• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Pelosi: Impeachment Is Moving Forward

Does this go under here or A Day Without Stupid?

CNN said:
The White House accidentally emailed its talking points about the President's call with the Ukrainian leader to House Democrats.

The talking points include lines like: "Let’s be clear, there was no quid pro quo for Ukraine to get US aid in exchange for looking into Biden or his son."
The White House later tried to recall the email message.
Click to expand...
They are idiots and getting away with it!
 
Trausti said:
Koyaanisqatsi said:
Here's the truncated version:

The President: I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. [T]he United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000%...We would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though...
Click to expand...

That's it. Full-on quid-pro-quo.
Click to expand...

That's not a quid pro quo. I was promised that he was holding up aid to Ukraine unless they did something for him. Ya know, a quid pro quo. So disappointing. It's not like he told them to stop a corruption investigation and fire the chief prosecutor or else not get aid.
Click to expand...

The president IS holding up aid.. something like $400M... Is it that he just didn't SAY it out loud at that particular moment that makes it appropriate to you?

I'm not saying I will beat you up for your lunch money, no... I'm just saying that if you give me your lunch money then I will have other things to do and won't have time for any of that. no quid pro quo there, right?
 
Don2 (Don1 Revised) said:
Jolly_Penguin said:
What are the odds that regardless of what Trump has done while in office that he gets punished for it once out? Bush never was for lying your country into a war and getting lots of people killed. What could Trump have done that's worse than that?
Click to expand...

Trump is trying to destroy our democracy which will make it easier for future Trump Presidents (Eric, Jr, Ivanka, Barron) to make useless wars for profit and lead us more quickly to mass extinction due to environmental deregulation.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. I think he's just in it for his own ego and profit. I doubt he cares about future presidents or the environment one way or the other. I think your worst case scenario that we're not already aware of is that he's embezling a lot of money away from your taxpayers. He also stacked your supreme court against you. I would put Bush with his throwing away of numerous lives (both your own soldiers and civilians in the countries you invaded) in a "war" he lied you into as considerably worse.

I don't think Trump has much of an ideology. I think he's less like Voldemort and more like a Tornado, with a sharpie of course.
 
Curious, how many bricks did Barr shit when he saw that Trump mentioned him in the transcript to talk with the Ukrainian President about Biden?
 
Keith&Co. said:
Doesn't the vote come AFTER the investigation?
Click to expand...

Investigations turn up facts, Keith. By now you should know how Republicans view that kind of thing.
Much better to make the Dems rush to a judgment that can be summarily negated by the unified voices of 51+ Republican Senators.
 
There was something in the leaked memo that actually captures the nature of the issue pretty well. When a sitting President has reason to believe that corruption is going on in relation to a foreign country (as Trump will certainly claim was the reason for his request), and the person involved in the alleged corruption is connected to a political opponent in an upcoming election (which Trump will certainly claim was the last thing on his mind), where does the onus of responsibility fall?

In other words, if this were 2011 and Obama had heard allegations that Rick Santorum was bribing bank officials in Switzerland to hide funds or something, and in a conversation with the Swiss president he said "let me be clear, American politicians shouldn't be hiding dirty money in your banks, folks are going to start asking questions, so please get in touch with Eric Holder if you find anything out", would Obama be at fault for raising the issue because Santorum was running for the White House, or would Santorum bear the responsibility for doing something illegal that the President had every right to investigate?

It comes down to whether, constitutionally, the fact that the request could influence an election the President wants to win is more important than the fact that a President has the freedom to open a legal inquiry into potential impropriety on the part of current or former officials. On the one hand, it's easy to see the huge conflict of interest. On the other, it seems like impeachment would set a strange precedent: anybody who runs for President against an incumbent is immune from being investigated for international corruption by the incumbent's administration, because any such investigation would be grounds for impeachment of the incumbent! I honestly don't know the answer to this, but I don't think it'll be a slam dunk compared to the more obvious obstruction of justice stuff that Mueller provided.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
Don2 (Don1 Revised) said:
Jolly_Penguin said:
What are the odds that regardless of what Trump has done while in office that he gets punished for it once out? Bush never was for lying your country into a war and getting lots of people killed. What could Trump have done that's worse than that?
Click to expand...

Trump is trying to destroy our democracy which will make it easier for future Trump Presidents (Eric, Jr, Ivanka, Barron) to make useless wars for profit and lead us more quickly to mass extinction due to environmental deregulation.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. I think he's just in it for his own ego and profit. I doubt he cares about future presidents or the environment one way or the other. I think your worst case scenario that we're not already aware of is that he's embezling a lot of money away from your taxpayers. He also stacked your supreme court against you. I would put Bush with his throwing away of numerous lives (both your own soldiers and civilians in the countries you invaded) in a "war" he lied you into as considerably worse.

I don't think Trump has much of an ideology. I think he's less like Voldemort and more like a Tornado, with a sharpie of course.
Click to expand...

"tornado with a sharpie".. that's just pure gold.

Trump's primary goal may not specifically be "to destroy Democracy". But if that is an effect of his goal of enriching himself, then here in America we just say, "He's trying to destroy Democracy". It's just how we speak here.
 
PyramidHead said:
In other words, if this were 2011
Click to expand...

Here, I'll make it easy for you:

Obama: I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. The United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000%...We would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

Obama: I would like you to do us a favor though...I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

Zelensky: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation.

Obama: The other thing. There's a lot of talk about Mitt Romney's son...
Click to expand...
 
PyramidHead said:
connected to a political opponent in an upcoming election (which Trump will certainly claim was the last thing on his mind),
Click to expand...
Well, if it did impinge on a political opponent, then Trump should have recused himself from any investigation into the rumor.
Turn it over to Justice, maybe making sure State promises to cooperate with Justice in the investigation, and then, i dunno, not use his personal office to prosecute the rumor? Because a conflict of interest being 'furtherst from my mind' is not a good reason to continue conflicting.

anybody who runs for President against an incumbent is immune from being investigated for international corruption by the incumbent's administration
Click to expand...
Yes, because if THE PRESIDENT cannot conduct the investigation, there's no one else in the entire government with the ability to appoint a special prosecutor to look into these allegations and offer a report to congress.
 
ZiprHead said:
Mike Murphy, Fmr. Senior adviser to Mitt Romney and John McCain, tells MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell that "'One Republican senator told me if it was a secret vote, 30 Republican senators would vote to impeach Trump."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Ooooh! Maybe they could just hold the impeachment vote during a 9/11 ceremony?
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
PyramidHead said:
In other words, if this were 2011
Click to expand...

Here, I'll make it easy for you:

Obama: I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. The United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000%...We would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

Obama: I would like you to do us a favor though...I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

Zelensky: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation.

Obama: The other thing. There's a lot of talk about Mitt Romney's son...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

That's good.

You realize if you show this to Republicans, they will try to arrest Obama, though?
 
Keith&Co. said:
PyramidHead said:
connected to a political opponent in an upcoming election (which Trump will certainly claim was the last thing on his mind),
Click to expand...
Well, if it did impinge on a political opponent, then Trump should have recused himself from any investigation into the rumor.
Turn it over to Justice, maybe making sure State promises to cooperate with Justice in the investigation, and then, i dunno, not use his personal office to prosecute the rumor? Because a conflict of interest being 'furtherst from my mind' is not a good reason to continue conflicting.

anybody who runs for President against an incumbent is immune from being investigated for international corruption by the incumbent's administration
Click to expand...
Yes, because if THE PRESIDENT cannot conduct the investigation, there's no one else in the entire government with the ability to appoint a special prosecutor to look into these allegations and offer a report to congress.
Click to expand...

That's what it hinges on, yeah. If the whole matter is reducible to "the President shouldn't have requested that out loud, he should have appointed someone to request it on his behalf", that's not a lot to hang an impeachment hat on, in the grand scheme of everything this guy has done and said. But then, if he had delegated the job to Giuliani, and it was him instead of Trump on the transcript, I feel like this would all still be happening. Or would it?
 
PyramidHead said:
That's what it hinges on, yeah. If the whole matter is reducible to "the President shouldn't have requested that out loud, he should have appointed someone to request it on his behalf", that's not a lot to hang an impeachment hat on,
Click to expand...
No.
His SPIN will be
there was a possibility of, that people are talking about, lots of people, people at saying that Biden did this corruption thing, and i just asked. I suppose i should have asked, i dunno, someone at Justice.
Click to expand...
But the conversation was about 'i give you money, you give me Biden.' That's quite a lot to hang a hat on.
 
Keith&Co. said:
PyramidHead said:
That's what it hinges on, yeah. If the whole matter is reducible to "the President shouldn't have requested that out loud, he should have appointed someone to request it on his behalf", that's not a lot to hang an impeachment hat on,
Click to expand...
No.
His SPIN will be
there was a possibility of, that people are talking about, lots of people, people at saying that Biden did this corruption thing, and i just asked. I suppose i should have asked, i dunno, someone at Justice.
Click to expand...
But the conversation was about 'i give you money, you give me Biden.' That's quite a lot to hang a hat on.
Click to expand...

Unless that was explicit, which assuming the transcript is mostly accurate (and it probably isn't, but we'll also probably never see the real one) it arguably wasn't, he's gonna wiggle out of it just like he has literally every other allegation made against him without direct verbatim photo/audio/video/DNA proof. I mean, this is all moot in the end in terms of outcomes, as there's no standard of reasonable doubt to achieve for impeachment; you just need the votes, and if you have them you can impeach because you don't like the guy.

But in terms of public perception, I feel like this issue specifically was an odd one to place as the most egregious and blatant overreach, given the obvious counter-narrative that can be employed, and especially given the lack of any tangible harm done compared to, say, his treatment of any of the women accusing him of rape, his appointment of a justice accused of the same, the deaths and malnutrition of the children his policies are corralling into fenced-in holding pens, the Muslims whose futures are uncertain as a consequence of his casual fomenting white supremacist sentiment, and so forth. I see any of those as better avenues for impeachment, and all of them segue nicely into the general election as reminders of how horrible Trump really is. If this is all we're getting from the phone call, it might not be as damning by comparison to the average person.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom