Impeachment hearings

[_Jersey Girl]

The Bidens’ guilt or innocence is irrelevant in deciding whether what the President did was an abuse of power.

The two cases are separate and apart, and should be dealt with as such. If there needs to be an investigation into the Biden's activity then that's what there needs to be. I thought I saw mention of such an investigation online?

I also think Joe Biden needs to address this as part of his campaign activity. Allow himself to be interviewed or whatever, and pony up an explanation.

[_Jersey Girl]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/mcconnell-faces-calls-recuse-himself-impeachment-trial-after-saying-no-chance-trump

”Senator McConnell has promised to sabotage that trial and he must recuse himself. No court in the country would allow a member of the jury to also serve as the accused’s defense attorney. The moment Senator McConnell takes the oath of impartiality required by the Constitution, he will be in violation of that oath. He has effectively promised to let President Trump manage his own impeachment trial. The Senator must withdraw.”

- Doc

Good God. These people are throwing a mentally ill vibe in full public view.

[_EAllusion]

Huh?

DC Circuit just ordered up a new round of court papers in House fight for access to Mueller grand jury materials /// Judges want to explore whether House has 'standing' to bring a claim to court in the first place.

[_moksha]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/13/mcconnell-faces-calls-recuse-himself-impeachment-trial-after-saying-no-chance-trump

”Senator McConnell has promised to sabotage that trial and he must recuse himself. No court in the country would allow a member of the jury to also serve as the accused’s defense attorney. The moment Senator McConnell takes the oath of impartiality required by the Constitution, he will be in violation of that oath. He has effectively promised to let President Trump manage his own impeachment trial. The Senator must withdraw.”

- Doc

Good God. These people are throwing a mentally ill vibe in full public view.

Partisanship has come to define their actions in the absence of a sense of right and wrong.

[_EAllusion]

In this stupid hypothetical that you opened up, Biden commits a criminal act that involved the Ukraine and the VP of the United States. For this to be true, we have to reframe every piece of evidence we have in that light. In this hypothetical Trump is acting on a legitimate suspicion of wrong doing at the highest levels when he is taking with Zelensky. It's not that we changed one detail but are able to keep everything else as it is. That change is a paradigm shifting change.

I think what you are failing to grasp that how Trump is "acting on suspicion" is where the the most serious issue is and that holds whether his target is guilty or not. If a judge offers to get a juror's fines removed from the books if they vote to convict a defendant, let's say a defendant running against him in an upcoming election, the propriety of this doesn't hinge on whether the defendant is guilty.

There would be a proper way for the Trump admin to act on probable cause for Biden corruption, if it existed. The Trump admin did not choose that way. Hypothesizing a universe in which Biden was guilty and further hypothesizing that there is actionable evidence of this fact, doesn't automatically make anything Trump does with respect to Biden kosher.

[_mikwut]

Here's my problem with all this scandal screaming and drama. It avoids the real deep issues of American politics. The whole reason for all the impeachment flaming since Trump's election is simple. He is a one off. And it has confused the status quo of elections. Prior to Trump, elites had pretty much steered elections, not voters. The cute and trite nonsense of my vote my choice etc.. is just BS. By elites I mean the absurd two party system we have, the press, and corporate donors. With Trump in office that wasn't nearly so certain anymore and things like the impeachment drama are hail mary's to try to get politics back on course. Watching and joining one side of the purity drama play out is a nihilistic exercise, it matters nothing at all. The only thing that can truly matter in changing our nihilistic system is beginning to confront the real elephants in the room rather than pretending one's preferred party is a true voice of morality.

The insanity is easy to see if you remove your allegiance from one side. For instance, compare what Trump did, at best probably did something really foolish and self serving like probably all of our presidents have, with something like say, George W. Bush who brought us into an war where milliions which included significant lives of our own were destroyed based on a lie. That is not controversial, that happened. If abuse of power means anything it does there. There was no push to impeach him. Pelosi in a recent interview basically answered the why to that question as she didn't want too many impeachments going on after the recent Clinton impeachment. That isn't moral purity by any stretch of the imagination. This is money, always follow the money, it is money all the way down. It sucks, and it sucks getting sucked into it.

mikwut

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Mikwut,

It's not like millions of people weren't protesting the false claims of the Bush administration and the inevitable war that took place. Short of armed insurrection, the next best thing would've been to vote him out of office.

Which didn't happen, and it wasn't like a GOP-held Congress would have investigated him* and his people for, I dunno, telling us there were mobile WMDs driving around or whatever other BS lies they peddled to us, and declaring war.

*From wiki: "In early 2003, the Iraq Resolution was challenged in court to stop the invasion from happening. The plaintiffs argued that the President does not have the authority to declare war. The final decision came from a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit which dismissed the case. Judge Lynch wrote in the opinion that the Judiciary cannot intervene unless there is a fully developed conflict between the President and Congress or if Congress gave the President "absolute discretion" to declare war."

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I do think it's interesting to look at early Democrat primary state polls and compare the differences between who is favored to win the state's delegates, and how a candidate polls head-to-head against Trump.

Like I pointed out, the Iowa polling shows Biden, Sanders, and Warren performing very strong with Democrat primary voters with Buttigieg doing well but not leading. But in polls of all voters asking who are they more likely to vote for, Trump or candidate "X"? Buttigieg is shown a point behind Trump but well within the margin of polling error which suggests they are essentially tied. What that suggests is while the Democrat party is looking at either name-recognition and establishment safety in Biden, or swinging left in Sanders and Warren, the majority of voters who might vote for either Trump or the Democrat nominee in Iowa want someone who is more moderate but also a fresh face.

The differences between these candidates are fairly small in those polls and Iowa isn't a swing state. The differences are within the range of primary effects and can only serve as weak evidence that any particular candidate is relatively favored. You're also extrapolating too much from one candidate being favored over another, especially at this exact point in time. The fact that Sanders polled better than Clinton against Trump in Michigan doesn't mean people in Michigan were socialists all of a sudden, but aren't now. People's voting behavior is wrapped up in all sorts of weird factors that don't neatly map onto where a person falls on a dipole political spectrum. You're being too reductionist here about what this "suggests," which is strange because there is evidence apart from this that being perceived as too far left probably does hurt on balance the candidates you apparently seem to like less.

Regarding Buttigeig's recent favorable polling, there's been a phenomenon driven by media coverage since the early 2000's in contested primaries where back-bench primary candidates get a surge of positive coverage, improve in polling, then the need for a narrative shift has the media turn on them with a wave of negative coverage, followed by a polling slide. Is Buttigeig the latest beneficiary of that wave? Maybe.

[_EAllusion]

And it has confused the status quo of elections. Prior to Trump, elites had pretty much steered elections, not voters.

The waning influence of party elites on elections is 1) probably why Trump was able to win, but also 2) an ongoing trend for decades that political scientists have been writing about that absolutely has influenced other elections. A candidate like Barack Obama won because of voters, not party elites. There's zero chance he would've been the smoke-filled room compromise candidate.

Chris Hayes, the cable news host, wrote a book that extensively covers this exact topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites- ... 0307720462

It was written well before the rise of Trump.

The insanity is easy to see if you remove your allegiance from one side. For instance, compare what Trump did, at best probably did something really foolish and self serving like probably all of our presidents have

Come on, Mikwut.

, with something like say, George W. Bush who brought us into an war where milliions which included significant lives of our own were destroyed based on a lie. That is not controversial, that happened. If abuse of power means anything it does there. There was no push to impeach him.

There was a substantial liberal push to impeach George W. Bush over his conduct related to deception around the Iraq war, torture, and warrantless surveillance late in his presidency that was killed by the Pelosi led-Congressional caucus. It wasn't that long ago, and I'm baffled how you forgot about it.

If you mean that there wasn't a serious push in Congress, then yeah, that's right. Pelosi's leadership appears to had to have been dragged kicking in screaming into this one, seem eager to get out of it, and are just ignoring some of the worst corruption in American history to do so.

[_mikwut]

E,

The waning influence of party elites on elections is 1) probably why Trump was able to win, but also 2) an ongoing trend for decades that political scientists have been writing about that absolutely has influenced other elections. A candidate like Barack Obama won because of voters, not party elites. There's zero chance he would've been the smoke-filled room compromise candidate.

Most of his money came from large elite donors. Without it he doesn't win. He was without a doubt the press' choice. And he was without a doubt the pre-primary's choice of the democratic party. What happened with Trump was part of the press believed in having a close race so they gave Trump a lot of air time, this back fired. Bush was definitely the pre primary choice. Nate Cohn wrote in the New York Times near the end of Obama's persidency, "grass-roots conservatives and liberals may resent it but, many analysts, including me, argue the outcome of presidential nominations is shaped or even decided by party elites." Obama didn't seem to bother shaking his belief. Neither did the schill Hayes. And neither did the money.

Chris Hayes, the cable news host, wrote a book that extensively covers this exact topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites- ... 0307720462

It was written well before the rise of Trump.

How did I argue this brand new thought, I didn't say that. I disagree with Hayes. Nothing he wrote about demonstrated anything different from the The University of Chicago's 2009 The Party Decides.

Respecting Bush impeachment, what else the hell do you think I was talking about when I specifically mentioned Pelosi? So I am glad we agree. Why when I say something do you assume I am unaware of the obvious historical backdrop? My point is not changed at all by your assertions otherwise. It stands.

mikwut