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The [Impeachment] of the 45th President of the United States

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Posts

  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    edited October 2019
    The Associated Press are reporting that while Trump was urging Ukraine to "investigate corruption" in their country, Giuliani decided to help his friends benefit from a spot of corruption in their country.

    AP wrote:
    BREAKING: As President Trump urged Ukraine’s leaders to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, associates of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were looking to profit from the country’s state-run natural gas company, AP sources say.

    iT’s AlL pRoJEcTioN

    joshofalltrades on
  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    Also I'd like to point out that we are three pages from the 100 page limit when impeachment kicked off just under two weeks ago.

    Just in case people were trying to get a handle on how quickly things have been moving.

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Speaking of Rudy

    (NBC reporter)



    He's printing out conspiracy theories from a far right site literally called Hopelessly Partisan, going on Fox and calling them affidavits, to no pushback whatsoever.

    Edit: Oops. Fixed link.

    ArcTangent on
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  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Impeachment may not move independents and Republicans, but not impeaching was definitely depressing Democrats, who are now pretty much aligned on the issue instead of fighting about it. That’s an improvement even if you don’t cut much into Trump’s numbers.

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  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    "No, no, not our corruption, just theirs!"

  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    How has Rudy not gotten disbarred yet

  • rahkeesh2000rahkeesh2000 Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Impeachment may not move independents and Republicans, but not impeaching was definitely depressing Democrats, who are now pretty much aligned on the issue instead of fighting about it. That’s an improvement even if you don’t cut much into Trump’s numbers.

    Elected dems would still be fighting if independents weren't moved. Its just that a rocky 2020 won't be enough to shake the Senate off the Trump train. Support needs to drop closer to 30% for that.

    rahkeesh2000 on
  • NobeardNobeard North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    Speaking of Rudy

    (NBC reporter)



    He's printing out conspiracy theories from a far right site literally called Hopelessly Partisan, going on Fox and calling them affidavits, to no pushback whatsoever.

    Edit: Oops. Fixed link.

    The only thing wrong about that tweet is calling it a "plan". Whatever Giuliani is doing it is not a strategy hammered out by leadership.

  • Dark_SideDark_Side Registered User regular
    So Perry must have got wind this was going to drop. Trump must have too, hence the sudden, change to "it was rick perry who told me to do it, honest!" excuse.

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    Dark_Side wrote: »
    So Perry must have got wind this was going to drop. Trump must have too, hence the sudden, change to "it was rick perry who told me to do it, honest!" excuse.

    Given this maladministration, they probably leaked it themselves to help blame Perry and EXONERATE Trump. Somehow.

    Perfect.

  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    Impeachment talk hasn't yet had any notable affect on Don's approval rating. I think forecasts of the GOP's imminent demise are overly optimistic.
    It certainly has increased the percentage of Americans that want Trump impeached and removed. It's up to 51% from 41% in the last - what, week? 10 days?

    If it gets much higher, GOP folks in purpler areas are going to have to answer to constituents on why they're not impeaching. And that's when shit is going to start to snowball.

  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    How has Rudy not gotten disbarred yet

    The wheels of disbarment are very slow to turn even in situations of glaringly obvious corruption. I won't say in this thread how I know this, but man is it sweet when it finally happens.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    I mean... Does it count that despite being a lawyer on paper he's not actually doing any lawyer things for Trump?

  • ZibblsnrtZibblsnrt Registered User regular
    Wow, the title and header of the site are completely obvious in the printouts and everything.

    At least McCarthy, when he Held In His Very Hands A List, put in the effort to make sure people wouldn't see what the pages actually said...

  • MorganVMorganV Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    I mean... Does it count that despite being a lawyer on paper he's not actually doing any lawyer things for Trump?

    That sounds very familiar to what another lawyer doing non-lawyer things was doing.

    I wonder how well it worked out for him. Guess we can ask him in 18-30 months.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Zibblsnrt wrote: »
    Wow, the title and header of the site are completely obvious in the printouts and everything.

    At least McCarthy, when he Held In His Very Hands A List, put in the effort to make sure people wouldn't see what the pages actually said...

    I'm not sure if it shows how stupid this people are or if it shows how stupid they think the public is. Though with this group, it's probably both. In that they are that stupid, but also think the public are dumber than they are.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    The FOX audience elected one of their own to this nation's highest office. Proudly.

  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    I like how things seem to have cascaded dramatically, where they announce firing half of a department and then suddenly there is a rush of people whistleblowing/coming forward. It's like threatening to fire half of them means they are out of fucks to give about protecting their jobs that they're losing anyway.

    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • NobeardNobeard North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Mill wrote: »
    Zibblsnrt wrote: »
    Wow, the title and header of the site are completely obvious in the printouts and everything.

    At least McCarthy, when he Held In His Very Hands A List, put in the effort to make sure people wouldn't see what the pages actually said...

    I'm not sure if it shows how stupid this people are or if it shows how stupid they think the public is. Though with this group, it's probably both. In that they are that stupid, but also think the public are dumber than they are.

    At best, Rudy thinks he can further ingratiate himself with Trump with this crap because Trump believes it. At worst Rudy believes this crap himself and thus is no different from that family member that forwards conspiracy theory spam to everyone on Facebook who has not blocked them.

    Nobeard on
  • JaysonFourJaysonFour Classy Monster Kitteh Registered User regular
    About the only thing that's got me worried about all this is McConnell stuffing all this evidence, all these articles, all this corruption, up under his shell and saying "Nope, no impeachment hearing while I'm leading the Senate" and this whole thing falling flat. I mean, we have the House, but he's making it a campaign point to say "I'll kill the impeachment hearings if I'm re-elected". We could hand over everything, make a slam-dunk case, and then it could all go away because that's what they have McConnell for- to kill it dead and hide the body.

    steam_sig.png
    I can has cheezburger, yes?
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Mill wrote: »
    Zibblsnrt wrote: »
    Wow, the title and header of the site are completely obvious in the printouts and everything.

    At least McCarthy, when he Held In His Very Hands A List, put in the effort to make sure people wouldn't see what the pages actually said...

    I'm not sure if it shows how stupid this people are or if it shows how stupid they think the public is. Though with this group, it's probably both. In that they are that stupid, but also think the public are dumber than they are.

    At best, Rudy thinks he can further ingratiate himself with Trump with this crap because Trump believes it. At worst Rudy believes this crap himself and thus is no different from that family member that forwards conspiracy theory spam to everyone on Facebook who has not blocked him.

    Rudy has made a long career of failing upward. But he's always been a moron protected and promoted by the right wing mafia because that's how they do.

    He was shit as a prosecutor - the account of his corruption, bullying, and incompetence from '88's The Prosecutors would have ended his career in a just world. He was a racist goon as mayor in New York who mostly proved that fascist police states and constant minority harassment can make corporate America and liberal white New Yorkers very happy.

    Hell, the entire myth of America's Mayor arose because he seemed energetic running around to the TV cameras, since reporters forgot to point out that he was doing so because his command center was destroyed, just as those who warned against putting it in a major terrorist target had predicted.

    The media, most of whom know these guys personally and socially, has covered for him and others like him for years. It's just that now the Trump Show has managed to shine a light on just how bad the right wing grifters actually are.

  • Edith_Bagot-DixEdith_Bagot-Dix Registered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    Dac wrote: »
    Marathon wrote: »
    Gaddez wrote: »
    Xantomas wrote: »
    Marco Rubio said essentially the same thing when asked by reporters about it. That Trump was trolling the media and it wasn't a serious request and they were all falling for it. I don't think I saw the reporters response to that answer (or if he even had one) but he should have then asked Rubio if that means people should just not believe anything Trump says.

    "You can't impeach Trump because he was just kidding." doesn't' seem like a very strong defense.

    The issue is it's impossible to tell when he's just trolling and when he's serious.

    Probably because he's always serious.

    And the Presidency isn’t the kind of job where you get to just casually fuck with people.

    It isn't even worth the air spent rebutting it, because we already know he's serious, because he's attempted to do the exact same thing in private.

    also his continued ALL CAPS insistence that he’s serious

    It only counts as serious if the president is wearing his Trumpachu medallion and has his amethyst Wharton ring.



    Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
  • RaijuRaiju Shoganai JapanRegistered User regular
    Giuliani is still inexplicably counting on Trump giving him a pardon when even more shit hits the fan and Rudy gets tossed under the bus like Cohen did.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    JaysonFour wrote: »
    About the only thing that's got me worried about all this is McConnell stuffing all this evidence, all these articles, all this corruption, up under his shell and saying "Nope, no impeachment hearing while I'm leading the Senate" and this whole thing falling flat. I mean, we have the House, but he's making it a campaign point to say "I'll kill the impeachment hearings if I'm re-elected". We could hand over everything, make a slam-dunk case, and then it could all go away because that's what they have McConnell for- to kill it dead and hide the body.

    Nah, I'm sure he'd love to blackhole all the evidence, but now that it's coming to this. I seriously doubt Pelosi is going to give him an opportunity. She'll see to it that it's out there and the media will greedily gobble it up and report the ever loving shit out of it. Also he's trying the whole cake and eat bullshit, that they did before the inquiry began. The GOP actually wanted to run on the democrats might impeach Trump. They didn't want it to happen because they knew if that did happen. The democrats would do so once they had a ton of smoking guns. It would force them to be on the record of having to defend Trump, which is going to doom them with some key groups. Shit like he'll end the impeachment hearing would be proven wrong. All the senate gets to do is vote to remove, the house gets to air all the dirty laundry.

  • Dark_SideDark_Side Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    JaysonFour wrote: »
    About the only thing that's got me worried about all this is McConnell stuffing all this evidence, all these articles, all this corruption, up under his shell and saying "Nope, no impeachment hearing while I'm leading the Senate" and this whole thing falling flat. I mean, we have the House, but he's making it a campaign point to say "I'll kill the impeachment hearings if I'm re-elected". We could hand over everything, make a slam-dunk case, and then it could all go away because that's what they have McConnell for- to kill it dead and hide the body.

    He's already publicly said twice, and the second time pretty matter of fact, that if the house hands him an impeachment case, he will have a trial. I'm sure that surprisingly concise opinion is because he's confident there will never be the votes to do anything about it. Also perhaps he's a little less willing to flagrantly disregard procedure after that "MoscowMitch" thing took off.

    If it starts getting dicey and senate republicans are jumping ship, he may try something, but at that point I suspect he'll be far more interested in protecting his own ass than Trump's. The party hasn't existed in reality for over a decade, they could turn Donald into a heel in like a week if they really felt like it.

    Dark_Side on
  • rahkeesh2000rahkeesh2000 Registered User regular
    The constitution isn't what is forcing McConnell to hold the trial on X date, its the senate rules that are. The very same thing that has kept the filibuster in place. McConnell remains mostly Lawful Evil, sticking to the letter if not the spirit.

  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    He doesn't stick to the law or the spirit. I'd imagine he'd not hold a trial till after the election because its not fair to not let the people have their say. Offer not valid to democratic presidents.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • H0b0manH0b0man Registered User regular
    While Trump's poll numbers haven't really dropped they also haven't gone up at all. One of the concerns some people had was that impeachment would be viewed as a partisan hit job and give Trump a bump similar to what happened to Clinton. That hasn't happened and there isn't any evidence that it will in the near future.

    Instead support for impeachment is higher than it was for Nixon at this point in the inquiry, it took a few months Nixon's levels to get this high, and is higher than it ever was for Clinton's.

    You're never going to see Trump's approval numbers plummet like how Nixon's did due to the right having developed an information ecosystem that their supporters get all their information from. Things like Fox News and Breitbart didn't exist back then, iirc one of the motivating factors for Roger Ailes to create Fox News was to make sure another Republican never got treated like Nixon again.

    The numbers are about as good as you could realistically hope for at this stage.

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  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    The constitution isn't what is forcing McConnell to hold the trial on X date, its the senate rules that are. The very same thing that has kept the filibuster in place. McConnell remains mostly Lawful Evil, sticking to the letter if not the spirit.
    However he has also shown a willingness to change the letter when it suits his goals.

  • RaijuRaiju Shoganai JapanRegistered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    The constitution isn't what is forcing McConnell to hold the trial on X date, its the senate rules that are. The very same thing that has kept the filibuster in place. McConnell remains mostly Lawful Evil, sticking to the letter if not the spirit.
    However he has also shown a willingness to change the letter when it suits his goals.

    "Then I will make it legal." Or something (equally lawful evil).

  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular


    Twitter account t is an msnbc producer referencing a cnn article.

    Apparently Perry is saying he’ll cooperate with congresses investigation

  • TNTrooperTNTrooper Registered User regular
    I am sure he remembers all the details.

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  • MazzyxMazzyx Comedy Gold Registered User regular


    Twitter account t is an msnbc producer referencing a cnn article.

    Apparently Perry is saying he’ll cooperate with congresses investigation

    Perry is an idiot but he has no intention of following Trump. Especially since he knows he is out and doesn't give a shit about a re-election or his current job. Means his resignation by the end of the year is more like next week.

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  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Mazzyx wrote: »


    Twitter account t is an msnbc producer referencing a cnn article.

    Apparently Perry is saying he’ll cooperate with congresses investigation

    Perry is an idiot but he has no intention of following Trump. Especially since he knows he is out and doesn't give a shit about a re-election or his current job. Means his resignation by the end of the year is more like next week.

    Perry is NOT an idiot. He's no political mastermind but he is an old hand at this and has never been caught up in the chaos of the White House, has never been out in front of cameras carrying water, hasn't to my knowledge even helped Trump in Texas to raise money.

    he knows what's up and is getting out in a smart & also correct, legal, appropriate manner. He's behaving the way you'd expect a Secretary to behave when faced with a Congressional inquiry. He's doing the right thing.

    At least give the guy some credit for bouncing before the Trump bus flattened him and handling himself the way we'd expect anyone to do on the way out.

  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    As much as I don't like the guy, Perry gave no indication of looting DOE like other Trump appointees have looted their agencies. Perry actually seemed to try and learn and do a good job.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    H0b0man wrote: »
    While Trump's poll numbers haven't really dropped they also haven't gone up at all. One of the concerns some people had was that impeachment would be viewed as a partisan hit job and give Trump a bump similar to what happened to Clinton. That hasn't happened and there isn't any evidence that it will in the near future.

    Instead support for impeachment is higher than it was for Nixon at this point in the inquiry, it took a few months Nixon's levels to get this high, and is higher than it ever was for Clinton's.

    You're never going to see Trump's approval numbers plummet like how Nixon's did due to the right having developed an information ecosystem that their supporters get all their information from. Things like Fox News and Breitbart didn't exist back then, iirc one of the motivating factors for Roger Ailes to create Fox News was to make sure another Republican never got treated like Nixon again.

    The numbers are about as good as you could realistically hope for at this stage.

    Trump's approval seems to be stuck at 40% roughly. Crazification factor is 27%. Safe to say there is about another 13% that he could shed max, barring something extreme, which I'm not quite to rule out. They really are that scummy and dumb enough to think they can get away with it, but that doesn't mean they've necessarily have done the very worst, yet. Even then, with as bugfuck crazy as the modern GOP is, 27% could very well be Trump's floor and short of the people making up that 27% ceasing to exist, nothing gets under it. I don't know if this scandal will start eating into his approval or if that 13% is a group that won't budge, unless their pocketbook gets nuked by a recession. So I fully agree, that the numbers are probably the best they will be at this point; especially, since the rat fucker didn't see a bump, but impeachment did.

  • ZibblsnrtZibblsnrt Registered User regular
    Leaving aside the general fuzziness of the concept - it's not exactly an objective law of nature - I suspect the crazification factor's different these days. That term was coined around 2004-5 and there's been a lot of polarization injected into US political discourse since then. It probably isn't at 40, but I'm morally certain that floor's higher, at least from the right's perspective, than it was fifteen years ago.

    If it hasn't happened by now, getting Trump down to 27% is Not A Thing That's Going To Happen short of the president doing things which are, ah, sufficiently extreme that they're certainly going to be staying in Hypothetical Land. Bush Jr., got down to 33-34% at one point, but that was before "any facts which are inconvenient to or disliked by conservatives are ipso facto fake news" became an article of faith to the right. Reality itself is more up for "debate" than it was back then.

    I can totally see him losing a few more points and getting down into the mid-upper thirties, maybe, but I'm pretty sure that's going to be a hard limit with the political culture currently available.

  • TNTrooperTNTrooper Registered User regular
    The non-crazification number are Republicans that don't pay attention to stuff and don't care until a depression makes their retirement savings go up in smoke.

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  • madparrotmadparrot Registered User regular
    Looks like we now know why Perry is going to resign: he was part of a group doing on Trump's behalf pretty much what Trump has accused the Bidens of doing, getting in on the top floor of a big gas company and gettin' their corruption on.

    https://apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2
    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

    Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    madparrot wrote: »
    Looks like we now know why Perry is going to resign: he was part of a group doing on Trump's behalf pretty much what Trump has accused the Bidens of doing, getting in on the top floor of a big gas company and gettin' their corruption on.

    https://apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2
    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

    Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.
    "No, no, not our corruption, just theirs!"

This discussion has been closed.