That Impeachment Thread

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Octavious
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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#41 Post by Octavious » Mon Dec 30, 2019 11:13 am

MajorMitchell wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 12:45 am
Dear Dipbro Octavious, you are criticising a book based on my "crude summary" of one part of that book which I would diplomatically suggest is singularly unfair to it's author. Criticise me for my inability in a thread post to provide an accurate and complete representation of it's contents, or better yet, borrow a copy and read it yourself, then make your criticisms /assessment. I would recommend in particular, chapter 8- "We the Electorate".
Fair enough. Still, I fear this is unlikely to successfully compete for space on my bookshelf which is currently dominated by Pratchett, Wodehouse, Scifi, and the good lady manager, her indoors' fantasy collection. Life is too short to read about one chap's opinion on foreign politicians. If I was going to read one I'd probably start with a pro Trump book, as differing opinions to my own tend to be more interesting, but even so there are 1001 books above it on my reading list.

Far better to just wait and see what happens, and chuckle at the wildly incorrect predictions made by journalists and commentators along the way.
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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#42 Post by MajorMitchell » Tue Dec 31, 2019 11:29 am

I'm sure there'll be many copies of Trumptoad books in 2nd hand/Charity shops in a few short years, at a quarter of a dollar/pound/duetshmark/franc I've already passed the two I got given & have read to another reader to save him purchasing new copies.

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#43 Post by Randomizer » Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:26 am

Trump is still in denial as his impeachment start in the senate on Tuesday. Still fighting to block evidence of his criminal activities with getting McConnell to block witnesses.

Trump is claiming that this is to over turn his election and he forgets that he fought to over turn two Obama elections with seven years of fake birther claims, tried to end McCain's Republican candidacy with a similar claim. Then there was all the years of the Whitewater investigation to remove Clinton.

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#44 Post by Octavious » Sun Jan 19, 2020 6:43 pm

Out of curiosity, Random, what do you think the chances are of this process working?

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#45 Post by orathaic » Sun Jan 19, 2020 7:37 pm

Slim, but if they manage to get witnesses to come forward, it might start affecting the reflection chances of senators who are up for reelection this Nov.

I think getting a super majority is highly unlikely, but they could still put Trump under a lot of pressure. Which hurts his re-election chances...

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#46 Post by TrPrado » Sun Jan 19, 2020 8:58 pm

I don’t think there are enough people hitherto undecided on Senate candidates to the point this could change the outcome of the elections

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#47 Post by Randomizer » Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:48 pm

Trump has the votes just because too many Republican senators fear his supporters. This may backfire at the election as more evidence comes out and if it doesn't appear during the hearing.

Trump is going with what worked for him in the past. Stonewall evidence and witnesses to prevent charges. Attack the prosecution and judges to get the case thrown out. Bribery with his attack on Iran's General Soleimani to get hard line Republican senators.

All that's left is the final stage where Trump plea bargains to avoid a conviction.

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#48 Post by Octavious » Sat Feb 01, 2020 12:54 pm

Well, it looks like that's that. What always looked like the most overwhelmingly likely outcome from the start is days away from actually happening. Trump clocks up another political victory at the start of an election year, the Democrats are held responsible for forcing the Senate to waste countless hours on a pointless exercise when they could have been... What is it the Senate's actually meant to do again?

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#49 Post by Randomizer » Sat Feb 01, 2020 5:08 pm

Octavious wrote:
Sat Feb 01, 2020 12:54 pm
What is it the Senate's actually meant to do again?
One Republican senator claimed he was being held hostage for having to show up at the high paying job he fought to be elected to doing. Something he swore two oaths to do. I guess it cut down on his recreational time since he wasn't Trump.

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/arc ... al-profile

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#50 Post by flash2015 » Sat Feb 01, 2020 6:09 pm

Apart from approving judges, the Senate has not been doing much recently anyway. There are hundreds of house bills which McConnell has just ignored, not willing to even bring them to the Senate floor for debate:

https://www.vox.com/2019/11/29/20977735 ... rats-trump

Given how much importance each side gives to appointing judges, it does suggest that there is an imbalance in power in the US (the legislative, executive and judicial) with the judicial having way, way too much power. IMHO, in a properly balanced system, court challenges to government legislation should be the exception rather than the rule but unfortunately it is the opposite in the US.

Something had to be done about Trump's actions in Ukraine. It is blatantly clear that he did what was charged with doing, he held up military aid/stopped a meeting in exchange for Ukraine announcing an investigation of the Bidens. And he is smart to use executive privilege to stop anyone from his administration from testifying...as that was what finally sunk Nixon (Congress found out about the tapes through members of his administration testifying). Also lying to Congress is a BIG DEAL which can lead to jail time.

The question is - was moving so quickly for impeachment the right move? If they were going to do it, they had to do it straight away before they had the whole story because any later would make it fall into the election campaign (especially an issue so closely related to potentially influencing an election), but their time constraints also meant they couldn't wait for the courts to deal with the administration's witnesses which also hurt their case.

With all the distractions along the way though, unfortunately I don't think we have had a real debate on whether this is right or wrong, irrespective of whether we believe it is enough to remove a president from office. This is imprtant because the outcome here sets precedent for Trump for the rest of his presidency and for future presidents of either party. If you don't think precedent matters, note that many of the arguments in the impeachment trial were based on decisions made two centuries ago.

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#51 Post by orathaic » Sat Feb 01, 2020 7:46 pm

flash2015 wrote:
Sat Feb 01, 2020 6:09 pm
Given how much importance each side gives to appointing judges, it does suggest that there is an imbalance in power in the US (the legislative, executive and judicial) with the judicial having way, way too much power. IMHO, in a properly balanced system, court challenges to government legislation should be the exception rather than the rule but unfortunately it is the opposite in the US. <snip>
Can I just disagree a little bit. I think the power the courts have is fine, the problem is the lack of capacity between the other two branches to amend the constitution.

Take Roe vs Wade, it should be legislated for. A clear decision made democratically. Rather than the decision being made by unelected judges. Their job is to interpret what the law is. Not make it. I guess I mostly agree with you, but I don't think the flaw is with the Judicial system.

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#52 Post by MajorMitchell » Sun Feb 02, 2020 8:59 am

I'm not so sure that I agree with Octavious. This might turn out to be a short term political win for Trumptoad and the Republicans, but a long term win for the Democratic party, depending on how well the Democrats exploit it during the election campaign. The Democrats can now accuse the Republicans of involvement in the cover up with greater credibility and if there's a continuing flow of damaging (to Trumptoad​) information into the public arena. The Democrats can reasonably argue that they did their best to investigate the corruption and that responsibility for the failure of the investigation lies with the Republicans.
It's perhaps a feature of the divisiveness of American politics that many Republicans will continue to support Trump despite clearly knowing him to be dishonest and corrupt, which will only embolden Trumptoad. Like the aquiesence of the German people when the Nazis started killing the mentally & physically retarded in significant numbers emboldened the Nazis to engage in mass murder of Jews, gypsies etc etc on a far greater scale.

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#53 Post by Randomizer » Tue Feb 04, 2020 10:57 pm

Trump's started his victory marathon with Republican Senators expected to let him off the hook. Trump at his private Super Bowl party mocked our national anthem after years of condemning others for making political protests by kneeling or sitting. Next up is requesting his enemy list members be eliminated?

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politi ... 13588.html

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Re: That Impeachment Thread

#54 Post by Randomizer » Thu Feb 06, 2020 12:57 am

Trump got off with he committed a crime, but the Republicans aren't going to punish him because:

1 - Trump learned his lesson. ROFL
2 - It wasn't that serious because only Ukrainians got killed because of it.
3 - Republicans are hypocrites who would have lynch a Democrat for less, because they tried with Clinton.
4 - He's their crook and they care more about keeping his supporters than justice.
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