International News Trump impeached

There was no concrete proof of it in what the Dems chose to present - to be clear, there was lots of I heard, I was told (etc), Ukraine/Russian Foreign Polciy and I thought Sondland was the testimony to catch Trump with his had in in the cookie jar but it didn't turn out like that. That's not a burden of proof that will get through any court system, let alone an impeachment of a president, on that basis, it was an impeachment based on hopes not distilled, provable facts. Lamar Alexander mentions the high bar, and as such, that is what the Dems didn't achieve or get near. The fact the Dems wouldn't call Hunter Biden to the stand says a lot by saying nothing.

The Dems botched it by rushing, Schiff made a mess of certain things hurting his and the Dems credibility and it just descended into a partisan hackathon that besmirches the process and emboldens Trump for 2020. And of course, the Dems have opened it up when the next Democrat President comes in and the Reps find a chink of armour. Will the US Govt actually function or just try to impeach a President they don't like?

Except the Impeachment trial is a court system in which the US Senators act as jurors - and Alexander (along with the likes of Rubio and Sasse, who said the same thing) is one of those jurors. And they all clearly stated that there was sufficient evidence to prove that Trump committed the offense in question; they just all believed that the offense itself was not sufficient to justify removal from office.

So if you want to criticise the Dems for bringing the impeachment trial, you have to criticise them for doing so around an issue that was not consequential enough for most voters to really care about, and therefore the senators could justify essentially ignoring.
Frankly, to actually remove Trump from office at this point, you'll have to uncover another Watergate-sized scandal. And I don't believe that Trump is as nefarious as Nixon.


Whether the US government will actually function beyond 2020, in a hypothetical Trump second term, is open to question.
Most of the polls at the moment suggest a clear Trump win, but the Dems retaining the House and the Republicans probably retaining the Senate (although it's in play, because of the demographics of the specific states that are coming up this year).
If that happens, then I think you can kiss goodbye to any meaningful legislation coming out of Congress in the next two years. Unless they can put aside their petty squabbling long enough to agree on an infrastructure bill (the one thing Trump and the Dems both seem to want).
 
Except the Impeachment trial is a court system in which the US Senators act as jurors - and Alexander (along with the likes of Rubio and Sasse, who said the same thing) is one of those jurors. And they all clearly stated that there was sufficient evidence to prove that Trump committed the offense in question; they just all believed that the offense itself was not sufficient to justify removal from office.

So if you want to criticise the Dems for bringing the impeachment trial, you have to criticise them for doing so around an issue that was not consequential enough for most voters to really care about, and therefore the senators could justify essentially ignoring.
Frankly, to actually remove Trump from office at this point, you'll have to uncover another Watergate-sized scandal. And I don't believe that Trump is as nefarious as Nixon.


Whether the US government will actually function beyond 2020, in a hypothetical Trump second term, is open to question.
Most of the polls at the moment suggest a clear Trump win, but the Dems retaining the House and the Republicans probably retaining the Senate (although it's in play, because of the demographics of the specific states that are coming up this year).
If that happens, then I think you can kiss goodbye to any meaningful legislation coming out of Congress in the next two years. Unless they can put aside their petty squabbling long enough to agree on an infrastructure bill (the one thing Trump and the Dems both seem to want).
Us proles looked at the charges, looked at the evidence and I wasn't the only one who went. That's it? You are going through this with that? The refusal to call the known unknown whistle-blower hit them hard, same as Hunter Biden - smelt of politics over justice. I tried with the evidence, but there was little there that wasn't circumstantial and other open questions.

The Democrats fumbled at the 1 yard line and then set the precedents for Republicans in the future to do the same thing. Schiff and Pelosi have a lot to answer for and launched into a process that hoped they could control from bean to cup, which they were never going to. It naive, hopeless and angry.

Meanwhile, 5 more judges got appointed by the Republicans. It creates a horrible perception of the Dems - even if they are legislating, it's slow and unwieldy. They've fallen into the trap.

I can see an as is house and senate, but the question then comes around Ginsberg and when/if she steps down? That will be the next battle IMHO
 
no surprise there .....

Nothing is surprising about Trump or American politics. They have truly jumped the Shark. Unfortunately, both are reality in the post truth era.

Christ knows where we will end up, but I have a funny feeling we've been down this road before...it is all starting to smell rather familiar :unsure:
 
I can see an as is house and senate, but the question then comes around Ginsberg and when/if she steps down? That will be the next battle IMHO

If Trump wins the presidency, and the Republicans hold the senate, then I imagine she will try and hold on for another two years. And we'll see a lot more articles worrying about her health.

If the Democrats don't take the senate in 2020, they probably will in 2022, for two reasons:

a) Midterm elections are generally bad for the presidential incumbent, because the opposition protest vote tends to turns out in force whilst the president's supporters often can't be bothered to turn out if his name isn't on the ballot
b) The 2022 senate election will be for all the seats that were previously voted on in 2016 i.e. Trump's first election win. And there's a bunch of republican senators there in states that have traditionally been either democrat-leaning or swing votes (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Iowa) that won in 2016 by hanging on to Trump's coattails, but now are up for reelection on their own. Meanwhile, the Democrats only have 12 seats to hold, and they're almost all squarely blue.

It's the senate that has to ratify a supreme court nomination, and there's no way that a post-2022 Democrat-led senate would accept a right wing Trump appointment.
He would either have to leave the seat open, or appoint a moderate.
 
If Trump wins the presidency, and the Republicans hold the senate, then I imagine she will try and hold on for another two years. And we'll see a lot more articles worrying about her health.

If the Democrats don't take the senate in 2020, they probably will in 2022, for two reasons:

a) Midterm elections are generally bad for the presidential incumbent, because the opposition protest vote tends to turns out in force whilst the president's supporters often can't be bothered to turn out if his name isn't on the ballot
b) The 2022 senate election will be for all the seats that were previously voted on in 2016 i.e. Trump's first election win. And there's a bunch of republican senators there in states that have traditionally been either democrat-leaning or swing votes (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Iowa) that won in 2016 by hanging on to Trump's coattails, but now are up for reelection on their own. Meanwhile, the Democrats only have 12 seats to hold, and they're almost all squarely blue.

It's the senate that has to ratify a supreme court nomination, and there's no way that a post-2022 Democrat-led senate would accept a right wing Trump appointment.
He would either have to leave the seat open, or appoint a moderate.
The issue with Ginsberg is her health is very understandably failing - she's a warrior for her age, but it comes to us all sadly. If she can no longer hold that position and Trump/McConnell get another one in, it's a big FU to a lot of people. With all those judges Trump/McConnell have appointed, in some respects the damage has already been done to the judiciary as they are all relatively young and were chosen specifically. And as such, getting the likes of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in when you have the power is a canny move.

The House and Senate mid-terms will be fascinating if Trump is in term 2- I suspect in part who the Dems choose now will lead into the ethos of the party and possibly see candidates change - and little things like Prisoners being able to vote in Florida and Californians leaving for Texas and other states will quietly change the demographics for the next 10 years.

With that in mind, you see why Trump has been doing his Trumpian best to get more minority voters to "walk away" from the Democrats as they could well hold the key to states like Pennsylvania in the big cities in the next 10-20 years.
 
The issue with Ginsberg is her health is very understandably failing - she's a warrior for her age, but it comes to us all sadly. If she can no longer hold that position and Trump/McConnell get another one in, it's a big FU to a lot of people. With all those judges Trump/McConnell have appointed, in some respects the damage has already been done to the judiciary as they are all relatively young and were chosen specifically. And as such, getting the likes of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in when you have the power is a canny move.

And it was something that Obama did as well - Kagan & Sotomayor were both potential 30-year appointments that he made, who were both extremely liberal justices.
He also expanded the use of executive orders when he couldn't get legislations through.....much of what Trump has done, at least mechanistically, is straight out of the Obama playbook.

And I'm sure that when the Dems get back in - as they eventually will, because politics is always cyclical here - they'll be thinking about revenge, and lurching everything to the left again.

The way the atmosphere is here, it's going to yo-yo left and right, left and right until the US substantially changes its political system (third party? popular vote initiative?) or America tires of it completely and selects and elects a moderate, compromise candidate.
 
And it was something that Obama did as well - Kagan & Sotomayor were both potential 30-year appointments that he made, who were both extremely liberal justices.
He also expanded the use of executive orders when he couldn't get legislations through.....much of what Trump has done, at least mechanistically, is straight out of the Obama playbook.

And I'm sure that when the Dems get back in - as they eventually will, because politics is always cyclical here - they'll be thinking about revenge, and lurching everything to the left again.

The way the atmosphere is here, it's going to yo-yo left and right, left and right until the US substantially changes its political system (third party? popular vote initiative?) or America tires of it completely and selects and elects a moderate, compromise candidate.
Like any change in system, both sides will want what benefits them over what's right for the country - but I suppose when constitutional matters like Gun Rights are being fought over, or Roe vs Wade, the politics won't moderate. Equally, voting that slants power to the cities won't be a winner as they are generally liberal to extreme liberal in viewsw. Look at the mess that San Francisco is or what Portland has become.

And the ironic thing is. Trump is somehow more popular than Obama was at the same time of his presidency. Don't get it.
 
Equally, voting that slants power to the cities won't be a winner as they are generally liberal to extreme liberal in viewsw. Look at the mess that San Francisco is or what Portland has become.

Can't really speak to San Francisco, because I haven't been there in 20 years.
But Portland is a completely ridiculous, hipster fantasy of a city. And that comes from someone who wears a lot of checked shirts, loves his microbrews and has sported a beard for much of the last five years! And because of that, they've adopted some terrible policies, and been overrun by far too many 'artists' and 'artisans' wanting to live in trendy uber-left wing paradise without identifying an actual source of income, such that they now have just about the biggest homeless, mental illness and drug addiction crisis in the country.

But it's also only the 25th biggest city in the nation (San Francisco is only 15th), and is hardly representative of national urban views.

Taking out New York (as it's pretty much it's own independent country!), if you want a representative view of cities, you need to look at places like Houston, San Antonio & Dallas, or San Diego & Phoenix. Bigger cities that, I would suggest, have a much broader range of political viewpoints.

The last US census suggested that 62.7% of the US population live in cities, so it's certainly arguable that a redistribution of power to reflect that would not be entirely unfair.
(Also, having driven around rural Arkansas and Mississippi, I know for an absolute certainty that I wouldn't want to live there, and am pretty confident that an electorial system that gives them over-representation is not ideal).
 
Can't really speak to San Francisco, because I haven't been there in 20 years.
But Portland is a completely ridiculous, hipster fantasy of a city. And that comes from someone who wears a lot of checked shirts, loves his microbrews and has sported a beard for much of the last five years! And because of that, they've adopted some terrible policies, and been overrun by far too many 'artists' and 'artisans' wanting to live in trendy uber-left wing paradise without identifying an actual source of income, such that they now have just about the biggest homeless, mental illness and drug addiction crisis in the country.

But it's also only the 25th biggest city in the nation (San Francisco is only 15th), and is hardly representative of national urban views.

Taking out New York (as it's pretty much it's own independent country!), if you want a representative view of cities, you need to look at places like Houston, San Antonio & Dallas, or San Diego & Phoenix. Bigger cities that, I would suggest, have a much broader range of political viewpoints.

The last US census suggested that 62.7% of the US population live in cities, so it's certainly arguable that a redistribution of power to reflect that would not be entirely unfair.
(Also, having driven around rural Arkansas and Mississippi, I know for an absolute certainty that I wouldn't want to live there, and am pretty confident that an electorial system that gives them over-representation is not ideal).
My colleagues have been to San Fran it's gotten grim in some areas with poop and needles on the streets of even the nice areas - like LA in some areas I suppose. But as such, they are left wingy cities. Places in Texas are being overrun with immigrants who realise California is not value for money and a bit of scary place. And cheaper. I know someone who from San Antonio as he said it had gone from being fun to being weird and metropolitan!

But if you take into account Cities like NYC, LA, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, etc. how many are strongholds for Republicans? Not many (and that is failing is on the Reps, 100%). Giuliani was the exception rather than the rule in New York. The electoral college takes that into account, but doesn't bias it - I can see why some Dems want to tinker with it all.

But, kind of not my concern here, but it does speak for a cleverly thought out political system!
 

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