Mega-Thread: Impeachment Proceedings & Inquiry of Trump

[Kaleredar]

So Sean Hannity is saying that the Horowitz report states the exact opposite of what it really says. The literal banner on faux is Steele dossier "entirely" responsible for fisa warrants. Now a thinking person would probably key in on the fact that the only word quoted is "entirely", but holy shit the consumer's of that channel. I'm eagerly awaiting for FB to blow up with newest point.

The conservative (and Russian, based on the posts of a few individuals around here) seems to be to toss out as many esoteric names and documents as possible and then assert that they support their conclusion that... Biden is guilty? Shiff is lying? The FBI spied on Trump? Like, none of them seem to actually claim to exonerate Trump; they all just point to random other nonsense to try and deflect from Trump.

But the point is is that they're trying to get people wrapped up in what "interpretations of dossiers" say because actually going into them and pointing out where and how these giant documents don't support the conservative narrative takes too long and loses too many people along the way.

It's much easier to say "THE HOROWITZ REPORT EXONERATES TRUMP!" than it is to say "well no, if you look into the horowitz report it doesn't actually say that at all, because of X, Y, and Z..." because you'd have lost most people at the "X" part of the explanation.

We're in full-blown obfuscation mode, now.

[pathora44]

So Sean Hannity is saying that the Horowitz report states the exact opposite of what it really says. The literal banner on faux is Steele dossier "entirely" responsible for fisa warrants. Now a thinking person would probably key in on the fact that the only word quoted is "entirely", but holy shit the consumer's of that channel. I'm eagerly awaiting for FB to blow up with newest point.

Well holy shit you are saying Sean Hannity is lying? Next you will tell me the sun rises in the East, it sets in the West, that water is wet, and the sky is blue. Sean Hannity and the vast majority of people that work at Fox are lying pieces of shit that wouldn't know the truth if it bit them in the ass.

[Breccia]

Giuliani's big "Ukraine expose" on One America News was...not that much.

So, lame-ass, limp-dick, and IMPOTUS. Yep.

We should have immediately seen that when, like so many things Trump has announced, it was described as "bigly biglier bigliest YUGE it's the best for us the worst for everyone else you'll see it eventually we promise eventually but it's yuge, bigly yuge, JOBS!" If it really had, you know, useful evidence -- which would still be off-topic for Trump extorting a country -- they'd have just released it to the public right away.

Schiff has made the case clear: the White House is trying like hell to hide the truth, which leads to obstruction charges. It seems the key issue right now is Bolton. There's a court case, right now, deciding if he needs to testify or not. Assuming the court rules that a subpoena actually means something, and Bolton must testify, there seems to be little love left in that relationship, and Bolton might become the GOP's worst nightmare: someone they can't just paint over as a liar.

[PACOX]

https://lawandcrime.com/impeachment/...d-impeachment/

The Judiciary Committee is not don't handing out impeachments.

[PACOX]

Gonna require more than control of the house to combat this shit. And even then people will yell “freedumb of speech!”

...Sarah Huckabee Sanders was the 'best' press secretary the current administration has had... And that's only because she semi-regular briefings and didn't hide in the bushes.

[cubby]

The USA needs to take a quick lesson from Finland: hire experts to combat misinformation within the nation - and both Faux News and the Republican Party would become a thing of the past.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/...ake-news-intl/

Except that in the USA the people in charge of hiring the experts are the ones pushing the misinformation campaign. The GOP is in charge of the very agencies we need to combat their treasonous actions.

[nonameelf]

The USA needs to take a quick lesson from Finland: hire experts to combat misinformation within the nation - and both Faux News and the Republican Party would become a thing of the past.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/...ake-news-intl/

Good luck with that in the US considering Republicans would scream bloody murder that such a system was biased against them.

[swiftowner]

https://lawandcrime.com/impeachment/...d-impeachment/

The Judiciary Committee is not don't handing out impeachments.

Looks like @Skroe might win that bet after all

[Skroe]

Looks like @Skroe might win that bet after all

I'm writing a massive check to the DNC after the impeachment vote passes on on Wednesday to reward Democrats for defending the Constitution. Not that considered with that little bet.

[Kaleredar]

Good luck with that in the US considering Republicans would scream bloody murder that such a system was biased against them.

I don't care what they bitch and moan about. Their brand of misinformation is a pox on the western world; I would wholeheartedly support any political efforts to combat misinformation.

[Orbitus]

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/1...removed-086420

So apparently Guiliani, has "documentary proof" that Yavonovich was denying visas to the US for the corrupt prosecutor Shokin, the same moron that was ousted by Biden, with the blessing of the IMF, EU, and 6 bipartisan US Senators including 3 Republicans. No one is going to take that moron seriously. And Marie Yavonovich was recalled way back in may, since then they had Ambassador Taylor installed, if they wanted that corrupt prosecutor here, they could have, without bribing Ukraine in July.

He says he will give it to the DoJ "in time". If it was so damning as he claims, he should give up his sources, and his information, and let the DoJ actually talk to the people. Not use some shitty personal lawyer that will most likely give nothing but bullshit fake info to the DoJ or congress.

[Levelfive]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/o...n-project.html

"We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated"

The president and his enablers have replaced conservatism with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.

By George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson

The authors have worked for and supported Republican campaigns.

Dec. 17, 2019

"Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics. As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.

That’s why we are announcing the Lincoln Project, an effort to highlight our country’s story and values, and its people’s sacrifices and obligations. This effort transcends partisanship and is dedicated to nothing less than preservation of the principles that so many have fought for, on battlefields far from home and within their own communities.

This effort asks all Americans of all places, creeds and ways of life to join in the seminal task of our generation: restoring to this nation leadership and governance that respects the rule of law, recognizes the dignity of all people and defends the Constitution and American values at home and abroad.

Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line. We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference. We have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal) in our politics and outlooks. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort.

The 2020 general election, by every indication, will be about persuasion, with turnout expected to be at record highs. Our efforts are aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College, and congressional majorities that don’t enable or abet Mr. Trump’s violations of the Constitution, even if that means Democratic control of the Senate and an expanded Democratic majority in the House.

The American presidency transcends the individuals who occupy the Oval Office. Their personality becomes part of our national character. Their actions become our actions, for which we all share responsibility. Their willingness to act in accordance with the law and our tradition dictate how current and future leaders will act. Their commitment to order, civility and decency are reflected in American society.

Mr. Trump fails to meet the bar for this commitment. He has neither the moral compass nor the temperament to serve. His vision is limited to what immediately faces him — the problems and risks he chronically brings upon himself and for which others, from countless contractors and companies to the American people, ultimately bear the heaviest burden.

But this president’s actions are possible only with the craven acquiescence of congressional Republicans. They have done no less than abdicate their Article I responsibilities.

Indeed, national Republicans have done far worse than simply march along to Mr. Trump’s beat. Their defense of him is imbued with an ugliness, a meanness and a willingness to attack and slander those who have shed blood for our country, who have dedicated their lives and careers to its defense and its security, and whose job is to preserve the nation’s status as a beacon of hope.

Congressional Republicans have embraced and copied Mr. Trump’s cruelty and defended and even adopted his corruption. Mr. Trump and his enablers have abandoned conservatism and longstanding Republican principles and replaced it with Trumpism, an empty faith led by a bogus prophet. In a recent survey, a majority of Republican voters reported that they consider Mr. Trump a better president than Lincoln.

Mr. Trump and his fellow travelers daily undermine the proposition we as a people have a responsibility and an obligation to continually bend the arc of history toward justice. They mock our belief in America as something more meaningful than lines on a map.

Our peril far outstrips any past differences: It has arrived at our collective doorstep, and we believe there is no other choice. We sincerely hope, but are not optimistic, that some of those Republicans charged with sitting as jurors in a likely Senate impeachment trial will do likewise.

American men and women stand ready around the globe to defend us and our way of life. We must do right by them and ensure that the country for which they daily don their uniform deserves their protection and their sacrifice.

We are reminded of Dan Sickles, an incompetent 19th-century New York politician. On July 2, 1863, his blundering nearly ended the United States.

(Sickles’s greatest previous achievement had been fatally shooting his wife’s lover across the street from the White House and getting himself elected to Congress. Even his most fervent admirers could not have imagined that one day, far in the future, another incompetent New York politician, a president, would lay claim to that legacy by saying he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.)

On that day in Pennsylvania, Sickles was a major general commanding the Union Army’s III Corps at the Battle of Gettysburg, and his incompetence wrought chaos and danger. The Confederate Army took advantage, and turned the Union line. Had the rebel soldiers broken through, the continent might have been divided: free and slave, democratic and authoritarian.

Another Union general, Winfield Scott Hancock, had only minutes to reinforce the line. America, the nation, the ideal, hung in the balance. Amid the fury of battle, he found the First Minnesota Volunteers.

They charged, and many of them fell, suffering a staggeringly high casualty rate. They held the line. They saved the Union. Four months later, Lincoln stood on that field of slaughter and said, “It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

We look to Lincoln as our guide and inspiration. He understood the necessity of not just saving the Union, but also of knitting the nation back together spiritually as well as politically. But those wounds can be bound up only once the threat has been defeated. So, too, will our country have to knit itself back together after the scourge of Trumpism has been overcome."

George T. Conway III is an attorney in New York. Steve Schmidt is a Republican political strategist who worked for President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. John Weaver is a Republican strategist who worked for President George H.W. Bush, Senator John McCain and Gov. John Kasich. Rick Wilson is a Republican media consultant and author of “Everything Trump Touches Dies” and the forthcoming “Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America From Trump and Democrats From Themselves.”

[Kujako]

We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated

No, you WHERE Republicans. The GOP is now the Trump party.

[Levelfive]

No, you WHERE Republicans. The GOP is now the Trump party.

Try reading the essay.

[Kujako]

Try reading the essay.

I did, it needs the correction I listed. There is no place in the GOP for non-Trump supporters at this point in time. Best bet is to form a new party.

[Levelfive]

I did, it needs the correction I listed. There is no place in the GOP for non-Trump supporters at this point in time. Best bet is to form a new party.

The whole essay is about defeating Trumpism.

[Levelfive]

But it's not Trumpism. That's a shitty excuse. The problem was clear when the true face of the Tea Party was clear quite a few years ago. Trump is just the excuse. You cannot expect to reclaim a party away from values that 80%+ approves of.

Cool. I don't give a shit about reclaiming a party. I'm a lifelong Democrat and I'm glad there are Republicans actively trying to do something about what the Republican party has become.

ETA: Even if they're late to the emergency, which was set in motion decades ago, well before the tea party.

[Themius]

Cool. I don't give a shit about reclaiming a party. I'm a lifelong Democrat and I'm glad there are Republicans actively trying to do something about what the Republican party has become.

ETA: Even if they're late to the emergency.

They should make a new party.

[Levelfive]

They should make a new party.

I've had actual conversations on this board where I've said, "Mueller said Trump is a subject of the investigation." And someone responded, "Well, no, Trump is a subject of the investigation, not a target." This feels a lot like that. If you're not interested in the essay, which I thought was great, no sweat.

[nonameelf]

Cool. I don't give a shit about reclaiming a party. I'm a lifelong Democrat and I'm glad there are Republicans actively trying to do something about what the Republican party has become.

ETA: Even if they're late to the emergency, which was set in motion decades ago, well before the tea party.

I am 100% on board with the Republican party just dying off. Then we can have the Democrat party split between center-right and center-left and maybe US politics will stop being so insane.