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Is the narrow impeachment a tactical mistake by Democrats?

ChristianProgressive said:
Hello President Pelosi!
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"What's that Queen of the 'Planet of Clones of Olivia Wilde and Eva Green?' You say you've been locked in a battle with a neighboring planet full of clones of Scarlet Johansson and Gal Gadot for years now and you've both agreed to settle it via a sex off with me as the judge? Well if you say so..."

And then I woke up.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
"What's that Queen of the 'Planet of Clones of Olivia Wilde and Eva Green', you say you've been locked in a battle with a neighboring planet full of clones of Scarlet Johansson and Gal Gadot for years now and you've decided to settle via a sex off with me as the judge? Well if you say so..."

And then I woke up.
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Lucky for you. It turns out that the clones reproduce asexually, through parthenogenisis. Their sex-offs are truly disgusting to watch. Waking up just before the dream turns into a nightmare is a fine art, which you have mastered.

That's the good news.

The bad news is, you've woken up into a nightmare anyway. Sorry 'bout that!
 
ChristianProgressive said:
The evidence shows that Pence was fully briefed in on what Trump has done. Therefore by not acting to stop it, he is also guilty of violating his Oaths.

Remove Trump and Pence must go too.

Hello President Pelosi!
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Interesting question: Can the House Majority Leader press an impeachment inquiry which, if successful, would put her in the presidency? Should she? The constitution explicitly removes the Vice President from impeachment processes that could result in him acceding to the presidency.
 
Honestly I think "the rules" should state that impeachment should be followed up with a new election with a reasonable amount of time.

So Pence, Pelosi, whoever would only be a "Caretaker President" for only a few months at most in an ideal world.
 
Beerina said:
....
Donald Trump may be a rogue, but you are supposed to deal with that at the ballot box.
....
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In this particular case, the allegation -- supported by substantial evidence -- is that Trump attempted to force a foreign power to help him against an opponent. If the incumbent can use his powers to corrupt the election, the ballot box is not a solution.
 
theprestige said:
Interesting question: Can the House Majority Leader press an impeachment inquiry which, if successful, would put her in the presidency? Should she? The constitution explicitly removes the Vice President from impeachment processes that could result in him acceding to the presidency.
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I wonder if a Justice appointed by the subject of an impeachment shouldn't recuse themselves on similar grounds.
Is there really no conflict of interest there?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Honestly I think "the rules" should state that impeachment should be followed up with a new election with a reasonable amount of time.

So Pence, Pelosi, whoever would only be a "Caretaker President" for only a few months at most in an ideal world.
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I'm not a big fan of the "caretaker president" concept. The executive is the executive. The president has the authority to enforce the law, negotiate treaties, wage wars, and do a lot of other important things.

I think the nation benefits more from making it clear to its citizens and to the other nations of the world that the person sitting in the Oval Office is no mere placeholder, but a fully-fledged executive and commander in chief, with all the authority and power that comes with the position.

I don't want Nancy Pelosi to be president. But if she becomes president, I don't want her to be a half-assed president. The presidency should always be fully-assed, regardless of how the ass got into the seat.
 
theprestige said:
I'm not a big fan of the "caretaker president" concept. The executive is the executive. The president has the authority to enforce the law, negotiate treaties, wage wars, and do a lot of other important things.

I think the nation benefits more from making it clear to its citizens and to the other nations of the world that the person sitting in the Oval Office is no mere placeholder, but a fully-fledged executive and commander in chief, with all the authority and power that comes with the position.

I don't want Nancy Pelosi to be president. But if she becomes president, I don't want her to be a half-assed president. The presidency should always be fully-assed, regardless of how the ass got into the seat.
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I meant "Caretaker" only in the loose sense of the term that there term would temporary, they would (theoretically) hold the same amount of power/responsibility/etc.
 
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Distracted1 said:
I wonder if a Justice appointed by the subject of an impeachment shouldn't recuse themselves on similar grounds.
Is there really no conflict of interest there?
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It's conflicts of interest all the way down. The real question is, where is it reasonable to draw the line?

I think the line is drawn reasonably at the moment. The President of the Senate casts tie-breaker votes. The President of the Senate is normally the Vice President. In an impeachment of the President or the Vice President, he could literally end up in a position where he's voting himself into the presidency, or voting himself out of removal from office. So it makes a lot of sense to not have him voting on those specific impeachment questions. Hence the Chief Justice as a stand-in for the role of President of the Senate.

In our hypothetical Pelosi case, yes she's pushing to make herself president, and yes that's a conflict of interest, but the vote on that question is up to other people.

And while the chief justice could conceivably vote to keep his benefactor from being removed, that's a much lesser degree of conflict than voting himself into the presidency.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I meant "Caretaker" only in the loose sense of the term that there term would temporary, they would (theoretically) hold the same amount of power/responsibility/etc.
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I understood something along those lines. It's the gratuitous temporariness of it that I'm iffy about. Lame duckness is lame at the best of times. With term limits, it's unavoidable. I'm saying, we should avoid it where it can be avoided.

I'm also not a big fan of extra national elections. Nobody wants to have an election, then remove the president, then have a special election, then have another regularly-scheduled election, all within the same four year period.

I'd much rather remove the president, install Pelosi, and put the entire matter to bed. New elections are coming along in a year or two anyway, let's just stick to that schedule.
 
JoeMorgue said:
"What's that Queen of the 'Planet of Clones of Olivia Wilde and Eva Green?' You say you've been locked in a battle with a neighboring planet full of clones of Scarlet Johansson and Gal Gadot for years now and you've both agreed to settle it via a sex off with me as the judge? Well if you say so..."

And then I woke up.
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You need to go back and read my posts more carefully. I said IF Trump is removed, then Pence must go to since he was as guilty as Trump for not stopping him when he was fully briefed on everything Trump did. That would make Pelosi as next in line President.

I didn't say that is what the Senate WOULD do, but the sequence of events that would happen if they did what they were SWORN to do.
 
ChristianProgressive said:
Russia will see to that if the election is even remotely close.
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The Russian strategy only works if the election is extremely close. Hillary lost by a few votes in a few swing states. Between Russian Facebook ads, Hillary's rhetorical gaffes, Comey's weird-ass October surprise, the DNC emails, and Hillary's decision not to campaign in those states, it's impossible to say which combination of factors was actually necessary and/or sufficient to cost her the election. There's no reason to believe the Russians could possibly engineer a landslide in 2020, or even that their efforts will make much difference either way.
 
ChristianProgressive said:
Because you are guilty. Innocent people don't plead the fifth.
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Do you seriously think the 5th was added to protect guilty people?

theprestige said:
You asked a hypothetical question, and then accused me of playing a hypothetical game for answering.
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I didn't accuse you of playing a hypothetical game. I accused you of playing an actual game, because you know very well that your response is not in the realm of possibilities. It's just meant to distract from actual discussion.

I think you owe me an apology.
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I think you need to <snip> stop playing those stupid games <snip>.


Edited by Loss Leader: 
Edited for Rule 12.
 
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ChristianProgressive said:
You need to go back and read my posts more carefully. I said IF Trump is removed, then Pence must go to since he was as guilty as Trump for not stopping him when he was fully briefed on everything Trump did. That would make Pelosi as next in line President.
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And I'm saying that's such an unlikely scenario it's practically a thought experiment. We're impeaching a perfectly spherical Trump in a frictionless vacuum over an infinite plane of uniform gravity at that point.

If we need to start a "Total fantasy story where Trump gets his comeuppance not constrained by literally any real world factor" thread we can.

I didn't say that is what the Senate WOULD do, but the sequence of events that would happen if they did what they were SWORN to do.
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And Eddard Stark swore an oath to not tell anybody who Jon Snow's real parents were. How did that work out for him?
 
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Trebuchet said:
I don't think the narrowness of the impeachment is a mistake. I think the ENTIRE impeachment is a mistake. It'll probably ensure a Trump win in 2020.
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Do you have any polling data showing how the ongoing impeachment is generally moving hitherto undecideds into the Trump column?

theprestige said:
The trick is getting the Senate to vote to remove.
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This doesn’t seem remotely likely, barring some truly shocking revelation(s) in the next few weeks.

JoeMorgue said:
We're impeaching a perfectly spherical Trump in a frictionless vacuum over an infinite plane of uniform gravity at that point.
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:D :D :D

ETA — In answer to the OP, this:

https://twitter.com/lawfareblog/status/1204227177543327744

The argument here is not that the House should include any and every plausible article based on conduct described in Mueller’s report. To the contrary, it would be unwise to be so overbroad. But there is a single, specific article of impeachment that should be included: one describing how the president of the United States obstructed justice by directing White House Counsel Don McGahn to create a false internal record denying that the president had instructed him to have Robert Mueller fired as special counsel.
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