The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (28 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

 

[N.O.Bronco]

I think the ultimate goal of the investigation was to get enough dirt on DJT to remove him from office and thereby reverse the 2016 election. The notion that it was a legitimate investigation with no ulterior motives is specious, to say the least.

So someone drawing different conclusions than your assertions is engaging in specious reasoning?

So what does that say about the person drawing conclusions without providing any evidence and constantly appealing exclusively to his feelings, hunches, and suspicions to form these simple narratives about these issues and the people you disagree with on them?

Are we sure you are using that word properly here? Are we sure our irony meters are functioning properly?

 

[Taurus]

Well V-Chip,

Did the Russians try to tilt our election? Of course they did. They've been doing that for decades. So have we, in countries around the world in far more egregious ways than the Russians did. Yes, there were people convicted and sent to jail and that's a good thing. But not DJT, who was the actual target of the whole investigation.

It's my learned opinion that the whole reason for the Muller investigation was to find enough dirt to remove DJT from office and overturn the results of the 2016 election It failed to do that. As such, the Mueller Report will go down in history as exactly what the president labeled it - a witch hunt.

If you want to go around correcting what people are saying because they are technically incorrect in their wording and accuse them a spreading a false narrative, that's fine. But, you take on the appearance of a disappointed partisan who desperately wanted the Mueller Report to find enough dirt to get rid of DJT.

Denying that the purpose of the Muller investigation was to dig up enough dirt to get rid of DJT and overturn the 2016 election result is a false narrative as well, at least from my perspective. I am not alone in that opinion.

Still wrong, though.
At least you've got your Fox News talking points memorized. Not bad for a fella of advancing age.

 

[Taurus]

It's been one of the most absurd defenses so far.

"Sure officer, I stuck up the teller, but I dropped the bag and ran when we heard you were right around the corner! I tried to clean the prints off the gun I used, but the real story here is the money never left the building!...So we good?"​

Republicans: I do declare, that man is no bank robber! WITCH HUNT

Or:

Cop: for fifty bucks I can tear up this ticket.
Driver: What? Okay, I guess.
Passenger: You know I'm recording this, right?
Cop: See? I'm tearing up the ticket, no bribery attempt here!

 

[Andrus]

To follow up on slackermod's comments, I know that the topic is volatile, but you all really have to keep it civil without exception.

We welcome members helping members with reminders regarding the rules as long as they are in line with the guidelines. Self-policing can be very helpful. However you should pick your spots. You don't want to lend the appearance of being a self-appointed moderator.

The problem being that we already have partisan members reporting other members for such and using the self-appointed mod reference, which in itself is not the real problem, which is that in some cases the same member doing the reporting is known for practicing the same. So then we have to moderate that too. It's petty. In regard to that, nothing is more irritating to me than partisans trying to manipulate the staff into moderating on their side.

-Andrus

I want to add that if someone speaks in absolutes and presents their opinion as if fact, and when challenged that someone either refuses to answer your questions or dances around them, chalk it up to their inability to back up their assertion, let them know that is your conclusion, and disengage that member rather than continuing to badger. We can all conclude from such behavior that the person cannot validate their assertions, so driving that point home repeatedly is unnecessary.

Persistently demanding members to answer a question quickly becomes a source of irritation in itself, as aside from the obvious badgering it often leads to the the appearance of stalking. We get it. The person can't/won't answer. Let it go!

 

[TheRealTruth]

I want to add that if someone speaks in absolutes and presents their opinion as if fact, and when challenged that someone either refuses to answer your questions or dances around them, chalk it up to their inability to back up their assertion, let them know that is your conclusion, and disengage that member rather than continuing to badger. We can all conclude from such behavior that the person cannot validate their assertions, so driving that point home repeatedly is unnecessary.

Persistently demanding members to answer a question quickly becomes a source of irritation in itself, as aside from the obvious badgering it often leads to the the appearance of stalking. We get it. The person can't/won't answer. Let it go!

Thank you for stating this. I was starting to notice this becoming a trend and was hoping it would be addressed.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

I want to add that if someone speaks in absolutes and presents their opinion as if fact, and when challenged that someone either refuses to answer your questions or dances around them, chalk it up to their inability to back up their assertion, let them know that is your conclusion, and disengage that member rather than continuing to badger. We can all conclude from such behavior that the person cannot validate their assertions, so driving that point home repeatedly is unnecessary.

Persistently demanding members to answer a question quickly becomes a source of irritation in itself, as aside from the obvious badgering it often leads to the the appearance of stalking. We get it. The person can't/won't answer. Let it go!

While i completely get why repeatedly asking a poster to ‘show their work’ becomes annoying
But why is that MORE worthy of caution than posting specious claims and not backing them up
Can’t their be a mod edit with something like “the record will show that this claim is not substantiated”?
Only half joking

Isn’t bad content MUCH worse than bands form?

Also (*crosses fingers*) these types of questions in the early goings are not the same as ‘calling out mods” is it?

 

[Archies Ghost]

I love so much about this post it is just plain beautiful!

First trump did withhold funding. Second the Congress approved the funding overwhelming bipartisan support. That means it had nothing the old djt. Now the holding up is all djt. The aid was Congress got it!

The other president that you guys want to bring up Obama sent them aid not weapons. Then small arms communication equipment all sorts of stuff needed besides blankets.

Kinda glad you bring up McCarthy. The tactics used against our career civil servants by old djt are shockingly similar to McCarthyism.

Because it is.

In the United States, foreign policy is under the purview of the President.

Withholding aid (foreign assistance) is well within the rights of the President and is done all the time. Congressional oversight is concerned with limiting the President's ability to EXCEED allocation or restrictions without Congressional consent. Nearly all Congressional aid allocations come with restrictions that force the executive to withhold the aid if the conditions of the restrictions are not met. These conditions are quite often used by the executive to withhold aid.

Temporarily withholding foreign assistance really is a non-issue unless it was done for purely personal gain.

https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1516&context=yjil

 

[The moose]

In the United States, foreign policy is under the purview of the President.

Withholding aid (foreign assistance) is well within the rights of the President and is done all the time. Congressional oversight is concerned with limiting the President's ability to EXCEED allocation or restrictions without Congressional consent. Nearly all Congressional aid allocations come with restrictions that force the executive to withhold the aid if the conditions of the restrictions are not met. These conditions are quite often used by the executive to withhold aid.

Temporarily withholding foreign assistance really is a non-issue unless it was done for purely personal gain.

https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1516&context=yjil

Thanks for the link

But I did say trump withheld the aid.

Multiple reasons he could have withheld without a real problem but since he is far from the sharpest tool in the shed he admitted to a bribe.

If that dull old hoe could have just kept his mouth shut and probably listen to his council he would not be in this mess.

We would all be guessing why. We probably would have guessed wrong like it was just to help his buddy puttie.

We might have
he thought he did it in exchange for the pee pee tape (joke)

Thanks for the link. Kinda watching football will read later

 

[B4YOU]

Sondland is testifying Wednesday. He has already had to amend his testimony. With the new phone call information presented by Bill Taylor, Sondland may need to amend his story again. If he goes full disclosure, then we will see Repubs calling him a liar. If he says the Trump call never happened, then Dems will point out the previously amended testimony and multiple witnesses. I think he is screwed and wondering about his liability in a bribery/solicitation charge.

The more interesting thing would be John Bolton's testimony. He and Trump met privately about the Ukraine aid and stated Trump "wasn't ready to release the aid". He also stated Rudy and Sondland were involved in shady dealings to an aide.

Official testifies Bolton held 1-on-1 meeting with Trump about Ukraine aid

Bolton attempted to convince Trump to release the security assistance in August, Tim Morrison testified.

www.axios.com

 

[Ayo]

Elise Stefanik seemed to have stepped in it because of her inflammatory theatrics. Positioning herself as a victim and martyr - when the basis for her claim doesn't appear to have factual legitimacy - has led to her opponent, @TedraCobb, receiving a lot of donations. She's reached nearly a million dollars in a very short time - over half a million yesterday alone.

She is in a R+4 district and her shenanigans could have ramifications.

Of course, she doesn't address what she did or explain how she was within the proceeding's rules, but her Twitter account has taken on a familiar tenor and tone.





And, true to form, the other side sought to inflame by spreading a doctored photo of her, rather than focusing on the very legitimate objection to the way she conducted herself on the Hill - which would've and should've been enough on its own:

 

[crosswatt]

Sondland is testifying Wednesday. He has already had to amend his testimony. With the new phone call information presented by Bill Taylor, Sondland may need to amend his story again. If he goes full disclosure, then we will see Repubs calling him a liar. If he says the Trump call never happened, then Dems will point out the previously amended testimony and multiple witnesses. I think he is screwed and wondering about his liability in a bribery/solicitation charge.

The more interesting thing would be John Bolton's testimony. He and Trump met privately about the Ukraine aid and stated Trump "wasn't ready to release the aid". He also stated Rudy and Sondland were involved in shady dealings to an aide.

Official testifies Bolton held 1-on-1 meeting with Trump about Ukraine aid

Bolton attempted to convince Trump to release the security assistance in August, Tim Morrison testified.

www.axios.com

I'm wondering at what point Sondland realizes that his investment/donation was some of the worst money he's ever spent?

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Sondland is testifying Wednesday. He has already had to amend his testimony. With the new phone call information presented by Bill Taylor, Sondland may need to amend his story again. If he goes full disclosure, then we will see Repubs calling him a liar. If he says the Trump call never happened, then Dems will point out the previously amended testimony and multiple witnesses. I think he is screwed and wondering about his liability in a bribery/solicitation charge.

The more interesting thing would be John Bolton's testimony. He and Trump met privately about the Ukraine aid and stated Trump "wasn't ready to release the aid". He also stated Rudy and Sondland were involved in shady dealings to an aide.

Official testifies Bolton held 1-on-1 meeting with Trump about Ukraine aid

Bolton attempted to convince Trump to release the security assistance in August, Tim Morrison testified.

www.axios.com

I wouldn't rule out him pulling out last minute citing some sort of ginned up process issue to buy him some time, or, actually pleading the fifth.

 

[insidejob]

I’d appreciate a less condescending tone in the future

Good luck.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

In the United States, foreign policy is under the purview of the President.

Withholding aid (foreign assistance) is well within the rights of the President and is done all the time. Congressional oversight is concerned with limiting the President's ability to EXCEED allocation or restrictions without Congressional consent. Nearly all Congressional aid allocations come with restrictions that force the executive to withhold the aid if the conditions of the restrictions are not met. These conditions are quite often used by the executive to withhold aid.

Temporarily withholding foreign assistance really is a non-issue unless it was done for purely personal gain.

https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1516&context=yjil

Couple issues here:

1.) There are in fact restrictions placed on the executive's use of allocated foreign aid as well. Mulvaney himself alluded to this in trying to rationalize their decision to suddenly release the aid after the whistleblower complaint emerged:

There was a report that if we didn’t pay out the money it would be illegal, it would be unlawful. That is one of those things that has a little shred of truth in it that makes it look a lot worse than it really is. We were concerned over at OMB about an impoundment[.] … The Budget Control Impoundment Act of 1974 says that if Congress appropriates money you have to spend it. … And we knew that that money either had to go out the door by the end of September or we had to have a really, really good reason not to do it. And that was the legality of the issue​

And it is currently an open question, with solid evidence in its favor, that the failure to alert congress with a justifiable reason for withholding the Defense Department portion of the aid violated the above law. Which states Congress must both be informed with the reason for the delay and the reason must involve specific budgetary matters. This Lawfare piece is wonky but explains it all well:

More on the Role of OMB in Withholding Ukrainian Aid

Russell Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), announced on Twitter that he and Michael Duffy, an OMB political appointee, are refusing to be deposed by House committees pursuing an impeachment investigation. With this in the news, it is worth revisiting OMB’s...

www.lawfareblog.com

By contrast, it seems OMB was likely using its formal power to delay the release of Defense Department aid. OMB appears to have extended the release timeline on these funds by revising an existing apportionment to add footnotes that effectively made the money legally unavailable until its release sometime around Sept. 11. As the Oct. 16 post pointed out, this apportionment process—including any applicable footnotes—is legally binding and is outlined in section 120 of OMB’s Circular A-11 document. Amb. William Taylor’s testimony revealed that after OMB had placed a hold on the aid, OMB asked the Defense Department to conduct an effectiveness study. The Defense Department completed the study one day after the OMB request and concluded that the aid would be effective. Yet, Taylor’s testimony asserts, OMB continued to hold the aid.​

​

In this instance, if OMB was merely conducting a budget audit to ensure Ukrainian aid was appropriately apportioned, these actions would have been within its mandate. Furthermore, OMB would have had a plausible argument that the ICA, 2 U.S.C. 683(a), allows the office to delay the Defense Department’s aid in order to determine how it should be apportioned.​

​

However, to date, there is no evidence that this was the reason for the delay. Perhaps some such evidence will emerge. But all of the information in the public realm thus far, including what Mulvaney said on Oct. 17, indicates that the reasons for the delay had nothing to do with a budget audit. Instead, the delay concerned, at most, pressure to get the Ukrainians to open an investigation in order to help the president politically, and possible policy concerns about corruption. On our reading of the relevant laws, this is not a valid basis for OMB to delay the release of funds.​

2.) By most of the witness testimony we have, including David Holmes this Friday, the withholding of this aid was in fact for personal and personal-political, not national security or US diplomatic interests. As Trump was not interested in broad matters of Ukrainian corruption, implicitly due to how he ran his foreign policy through Rudy, which was favoring those engaged in corrupt acts, not fighting it, and through sworn testimony that he was only concerned with investigations and public announcement that would hurt his chief political rival.

 

[MT15]

Here is why I cannot fathom why people agree with the false narrative that the Mueller investigation was a ”witch hunt” designed to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. I would truly appreciate someone who believes that narrative explaining how they square the following facts with their narrative:

1. The Trump campaign was under investigation long before he won the election. It was under investigation even before anyone believed he would win the nomination, let alone the presidency. People on his campaign staff brought this investigation on themselves in various ways, mostly by inadvisable words and activities that came to the attention of the FBI. The FBI, led by a Republican who actively disliked Clinton, had to investigate, they would have been derelict in their duty had they not. Unlike the infamous last minute public announcement of the reopening of the Clinton investigation, the FBI kept the Trump investigation strictly under wraps.

2. Rod Rosenstein hired Mueller and gave him his mandate. Was Rosenstein trying to overturn the 2016 election? Keep in mind that Rosenstein is a staunch Republican and Trump appointee.

3. Even if Trump were to be removed from office, it doesn’t overturn the result of the election. Clinton doesn’t get to be President. To say the results of the election would be overturned is silly and inaccurate.

4. This one is mostly opinion: Trump himself ultimately prolonged the investigation by obstructing it and instructing other people to lie to investigators, and trying to get them to falsify records. In the end, I think the investigation came to the exact conclusion that Rosenstein had carefully set out for it to achieve. When I saw the actual scope and limitations put on the investigation by the DOJ, I knew it wouldn’t find any conspiracy. It was carefully set up not to find any. And that’s my opinion.

 

[V Chip]

It's my learned opinion that the whole reason for the Muller investigation was to find enough dirt to remove DJT from office and overturn the results of the 2016 election It failed to do that. As such, the Mueller Report will go down in history as exactly what the president labeled it - a witch hunt.

If you want to go around correcting what people are saying because they are technically incorrect in their wording and accuse them a spreading a false narrative, that's fine. But, you take on the appearance of a disappointed partisan who desperately wanted the Mueller Report to find enough dirt to get rid of DJT.

Denying that the purpose of the Muller investigation was to dig up enough dirt to get rid of DJT and overturn the 2016 election result is a false narrative as well, at least from my perspective. I am not alone in that opinion.

You’re flat out wrong. Just because other people are as wrong about something as you are proves nothing.

The Mueller investigation showed there was wrongdoing, full stop. It showed that Trump obstructed the investigation on 10 separate occasions and has resulted in the conviction of many others associated with the campaign. If that’s a witch hunt, then your definition of witch hunt is as wrong as your take on the Mueller report/investigation.

And the word I highlighted is incorrect as well.

 

[Andrus]

While i completely get why repeatedly asking a poster to ‘show their work’ becomes annoying
But why is that MORE worthy of caution than posting specious claims and not backing them up
Can’t their be a mod edit with something like “the record will show that this claim is not substantiated”?
Only half joking

Isn’t bad content MUCH worse than bands form?

Also (*crosses fingers*) these types of questions in the early goings are not the same as ‘calling out mods” is it?

It isn't calling out the mods... not in the manner that you presented it.

"spe·cious
/ˈspēSHəs/

adjective: specious

superficially plausible, but actually wrong.
"a specious argument"

In response to your question regarding specious claims, first, I wanted to make certain that everyone that reads this response clearly understands the definition of the word "specious".

Regarding specious claims, over time a pattern will be develop and the staff will discuss and remove MCB access to members that display such a bad faith pattern of discourse, as it goes against the idea of fostering honest, meaningful discussion, and in good faith.

Right now we are in more of a guidance issuing phase trying to ensure that everyone coming over from the PDB has a clear understanding of behavioral expectations . You will be setting the tone for the next phase, which will be to begin promoting the site outside of this core group of members.

Thus far we have been more focused on the most identifiable behavioral issues that send discussions spiraling downhill, which are less subject to interpretation than something like specious arguments where more gray area and nuance exists.

When a pattern is recognized, the staff member would have to ponder the following:

- Is the member just being lazy?
- Is the member instead being either/or outright deceitful, intentionally dropping misinformation, or being disingenuous?
- Is this a matter of the simple ignorance member in question?
... and ...
- Is my own conclusion formed due to it being obvious, or is it partially or wholly formed by my personally biased view of the matter?

In the interest of fair moderation I feel that such instances should be viewed and discussed within the staff by committee rather than by the individual staff member.

Not aimed at you but to the membership in general, this goes back to the post earlier in this thread about members presenting their opinions as if fact. By making it clear that the thoughts that you are expressing are opinions you are less likely to be challenged and repeatedly asked to show your work. If you are clear that you are presenting your own opinion you then have a legitimate excuse to cry victim when after posting such you are piled upon and continuously challenged to back up what was then obviously just your opinion.

On the other hand, when you present what can only be interpreted as a clear assertion/claim/declaration, you can certainly expect to be challenged, and if you cannot back up your assertion you won't get much pity from the staff when challenged. Either way, the point that I also made about badgering for answers stands.

What we are trying to do here on this particular board isn't an easy thing to accomplish. Not by any stretch. Lots of complexities. Some yet to be ironed out.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I’m sure they would have preferred that particular whistle was never blown
====================

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Sunday that the Trump administration officials who provided information to the anonymous whistleblower about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine “exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed.”

“This would have been far better off if we would’ve just taken care of this behind the scenes,” Johnson said in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “We have two branches of government. Most people, most people wanted to support Ukraine. We were trying to convince President Trump.”..............

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-johnson-says-whistleblowers-sources-exposed-things-that-didnt-need-to-be-exposed/2019/11/17/ce0a9d1a-0952-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html