Should be impeached is not the same as will be impeached. I dont think its very likely. First of all, Trump gets due process just like everyone else, it just works a bit differently since he controls the Justice Department. But lets say that happens and theres a special investigative unit appointed by the House Judiciary Committee that exists outside of Executive control. Heres a breakdown of how it would work (and this is a breakdown from various sources, including CNN): 1) There has to be clear evidence that he committed "treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors." What are those? Well, they arent really defined. Its completely subjective, but the evidence has to be overwhelming in his intent. 2) Assuming thats decided, a House oversight committee does an investigation and puts together a list of crimes for articles of impeachment. It gets voted on. If it passes, it goes to the House. 3) The House has to have a majority vote, but can approve specific articles of impeachment. 4) If the House passes anything, it goes to the Senate. The case is presided by the Supreme Court Chief Justice, House members prosecute, and the Senate is the jury. Votes for conviction have to be 2/3 majority (67 Senators out of 100). For those keeping score, that means 21+ Congressional Republicans and about 20 Senate Republicans have to break ranks, assuming all Democrats are on board and attend the sessions. And to add to that, the scales are tipped much more in Trump's favor in terms of the number of R's vs D's than Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings, and his wasnt even close to conviction. Again, not to mention proving that Trump actually committed a "high crime" here, which given the information, seems impossible unless there is some smoking gun and the memo doesnt really cut it.
Pretty good illustration on why Trump won't be impeached. Politically as well, it'd be idiotic for the Republicans. A large amount of research says that Trump's electoral victory was due to former Obama supporters, so the Republicans know if they impeach Trump they're just going to alienate that demographic of Trump supporters and send them right back to the Democrats or (more likely) the ranks of independent voters. The only way Trump gets impeached is if he commits a massive fuck-up that turns the whole country against him. Anything less and we'll be getting him for the full four years.
It might actually be politically idiotic for the Democrats, too. History shows that the party that pushes for impeachment suffers massive congressional and senatorial losses in the following mid-term. The Republicans got slaughtered after Clinton's hearings.
I do like the impeachment conversation. So far its been good and I've seriously learned quite a bit. Thanks everyone.
It doesn't necessarily mean that the IC was lying. The Russians could have easily hacked the DNC, but not been who turned the e-mails over to wikileaks. They hacked the RNC as well. They're always hacking or trying to hack us. Just because they did doesn't mean they automatically want it to go public. If they hacked the DNC, but Seth Rich was leaking the documents the IC would still assume it was Russia doing the leaking because that's what the info at the time would suggest. Anyway, while the whole story still seems kind of implausible, it is odd that Seth Rich was shot to death, but whoever did it decided not to steal his wallet, watch, or phone. You would expect those to be missing if it was a robbery. So there's that and then he's exchanging e-mails with wikileaks and wikileaks offered a reward for information related to the shooting. It might mean nothing, but it's interesting. I honestly think it would depend a lot on what he was being impeached over. If it was real collusion with Russia I doubt it would hurt democrats. If it was that he asked Comey to lay off the investigation with Flynn and that's it --- then yeah it's obstruction of justice, but given what other presidents have done without being impeached it would probably irk some people. The reason the republicans took a beating after the Clinton impeachment is because even though he did lie about it under oath they were essentially trying to kick him out of office for getting a blow job, which is ridiculous.
Dayum! Former FBI director Robert Mueller will be appointed as special counsel to take over the Russia investigation. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/17/just...pecial-counsel-to-take-over-russia-probe.html Dude quit a lucrative private sector job to focus on this full-time. The thing that really blows is that any kind of investigation like this has no real budget, but spends ton of money and takes such a long time, that they feel required to find something as an outcome. So even if there is nothing there, something will be there.
I wouldn't worry about this Rep, he's trying to get ahead and speaking to his constituents, he has no real influence. He wants to be voted back in again whenever that happens to be and this helps that assuming he's on the right side of things. In many ways I hate politics because its a middle school popularity contest, but sadly these people are determining policy that affects the whole country. I see my professional career oriented towards policy so I will accept that and hopefully at some-point learn how to navigate it
Mueller is arguably the best Director the FBI has had since its founding. He his highly respected across the left and the right and worked for Bush and Obama. Whatever comes of his investigation should be respected.
Absolutely agree. EVERYONE has nothing but stellar things to say about the man. My favourite part was how the DOJ informed the White House 30 minutes after the order was signed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...5f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html Even if McCarthy was wrong, the fact that he brought it up and Ryan's reaction was "bitch, stfu with that shit someone might hear!" is not a good look for Ryan.
I can't read the WP's article on it, but they're apparently claiming it was a joke. http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/17/majority-leader-kevin-mccarthy-2016-think-putin-pays-trump/
I don't think Trump could have cried harder about Mueller being appointed. Shows what kind of "man" he truly is.
And here we go. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-slam_us_591e56a3e4b03b485cb03a32
Meh, easy to say after the fact. The dems did fuck up the election, no one will doubt that, but Biden saying now he was the most qualified and could have won? Sounds like a conversation he would have with his buddies after a few beers.
Eh Biden is known to run his mouth. You still don't see many of the top democratic brass saying anything unfavorable. Maybe commentators. Otherwise it seems like it is back to business as usual for them. I'm genuinely curious if they'll just ride a total anti trump strategy or actually court the forgotten middle country like they should have.
They wont. After the election instead of having humility, the Democrats immediately called those people retards.
I could see the middle of the country swinging back democratic after seeing how much the ACA benefitted them, or maybe from a different perspective, how much losing the ACA would hurt them. Is it possible the Dems have their heads so far up their own ass' that they don't see the political capital and opportunity there to flip states? Seem like people in middle America are starting to view healthcare as a non-market good, much like childhood education. The government provides schooling for all kids and mandates kids go to school, however people don't view that as government interference.
I've heard it said by numerous sources is that the reason Trump won the election was because he talked about issues that people actually cared about...jobs, the economy, national security, etc...while all Clinton did was bash Trump. Instead of learning from this and getting to work on issues people care about the Dems are going full throttle with the previous tack...bash Trump. And yell about Russians. Elections are coming up in a year and a half and it would be hard for them to actually lose seats with Trump in office, but they're doing their damnedest to make sure that happens by monkey fucking around about a Russian conspiracy that may not even exist and doing absolutely nothing to improve the conditions in this country. The bash Trump ploy plays well with their core but most people just want a government that actually functions.
I think if the dems want to win back seats in both the house and senate they need to actually establish a platform that doesn't exclude half the country. If your whole platform is "I'm offended", good fucking luck trying to get people to care. I'm not saying to promise back jobs that don't exist anymore and will never come back. But to really earn back the love of the working class, you have to stop treating people who are working class and blue collar as lesser. They can smell elitism and they resent it. Also, treating white people like they don't matter because they "have all the power" is a poor strategy because you still need them to vote for you too.
If white people have all the power wouldn't it be smart to base their platform on what they want? I agree, the dems come off as elitist and talk like they don't care about Joe sixpack in Missouri because he has white privilege when in reality his life isn't the best and he wants to make it better like everyone else.