Impeach Trump Y/N

to karl, yes I read the transcript. the actual "do me a favor" line has to do with a missing democratic server (conspiracy theory).

McCarthy is obviously a bad man but lies and spin have protected the president thus far. moving phone calls = protecting them -_-

That's why we need a better smoking gun then just the call notes we have so far. Sadly, there isn't a clear enough line between withholding funds and asking for dirt on a political rival. It is pretty fucking clear, but until the clear rate is 98-100%, republicans have reasonable doubt to work their magic.

we're not even 48 hours after Pelosi got off her ass, chill out

who's not chill?

It is pretty fucking clear, but until the clear rate is 98-100%, republicans have reasonable doubt to work their magic.

lol even 100% clear rate wouldn't make the Senate GOP turn around, this is all down to their electoral calculus re: their base and absolutely nothing else

yep

right, but this isn't just about the president's base, the senator's that are up for reelection might take a blow if they support a crime that is 100% clear

which is why I said (either upthread or on the other thread) most of the Senate GOP are hemming and hawing until they see some polling data

in the meantime they will continue to be either "deeply troubled" or happy about their "nothingburgers"

to karl, yes I read the transcript. the actual "do me a favor" line has to do with a missing democratic server (conspiracy theory).

That is an extremely narrow reading of the document. Moments before that line, he was talking about withholding the military aid to Ukraine, and he spent the first part of the call establishing that the US had done a lot for Ukraine and that the support had not been “reciprocal”

Wow. Tide is shifting *very* quickly. 22% of Republicans strongly support impeachment, 10% of Republicans somewhat support impeachment. Only 49% of Republicans oppose impeachment.https://t.co/FuLcXkaQxg pic.twitter.com/iGQ6NYBhbm

— Zach Wahls (@ZachWahls) September 26, 2019

oh cool

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/463233-voters-split-on-whether-trumps-actions-toward-ukraine-amount-to

“The poll shows that the public has serious concern over the Trump actions, with 50 percent favoring impeachment if he ‘pressured’ the Ukrainian leader but only 45 percent if he just ‘asked’ for the investigation,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, said.

“These are generally higher numbers than during the Mueller investigation and most consider his actions inappropriate even if not impeachable,” Penn added, referring to former special counsel Robert Muller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian officials to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election.

All kinds of shit emerges no matter how small the focus

not always, when it's Democrats doing the focusing

Flopsy, I'm not sure if you're willfully ignoring the much smokier gun of Trump & Co. apparently trying to hide the existence of this wholly-innocuous call but it is, perhaps, worthy of note.

notice how not a single person has said something along the lines of "this just does not seem like something the President would do". even his diehards are like yeah sounds about right lol.

Well tbf Lindsay Graham apparently didn't think he was capable of being so nice as he was on the call. And Lindsay's a smart guy.

The whistleblower claims that this was "not the first time" that a highly classified system was used to protect "politically sensitive - rather than national security sensitive - information"

i would guess this will be explored more in the upcoming hearings

He should have done a GWB and get a lawyer to write him a note that said it was cool to do this

The whole "would you do me a favor" mentioned immediately in conjunction with releasing a very large sum of money from our government to Ukraine's is just your basic mafia boss strategy. You toss a light veil over your demands through suggestion and innuendo, but you make the threat behind it clear enough it can't be mistaken.

Trump could just as well said, "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" and claimed he meant nothing specific by "rid me".

The transcript is inaccurate inasmuch as Trump actually asked Zelensky to do him a flavor.

that kind of comment shouldn't be read quickly

he whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity.

this guys life is gonna be turned upside down

score another victory for journalistic values, NYT.

The whole "would you do me a favor" mentioned immediately in conjunction with releasing a very large sum of money from our government to Ukraine's is just your basic mafia boss strategy. You toss a light veil over your demands through suggestion and innuendo, but you make the threat behind it clear enough it can't be mistaken.

Trump could just as well said, "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" and claimed he meant nothing specific by "rid me".

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, September 26, 2019 1:34 PM (one hour ago)

yes, it's thinly veiled innuendo bc that's what he has learned as a "great negotiator" lol. then he would say he was joking and imply that we should drop it. then he will start to make himself the victim again -- he goes through all of the stages of DARVO in one answer sometimes. i have been wondering what the whistleblower is doing to stay levelheaded while all this goes on. it's beyond my comprehension how intense it must be. like my brain fritzes out before it could even try to understand.

his name is Donnie DARVO afaic

that's exactly why mafia learned to make threats that way too xp

don't know what DARVO is?
deny
attack .
reverse victim/offender

it's why he reminds you (me) of every abusive person you (i) have ever known

It is pretty fucking clear, but until the clear rate is 98-100%, republicans have reasonable doubt to work their magic.

what you're missing is that nothing will ever be "100% clear" when literally half our government is actively attempting to obfuscate and obstruct whenever possible. these people defended him literally bragging about sexually assaulting people. they claimed it was "just locker room talk" even as women came out of the woodwork on a daily basis to claim that yes, this is exactly what he does. Trump is incredibly popular among the GOP base and that is all that matters.

fuck we've all seen the movies it's not mystery what he is doing there. It was that same thing he tried to do with Comey "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go "

I already regret posting itt but I do not regret conjuring DARVO. most useful acronym i've learned in years.

No reason to regret your post. Trump immediately denied doing anything wrong. He just as quickly attacked anyone who suggested he did anything wrong. He has openly cast himself as the victim and the whistleblower as the offender, who, incidentally, ought to be executed for their offense. Fits him like a glove.

a tiny glove

i really am more wary of the enablers than i am of the abusers at this point. people who are openly and actively abusive are a pretty tiny minority!

a very good guy. a good fella, if you will.

Here is the NPR/PBS/Marist poll trend on impeachment.
April: 39% support, 53% oppose
Today: 49% support, 46% oppose

— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) September 26, 2019

It gives me no pleasure to defend the Times. But the letter has "CIA Ukraine analyst who works inside" all over it. Once these things come out they're easy to narrow.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) September 26, 2019

That support for impeachment needs to jump to above 60% for the republicans to start looking for lifeboats.

yup, and that has definitely not happened to-date

I read the complaint. If it is generally true, that officials really told the whistleblower those things, Trump will be impeached.

The best Trump can claim is that he really believed that some Ukrainian stole a box and that finding it would prove that Russia wasn't involved in the DNC hack, and that Joe Biden was actually corrupt for complaining that Ukraine wasn't cracking down on corruption enough.

And when Trump gets that proof, we will all be very sorry.

obvious move for the Dems is to get testimony from first-hand accounts/ie people the whistleblower talked to.

Good luck with that.

Trump will just claim executive privilege, lawsuits will be filed with contempt citations etc.

like, someone in his inner circle has to actually turn on him, not just some random CIA guy

the Dems should be thinking of this like the FBI does w/mafia racketeering/RICO cases - you need an informant, and you need leverage over that informat.

If the whistleblower really had those discussions with officials, there are enough people in the know that I don't think the conspiracy can be kept a secret.

If the whistleblower knew about the Ukraine call and knew the open information about the Ukrainian relations, then made up the stuff about the discussions with officials, then the conspiracy might be better guarded.

The files, records, notes that are going to be required to understand this are not supposed to be open to the public for DECADES. But they'll pried open, the secrets they contain will ruin careers and roil the politics of allied and adversary countries. 5/x

— John A Gans Jr (@johngansjr) September 26, 2019

Does John A Gans, Jr. have an alternate suggestion on how to proceed?

This is such mueller deja vu

xp well from the rest of his thread i think there's just nothing to be done about that

Ooh, he invokes Iran-Contra. Yeah, that really tore the country apart, and totally ruined the careers of ... people.