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Ibanez wrote:

css75 wrote:Sorry to disappoint you rabid pro Impeachers. The NYT said the so called whistle blower met with Schiff prior to submitting statement, which shows Schiff probably gave guidance to this. Also, rewriting the rules so hearsay could be used just before this apis certainly skeptic ready.

Basically, this all makes another big fat nothing and jelly, JSO and other haters will end up with egg on their faces. AGAIN!!!


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Actually it shows that he met with Schiff. Nothing more. I'd like to see your evidence.

And the rules weren't re-written. That's been debunked.

GannonFan wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:
As I said in another post: The Steele Dossier has not been shown to be fake and some of it has been verified. You really, really need to break free from the cult and quit repeating those talking points.

Referencing the whistleblower thing is even worse because we have the President releasing a call summary that validates what the whistleblower reported.

To use a cliche: Quit drinking the Kool Aid.

Of course, the big elephant in the room regarding the Steele Dossier is that it involved one political campaign (actually, more than one) paying foreign entities money to collect dirt on another political campaign. And then that information, in some part, fed into the federal investigation of the next Presidential administration. Hard to get around the idea of political campaigns paying foreign countries to come up with damaging information regarding political opponents.

JohnStOnge wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
Of course, the big elephant in the room regarding the Steele Dossier is that it involved one political campaign (actually, more than one) paying foreign entities money to collect dirt on another political campaign. And then that information, in some part, fed into the federal investigation of the next Presidential administration. Hard to get around the idea of political campaigns paying foreign countries to come up with damaging information regarding political opponents.

"Foreign entities" is different than "Foreign countries." A private consultant getting information from foreigners is different than a foreign country making an effort to interfere in an election. In any case: The Steele Dossier has not been discredited as a general matter. The idea that is has been is one of those myths being spun out by the Republican side. Some of it has been verified. Some of it has not.

JohnStOnge wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
Of course, the big elephant in the room regarding the Steele Dossier is that it involved one political campaign (actually, more than one) paying foreign entities money to collect dirt on another political campaign. And then that information, in some part, fed into the federal investigation of the next Presidential administration. Hard to get around the idea of political campaigns paying foreign countries to come up with damaging information regarding political opponents.

"Foreign entities" is different than "Foreign countries." A private consultant getting information from foreigners is different than a foreign country making an effort to interfere in an election. In any case: The Steele Dossier has not been discredited as a general matter. The idea that is has been is one of those myths being spun out by the Republican side. Some of it has been verified. Some of it has not.

mainejeff2 wrote:#MoscowMitch has been very quiet lately.

CID1990 wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:
"Foreign entities" is different than "Foreign countries." A private consultant getting information from foreigners is different than a foreign country making an effort to interfere in an election. In any case: The Steele Dossier has not been discredited as a general matter. The idea that is has been is one of those myths being spun out by the Republican side. Some of it has been verified. Some of it has not.

You have already been told that your “some of the dossier is verified” schtick is misleading. Fix yourself.


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JohnStOnge wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
You have already been told that your “some of the dossier is verified” schtick is misleading. Fix yourself.


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I didn't see that assertion but it doesn't matter. The statement "some of the dossier is verified" is true and it is not misleading. It's just a fact.

Is it constitutionally acceptable for the House speaker to initiate an impeachment “by means of nothing more than a press conference”? In short, yes.

The constitutional text on this issue is spare. The Constitution simply says that the House has the sole power of impeachment. Ultimately, if the House wants to impeach someone, it needs to muster a simple majority in support of articles of impeachment that can be presented to the Senate. How the House gets there is entirely up to the chamber itself to determine. There is no constitutional requirement that the House take two successful votes on impeachment, one to authorize some kind of inquiry and one to ratify whatever emerges from that inquiry. An impeachment inquiry is not “invalid” because there has been no vote to formally launch it, and any eventual impeachment would not be “invalid” because the process that led to it did not feature a floor vote authorizing a specific inquiry.

CID1990 wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:
I didn't see that assertion but it doesn't matter. The statement "some of the dossier is verified" is true and it is not misleading. It's just a fact.

It is misleading because those things that have been verified are 1) easily detectable (they didn’t need a spook to find them), 2) not indicative of a shady relationship with Russians, and 3) not even pertinent to the collusion conspiracy theory.

You might as well say the dossier is partially verified because all the names were spelled correctly

mainejeff2 wrote:

Gil Dobie wrote:

mainejeff2 wrote:

Progress on the left. You have to admit he is your President to have him impeached.

The 2016 election is not under threat of being negated. Donald Trump assumed the office of the presidency. I watched it with my own eyes. It was some pretty weird shit. Once he got there, impeachment became the constitutional remedy for removing him in the case of high crimes and misdemeanors while in office. Had he not had any misdemeanors after getting elected, impeachment would not be a serious issue. If you think impeachment is the same thing as a “Deep State coup” then what you’re really saying is that you don’t think the Constitution is an adequate guide to how our government should be run. In which case, Donald Trump is the least of our problems.

And as to the 2016 election that despite winning, Trump and his enablers are obsessed with relitigating, that part of the Ukraine scandal while nutso (technical term) isn’t the operative issue. If Trump had only sent Zelensky on an insane wild goose chase to uncover “the truth” about the 2016 election by finding the real DNC server that Sean Hannity told him was hidden somewhere in Zaporozhye, then I could understand coming to the conclusion that the president is merely a dangerous fool in need of a head exam, but not impeachment.

But that isn’t the question at hand. According to testimony by Fiona Hill this week, the ambassador to the E.U., Godon Sondland, told Ukranians at Trump’s request that they would only get a meeting with the president if they opened an investigation into Hunter Biden

JohnStOnge wrote:As I watch this situation unfold I think the best thing the Democrats could do is to go through with the inquiry then issue a statement such as this:

"We think the evidence yielded by the inquiry is more than sufficient to justify removing Donald Trump from office. However, we recognize that there is a lack of integrity among Republican members of the Legislative Branch right now and Republicans hold the majority in the Senate. There is no chance that they will do the right thing. So we will not waste the country's time by referring this matter to the Senate. The American People have seen the evidence. We will trust the American People to decide during the next Presidential election."

I don't think they'll do that. But I think that sort of thing would be the smart thing to do.

GannonFan wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:As I watch this situation unfold I think the best thing the Democrats could do is to go through with the inquiry then issue a statement such as this:

"We think the evidence yielded by the inquiry is more than sufficient to justify removing Donald Trump from office. However, we recognize that there is a lack of integrity among Republican members of the Legislative Branch right now and Republicans hold the majority in the Senate. There is no chance that they will do the right thing. So we will not waste the country's time by referring this matter to the Senate. The American People have seen the evidence. We will trust the American People to decide during the next Presidential election."

I don't think they'll do that. But I think that sort of thing would be the smart thing to do.

Sure, go through the entire impeachment process, delay legislation on other stuff during that time, insist that it is so serious that Trump should be removed from office, but then say "nah, we won't do anything". Don't get the satisfaction of counting Trump among the very few Presidents who have been impeached and don't get the GOP Senators on record deciding not to remove him from office. So piss off your base who have wanted him impeached for years and still raise the ire of Trump's own supporters. Yeah, winning strategy right there.

CID1990 wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
Sure, go through the entire impeachment process, delay legislation on other stuff during that time, insist that it is so serious that Trump should be removed from office, but then say "nah, we won't do anything". Don't get the satisfaction of counting Trump among the very few Presidents who have been impeached and don't get the GOP Senators on record deciding not to remove him from office. So piss off your base who have wanted him impeached for years and still raise the ire of Trump's own supporters. Yeah, winning strategy right there.

The re-worked trade deal that replaces NAFTA has bipartisan support and is a slam dunk to pass both the House and the Senate

But Pelosi won't bring it to a vote because of course they have other priorities.

The House needs to fish or cut bait on impeachment while they still have time left to accomplish other things... especially since we all know impeachment will amount to nothing more than an official rebuke from the House only

CID1990 wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
Sure, go through the entire impeachment process, delay legislation on other stuff during that time, insist that it is so serious that Trump should be removed from office, but then say "nah, we won't do anything". Don't get the satisfaction of counting Trump among the very few Presidents who have been impeached and don't get the GOP Senators on record deciding not to remove him from office. So piss off your base who have wanted him impeached for years and still raise the ire of Trump's own supporters. Yeah, winning strategy right there.

The re-worked trade deal that replaces NAFTA has bipartisan support and is a slam dunk to pass both the House and the Senate

But Pelosi won't bring it to a vote because of course they have other priorities.

The House needs to fish or cut bait on impeachment while they still have time left to accomplish other things... especially since we all know impeachment will amount to nothing more than an official rebuke from the House only

kalm wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
The re-worked trade deal that replaces NAFTA has bipartisan support and is a slam dunk to pass both the House and the Senate

But Pelosi won't bring it to a vote because of course they have other priorities.

The House needs to fish or cut bait on impeachment while they still have time left to accomplish other things... especially since we all know impeachment will amount to nothing more than an official rebuke from the House only

Is it a populist trade deal?

Are you arguing this from a pragmatic standpoint or because you don’t think Trump has done anything impeachable?

JohnStOnge wrote:As I watch this situation unfold I think the best thing the Democrats could do is to go through with the inquiry then issue a statement such as this:

"We think the evidence yielded by the inquiry is more than sufficient to justify removing Donald Trump from office. However, we recognize that there is a lack of integrity among Republican members of the Legislative Branch right now and Republicans hold the majority in the Senate. There is no chance that they will do the right thing. So we will not waste the country's time by referring this matter to the Senate. The American People have seen the evidence. We will trust the American People to decide during the next Presidential election."

I don't think they'll do that. But I think that sort of thing would be the smart thing to do.

JohnStOnge wrote:This is as good a thread as any to point out yet another area in which the Republicans are hurling total bullshit. It's the idea that a House impeachment inquiry requires a vote and that lack of a vote justifies refusing to honor requests for information. See the Lawfare article at https://www.lawfareblog.com/must-house- ... nt-inquiry.

Is it constitutionally acceptable for the House speaker to initiate an impeachment “by means of nothing more than a press conference”? In short, yes.

The constitutional text on this issue is spare. The Constitution simply says that the House has the sole power of impeachment. Ultimately, if the House wants to impeach someone, it needs to muster a simple majority in support of articles of impeachment that can be presented to the Senate. How the House gets there is entirely up to the chamber itself to determine. There is no constitutional requirement that the House take two successful votes on impeachment, one to authorize some kind of inquiry and one to ratify whatever emerges from that inquiry. An impeachment inquiry is not “invalid” because there has been no vote to formally launch it, and any eventual impeachment would not be “invalid” because the process that led to it did not feature a floor vote authorizing a specific inquiry.

For what it's worth: Lawfare is rated "Leased Biased" with a "Factual Reporting" rating of "Very High" by the site I like to use (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/lawfare-blog/).

Ibanez wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:As I watch this situation unfold I think the best thing the Democrats could do is to go through with the inquiry then issue a statement such as this:

"We think the evidence yielded by the inquiry is more than sufficient to justify removing Donald Trump from office. However, we recognize that there is a lack of integrity among Republican members of the Legislative Branch right now and Republicans hold the majority in the Senate. There is no chance that they will do the right thing. So we will not waste the country's time by referring this matter to the Senate. The American People have seen the evidence. We will trust the American People to decide during the next Presidential election."

I don't think they'll do that. But I think that sort of thing would be the smart thing to do.

1) That will never happen
2) That would be a slap in the face to everyone. Wasting time and money and you're going to do NOTHING. Plus, their base would be livid. And it'd only validate the Republican argument against.

That would be the dumbest thing they could do.

JohnStOnge wrote:Now I think the best scenario for the Democrats would be to have the Republicans vote not to have witnesses. That way they can spend the next 9 months talking about how corrupt the Republicans are. It'd be especially effective if Bolton doesn't testify then his book comes out and has stuff about Trump withholding aid for the purpose of getting the Ukrainians to investigate Biden and/or announce an investigation of Biden.

It would create an excellent opportunity to cast the Republicans as covering up; trying to prevent information that would shed light on the question from coming out.