Mega-Thread: Impeachment Proceedings & Inquiry of Trump

[Skroe]

(welcome back - thank you for your sacrifice)

You'd think the Trumphadis would know by now that attempting to strike me down leads to a vicious counter-Trump counter-reaction by the universe. Its up there with the Laws of Thermodynamics.

[Blur4stuff]

I see we're continuing to get our weekly dose of Trump & company just admitting to the crime.

[Skroe]

I see we're continuing to get our weekly dose of Trump & company just admitting to the crime.

I mean, I never get tired of elected Republicans, the Trumphadi Media Complex, and our local Trump supporting "independent voters" all climbing out on a limb, only to have Donald Trump saw it off behind them.

[Breccia]

Has there been a single member that's left that hasn't denied they were leaving beforehand?

Sort of.

On March 15, 2018, the WH denied McMaster was next to quit/be fired.

He resigned a week later.

By contrast, while people started predicting Mattis' resignation mid-Oct 2018, he didn't actually resign till Dec 21st, possibly because of the election a la Colin Powell, but I can't find any public evidence that he denied it between those dates. But he did print up 50 copies of his resignation letter which is fucking hilarious.

[Dontrike]

Nobody fucking cares, dude. Other than the democrats who hate Trump anyway, quite literally NOBODY cares about the Ukraine business.
The only way to take down a hero, is to first destroy his reputation, otherwise you just make a martyr that gets even more popularity. And Trump's supporters don't give a rat's ass about the Ukraine "quid pro quo".

The lefties are going to have to find something else to smear Trump with. Preferably something that appeals to his fans. I dunno, Trump eats babies?

You actually called Trump a hero......

[Xeones]

You actually called Trump a hero......

When you live in a fantasy land of media that only reports on kids saying stupid things you're convinced there is an army of women and minorities coming to take away all the rights of white men and Trump is the savior there to stand up against them.

[Clone]

Democrats have a MASSIVE opportunity here and they need to seize on it quickly.

There is now a fissure between the White House position (designed to protect Trump) and what Mulvaney said (designed to impress Trump and get back in his good graces).

Splitting Mulvaney off of Trump will help damage his standing with the Freedom Cacaus and some of the remnant Tea Party that still holds Mulvaney in high regards.


Democrats don't need Mulvaney to testify (yet). Nothing he says will be useful or reliable. But they need to repeat loudly and often "MULVANEY CONFIRMED THE QUID PRO QUO THAT VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTION'. They need to run adds for it. They need to open every interview with it. They need to make Mulvaney expensive for Trump to keep around... a liability... to get him (already on thin ice) pushed out.

Then Mulvaney might be willing to testify in a useful manner.

So Democrats.... grab Mulvaney's "Allah Akbar!" suicide vest moment today and blow it up. Way way up.

How likely do you think they will capitalize on this?

[Cthulhu 2020]

I see we're continuing to get our weekly dose of Trump & company just admitting to the crime.

"Trump didn't do/say that, you just misunderstood him. And if you didn't misunderstand him, he didn't do anything wrong. And if Trump did do something wrong, it wasn't illegal so it doesn't matter. And if what he did was illegal, it doesn't matter because other people have done illegal things."

That or their name is Sulla and they just flat out claim that Trump doing a quid pro quo with Ukraine isn't a illegal, meaning they simply believe Trump is above the law of the land.

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody fucking cares, dude. Other than the democrats who hate Trump anyway, quite literally NOBODY cares about the Ukraine business.
The only way to take down a hero, is to first destroy his reputation, otherwise you just make a martyr that gets even more popularity. And Trump's supporters don't give a rat's ass about the Ukraine "quid pro quo".

The lefties are going to have to find something else to smear Trump with. Preferably something that appeals to his fans. I dunno, Trump eats babies?

The support for impeachment is almost unanimous among Democrats yes. And it's up to almost 20% among Republicans, and it's approaching 60% among independents. So much for "only Democrats" caring about it.

And for as much as the Trumpkins claimed early on that "Hillary couldn't appeal to the common man, the independent voters" they're now claiming this impeachment will "rile up the base" and "the base will get him reelected". But as we all know, the base never matters. They will vote for their candidate no matter what. It's the independents (not to be confused with "woke independents" on this forum, who are just Trump supporters/apologists who don't have the balls to directly admit they support Trump while spewing Trump tweets and Fox News talking points in every post). The independents are what matter, and Trump has lost a ton of ground with the independents since Nov 9 2016 and today.

[Skroe]

How likely do you think they will capitalize on this?

5%. Because Democrats are dogshit at bare-knuckle politics and excuse that in a kind of dopey "but we're better than that because our IDEAS are good" kind of war.

Donald Trump's re-election campaign is spending $1.5 million a week on adds, predominantly about Biden and Ukraine, in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire. They've been doing it for 3 weeks. Really. They threw together adds and have been blasting them, at great cost, in just two thirds of the time since I got my last ban.

Where's the Democratic adds that laid out this story in a simple, idiot-friendly fashion? I said those were needed 3 weeks ago. Are they on the air yet? Is an add being made right now of Mulvaney admitting everything? Nope. Little here and there.

Facts and events have handed Trump's ass to Democrats on a silver platter. And Nancy Pelosi is running the House side of things exceptionally well. But the larger political side of it is still terrible as usual. I mean for Christ sake, in the past two weeks Democrats have had that RIDICULOUS LGBT townhall and the just as farcical debate where they talked about things other than Donald Trump and how he is corrupt and going to fuck everyone's healthcare for some reason. No. Instead they all hopped on their unicorn and took a ride to fantasy land... you know, the one where Mitch McConnell isn't very likely to be Majority leader after 2020, and where Democrats wondrously have 60 votes in the Senate then too.

On pure mechanisms of impeachment... Democrats are playing it perfect. In the political / messaging side of things? They're being their typical terrible-at-politics-but-thats-okay-because-we-got-GREAT-IDEAS selves. Which is why Donald Trump is very likely to win this, and frankly re-election right now. Because that's the battlefield where Donald Trump needs to be beaten. The facts themselves are not enough.

[Zaydin]

So what are the odds that Mulvaney gets shown the door over his trainwreck today?

[Skroe]

So what are the odds that Mulvaney gets shown the door over his trainwreck today?

If Democrats keep the heat on him, high. Very high.

I doubt they will though.

This discounts the fact that Trump is an impulsive madman and can just toss him out on a whim too, because Sean Hannity told him too. That's the other way it goes down.

[kaelleria]

If Democrats keep the heat on him, high. Very high.

I doubt they will though.

This discounts the fact that Trump is an impulsive madman and can just toss him out on a whim too, because Sean Hannity told him too. That's the other way it goes down.

Sean Hannity did say Mulvaney was an idiot for saying there was a quid pro quo...

[Breccia]

NO U HAVE A QUID PRO QUO
-- Individual-1

"Look at the terrible foreign corruption of the Bidens. I hate to talk about him. You know why? I don’t think he's got a chance," Trump told the crowd.

Trump said that the former vice president was in charge of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration and sought the firing of the then-Ukrainian prosecutor general while his son, Hunter "was paid massive sums of money [to] buy a Ukrainian energy company."

"Now that’s what you call quid pro quo," Trump said.

Except for the part where that's all, at the absolute most favorable to Trump, conjecture that Biden might have done something as bad as Trump.

Also, um, Biden never admitted it. Mulvaney is just the latest person who did. Maybe Perry will next, where is --



Oh. Right. That.

[Paranoid Android]

5%. Because Democrats are dogshit at bare-knuckle politics and excuse that in a kind of dopey "but we're better than that because our IDEAS are good" kind of war.

Donald Trump's re-election campaign is spending $1.5 million a week on adds, predominantly about Biden and Ukraine, in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire. They've been doing it for 3 weeks. Really. They threw together adds and have been blasting them, at great cost, in just two thirds of the time since I got my last ban.

Where's the Democratic adds that laid out this story in a simple, idiot-friendly fashion? I said those were needed 3 weeks ago. Are they on the air yet? Is an add being made right now of Mulvaney admitting everything? Nope. Little here and there.

Facts and events have handed Trump's ass to Democrats on a silver platter. And Nancy Pelosi is running the House side of things exceptionally well. But the larger political side of it is still terrible as usual. I mean for Christ sake, in the past two weeks Democrats have had that RIDICULOUS LGBT townhall and the just as farcical debate where they talked about things other than Donald Trump and how he is corrupt and going to fuck everyone's healthcare for some reason. No. Instead they all hopped on their unicorn and took a ride to fantasy land... you know, the one where Mitch McConnell isn't very likely to be Majority leader after 2020, and where Democrats wondrously have 60 votes in the Senate then too.

On pure mechanisms of impeachment... Democrats are playing it perfect. In the political / messaging side of things? They're being their typical terrible-at-politics-but-thats-okay-because-we-got-GREAT-IDEAS selves. Which is why Donald Trump is very likely to win this, and frankly re-election right now. Because that's the battlefield where Donald Trump needs to be beaten. The facts themselves are not enough.

Thank goodness the Republicans have the Dems, cause they will always have a chance. There is so much material they could run it's not even funny. Hell we have this Shitshow thread where they could run a new add every other day.

[Skroe]

Thank goodness the Republicans have the Dems, cause they will always have a chance. There is so much material they could run it's not even funny. Hell we have this Shitshow thread where they could run a new add every other day.

But what good are chances if they won't capitalize?

They have to start before its too late. They made the most of the 2 weeks off. This past week has been a living nightmare for the Trump Administration. They have to role this through the next 45 days, past thanksgiving, and past Christmas, without losing momentum.

They have to remind Americans loudly and often, what Trump did, in the simply terms, and why he cant be President anymore because of it.

[Thepersona]

Thank goodness the Republicans have the Dems, cause they will always have a chance. There is so much material they could run it's not even funny. Hell we have this Shitshow thread where they could run a new add every other day.

I dont' think that the dems are so clueless as they try to paint them. Or rather, i hope they aren't.

[Skroe]

I dont' think that the dems are so clueless as they try to paint them. Or rather, i hope they aren't.

The Democratic ELECTORATE is not. Very clearly, they rate the most important thing right now is electability. They understand - beat Trump at all cost, policy another time.

Elected Democrats are not. They're doing their jobs. House Democrats are playing this well.

The problem is the party members who aren't elected but engage in political activity, political action groups, activists. That sort of thing. These are the people which provide the skeleton and much of the muscle to the political response. The coordination. The messaging.

The long standing problem is, Democrats and Republicans approach this entirely differently.

On the Republican side you have groups working well outside their typical focus areas because they understand that one victory can be rolled into another. Yeah Club for Growth, NRA, Judicial Crisis Network, Heritage Action, and FreedomWorks all have different focuses. But they all coordinate and reach outside their core areas of focus, hoping for cascading wins.

Democrats do not do this, and sometimes even treat other Democratic groups as ideological rivals rather than allies. This is an age old practice on the political left, and it's extended to modern day PACs. To be direct, every Labor, LGBT, Climate, Minority-focus, immigrant and womens political action group should be non-stop messaging about Trump and Ukraine and corruption even though it has nothing to do with any of their issues, because victory on that front will translate into ammunition for things closer to them.

But this is the long standing Democratic strategic idiocy. Democrats love to basically say "well the ideas speak for themselves... I mean obviously gay people deserve equal human rights, there is a climate crisis, women should be paid the same and immigrants are not invaders". The thing is the yokels of America who are crucial to winning majorities and elections don't see things like that so plainly. Which is why messaging matters. And let's be clear what messaging is: it means taking one of those clearly obvious and right ideas, and putting it in a form that people who would be against it in one form would not be against it in another (and even FOR IT!). And that works best when its part of a series of arguments, one building on top of another.

Getting back to Trump, assaulting him on this Ukraine / quid pro quo / corruption front, would logically lead to assaulting his policies on a host of fronts. If he acted without legitimacy as President on one thing, shouldn't all things he has done also be illegitimate? That is what the Republican approach would be, were the roles reversed. Attacking the President on one big point brings up everything for reversal. That is why these Republican groups attacked Obama with the coordination and manner they did.

But Democrats basically aren't doing that because that's not how these highly ideological PAC people work. They don't see the connection between advancing LGBT goals and advancing immigrant rights goals. And in the present issue, that translates to a void of Democratic anti-Trump messaging where there should be a tsunami. And the messaging should be targeted towards people who AREN"T PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS. Trump's weak spot. Surburban swing voters, mostly women, but also college educated white men and some working class white men.

The absence of this remains the impeachment effort's greatest vulnerability. It's not just the efforts chances at success in removing the President (low), but in that it'll cause less damage to him in advance of the 2020 election than it should. And remember, given that it's unlikely the supplicant Republican Senators will ever vote against Trump, that remains the smart play - weaponize impeachment to keep Trump busy into Q1 2020, to making people tired of him going into the 2020 election and handcuff him from doing disruptive things, while Democrats build infrastructure.

But unless the messaging starts soon, it'll be far less effective than it should be. Impeachement on CNN and MSNBC, and in the NY Times and Washington Post, is not useful. Unless it's the talk of the town in some Wisconsin suburb among voters in their 50s and 60s, it's not useful. And we're not there yet.

[Shalcker]

This was the claim.

Which is false based on your own link.

It isn't false as shown by them talking about those emails with IT technician for several weeks after being subpoenaed, with result being deletion of remaining emails and backups despite subpoena expressly requiring keeping them (and them even expressing that in initial communication after subpoena).

Your argument is extremely weak, and based on "fact-checkers" editing out all the damning details that made Trump's claim strong.

[Levelfive]

I'll say it again. Thank god we got the "LFR-difficulty Plot Against America".

Imagine if these people were competent. They've only gotten this far because America has degraded it's own immune system against people like them over the last 40 years by going easy who shouldn't have been, and turning a blind eye to transgressions because we like a dude. Their success, such as it is, is mostly a testament to the extent our national sickness rather than their competence.

I see we're continuing to get our weekly dose of Trump & company just admitting to the crime.

It's stunning that the Democrats don't even have to do anything besides wait for these guys to open their mouths or release their very best idea of a favorable transcript summary. It's some Wile E. Coyote-level shit. But I bet everything will be alright when they get that fresh shipment of ACME bombs.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/polit...ion/index.html

Republicans worried by Mulvaney's confirmation Trump sought exchange of favors with Ukraine

[Bodakane]

I'm thinking Pelosi is going to try and time this so that by the time the Dems have their nom, that candidate (Warren, imo) and the DNC can then go full blast on Trump. And honestly, Warren is the best candidate to explain this all to the US as she was a teacher. One of her strengths is to explain the complicated stuff in a way people understand.

Until then, I think the Dems will have a hard time getting the message out.