Impeachment and Removal from Office

Sabin
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Sabin »

Meanwhile, impeachment is losing independents.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... dependents

The poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support it, a significant change from Emerson's polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent oppose impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of independents polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.
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Big Magilla
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Big Magilla »

Good God! So now we know why the reason for the smear campaign against Yovanovitch:

"She wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy ... it took like a year & a half or 2 years for her to get the picture up ... this was not an angel, ok?" -- Trump says one of his big beefs with Ambassador Yovanovitch was that she wasn't eager to hang up his portrait.
Mister Tee
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Mister Tee »

In case anybody missed it, Sondland did his best John Dean impression today.

This doesn't necessarily mean enough Republicans are ever going to vote to remove Trump from office. But it does mean that the only way they can do it is to look at incontrovertible evidence and say, We don't care. Which will be punished severely at the ballot box.
Sabin
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Sabin »

Someone today on Twitter posted a picture of all of Trump's accomplices who have gone down on this one, with a quote below saying "But the guy above them is totally innocent."

The person below commented that this is basically Trump 101. Everyone takes the fall for his incompetence and corruption, but the Trump Train keeps moving on.

I'm dubious that twenty (?) Republicans are going to turn on him, but my real reservation is: how much do the American people care about protocol of international relationships with countries they haven't heard of and the intelligence community? And how much do they care to parse the difference between Trump's abuse of power and The Biden Family's "sanctioned" privilege?

Or... y'know, I'm wrong.
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Big Magilla
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Big Magilla »

It seems at this point that it will impossible for all the president's clowns to persist in their claims that there's nothing there. All they have left is a "he did it, so what, defense" which will not bode well for them.

While all the events of yesterday were unfolding, Trump pardoned three military service members convicted of war crimes against the advice of the military. Is there anyone who can defend that?

One wonders how long it will take him to pardon Stone. Will it be before or after Stone is sentenced? Will it wait until he's ready to leave office or before? If he waits until his anticipated acquitted by the Senate he may not have the chance because if he's convicted instead of acquitted, he will immediately be removed from office and I doubt that's something Pence will do for him.
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Mister Tee »

I was thinking just yesterday that, having advocated for this, I ought to post something, but I've just been too damn occupied. (This applies across the board: I saw Jojo Rabbit over a week ago, and haven't yet scraped together the time to write about it.)

Go back a day. After the first round of hearings -- powerful testimony from two utterly persuasive, clearly non-partisan gentlemen -- some in the DC pundit corps pronounced themselves bored. One instantly-mocked observer said the day lacked "pizzazz" (a word I thought only Rex Reed used anymore). It struck me at that moment how different this was from the Clinton impeachment. Those of you who weren't around at the time can't imagine what a frenzy the press corps went into when Starr first went public with the story. As a friend of mine said, they had Clinton hanged by dinnertime. Speculation was that he'd resign by the weekend. But something miraculous happened: the public didn't follow. Polls taken instantly showed Clinton's approval ratings skyrocketing -- as if people felt the only way they could stop the putsch was to give him outlandish approval numbers. Someone said it was like the end of It's a Wonderful Life, with Clinton's heretofore silent supporters coming to his rescue in a hour of need. It stopped what felt like a coup in its tracks.

But it didn't persuade the press. They kept up non-stop coverage for a year, periodically (as when the Starr Report was released around September) trying to goose the public one more time. But the public kept refusing. When, on Election Day, the Dems made unexpected midterm gains (leading to Gingrich's ignominious departure), you'd have thought it was over. But the Republicans persisted, voting a thoroughly pointless impeachment, which 1) pushed Clinton's approval to an unbelievable 76% in one poll; ad 2) was rendered void when the Senate -- despite being controlled by Republicans -- couldn't muster even a majority, let alone the required two-thirds, for conviction.

The point here, though, is that, despite this consistent strong public antipathy, the press kept supporting it. And that's the opposite of what they've been doing here with Trump: despite his being far less popular than Clinton, and being accused of massively more significant crimes, they've been pooh-poohing the idea from the start. Which once again mocks the notion that we have anything resembling a liberal media.

Today, as Magilla notes, might have been the day they'll have to change their tune. Not only from the Ambassador's stellar showing -- and the incredibly damning contrast of Trump trashing her via tweet, which even Fox News thought was a horrific development -- but from the sense that more people are going to start coming forward, as they don't want to get caught on the wrong side of the truth in a legal proceeding.

Speaking of which: Roger Stone, guilty times 7! I've been waiting over 50 years for this.
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Big Magilla »

People asked for this, but no one has posted a damn thing about it.

You couldn't ask for a better day than today when it became clear that Trump picked on the wrong one when he went after Ambassador Yovanovitch, topped by aide David Holmes' revelation of Ambassador Sondland's phone call: "the Ukraine President loves your ass." Sondland: "Trump only cares about the big things." Holmes: "You mean like the war?" Sondland: "Trump doesn't give a shit about Ukraine. He only cares about the investigation into Hunter Biden that Giuliani has been pushing for."
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Big Magilla »

CBS has announced it will replace regular daytime programming with the impeachment hearings next week (Wednesday, Friday) - other networks will likely do the same.
Sabin
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Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Sabin »

And they vote Thursday.
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Big Magilla
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Impeachment and Removal from Office

Post by Big Magilla »

You asked for it. It's here. Post away.
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