Mega-Thread: Impeachment Proceedings & Inquiry of Trump

[Captain N]

He would actually have to kill someone on live TV, and they still might support him.

The darker the skin the more support they'll give too.

[PosPosPos]

Jesus motherfucking Christ. What does Trump have to do to lose support from his base?

I swear, he could round up and execute U.S. citizens and the Republicans would still be saying "at least he took out those dirty libs first!" as the firing squad fills them up with lead. This is astounding.

For starters, it would help if the so-called good people would stop legitimizing the positions of Trump zealots by giving them public platforms. Like how MMOC seems incapable of for instance.

When any of you attempt to seriously argue or reason with them and their points(or rather lack thereof), it's basically sending a message that their ideas have just as much sanity and reason as the rest at the table.

Any intelligent and productive debate has to be done in good faith. By all parties involved. If any party is found lacking, it ceases to be such until they are completely removed from the entire affair.

[Orbitus]

So this is your argument for not formally voting for the impeachment investigation which would effectively give Trump due process via the allocation of extra authorities to both sides of the House?

It's not a good look to claim hyper-partisanship on the other side as your reasoning to do something hyper-partisan, like holding a shadow impeachment process that is being litigated mostly in a complicit media machine.

Seriously? You support a fucking credibly accused pedophile. You cannot try to fucking down to us.

[nonameelf]

So this is your argument for not formally voting for the impeachment investigation which would effectively give Trump due process via the allocation of extra authorities to both sides of the House?

It's not a good look to claim hyper-partisanship on the other side as your reasoning to do something hyper-partisan, like holding a shadow impeachment process that is being litigated mostly in a complicit media machine.

Except that's not required by law, at all. So go pound sand.

[Levelfive]

You know. I want to agree with you. I really do.

I would love to have a bipartisan, fair, transparent, and efficient inquiry. I would love to have Republicans and Democrats working together to find the truth, and disregarding the mountains of conspiracies surrounding this. There is only one problem. That is horseshit. That is never going to happen, because Republicans have been screaming from the rooftops that they want this dead and buried. They can't be partners when they refuse to listen to shit, and rail prepared talking points at every microphone in sight. Because the existence of this inquiry threatens their power, and they are lashing out in fear and desperation.

Your hypocritical concern rings really fucking hollow too. Where were you to rail against the breaking of precedent when McConnell decided to stonewall a SC nominee for a year? Where was your concern when Trump decided he didn't need Congress to appropriate funds for his border wall? Where was your outrage when NC GOP held a vote when the democrats were attending a 9/11 memorial ceremony? Where has your anger been as this Administration has used "National Security" to justify weekly episodes of executive overreach? Why have you been silent to the continued inability of the administration to nominate qualified candidates to filled hundreds of nominated cabinet positions?

What precedent has ever been important to you besides consolidating Republican power at the expense of every institution, every shred of national decency? Fuck your "Precedent" that is only important to you now. If the Republicans want to play honestly, and actually knuckle down and start addressing the actions of the president instead of chasing unrelating conspiracy theories, I am sure the Democrats would welcome their aid in preserving this Republic.

The saying "Lead me, Follow me, or get the Fuck out of my way" comes to mind. Right now Republicans need to get the fuck out of the way if they don't feel like doing either of the first two. We have slow rolled justice for 3 years now, stop freaking out because something called accountability is finally happening.

Really well said. I would add failing to honor subpoenas, keeping the White House separate from the DoJ, not turning over tax returns, overriding security clearance concerns, hiding transcripts on super secret servers, etc., etc. Etc. Et cetera.

So, yeah, spare me the sudden religion on "norms" that they were perfectly happy to cheer on being scorched.

[Shadowferal]

Stalling tactics...obvious.

[Themius]

The texts... holy shit...

https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_ca...s-10-03-19.pdf

Bill Taylor: Are we now saying that security assitance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?
Gordon Sondland: Call me

THIS AFTER HE CANCELS THE TRIP two days before.

[nonameelf]

But it's definitely going to be brought up. If you have the support for an investigation, then why don't we have the investigation? It's pretty simple stuff and obfuscating on it is a pretty bad look. Dems can easily fix this major optics problem if they want to.

What McCarthy wants is to give the Ranking Member the ability to veto the Chair's subpoenas to obstruct the investigation.

[Orbitus]

But it's definitely going to be brought up. If you have the support for an investigation, then why don't we have the investigation? It's pretty simple stuff and obfuscating on it is a pretty bad look. Dems can easily fix this major optics problem if they want to.

What do you think is going on right now? The Volker testimony brought receipts that pretty much fuck Trump, Guiliani, and everyone else, thanks to 9.5 hours of testimony.

Here is what could be released today thanks to Volker.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/polit...ker/index.html

They released a small report of 25 pages of text messages and other things.

Damn @Themius beat me to it.

[Thekri]

But it's definitely going to be brought up. If you have the support for an investigation, then why don't we have the investigation? It's pretty simple stuff and obfuscating on it is a pretty bad look. Dems can easily fix this major optics problem if they want to.

Thanks for telling the democrats how to fix their optics problems. It is very nice of you. Maybe you have some helpful advice to the GOP about how to deal with the optics of a President that keeps asking foreign governments for help with political elections on live TV? Or maybe something on the optics of the Secretary of State forgetting what phone calls he was on for about a week?

Anything? I know you are just trying to be fair and helpful here, and frankly I think the GOP has some optics issues that could also use your wise advice.

[Shadowferal]

GOP can't seem to grasp at all the sheer illegality of the president calling on foreign nations to help him with the 2020 election...and when he got caught, he did it it again publicly.

[Thekri]

These are the exact types of colored insinuations (not even credible allegations) that would be formally litigated in a proper impeachment inquiry after being voted on by the House. Thanks for giving us some wonderful examples.

Are you saying that Trump saying things in front of a few dozen network television cameras and microphones is an insinuation? I am confused as to how that could be true. I agree in regard to Pompeo though, I don't think he forgot. I think he lied.

[nonameelf]

These are the exact types of colored insinuations (not even credible allegations) that would be formally litigated in a proper impeachment inquiry after being voted on by the House. Thanks for giving us some wonderful examples.

This is a proper impeachment inquiry. There's no vote required. The only thing that needs to be voted on in the House is the articles of impeachment.

[Kaleredar]

For starters, it would help if the so-called good people would stop legitimizing the positions of Trump zealots by giving them public platforms. Like how MMOC seems incapable of for instance.

When any of you attempt to seriously argue or reason with them and their points(or rather lack thereof), it's basically sending a message that their ideas have just as much sanity and reason as the rest at the table.

Any intelligent and productive debate has to be done in good faith. By all parties involved. If any party is found lacking, it ceases to be such until they are completely removed from the entire affair.

I'd argue that attacking their talking points and redressing them is important.

If some random person happens by and sees these partisan hacks spouting their conspiracy nonsense unaddressed, they might think "hmmm, no one is saying anything against this, maybe this person has the right idea" or think that people are silently agreeing with the poster.


Constantly destroying their arguments is important. And frankly, I think it's working in keeping them pretty tamped down. You'll see the usual hit and run shitposters come in, drop a few comments that get savagely destroyed, and then they disappear. They aren't allowed to form an echo chamber agreeing with one another because they're beaten back almost immediately.

And I think it's working in the context of these impeachment proceedings. Republicans are desperate for one of their conspiracy theories to take hold. Ignoring them, instead of having 15 people immediately jump on saying why they're bullshit, only allows them to gain credibility. But that's not what's happening. People are pointing out how the Biden stuff is nonsense. How the "precedent" stuff is nonsense. Doing that is important. Now is the time to attack their bullshit talking points them and hit them hard.

[Shadowferal]

Running for President doesn't excuse you from being investigated for corruption. Trump knows this all too well.

Are you that clueless about the law?
Russian laws must be that shitty...

Here, this should help:

[Thekri]

I'm saying that what he said to the cameras wasn't illegal, no matter how much you and others want to scream that it is.

Why did you assume I meant it was illegal? We were talking about optics problems, because that seemed to be your area of expertise. Considering about half the country wants him to lose his job for it, I would say it is a fairly serious optics problem.

[nonameelf]

Good luck convincing the public or the Senate of that. Denying the Republicans the proper process is a great way to allow them to completely dismiss all of this and make the Democrats look like the bad guys.

By "proper process" you mean "ability to obstruct the investigation."

Just going to lay it out for you, Congress' job is not to protect the president.

[Orbitus]

Running for President doesn't excuse you from being investigated for corruption. Trump knows this all too well.

Well, considering Biden didn't commit corruption, I don't know why you are saying this bullshit. Guess you have me blocked because you aren't replying to me.

[Levelfive]

GOP can't seem to grasp at all the sheer illegality of the president calling on foreign nations to help him with the 2020 election...and when he got caught, he did it it again publicly.

I think it's worse than that--I think they DO grasp it, which explains all this crazy behavior, the deflection, the pretend sudden concern with norms (I can hardly type that with a straight face), trying to pivot to Adam Schiff blah blah blah, and the only thing that bothers them about it is that Trump might actually get held accountable for once.

[Orbitus]

I'm saying that what he said to the cameras wasn't illegal, no matter how much you and others want to scream that it is.

How the fuck isn't it illegal? He wanted China to investigate Biden for maybe some trade tariffs. How the fuck is that not illegal?