Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

[Meadmaker]

You're also, it seems, forgetting that Trump didn't care about an actual investigation but instead wanted an investigation to be announced.

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.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

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.

He Mentioned Crowdstrike a conspiracy theory he knew was debunked.

 

[varwoche]

When considering if Trump actually believes the nonsense he spews about Ukraine and that the call in his mind was actually "perfect", bear in mind the coverup attempts. The evidence strongly indicates awareness of guilt.

 

[DetectedMotion]

If they were that smart they would have won the election. Just saying.

But they got the majority of the national vote, where in any other electoral nation is a win, only to lose the electoral college vote.
It's hard to call that not smart, it just didn't work out in the Dems favor.

 

[theprestige]

But they got the majority of the national vote, where in any other electoral nation is a win, only to lose the electoral college vote.
It's hard to call that not smart, it just didn't work out in the Dems favor.

It's easy to call it not smart.

It's been known for over two hundred years how the US federal election system works. The concept of swing states and swing voters is not new. Hillary's loss boiled down to a few votes in a few states that Hilary knew would be close races. She opted not to campaign heavily in those states. Or at all. Her polling was off. Her model was off. Her message was off. Her campaign strategy was off. That's not smart, it's incompetent.

 

[Pope130]

But they got the majority of the national vote, where in any other electoral nation is a win, only to lose the electoral college vote.
It's hard to call that not smart, it just didn't work out in the Dems favor.

Any system that uses geographic representation with local majority win, such as Britain, can have a total national vote going to one party, while the election results go to the other. Getting 50% plus one vote, in a majority of the voting districts is a win. The Conservatives just achieved a majority in Parliament with less than half the votes nationally.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Rather than “stupid”, I would say ignorant - willfully so, by all indications.

But wilfully choosing to be ignorant is a stupid act, so it works out to the same thing.

 

[I Am The Scum]

If that were true, if there really was reason to believe that the Biden family was part of Ukranian corruption, then everything Trump did would be perfectly reasonable.

And while we're figuring that one out, let us contemplate if Ted Bundy killed all those people in self defense.

 

[theprestige]

Oh. So you think you and I and any shlub on the street have the same ability and rights to refuse to honor a legally issued subpoena. Good luck with that.

You're begging the question that it's a valid subpoena.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Any system that uses geographic representation with local majority win, such as Britain, can have a total national vote going to one party, while the election results go to the other. Getting 50% plus one vote, in a majority of the voting districts is a win. The Conservatives just achieved a majority in Parliament with less than half the votes nationally.

Its often brought up that the electoral college should be discarded. It was configured precisely for the job it does, it gives smaller states a larger degree of representation where in a popular vote your major metropolitan areas would decide the election hands down.

You could argue some of the smaller states have disproportionate representation also, but considering even in the electoral college theres a bit of a bias (California's 50 representatives going reliably one sided) I dont think the debate over having it or not will end any time soon. It always pops back up on election years

 

[JoeMorgue]

But they got the majority of the national vote, where in any other electoral nation is a win, only to lose the electoral college vote.
It's hard to call that not smart, it just didn't work out in the Dems favor.

Again the electoral collage, as stupid and massively outdated as it is, is how America has always ran the Presidential Election. It's not some new thing we just sprang on the Democrats this election and it took her by surprise.

And Hillary was playing the Electoral College Game exactly as much as Donald Trump was. She just lost it. Hell if anything the single biggest cause of her losing was trusting in getting the electoral votes of the Rust Belt "Blue Wall States" so much she completely ignored them during the campaign.

Yet again the Dems like to pretend like "Oh this isn't how things should be run" is the exact same thought as "Then we'll just act like it isn't how they are being run or pretend like we didn't know that's how they are run."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have neither the time nor the inclination to walk you through this when you're so dead-set on imposing meaning that is not there.

... Opposing meaning that isn't there in your quote that I highlighted and said directly, I do not agree with this?
IOW you can't accept that I simply disagree with you.

This is the classic, if only you understood what I said you would see and agree with me.

Nope. I see, I understand, and voila, I disagree.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Either:

A) You don't understand the difference between "What I want to happen" and "What I think it most likely to happen."

B) You think I don't understand the difference.

C) Both.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

When considering if Trump actually believes the nonsense he spews about Ukraine and that the call in his mind was actually "perfect", bear in mind the coverup attempts. The evidence strongly indicates awareness of guilt.

Good point.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It was configured precisely for the job it does, it gives smaller states a larger degree of representation where in a popular vote your major metropolitan areas would decide the election hands down.

Oh what absolute across the board total nonsense.

I'm so sick of this mythology that unless we give North Dakota massively unproportioned political power candidates for national offices are only going to focus on New York, LA, and Chicago and ignore all of "real America."

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. And again that's a candidate hypothetically getting every single person in the top 100 cities in the country to vote for him, 100% voter turnout, 100% voters for him, hell even ignoring that in real life that number would be far less due to children and other non-voters.

There's about 235,000,000 voting age people in the United States. That would give him barely 1/4 of the vote. So unless there's some megalopolis of 200 million people the Census has somehow not noticed you aren't going to win by focusing on the cities.

Sure you can argue the broader "metropolitan" area but those are so ill defined I fair to see the point. And again the math even then doesn't work. If you win every single vote in the top 10 "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" (which are massive areas that in some cases cover several states cover who areas of urban, rural, and suburban areas) you still only get to 65 million.

Now sure if you message the numbers and pick and choose which definition of "metro" to pull the numbers out of you can find a version that you can make say "You can win the election with only the cities."

But even then I don't care. People should be deciding elections, not land. You don't get more votes because you're further away from your neighbor.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Would you just hurry up and get the point where you run out of arguments and accuse me of being a secret Trump supporter because I don't spend all day jerking the Democrats off and don't think they are incapable of doing anything wrong?

 

[theprestige]

Oh. So you think you and I and any shlub on the street have the same ability and rights to refuse to honor a legally issued subpoena. Good luck with that.

Also yes. I do think. Do you have a counter argument? Or just pseudo Socratic BS?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But they got the majority of the national vote, where in any other electoral nation is a win, only to lose the electoral college vote.
It's hard to call that not smart, it just didn't work out in the Dems favor.

That doesn't stop Clinton haters from calling her a terrible candidate.

Add in uncontrollable events like Comey's last minute move and Trump's getting 100% primetime coverage of his rallies by click-baiting the news media to tape every minute waiting for something outrageous to happen and that is not Clinton who has put Clinton at a disadvantage.

And that's not even counting Trump's Russian bot and troll army flooding social media with lies, which Obama failed to address because he was intimidated by Moscow Mitch.

And throw in Russian campaign funding laundered through the NRA, can't leave that out.

I am not including coordination with Wikileaks leaks dumping hacked material because some of that is the DNC's and Podesta's fault.


So here we are in 2020 still claiming Clinton was a bad candidate and ignoring the popular vote when declaring how wonderful was Trump's win, everyone underestimated him.

That's right, we underestimated the help he would get from Russia, Comey and the mainstream media.

More evidence that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the reality for a lot of people. But I digress.

Trump is not a stable genius. The voting public has had 3 years to see just how corrupt and cruel he is. The Democratic candidate needs to flood the airwaves with clip after clip of Trump reminding voters just how awful he is. Whether they'll do it and whether we get the right candidate are still unknowns.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And while we're figuring that one out, let us contemplate if Ted Bundy killed all those people in self defense.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

You could argue some of the smaller states have disproportionate representation also, but considering even in the electoral college theres a bit of a bias (California's 50 representatives going reliably one sided) I dont think the debate over having it or not will end any time soon. It always pops back up on election years

13% of California's Congressperson's are Republicans.

But so what? A vote in California is worth much less than a vote in Wyoming and that is a serious problem.

Of course the GOP love the status quo so much they add in voter suppression and increasing manipulation of gerrymandered districts.