Plan B Forum

unless we change the House, we have no chance of impeaching Trump

(Quoted from another thread)

Sadly, this is unquestionably true; the current House power structure, (with its feckless cowardice at the top leadership, and obstruction co-conspirators in the key committees) has shown that it absolutely positively will not perform it's investigative and oversight duties regarding this administration.

In fact their track record suggests they will do the exact opposite of what their Constitutionally mandated responsibility requires; if Mueller compiles a highly damning report, they will probably try to suppress from being released to the public and launch an investigation into Mueller...

Here's what I see as the path to Impeachment and Removal (or more likely Resignation, if the votes in the Senate are there for removal) it's not an easy one:

1.First you have to have a body of strong evidence with which you can make a persuadable case for the grave step of Impeaching and removing a President.

We can go ahead and check this box. It's obvious just from what's already in the public record, and what is known about the areas Mueller is vigorously pursuing in his investigation, when he has completed his work there will be way more than enough powerful evidence available to make a persuasive case for Impeachment and Removal.

2.Second, you need to have a full and thorough public airing of this evidence. You need probably about a month of televised public hearings, to present and scrutinize the evidence, with witnesses compelled by subpoena power to testify, (not just showing up to answer whatever questions they care to and being given a pass any others) a public examination of key documents, along with the testimony of experts to explain in laymen's terms what the documents mean, etc.

For this to happen, a Democratic takeover of the House is a necessary precondition, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

3. Then the evidence has to be strong enough, (step 1) and the presentation has to be persuasive enough (step 2) that public support for Impeachment reaches and consistently remains above the 60% threshold. (Preferably more like 65%)

You might be able to get a successful Impeachment vote in the House without that level of public support, but you will never get the 67 votes needed in the Senate to force Trump out without it. (Get to that level of public support and you'll have the Republican votes needed; don't get to that level and there'll be a lot of Democratic votes in the Senate against Removal)

And frankly, as much as I want to see Trump out, this is really how it should be. It should not be easy to lay aside the result of a Presidential election, and it would probably be very unwise to do so without a strong popular consensus for it.

Getting to that level of public support is going to be a tough (but not insurmountable) hill to climb. I'm very confident that the evidence will definitely be strong enough, and if the Democrats win the House there's no reason we can't have a fair and persuasive presentation of that evidence.

But even with all that, it's going to be a hard threshold to meet, particularly if we have a strong economy...

We don't (thankfully) have a whole lot of recent historical record on this to draw on, but what we do have suggests strongly that the perceived strength of the economy plays a very important role in public support for Impeachment...

At the time of his Impeachment inquiry, Nixon had an economy that was completely tanked. A little less than a year earlier we'd had the gulf oil embargo, followed by huge gas hikes and energy shortages, and the country's economy was also suffering the negative after-shocks of Nixon's ill-conceived wage and price controls a few years earlier...

A lot has been made of how much more willing the Republican members of the House and Senate of that era were to consider Impeachment, but it's worth recalling that by the summer of 1974 Nixon's support in the polls among Republicans had dropped to 50%. Get Trump's support among those calling themselves Republicans down from the 85% plus range to 50% and given the evidence (and the intense dislike most GOP members of Congress have for him personally...) forcing Trump from office would be a walk in the park....

Bill Clinton by contrast, at the time of his Impeachment inquiry had a roaring economy. That kept his approval rating in the mid fifties, (even with a strong economy, Trump is viewed as so odious he can't get out of the low 40s on his best day) and held public support for Impeachment well below the levels that would have been needed to garner 67 votes for removal. The strongest vote was 50-50 (on the obstruction charge, BTW)

People are very reluctant to support anything that might rock the boat when they feel they are better off financially...

I've said it before and I'll say it again; if Nixon had had Clinton's economy and Clinton had had Nixon's, Tricky Dick would have finished out his term, and Slick Willie would have been out on his ass....

So, if the economy softens, then the task of getting the public support necessary to send Il Boobce packing gets easier...(Not "easy" easier)

If the economy remains strong it becomes a much bigger lift. It will require that a case be presented that persuades better than 60% of the people that Trump's behavior has been so egregious that he needs to be removed even if they feel that his presence as President has played a role in bettering their personal financial situation...

It requires getting people to see his transgressions as so serious and damaging to the country that they put patriotism above their own perceived self interest...

That may doable, but it sure as hell ain't gonna be easy...

This is not rocket science. Impeachment is after all, not a legal process but a political one.

Two requirements to have even a chance of success (and I’ve been repeating this for more than a year now):

1. Dems take the House.

2. Stock market falls, significantly, and stays down.


Otherwise, it’s nothing more than screaming into the wind.

Hey, that's not fair...

I just said the same thing in a lot more words...

You’re welcome!

Resignation?! His ego won’t allow it.

I don't know, it's seems to me that the record shows that Trump's "ego", (as opposed to his narcissism) can be fairly transactional, when he perceives other interests in play...

His ego hasn't stopped him from being Putin's little bitch, or from the humiliation of filing bankruptcy four times, or from settling court cases that he swears up and down he'll never settle...

If we get to the point where it's a "Resign or be removed" situation, (Oh dear Lord, please let us get to that point) I would be delighted to see him dig in his heels and insist on being removed...

"Only President Removed From Office" is one Presidential distinction Trump richly deserves...

But if he did that rather than resign, he'd lose all the former President bennies...

He'll lose the lifetime Secret Service protection, the office and staff subsides, the cool state funeral...

Now you might say, "He's so rich, why would he care about those things?"

Because in addition to being rich (though nowhere near as rich as he claims to be) he also one incredibly cheap-ass sonuvabitch...

This is a guy who once had his "charitable foundation" cover a seven dollar Boy Scout membership fee for one of his sons...

I also think he’s a quitter, and when he loses interest in something, he has no problem walking away.

Unfortunately, so long as he has fawning Trumpanzees and a staff willing to continually lie on his behalf, I don’t see him losing interest soon enough to make any difference.

you guys said the same things when he announced his run.

lord, jim, don t you ever tire of being wrong?

hold your breathe and wait for him to quit.

we are gonna hash this whole thing out until the bitter end, hopefully it won t be too bitter.

unless you want to do away with elections, I don t get your point.

I am happy with elections, although I'd be more than happy to dump the electoral college and let the people's voice be heard directly--would you?

The recent blog post by Fred Reed is stunningly pessimistic. https://fredoneverything.org/decline-in ... ed-gibbon/

But he does have a nice phrase: "Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are owned by the government. Ours is a system in which the means of production own the government."

My own pessimism IMNSHO, says Congress, even if a Dem majority has both houses in 2019, will not grow a set of balls or a backbone to become a co-equal branch of government with the Executive.

snailgate

It depends on the mood of the populace; if people get too pissed off (as Jim and Guin said), Congress will take on the Executive--otherwise they will not. But I could see a democratic majority Congress causing a lot of problems for Trump's agenda, even if they didn't impeach him.

not really rr, I believe that a union of separate states with each of those states having some measure of autonomy and power within the union is a good thing.

50 experiments in democracy is truer diversity, I think.

direct democracy seems to be a cluster fuck, mob rule.

popular vote leads to direct democracy, I think.

then..., brexit.

I think brexit was good, but if a majority voted to limit speech or other liberties I would not like it.

I like our present system

all three branches need to grow balls it think, and take their, and our , power back from un controlled and corrupt burocracies

Well then, you and I have very different ideas of what a democracy is. Any effort to undercut the vote of the people is, IMHO, an impediment to democracy. The electoral college is, at best, an anachronism for a time when many didn't read and most didn't have access to current information on campaigns, candidates, etc.--especially ion an national scale. at it's worst, it is a blatant attempt to thwart the will of the people and put in place an executive acceptable to that same corrupt bureaucracy. in any event, I do not think it is a good idea to give the voters of the least populated states a bigger voice, per capita, than those in the most populated states; and while the electoral college electing the candidate with fewer popular votes happened only a couple of times before the 1990s, we have seen it twice in the 16 years since. And regardless of how you felt about the outcome of those elections, I will not agree it is a good thing.

this has nothing to do with state autonomy. States still have their own laws and governments and are directly represented in the legislature; but the selection of an executive by the archaic electoral college makes little sense IMHO. Not that it ever will be repealed as the less populated states will not ratify it. But I am full in favor of the Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

But then, I don't want to do away with elections and the right of the people to make their own choices and have their voices heard.

unless you want to do away with elections, I don t get your point.

If that's your takeaway from what I wrote wes, then I strongly recommend that you take a reading comprehension course...(In fact based on about 90% of the "responses" you post, that would be my strong recommendation...)

It should not be easy to lay aside the result of a Presidential election, and it would probably be very unwise to do so without a strong popular consensus for it.

wesw wrote:all three branches need to grow balls it think, and take their, and our , power back from un controlled and corrupt burocracies

Like when the president circumvents the Constitution by handing over control of a government department to a troika of his golf buddies, who operate with no accountability or oversight, and who use their power to advance their private commercial interests? Is that the sort of uncontrolled and corrupt bureaucracy of which you speak?

or is it like when the president instructs this bureaucracy to forcibly take children from their parents at the border and place them in detention with no effort expended to keep track of them and provide for reunification? I'd prefer the corrupt bureaucracy than the idiocy of this unrestrained executive.

Operation Huff And Puff seems to be faltering...

Trump attacks on Mueller probe are becoming less effective, new poll suggests


By John Wagner, Reporter- Emily Guskin, Polling analyst
August 23 at 10:38 AM

The relentless attacks by President Trump and his lawyers on the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III could be losing potency, a new poll suggests.

A Fox News poll released this week found that 59 percent of registered voters approve of Mueller’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election while 37 percent disapprove.

That is up from 48 percent approval in the same poll in July and slightly above the same level of support of 55 percent that the poll found in June.

In recent months, Trump and his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani have repeatedly disparaged Mueller and his team on social media and in television interviews, accusing the lawyers of bias and conflicts of interest and claiming that they are trying to frame the president.

In a tweet earlier this week, Trump called Mueller “disgraced and discredited” and said his team of prosecutors is “a National Disgrace!”

More:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 94f0581abc

I can hardly wait for wes to tell us how a Fox News poll is rigged against Trump...

Now the Trump Organization's CFO has been granted immunity. If anyone knows where the bodies are buried, it's him.

ex-khobar Andy wrote:Now the Trump Organization's CFO has been granted immunity. If anyone knows where the bodies are buried, it's him.