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sam....the Dems have been pushing for hearings and impeachment EVEN before he was elected.....
He is fed up with their bullshit....If someone was riding your ass 24/7, you might respond also....just a thought.
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jazz51, which Dems?
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Maxine Waters for one.
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Congress has oversight..not harassment.
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Everything is about “gotcha” politics. It’s not about right or wrong... it’s about political wins.
If it were me, they would have to compel me to turn over a single document. Not because I would be afraid they could prove their case... but because of unreleased stuff they would look at and then go... “AHAAAA!” That has been their mode of operation.
Don’t get me wrong... the Republicans do the same exact thing every chance they get. If I were Hilary... they wouldn’t have gotten my e-mails either.
The proof of this is the way the House is handling it. They could have taken this to court and possibly forced the release of Whitehouse documents, which may have helped their case against the President. But that would have taken a mother 30 to 60 days (and may not have won) which meant the House vote wouldn’t have happened until late January, maybe February. then Senate trial for 6 weeks in March and April. All of this in an election year where they may have trouble keeping the house so they need their members on the campaign trail and not in hearing rooms.
But... they need this impeachment vote (even they are going to lose badly in the Senate) as a talking point for the spring - fall campaign season.
So the shrunk the timeline because it works best for them politically.
Again... I’m pretty sure the Republicans would do something similar.
I’m just glad that none of these assclowns (Trump, Pelosi, McCarthy and McConnel) have the ability to do much without at least some support from the other side.
Often gridlock is our friend.
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sam....you won't find Congressional Oversight in the Constitution either.....
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@Lou,
Yeah, Maxine (I'm not her biggest fan...) has been talking about impeachment for a while now. But even she wasn't talking about it since BEFORE Trump was elected like jazz51 claims, was she?
Still waiting to hear back from him on which Dems were doing that. If there are any, it certainly wasn't anyone in leadership or even an elected position of import. I can't think of one in the House that did that.
But I'd love to learn. Help me out, jazz!
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As Lou said, Maxine Waters, also Al Green, Rashida Tlaib, John Yarmuth, Tom Malinowski.....
Here is an interesting read if you want to trace a timeline of efforts to take Trump down.....
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It was the 'deep state' people who didn't want Trump around to screw up their good deal. The actual elected Dems started in 2016....right after inauguration.
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But those 'deep state' people who have been pushing and digging are Dems...
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“Congress is granted the power of oversight on the executive branch, period.”
Wrong. Not “period.” That should be a comma. But power drunk bitter enemies usually want to be judge, jury and executioner. Which is why we have the system we have. Wrong motives skew outcomes if the process isn’t balanced.
Congress is ONE piece of oversight. They need the Senate and should use Judicial the branch as well when providing oversight.
As mentioned above... this is not about “justice” or protecting our “democracy” or an attack on the “constitution.” This is a political exercise. It’s a battle for the hearts and minds of the American electorate.
We will see who wins that battle in November.
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Meanwhile, it's a documented fact that the day of Obama's 1st inauguration, the leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell was meeting with other Republicans in Congress strategizing on how to block Obama from getting anything done and making sure he didn't get re-elected.
I'm not necessarily complaining about that. On one hand, that's KIND OF his job. But it's also his job to work with the President to serve the American people.
What bothers me is the double standard and the outright making shit up. If you're going to make a statement like "Dems have been calling for Trump's impeachment before he even got elected", then at least back it up with a couple high-profile examples. I mean, do a LITTLE BIT of research. Just because the President and so many high-ranking members in the Republican party do it, doesn't mean that it's okay to just make shit up because we like the way it sounds...
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@jazz51,
Thanks, man. I appreciate the info. That's a good timeline in The Hill article you linked, but it doesn't include one mention of one elected or unelected Democrat calling for impeachment before his election.
Do you have any other research that can provide an example of that actually happening or would you like to amend your original assertion?
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Come on J... you KNOW 1/2 of the country lost their minds on November 9, 2016. Not only did they think he shouldn’t have won... but we’re looking for any and every option to make it so he didn’t win.
You are right about the Republicans and Obama. I think the difference is where many hated Obama and rigorously worked against his legislative agenda, the Republican controlled house didn’t launch government funded investigations based on innuendo and hearsay evidence.
The bottom line is the house will vote to impeach, the senate will not vote to convict, he will remain the president and in November we will see what the American people think about both arguments.
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I did alter my comment...
The ELECTED Dems started right after inauguration.
The deep state Dems started before the election...
Wait until the Barr and Durham reports come out...there will be far more press about the efforts by the FBI, Justice Department and others who started the ball rolling.....
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jazz51, are you aware that Comey is/was a registered Republican? Do you have knowledge of the voting record of Strzok and Page? Do you know why they wrote what they wrote in their texts about having a "back up plan"?
These people are not "deep state" people. They're FBI agents/lawyers. They also wrote disparaging things in other texts about Hillary. Have you folded that into your analysis?
Check out this article debunking claims made about Strzok, Page and others from Politico yesterday. It's not an opinion piece like the one you linked from The Hill, it's straight reporting on the Inspector General of the FBI's report on the origins of the counter-intelligence investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign.
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Here is another read.....
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Dems haven't accepted a Republican presidential election since 1988.
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Maybe because in 2000 GW Bush's election was hang on hanging chads in the Florida where his brother Jeb Bush was governor.
Dems accept Trump won he just used Russian help...... and had some help from James Comey.
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The Inspector General's report has already been disputed by Barr and Durham.....
Horowitz was an Obama appointee at IG.
Like many career administration personnel, they do not register as any party affiliation.
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What amazes me is the ability of both sides to spin information.
The same exact information spun in different directions and made to sound plausible.
I can’t wait to see who the people believe.
The Democrats: “Trump is a racist, corrupt, stupid, selfish leader of people who are too dumb to know any better.”
Or
The Republicans: “The President is doing a great job in-spite of relentless attacks because democrats are still upset he won in 2016 and are afraid he will win again in 2020.”
Which story will people believe next November?
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And I might have to also include Never Trump rinos in my original comment as well....LOL.
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So Dude... Really... Jeb being the governor of Florida... that’s your argument for the 2000 election loss?
Haaaaaa bitterness is sometimes a beautiful thing to behold. 
Do you send the Perot family thank you cards? Because you know with out Ross Perot, Clinton loses in 1992 by at least 4 points.
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^ The closest election in American history is settled by hanging chads in the state where GW Bush's brother is Governor. Thats why Dems had a problem with that election.
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@Kaiser,
"You are right about the Republicans and Obama. I think the difference is where many hated Obama and rigorously worked against his legislative agenda, the Republican controlled house didn’t launch government funded investigations based on innuendo and hearsay evidence."
That might be because No Drama Obama didn't abuse his power and obstruct Congress. The Republicans though, did go after Hillary, spending 28 months and $7.8 million investigating Bengazi and found no wrong doing.
If you actually believe there's no facts and teeth to the impeachment investigation into Trump, I can't help you in a conversation. The facts are plain as day and numerous. Not one member of Congress, Dem or Rep, has disputed any of the testimony as anything other than true. Not one of the witnesses has been found in a lie, and all of the witnesses testimonies describe and support the same account of events.
The undisputed facts show President Trump led an effort to withhold Congressionally mandated and approved (by both the House and the Senate) federal tax dollars ($391 million in military aid) from Ukraine (who happens to be in a deadly shooting war with Russia as we speak) as well as a highly-coveted and important White House meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky (which is desperately needed by Ukraine in their current negotiations with Russia) until they publicly announced investigations into debunked claims about the Bidens and the Democratic Party.
That's illegal and, more importantly, the very definition of impeachable abuses of power.
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I ask again can any of you Trump supporters seriously defend Trump's conduct of holding up Ukraine's aid in exchange for them digging up dirt on the Biden's??
This is no small thing. Thats a bigger abuse of power than Nixon's Watergate break in.
By the way for you guys that think he shouldn't be impeached, they impeached Bill Clinton for lying in a deposition about an affair with an intern.
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J...
The only dispute I have with any of it is being able to prove Trump’s motivations. It’s “why” he was asking for the Ukraine investigation that matters.
That the Ukrainian President says he not only never felt there was any type of quid pro quo in effect... he didn’t even know aid was delayed until after it was released.
Without being able to clearly prove his motive.... everything he did has been done thousand’s of times.
Honestly... I think the big target in all of this initially was not Trump. I believe the far left wants to cripple Biden. I think they would rather have 4 more years of Trump than 8 years of having to support Biden and his Center- left ideology.
I’m not a Trump fan... or hater. I was the same with President Obama. I tend to give them the benefit of doubt... even when they very well could be guilty.
I think we are talking about removing a president from office. I think you need a lot more than this.
Even if he did do that for the wrong reason... I do not think it rises to the level of impeachment... just like I think The Bill Clinton impeachment hearings were stupid.
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@Kaiser
"So Dude... Really... Jeb being the governor of Florida... that’s your argument for the 2000 election loss?
Haaaaaa bitterness is sometimes a beautiful thing to behold.
Do you send the Perot family thank you cards? Because you know with out Ross Perot, Clinton loses in 1992 by at least 4 points."
You're exactly right, without Ross Perot, it is highly unlikely Bill Clinton is elected President in '92. Bush gets a 2nd term. If they didn't send him at least a REALLY nice fruit basket, there's something wrong there.
But you owe it to yourself to know all that went into W. Bush winning Florida in 2000. It was a lot more than just his brother Jeb being the Governor. Katherine Harris, Florida's Republican Secretary of State at the time, "mistakenly" removed 58,000 people from the voter rolls with Jeb's full knowledge and approval. A lawsuit later showed that 12,000 of them should've been allowed to vote. Moreover, the surnames of those 12,000 were those of likely Democratic voters because they were typically African American surnames. Blacks made up only 11% of Florida's electorate but 44% of the people of the Harris' voter purge were black. If the regular turnout of those 12,000 people showed up to vote, Gore wins.
On top of that, the "butterfly" ballot design in Florida was found to be intentionally confusing and Florida rules allowed the Republican candidates name to always come first on the ballot (a tactic scientifically shown to produce a 3% bump in vote totals).
Then the recount was shut down numerous times in certain counties due to "angry mobs" storming the buildings. Those "angry mobs" were known in real time to be organized by Republican staffers. They were called "The Brooks Brothers Mob" because these "grass roots" angry Floridians were dressed in suits and ties. The recounts were under extreme time pressure and the delays were designed to cause certain heavily democratic counties in which Gore's lead was growing to not finish in time to submit their results.
The automatic state-mandated recount shrunk Bush's election night lead of 1784 votes to just 327 votes. When the Florida Supreme Court ordered a full hand recount, the Republicans got the U.S. Supreme Court to shut it down and Bush won.
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Soooo... you think Jeb rigged Florida?
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Not digging up dirt on the Biden's....just doing a REAL investigation into Hunter Biden, Burisma Holdings and his payments from the Chinese.
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"the Ukrainian President says he not only never felt there was any type of quid pro quo in effect."
This guy is the new President of Ukraine. The aid the US gave their country and continues to give them is a matter of life or death for his country. So you think he would say "yes I feel pressured, yet Trump gave me a quid pro quo" Gimme a break!
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"Not digging up dirt on the Biden's....just doing a REAL investigation into Hunter Biden, Burisma Holdings and his payments from the Chinese."
Anything any Hunter Biden did or didn't do in any business dealing doesn't give the the President the right to hold up aid to an allie or foreign country to get dirt on his father the potential Democratic nominee.
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@Kaiser
"J...
The only dispute I have with any of it is being able to prove Trump’s motivations. It’s “why” he was asking for the Ukraine investigation that matters.
That the Ukrainian President says he not only never felt there was any type of quid pro quo in effect... he didn’t even know aid was delayed until after it was released.
Without being able to clearly prove his motive.... everything he did has been done thousand’s of times.
Honestly... I think the big target in all of this initially was not Trump. I believe the far left wants to cripple Biden. I think they would rather have 4 more years of Trump than 8 years of having to support Biden and his Center- left ideology.
I’m not a Trump fan... or hater. I was the same with President Obama. I tend to give them the benefit of doubt... even when they very well could be guilty.
I think we are talking about removing a president from office. I think you need a lot more than this.
Even if he did do that for the wrong reason... I do not think it rises to the level of impeachment... just like I think The Bill Clinton impeachment hearings were stupid."
I feel you, Kaiser. Here's the thing. If you look at Trump's entire life, he's never been interested in rooting out corruption. He's only been interested in committing it. He ran a fake university, was sued and lost. He's refused to pay contractors who have worked on his properties. Fraud and shady dealings has been his way his entire life. Pretty much everything he's done has been about enriching himself at the expenses of others by corrupted means. I mean the guy even boldly and obviously cheats at golf. (Read the first-hand eyewitness accounts. They're hilarious!).
So is is realistic to think that he's so interested in fighting corruption now? Let's take a look at the evidence. He's never held back any aid from any other country before on the grounds of cleaning up corruption. He's never even talked about addressing corruption in any other country. He didn't mention any other (much more high profile) cases of corruption in Ukraine except the Bidens and the Democratic Party. In fact, in his demands to Ukraine, he never asked (or waited) for results to those investigations.
He wouldn't release the funds if Ukraine started the investigation. He wouldn't release the funds if they actually found corruption or not. He would ONLY release the funds if they publicly ANNOUNCED the investigations. All he wanted was the talking point. A talking point that wouldn't help our national security or standing in the world. A talking point that wouldn't make our allies any safer. It was a talking point that would only help him politically.
He refuses to release any White House documents that apply to this case, even if they would clear him. He refuses to allow any State Department documents to be released, even if they wold clear him. He refuses to allow any member of the Executive Branch to testify, even if it is on his behalf.
I mean, what does all that tell you about his motives? It's plain as day. He wasn't asking for Ukraine to clean up their act about anything. He only wanted a public announcement that they were investigating the Bidens and the Democratic Party, two issues that have been completely debunked and would only serve him politically.
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Me not having the some of information you posted above about Florida in 2000 puts me at a disadvantage... because I do not have counter information prepared (and I don’t care enough to look for any) so I have to take your word for it.
So ... Jeb and his Secretary of State conspired to rig the election in 2000. Good to know.
Florida has been a battleground state since 92. Before that it was clearly red. Since... it has been (for the most part) the decider in close elections. So I guess there are Tangible benefit to winning down ticket elections.
If it were happening now... I’d be pissed. Since it was 19 years ago... I don’t care that much.
But I do love that Dude still wakes up in a cold sweat about it. So that kind of makes me glad it happened... if it did.
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Every bit of our foreign aid has 'strings' tied to it.....why the fuck do you think we pay it...certainly not out of the goodness and kindness of our hearts.
We are "bribing" allies to stay with us and not run to our enemies.....
Because Trump wanted some investigation into possible corruption is just one more 'string' in a long list of strings.
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He asked for a "favor".......he held up aid because he was still concerned about the corruption in the Ukraine government.
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"Soooo... you think Jeb rigged Florida?"
No, I think the evidence of voter suppression in Florida in 2000 is clear and overwhelming. The same tactics were well documented in Ohio in 2004, certain districts in Kansas and North Carolina in 2016, and in Georgia in 2018 and many other examples of voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering in many other states, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for examples, are also very clear if you follow these things.
Whether Jeb ordered it or how much he was overseeing it is unclear and not really the issue. It is a well known and oft-used Republican strategy. The evidence is available to anyone who desires to look it up.
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J...
I agree with you. I don’t think Trump is a good guy.
But if you have spent any time in a court room... you know if a guy being is accused of breaking into a house... you can’t consider prior unrelated acts/crimes. (You can for sentencing if he is convicted) because what he did before does not mean that is what he did this time. And if you allow those things to be considered... then there is no way to get an objective decision on this accusation.
Well... he did that over there... so he probably did this too.
I don’t want to decide things this important that way.
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Let’s leave gerrymandering to another discussion. I think we both know both parties when in power try to redistrict in way that keeps them in power.
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"He asked for a "favor".......he held up aid because he was still concerned about the corruption in the Ukraine government"
Dude you must not have watch any of the hearings. What do you think the "favor" was.
Trump wasn't caring about corruption in Ukraine. Everyone knows there has always been corruption there. He was concerned about "Big Things" getting info on the Bidens......Sondland.
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@jazz51
"He asked for a "favor".......he held up aid because he was still concerned about the corruption in the Ukraine government."
Well, he's not going to come out and say "you better give me this or I'm going to seriously fuck with your ability to defend yourself in a hot war with Russia". But after witness after witness came forward under oath and likely retribution to prove that was the scheme, it doesn't really matter whether he used the word "favor" or not, does it.
He also didn't mention any other much more high profile cases of corruption the Ukrainian people are dealing with.The only two cases he mentioned are bullshit cases that have been repeatedly debunked. Oh, and they just HAPPEN to help him get re-elected.
No one is seeking to change your mind, jazz. You've already made it up regardless of the facts staring you in the face. I've got no problem with that. That's your right. It's also your right to post/say any political opinion you want and I will defend your right to do that with my life, actually.
But I have a hard time allowing bullshit to spread across my country, so I fight it when I can. You are simply factually wrong. You don't have to care about facts, but it's important that enough people in our country do.
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Voter suppression is in the eye of the beholder in many cases.
The idea that needing an ID to vote in this age is not an onerous requirement. And if fair elections are really the goal...
Why would anyone be opposed to making sure only people with voting rights vote?
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Before this locks...
I appreciate the measured and informed discussion.
Thanks J
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@Kaiser
"Let’s leave gerrymandering to another discussion. I think we both know both parties when in power try to redistrict in way that keeps them in power."
That's true, but no party has ever taken it to the extremes that the Republican party has over the last 20 years. So much so that court after court has struck it down.
Look up Thomas B. Hofeller. It's amazing the lengths this guy went to.
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Thanks, K. And I yours.
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