So much effort to impeach Trump

[Harry Bosch]

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?

I agree that there are many on the left who needlessly talked impeachment from the beginning. And that is making democrats efforts more difficult today. But it's a clear open and shut case that Trump used public resources (provided by a democratic congress) to encourage a country to help his campaign. Sorry, you can't do that. Or at least we can't allow that to remain a precedent. You wouldn't want the next Democratic president having this power would you?

 

[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?

I agree that there are many on the left who needlessly talked impeachment from the beginning. And that is making democrats efforts more difficult today. But it's a clear open and shut case that Trump used public resources (provided by a democratic congress) to encourage a country to help his campaign. Sorry, you can't do that. Or at least we can't allow that to remain a precedent. You wouldn't want the next Democratic president having this power would you?

On the other hand, we knew about a lot of Trump's illegal actions or intentions from well before his election. So how do we decide when to start discussing impeachment? Just how long is the impeachment-free grace period supposed to last? The first serious impeachment bid csme days after Trump openly praised a white supremacist group that had murdered a woman the week before, and months since he had appoiinted many open white supremacists to the Cabinet. People who, we later learned, were already plotting the violent scenario at our southern border in furtherance of the same wicked ideology. The DNC and the American people may have decided that collusion with terrorists isn't sufficient reason to use the "T" word, but you can't tell me the call was for no reason at all except partisan hatred. People are dying. Children are dying.

 

[marc]

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.

Travel-gate, file-gate, Christmas cards, Vince Foster, and how many other made up controversies?

 

[Harry Bosch]

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?

I agree that there are many on the left who needlessly talked impeachment from the beginning. And that is making democrats efforts more difficult today. But it's a clear open and shut case that Trump used public resources (provided by a democratic congress) to encourage a country to help his campaign. Sorry, you can't do that. Or at least we can't allow that to remain a precedent. You wouldn't want the next Democratic president having this power would you?

On the other hand, we knew about a lot of Trump's illegal actions or intentions from well before his election. So how do we decide when to start discussing impeachment? Just how long is the impeachment-free grace period supposed to last? The first serious impeachment bid csme days after Trump openly praised a white supremacist group that had murdered a woman the week before, and months since he had appoiinted many open white supremacists to the Cabinet. People who, we later learned, were already plotting the violent scenario at our southern border in furtherance of the same wicked ideology. The DNC and the American people may have decided that collusion with terrorists isn't sufficient reason to use the "T" word, but you can't tell me the call was for no reason at all except partisan hatred. People are dying. Children are dying.

I'm not an attorney. But I think that we should only impeach when a president commits a high crime and/or Treason. IMO, the above does not raise to the level of a high crime. Regardless, I'm not an expert. And I'm damn sure not going to defend him. I want to defeat him at the ballot box. I think that persevering the country is far more important than petty politics. You cannot deny that Trump won the election. I'm totally against the EC. However, this is the system that we have in place. We can't disenfranchise the 31% of the country that followed the rules and elected Trump. I want my vote to count, I want their vote to count. If you are truly against Trump, vote for the democratic candidate next year. Influence your friends to support the best candidate. Donate to the cause. Help your local policeman. Organize. Motivate. But stop looking for loopholes. Loopholes only feeds the other side.

 

[Politesse]

On the other hand, we knew about a lot of Trump's illegal actions or intentions from well before his election. So how do we decide when to start discussing impeachment? Just how long is the impeachment-free grace period supposed to last? The first serious impeachment bid csme days after Trump openly praised a white supremacist group that had murdered a woman the week before, and months since he had appoiinted many open white supremacists to the Cabinet. People who, we later learned, were already plotting the violent scenario at our southern border in furtherance of the same wicked ideology. The DNC and the American people may have decided that collusion with terrorists isn't sufficient reason to use the "T" word, but you can't tell me the call was for no reason at all except partisan hatred. People are dying. Children are dying.

I'm not an attorney. But I think that we should only impeach when a president commits a high crime and/or Treason. IMO, the above does not raise to the level of a high crime. Regardless, I'm not an expert. And I'm damn sure not going to defend him. I want to defeat him at the ballot box. I think that persevering the country is far more important than petty politics. You cannot deny that Trump won the election. I'm totally against the EC. However, this is the system that we have in place. We can't disenfranchise the 31% of the country that followed the rules and elected Trump. I want my vote to count, I want their vote to count. If you are truly against Trump, vote for the democratic candidate next year. Influence your friends to support the best candidate. Donate to the cause. Help your local policeman. Organize. Motivate. But stop looking for loopholes. Loopholes only feeds the other side.

And he wasn't impeached over those charges. But what you're saying is that we shouldn't have even talked about it. Just because it doesn't seem "fair" to impeach someone who got elected once. The only kind of person one can, in fact, impeach. How is accussing someone of treason when they collude with terrorists a "loophole" anyway? You make it sound like inciting homicidal race hatred is a crime equivalent to cheating on your taxes.

 

[Mumbles]

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.

There's an additional problem here: it really wasn't much work at all, in the end, compared to the wild misdeeds of Dolt 45 and his underlings. I was actually iffy with Comey being fired, but ultimately okay with it given his election interference - but then the Idiot in Chief just said, on national tv, that he did it to interfere with an investigation.

Well, that can't stand. So in comes Mueller, who can't find anything, because the Idiot demanded that everyone lie or say nothing. He should have been impeached and convicted here, but everyone decided that this was okay for...some reason. Even though thay're obviously crimes.

Fine.

Then a whistleblower says "the president is using extortion to get another country to interfere in our elections", and did it on the phone. Oh for fuck's sake...Y'all are going to investigate this, right? RIGHT??

Idiot: "Here's a transcript of the call. See? No problems?"

And it wasn't really a transcript, but more importantly, his own transcript quoted him extorting another country into interfering in our election!!!

At that point, there's not too much work left - the man straight up snitched on himself.

 

[Toni]

On the other hand, we knew about a lot of Trump's illegal actions or intentions from well before his election. So how do we decide when to start discussing impeachment? Just how long is the impeachment-free grace period supposed to last? The first serious impeachment bid csme days after Trump openly praised a white supremacist group that had murdered a woman the week before, and months since he had appoiinted many open white supremacists to the Cabinet. People who, we later learned, were already plotting the violent scenario at our southern border in furtherance of the same wicked ideology. The DNC and the American people may have decided that collusion with terrorists isn't sufficient reason to use the "T" word, but you can't tell me the call was for no reason at all except partisan hatred. People are dying. Children are dying.

I'm not an attorney. But I think that we should only impeach when a president commits a high crime and/or Treason. IMO, the above does not raise to the level of a high crime. Regardless, I'm not an expert. And I'm damn sure not going to defend him. I want to defeat him at the ballot box. I think that persevering the country is far more important than petty politics. You cannot deny that Trump won the election. I'm totally against the EC. However, this is the system that we have in place. We can't disenfranchise the 31% of the country that followed the rules and elected Trump. I want my vote to count, I want their vote to count. If you are truly against Trump, vote for the democratic candidate next year. Influence your friends to support the best candidate. Donate to the cause. Help your local policeman. Organize. Motivate. But stop looking for loopholes. Loopholes only feeds the other side.

Inviting a foreign nation--any foreign nation--to interfere in our elections is criminal. To do so openly, publicly as Trump did, starting with the 2016 debates, is arrogant at best. While arrogance is not a crime, outside interference in our elections IS a crime, just as accepting donation from a foreign power to one's election campaign is a criminal offense. I can not imagine what is impeachable if this is not.

 

[Lion IRC]

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.

What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the next POTUS will also face threats of impeachment proceedings.

 

[Harry Bosch]

On the other hand, we knew about a lot of Trump's illegal actions or intentions from well before his election. So how do we decide when to start discussing impeachment? Just how long is the impeachment-free grace period supposed to last? The first serious impeachment bid csme days after Trump openly praised a white supremacist group that had murdered a woman the week before, and months since he had appoiinted many open white supremacists to the Cabinet. People who, we later learned, were already plotting the violent scenario at our southern border in furtherance of the same wicked ideology. The DNC and the American people may have decided that collusion with terrorists isn't sufficient reason to use the "T" word, but you can't tell me the call was for no reason at all except partisan hatred. People are dying. Children are dying.

I'm not an attorney. But I think that we should only impeach when a president commits a high crime and/or Treason. IMO, the above does not raise to the level of a high crime. Regardless, I'm not an expert. And I'm damn sure not going to defend him. I want to defeat him at the ballot box. I think that persevering the country is far more important than petty politics. You cannot deny that Trump won the election. I'm totally against the EC. However, this is the system that we have in place. We can't disenfranchise the 31% of the country that followed the rules and elected Trump. I want my vote to count, I want their vote to count. If you are truly against Trump, vote for the democratic candidate next year. Influence your friends to support the best candidate. Donate to the cause. Help your local policeman. Organize. Motivate. But stop looking for loopholes. Loopholes only feeds the other side.

Inviting a foreign nation--any foreign nation--to interfere in our elections is criminal. To do so openly, publicly as Trump did, starting with the 2016 debates, is arrogant at best. While arrogance is not a crime, outside interference in our elections IS a crime, just as accepting donation from a foreign power to one's election campaign is a criminal offense. I can not imagine what is impeachable if this is not.

Oh yea. Totally agree. But the above was directed to Politesse. I don't think that praising a white supremacist group is grounds for impeachment.

 

[Harry Bosch]

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.

What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the next POTUS will also face threats of impeachment proceedings.

Sorry, but Trump blackmailed a foreign country into doing political work for him. That's illegal. We can't allow that. You wouldn't want a democratic president to do that would you? I remember when the republicans were going after Obama for using the IRS to investigate his opponents? Well, that was proven false. Obama didn't do that. But using a foreign country to do the same is far worse. Do you agree?

 

[Politesse]

Inviting a foreign nation--any foreign nation--to interfere in our elections is criminal. To do so openly, publicly as Trump did, starting with the 2016 debates, is arrogant at best. While arrogance is not a crime, outside interference in our elections IS a crime, just as accepting donation from a foreign power to one's election campaign is a criminal offense. I can not imagine what is impeachable if this is not.

Oh yea. Totally agree. But the above was directed to Politesse. I don't think that praising a white supremacist group is grounds for impeachment.

To me that depends dather a lot on whether that group is currently engaged in terrorist acts against the American people. Treason is an ugly business.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Inviting a foreign nation--any foreign nation--to interfere in our elections is criminal. To do so openly, publicly as Trump did, starting with the 2016 debates, is arrogant at best. While arrogance is not a crime, outside interference in our elections IS a crime, just as accepting donation from a foreign power to one's election campaign is a criminal offense. I can not imagine what is impeachable if this is not.

Oh yea. Totally agree. But the above was directed to Politesse. I don't think that praising a white supremacist group is grounds for impeachment.

To me that depends dather a lot on whether that group is currently engaged in terrorist acts against the American people. Treason is an ugly business.

You make a good point. Fair people can disagree on this issue. However, there should be no agreement on the left or the right that a President should not be distributing aid while asking for benefits for it. This is very clear. And you and I both know that Lion would not a democratic President doing this!

 

[Patooka]

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.

What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the next POTUS will also face threats of impeachment proceedings.

So basically, the next POTUS will endure what ever other POTUS has had to in the last 40 years. What a prescient prediction. Are you also going to predict the sun coming up tomorrow as well?

 

[Politesse]

To me that depends dather a lot on whether that group is currently engaged in terrorist acts against the American people. Treason is an ugly business.

You make a good point. Fair people can disagree on this issue. However, there should be no agreement on the left or the right that a President should not be distributing aid while asking for benefits for it. This is very clear. And you and I both know that Lion would not a democratic President doing this!

Absolutely.

 

[Lion IRC]

So basically, the next POTUS will endure what ever other POTUS has had to in the last 40 years. What a prescient prediction. Are you also going to predict the sun coming up tomorrow as well?

Like I said...
What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

 

[Politesse]

Like I said...
What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

Good! A ruler should always have a noose around their neck, to remind them to stay upright. I don't trust any president not to try and seize or abuse power, and neither should you.

 

[Patooka]

So basically, the next POTUS will endure what ever other POTUS has had to in the last 40 years. What a prescient prediction. Are you also going to predict the sun coming up tomorrow as well?

Like I said...
What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

So what makes you think this impeachment against Trump is as groundless as the others? Other than, "It's the Democrats doing it and that makes it wrong" of course.

 

[Lion IRC]

...I don't trust any president not to try and seize or abuse power, and neither should you.

I should apply that same standard of mistrust to aspiring rulers?
Can we really trust the motives of those who want to replace Trump?

So basically, the next POTUS will endure what ever other POTUS has had to in the last 40 years. What a prescient prediction. Are you also going to predict the sun coming up tomorrow as well?

Like I said...
What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

So what makes you think this impeachment against Trump is as groundless as the others? Other than, "It's the Democrats doing it and that makes it wrong" of course.

Doing what?

 

[abaddon]

Like I said...
What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

Good! A ruler should always have a noose around their neck, to remind them to stay upright. I don't trust any president not to try and seize or abuse power, and neither should you.

Yes, the threat of impeachment is a good thing.

The problem is when half the legislature acts as the president's enabler and makes the threat seem laughable. Trump's done several impeachment-worthy offenses and the only thing anybody can do about it is annoy him. If Dems get more power I hope they'll pass laws that make subpoenas mean something, along with some other much-needed changes.

 

[Patooka]

I should apply that same standard of mistrust to aspiring rulers?
Can we really trust the motives of those who want to replace Trump?

So basically, the next POTUS will endure what ever other POTUS has had to in the last 40 years. What a prescient prediction. Are you also going to predict the sun coming up tomorrow as well?

Like I said...
What's normal and acceptable seems to be the frequent threats of impeachment as a partisan political tactic.

So what makes you think this impeachment against Trump is as groundless as the others? Other than, "It's the Democrats doing it and that makes it wrong" of course.

Doing what?

I'll try to clarify.
It appears as though you disapprove of the impeachment process being implemented towards Trump. It's been pointed out that this type of crap has been going on in US politics for nearly four decades. Now personally, I believe there is a lot of justification in impeaching Trump because appealing to a foreign country for help in smearing a political opponent is dodgy as fuck and also completely unprecedented, making this impeachment anything but politics as usual. You appear to believe otherwise, asserting that it is only partisan politics.

So what exactly is your issue with Trump being impeached? Is it because you've only just recently discovered impeachment proceedings have occurred for every US President since Reagan and think that this is more of the same (it isn't, by the way)? Or is it because the Democrats are impeaching Trump and everything the Democrats do is bad? Or is it for completely different reasons?