Who I guarantee you would lose the next election to Ted Nugent. And I might even vote for him myself. GOD I wish there was a viable, centrist third party.
Charge and remove Mr. Pence????? Not that we like him or anything but what crime did he commit? You don't get to just start removing elected and appointed officials because you don't like their ideology. And I have been watching this informed Constitution lawyer Dershowitz (more of an ACLU and civil right type man) talk about all this Trump stuff and he questions if there is even something criminal to charge. We will see soon enough I suppose.
Reminder: Impeachment isn't a criminal thing per se. The "crimes" that lead to impeachment are whatever Congress says they are. I heard one expert on such matters saying that if you consider obstruction of investigations as impeachable, that the first guy you come to in the line of succession that appears to be totally in the clear is Orrin Hatch! But it's safe to assume that Trump ain't going noplace unless the Dems kick ass in 2018 ... and I wouldn't bet on that. Everything I'm seeing indicates that the Dems are bound and determined to double down on the same strategy and talking points and such that caused them to lose to friggin' Donald Trump in 2016. Amazing, but true.
But the US Constitution cites "high CRIMES and misdomenors" as a prerequisite for the impeachment and removal process for an elected or appointed. High crimes are, well, obviously crimes and misdomenors are crimes too.
If our House attempted impeachment without citing an actual crime, meaning indicting just on sour politics, then I could see this thing landing in the US court system on a Constitutional challenge further making a mess of things.
What I'm ultimately saying here is House better have something way beyond "grab em by the p" statements, childish tweats, immigration policy or calling Rosy O fat. And again about this obstruction business, this Dershowitz guy contends the Chief executive constitutionally enjoys a crazy amount of latitude in running his administration. Interesting times for sure and we'll see how this plays out.
Yeah, I have said it before. Before anyone even thinks of impeachment; please let them have some good, solid evidence. Like they did with Nixon. It did not just "come when they cooked the meat." It took a lot of hard work and people willing to talk. ("come when they cooked the meat." Old line from The Odd Couple when Felix asks where he is going to get gravy at 8o'clock at night.)
Not sure this is the right place for this, but it seems as good as anywhere. Apparently pulling out of the Paris accord was enough for Iger to step down from Trump's business council After all the various scandals, outrages, and questionable political moves, it seems strange that is what did him in, especially since it was one of Trump's major campaign points. It's also worth pointing out that I think there have only been 2 meetings of the council so far, and Iger has missed both of them; it's not like his leaving will have any meaningful impact one way or the other
I'm a little upset that he was ever on it to begin with. There is a whole lot of antisocial reasons to not be associated at all with the Trump Administration considering the type of business Iger is in. Oh, well, at least he had the backbone to resign from it.
mawnck is right that an impeachable crime is whatever the House says it is. Look what they impeached Clinton for. Lying about sex. Something I'm going to guess a pretty large percentage of the electorate has done in one way or another. Of course, officially, the first article of the Clinton impeachment was "Obstruction of Justice." And arguably Clinton's transgressions there were considerably less than, you know, firing the guy leading the investigation into him. I agree with iamsally that they shouldn't rush it, though. Let Mueller do his work and (let's hope) come up with some solid undeniable proof. And let's hope Mueller starts looking into Trump's finances, with Russia and then maybe spreading from there. Because quite apart from Russia, Trump is clearly using his position to enrich himself and his family, which is flat-out prohibited in the Constitution. I go back and forth between wanting something fast (because he's doing us damage by the day, and I keep worrying about him doing something just plain stupid in a dangerous way), and wanting something solid, and ultimately I have to come out for the latter. Because the House not only has to impeach; the Senate has to convict. Dershowitz was, of course, a defense attorney, and he has that mindset. And he should know, having defended both OJ and Von Bulow, two guilty-as-sin guys who got away with it because of skillful lawyers like Dershowitz, that jurors don't always vote the way the evidence would suggest. And we might think of (most) GOP Senators as jurors who might be predisposed to acquit, if any doubts could be raised. So the evidence needs to be solid, and I'm sure Mueller knows this.
You seriously think these things are what this is all about? Wow, Fox News really IS managing to keep their viewers completely in the dark. I'm horrified and impressed at the same time.
Your non frontal attack is completely whack. I guess basic reading comprehension is not your strongest suit. I said our House better have more than those trivial things. I did not say that is what the House is relying on. I think I'm done on LP, thanks for the encouragement
And you'd know exactly "what they had" if you'd been watching an actual news channel. It ain't trivial. Bye.
For any of a multitude of reasons, 45 isn't going to last four years. He stands a good chance of not making it out of this calendar year. - Mueller's investigation is growing. He's utilizing a network of resources that go far beyond the special counsel office. Two guys I know who are on reserve JAG status have been called up and sent there, for example. They'd be going after guys who have ties to 45 and if history is any guide, would be the type of person to cut a deal to provide incriminating details on 45. If 45 invokes executive privilege with Comey, it'll be his death knell. Comey can already connect the dots with obstruction as it is. - His Secret Service staff hates his guts. He's on his second team of agents already and they are leaving. 45 insists on his own private guys to guard him and so 45 never listens to the people who have done this forever. Refer to that stupid dessert scene at Maralago as one obvious example. He treats the Secret Service like sh!t and thinks they're second class. As a result, he's constantly exposed to threats. - He's already on an entire second set of Air Force One personnel from the pilot on down.The first group, having flown those planes for years if not decades, asked out within a month of 45 being in office. They'd rather retire than fly 45. - His health, when he's not ignorantly putting himself literally in the line of fire, is NOT tremendously great or whatever stupid phrase he used a while back. He's tiring easily, his eating habits are atrocious and he's gained a lot weight. A stroke or cardiac event is NOT out of the question. And yes kids, people on the inside really DO think he's not in full possession of his mental faculties.
I tend to avoid online discussions of politics, but with all the stories swirling in the last week or two, I have a question that I just can't seem to find an answer to. It seems like there are any number of stories about Trump, and they all boil down to one of two things: He's an incompetent reactionary boob who doesn't even understand the basic functions of the 3 branches of government, and what each is allowed/expected to do. He's the nefarious mastermind pulling the strings of a global scheme for a foreign government (Russia) to infiltrate the United States and take over as the world's leading superpower. I just can't figure out how those two things square up with one another. From what I've seen, it seems like #1 is far more likely, and the Russia stuff was more-or-less independent of him and his associates. At the time that all this went down, Trump wasn't even a member of the government, which makes me wonder how he gave up information that he didn't have access to himself. It just doesn't add up. Now, none of this is to say that Russia isn't doing anything nefarious on their own (I have yet to see an article exploring the not-so-subtle link between their athletic doping scandals, success hosting the Sochi Olympics, and invasion of Crimea) and likely encouraged by Trump's blabbermouth (see point #1, above), but I struggle to see how he supposedly gave access to things (data, voting machines, etc) that he was not privy to himself. It's also not to say that Trump is a good leader nor that he has any sort of control on what's going on in the country/world at the moment I guess we'll know more after tomorrow's hearing, but for now it seems like the two prevailing storylines are the complete antithesis of one another
He's an incompetent reactionary boob who's gotten himself deeply involved financially and personally with a lot of Russia-connected bad guys, some of whom are in his cabinet (and one of whom happens to be married to his daughter). Russia's scheme isn't to "take over", BTW, it's just to weaken its adversaries to the point that they aren't an effective foil, by sowing chaos. There are many ways to sow chaos, regardless of whether President Dementia is personally in on them or not. This country has a bumper crop of incompetent, reactionary boobs, as well as media organizations that pander to them and DGAF what the consequences are - on both sides. All Putin has to do is to plant fake news stories on the fringes - anti-Trump as well as pro-Trump - and waits for us to kill each other. And by golly, we're getting all set to do it. Did I not tell you? #WASS.
I don't see FA's #2 as a predominant theme anywhere except maybe some fringe websites. #1, sure. But I'd posit a different #2, which doesn't conflict with #1, and that is that Trump is not a nefarious mastermind who came up with the whole Russia scheme, but rather an amoral dealmaker (who, as mawnck points out, has made plenty of amoral deals with plenty of shady characters his entire career) for whom "is this good for me?" is always the paramount question. Who may have seen no harm in letting Russia mess with our election as long as it benefited him, and continues to see no harm in things like passing along sensitive information from allied intelligence services or giving Russia back their spying compounds, as long as it benefits him. Which, of course leads to several questions, including: a). How is Trump benefiting from Russia? Is he explicitly paying them back for their election meddling? Do they indeed have kompramat on him or family members or associates that they're holding over him? Does he owe Russian banks or oligarchs big time money? How much is Trump and the Trump Organization invested in Russia? We've heard everything from "a disproportionate share" (from Junior) and "nothing at all" from Trump himself. So which is it? and b). what did Trump know and when did he know it, vis a vis the Russian election meddling? It was reported on BEFORE the election, so he can't claim ignorance. Did he collude, or was he just happy to be a passive beneficiary? This is what Mueller is investigating, of course. So I think the real #2 is that Trump is an amoral shyster who really doesn't understand the damage to the country that he's doing by letting a hostile foreign power meddle in our election (and even if he was ignorant of it at the time, by continuing to cover for them, doing things like saying "it could have been China, it could have been some 400 pound guy in his basement, or maybe there was no hacking" long after our intelligence services determined that there was hacking, and it was Russian). Who doesn't understand that the country is bigger than him, and that it isn't another corporation he can run as an autocrat (he's never even had a Board of Directors to answer to, as he never took his company public). Which isn't contradictory to #1 - it actually dovetails perfectly with it.
Do you really think Pelosi is that stupid? Or that obsessively driven by ideology? She saw what happened to Ford. I would expect her to finish out Trump's term undoing the damage, and maybe go as far as adequately funding Amtrak and various urban and regional rail, and cleaning out the flaws (especially the intentional ones) in Obamacare, and then quietly refuse to run for President in 2020, choosing instead to try for a return to her House seat. If anybody would be guaranteed to "lose the next election to Ted Nugent," it would be Bernie Sanders. Oh, and as to Trump being "more moderate" than Shrub, simply because he hasn't started any wars, or destroyed the economy, well, it took eight months just for Shrub to <profanity> off bin Laden enough to lead to the WTC Atrocities (probably not the outcome he was shooting for, given his obsessive but awkward attempts to link those atrocites to Saddam Hussein), and a few months after that before he managed to start a war, and nearly two full terms to destroy the economy. Give Trump a little time, and he'll probably outdo Shrub. Pence or Ryan (given that they aren't self-defeating buffoons) could probably do it a lot faster.
