So much effort to impeach Trump

[Tigers!]

Looking on from Australia I cannot help but wonder that all the effort spent trying to impeach Trump could have been better spent devising new policies, preparing the ground for 2020 etc.

Some digging on the internet found that Texas Rep. Al Green seems to have been the first to call for Trump's impeachment in May 2017.
Trump had been in office just 4 months. What had he done in 4 months to justify a call for impeachment other than defeating Clinton?

Since then our news bulletins in Oz have had a dreary train of impeachment calls.

Don't you yanks have other things to occupy your time and efforts?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Impeachment in face of illegal dealings and obstruction of justice is a duty. Otherwise it opens the US to this sort of action as normal and acceptable.

 

[Trausti]

Trump prayed: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.

 

[Patooka]

Jesus fucking Christ this argument is pretty asinine. Let's use a simple copy and paste.

Pretend Bill Shorten won the last federal election. Then in 2021 he appealed to the Chinese government to run ads against Scott Morrison in exchange for a port deal in Melbourne similar to what the NT government did with Darwin.

You're saying you would be fine with that? Because I certainly fucking wouldn't

And then pretend an Inquiry is launched, hell even a Royal Commission to investigate how illegal and corrupt such a practice is. The commission can't interview anyone involved because Shorten has instructed his cabinet to not cooperate.

You're saying you would be fine with that? Because I certainly wouldn't.

Then imagine the ABC and every Fairfax paper screaming that this is an unsubstantiated witch hunt, and the ASIO intelligence officer (who has worked in Australian Intelligence since the Rudd Government) is a pro-Chinese, pro-Liberal partisan whore. They sell this piece of propaganda so well, 50% of Australia believes it. And the Commission can't prove jack shit, because no one from the Shorten government is willing to appear before the inquiry, and can't be compelled to.

You're saying you would be fine with that? Because I certainly wouldn't.

So it's no wonder Trump is being impeached. What's astonishing is that it has taken so fucking long. As for, "all the effort spent trying to impeach Trump could have been better spent devising new policies":

That's all the legislation currently being held up in the US senate since November of last year. Democrats have planned for the future. Mitch McConnell is just a partisan fucking cunt. If you want an Australian equivalent, imagine if Bob Brown was in charge of the senate and could veto any legislation coming from the House of Representatives. That's McConnell.

Why would you be okay with such a scenario? I fucking wouldn't

 

[marc]

Then imagine the ABC and every Fairfax paper screaming that this is an unsubstantiated witch hunt, and the ASIO intelligence officer (who has worked in Australian Intelligence since the Rudd Government) is a pro-Chinese, pro-Liberal partisan whore. They sell this piece of propaganda so well, 50% of Australia believes it. And the Commission can't prove jack shit, because no one from the Shorten government is willing to appear before the inquiry, and can't be compelled to.

Add to that scenario Shorten admitting to all of it in interviews, vowing to keep on doing it, and ABC, Fairfax papers, and politician in his party trying to claim simultaneously that he is not doing that, and even if he was there is nothing wrong with it.

This impeachment is taking extra effort because the case has to be laid out simply enough, and explicitly enough, for everyone to understand, so pressure can be put on the Republicans in the Senate. Without enough pressure they will just blow it off and ignore the corruption.

 

[KeepTalking]

Looking on from Australia I cannot help but wonder that all the effort spent trying to impeach Trump could have been better spent devising new policies, preparing the ground for 2020 etc.

Policies that Moscow Mitch will just ignore in the Senate? They have been doing that, and doing that, and doing that some more. Impeachment does not preclude them from also devising new policies, but to concentrate solely on that, and to avoid impeaching Trump in some vain hope that he and the GOP will suddenly decide to stop cheating their way to an electoral victory is just plain stupid.

Some digging on the internet found that Texas Rep. Al Green seems to have been the first to call for Trump's impeachment in May 2017.
Trump had been in office just 4 months. What had he done in 4 months to justify a call for impeachment other than defeating Clinton?

Seriously? The man violated election laws before he even got into office. After that the impeachable offenses just kept on piling up, and are continuing even while he is being impeached.

Since then our news bulletins in Oz have had a dreary train of impeachment calls.

Perhaps you should take that up with those who are producing those new bulletins in your country, or you know, maybe you could try locating the off switch.

Don't you yanks have other things to occupy your time and efforts?

I think securing our elections is pretty fucking important, and you are certainly not obligated to allow it to occupy your time and efforts, yet here you are...

 

[Politesse]

Looking on from Australia I cannot help but wonder that all the effort spent trying to impeach Trump could have been better spent devising new policies, preparing the ground for 2020 etc.

Some digging on the internet found that Texas Rep. Al Green seems to have been the first to call for Trump's impeachment in May 2017.
Trump had been in office just 4 months. What had he done in 4 months to justify a call for impeachment other than defeating Clinton?

Since then our news bulletins in Oz have had a dreary train of impeachment calls.

Don't you yanks have other things to occupy your time and efforts?

We've been fighting an increasing powerful executive branch for decades now. If there are no checks on presidential power, no oversight whatsoever on what a president is allowed to do uncensured, including and especially shutting down investigations into his own activities, it won't matter who takes office next year, or five years from now. The rule of law must be consistent, or it means little.

That said, I do wish more energy were paid to the actual governance of the country. Especially by the media, which hyper-focuses on "royal drama" almost to the point of drowning out the actual news. I don't think the average, non-political-junkie American has any idea of the role McConnell's Senate is playing in preventing the consideration of new laws right now, or any grasp of why that is important for that matter.

Heck, non-political yet important national news gets drowned out. This week saw the creation of a new National Park (our 62nd) and the only people I've met who'd heard about it at all were in my Sierra Club hiking group.

 

[Politesse]

Oh, and as for the 2017 impeachmant call, it was for collusion with domestic terrorists, not "defeating Clinton".

 

[southernhybrid]

Well, It looks like y'all did a good job of explaining to Tigers why the impeachment was necessary.

Sadly, most Americans don't realize that the House has passed dozens of bills which are piling up on Moscow Mitch's desk. The man refuses to even bring these bills up in the Senate. What in the world is he so frighted of. Almost all bills have to be sent back and forth and modified before they are approved, but Mitch won't even get the process started in the vast majority of cases. Fuck Mitch and the horse he rode in on. He seems to like pretending that the House is the body that's not doing anything. The House has proved it can talk and chew gum at the same time.

 

[TV and credit cards]

We've been fighting an increasing powerful executive branch for decades now. If there are no checks on presidential power, no oversight whatsoever on what a president is allowed to do uncensured, including and especially shutting down investigations into his own activities, it won't matter who takes office next year, or five years from now. The rule of law must be consistent, or it means little.

That said, I do wish more energy were paid to the actual governance of the country. Especially by the media, which hyper-focuses on "royal drama" almost to the point of drowning out the actual news. I don't think the average, non-political-junkie American has any idea of the role McConnell's Senate is playing in preventing the consideration of new laws right now, or any grasp of why that is important for that matter.

Heck, non-political yet important national news gets drowned out. This week saw the creation of a new National Park (our 62nd) and the only people I've met who'd heard about it at all were in my Sierra Club hiking group.

I knew about our latest National Park.

I agree with your comments but for my part, it's when I had my head buried in nothing but political news, constantly searching for and reading nothing but Trump, Trump, Trump with a constant feed of MSNBC in the background I wasn't paying attention to much else. After awhile, I found all this "breaking news" often didn't amount to much. Now, I figure the news worthy of print will be at Reuters. I've also more recently taken to scanning USA Today for some lighter reporting because, you know, sometimes we need to just sit back and watch a two year old unwrap her Christmas banana.

 

[Politesse]

We've been fighting an increasing powerful executive branch for decades now. If there are no checks on presidential power, no oversight whatsoever on what a president is allowed to do uncensured, including and especially shutting down investigations into his own activities, it won't matter who takes office next year, or five years from now. The rule of law must be consistent, or it means little.

That said, I do wish more energy were paid to the actual governance of the country. Especially by the media, which hyper-focuses on "royal drama" almost to the point of drowning out the actual news. I don't think the average, non-political-junkie American has any idea of the role McConnell's Senate is playing in preventing the consideration of new laws right now, or any grasp of why that is important for that matter.

Heck, non-political yet important national news gets drowned out. This week saw the creation of a new National Park (our 62nd) and the only people I've met who'd heard about it at all were in my Sierra Club hiking group.

I knew about our latest National Park.

I agree with your comments but for my part, it's when I had my head buried in nothing but political news, constantly searching for and reading nothing but Trump, Trump, Trump with a constant feed of MSNBC in the background I wasn't paying attention to much else. After awhile, I found all this "breaking news" often didn't amount to much. Now, I figure the news worthy of print will be at Reuters. I've also more recently taken to scanning USA Today for some lighter reporting because, you know, sometimes we need to just sit back and watch a two year old unwrap her Christmas banana.

I'm a Reuters reader too... might as well get it at the source! It's funny how the 24 hr news cycle doesn't seem to do any better at keeping everyone informed than the old 1-2 hr presentations used to do. Social media has been no more help. I quit Twitter a few years ago because of all the "Trump spam".

 

[Tigers!]

Jesus fucking Christ this argument is pretty asinine. Let's use a simple copy and paste.

Pretend Bill Shorten won the last federal election. Then in 2021 he appealed to the Chinese government to run ads against Scott Morrison in exchange for a port deal in Melbourne similar to what the NT government did with Darwin.

You're saying you would be fine with that? Because I certainly fucking wouldn't

And then pretend an Inquiry is launched, hell even a Royal Commission to investigate how illegal and corrupt such a practice is. The commission can't interview anyone involved because Shorten has instructed his cabinet to not cooperate.

You're saying you would be fine with that? Because I certainly wouldn't.

Then imagine the ABC and every Fairfax paper screaming that this is an unsubstantiated witch hunt, and the ASIO intelligence officer (who has worked in Australian Intelligence since the Rudd Government) is a pro-Chinese, pro-Liberal partisan whore. They sell this piece of propaganda so well, 50% of Australia believes it. And the Commission can't prove jack shit, because no one from the Shorten government is willing to appear before the inquiry, and can't be compelled to.

You're saying you would be fine with that? Because I certainly wouldn't.

So it's no wonder Trump is being impeached. What's astonishing is that it has taken so fucking long. As for, "all the effort spent trying to impeach Trump could have been better spent devising new policies":

That's all the legislation currently being held up in the US senate since November of last year. Democrats have planned for the future. Mitch McConnell is just a partisan fucking cunt. If you want an Australian equivalent, imagine if Bob Brown was in charge of the senate and could veto any legislation coming from the House of Representatives. That's McConnell.

Why would you be okay with such a scenario? I fucking wouldn't

That is a large pile of paper.
Unfortunately that does not mean they all are worthy of being passed.

As for Bill Shorten, if he had become PM he should have been investigated for his kniving of 2 sitting PMs.
I wouldn't hold Bill up as a paragon of moral virtue.

 

[Tigers!]

Well, It looks like y'all did a good job of explaining to Tigers why the impeachment was necessary.

.

And when in the future a Democrat gets in then the impeachment circus will roll on unimpeded. The Republicans will throw up impeachment claims, spurious or otherwise.
Unfortunately you yanks seem have got yourselves into a state of perpetual outage where good governance is a distant memory.

Don't get me wrong Trump is an knave and a fool and should never have been elected. But he was.
I still cannot believe that a nation of > 300 million people could throw up two, so totally unfit in their own unique way, persons for president.
I could not have voted for either. Where was a plausible 3rd alternative?

 

[Patooka]

That is a large pile of paper.
Unfortunately that does not mean they all are worthy of being passed.

Like you said, it's a large pile of paper. It's impossible to think all of them are unworthy of being passed. A lot of them are bipartisan, covering things like gun control, net neutrality, and a resolution to end US involvement in the war in Yemen. They are all being held up by a senator who proudly wears his partisan credentials on his shoulder.

As for Bill Shorten, if he had become PM he should have been investigated for his kniving of 2 sitting PMs.
I wouldn't hold Bill up as a paragon of moral virtue.

Which makes him the perfect analogy for Trump then. Using my hypothetical, replace Shorten with Trump, Morrison with Biden, China with Ukraine, a port deal with an arms deal, an ASIO intelligence officer with LtCol Vindman, ABC and Fairfax with FOX and Sinclair Broadcasting, and my little hypothetical is happening right now in the US.

And when in the future a Democrat gets in then the impeachment circus will roll on unimpeded. The Republicans will throw up impeachment claims, spurious or otherwise.

You haven't been paying attention, have you? That has been what the Republicans have been doing for the last 25 years. Your prediction has already happened, grown up and is in the process of starting a family it's that old.

Don't get me wrong Trump is an knave and a fool and should never have been elected. But he was.
I still cannot believe that a nation of > 300 million people could throw up two, so totally unfit in their own unique way, persons for president.
I could not have voted for either. Where was a plausible 3rd alternative?

Pretty certain you have never voted for the PM of Australia either. If you don't mind me asking, what electorate do you live in?

 

[ZiprHead]

Well, It looks like y'all did a good job of explaining to Tigers why the impeachment was necessary.

.

And when in the future a Democrat gets in then the impeachment circus will roll on unimpeded. The Republicans will throw up impeachment claims, spurious or otherwise.
Unfortunately you yanks seem have got yourselves into a state of perpetual outage where good governance is a distant memory.

Don't get me wrong Trump is an knave and a fool and should never have been elected. But he was.
I still cannot believe that a nation of > 300 million people could throw up two, so totally unfit in their own unique way, persons for president.
I could not have voted for either. Where was a plausible 3rd alternative?

Why do you believe Hillary was unfit?

In a first-past-the-post voting system. It will naturally come down to two factions.  Duverger's law

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Well, It looks like y'all did a good job of explaining to Tigers why the impeachment was necessary.

.

And when in the future a Democrat gets in then the impeachment circus will roll on unimpeded. The Republicans will throw up impeachment claims, spurious or otherwise.
Unfortunately you yanks seem have got yourselves into a state of perpetual outage where good governance is a distant memory.

Don't get me wrong Trump is an knave and a fool and should never have been elected. But he was.
I still cannot believe that a nation of > 300 million people could throw up two, so totally unfit in their own unique way, persons for president.
I could not have voted for either. Where was a plausible 3rd alternative?

Indeed. And it screams out for a revision of the existing version of the first past the post system. As it is you get to choose between bad and worse. You never get the option of good. So naturally things slide further and further downhill. Ranked choice voting is the better idea.

Here you had a lady who goes around accusing all her political rivals of being "Russian assets" against a guy who coerces foreign governments into digging up dirt on his political rivals. The former is better but hardly a good choice.

 

[Ford]

Well, It looks like y'all did a good job of explaining to Tigers why the impeachment was necessary.

.

And when in the future a Democrat gets in then the impeachment circus will roll on unimpeded. The Republicans will throw up impeachment claims, spurious or otherwise.

There's no "in the future" about it. This is history.

It is worth noting that the most recent impeachment quest began when President Clinton was implicated in a shady real estate deal.

When that accusation didn't gain traction, the Republicans moved on to marital infidelity and sexual harassment.

Shady real estate deals. Marital infidelity. Sexual harassment. Smells a bit familiar for some reason...

For all their braying about the Democrats just looking for something - anything - with which to impeach Trump, fact is the GOP did the exact same thing with Clinton in the 90s. They were poised to do the same thing should Hillary Clinton had won in 2016. In fact they'd pre-loaded the impeachment with their endless investigations into Benghazi and her emails. Had she won, they would have continued, yet oddly the "we'll never stop until we get to the bottom of this" investigation into Benghazi was shut down within a month of the 2016 election results coming in.

Coincidence? I think not.


The Republicans struck the mold for impeachment when they went after Clinton in the 1990s. Decide you want to remove a President from office, and then relentlessly investigate until you find something. The difference this time around is that they actually found something worthy of impeachment.

 

[fromderinside]

The difference this time around is that they actually found something worthy of impeachment.

Naw. The difference is they were able to cherry pick among many ripe impeachable offenses. Now that documents are beginning to show up the House has decided to slow walk existing impeachment until enough information about offenses and charges are leveled that Republicans can't do other than go to the WH and tell Trump he's going to be convicted if impeachment goes forward.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Mind you, in that great pile of passed legislation is the USMCA that passed with only 41 nays who's mommies have yet to teach them the fine art of compromise. It must be disheartening for them and their support staff to do all that work knowing it's just going to sit and collect dust.

Most Recent Votes

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/23/doj-impeachment-vote-undercut-house-mcgahn-testimony-089604

...
The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump a second time, lawyers for the Judiciary Committee said Monday.
House Counsel Douglas Letter said in a filing in federal court that a second impeachment could be necessary if the House uncovers new evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct investigations of his conduct. Letter made the argument as part of an inquiry by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals into whether Democrats still need testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn after the votes last week to charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
...

---------

If Moscow Mitch ramrods through a quickie Senate trial and acquittal based on ignoring the facts, that does not mean Trump gets off scott free. This little shot across Mitch's bows tells the tale. The GOP would howl, but the Democrats will howl if the Senate ignores the facts, refuses to call witnesses and declares trump innocent as a little lamb. It is going to get interesting real fast in Washington. If Moscow Mitch and his crap head comrades want games, they will get them.