It’s like telling me that “if you keep quiet, Grammy won’t get even more religious” when Grammy already goes to church every morning, says a Rosary every night, and has her house decorated in crosses.
I don’t see how “there will always be people who will never be convinced” is a convincing argument for or against anything.
The argument that is often made seems to be that Democrats will alienate Trump voters in the Midwest by showing them that they have been supporting a lying, hypocritical criminal conman who has been systematically destroying their way of life in order to enrich himself, his family and the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans, and therefore Democrats should just keep letting him do those things unchallenged. I didn’t say it was a *good *argument.
Meanwhile, I think we’re asking the wrong question here. The question isn’t: why are the Democrats looking into impeaching. Trump. The question is: why aren’t the Republicans?
Yes, walk me through this scenario where a middle of the road voter hears or reads at least summaries of Trump’s misdeeds and his heavy handed attempts at covering them up and decides “well, now that I see him doing all this stuff, he’s the guy for me!”
That’s the scenario where said voter says “Hey, my 401K is booming, to hell with all that other stuff”.
The position of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is that a sitting president cannot be indicted for criminal conduct. Remedial action for criminal activity by a sitting president is therefore left to the House of Representatives, via the process of impeachment.
The Constitution limits grounds of impeachment to “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”, and it says that this standard applies to “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States”. While the precise meaning of the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not specified, and is left to the judgment of Congress, precedent ilustrates the range of crimes that have historically been considered to be within the scope of this definition. The House has impeached 19 federal officers in the history of the United States and, over the past century, the following crimes have been used to impeach federal officials:
It may well be that Trump is the first federal official in U.S. history to complete this bingo card of impeachable offenses, but, for now, the most serious accusation, with the strongest evidence gathered, is obstruction of justice. More than a thousand former federal prosecutors have signed a statement explaining that, in their professional judgment and based on the facts described in Special Counsel Mueller’s report, President Trump would have been criminally charged with obstruction of justice if he were not the president.
Moreover, Trump has obstructed justice for a reason that could hardly be more serious - in order to subvert an investigation into an attack by a foreign power, one that is historically the United States’ greatest enemy, on the U.S. electoral process, as well as the Trump campaign’s collusion in this endeavor. Trump’s active attempts to obstruct justice means that one cannot rule out that his campaign did in fact conspire with the Russians. Mueller says that his investigation “did not establish” criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but his report also points out that the investigation was hindered by a lack of cooperation, such as from Manafort and Trump, the destruction of evidence, and the fact that those people on the Russian side that were implicated could not be interviewed.
If the Department of Justice leaves the path towards the indictment of sitting presidents for criminal activity to Congress, then, if Congress does nothing when presented with clear evidence of criminal activity, they would effectively be upholding the view that the President of the United States is above the law.
Surely it should be the view of every American that no-one, not even the president, is above the law?
Because they are afraid of getting primaried by their local district/state Roy Moores. The claim they make to their Democratic counterparts is that by staying quiet and working on the inside, they are smoothing the rougher edges of the dumpster fire administration. As if, ‘Apres eux, le déluge’. :rolleyes:
Republican profiles in [del]courage[/del] cowardice on full display.
There’s just the small matter of ~63,000,000 that need convincing.
I quibble thee sir. One that we’ve never officially been at war with. Have lost at most 500 (?) directly fighting…and most of them in 1918.
We gave them millions of foreign aid before Trump…we trade with them daily. And THIS is our great historical enemy? Talk about privilege. Must be nice
McDonald’s has 651 locations in Russia.
A lot of US companies do business in Russia.
I want the impeachment hearings/proceedings to go right up to the 2020 election. Those proceedings are very powerful at obtaining any evidence of criminality that can be used to try the cases brought against him at the end of his term. It is not enough to take a POTUS like Trump and impeach/remove him. Someone that dirty needs to be met by DC’s Finest and arrested as he steps out of the White House at the end of his term, and chucked into the back of a patrol car. Or paddy wagon, since he’ll have a the SS detail with him. And since we don’t have an extradition treaty with Russia, I want a judge to consider him a flight risk and deny him any bail. Let him cool his heels in the hoosegow while he awaits trial.
Conservatives from a just a couple of decades ago would be shocked to see so many from their side now defending Russia, the country that for many decades actually was our greatest adversary in the world, and still is among the top IMHO, since they want to see the US falter. That is a key part of their whole goal.
Oh sure, Russia wants to see the US go down in metaphorical flames, but we’ve never actually formally declared war with them, and they have some McDonald’s restaurants!
I guess the Russian McDonalds prove that at least the country trying to subvert our elections wasn’t our worst enemy. So, it’s better?
Hoosegow: (noun) Calaboose; The poke; Big house; Greybar motel; Walla Walla.
That’s fine. I concede that “greatest adversary over the past seventy-four years” would be more precise.
History is watching. If the House Dems don’t do what the constitution says is their job to do, then history will judge them as essentially no different than the Republicans: a bunch of craven oligarchs whose actions and inactions made them complicit in the destruction of our country.
“We didn’t try to impeach him because we knew we’d fail” looks really weak, even now, in 2019. Imagine what it would look like 50 years from now.
Also imagine what the world would look like if people in the past had said:
“We didn’t try to fight Jim Crow oppression because we knew we’d fail.”
“We didn’t try to fight Nazi Germany because we knew we’d fail.”
“We didn’t try to fight for the right to vote because we knew we’d fail.”
“We didn’t try to fight the British because we knew we’d fail.”
They are going to punch the hell out of that chad.
And the Trump Organization wants to.
Adversaries today are based upon their ability to compete in trade.
Russia GDP $1.7 Trillion GDP/Capita - $12,000
The individual states of California, Texas and New York exceed Russia’s trade strength. China is the only country that comes close as a trade adversary.
Don’t get me wrong, yes they wish to see us falter, but they in reality are a gnat on our ass. If we wanted to take them head on, they wouldn’t have a chance. Trump plays up to Putin, because Putin has a strong man persona. The Russian people elected him president for the same reason, because the Russian people miss the glory days when they were a SuperPower, which they are no longer.
Despite his being a lying buffoon, I believe he will win regardless of which path the Dems take. Very sad.
The problem with that is there wouldn’t be any investigation. If the democrats start holding hearings, the white house will ignore them. No one would be allowed to testify. The democrats would be talking to an empty chair. Sure they can issue subpoenas, but they are doing that already. The only way to enforce a subpoena is to go to court. With appeals that would take years. And all that would do would be to put a person in the chair would wouldn’t answer any questions. It is an exercise in futility.
The public, at least the ones I hear around here in Trump country, believes that the Democrats will impeach Trump, Trump will ignore and fight them in court, the Senate will either not hold a trial at all or acquit Trump. They have already priced into their opinions the whole process. No Democrat and no Republican will change their position.
I used to worry that holding a vote on impeachment would stimulate the Trump base more than it would stimulate the Democratic base. Now I don’t think so. Impeachment won’t effect the outcome of the next election-it won’t change or stimulate either side. It will be good for fundraising though.