Peter Strzok gets exposed

[One Bad Pig]

Impeach him for what? There's not a shred of evidence that he committed an impeachable offense.

It's supposed to be hard to remove a sitting president from office. Do Democrats really want to establish a precrdent that lowers the bar and makes it easier? Because that will certainly come back to bite them in the future.

The answer seems to be no, since only about a third of them voted for impeachment.

[Cow Poke]

Impeach him for what?

Nutty Al claims Trump is racist, and, therefore, should be impeached. He even admits there are no "high crimes and misdemeanors" - the charge seems to be that "Trump is not nice".

[Cow Poke]

The answer seems to be no, since only about a third of them voted for impeachment.

The spin is that, even though this attempt failed, it was less unsuccessful than previous attempts. It's a "growing" movement.

[Zymologist]

Y'all could try to come off as something other than howling-at-the-moon, rabidly, and ferociously insane. Or, you could keep on suggesting Hillary had her own private hit squad.

Do you just not notice how nuts that is?

No doubt the Russians were involved.

[Sparko]

As far as I can tell, those of us here think that she's not impaired and is using it as a convenient cover (and, yes, is lying). Hillary has always had a penchant for telling a lie when the truth would do AFAICT.

I think he is remembering wrong. We were saying she was too sick to be president because of her cough and feinting spells. Not that she had brain damage.

[Starlight]

House rejects Democrat's resolution to impeach Trump

Trump is clearly guilty on three main issues:
1. A violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution: He has used the Presidency to make money for his businesses, foreign dignitaries have been deliberately staying in his hotels to curry favor, etc.
2. Obstruction of justice: He said in a televised interview he fired Comey in order to end the Russia investigation.
3. Sexual assaults and misconduct: He's admitted on tape that he sexually assaults women and believes that he gets away with it because he's rich. Numerous women have said he behaved inappropriately with him. Other witnesses have said that he made a practice of deliberately entering the girl's changing room in the beauty pageants he ran and that he took the view he could do this because he was the owner. (And not to mention has long been a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein, of child prostitute island fame)

The evidence that is in the public domain on all three issues is enough for any sane and reasonable person to find him guilty.

So would it be just and right to impeach Trump? Duh. Of course it would.

However the Democrats have to make a political calculation, and take the following into account:
A. Impeachment won't succeed at this point in time because the Republicans won't vote for it.
B. Impeaching Trump will simply put Pence in power. From the Dem's POV, Pence is not necessarily better (less dementia-ridden and less incompetent and more focused on enacting sociopathic and evil policies)
C. The impeachment process tends to mobilize the President's base in his defense, and burn through the political capital of the party bringing the charges.
D. It ties up media attention on the impeachment process, that would otherwise be elsewhere
E. Mueller's investigation is ongoing, and with Flynn having been given a plea deal in exchange for ratting-out a higher-up, it seems clear that Mueller is looking to bring down someone near the top. Democrats will want to hold back from doing anything until we know Mueller's finished bringing people down.
F. Mueller should at some point weigh in on the Obstruction of Justice charge, and it would seem premature for the Dems to be pushing for impeachment on that before Mueller green lights it.
G. In recent elections, the Dems have been able to do well due to Trump's unpopularity and have seen something like a +15 point swing in their favor. They'll want to keep that bonus going until the midterms so they can take back the House and Senate. They were able to achieve super-majorities in 2008 off the back of Bush's unpopularity, so they'll want to aim for that again.

So, is it sensible for a Democratic politician to actually vote for Trump's impeachment? It's not in their political interest. That's why most of the Dems didn't. Those that did were those who felt that justice and law-and-order were more important than their political interest and so they felt they needed to prosecute Trump for his criminality even though it wasn't really in their political interest to do so yet. Personally, I would probably have voted "present" for that reason.

[Starlight]

I think he is remembering wrong. We were saying she was too sick to be president because of her cough and feinting spells. Not that she had brain damage.

Karl Rove: Clinton hospital stay and glasses point to traumatic brain injury. It was a theory that waxed and waned in popularity among conservatives over the years. And similar to it was the view that Hillary had had strokes, or a series of mini-strokes. There were various flavors, but the idea was that Hillary Clinton had brain damage in some way, shape or form, that was sufficient to justify her not being President.

[Cow Poke]

Karl Rove: Clinton hospital stay and glasses point to traumatic brain injury. It was a theory that waxed and waned in popularity among conservatives over the years. And similar to it was the view that Hillary had had strokes, or a series of mini-strokes. There were various flavors, but the idea was that Hillary Clinton had brain damage in some way, shape or form, that was sufficient to justify her not being President.

It was a factor worthy of consideration in the overall "she's not fit to be president" argument. I don't know of anybody who made it the only case.

[Cow Poke]

Trump is clearly guilty on three main issues:

Perhaps in your country an allegation equals "clearly guilty".

God Bless the USA!

[Cow Poke]

...Pence is not necessarily better (less dementia-ridden and less incompetent and more focused on enacting sociopathic and evil policies)

Thanks, Star - I needed a good laugh!

[Mountain Man]

Perhaps in your country an allegation equals "clearly guilty".

God Bless the USA!

Like I said, liberals are trying to establish the narrative that evidence doesn't matter, only the allegations.

[Cow Poke]

Like I said, liberals are trying to establish the narrative that evidence doesn't matter, only the allegations.

Take his #1, for example....

1. A violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution: He has used the Presidency to make money for his businesses, foreign dignitaries have been deliberately staying in his hotels to curry favor, etc.

The notion that Trump may personally gain from decisions made in office does not prove it was for his own personal purposes. If the US economy improves (I would hope we all want that) it would be hard for him not to benefit.

The notion that "foreign dignitaries have been deliberately staying in his hotels to curry favor" does not, in any way, implicate Trump is being swayed by any such hotel stays. Sheer wild speculation.

So, yeah, make some allegations, however shaky, and declare Trump guilty as H-E-DoubleHockeySticks!

Sheeeesh!

[Darth Executor]

Karl Rove: Clinton hospital stay and glasses point to traumatic brain injury. It was a theory that waxed and waned in popularity among conservatives over the years. And similar to it was the view that Hillary had had strokes, or a series of mini-strokes. There were various flavors, but the idea was that Hillary Clinton had brain damage in some way, shape or form, that was sufficient to justify her not being President.

having some sort of brain damage doesn't necessarily mean her memory is impaired

[Sparko]

having some sort of brain damage doesn't necessarily mean her memory is impaired

either way: if she had brain damage she should have resigned. And definitely NOT run for POTUS. If she didn't have brain damage then she is a lying self-serving criminal who should have resigned and not run for POTUS.

[Starlight]

The notion that Trump may personally gain from decisions made in office does not prove it was for his own personal purposes.

The standard practice upon someone entering high office is for their existing business assets to be sold and replaced with a 'blind trust' which is where an impartial independent person invests their money for them (in the sharemarket or whatever) in order that neither the person themselves nor those seeking to influence them know where the person's assets are. That way the person cannot pass policies benefiting their specific businesses, nor can people bribe them via their businesses.

Jimmy Carter, for example, was forced by Republicans into selling his family's peanut farm in order to have his assets in a blind trust instead. The next-to-last NZ PM was a multimillionaire businessman who had to put his assets into a blind trust. It's standard practice.

Donald Trump has flatly refused to do this, and has instead undertaken the practice of:
1. Visiting his own golf estates regularly, which forces the secret service to pay him as they themselves pay entry and have had to pay him $137k so far to rent golf carts. And likewise he tried so hard to cheat them out of money they were paying him for rooms in Trump tower which they used to protect his family living there, that they ended up quitting on the lease because he was screwing them over.
2. After he won the election, he promptly doubled the entry fee to Mar-a-Lago, and then proceeded to publicize that he was letting the guests there be involved in helping him interview and pick his potential cabinet members. Thus making more money off the Presidency.
3. His businesses and those of Kushner and Ivanka suddenly got preferential treatment and fast-tracked approval in China and Saudi Arabia the moment he became president.
4. He also opened 6 new companies in Saudi Arabia during the course of the campaign. And what's in the public sphere regarding his various deals with the Saudis is pretty damning.
5. Multiple foreign diplomats have stated that they and their entourages deliberately stay at Trump hotels when visiting America in order to curry favor with Trump.
etc.

In interviews, Trump has also been fairly frank in terms of admitting the ways in which he expects his various businesses to benefit from the presidency.

If the US economy improves (I would hope we all want that) it would be hard for him not to benefit.

That is the kind of way that a President is supposed to benefit. With a blind trust, the limits of his knowledge are supposed to be "I have assets somewhere in the economy, so if the economy does well for everyone, my assets likely do well". That is fine.

He is not supposed to have knowledge of specifically what his assets are, nor to be funneling government money to them himself, nor for foreigners to be able to funnel money to them. That is what violates the emoluments clause of the constitution.

The notion that "foreign dignitaries have been deliberately staying in his hotels to curry favor" does not, in any way, implicate Trump is being swayed by any such hotel stays.

It is irrelevant to the question of whether he is violating the constitution or not to consider whether Trump was successfully swayed or not by such bribes. The fact is, such attempted bribes are happening because he is blatantly violating the constitution and blatantly refusing to follow standard procedure to dissociate himself from his businesses while in office.

Sheeeesh!

Yup. It's the most blatant and open and public constitutional violation we've seen from any President in generations.