I can already hear the echoes ringing in the GOP convention hall next summer:

"Bad, but not Impeachable!"
"Bad, but not Impeachable!"
"Bad, but not Impeachable!"

Palpable excitement, smiling faces as the chants emanate to the world.

You aren’t missing much. People wishing for trumps painful death, people wishing that his children died painful deaths in front of him. People wishing another 9/11 happened so they could blame him for it. None of these posts were removed or the posters banned of course even though their old mods here would ban me for saying things like 70% of Latinos vote dem so why would the Dems ever fix our southern border?

What are you talking about? The federal rules of evidence don't apply to impeachment inquiries.

Ok so clearly you feel that no Republican can ever look into Biden in Ukraine. So who is supposed to? We have to wait for a Democrat president to hopefully do it?

Maybe I'm naive, but this is how I imagine most political dealings go when there is a perceived power imbalance... And I understand the issue is the coercion for personal gain moreso than the mob boss tactics.

You can look into what opposition party members are up to in a foriegn country. You just can't ask the foriegn country to look into it. Can you not see why that is important? Once you start mixing foriegn and domestic politics--that is treason.

Ordering drone strikes that kill innocent civilians is bad but not impeachable. I'd guess high up have to do bad **** all the time.

It's a feature not a bug!

How is that treason? I could see an attempt to convince Ukraine to frame Biden as being treason, but not the way you present it

People are saying it's treason. It's because getting Ukraine their foriegn aid is a part of the strategic interests of the United States of America and when Trump held up that money he was jeopardizing national security.

The President can't withhold congressionally mandated funding to a foreign country as leverage in an attempt to get that country to help him personally in his re-election campaign. Treason might be an overstatement, but it's a clear abuse of office, even leaving aside "national security" issues or the like. It's also straightforwardly illegal.

So that's the allegation which the partial transcript and whistleblower complaint make very strongly. Even if you don't think the complaint proves the connection between the withholding of funding (which is well documented) and the request for a "favor" (also well documented) it should still appear highly suggestive. Even to the point where it almost seems like you have to be pretty motivated towards wanting to exonerate Trump to believe that the point wasn't clear to the Ukranian president, who I believe has already said that discussions about investigating Biden were a precondition of the phone call.

But, if you want stronger evidence, that's what the impeachment inquiry is for.

Ding ding ding.

It’s not treason in a legal sense. Sort of a moot point since the POTUS can’t be indicted.

another ding ding ding.

OMG, that whistle blower report is full of characterizations of facts.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...mid=tw-nytimes

I've literally never had a conversation like that in my entire life. Seemed like a super standard conversation to both, though. Would lead me to believe that it in fact was a super standard conversation for those two to have. Which would further lead me to believe that it was a fairly standard interaction at the highest political level.

Like, I don't care if he's impeached beyond how it affects my 401k, but I get the feeling the main motivation behind all this is that Trump is unlikeable, not that his actions are deeply unsettling to congress

Same here.

I also have zero confidence in the integrity of House Democrats.

I'm cool with impeaching Mr. Trump.

Pence > Trump.

As a CDN I still don't understand how the President of the USA withheld funding unless the Ukraine investigated Biden is wrong but Joe Biden withholding billion $ unless a prosecutors is fired that is investigating his son is not wrong .

They both look wrong to me. I think the average vote will ask that as well

If this administration carried out Watergate, you'd have Giuliani out in the Watergate hallway with an Amazon-bought lock-pick charged to his credit card, looking up "how to pick locks" on a borrowed government-issued smartphone.

Kind of this, but not exactly this.

I don't think it is quite as simple as saying a U.S. President can never pressure a foreign government to do something that is in his own political interest, broadly defined.

For example, if Obama had evidence that Russia and the Trump campaign were working together to rig the presidential election, I have no doubt that it would be legally permissible for Obama to tell Putin to cut that **** out or else, even if Russia ceasing to interfere would be to the benefit of Obama's political party.

But that scenario is a million miles away from what Trump is alleged to have done here. Here, the only interest being served is Trump's personal political interest. There is no broader goal or national interest, such as preserving the integrity of elections. And only the truly delusional could think that there was no implicit quid pro quo.

I think both lack integrity and Pence is worse than Trump. Beat him in the election and call it a day

The bolded is probably true. And that's a big part of the problem.

Does anyone believe that Trump acted out of character here? I doubt it. It's essentially the same playbook he followed with Comey when he asked Comey to quit looking into Flynn, except that this is worse because Trump was withholding something of value from the person he was leaning on.

You can't defend unethical conduct by saying that you acted consistent with your own past practice.

Think about your logic in the context of white collar crime. When Raj Rajaratnam talked to a member of the Goldman Sachs board about Goldman's upcoming earnings announcement, they both seemed pretty comfortable, like these sorts of calls had occurred in the past. (OK. Go on.) So the calls must not have violated insider trading laws. (WTF?)

My current plan is to vote Libertarian. Since I live in California, my presidential vote is meaningless, thanks to the archaic Electoral College.

Of course. Incompetence and buffoonery have always been a core theme of the Trump presidency.

Because any hint of that kind of thing being done by the left is hand waved away. They assume the motives of people on the left are altruistic, always. To be fair, it does not appear there was any real foul play here, but the idea that the left is upset that Trump wants it looked into...is pure gold. Especially when it appears the whistleblower is a raging lefty.