IMPEACHMENT WATCH 2019-2020 - flow of data

Thank you, I was not aware of that provision giving Moscow Mitch the opportunity to contain the Senate impeachment hearing to a minor event.

Not sure if Pelosi will give him that opportunity.

 

Even if a Potus committed an impeachable offense its quite difficult to get him out of office.
There has only been two impeachments of Presidents in our history and neither one of them Bill Clinton, Andrew Johnson, was removed from office because of it.

The left has gotten way to far ahead of itself because they take what the liberal press says as the Gospel Truth.

 

This is exactly what I have long been saying!

No, an impeachment is not the same as removal from office--although many people seem to confuse the two.

Bill Clinton was impeached by the House in 1998; but he was never removed from office. (In fact, he did not appear even to be marred by the incident; he went on to have a rather successful presidency.)

And you are certainly correct: There is no possible way that the Democrats--who hold only 47 seats (including an independent--Angus King, of Maine--who caucuses with the Democrats) could muster the 67 votes necessary for conviction, and the attendant removal from office.

 

Senator Jeff Flake disagrees. He believes that there are 35 GOP Senators who would vote to impeach the BLOTUS if it were a secret ballot.

So it boils down to the honesty and integrity of the GOP Senators and how much they fear antagonizing BLOTUS supporters in their own states as opposed to honoring their Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution and the Law of the Land.

 

Just came across this article about Republicans for the Rule of Law who are using ads to target GOP Senators.

http://www.ruleoflawrepublicans.com/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/repu...raine-donald-trump_n_5d8efbdce4b0019647a8eff0

 

Well I hope Senator Flake will show honesty and integrity and name these senators so they may be praised and heralded by the news media.

 

Trump will be reelected in 2020 and we have to watch dems cry for another 4 years lol.

 

Not a problem. Most of them will move to Canada.

Good lucks to the Canucks.

That's all they need, another wave of fleeing neo-marxists.

Speaking of fleeing marxists, here's a laugh.

A friend of my wife lost the key to her bank safety deposit box. They called a locksmith to open it for her and he opened the wrong box. It had almost $1 million cash in it.

The box belonged to a Chinese national.

 

Nice to hear from you and thank you for the informative posting.

The bolded: yes, I concur that it is unlikely that the Ds will muster the requisite supermajority in order to get a conviction in the US-Senate, but then again, at the rate that things are moving, as is very often the case, a week is a year in politics. Wait and see.

And then there is the discussion whether it's even relevant or helpful to consider in advance whether the Senate will convict or not and let one's decision-making process be influenced by the Senate. I write this now for people of all persuasions: if laws have been broken (and quite obviously, in the case of Donald Trump, multiple laws have been broken), then the HOR must impeach, simply because it is right and just to do so. BASTA. They should do this completely independent of which winds are blowing in the US Senate. That is EXACTLY why this is a two-step process involving houses of Congress, working from the lower to the upper chamber of Congress, exactly in line with the intent of our founding fathers.

The case of Andrew Johnson is truly unique and I feel it should not be compared to anything: Johnson was actually a Democratic Senator from Tennessee (known as War Democrat or Southern Unionist, elected in 1856) who did not resign his Senate seat when TN seceeded from the Union, whom Lincoln, our Republic's first Republican President, then selected to be on the 1864 ticket - a sort of uncomfortable "unity ticket".

Johnson was a vicious racist (he opposed the 14th amendment) and yet, he was willing to enact most of Lincoln's stated plans for reconstruction after the Civil War, namely, amnesty for all Southernors who pledged a new oath to the USA and very importantly, as soon as 10% of voters in each respective state who had voted in the 1860 presidential election had taken a renewed oath to the USA, those respective states who met the requirement would be allowed to re-form state governments and send Representatives (meaning: HOR, Senate) to the US congress. The idea was to have reconstruction go as quickly as possible, because Lincoln had been acutely aware that there would be people so angry about the war that they would want to punish the South for as long as possible and that there were Southernors who would also want to slow down reconstruction in order to make the former slaves' lives as rough as possible. However, Johnson, unlike Lincoln, inserted a poison pill into the whole thing: he was willing to allow former Confederate States to enact "black laws", which enraged Republicans in the Congress, and rightfully so.

So, when we are honest with ourselves, there were forces against an expected reconstruction and re-unification from more than one side of the political spectrum, and for almost opposing reasons. Enter a certain number of extreme Republicans (in accord with a smaller number of extreme Democrats) of the day who had always been against Lincoln's intentions plus a number of Republicans who loved Lincoln but hated Johnson, plus Northern Democrats who saw Johnson as a sort of turncoat and so, in order to kneecap Johnson (who was hated in virtually all corners), the congress passed the Tenure of Office act of 1867 over his veto. This act stated that a President could not dismiss any member of his cabinet without the approval of Congress. It was all about Secretary of War Stanton, who hated Johnson with the fire of 1,000 suns, and visa-versa. So, in order to test how much mettle the Congress had, Johnson try to fire Stanton and that attempt sparked impeachment proceedings. But had it not been Stanton, it would have been something else. The Congress hated him and wanted him out. Ironically, a number of Republicans who hated him in 1867-1868 actually liked him in 1864 precisely because he was a racist Democrat (and had owned slaves) and they were just sure that he would temper Lincoln's kindness. Yes, our history really is THAT ****ing weird. The Senate trial over the Articles of Impeachment took almost two full months, two of the most raucous months in our beloved country's history. Of 54 Senators who voted, the Senate vote was 35 guilty / 19 not-guilty, 1 vote short of a 2/3rd majority to convict and remove. By the time the trial was over, we were already within an election year and the Congress saw that a 2nd impeachment attempt would be futile.

Fun fact: Johnson went on to become a Senator from TN once again, elected again in the 1874 mid-terms, making him the only former President in history to go one to serve as a Senator after leaving the White House. Stanton went on to make it onto the SCOTUS and it was the shortest SCOTUS tenure in all of history. He died within 4 days of being confirmed by the Senate.... poor sop.

By the way, the Tenure of Office act of 1867 was stricken down as entirely unconstitutional in: 1962. Gee, it only took 95 years to get this one right...

 

Mark Amodei (NV-02), the only Republican in the Nevada Congressional delegation at current, is for an inquiry into the Ukraine scandal, but not explicitly for impeachment.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/27/amodei-impeachment-inquiry-1517671

 

So, the number of House Democrats either against Impeachment proceedings or still not giving any kind of answer has been reduced from 7 to 5.



Max Rose (NY-11), who said on September 13, 2019 that he was against impeachment, has changed his mind. In a demonstrably angry, fiery tweet yesterday, he has come out FOR impeachment proceedings in no uncertain terms:




he sent off that tweet at 8:50 PM, EST, after Trump's second appearance on TV with the finnish President.

Xochitl Torres-Small (NM-02) has now come out for the proceedings, but her message is more measured:



Of the remaining 5, only 1 is an unequivocable no: Collin Peterson. Then again, Rose and Gabbard were solid NOs just two weeks ago.

Whatever the case may be, we are now at 230 Ds plus 1 I in favor of impeachment proceedings, making for a total of 231, 13 more than needed to actually impeach.

I have not yet included Mark Amodei (R-NV-2) yet in the figures because his messages are so....ähm.... mixed.

-Stat

 

If the Democrats wish to impeach President Trump--and I am uncertain that they will; there are simply very many Democratic representatives in districts carried by Donald Trump in 2016--they can certainly do so.

But please bear in mind that impeachment is not the same as removal from office.

Bill Clinton, after all, was impeached in 1998. But the Senate refused to convict--and, thereby, remove him from office.

There is simply no possible way that the Democrats might muster the 67-vote supermajority, in the Senate, needed to accomplish their task.

And such a rash action, by the House, would surely redound against the Democrats in 2020--especially in the presidential election. (It might even cost the Democrats control of the House--although that is, at best, uncertain.)

So, by all mean, Democrats: Impeach!

And then, see just how that works out for you...

 

I don't want to stand in the Democrats way of granting Trump an acquittal in the Senate.

 

I understand what you are saying, only, the major flaw in your logic is precisely that those Ds are mostly Ds who just flipped 43 House seats in 2018 from red to blue and in many cases, the total vote count was closer to presidential election levels than to traditional mid-term levels. So, those Ds who have already committed to the full impeachment process (and only 5 have not yet) are apparently less worried about their electoral prospects in 2020 than you may think. And in the congressional ballot polling, Ds are at +8 to +9, just as in 2018. There is not one iota of evidence that there will be a GOP wave anywhere in the Union, but ample evidence that there will be a D-wave considerably larger than 2018.

When Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, polling showed that the public was not in support of his impeachment. Also, Clinton's approval/disapproval numbers were not drowing like Trump's. In fact, his approval was at 62% not long before his impeachment. Meanwhile, Trump is still mired at between 39-41%, a miserable number for any sitting president. Polling in 2019 FOR impeachment of Donald Trump has aready far exceeded the polling from 1974 in support of the impeachment of Richard Nixon. At 44%, the Democrats decided to go for an impeachment in 1974. With Trump, it's already at between 47%-55%.

So, out of fairness to both you and myself, I would say that it is a double-edged sword for both parties. Challenges to the Ds to impeach now, with the implicit underlying threat that they risk electoral defeat in 2020, those same challenges, with very same underlying threat can also be issued to Rs who either say nothing about impeachment or come out against, because 100% guaranteed: the Democrats are going to hang Trump like an albatross around the neck of every single congressional Republican up for election in 2020, also on the gubernatorial level. I understand that you have strong feelings about this, and I also respect those feelings. But I also have strong feelings about this and polling from more than 40 independent-from-each-other sources is showing that the anger is on both sides, only, the Independents are siding far more with the Democrats than with the Republicans.

Here, let me represent to you what the Republicans are facing (this, btw, is not the USS-Enterprise, but rather, the USS-Constellation):




So, by all mean, Democrats: Impeach!

 

And as we can all see, this was not the case.

LOL

 

So, ignoring the trolling content in this posting (i.e., calling Democrats "traitors"), it is important to note that the bolded content is an untruth. Until this impeachment inquiry began in the last 10 days or so, there had not yet been an impeachment inquiry into the illegal and unconstitutional behavior of the 45th POTUS ("High Crimes and misdemeanors"). This is therefore NOT the "2nd time". I do feel that it is important to stick to facts, even when a certain percentage of the US population has "Q"-unglued istelf from the facts.

 

As I've already indicated a couple of times on this thread, I will find it interesting to see when Congressional Republicans start to peel-off vis-a-vis impeachment, and I actually listing this R as a strong possibility for such:

https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily...hina-to-investigate-biden-calling-it-terrible

As I also wrote, since Will Hurd (R-TX-23) is retiring, that he would have pretty much nothing to lose by coming out FOR impeachment. In the link, you will see that he is just one step before doing just that.

 

This, in my opinion, is a well-thought-out response. For that, I commend you.

But I do believe that some of its more salient points are merely superficial in their importance.

For instance, it is certainly true that Donald Trump's approval ratings are much lower than Bill Clinton's similar ratings were in 1998. But Donald Trump's approval ratings have been low for almost three years now. This is certainly nothing new.

And as to the preferences of independents, it should surely be noted that many who classify themselves as "independents" are really Democrat-leaning independents. (True, some are Republican-leaning independents also. But how many of each are there?)

If impeachment proceedings were to begin just next week, do you really believe that both these proceedings, and the Senate vote as concerning conviction, could occur before early November of 2020--when we next have an opportunity to throw the president out of office, if that is what the American people generally desire?

This looks to me like nothing more than a petulant attempt to stick a finger in the eye of President Trump--not really a serious attempt to remove him from office.

Do you think that I am mistaken? And if so, then why?

 

That is a good question and the answer is that it changes all the time.

Go back to the early 2000's and the GOP was riding high with 39% of the electorate while Dems were shrinking as a percentage. That was a reflection of the early acceptance of the Tea Party idealism more than anything else IMO. Unfortunately that was CORRUPTED by the GOP for nefarious purposes and by the time Obamacare became acceptable to a majority of the electorate (because they liked it after they experienced it) the GOP was reliant upon gerrymandering and voter suppression to maintain their grip on power because their base was shrinking from the demographic shift.

There are many Independents today who were former members of the GOP but they simply cannot stand the stench and do not want to have to defend what the GOP has become.

Likewise a great many Independents today were former members of the DP but as it moved to the right to occupy the vacuum left by the GOP that resulted in a great many leaving the party because they could not tell the difference between it and the GOP when it came to fiscal malfeasance policies.

Today the Independents are at 40% of the electorate and whichever party finds a way to bring them back is going to be the beneficiary of that change. Independents from both the left and right supported Sanders because of his commonsense approach to fixing what is hurting We the People. His Revolution has motivated the Progressives to retake control of the DP and move it back towards the left where it belongs. They were successful throughout 2017 and 2018 and are on track for 2020.

So if you ask this question again in 2021 the answer is going to be different to what it is now.

 

Bolded by me in red: YEPP. And the fact that it is nothing new and that Trump has been consistently underwater among women by between 30-40 points every single day of his presidency should be causing alarm bells to go off within every single corner of the GOP, for this means that a vast majority of women voter have long made up their minds, and definitely not to vote for Trump. In 2020, he is not going to be facing off against a D-nominee who has high unpopularity numbers as Hillary Clinton did.

Bolded by me in green: indeed, this is a very cogent point and bravo to you for making it. As far as I am concerned, we will probably never know the answer to this because it very likely varies from geographical region to geographical region. In MA and RI, where there are huge amounts of unaffiliated voters (which we can easily read as "Independent" for these purposes), they have traditionally voted strongly D. But in Arizona, people who claim the "I" designation tend to vote strongly "R", or at least they did until 2018. However, I have learned that many premium pollsters have taken this into account in their weighting processes.

Impeachment proceedings have already begun in the HOR, in 6 committees. Already announced by Speaker Pelosi on national television. It doesn't get much more official than that. No amount of brazen lying by minority depp McCarthy is going to change that. Lord, he didn't even known the content of the Trump-Ukraine-call-transcript nor has he read the Mueller Report. Pretty friggin' embarrassing, I would say. So, here I respectfully disagree with you. The process IS underway, the American public is now FOR impeachment, it is going to happen.

And I personally suspect that we are going to discover far more disturbing, far more ugly and perfide things about Trump along the way.

Just a question for you: can you condone his behavior on Twitter, Instagram and on TV?

 

A surprisingly lucid article from CNBC on why right leaning voters aren't jumping on the impeachment train.

Here’s why Trump’s poll numbers are defying the impeachment mess

 

I don't think there really are any independents, we all have lifelong, usually family oriented political preferences and when we pull the lever those prejudices will manifest themselves. Now if you maintain that we must make an intelligent, informed choice then 'splain how the hell we can be all that and elect any of the politicians asking for our votes today?

 

This is certainly a reasonable point. And Donald Trump is especially underwater with suburban women. (With lower-middle-class women, not so much.)

Hillary Clinton carried the burden of her appearing cold. Elizabeth Warren would not replicate that (if she were the nominee); but she would have her own burden: that of being far to the left of the American mainstream. (She does much better in the Democratic primaries than she would with the general electorate, in my opinion.)

I am really not so certain.

Needless to say, Democrats strongly favor it, whereas Republicans strongly oppose it.

And it is my understanding that, in the latest 537 poll (whose headmaster, Nate Silver, leans center-left), a slight plurality--47 percent (as opposed to 44 percent) oppose impeachment. (I may have those numbers slightly confused; but I am just about certain that it was by three percentage points that those opposing impeachment eclipsed those supporting it.)

I have long maintained that President Trump should stop tweeting. It simply looks unpresidential.

For the record, I am neither a MAGA cultist nor a zealous "resistor." There is a happy medium, I believe. (The very idea that one must be either 100 percent for the president, or 100 percent against him, is downright silly, I think.)

 

Here is the latest from the rolling average of 538 polling on support and disapproval of impeachment:





@Statistikhengst what do you think about the 538 reasoning of also including the poll responses when the question is only "Do you support the Impeachment Inquiry?"

 

Sounds like the Democrats and Clinton.....................just saying