US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1852

On October 11 2019 09:29 JimmiC wrote:

Do you not feel the hypocrisy as you ask for "normal, historical procedure"? When someone has done away with all of this you can't do what is normal historical procedure because his lap dog in the Senate already said how he would deal with it, not that he would look seriously into it. It is clear that partisanship rules both parties and the Reps even more. So they are doing the only thing they logically can which is make it so irrefutable that Trump loses his partisan support before sending it on.

Any republican who even remotely supports Trump at this point asking for normal historical procedure with a straight face is either beyond the reach of logic or completely uninformed on how their president has been operating.

On October 11 2019 10:49 micronesia wrote:
No? I could discover illegal activity that benefits the executive branch leadership; I could discover illegal activity that benefits congress' current impeachment hearing. I could discover illegal activity that exposes the evils of establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle. There is no way to say how much of a target I would have on my back unless you assume I am blowing the whistle for partisan rather than ethical reasons... which is insulting.

True. The point is that once the whistle is blown, the accusations are confirmed through independent verification. Any evidence discovered as a result of a whistle-blower is still relevant, even if we find out tomorrow that the whistle-blower is actually hillary, putin, pence, or hitler. Attacking the whistle-blower's anonymity, in addition to being horrible for encouraging ethical governing, is completely illogical from a perspective of making a legitimate defense. It only makes sense for partisan reasons.

Arguments are not amusing simply because they are embraced by both sides of the aisle. This idea that democrats and republicans have to disagree on everything is grotesque. This was not my argument. Learn to read instead of blindly spread propaganda. We will never have a smoking gun. Somehow, Trump has made that impossible no matter what he does or what high crime he actually commits. This is going to be a battle of inches on the field and Pelosi knows it.

On October 11 2019 09:22 plated.rawr wrote:

The real thing to consider here is that while Trump is testing the boundaries of American democracy, he's a bumbling fool, hopefully unable to really break anything. However, he's showing the weaknesses of the system clear as day, and smarter people than him are watching.

If Trump is able to get away with what he's doing because of how those with the checks and balances to his power are unwilling to act, imagine then if the position was beset by someone with political connections, above-average intelligence, and ambition to power.

If post-Trump America does not go through major revisions of its system to patch some of the obvious errors which has been shown the last few years, the suspension of its democracy is only a whisper away.

On October 11 2019 11:08 micronesia wrote:
Introvert, the American public doesn't need to accept the words of an anonymous CIA agent. They can just accept the evidence that is discovered when the whistle-blower causes investigators to take a look at the incidents in question. For example, the transcript of the Ukraine call was released after and at least partly as a result of the whistle-blower blowing the whistle. Who the whistle-blower is doesn't change the content of the Ukraine transcript, regardless of your opinion of the transcript itself. To out this whistle-blower without his consent is to all but eliminate whistle-blowing.

On October 11 2019 11:16 Introvert wrote:


yes, if we are going to use them to remove duly elected presidents, we are going to have find out who they are. Absolutely. The whistle blower is the source of much of this, his supposed concern and consternation is the impetus. This is an inherently political process, used in political ways, for political ends. Therefore, we ought to see as much of it as possible. You are treating this as some criminal trial, but as we have all been reminded ad nauseum the past few weeks, this is not a criminal proceeding. The investigators are not to have their credibility assumed.

On October 11 2019 11:19 micronesia wrote:

No, we are not "using them." As Kwark said, they are tipping investigators off to where evidence can be found. Whether Trump should be impeached/removed or not depends on what the investigators found, not the transcript written by a whistle-blower. You can make a legitimate argument that the transcripts contents, especially the parts that are not independently verified, are being used in a partisan way. That does not warrant outing the whistle-blower. The main motivation for outing the whistle-blower is to provide a new target to discredit and then claim that all the evidence found as a result of the blown whistle is invalid even though, as you said, this is not a criminal proceeding.

On October 11 2019 11:40 JimmiC wrote:

They have already said they will do that anyway. So this does not come off as paritsan it comes off as prudent. Anyone who sees it otherwise is so partisan themselves that there is no point. Had McConnell been sensible and said he would look at the evidence you may have a point, sadly he gave his verdict before he saw it.

On October 11 2019 11:55 micronesia wrote:
The consequences of the "process" are irrelevant. The evidence speaks for itself. The fact that someone pointed their finger in a given direction resulting in evidence being found does not necessitate digging into who they are publicly. Again, this does not defend those who have inappropriately used what the whistle-blower wrote for partisan reasons.

edit: If they actually do testify, even in a private hearing, that could change the circumstances, but I have not been arguing about that.

On October 11 2019 12:05 JimmiC wrote:

No they need to make it irrefutable so that the public turns or the GOP does. Otherwise there is no point.

On October 11 2019 12:29 JimmiC wrote:

As mentioned early each of the four impeachments was different. The Democrats are not being hypocrites by playing within the rules. You are just frustrated that it is working and have now created a honorable tradition or some BS to create hypocrisy. It is amazing to me that you can't see how partisan this line of thinking is. Especially when it the leader of your party who is actually breaking actual rules on a daily basis. And would not know what was honorable or how to follow tradition if it hit him square in the face. He is quite literally famous for doing the opposite.

Casual or cowardly? Pelosi takes dangerous road to impeachment

Members of Congress have long been defined by two contradictory attributes of the constitutional power of voting and the consistent effort to avoid using it. Voting means being accountable, and politicians are not big on personal accountability. That is why members have effectively removed the requirement for a legislative declaration of war from the Constitution. Instead, in all except a handful of wars, Congress has used open-ended resolutions to start wars in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, preserving later denials of responsibility while supporting popular wars.

Now, the House of Representatives appears on the verge of doing the same with impeachment. If war is the continuation of politics by other means, impeachment may soon follow as the House does away with any need for an initial vote of its members. The change in the process for presidential impeachment is the focus of a planned letter from the White House that will tie demands from Congress for evidence to a vote of the full House. It is a case of passive aggression meets active avoidance.

With great fanfare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that an impeachment “inquiry” would begin. For those of us who have practiced in the area of impeachment, it was a curious moment. Reporters immediately called to ask if all it takes is a unilateral announcement of something called an impeachment “inquiry.” The answer is as murky as the motivation to avoid the traditional vote of the House to start an impeachment investigation.

On its face, the Constitution does not require anything other than a majority vote of the House to impeach a president. It is silent on the procedures used to reach that vote, and courts have largely deferred to Congress to create its own internal rules and processes in fulfilling constitutional functions. Historically, a vote of the chamber as a whole was required to commit a matter to the House Judiciary Committee or a select committee for an impeachment investigation of a sitting president.

The reason for that traditional practice is obvious. Before the House takes the momentous step toward impeachment of an American president, all of its members should be on record with that consequential action. Whether it was former President Nixon or former President Clinton, House members felt a responsibility to vote on whether to start the process.

The “impeachment by press conference” action of Pelosi is an entirely new animal. After her press conference, I told The Washington Post that this was not any recognizable process and that the approach taken by Democrats on presidential impeachment was “casual to the point of being conversational.” It would allow a type of immaculate impeachment that suddenly comes to life by the unilateral declaration of the speaker.

That practice would substantially reduce the burden of members in starting this process and make future impeachments all the more easy to commence. That could come at a great cost for the country, which, despite periods of such intense and bitter division, has always treated presidential impeachments as a collective and weighty decision for the entire House. The decision to avoid a full vote robs the House of the legitimacy and substance that comes from a vote of the entire body.

The current impeachment “inquiry” rests on the authority of one person. Until the entire body votes, it remains the Pelosi impeachment effort rather than a House impeachment process. While Democrats are counting on the courts to follow their traditional deference to the House on this question, the abandonment of the traditional vote in the House will undoubtedly give pause to some judges who are asked to override legal barriers to gain access to executive branch and grand jury material.

I testified months ago before the House Judiciary Committee on these very conflicts and encouraged it to secure a vote of the chamber to start an impeachment investigation before fighting these issues in court. While it has oversight authority that can override executive privilege arguments, an impeachment process puts the authority of Congress at its apex under the Constitution. This is important in securing grand jury material, a controversial and uncertain source of evidence for the committee.

There are other overly casual aspects to the Pelosi effort. It rests on the idea that the involved committees already have been given authority to conduct an impeachment inquiry. But they have not. The House Judiciary Committee has oversight authority that has been given to it in Section Two of Article One. However, the impeachment powers and the attendant deference by the courts also rest in Section One of Article One. In demanding grand jury material, a court could find that the only clear authority of the committee is oversight, not impeachment, powers.

The greatest danger, however, is to the process of impeaching the president. This casual unilateral approach will make impeachment more likely to become an extension of politics. The framers worked hard to avoid the use of impeachment as an impulsive or partisan device. That is what is likely to come from this new informal path created by Pelosi.

A majority of Democrats are now on the record supporting impeachment. They should get their votes on the record, and the House should remove the legitimacy questions created by Pelosi. There are valid issues to be investigated in the Ukrainian phone call of President Trump. If proved, these allegations would constitute impeachable offenses. The House, however, should lay a proper unassailable foundation for that process.

If there is any step that warrants formality, it is the impeachment of the president of the United States. That is hardly convenient for members of Congress who want to wait and see if impeachment is popular. But there still comes a point when casual becomes little more than cowardice.

On October 11 2019 11:16 Introvert wrote:


yes, if we are going to use them to remove duly elected presidents, we are going to have find out who they are. Absolutely. The whistle blower is the source of much of this, his supposed concern and consternation is the impetus. This is an inherently political process, used in political ways, for political ends. Therefore, we ought to see as much of it as possible. You are treating this as some criminal trial, but as we have all been reminded ad nauseum the past few weeks, this is not a criminal proceeding. The investigators are not to have their credibility assumed.