Thread: President Donald Trump

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/opini...ltz/index.html

Donald Trump has accused Democratic leaders in the House of declaring “open war on American democracy”, on the eve of a historic vote that is likely to make him only the third president in US history to be impeached.

Trump issued the incendiary accusation in an intemperately-worded letter sent to the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, on Tuesday.


Over six pages packed with scathing criticism, the president charges the architects of the impeachment process with violating their oaths of office, breaking their allegiance to the constitution and cheapening what he calls “the very ugly word, impeachment!”


The president’s claim that the impeachment process declares “open war” on democracy is a thinly veiled attempt to redirect back at his opponents accusations that he abused his power and obstructed Congress.

A consistent Democratic line has been that the president violated his position in pressuring Ukraine to investigate a political rival, the former vice-president Joe Biden.


Trump’s letter rehashes several of his favorite talking points, regurgitated profusely on his Twitter feed.


He claims his phone conversations with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were “perfect” and repeats a debunked conspiracy theory that Biden had forced the ousting of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to stymie an investigation into corruption at an energy company that employed his son Hunter.


Most colorfully, Trump accuses Pelosi of having contracted “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and of viewing “democracy as your enemy!”


The letter finishes on a grandiose flourish, saying it was composed “for the purpose of history”.


“One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it … so that it can never happen to another president again.”


The letter was delivered hours after Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, who will control an impeachment trial should the House vote as expected on Wednesday to bring formal charges against Trump, rebuffed a Democratic request to call new witnesses and dismissed the process as a “sloppy … fishing expedition”.


The majority leader took to the floor of the Senate on Tuesday to underline what he has already made clear – his disdain for the impeachment process.

Swatting aside a suggestion from Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, that senior White House officials should be called to testify, he scathingly said: “So now the Senate Democratic leader would apparently like our chamber to do House Democrats’ homework for them. And he wants to volunteer the Senate’s time and energy on a fishing expedition.”


He added: “From everything we can tell, House Democrats’ slapdash impeachment inquiry has failed to come anywhere near – anywhere near – the bar for impeaching a duly elected president, let alone removing him for the first time in American history.”


McConnell’s pugnacious response came on the eve of a historic vote in the House that is all but certain to pass two articles of impeachment against Trump. According to a count by the Associated Press on Tuesday, Pelosi had enough votes in favor, despite some speculation on how centrist Democrats and those from Republican-leaning districts would vote.


The first accuses the president of abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden. The second charges him with obstructing Congress by blocking the appearance of key administration figures at impeachment hearings.


We will have votes on whether these people should testify ... and the American people will be watching.
Chuck Schumer
The vote would make Trump only the third president to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. The charges would then be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate for trial, setting up a much more challenging constitutional bar: no president has ever been convicted and removed from office, Richard Nixon having resigned in 1974 before a vote on articles of impeachment.




Around the country, thousands of protestors attended rallies in support of impeachment. The demonstrations were organized by MoveOn.org and a coalition of progressive groups. Bundled up in winter parkas, protestors marched across New York’s Times Square chanting “No one’s above the law”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ocrats-request

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...se-impeachment

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

He doesn't want anything.

I don't see 'including doing them directly' As meaning he doesn't want a moderator, just that he doesnt want to use the usual organisers.

Originally Posted by misskit

^Would be nice if those never Trumpers in the Senate set a trap for and impeach the orange goon. We can only hope.

if they can get 51 votes to call witnesses, that could potentially change things....having bolton and mulvaney testify about their first hand knowledge could swing public opinion, and in turn, senate votes.

on a related note, when barr's name was first floated for AG (especially when it was revealed that he essentially applied for the job), i thought he might be a plant to bring it all down from the inside...but he's all in and one of trump's worst enablers.

I read the letter to Pelosi on Fox. From the comments I read, it was epic, right on, incredible. Unreal how Fox viewers adore the ass in chief. The letter did indeed have the effect on his base he wanted.

Analysis

Impeachment is not a case of survival for Donald Trump. In fact, it may actually work in his favour




US President Donald Trump's impeachment will pose no significant threat to his presidency.

As one American friend put it, as the evidence for Trump's culpability has piled up, the political case against him has grown weaker.


The President's political firewall

Trump enjoys extremely high levels of approval from Republican identifiers, in the high 80s, as high a level of "in-party" approval seen at this stage of a presidency in the 70 years for which we have approval ratings.
This will be Trump's political firewall against impeachment.



News consumption follows ideological lines

We find that patterns of news consumption in American closely follow partisan and ideological orientation

In the United States, Fox News and AM radio attract a distinctly right-leaning audience, while The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC and PBS and National Public Radio attract a distinctly left-of-centre audience.

Fox and MSNBC have unambiguous points of view with respect to Trump's impeachment in particular and American politics more generally.
Ultimately, the most politically engaged Americans tend to consume news from sources that reinforce views about Trump.


Absent exposure to information laying out President Trump's culpability, it's little wonder that Republican opinions are not changing, and little wonder Trump may not just survive impeachment, but thrive from it.

https://tinyurl.com/yj8nkmj6

Originally Posted by David48atTD

Analysis

if this is the sort of 'analysis' from which you form your opinions on US politics, it explains quite a lot.

what a joke.



and btw, cherry picking sentences from an article while omitting entire paragraphs isn't going to help you reputation, dodgy dave.

Originally Posted by raycarey

if this is the sort of 'analysis' from which you form your opinions on US politics, it explains quite a lot.

what a joke.

and btw, cherry picking sentences from an article while omitting entire paragraphs isn't going to help you reputation, dodgy dave.

Ray ... take your medicine, and have a good lay down.

No cherry picking, the 'Wall of Text' articles, where every word is repeated ... almost no-one reads them.

Did you actually click the lick and read the whole article?

No ... of course not.

From the article I referred to, please after you have had a lay down, go and pick out the paragraphs which refute what I reproduced here.


Where did the ABC gleen their information?

From the article Public opinion in the age of Trump: The United States and Australia compared

Which is written by the United States Studies Centre
Here is the link ... https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/pub...ralia-compared which was also at the bottom of the article I quoted from.


Perhaps you might find their views also not aligning with yours.

The lead writer of the article is Professor Simon Jackman "Between 1996 and 2016, he was a Professor of Political Science and Statistics at Stanford University. Jackman served as one of the Principal Investigators of the American National Election Studies, the world’s longest running and most authoritative survey of political behaviour and attitudes, directing this project over both the 2012 and 2016 presidential election cycles. "

reach-a-round, as usual ...

Ultimately, the most politically engaged Americans tend to consume news from sources that reinforce views about Trump.

And ultimately, they are not going to change their vote.

Independents, however....

The latest Fox News poll conducted last week found a majority of U.S. adults of all political affiliations say Trump abused his power in office, with 50 percent of Americans saying he should be impeached and removed as president. An additional 4 percent say he should be impeached but not removed from office. Those surveyed rejected the claim touted by Trump and Republicans that U.S. presidents typically ask foreign governments for help in investigating political rivals, with only 22 percent of respondents saying that defense checks out. A similar majority, 52 percent, said the Trump administration has not cooperated enough with the House impeachment inquiry.

Of course.

The Trump administration has said it does not consider the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 to be a genocide, contradicting a unanimous vote by the US Senate.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50828179

Of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Towers_Istanbul

Doubling down on lies is what they do....

Ray, what you have done there is perfect.

You have given a great example of what it means to lift the relevant, salient points of the article, what is what I did.


Now, the challenge you were tasked with was to go back into the article and show where I have distorted it.

Go on ... way you go

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Doubling down on lies is what they do....

Harry, are you saying that I'm lying?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Of course.

The Trump administration has said it does not consider the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 to be a genocide, contradicting a unanimous vote by the US Senate.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50828179
Of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Towers_Istanbul

He also did not call off the wonderful friendship with Saudi after the gruesome murder of Kashoggi (unlike handling the situation after the "highly likely" poisoning of Skripals - also "gruesome").

All that in order not to undermine the wonderful business with Saudis...

And all that in order to bring wonderful joooooobs for American people (selling bombs and aircrafts to MBS and Erdogan), innit?

Originally Posted by Klondyke

He also did not call off the wonderful friendship with Saudi after the gruesome murder of Kashoggi (unlike handling the situation after the "highly likely" poisoning of Skripals - also "gruesome").

All that in order not to undermine the wonderful business with Saudis...

And all that in order to bring wonderful joooooobs for American people (selling bombs and aircrafts to MBS and Erdogan), innit?

Originally Posted by David48atTD

Harry, are you saying that I'm lying?

No.



(Did you see what I did there?).

Originally Posted by thaiguzzi

To be frank, you can paste there a face of any POTUS in the last 70 years or so...

Someone leaked the first draft of baldy orange cunto's letter to Pelosi before Stephen Miller rewrote it.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Of course.



Of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Towers_Istanbul

except they didn’t.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

except they didn’t.

Who didn't what?

Originally Posted by thailazer

The foundational layers for impeachment can be found in this list of names.

It is easy for rational constitutionalists and most thinking people to see. Lunitics like repeater and the cult church he belongs too will see otherwise.