Impeachment 3: The MF Has Been Impeached! The Trial Has Begun!

[Smash!]

Btw The hashtag #Impeached45 is trending!

[fraurosena]

Oh, I hope the Dems do this! The trumplicans will have an apoplectic fit...

 

[formergothardite]

They better delay sending over the articles and make a big deal about how McConnel admitted he has no intentions of doing things correctly. But I don't have a lot of faith they will because while republicans excel at turning events like this to be in their favor, democrats tend to not do so well. They never seem to be able to take control of the narrative. 

[fraurosena]

 

1 minute ago, formergothardite said:

They better delay sending over the articles and make a big deal about how McConnel admitted he has no intentions of doing things correctly. But I don't have a lot of faith they will because while republicans excel at turning events like this to be in their favor, democrats tend to not do so well. They never seem to be able to take control of the narrative. 

Fye, @formergothardite! Away with those negative thoughts!

Remember, Pelosi has a very tight control on the matters right now.

She is orchestrating everything, and masterfully so. She's listening to Laurence Tribe's advice. She's already so much as said she won't be appointing impeachment managers just yet, nor will she be sending the Articles to the Senate anytime soon.

The tangerine toddler is pretty upset about it too, although he doesn't understand that it's not the Senate's call at all. There go his chances of a carefully constructed corrupt acquittal. How that must rankle!

So take heart, dear @formergothardite! Have a very merry Impeachmas! ?? 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the "you couldn't make this up" file:

 

[fraurosena]

Listen to this absolutely brutal takedown of McConnell by Schumer! 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

 

6 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

He's still living in his fantasy Lala-land: again a photoshopped image of him looking much better than he does in reality. He is not that slim, his hands are way smaller, and his suits don't fit as snugly and well as this. 

[mango_fandango]

I saw a photo of someone holding up an IMPEACH PELOSI sign. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

As usual, Auntie hits the nail on the head:

 

[Destiny]

From the "you couldn't make this up" file:
 

Actually click on this tweet and look at the first reply. You’ll thank me later.

[fraurosena]

Note to reporters: ask only one question at a time. Otherwise he'll just ignore the difficult one.

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

From the "you couldn't make this up" file:

 

Hillary's perfect reaction to this latest crazy conspiracy theory:

 

[Smash!]

This thread is GOLD [emoji23]

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Highly recommended if you need a good laugh!

[GreyhoundFan]

"To avoid removal, Trump needs senators representing only 7 percent of the country to support him"

Spoiler

It is the nature of a representative democracy that people will sometimes be represented by politicians with whom they disagree. Ask a Republican in New York City how they feel about their representatives or ask a Democrat, well, anywhere, how they feel about their president. It’s the trade-off of having elections.

In general, though, the system works — in part because representatives generally reflect the will of the majority of people they represent. That was largely true following Wednesday’s vote in the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump. It will probably be less true once the impeachment fight moves to the Senate.

About 53 percent of the House members who voted Wednesday supported impeachment. Because each district in the House is about the same size, that means that 53 percent of the population of the country lives in districts whose members of Congress supported impeachment.

To our original point, that doesn’t mean that everyone in those districts supported how their representatives were voting. Compared with Post-ABC News polling completed this month, the vote in the House was more strongly pro-impeachment than are Americans overall. Support for impeachment in the House edged out opposition by about eight percentage points. In our poll, support for impeachment (and removal) was three points higher than opposition.

In the Senate, where that vote on removal will take place, the picture is very different. There hasn’t been a vote on impeachment yet, and in fact most senators haven’t even stated a position on the issue. (Many, but not all, are declining to offer a position, acting under the theory that they are jurors in Trump’s impeachment trial.)

If we assume a party-line vote (which is essentially what happened in the House), 53 percent of senators would oppose impeachment — but more than half the country would live in states whose senators favored impeachment. (For these calculations, we assigned half of the state’s population to each senator to account for states with split-party senators. Independents were presumed to support removal.)

That opposition to impeachment also means that a party-line Senate vote would even less accurately reflect public polling. The difference between our theoretical Senate vote margin and the Post poll is nine points; for the House it was a bit under five points.

Isn’t this just a way to say that “the Senate isn’t representative of the population?” Sure. But that manifests in interesting ways on this particular issue.

Consider, for example, that it requires 67 votes in the Senate to oust Trump from office. That means that 34 votes are needed to preserve his position. Even if he were deeply unpopular, if Trump maintained support from senators in 17 states, he could keep his job. Meaning, in the most extreme scenario, that he could be impeached but not removed from office if senators from the 17 least-populous states — representing about 7 percent of the population — decided to stand by him.

In the House, representatives’ votes on impeachment probably didn’t frustrate that many people. About 66 percent of people who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 live in districts whose representatives supported impeachment; about 60 percent of Trump voters live in districts whose representatives opposed it.

Most white Americans live in districts whose members opposed impeachment in the House, while 65 percent of black and 71 percent of Hispanic Americans live in districts whose members supported it.

In general, that mirrored polling. Whites were about 11 percentage points more likely to live in districts whose members opposed impeachment and, according to the Post-ABC News poll, oppose impeachment and removal by about 13 points. Hispanic Americans were 42 points more likely to live in pro-impeachment districts (so to speak), a bit wider than the margin of support for impeachment in the poll.

Interestingly, because men more broadly oppose impeachment, the gap between the percentage of men who live in pro-impeachment districts and their views of it was broad, about 16 points. Among women, who generally support impeachment, the gap was much smaller.

In the Senate, things don’t line up as neatly. Again assuming a party-line vote, white Americans would be about as likely to be represented by a pro- as anti-impeachment senator. Black Americans, though, thanks to the density of the black population in Southern states, would be much more likely to be represented by a pro-impeachment senator. Overall, 6 in 10 nonwhite Americans in our poll supported impeachment.

The result is that both Hispanic and white Americans would have their views on impeachment less well represented in a party-line vote in the Senate.

Again: This is how the Senate works! It’s intended to be a different type of representative body. In a moment when there’s a lot of attention paid to the vagaries of the Constitution (impeachment, the electoral college), we should not be surprised by the extent to which the Senate deviates from national trends.

In this case, however, there’s an added significance to how the Senate works. Impeachment passed in the House by a modest margin. In the Senate, Trump’s existing advantage is only heightened on this critical vote.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Trump is squirming under his impeachment. Isn't that a delicious thought?

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, fraurosena said:

Trump is squirming under his impeachment. Isn't that a delicious thought?

 

I've been very impressed with her through this, but I didn't realize the extent of Pelosi's genius until she did this.

Brava, Madame Speaker.

[JMarie]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-senators-want-trump-to-stay-off-twitter-during-impeachment-trial/ar-BBYawBn?ocid=spartanntp

Quote

Senate Republicans have high hopes that President Trump won’t tweet during his impeachment trial.

“This is a solemn and serious undertaking and I just think we don’t need a bunch of distractions,” said Sen. John Cornyn told Politico.

The Texas Republican said it would be “optimal” for Trump to stay off the social media platform while the Senate holds the trial.

“The president will like the outcome, I believe, in the end. So ... making it easier not harder would be a good thing,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins predicted Trump would not stay quiet, despite Republicans’ wishes.

“The president would be best served by letting his lawyers speak for him and not doing any comment. At all,” the Maine senator said. “I doubt, however, that he will heed my advice.”

“He needs to be respectful of the process,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said. “He can defend himself, he has a right to express his grievances but if I were him I would … keep a low profile.”

Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota concurred: “There [are] many cases in which I hope he doesn’t tweet.”

Trump has railed against the impeachment proceedings on Twitter, even attacking several witnesses while they testified to House lawmakers.

The House voted along party lines on Wednesday to impeach Trump, making him the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. Only Democrats and one independent voted in favor of the two articles. All Republicans voted against it.

 

[adidas]

[fraurosena]

55 minutes ago, JMarie said:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-senators-want-trump-to-stay-off-twitter-during-impeachment-trial/ar-BBYawBn?ocid=spartanntp

 

Not tweeting is an anathema for Trump. He’ll tweet his tiny little thumbs off.

[fraurosena]

Oh, good! I am really enjoying the fact that the tangerine toddler is fuming  because his plans of a quick acquittal (TOTAL EXONERATION!!!) are being thwarted. 

 

[Dandruff]

I keep imagining him trying to figure out a way to get the impeachment cancelled.

[GreyhoundFan]

Whoa: "Christianity Today, an influential evangelical magazine, says President Trump should be ‘removed from office’"

Spoiler

The evangelical magazine founded by the late evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham published a surprising editorial by its editor in chief on Thursday calling for President Trump’s removal. The magazine has been critical of Trump but not politically outspoken during his administration.

The piece, which appeared to draw so many readers that the magazine’s website crashed briefly, was written by Mark Galli, who called Trump “a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”

“Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election — that is a matter of prudential judgment,” the editorial said. “That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”

Galli, who will retire from the magazine Jan. 3, wrote that the facts leading to Wednesday’s impeachment of Trump are unambiguous.

“The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents," he wrote. "That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

But the editorial didn’t just call out Trump. It called out his devout Christian supporters.

"To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve,” Galli wrote. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior.”

Graham had close friendships with several presidents before he died in 2018, but said late in his life that he wished he had distanced himself more politically. Graham’s son, the Rev. Franklin Graham, has been a highly vocal supporter of Trump and prayed at his inauguration.

Based in the suburbs of Chicago, Christianity Today aims to be the voice of evangelicals, providing news and commentary through its monthly magazine and website. Many evangelical leaders and high-profile pastors are among the magazine’s 80,000 print subscribers, and its advertisements regularly feature major evangelical institutions. In the hours after the editorial was published, “Christianity Today” was trending on Twitter.

Galli said that under his watch, the magazine has received criticism from some who wanted it to be more outspoken against the president. He said initially he thought criticisms of the president were “too panicky and fearful” and that it took him some time to decide to draw a line in the sand.

“I bend over backwards to be charitable and patient with people, including people who support Trump,” he said. “I probably went too far on that.”

The editorial said that the Ukraine-focused impeachment hearings “have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not” that Trump had abused his office. Galli said in an interview that he decided Thursday morning, hours after the late-night impeachment vote in the House of Representatives, to write about why he thinks the president should be removed.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do another editorial like this. I hate doing editorials like this,” he said. “People are going to say mean, nasty things and say how much they hate me or hate the magazine, and I don’t like that.”

Trump’s presidency has created divisions among evangelicals, especially across racial and generational lines. Many strongly support the president, and have hailed his choice of Supreme Court justices they hope will make anti-abortion rulings, among his policy choices. But others have decried Trump’s behavior and comments.

Galli said he thinks that many evangelical leaders have not been openly critical of the president because they have friends and family members who support Trump.

“It’s not easy to come out publicly that makes it seem like these people are our enemies,” he said. “There are times to be charitable. There are times to say, ‘No, I’m not going any further.’ ”

His editorial called Trump’s behavior “profoundly immoral.”

“The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration,” he wrote.

The editorial said evangelicals are playing with a “stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence,” and predicted that “the whole game will come crashing down” if they continued to ignore what Galli described as Trump’s moral failings.

“It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel,” he wrote. "And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.”

Christianity Today magazine has published some pieces in the past that were critical of Trump, including a piece by former editor Andy Crouch just before the election. In July, the president of Christianity Today, Timothy Dalrymple, wrote a piece calling out the silence among Christians in relation to Trump and racism.

“On the other hand, I sense a profound frustration among non-white Christian friends that their white brethren keep silent as the president aims ugly and demeaning statements at people of color,” Dalrymple wrote. “These friends don’t like what the silence of the white church is saying, and neither do we.”

Dalrymple reviewed Galli’s editorial before it was published. “We write according to our sense of conscience and calling,” he said in an interview. “We trust that subscribers and audience are in God’s hands.”

The magazine also posted past commentary it published during the impeachment investigations of President Richard Nixon and President Bill Clinton, noting that the magazine also had labeled Clinton “morally unable to lead.”

“Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president,” Galli wrote in the editorial. He specifically raised the issue of abortion, the reason that many evangelicals have said they voted for Trump and would do so again.

“Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?”