Discussion: Pelosi Scrambles To Put Out Fires As Her Infuriated Members Call For Impeachment

There is no doubt Speaker Pelosi has the smarts but, as the article mentioned, her lack of effectual speaking power is a definite weakness that makes her appear to be unsure, breathless and elderly and difficult to listen to. She does not have natural stage presence like AOC and Obama and it holds back getting her message across powerfully when her position calls for it. She does need a strong spokesperson. I think voice timbre is a difficulty for many women speakers and candidates need to take voice projection lessons in many cases.

I get the feeling the “infuriated” members are going to realize quickly NOT TO FUCK WITH HER.

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So how NDP delivers a message, “unsure, breathless, etc” is more important than the message itself. Can you now explain how she managed to stay in the House for 30 years and become speaker again after losing it because clearly all these faults should have brought her down a long time ago.

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infuriated , angry people do not make wise decisions…going off half-cocked will get you nothing but grief and scorn…unless, of course, your plan is to fail…I see the ‘progressive’ SANDERS hands in this brou- ha-ha…its what he does……….

It I’ll be fast tracked my guess this issue will be done by July

That one I don’t know the answer toz

Why pass articles?
Assemble evidence, findings and a potential charge and put it in a file for the committee to vote on later.
Move to the next item, assemble evidence, findings and a potential charge and put it in a file for the committee to vote on later.
Etc.

There are a double digit number of potential articles. So many that they need not all be bundled into a single set.
Discrete sets of say 4-8 could be aggregated for related offenses, and voted out of committee to the House, over a few weeks.
The House would need to consider them, review the evidence, hold some debate, and table until the rest are voted out of committee.
It could be March before a full House vote was scheduled for the full package. May for the Senate … when is the GOP convention, again?

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Not quite as sure a bet when weighing Madam Speaker against the collective intelligence of Reps. Cicilline Raskin, Neguse, and Cohen. And those are only the four whom this article points out as speaking up. In other words, you presented a false choice.

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Probably through the Sergeant-at-Arms, but I prefer fines. $25-50K per day, for the first week, increasing thereafter at the rate of $25K per day, per week. Although that has the difficulty of needing court enforcement.

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You do understand that there are 17 judges on the DC Circuit, right?

Unless you’re suggesting that Garland as CJ has special powers? That’s possible, but only a trip to the court rules would dispose of the question.

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May I suggest you research the intersection between Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) and impeachment proceedings.

For starters.

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Man, that strategy worked greeeeeat in 2016! For sure, let’s try that again!

Please, FSM, no.

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Extraordinarily predictable wagon circling.

Like it or not, delivery is important, at least when facing the public. Willful blindness won’t make it go away.

By becoming the Democratic incumbent in San Francisco. Only takes one term. Line up some donors, you’re pretty much set.

Seriously? Her delivery has anything to do with this? Nobody, nobody is disputing her backroom skills.

As detailed above: No.

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Meanwhile…

The same Pulitzer-Prized investigative reporter in MO who brought to light the repressive Debtor Prison Fees directed at the poor in our state is now challenging suburban woman voters to examine what else the GOP has in store for them and their children in the upcoming legislative sessions if they continue to vote Pro-Life Republican propaganda instead of for their families.

It’s good to sometimes keep your eye on the ball instead of chasing after clown cars like Trump has the House doing right now. There is a time and place for everything. Donald’s rightful place will be in grand juries after we convince voters that they need to think of themselves for a change instead of looking at the Dull (and Dumber) Hanging Object that Putin has put in front of them.

first of all, why not?

but the reason I’d like to see at least one article of impeachment passed early on is that it reinforces the idea that the House is engaged in a “judicial process”. The idea is to draw as many parallels to Grand Jury proceedings as possible. In this case, the the analogy is to a grand jury that issues a (sealed) indictment, but continues to investigate that specific matter because it feels there is more evidence available, and may wish to issue a superceding indictment.

ANd I agree that there are dozens of potential articles – but IMO the initial effort should be limited to the Mueller probe and issues arising from it. That would include Trump’s financial crimes and those of his family – because Trump made it clear that he did not want Mueller looking into his businesses – an effort to obstruct/impeded the investigaton that demands further investigation itself.

But I wouldn’t include stuff like putting kids in cages, the Muslim ban, etc in an initial “articles of impeachment” rollout. Focus is important.

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I was asking if the Chief Judge has special powers. Believe it or not, I don’t think i know EVERYTHING! :smiley:

I think that Pelosi’s problem as a public speaker is because she has no clue how to communicate in the modern media environment. She is used to having her pronouncements “mediated” .

Pelosi will speak for five minutes, making sure that everyone get credit and that no one gets offended, going off topic and coming back every few clauses, and reporters would boil it down to “Pelosi Announced A Floor Vote”. Everyone was happy because each of their concerns was acknowledged in her statement – and the reporters stripped away all that crap and reported on the substance.

That doesn’t work anymore. It comes off as (and is) word salad when she stands in front of micophones – and whatever message she was trying to convey is completely lost.

Well for 1 and 2, you point to the evidence uncovered during the Impeachment Hearings and use the Republicans naked partisanship as an angle to attack those Senators up for re-election.

Just because you are having Impeachment Hearings doesn’t mean you need to vote to Impeach immediately. You can use the attention they draw to highlight evidence to all those folks who normally can’t be bothered to pay attention.

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Bullshit.
Nixon was impeached (and resigned) because of a single piece of evidence – the smoking gun tape. That tape convinced GOP congresscritters and Senators that Nixon had to go, so they went to Nixon and told him that he had two choices – resign or be impeached.

In other words, Nancy Pelosi is lying about history to advance her own agenda.

Compared to Trump and the Russia betrayal, watergate was a pillow fight.

But most crucially, back in 1974, information was mediated by a few large newspapers and three television networks. It was this environment that told the American people that the Watergate cover-up was important – that it was a crime. By framing the story as a criminal cover-up, the minute there was “smoking gun” evidence that Nixon led that cover-up, it was over for Nixon.

We are in an entirely different information environment. What worked in 1974 will not work today. And only someone as old, privileged, and oblivious as Nancy Pelosi is incapable of recognizing this simple, obvious fact.

  1. This is a bad question. But assuming that the Democrats are not idiots (and this occurs before the 2020 elections) if the Senate does not vote to convict, Trump loses the election, and the Senate Majority is returned to the Democrats.

That’s because the Democrats don’t have to send articles of impeachment to the Senate until they are damned good and ready, and they’ve gotten enough evidence to convince the American people that Trump has to go. When Democrats send articles of impeachment to the Senate, it will be to put the Senate itself on trial in the eyes of the American public.

  1. although there are no guarantees, theoretically it is stronger.
    That’s because a subpoena issued under impeachment is derived from a different part of the constitution than “regular” supoenas. There are two highly relevant court cases here

The first is US v Nixon (aka the 'watergate case). In that case, the Supreme Court found that executive privilege does not apply when subpoenas are issued to acquire evidence in criminal judicial proceedings. (some people will argue that impeachment is not a judicial proceeding, but most experts disagree).

The second is US v Holder (and US v Lynch) aka the Fast and Furious case. In that case, a district court found that executive privilege gives way when congress is in pursuit of “wrong doing” in the executive branch. But again there are caveats – while the case was affirmed by an appeals court, it never reached the supreme court.

Again, there are no guarantees – but one thing is certain. Using “impeachment” can’t hurt a case’s chances in court.

  1. Lawfare is correct. While the current rules of the Senate seem to compel a trial, there are probably ways to get around that (mostly having to do with scheduling… for example, an impeachment would be considered “new business” and McConnell gets to decide in what order “new business” is considered). And Senate rules can be “reinterpreted” or changed in ways that could prevent a trial from proceeding.
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