has (or had) the power to investigate and expose him for what he is. Maybe there are some independents that need to know.

The impeachment protocols only work if representatives put the the interests of the people and the constitution above party or personal interests. The political culture in the US is so toxic now that this seems highly unlikely to ever happen again. For one, you can't have a robust impeachment process if one or other side of the house don't play with a straight bat. And two, everything in US politics now seems to be played against the backdrop of identity politics, such that even an independent enquiry initiated at the highest levels by the government is constantly lambasted in the House and in the media as a opposition witch hunt by that same government. As I once said to our erstwhile GOP PR expert, when the only argument a party has is that the other side are responsible for all the badness then you've basically descended into political sectarianism.

What investigation? The Ukraine hacked the election conspiracy theory?

[Tero]

let's look at the conspiracy

It wasn't so much the Clinton campaign, per se, but a Democratic operative working with the Democratic National Committee did reach out to the Ukrainian government in an attempt to get damaging information about the Trump campaign.

That operative's name is Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American former Clinton White House aide who was tasked with ethnic outreach on behalf of the Democratic Party. As Vogel reported, she knew about Paul Manafort's extensive connections to the pro-Russian regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and decided to dig deeper into possible connections between Moscow and the Trump campaign. As part of that effort, she discussed Manafort with the high-ranking officials at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C.

The Democratic National Committee denies that it was ever in contact with the Ukrainian government.

Depends on how you define collusion. However, as Vogel pointed out in his story, it's not really the same thing as what the Russian government apparently did to help the Trump campaign.

How so?
Well, for one thing, Ukraine is so rife with corruption and internal divisions that Kiev wouldn't really be able to assist the Clinton campaign all the much. Or, rather, they certainly couldn't match what U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia was doing.

According to U.S. intelligence, Russia was involved in a multifaceted influence campaign personally supervised by President Vladimir Putin, and which utilized Russia's vast intelligence apparatus. Ukraine, a poor and disjointed country, wouldn't be able to compete on those terms even if they wanted to.
But it's still weird, right?
You bet. Although the Russian efforts to interfere in last year's election were almost certainly more sophisticated and worrying than anything the Ukrainians and the DNC pulled off, we don't expect campaigns to behave this way. Or, rather, we didn't before 2016.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-ukrain ... -election/

In other words, "would you like an army of our trolls to invade your social media" vs something or other on Manafort and Ukraine

[Tero]

Chalupa Manafort nothingburger
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/2 ... upa-072966

[Tero]

[L'Emmerdeur]

The US Department of State refused to produce documents subpoenaed by the House of Representatives, but American Oversight (a private organisation) filed a Freedom of Information Act suit, and is getting at least some of them. So it would appear that there was no rationale based on say, national security concerns behind the refusal. I suppose an experienced tap dancer could come up with something that doesn't entail simple obstruction of Congress, but that's what it looks like.

'State Department Releases Ukraine Documents to American Oversight'

Statement from American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers

“We can see why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress. It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani’s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.

“This is just the first round of disclosures. The evidence is only going to get worse for the administration as its stonewall strategy collapses in the face of court orders.

“That American Oversight could obtain these documents establishes that there is no legal basis for the administration to withhold them from Congress. That conclusively shows that the administration is engaged in obstruction of justice. The president and his allies should ask themselves if impeachment for obstruction is worth it if the strategy isn’t even going to be effective.

“This lawsuit is just one of several American Oversight is pursuing to bring transparency to the Ukraine investigation. The public should expect more disclosures, over the administration’s strong objection, for the foreseeable future.”

[Brian Peacock]

Sean's impeachment thinking is that we should never start any impeachment unless the votes are there in the senate to impeach.

No it isn't.

My thinking is that it has never hurt a party to impeach. If the president is crooked, the house has (or had) the power to investigate and expose him for what he is. Maybe there are some independents that need to know.

The impeachment protocols only work if representatives put the the interests of the people and the constitution above party or personal interests. The political culture in the US is so toxic now that this seems highly unlikely to ever happen again. For one, you can't have a robust impeachment process if one or other side of the house don't play with a straight bat. And two, everything in US politics now seems to be played against the backdrop of identity politics, such that even an independent enquiry initiated at the highest levels by the government is constantly lambasted in the House and in the media as a opposition witch hunt by that same government. As I once said to our erstwhile GOP PR expert, when the only argument a party has is that the other side are responsible for all the badness then you've basically descended into political sectarianism.

What investigation? The Ukraine hacked the election conspiracy theory?

Mueller.

[Tero]

[L'Emmerdeur]

I think this next year is going to be a wild(er) ride. The in-your-face abuse of the power of office by Trump, just given a pass by the Republican Party seems to me to be merely the start. Rudy Giuliani basically aping a criminal henchman--'I've got something on the boss, he ain't gonna try nothin' on me.' I find that fittingly surrealistic and completely in keeping with the twisted wanna-be movie crime lord/tin pot dictator vibe that Trump has been pushing all along. What next?