Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

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Meadmaker said:
What I don't understand is why people insist on arguing facts that aren't relevant when responding to a post.

Is Joe Biden corrupt? Not that I'm aware of. Is Hunter Biden corrupt? Not that I'm aware of. Do either of those questions matter to the post to which you were responding? No. I even called out, within that post, in a sentence that started with "Let me emphasize something...." that I didn't think they were corrupt.
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I think it is important to get the facts out there. To simply say Biden is not corrupt is not enough. They were actually following a sensible foreign policy initiative and then accused of doing something totally corrupt and self serving.
 
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a_unique_person said:
I think it is important to get the facts out there. To simply say Biden is not corrupt is not enough. They were actually following a sensible foreign policy initiative and then accused of doing something totally corrupt and self serving.
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Which is a good reason for Biden to get on top of this and not just ignore it hoping it will fade away.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Which is a good reason for Biden to get on top of this and not just ignore it hoping it will fade away.
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There is no "getting on top of this" in the current Trump atmosphere. In a sane political environment, sure.

But nowadays, anything Biden says about this will be pounced on, misquoted, misconstrued and generally turned into the crap Trump feeds his hardcore followers by Fox & Friends and the Trump Bubble.

So better to simply ignore the provocation.
 
Meadmaker said:
I've read this in several places, and I didn't know where it came from. I saw a reference to it yesterday (in this thread) as coming from Sondland's testimony. Is there any other source for it?

If that's the only source, far too much is made of Sondland's comment.

I believe Trump wanted an actual investigation, although he didn't want it badly enough to do anything more than temporarily delay the aid after making his "suggestion" in the phone call. However, if there is evidence beyond the Sondland testimony, I'm open to it.
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Since Sondland is the only first-hand witness - the only person to testify who has spoken directly with Trump about this issue - why are you hand-waving his testimony away?
 
Minoosh said:
True. But it’s not about obstructing Mueller, but about obstructing *justice*.
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I was responding to your assertion that perhaps the delay was about adding an additional article re. obstructing the Mueller investigation.

Maybe they didn’t foresee senators bragging about how rigged the trial was going to be.
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What's the difference between them bragging about it and them just doing it? Either way there was never going to be a fair trial and anybody who has been even casually aware of US politics over the last 3 years should never have expected a fair trial.

Besides, if it really is about the public bragging and nothing else, then they still should have expected it because every week there's a new example of the Republicans bragging about how blatantly dishonest and criminal they're being.

"I'm shocked that the Republicans are continuing to act in exactly the same way they've been acting for three years" doesn't really cut it.
 
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tyr_13 said:
They don't have to genuinely believe they didn't know the GOP wasn't going to do their lawful duty to even a small degree for there to be utility in making statements as if that were the case.

That is to say, they are tailoring their message to perform best to a much lower information audience than you are in. They are well aware that far too much of the obvious criminal/corrupt behavior of the administration gets lost in the noise even though so much of it has zero reasonable defense. They're therefore simplifying the message, repeating the theme, and picking the argument that swing voters are most receptive too. That is Trump's personal corruption. Even if Dems know the GOP is going to be Trump's willing underlings, that doesn't mean they are going to pass up the chance to repeat and highlight that corruption. Mitch being openly corrupt gets to be banged on.

Other corruption can be written off as 'fake news/partisan/not from a Trump supporter doublebad' and gains no traction. With impeachment even if those things are invoked, it is 'doublebad' claims that can't be just ignored. The Dems arguments get air. They get discussed. They get called all sorts of things, but they get noted.
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I'm talking about why there's a change in tactics re impeachment. Rush through the actual impeachment, then delay the Articles. I keep being told that it's because the situation changed between the two events, and Democrats realised that the Republicans weren't going to hold a fair trial.

My assertion is that if the Democrats honestly thought that the Republicans were going to hold a fair trial, then they haven't been paying attention to US politics and, since that's their job, means that they're bad at their job.
 
Paul2 said:
Get something through Congress without having to negotiate with the Democrats.
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Ok that's more true now than 5 seconds after his election, but it's been true for a year.

theprestige said:
Pelosi's district is at the epicenter of one of the most extreme cases of income inequality on the entire West Coast.
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I love that now our resident conservatives care about income inequality, as soon as a Democrat is involved.

Skeptic Ginger said:
Joe said Trump had not been impeached.
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He never said that, actually. He just said that he wasn't looking at impeachment right now. Did you even go back to read his post?

Skeptic Ginger said:
In my version of reality the evidence of Trump's corruption drips and drips. It not like it's a surprise to anyone.
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If everybody knows about Trump's corruption then why do you think it'll change anyone's mind as more evidence pours out?
 
JoeMorgue said:
The math just doesn't work. If we had a purely popular vote for the President a candidate could win every single vote from every person living in the top 100 (listed by population) cities in America, from the over 8 million in mighty New York, New York all the way down to the just the hair over 200,000 thousand in little Spokane, Washington and you would have a grand total of... about 60 million votes.
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Except that we're talking about states, not cities.

acbytesla said:
Yes, it does the job it was intended for. I agree. But it was a huge mistake. It is grotesquely undemocratic. And Texas is just as dominated by the GOP as California is dominated by the Democrats.

And it's not just the electoral college that is undemocratic, so is the US Senate. And the fact that the District of Colunbia has no representation in Congress. California has the approximate population of the 20 smallest population states combined. California has two Senators to 40 Senators representing individuals living in the sticks. And the Senate can stop any legislation that might be important to urban America.
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We've been through this before. "Democracy" doesn't mean what you think it means.

JoeMorgue said:
At least with the Electoral College we have a potential, and while maybe not likely it's at least realistically possible and worth discussing, solution.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. An agreement where states agree to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. 15 states and DC have already agreed to it and, theoretically, there's enough states with bills/proposals in the pipeline to give us a defacto popular vote by 2020.
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Why not just assign their EC votes proportionally? That way all votes count.
 
The House Committees have stated that their Impeachment Inquiry is ongoing - so another reason for a possible delay is to decide on further Articles of Impeachment. After all, the Senate is too busy to have a Trial every month - what with 300+ laws to bring to the floor and all.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Since Sondland is the only first-hand witness - the only person to testify who has spoken directly with Trump about this issue - why are you hand-waving his testimony away?
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Sondland is not the only person who spoke directly to Trump about it. Volodymyr Zelensky also spoke directly to Trump about it, and we have a transcript of that conversation, where something entirely different was said.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The House Committees have stated that their Impeachment Inquiry is ongoing - so another reason for a possible delay is to decide on further Articles of Impeachment. After all, the Senate is too busy to have a Trial every month - what with 300+ laws to bring to the floor and all.
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You keep saying this as if it were abnormal.

This is what happens when the two houses are controlled by different parties. They know that legislation passed by one house will be blocked by the other. So, they sometimes pass bills that they know will never become law, so they can then point out that they did something and the other guys blocked it. This also happens if one party controls both houses but the other controls the White House.

Sometimes, it gets comical. The most famous case is Obamacare. Republicans voted over and over and over to repeal Obamacare completely, until they won control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Now, they could do it for real. They could actually appeal Obamacare.....but they didn't. The previous votes were just show votes.

I find it disgusting and a perversion of democracy that the leadership of the parties have so much power to prevent bills from even coming to a vote, but that's the way it is, and not the subject of this thread anyway.
 
It's a fools errand to try and determine what is and isn't "normal" for an impeachment, we haven't had enough of them and the ones we have had have all happened under pretty different circumstances to be trying to chart this behavior or that behavior on some bell curve.
 
Something entirely different, but not really. The notes on the call, that the White House released, shows that Trump wanted "a favor though" before releasing military aid to Ukraine.

In context, Sondland's testimony fits with the Zelensky call to show Trump's corrupt intent.
 
Meadmaker said:
You keep saying this as if it were abnormal.

This is what happens when the two houses are controlled by different parties. They know that legislation passed by one house will be blocked by the other. So, they sometimes pass bills that they know will never become law, so they can then point out that they did something and the other guys blocked it. This also happens if one party controls both houses but the other controls the White House.

Sometimes, it gets comical. The most famous case is Obamacare. Republicans voted over and over and over to repeal Obamacare completely, until they won control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Now, they could do it for real. They could actually appeal Obamacare.....but they didn't. The previous votes were just show votes.

I find it disgusting and a perversion of democracy that the leadership of the parties have so much power to prevent bills from even coming to a vote, but that's the way it is, and not the subject of this thread anyway.
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Plenty of those bills have bipartisan support.
And if there is a majority against the law, the Senate should either try to find a compromise or reject it, so the House has the chance to modify it to get it passed.
Sitting on so many laws is NOT normal.
 
Republicans claim that Zelensky said 'many times' that there was no pressure, no quid-pro-quo.
I know of a single mention of it when he was cornered with Trump and reporters at the UN summit.
Anyone know any other statement by Zelensky about this?
 
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