What Happened to Quid Pro Quo and Bribery and Extortion?

To be fair to Nancy though, fifty or sixty years worth of alcoholism on her part means that nowadays she doesn't know what she's talking about half the time either.

 

Quid pro quo, bribery and extortion are so two focus groups ago.

 

Well, you will never know if you never see the evidence. But, then, most of Trump's fans feel that way.

 

House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against Trump on Tuesday, saying he had abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress in its investigation of his conduct regarding Ukraine.

The U.S. President will face a trial in the Senate probably in January.

Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are both looking ahead to the Senate impeachment trial, but there is a growing divide between the two over what that trial should look like.

The foreign minister of an unfriendly power met with Trump in the Oval Office for the second time. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in Washington for a scheduled meeting and met with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

The president of an American ally, Ukraine, fighting the aggression of that hostile foreign power has not met with Trump in the White House. Trump has refused to meet with Zelensky.

The DOJ’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, rejected one of Trump’s main attacks on the F.B.I. and declared the bureau had adequate reason to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump's A.G., Bill Barr, strongly disagrees with his own I.G.'s report. Trump attacked his own FBI director for supporting the report.

Vladimir Putin must be enormously pleased by all this.

Judging from posts by Trump's fans, they, too, seem to be quite pleased with Trump's performance.

 

Usually libs are at their worst behavior when they're out of power. They worship the federal government like Muslims worship Mecca. It drives them crazy to be on the outside looking in.

But this time, their bizarre behavior has followed them into power. They're acting more deranged now than at any time in their history.

 

I am quite sure he is ecstatic with the disunity the Democrats are forcing on our country.

 

Your above observation is not limited to "libs" or even to groups of people.

 

If he farted sideways, they'd say the same.

 

The Democrats are the party of government. They live and breathe for power at the federal level. They love committee meetings, proposing new legislation, and controlling the masses. That is their oxygen.

Republicans see government as a necessary evil. They know government is fact of life, but it's not the key to our existence. The Republican Party is the party of the private sector. There are a million things they'd rather be doing than passing legislation.

 

Yeh, yeh. I know, and I agree. But the raw pursuit of power doesn't look good on anyone.

 

A tiny fraction of the evidence against Trump.

“I would like you to do us a favor, though.”

This is from the transcript of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky. It was provided by the White House. The following is a quote from Trump.

Good because I· heard you had a prosecutor who· was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor bf New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General.· :Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States,· the woman., was bad news and the people she was dealing with in.the Ukraine.were bad news so I jtist want to_let you know that. The other thing, there's a lot of.talk about Biden's son,. that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you ·can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.

“What you’re describing is a quid pro quo,” asserted a reporter. “We do that all the time,” replied [Trump's chief of staff] Mulvaney. “Did he also mention to me the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about it. But that’s it. That’s why we held up the money … I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.” http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/mulvaney-ukraine-get-over-it.html

After the July 25 phone call with Zelensky, as he usually does, Trump doubled down on the Biden investigation. On Oct. 3, in a news conference on the White House lawn, he called on Ukraine and China to look into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

“If they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens,” Trump said when asked what he wanted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to do about the former veep and his son.

“They should investigate the Bidens,” Trump said. “Likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/trump-calls-for-ukraine-china-to-investigate-the-bidens.html

 

Exactly. Even if we believe what the Dems say, some questions:

1) How did Trump endanger Ukraine or the U.S.?

2) Did either country lose territory because of what Trump did?

3) Did anyone die?

4) How is Ukraine's fate tied to ours?

5) If the situation is so dire, why didn't Obama give military aid to Ukraine when Russia took Crimea?

 

And that didn't even attempt to answer the question as to why the Dems pivoted away from "Bribery" and "Extortion", and instead went with "Obstruction" and "Abuse of power".

Your silence on the matter is deafening, and it confirms what I'd suspected.

Thank you.

 

Trump worshipers appear impervious to their messiah's perfidy.

Congress had Constitutional responsibilities that the leadership tried to avoid until it would have become a violation of the oath of office not to carry them out.

Most Americans agree:

"As you may know, the House of Representatives has begun a formal impeachment inquiry to determine whether or not to bring impeachment charges against President Trump. Do you approve or disapprove of this impeachment inquiry?"

APPROVE: 54% // DISAPPROVE: 42%

"In his dealings with Ukraine, do you think that President Trump was pursuing the national interest or his own personal interest?"

NATIONAL INTERESTS: 36% // PERSONAL INTERESTS: 54%

"Do you think that the Trump administration should fully cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, or don't you think so?"

THINK IT SHOULD: 76% // DON'T THINK SO: 18%

http://pollingreport.com/trump_ad.htm
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Will the Republican-controlled Senate remove him? Of course not. The practical result is an electorate more knowledgeable because of what will have been exposed - despite Trump's desperate need to hide as much as possible by refusing to testify under oath, gagging as many of his minions who could spill the beans such as Bolton, Mulvaney, McGahn, Perry, Pompeo, etc., etc., etc., and concealing all relevant documents as if theu were his promised tax returns.

How much will he be able to hide?

 

I love seeing people who lost the popular vote by 3M votes say how "This means we will win again" as if you were ever popular the first time around. If you do somehow win it's gonna be by a much bigger popular vote loss.

Obstruction is so clear, and so obvious that it will come down to how the GOP decides to justify it. Knowing that what they justify for Trump will be justified for the next Dem president.

 

The obstruction charge is a charge that is even weaker than the 'Abuse of Power' since the dem clown show bypassed all protocol and process in the investigation. They are in such a hurry that they can't wait for the one subpoena for the WH lawyer that will be decided in January and have shelved all of their other subpoena's. In a normal process the court would decide who is right in breaching the separation of powers. Dems want to impeach Trump for protecting the separation of powers which in and of itself is wildly anti-constitutional.

 

The Supreme court ruled 50 years ago with Nixon 9-0 that executive privilege does not protect the president from handing over evidence of his wrong doing. He cries "I'm innocent" "I'm Innocent" and then is like "No testifying, no giving documents, no taxes" like seriously he is such a clown. Hopefully the court rules against Trump in the middle of the senate trial and forced the GOP's hands.

Edit- Also Trump literally tweeted threats at those testifying Not even Fox news could justify that. Abuse of power and intimidation real time.

 

You proved my point. SCOTUS ruled. The courts were used. Not so for the dem clown show.

 

The courts do NOT have to rule again. It's set case law, Trump is required to provide documents. Trump violated the Court ruling and thus obstructed congress.

 

You evidently don't know how this works. Each subpoena is a separate case and one ruling does not apply to anything. If that were the case why is the subpoena for the WH lawyer going to SCOTUS in January?

 

The court specifically ruled, that if the evidence is relevant to the investigation it must be handed over. They do not need to go through the court system for every subpoena that would take FOREVER and every president would just run out the clock. Once a ruling is made its final, that ruling was not just about Nixon it was about the executive branch as a whole.

 

I guess you proved my point. You don't know how this all works. People, including the President has rights especially when it comes to the separation of powers. Each case has always been decided by the courts. What the previous court case does is suggests but it is not law. They certainly can be forced to testify but the dem clown show shelved their subpoenas and can't wait for the one in court because they are in a hurry for soundbites that will probably give them plenty of biting pain.

 

You just keep proving how much you detest democracy, you bend over backwards to find any excuse you can to support the most criminal president in history. If you actually read the constitution you would know that the house has explicit powers to investigate the president. His executive privilege does not override the constitution.

 

Yay for unregulated presidential power and behavior.....until a Democrat is in the White House that is. Then, all of a sudden, all those people who thought Donald Trump shouldn't be restricted by pesky rules and oversight will remember "Hey wait, this only works if we hold people accountable for their actions!". Then, law & order will suddenly become important again and we'll hear about how terrible the Democratic president is and how corrupt the Democrats are.

And on that day, there will be no recourse for the Republicans and the Trumpers because they sat back and allowed Trump to do whatever he wanted rather than grow a spine and a set of ethics.

But then again, hypocritical behavior and beliefs are baked into being a Trump supporter so maybe they won't even see the distinction.

 

Well, an actual crime would be needed for that. So far the dem clown show has rushed to judgement with two broad and unsupportable impeachment articles.

Actually, executive privilege is part of the separation of powers but then, you would need to understand the Constitution in the first place.