The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (4 Viewers)

[Andrus]

By Laura Bassett

After months of internal arguing among Democrats over whether to impeach President Donald Trump, the dam is finally breaking in favor of trying to remove him from office. The Washington Post reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would announce a formal impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, following a bombshell report that Trump illegally asked Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his political opponents. (He essentially admitted to having done so over the weekend.)

“Now that we have the facts, we’re ready,” Pelosi said Tuesday morning at a forum hosted by The Atlantic. At 5 p.m. the same day, she was back with more. "The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution, especially when the president says Article Two says I can do whatever I want," referring to the segment of the Constitution that defines the power of the executive branch of the government. Pelosi's message was that checks and balances of those branches are just as central to the Constitution. And one more thing: "Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry," she said at a conference broadcast on Twitter by the Huffington Post. ...

Read the Full Story - InStyle

 

[Lazybones]

I think that would be very dangerous. Using the powers of the US government to damage your opponent for political purposes should be a non-starter.

I don’t disagree, but like is said it has been going on for a while now.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

But like is said it had been going on for a while now.

How do?

The Steele dossier was the Democrats using their own resources to find dirt on an opponent.

This is using US resources to pressure a foreign country to re-open an investigation that they already finished.

Do you think the US government’s resources are fair game for solely political purposes?

 

[Lazybones]

How do?

The Steele dossier was the Democrats using their own resources to find dirt on an opponent.

This is using US resources to pressure a foreign country to re-open an investigation that they already finished.

Do you think the US government’s resources are fair game for solely political purposes?

You keep asking, I keep answering. The answer isn’t changing.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

You keep asking, I keep answering. The answer isn’t changing.

I’m sorry I just think I’m missing something. Are you saying political parties using their own resources is the same thing as someone using the government’s resources for their own sole benefit?

If so, then yeah we’ll just have to stop here.

 

[Ayo]

I’m actually at Disney World right now and I partially drank around the world at Epcot today

spent the day at a local gin distillery doing a tasting and then, later, was gifted some pumpkin ale

Disney it ain't, but then again - take it, I will

 

[Dadsdream]

Found an end of the season Char Griller offset smoker/grill for $110, regularly $280.

Brought that bad boy home, fired it up to season it with bacon grease, then smoked two racks of ribs, a dozen pork chops and some boneless thighs. There's something very satisfying about the praise my girls heap on me for my skllz with the grillz. The ribs were da bomb.

As I've said before, I cannot think of a single one-to-one correlation of behavior by past presidents that equates to the Ukraine phone calls.

In retrospect, there are a few cases farther back in our history that revolve around presidents taking actions in conjunction with foreign powers designed to circumvent or discredit political opponents. Most often, these took the form of attempts to assist a friendly power with armaments or deny armaments to opponents, so that makes them somewhat similar to the Ukraine case.

- Abraham Lincoln, the Confederacy, and the British government
- Woodrow Wilson and the Allied Intervention against the 1917 Communist Revolution (U.S Army invaded Russia)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Color Coded War Plans, and the Lend Lease Act

Although these are all topics for History majors 400-level and beyond due to the extensive background information required for comprehension, they can prove to be intriguing for the casual History buff. I mention them here to encourage further individual study.

In each of these cases, it can be logically argued that these presidents were acting in the best interest of the nation. However, it's worth noting that their political opponents at the time frequently condemned their actions as Executive over-reach.

In the case of Roosevelt in particular, there were assertions that his personal fortune was heavily invested in British interests and he was labeled as an Anglophile. These criticisms did not stop until Germany declared war on us after Pearl Harbor.

 

[Taurus]

Found an end of the season Char Griller offset smoker/grill for $110, regularly $280.

Brought that bad boy home, fired it up to season it with bacon grease, then smoked two racks of ribs, a dozen pork chops and some boneless thighs. There's something very satisfying about the praise my girls heap on me for my skllz with the grillz. The ribs were da bomb.

As I've said before, I cannot think of a single one-to-one correlation of behavior by past presidents that equates to the Ukraine phone calls.

In retrospect, there are a few cases farther back in our history that revolve around presidents taking actions in conjunction with foreign powers designed to circumvent or discredit political opponents. Most often, these took the form of attempts to assist a friendly power with armaments or deny armaments to opponents, so that makes them somewhat similar to the Ukraine case.

- Abraham Lincoln, the Confederacy, and the British government
- Woodrow Wilson and the Allied Intervention against the 1917 Communist Revolution (U.S Army invaded Russia)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Color Coded War Plans, and the Lend Lease Act

Although these are all topics for History majors 400-level and beyond due to the extensive background information required for comprehension, they can prove to be intriguing for the casual History buff. I mention them here to encourage further individual study.

In each of these cases, it can be logically argued that these presidents were acting in the best interest of the nation. However, it's worth noting that their political opponents at the time frequently condemned their actions as Executive over-reach.

In the case of Roosevelt in particular, there were assertions that his personal fortune was heavily invested in British interests and he was labeled as an Anglophile. These criticisms did not stop until Germany declared war on us after Pearl Harbor.

Did any of these examples include a demand that the President's opponent(s) be singled out by name?

 

[Lazybones]

Did any of these examples include a demand that the President's opponent(s) be singled out by name?

what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

 

[LA - L.A.]

what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

In this case, by Trump publicly asking China for the political favor of investigating Biden, he gave China leverage to use over him in trade talks.

During those trade talks, China can pressure Trump to remove all tariffs on tea imported from China, in return for investigating Biden.

This could lead to a spike in US demand on tea from China.

That spike in demand would affect the supply and consequently the price of tea in China.

If one truly cares about the price of tea in China, then one should support the impeachment of Trump.

 

[Archies Ghost]

Did any of these examples include a demand that the President's opponent(s) be singled out by name?

It is almost as if I could see the future.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Found an end of the season Char Griller offset smoker/grill for $110, regularly $280.

Brought that bad boy home, fired it up to season it with bacon grease, then smoked two racks of ribs, a dozen pork chops and some boneless thighs. There's something very satisfying about the praise my girls heap on me for my skllz with the grillz. The ribs were da bomb.

As I've said before, I cannot think of a single one-to-one correlation of behavior by past presidents that equates to the Ukraine phone calls.

In retrospect, there are a few cases farther back in our history that revolve around presidents taking actions in conjunction with foreign powers designed to circumvent or discredit political opponents. Most often, these took the form of attempts to assist a friendly power with armaments or deny armaments to opponents, so that makes them somewhat similar to the Ukraine case.

- Abraham Lincoln, the Confederacy, and the British government
- Woodrow Wilson and the Allied Intervention against the 1917 Communist Revolution (U.S Army invaded Russia)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Color Coded War Plans, and the Lend Lease Act

Although these are all topics for History majors 400-level and beyond due to the extensive background information required for comprehension, they can prove to be intriguing for the casual History buff. I mention them here to encourage further individual study.

In each of these cases, it can be logically argued that these presidents were acting in the best interest of the nation. However, it's worth noting that their political opponents at the time frequently condemned their actions as Executive over-reach.

In the case of Roosevelt in particular, there were assertions that his personal fortune was heavily invested in British interests and he was labeled as an Anglophile. These criticisms did not stop until Germany declared war on us after Pearl Harbor.

I get you prefaced by saying there is no one for one, so this is meant to speak broadly, that said,

Unless you (or anyone, really) want to articulate their logic a bit further, none of those examples appear to come anywhere close to what has happened with Trump and Ukraine. Which to me simply speaks to how unique and unprecedented this truly is. FDR possibly profiting off a foreign policy decision based on conflict of interest is more akin to basically every other decision Trump makes that evokes questions of self-dealing like with the Muslim ban, posture toward Turkey, his DC hotel, given how financially tied up in places he is like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, UAE, Ireland etc.

For reference, this is an approximate and abbreviated summary of what we know to be true, based on the sworn testimony, public admissions domestically and in Ukraine, and Trump's own people spilling the beans publicly:

Rudy Giulianni was operating a shadow foreign policy as an unelected official first purposed to undermine the Mueller Investigation by trying to dig up dirt revolving around debunked conspiracies involving Crowdstrike and Manafort's black book using discredited and often convicted kleptocratic Ukrainians. Some of which he had personal financial ties to and may put him in legal jeopardy of his own. Which shifted toward pressuring Ukraine with the blessing of the president to re-open an already investigated case about Burisma and to publicly announce looking into Trump's, at the time, chief political rival. Trump decided to potentially illegally withhold congressional foreign aid the Pentagon deemed critical to the national interest to coerce that political gift. Part of that plan involved a phone call to the president where Trump apparently mentioned specifically to look into Biden and the White House subsequently scrubbed the transcript, tried to improperly classify it to hide it from circulation, and silence those that were unnerved by what they characterized as an unprecedented act they had never seen serving in administrations of both parties.​

Now I am looking through that list and frankly, I do not see anything that comes close to this there. Where a sitting president potentially illegally undermined the function of critical national interests in order to coerce a foreign government to interfere in our election on his behalf and deliver a political gift to damage his chief rival. An ask they clearly knew by their actions in covering it up and attempting to silence people was not defensible or part of conducting their normal foreign policy.

The closest I have been able to find, as I said previously, seems to have been the Nixon Candidacy undermining the sitting president's foreign policy in South Vietnam and China. Both actions of which scholars consider monumentally improper and potentially criminal acts that would have doomed him.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

It is almost as if I could see the future.

Refusing to participate and poisoning the well on the way out the door so that you can come back and claim any disagreement on substantiating the assertion is proof of your theory is not evidence of precognition, it's really just kind of mean spirited tbh.

If there are all these highly similar events where a president undermines the conduct of ongoing foreign policy to coerce foreign electoral interference to directly harm a chief political rival and then cover it up/attempt to silence those speaking out, then it should be pretty easy to own the libs on this.

And like I said, I've been looking and it's pretty hard to find. So it makes me question this assertion very strongly, hence people asking for qualification.

 

[Dadsdream]

Cursory examinations. As I said, it would require years of background study to fully comprehend all the implications.

Further, the great majority of our presidents have been lawyer/politicians. They would use proxies rather than personally dirty their own hands. They have circles within circles around them who do such things.

Any politicians who have aspired to be president, save perhaps Jimmy Carter, could be deemed a criminal, in my opinion. Carter simply proved to be honest, but inept when it came to foreign policy.

Among the items found in Howard Hughes' storage vaults was a $250,000 Tiffany crystal football. It was a gift to Hughes from a presidential candidate who had received millions from Hughes, completely off the books, literally in brown paper bags delivered by a nondescript courier.

The candidate? Hubert Humphrey, touted as the most honest politician of his day. Of course, Hughes also donated millions to Nixon. But, Nixon won, so Hughes expected different things from him than a stupid glass football.

What I wish to impart is that while people may decry the current president as corrupt or inept, there's no shortage of presidents who have gotten a pass for far worse things than trying to submarine a political rival.

 

[JRad]

Refusing to participate and poisoning the well on the way out the door so that you can come back and claim any disagreement on substantiating the assertion is proof of your theory is not evidence of precognition, it's really just kind of mean spirited tbh.

If there are all these highly similar events where a president undermines the conduct of ongoing foreign policy to coerce foreign electoral interference to directly harm a chief political rival and then cover it up/attempt to silence those speaking out, then it should be pretty easy to own the libs on this.

And like I said, I've been looking and it's pretty hard to find. So it makes me question this assertion very strongly, hence people asking for qualification.

This really comes off as “I think this has always happened, but I can’t actually prove it because it’s so common it’s not reported.” So you make some claims about there being no point in looking instead of just saying “I think this has always been a thing”. Which is fine.

Except that falls apart under any scrutiny. If this is such a common act from presidents, why is this the first time so many people have spoke out? I know some people think everything that tries to hold Trump to account is nothing more than a political hit job, but come on. Trump isn’t the first and won’t be the last president who has staffers who don’t like him.

 

[Archies Ghost]

Refusing to participate and poisoning the well on the way out the door so that you can come back and claim any disagreement on substantiating the assertion is proof of your theory is not evidence of precognition, it's really just kind of mean spirited tbh.

If there are all these highly similar events where a president undermines the conduct of ongoing foreign policy to coerce foreign electoral interference to directly harm a chief political rival and then cover it up/attempt to silence those speaking out, then it should be pretty easy to own the libs on this.

And like I said, I've been looking and it's pretty hard to find. So it makes me question this assertion very strongly, hence people asking for qualification.

If you cannot see evidence of prior presidents using foreign policy in ways that benefit themselves politically, you are not looking for it.

Almost by definition, presidents must choose a foreign policy path that is beneficial politically or they will not be in power for long.

And each president must necessarily believe that his agenda is the right agenda and therefore, must be willing to make choices that help him to stay in power in order to implement that agenda.

Believing otherwise is naive. Pretending to believe otherwise is deceitful.

Every choice a president makes is necessarily political.

That is why this is all a "gotcha". This impeachment and the responses in this thread.

The impeachment "gotcha" is DJT naming Biden in a phone conversation with a foreign leader, providing the silly cover that this is somehow something new and beyond the pale.

Witnesses pre-disposed towards hatred of DJT portray the conversation completely differently than those without that particular disposition. That, alone, is proof that this is a politically motivated investigation in search of a crime.

Sorry if I don't play by your rules.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

If you cannot see evidence of prior presidents using foreign policy in ways that benefit themselves politically, you are not looking for it.

Almost by definition, presidents must choose a foreign policy path that is beneficial politically or they will not be in power for long.

And each president must necessarily believe that his agenda is the right agenda and therefore, must be willing to make choices that help him to stay in power in order to implement that agenda.

Believing otherwise is naive. Pretending to believe otherwise is deceitful.

Every choice a president makes is necessarily political.

That is why this is all a "gotcha". This impeachment and the responses in this thread.

The impeachment "gotcha" is DJT naming Biden in a phone conversation with a foreign leader, providing the silly cover that this is somehow something new and beyond the pale.

Witnesses pre-disposed towards hatred of DJT portray the conversation completely differently than those without that particular disposition. That, alone, is proof that this is a politically motivated investigation in search of a crime.

Sorry if I don't play by your rules.

So, you’re saying Presidents can open up an investigation against any political opponent at any time, because everything they do is political?

President Trump deliberately used the resources of the government to damage a political opponent. If you’re ok with that then why is anyone complaining about FISA abuses, or witch hunts or anything else? It appears that you don’t really think that’s ok but it’s all you have left now. If you’re ok with no effective limits in executive power, then we really don’t have anything to discuss.

 

[Lazybones]

So, you’re saying Presidents can open up an investigation against any political opponent at any time, because everything they do is political?

President Trump deliberately used the resources of the government to damage a political opponent. If you’re ok with that then why is anyone complaining about FISA abuses, or witch hunts or anything else? It appears that you don’t really think that’s ok but it’s all you have left now. If you’re ok with no effective limits in executive power, then we really don’t have anything to discuss.

how is it damaging if he’s not guilty of anything (Biden). He’s not looking for someone to make things up like the Steele dossier. For me, when you guys are up here beating the moral and ethical drum, yet support things like the mueller investigation, it comes off as very partisan.

 

[Nebaghead]

how is it damaging if he’s not guilty of anything (Biden). He’s not looking for someone to make things up like the Steele dossier. For me, when you guys are up here beating the moral and ethical drum, yet support things like the mueller investigation, it comes off as very partisan.

there is literally no point of discussing with you. Everything the dems have done is made up and no evidence to support yet all GOP investigations are fully justified. Wasn’t part of the Steele Dossier proven true?
This is just like the hypocrisy of closed door investigations even though the GOP did it for Benghazi and in 2017 when they investigated the Russian interference.