The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (1 Viewer)

[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

 

[JimEverett]

But I don’t think they’re ignorant of the facts of the case.

They just don’t care.

I think there are general issues that in play as to whether what happened was a crime and/or whether it rises to the level of impeachment.

But I do wonder if you have any thoughts on why so many people don't care - presumably almost all, if not all, being Trump supporters and those who may be swayed to vote for Trump.
Even the most casual and passive consumer of news has been bombarded, almost daily, with news that this was it for Trump, he's done - with news that Trump was a threat to democracy, that he is Hitler, before he won there were predictions - at least one by a Nobel Prize winner - that the economy would collapse, etc.
In fact, I don;t think it is unfair to say that their grew a political cottage industry committed to impeaching Trump.

Asking a foreign country to investigate a company for the purpose of embarrassing Joe Biden and holding foreign aid until they did probably doesn't strike many as that big of news considering what they have heard for 3 years.

 

[Lazybones]

His implication was that you are posting this as a way to dodge substantive questions about the impeachment
Then asking further:
- are you ignorant of the facts of the case, OR
- away you aware of the facts, but ok with corruption?

Now, the faux outrage will come when you take great umbrage in the way I framed the question, but wil not address the actual facts of the hearings and what you believe (outside of political polls)

I am aware of the facts of the case. And no I’m not a fan of corruption. What is the follow up question?

 

[SaintForLife]

His implication was that you are posting this as a way to dodge substantive questions about the impeachment
Then asking further:
- are you ignorant of the facts of the case, OR
- away you aware of the facts, but ok with corruption?

Now, the faux outrage will come when you take great umbrage in the way I framed the question, but wil not address the actual facts of the hearings and what you believe (outside of political polls)

I'm familiar with the facts and while I find it concerning it doesn't rise to the level of impeachment for me. Do I need to state that everytime I post something that someone else doesn't like? Everybody is free to post what they want and their own opinions as long as it's withing the TOS. Every post doesn't have to follow the Trump is horrible narrative that many here demand of right of center posters.

 

[Lazybones]

I'm familiar with the facts and while I find it concerning it doesn't rise to the level of impeachment for me. Do I need to state that everytime I post something that someone else doesn't like? Everybody is free to post what they want and their own opinions as long as it's withing the TOS. Every post doesn't have to follow the Trump is horrible narrative that many here demand of right of center posters.

can you provide a link for that?

 

[V Chip]

But I do wonder if you have any thoughts on why so many people don't care - presumably almost all, if not all, being Trump supporters and those who may be swayed to vote for Trump.

A lot of people don’t care, from the people who “don’t have time” for politics to those who do but are tired of the rancor to those who support Trump No. Matter. What.

It is interesting to me the same of those you describe as being exhausted with the anti-Trump talk for what they have heard over 3 years are many of the same who still obsess over the Clintons or “Killary” after some 25. People’s tolerance for political attacks is definitely affected by which side of the ideological coin they choose.

 

[JimEverett]

A lot of people don’t care, from the people who “don’t have time” for politics to those who do but are tired of the rancor to those who support Trump No. Matter. What.

It is interesting to me the same of those you describe as being exhausted with the anti-Trump talk for what they have heard over 3 years are many of the same who still obsess over the Clintons or “Killary” after some 25. People’s tolerance for political attacks is definitely affected by which side of the ideological coin they choose.

I agree with all of that.
But there is clearly a very big gulf between people who want to impeach, who believe the evidence is crystal clear, and those who shrug it off. In a way that resembles the Clinton impeachment more so than the Nixon one.

On the Hillary thing, I will say that the Hillary stuff has been out there for decades and I think that is a good reason why it is so entrenched with a segment of voters. The intensity went up before the 2016 election (and to some extent the 2008 election) but was nowhere close to what we have seen in the last 3 years. Just my opinion, obviously. (Although who knows what it would have been like had she won).

 

[Lazybones]

A lot of people don’t care, from the people who “don’t have time” for politics to those who do but are tired of the rancor to those who support Trump No. Matter. What.

It is interesting to me the same of those you describe as being exhausted with the anti-Trump talk for what they have heard over 3 years are many of the same who still obsess over the Clintons or “Killary” after some 25. People’s tolerance for political attacks is definitely affected by which side of the ideological coin they choose.

I remember [Mod Edit - Using "Killary" is inflammatory, as was "orange moron" which was used by the opposition and also moderated. Do not use buzzwords or phrases intended to incite the opposition] as a college kid who supported Clinton. She will go down in history with kHillary like teddy and chappaquiddic

 

[Saintamaniac]

I agree with all of that.
But there is clearly a very big gulf between people who want to impeach, who believe the evidence is crystal clear, and those who shrug it off. In a way that resembles the Clinton impeachment more so than the Nixon one.

When Clinton was impeached, it was for lying under oath about a blow job and obstruction. No one denied he lied under oath about getting the blow job. No on denied he obstructed justice. No one claimed his actions weren't beneath the dignity of the office. Those points were in agreement. The disagreement was that the clear majority didn't think he should be impeached for those things.

At present, there is crystal clear evidence that trump broke the law by withholding federal approved aid for one reason and one reason only. There is crystal clear evidence that steps were taken to cover it up. There is crystal clear evidence that he obstructed justice to cover it up. However, there is one side that denies the evidence that he broke the law because you know, if you only attempt to murder someone but don't kill them, it's not a crime.

The same side believes he has absolute immunity. The same side believes he can stop people who know the truth from testifying so that the truth doesn't come out. Those same people screamed that people who testified under oath that they heard him claim that what they heard is hearsay. The only argument those people can make now is that what he did isn't impeachable. So I disagree that it resembles the Clinton impeachment more so than the Nixon one. I posit that trump supporters clearly wish that it did resemble the Clinton impeachment because as it stands now, it damn near mirrors the Nixon impeachment. Nixon had the decency to see that the good of the country outweighed his personal desire. We won't be that lucky.

 

[V Chip]

The intensity went up before the 2016 election (and to some extent the 2008 election) but was nowhere close to what we have seen in the last 3 years. Just my opinion, obviously. (Although who knows what it would have been like had she won).

We completely disagree on this. The anti-Hillary rhetoric is so pervasive that it trickled into centrists and even liberals. Just the Benghazi stuff alone is far more than all the Trump impeachment talk, and that’s not counting her emails or the ridiculous “Killary” memes nor the rest of the dirt thrown her way (some deserved, of course, but so is a lot more of Trump’s).

 

[Zardnok]

Are you saying that in Louisiana, the lower IQ/educated are the conservatives? Is that the argument you are making with your above comment?

please provide evidence that shows supporters of trump are ignorant.

Stop throwing around insults when things don’t go your way.

I’m quoting my own post, because it appears that Zardnok has made a claim that I would like some clarification.

Some of you throw shade, but when called on it, disappear into the weeds.

Happy Thanksgiving. I assure you my mom doesn't live in the weeds and I didn't disappear. I merely unplugged for Thanksgiving to spend time with my family, many of whom identify as Conservative and voted for Trump. I am a former Conservative myself, but I have the intellectual honesty to look at what is happening and know that it is not right.

It is my belief that Trump is a Con-man and a grifter. He has hijacked the Republican party and is using divisive tactics to prey on people's base fears. He uses faux nationalism and faux religion to twist the electorate into ignoring his incompetence and corruption. He follows the Nazi playbook on manipulating the public and relies on the ignorance of his base not to see with their own eyes what is happening. Instead he feeds them line after line of BS {Mod Edit - Do not intentionally trip the profanity filter on this MCB board] claiming his opponents are doing the very things he does. It is the Trump doctrine, for every action Trump takes, you can find a Tweet of him griping about someone else doing the same thing.


That said, what I am saying as plainly as possible is that less educated voters tend to vote for Trump. I am not saying all Trump voters are stupid, although I would opine that Trump is making all voters stupid. I will even provide a little light reading if you are truly interested in the educational shift between the parties.

Educated Americans Are Fleeing the Republican Party

Many of the House districts flipped by Democrats had high levels of college-educated voters.

www.newsweek.com

"The midterm elections showed that college-educated voters are fleeing the Republican Party and casting ballots for Democratic candidates, according to The Wall Street Journal...

Democrats more educated than Republicans, Pew Research Center survey finds

According to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, Democrats are now the party of college graduates, especially those with post-graduate work. Meanwhile, people with a high-school degree or less, by far the larger group, slightly lean toward Republicans.

www.washingtontimes.com

"When it comes to education, the parties have switched places over the past two decades.
According to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, Democrats are now the party of college graduates, especially those with post-graduate work. Meanwhile, people with a high-school degree or less, by far the larger group, slightly lean toward Republicans.
Both preferences are the reverse of what they were in the 1990s.

According to Pew, 54 percent of college graduates either identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared to 39 percent who identified or leaned Republican. One-third of Americans have a college degree."

America Is Divided by Education

The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.

www.theatlantic.com

• Subscribe

America Is Divided by Education
The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.


One of the most striking patterns in yesterday’s election was years in the making: a major partisan divide between white voters with a college degree and those without one.
According to exit polls, 61 percent of non-college-educated white voters cast their ballots for Republicans while just 45 percent of college-educated white voters did so. Meanwhile 53 percent of college-educated white voters cast their votes for Democrats compared with 37 percent of those without a degree.
The diploma divide, as it’s often called, is not occurring across the electorate; it is primarily a phenomenon among white voters. It’s an unprecedented divide, and is in fact a complete departure from the diploma divide of the past. Non-college-educated white voters used to solidly belong to Democrats, and college-educated white voters to Republicans. Several events over the past six decades have caused these allegiances to switch, the most recent being the candidacy, election, and presidency of Donald Trump.

Last night’s results confirm that the diploma divide is likely here to stay—especially if the GOP maintains its alignment with Trump and the nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiments he hangs his hat on. The gap is likely to be one of the most powerful forces shaping American politics for decades to come.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Interesting article about men and women and their thoughts on impeachment
========================
One of the most enduring themes of this administration — women dislike President Trump at historically high rates, while men are more tolerant of his actions — is only getting more fortified with the impeachment debate.

Poll after poll shows a clear majority of women support both Trump’s impeachment in the House and a conviction in the Senate that would remove him from office, while roughly 6 in 10 men oppose such an outcome.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll, taken just before public hearings began, found that 56 percent of women supported impeachment and removing Trump from office, while just 4o percent of women want the president to stay in office. By contrast, 54 percent of men oppose impeachment, the poll showed.........

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/on-impeachment-of-trump-the-gender-gap-grows-wider/2019/11/27/6f41fdae-1128-11ea-b0fc-62cc38411ebb_story.html

 

[Lapaz]

I think there are general issues that in play as to whether what happened was a crime and/or whether it rises to the level of impeachment.

But I do wonder if you have any thoughts on why so many people don't care - presumably almost all, if not all, being Trump supporters and those who may be swayed to vote for Trump.
Even the most casual and passive consumer of news has been bombarded, almost daily, with news that this was it for Trump, he's done - with news that Trump was a threat to democracy, that he is Hitler, before he won there were predictions - at least one by a Nobel Prize winner - that the economy would collapse, etc.
In fact, I don;t think it is unfair to say that their grew a political cottage industry committed to impeaching Trump.

Asking a foreign country to investigate a company for the purpose of embarrassing Joe Biden and holding foreign aid until they did probably doesn't strike many as that big of news considering what they have heard for 3 years.

I keep hearing and reading people asking whether Trump's crime of attempting to use the Ukraine to investigate a political opponent rises to the level of seriousness that it warrants impeachment. That's the best spin it can get, but the reality is that he was seeking to weaken his political opponent by putting him under the cloud of an investigation. It would make the opponent appear untrustworthy. Given the obvious reality, I don't understand how such an attempt to undermine our democracy can leave any doubt about whether that warrants impeachment. If this doesn't warrant impeachment, then it implies that any future president can coerce foreign countries to interfere in our elections. That leads us further down the road of weakening our democracy. It may be as dangerous as anything Trump has done since he took office. Furthermore, not impeaching him for this action for which he we have strong evidence, will embolden him to continue seeking other countries to interfere, but he may be a little more wily about covering his tracks. It will be difficult to gather as much evidence on future such transgressions, plus people will not even want to pursue it, because they'll believe that seeking other countries to help gather dirt on political opponents is now acceptable. That can not be allowed to be considered acceptable, which is why this is absolutely impeachable.

 

[Taurus]

I can’t answer for OP, but what does your questions have to do with what was posted. The response could have been, “don’t be like us and trust poll nbrs”

But as far as the impeachment unraveling before our eyes. Seems as if once again the democrats spend to much time in “trump tracker” threads and are mis judging the support from the American people.

I'll wholeheartedly agree that the Dems have done a godawful job of informing the public of what they've done and why (Moscow Mitch) it hasn't gone anywhere.
The House could pass the cure for cancer and Mitch would kill it.
But nobody knows that.
Like the voter quoted in the story.
Just what, exactly, do you expect the House to get done all by itself????

 

[Lazybones]

Happy Thanksgiving. I assure you my mom doesn't live in the weeds and I didn't disappear. I merely unplugged for Thanksgiving to spend time with my family, many of whom identify as Conservative and voted for Trump. I am a former Conservative myself, but I have the intellectual honesty to look at what is happening and know that it is not right.

It is my belief that Trump is a Con-man and a grifter. He has hijacked the Republican party and is using divisive tactics to prey on people's base fears. He uses faux nationalism and faux religion to twist the electorate into ignoring his incompetence and corruption. He follows the Nazi playbook on manipulating the public and relies on the ignorance of his base not to see with their own eyes what is happening. Instead he feeds them line after line of BS {Mod Edit - Do not intentionally trip the profanity filter on this MCB board] claiming his opponents are doing the very things he does. It is the Trump doctrine, for every action Trump takes, you can find a Tweet of him griping about someone else doing the same thing.


That said, what I am saying as plainly as possible is that less educated voters tend to vote for Trump. I am not saying all Trump voters are stupid, although I would opine that Trump is making all voters stupid. I will even provide a little light reading if you are truly interested in the educational shift between the parties.

Educated Americans Are Fleeing the Republican Party

Many of the House districts flipped by Democrats had high levels of college-educated voters.

www.newsweek.com

"The midterm elections showed that college-educated voters are fleeing the Republican Party and casting ballots for Democratic candidates, according to The Wall Street Journal...

Democrats more educated than Republicans, Pew Research Center survey finds

According to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, Democrats are now the party of college graduates, especially those with post-graduate work. Meanwhile, people with a high-school degree or less, by far the larger group, slightly lean toward Republicans.

www.washingtontimes.com

"When it comes to education, the parties have switched places over the past two decades.
According to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, Democrats are now the party of college graduates, especially those with post-graduate work. Meanwhile, people with a high-school degree or less, by far the larger group, slightly lean toward Republicans.
Both preferences are the reverse of what they were in the 1990s.

According to Pew, 54 percent of college graduates either identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared to 39 percent who identified or leaned Republican. One-third of Americans have a college degree."

America Is Divided by Education

The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.

www.theatlantic.com

• Subscribe

America Is Divided by Education
The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it.


One of the most striking patterns in yesterday’s election was years in the making: a major partisan divide between white voters with a college degree and those without one.
According to exit polls, 61 percent of non-college-educated white voters cast their ballots for Republicans while just 45 percent of college-educated white voters did so. Meanwhile 53 percent of college-educated white voters cast their votes for Democrats compared with 37 percent of those without a degree.
The diploma divide, as it’s often called, is not occurring across the electorate; it is primarily a phenomenon among white voters. It’s an unprecedented divide, and is in fact a complete departure from the diploma divide of the past. Non-college-educated white voters used to solidly belong to Democrats, and college-educated white voters to Republicans. Several events over the past six decades have caused these allegiances to switch, the most recent being the candidacy, election, and presidency of Donald Trump.

Last night’s results confirm that the diploma divide is likely here to stay—especially if the GOP maintains its alignment with Trump and the nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiments he hangs his hat on. The gap is likely to be one of the most powerful forces shaping American politics for decades to come.

All well and good, but you specifically said the people in La that vote for trump are uneducated. I am challenging that assertion, saying in Louisiana the lower educated vote democrat.

Are you now saying that your original statement was hyperbolic and now are attempting to back away from that statement?

or are you standing by that the lower educated in La voted for trump?

I just want to make sure I post the correct link for you.

 

[Lazybones]

I'll wholeheartedly agree that the Dems have done a godawful job of informing the public of what they've done and why (Moscow Mitch) it hasn't gone anywhere.
The House could pass the cure for cancer and Mitch would kill it.
But nobody knows that.
Like the voter quoted in the story.
Just what, exactly, do you expect the House to get done all by itself????

by itself, what about nbc, abc, cnn, cbs, nyt? The democrats have the entire media helping them. It is all trump all the time and yet your side can’t get the American public to go along.

I don’t understand this? There are more democrat voters (look at the last election) than conservatives. Trump only won because of the electoral college. So why doesn’t the majority of the public get behind this process?

 

[samiam5211]

by itself, what about nbc, abc, cnn, cbs, nyt? The democrats have the entire media helping them. It is all trump all the time and yet your side can’t get the American public to go along.

I don’t understand this? There are more democrat voters (look at the last election) than conservatives. Trump only won because of the electoral college. So why doesn’t the majority of the public get behind this process?

Do you believe that Trump withheld aid and a whitehouse meeting because he wanted the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation that he thought might help him politically?

 

[Lazybones]

Do you believe that Trump withheld aid and a whitehouse meeting because he wanted the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation that he thought might help him politically?

partially. I also think his ego wants his name cleared of 2016 election stuff that the DNC and the mueller investigation stirred up.

 

[samiam5211]

partially. I also think his ego wants his name cleared of 2016 election stuff that the DNC and the mueller investigation stirred up.

So do you think it is ok for the President to use his authority to get dirt on opponents or massage his ego?

Should there be any consequences for the president at all?

Where is the line? Should a president be able to do whatever they want and we’re just stuck until the next election?