It’s all in the timing. Bring in your own Ken Starr and complete Mueller’s work. Box donnie into a corner and watch him lash out, looking more and more the fool. l he is.
The obstruction is rock solid. The obstruction prevented Mueller from getting the evidence to charge the collusion related crimes. That’s why people obstruct and that’s why it’s a separate crime. That’s also why you would need impeachment hearings to draw that out for people.
5 Likes
Big Bucks Pelosi is, and always has been, a corporate tool.
Her excuses sound ever-more-fantastic.
Her real excuse for inaction: corporations don’t like the uncertainties of
a serious challenge to the presidency.
2 Likes
It’s rising in spite of her, not because of her. If she did support an inquiry (again, different than actual impeachment articles) support would go up to where it’s a slight plurality or outright majority.
3 Likes
I totally agree with the catchy slogan thing. Have to say GOP is so good at that. But then I don’t think it’s the sole responsibility of the leaders to create slogans. It takes some natural skills to do that.
Thank you for the respectful reply. I still disagree. The points you list may be true, but I think they’re all arguable, none are obviously true on the face. My inclination is to believe that if the courts (and more specifically the Supreme Court) are wanting to reject normal oversight powers, they’re also going to reject impeachment proceedings. Heck, just yesterday a Trump appointee ruled the House cannot sue the president to have the power of the purse enforced. I think public opinion has already turned on the President, as much as it’s going to. The question is whether people will admire the Democrats. I’m not sure simplifying the narrative to a winner take all fight over impeachment helps maintain their popularity. I think Trump can run with that ball, as well (NO COLLUSION! WITCH HUNT!). In some ways, it gives his flunkies in other areas of government (EPA, Treasury, HHS, etc.) a break.
Etc. My point being that this still strikes me as a long shot based on logic that is arguable, but not obviously true.
Also: on the last point about parties launching impeachment winning elections. So you’d throw in Bush over Gore into that? Because it seems to me a more conventional wisdom is that impeachment didn’t particularly help the GOP, which relied on a packed Supreme Court, a rickety electoral system and voter suppression to get their way. The moral I take from that situation is that the GOP knows how to game systems, so we shouldn’t simplify the game. Broaden the base, avoid simplifying the narrative, keep Trump’s opinion ratings low, and then fight to make sure he can’t repeat his 2016 longshot victory by focusing on things that Midwestern voters really care about…which is not only or assuredly impeachment.
2 Likes
That’s hard to say definitively. It could also be argued that she is playing good cop, bad cop, or a variation of FDR’s admonishment: “Now, make me do it,” and leveraging public opinion.
4 Likes
Pelosi’s strategy is purely one of serving her corporate backers’ interests in preventing
any sort of political upheaval that threatens the economic status quo.
2 Likes
Well, we are that stupid. After all we elected Trump to the presidency.
3 Likes
I rest my case.
3 Likes
And if one has spent the past three years claiming that Donald Trump is a tool of the Russian state and an existential threat to American Democracy, one really doesn’t have a choice but to support an impeachment inquiry…
2 Likes
I know that’s a view among a lot of Dems. I don’t think it is correct when you look at her actual words and statements. She’s not for impeachment and she has come up with several confusing rationales that don’t really stand up to scrutiny. What would be different is if she said ‘I’m focused on subpoena compliance. Then we can talk about that other stuff’. That would tell people that she is investing political capital in accountability and values it. The other claims she makes are more intended to sow confusion and deflate impeachment rather than provide a focus and path to accountability.
3 Likes
On that point, Speaker Pelosi has often tweeted or made statements very critical of Trump, his connection/relationship with Putin and a ‘cover up’.
2 Likes
Agree that it is sometimes hard to game out her strategy from her language, but she has apparently approved the various committees to go ahead with various aspects of an investigation.
I think she needs to be cautious in avoiding a headlong rush to impeachment without the majority of the public behind her. This can’t be about immediate gratification.
2 Likes
The Remove America’s Taint (RAT) Act.
2 Likes
And the media will quickly go from why haven’t they opened impeachment hearings yet to why haven’t they voted on impeachment, and then when mitch says no to convicting its going to be, why haven’t they moved on yet.
2 Likes
Not to mention insulting.
Pelosi’s defenders – and their defenders – won’t like your comment, of course, but I do.
3 Likes
Never mind whether @emiliano4 read the article. The question is whether you read the part of his comment that you quoted.
[sigh]
4 Likes
False.
It means the evidence was there, but did not rise to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard necessary for indictments.
False again. It’s just an insufficiency of evidence. In no way does it mean that no crime has been committed.
9 Likes
No, Pelosi as a minion of the Corporate Overlords doesn’t hold water. If they were actually driving the bus, then they would be in favor of impeachment and conviction. Pence would be a more stable and pliable occupant of the oval office, much better for business than the bull in a china shop they have now with Trump.
1 Like