gangstonc
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Yes. The Dems are trying to tip toe through this like they do everything else. They are crippled by their own fear and ineptitude, even in the face of such obvious presidential misbehavior.
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Archive 2017-2019 Political Thread
- Thread starter Bama Ravens
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Yes. The Dems are trying to tip toe through this like they do everything else. They are crippled by their own fear and ineptitude, even in the face of such obvious presidential misbehavior.
Kory
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It's like the Dems use the Nazi argument against Trump, but then try to out Nazi him.
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I personally think Beto has gone off the rails. He has to know he doesn't have a chance at this point and you are seeing the crazy ideas float up.
skelly
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He’s putting this out there. I don’t watch those debates. Do any of the others refute these ideas? Dare they?
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Have you seen the documents?
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Nevermind. Did not realize there was a link there
Evan
Member
Buttigieg and Biden both have/did. Biden in the previous debate and Buttigieg last night.
The Dem with the most moderate take on gun control is probably Yang. I think he's the only one who hasn't actually called for an assault weapons ban. He's about more licensing, training, and red-tape. In fact, his position is quite similar to a broad section of the GOP, unfortunately.
Evan
Member
That may be part of it, but I think that only applies to the 6-8 Dems in red/swing districts that have yet to say they support an impeachment inquiry.
Even Nadler and Schiff, who both obviously strongly support impeachment and removal, voted in caucus this week to not set a vote on the House floor to get the entire House to vote on opening an inquiry.
It is strategic. We can disagree/agree with that strategy, but I think it is important people understand why they're choosing this strategy.
1. The Democrats want to rapidly get this done. They want to get the witness testimony locked in before people can coordinate, be threatened, bribed with a pardon, etc. They also want to get documents ASAP so they don't get "lost during an office move/cleaning "or some other similar excuse.
2. If the entire House votes to open an inquiry then the GOP is allowed to basically have equal ability to control and operate hearings, subpoena witnesses, etc. Dems are concerned that the GOP would simply obstruct, waste time, harass witnesses, call non-relevant witnesses, and so anything they can to stall out the inquiry, block its progression, and muddy the waters. This goes back to number 1. If the GOP can stall and obstruct, the Dems plans to rapidly collect and lock in evidence is fatally damaged. Dragging out the Mueller inquiry showed that it simply allows time for the GOP and Trump to distract, delay, and obsfucate. To this day, I'd say probably 80% of Americans or more aren't even vaguely familiar with the actual conclusions of the Mueller report. People lost interest, the waters were muddied, the wagons were given time to circle, and the GOP was able to establish a counter-narrative of investigating the investigators.
3. The Republicans also want the vote so they can spin the results. If all the Dems vote yes, then they'll say look how partisan and lock-step this inquiry is. If a handful of Dems abstain or vote to wait for more evidence, the spin becomes "not even the entire Dem Party believes in this" and then the GOP says look at all the radical Dems like the Squad who voted yes. Additionally, if all Dems do vote yes, that immediately gives the GOP an attack vector to go after the 6-8 Dem incumbents in red/swing districts, and could put the House majority at risk in 2020.
Finally, the Dems also know that few, if any, Republicans would currently vote yes. I'm sure they've had plenty of conversations with both retiring GOP House members and those running for re-election, and there probably are a couple dozen or more who are sick of Trump and would love to impeach and remove him. But, if they vote yes now, the GOP gets to slow things down and obstruct, and then berate the yes voting members the entire time and punish them politically and socially until they agree to vote no on the Articles of Impeachment themselves. And you better believe Trump will direct every ounce of his invective and that of his supporters towards those GOP members who "betray" him.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if 2-3 dozen GOP Reps (maybe even more) are secretly wishing (or even supporting) the Dems doing it this way because they're protected politically until the damning evidence and witnesses are locked in. Once that occurs, the vote to open an inquiry and the politics of it all no longer matter. The GOP then can't slow it down or obstruct witnesses and testimony. It becomes the simple question of whether or not the evidence is there to make a compelling case that Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Either they have the goods on Trump or they don't. If they do have the goods, and public support has continued to rise supporting impeachment (it has continued to do so thus far since the WB complaint was announced), that's when you would see Republicans defect and start being honest about Trump. That's when you start holding full votes of the House and make people decide how they want to be remembered in history. The delay on a floor vote is also an opportunity for the GOP members who want to get rid of Trump to wait and see if GOP voters also start to shift towards supporting impeachment. Then they will also have the political cover they need.
Agree with the strategy or not, but that's why they've avoided the floor vote. It isn't to hide things or do them in secret. The Democrats are taking advantage of the House rules that Republicans agreed to and used during things like the Benghazi investigation. They learned from the Mueller probe that you simply can't wait months or years to get witness testimony locked in or to collect evidence and documents. You have to do so immediately. You also cannot give the GOP the ability to use House procedural gimmicks and obstructionist tactics to delay, obsfucate, and block legitimate witness testimony and evidence, and allow them to establish a counter-narrative by calling partisan witnesses and opportunistic grifters to gum up the works.
The Dems learned from Benghazi and other GOP investigations. Just like the GOP learned from Harry Reid when it came to blocking judges, and learned from the Democrat's behavior during Kavanaugh on how to use other dirty tricks.
Just remember when a Democrat or Republican whines about the other side doing something "inconsistent with this body's history" and other mumbo-jumbo that what they're really complaining about is that the other side learned from their tactics and adopted them.
Congress is akin to a group of whiny children. They use the exact same logic, tactics, and reasoning as the children do.
Evan
Member
Byron York has become the literal embodiment of a politically motivated reporter. I agree that he wasn't always that way, but a LOT of people think he changed quite a bit right around the time Trump became the Republican nominee.
1. Can you tell me dates of when Schiff hired those two staffers from the NSC? How long ago was it? When did their time at the NSC overlap with the Whistleblower?
2. We actually can't debate "why the delay" because it's a legal process and we have concrete dates and times. The Executive branch held-up the transmittal and release of the WB complaint. The Democrats had nothing to do with any delay. This isn't my opinion. It is hard fact based off of the legal statutes involved, legal correspondence released by the ICIG, DNI, DoJ, and the White House, and the clearly established timeline that was publicly documented and reported on. This is simply not something that is questionable or debatable.
3. You find it odd that a top staffer from the CIA detailed to the NSC would've worked with the Vice-President in a professional setting? Wouldn't it be much more odd HAD THEY NOT worked together considering Biden's time as VP significantly overlapped with the dates of the NSC staffer's detail to the NSC?
4. You said the transcript doesn't mention withholding aid to Ukraine. Are you alleging that Ukraine didn't know the aid was being withheld or that Trump didn't know the aid was being withheld? Because both Ukraine and Trump certainly knew that. To that end, quoting from the transcript:
At the beginning of the call right after the introductions and congratulations are dispensed with, Trump begins to talk about the United States "doing a lot" for Ukraine.
TRUMP: I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are.
Trump then proceeds to bash our European allies for not doing more to help Ukraine. I'm not aware of any time when Trump has hit at our European allies for not "helping more" or "contributing their fair-share" that he's not directly referencing money/spending.
After Trump bashes our European allies, Zelensky shrewdly agrees with Trump, and to massage his ego tells him that he has been confronting Merkel and Macron about not doing more for Ukraine. After buttering Trump up, Zelensky then immediately goes on to say:
ZELENSKY: I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.
Zelensky references "next steps" and "cooperation." Zelensky knew the aid package had been suspended. Buying Javelins doesn't require an act of cooperation from Ukraine. They have been desperate to get more of them and they've been paying for them themselves. Why mention "cooperation" and next steps? Not just cooperation, but "ready to continue to cooperate." In other words, we've been cooperating. Evidently that wasn't enough, so we're ready to "cooperate" even more to get what we need. What are the next steps we need to take? In other words, how can we "cooperate" more?
Trump's immediate response is:
TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor...
And then Trump goes on to mention how he wants Ukraine to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation and DNC hack, and throws in a Mueller reference.
Zelensky's next paragraph of response is quite interesting. He repeatedly says things like:
We are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. Zelensky then goes on to mention Giuliani, and then says multiple times again that Ukraine wants to "cooperate." He then brings up the investigations that Trump had just referenced.
Notice a theme? Zelensky is saying we will cooperate. Tell us what we need to do. We want to find out the next steps for our defense aid. Trump says investigate these items of personal political interest to me. Zelensky says he will cooperate repeatedly. References Giuliani. Promises to cooperate another half dozen times. Then says he will make the investigations happen.
After Zelensky pledges his utmost cooperation and says he'll make the investigations happen, Trump then brings up the big ask. I want you to investigate the Biden case. Trump mentions he wants Giuliani to call Zelensky directly as Giuliani "knows what's happening."
Zelensky then tells Trump we "will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case [Biden case]"
Trump reiterates that he will have Giuliani call Zelensky directly, and says "I'm sure you will figure it out."
Come on, Matt. Did you really think Trump was going to literally say: "I suspended your aid. Investigate Biden and I'll unfreeze it?" People don't talk like that except in the movies. People talking about a deal do what Trump and Zelensky did in that transcript.
Kory
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maroonedinhsv
Member
Wait, I thought ISIS was eliminated.
Evan
Member
What the hell is this?
The President of the United States is a raving lunatic. Why would you send a letter like this? It is so undignified and beneath the office he holds.
The President of the United States is a raving lunatic. Why would you send a letter like this? It is so undignified and beneath the office he holds.
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Contained... well... they were contained...
Shocked it isn't written in crayon...
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CNN has this up on the homepage with no text whatsoever. MSNBC has it up with one sentence including a quote from the letter. FOX shows no mention, and headlines "Dems walk out of Syria meeting, claim Trump insulted Pelosi, ex-Pentagon boss Mattis". FOX business news broke the story initially.
Quite odd to see an hours long news story of a letter having no opinionated discussion from the left leaning media. I guess the letter is enough in and of itself. I certainly don't think it needs any context.
Quite odd to see an hours long news story of a letter having no opinionated discussion from the left leaning media. I guess the letter is enough in and of itself. I certainly don't think it needs any context.
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Kory
Member
This is huge news. All this Trump/Ukraine stuff, but this seems to be sliding under the radar comparatively...
skelly
Member
I’m not surprised at the Republican vote on this. I am at the democrats. As if they would put “boots on the ground” if they were commander in chief. If we were not on the ground and a republican president was about to put us there they would not be for it.
gangstonc
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Nobody wants to turn our back on an ally once we have committed. That’s why there was so much agreement
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They voted the way they should have, but shouldn't be credited for it because they might vote differently if there was an alternative set of hypothetical circumstances from what actually happened?
skelly
Member
They in no way voted with consistency with their own policies toward putting and keeping troops on the ground in the Middle East. The fact that pulling out resulted in immediate violence didn’t stop them from being in favor of pulling out before,
Kory
Member
Elijah Cummings, longtime Baltimore Congressman, has passed away suddenly.
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