A President is empowered to make US Policy. He can delegate powers to the State Department, but nothing stops the President from overriding the State Department. Talking Points are not a legally meaningful document. They are guidance.
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Asking My Trump People To Be Better (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Joe Bryant
- Start date
Semantics? I suppose to some the Constitution is just semantics. The President is empowered to ask for an investigation and make that policy.
James Daulton
Footballguy
What if the president says liberal cities are hell holes and corrupt. Is that US policy?
What if he says that windmills cause cancer and are dangerous, is that US policy?
What if he sharpies up a weather map to show a fake hurricane path, is that US policy?
What if he says that we are no longer allies with Europe, is that US policy?
1. That is not a policy and it is not something the feds are empowered to do anything about.
2. That is not a policy. But action would be required by Congress to address.
3. That is not a policy. The Preisdent has no control over weather paths fortunately.
4. Arguably he could since that is a foreign policy matter. But since it is party of a treaty probably not.
So....no, no, no, and no.
tommyGunZ
Footballguy
jon, the leaders at State and Defense , as well as Trump’s NSAdvisor, along with all of the career diplomats and ambassadors, were advising against withholding this aid. In short, it was virtually unanimous even amongst Trump’s own hand picked team that withholding aid made no sense.
The exact opposite was the case in the Biden example. Everyone from our government was on the same page, along with our allies in the international community. In sum, Biden was carrying out the policy that everyone agreed was in the best interests of the US, Europe, and others in the West.
Aren’t you curious as to why Trump decided to ignore the advice of State leadership, his NSA, the DOD, his ambassadors, etc. and tied the release of the funds to an announcement of an investigation of the Biden’s? Even if constitutionally within his power, is it your view that Trump just happened to have a serious interest in Ukraine corruption, enough as to completely ignore the consensus foreign policy advice and go in the opposite direction? Where is the evidence of his concern for corruption - as noted by others he never mentioned corruption in any of his calls with Zelenskiy. Is it your opinion after watching Trump over the last few years that he has a personal passion for rooting out corruption, while at the same time having to pay 10s of millions in fines for his own personal corruption?
The exact opposite was the case in the Biden example. Everyone from our government was on the same page, along with our allies in the international community. In sum, Biden was carrying out the policy that everyone agreed was in the best interests of the US, Europe, and others in the West.
Aren’t you curious as to why Trump decided to ignore the advice of State leadership, his NSA, the DOD, his ambassadors, etc. and tied the release of the funds to an announcement of an investigation of the Biden’s? Even if constitutionally within his power, is it your view that Trump just happened to have a serious interest in Ukraine corruption, enough as to completely ignore the consensus foreign policy advice and go in the opposite direction? Where is the evidence of his concern for corruption - as noted by others he never mentioned corruption in any of his calls with Zelenskiy. Is it your opinion after watching Trump over the last few years that he has a personal passion for rooting out corruption, while at the same time having to pay 10s of millions in fines for his own personal corruption?
That is probably all true. Trump in all likelihood was motivated to score some pretty political points against Biden. And he probably is near the top of corrupt people ever to be president. But trump is our elected-President who we empowered to make foreign affairs decisions.
But let's not pretend the Democrats did not waste the last couple of years spending countless hours and many many millions of our tax dollars trying to prove Trump colluded with Russia when it was always self-evident that Russia did what what does and it wouldn't give two squats about what Trump thought. If you want to get rid of Trump, beat him in the election. Don't waste out time on some loosely contrived articles of impeachment which will only go down party line voting and have zero chance of success. And for God's sake put out a candidate who is less corrupt than Hillary Clinton.
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James Daulton
Footballguy
tommyGunZ
Footballguy
As our President, Trump has certain powers articulated under Article 2. I strongly disagree with your apparent view that Presidents have unlimited power to conduct foreign affairs for corrupt purposes, and we simply have to sit back and ignore it. The constitution provides a mechanism for abuse of power, and it is being exercised.
I’m blown away by your view on executive power. I thought you self identified as a conservative?
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I was thinking the same thing reading through it. I had to double check the title of the thread.
tommyGunZ
Footballguy
You conceded that Trump abused power for personal political benefit, but then disagreed with holding him accountable.
tommyGunZ
Footballguy
BladeRunner
Footballguy
You're absolutely right, it isn't.
But if you're going to bring that up you better make darn sure that you're holding your own politicians that you agree with accountable.
That's not happening, in my opinion. So now you want a whole hell of a lot of people to do the right thing (according to you) when you yourself aren't doing it. And when I say you I don't mean you specifically, I mean in general.
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My point wasn't to defend. But we need consistent and clear standards for what is impeachable. For instance, the second article of impeachment is for Obstruction is a joke. Stonewalling congressional investigations by invoking executive privilege goes on virtually during every administration. There is a legal process through the courts to go through to compel them to testify and release documents. Impeachment is not the process. The Democrats have now set the bar ridiculously low.
The first article includes too many exaggerations of opinion than fact. Did any of this really "compromised the national security of the United States"? The US was never even remotely in any danger due to this. If one little political trick "undermined the integrity of the United States democratic process," our nation is in serious trouble.
The House needed to clearly state the crime and the standard instead of babbling on with a bunch of rhetoric. I would argue many of those points could be applied to any number of politicians. What elements need to be proven to gain a conviction? If everything in article 1 needs to be substantiated, it is an easy day to say not guilty. For successful impeachment there needs to be a clear standard which differentiates what Trump did versus the stuff which goes on year end and year out in politics. You can't have a bunch of political hypocrites impeaching the opposing party's president.
timschochet
Footballguy
This is a false argument that has been corrected several times and yet people continue to make it:
Trump’s stonewalling of Congress is unique in American political history, completely unlike every other administration. Every administration cooperated with Congress to some degree and resisted to some degree claiming executive privilege. Trump has refused to cooperate 100% of the time and he has never claimed executive privilege. He is claiming something new called “absolute privilege”. The entire purpose of this new claim has been to stall, delay things in the courts so that the next election would take place, hopefully making the impeachment issue a dead one. That is the obstruction of Congress. You’re welcome to disagree with it, but please stop claiming that other administrations have done the same thing.. it’s not true; this is all very new.
dkp993
Footballguy
As you and I discussed before, it HAS to start somewhere sometime. Now is as good as time as any, I have yet to see a reasonable argument to not. And yes accountability for all. Starting at the top seems like a great place to start.
Mile High
Footballguy
Exactly. I don't hold an allegiance with any politician. Hold all of them accountable. Top to bottom.
Nothing you said conflicts with anything I said. The proper way to deal with it is to go through the courts.
jm192
Footballguy
This. But they wanted an impeachment and figured if they threw this spaghetti and the fridge, it would stick.
jm192
Footballguy
It's also unique that there has been a non-stop "investigation" or impeachment attempt since the campaign.
He cooperative with Meuller for the most part. Providing answers to written questions, releasing documents and allowed access to staff. Not particularly forthcoming with his answers, but certainly there was a decent level of cooperation. And Trump lost his battle to invoke “absolute immunity” not "executive immunity". Certainly Trump claimed executive previledge. I am not sure where many of your assertions are coming from.
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squistion
Footballguy
sho nuff
Footballguy
The claim was "Trump has refused to cooperate 100% of the time." Clearly that was a hyperbole. I did not claim Trump fully cooperated. Seems like you are working too hard to find something to disagree with.
timschochet
Footballguy
Not if going through the courts delays things past the election, which was the whole purpose of these constant appeals.
sho nuff
Footballguy
You said “for the most part”. Id contend that the number of instances of obstruction Mueller cited refutes that.
And enough with the bolded and unnecessary comment please.
squistion
Footballguy
TheMagus
Footballguy
I'm just really bummed out and I thought I would post this here.
So we spent the last few days visiting my wife's family in the midwest. They are all die hard Trump supporters. I don't discuss politics at all around them and I think they know not to bring up politics in front of us because we are so diametrically opposed on Trump.
So over the past few years, my wife's family has been saying openly racist or bigoted things in front of us which makes us highly uncomfortable and honestly pretty miserable. This last rendition was sitting in my brother in law's house the other day and watching HGTV where they were doing a "Love It or List It" episode and the couple in the show was Hispanic. So we were all sitting around and talking about the renovations they were proposing and my wife's uncle said "Maybe he should get his green card before he worries about fixing his house." The husband in the show was the principal of a school and didn't even have any kind of non-American accent. Not that it matters, but I would venture to guess that he was born in the US and has lived here his entire life.
My wife and I looked at each other (because we've discussed this before) but man I was in a bad mood for the rest of the trip. I really don't want to be in the presence of bigots. And it is just really upsetting to me to hear things like that and it's not the first time (last time we visited the uncle's comments were exponentially worse and involved an African American football player).
It upsets me because I know how hurtful words like that are to people of color, many of whom I know and love deeply.
And the thing is... prior to Trump entering the scene, I cannot recall witnessing anything like this. In the past few years, I have heard black football players being referred to as "boy", a gay waiter being referred to as a "queer" (with contempt), and a general assertion that the problem with Muslims was their religion and people needed to wake up to that.
So why am I posting this in this thread?
I know that all Trump supporters aren't racists/bigots. I know that. BUT of all the people that I know that openly support Trump (there aren't many and this is anecdotal) about 75% of them have made a racist or bigoted comment in my presence over the last three years.
That's where I personally struggle with the "good people" who have different priorities narrative. Again my experience is completely anecdotal and I don't actually have a huge sample size of people I know that support Trump being a liberal coastal elite and all. I don't think that the people I have encountered that are Trump supporters (my family included) are "good people." I think they are kinda racist and bigoted so that takes them out of the "good" bucket for me. It also makes it really hard for me to feel "empathy" for different beliefs when everything I am experiencing is telling me that Trump's worst qualities are the most desirable among his ardent supporters. And I continue to think that the lack of "empathy" is on the side that is supporting Trump and can't see how hurtful his words and actions are to people that are not white Christians and how it is emboldening people to say the quiet parts out loud that they should have learned decades ago wasn't OK.
I just needed to get that off my chest because I've been in a really miserable mood for the past couple of days.
So we spent the last few days visiting my wife's family in the midwest. They are all die hard Trump supporters. I don't discuss politics at all around them and I think they know not to bring up politics in front of us because we are so diametrically opposed on Trump.
So over the past few years, my wife's family has been saying openly racist or bigoted things in front of us which makes us highly uncomfortable and honestly pretty miserable. This last rendition was sitting in my brother in law's house the other day and watching HGTV where they were doing a "Love It or List It" episode and the couple in the show was Hispanic. So we were all sitting around and talking about the renovations they were proposing and my wife's uncle said "Maybe he should get his green card before he worries about fixing his house." The husband in the show was the principal of a school and didn't even have any kind of non-American accent. Not that it matters, but I would venture to guess that he was born in the US and has lived here his entire life.
My wife and I looked at each other (because we've discussed this before) but man I was in a bad mood for the rest of the trip. I really don't want to be in the presence of bigots. And it is just really upsetting to me to hear things like that and it's not the first time (last time we visited the uncle's comments were exponentially worse and involved an African American football player).
It upsets me because I know how hurtful words like that are to people of color, many of whom I know and love deeply.
And the thing is... prior to Trump entering the scene, I cannot recall witnessing anything like this. In the past few years, I have heard black football players being referred to as "boy", a gay waiter being referred to as a "queer" (with contempt), and a general assertion that the problem with Muslims was their religion and people needed to wake up to that.
So why am I posting this in this thread?
I know that all Trump supporters aren't racists/bigots. I know that. BUT of all the people that I know that openly support Trump (there aren't many and this is anecdotal) about 75% of them have made a racist or bigoted comment in my presence over the last three years.
That's where I personally struggle with the "good people" who have different priorities narrative. Again my experience is completely anecdotal and I don't actually have a huge sample size of people I know that support Trump being a liberal coastal elite and all. I don't think that the people I have encountered that are Trump supporters (my family included) are "good people." I think they are kinda racist and bigoted so that takes them out of the "good" bucket for me. It also makes it really hard for me to feel "empathy" for different beliefs when everything I am experiencing is telling me that Trump's worst qualities are the most desirable among his ardent supporters. And I continue to think that the lack of "empathy" is on the side that is supporting Trump and can't see how hurtful his words and actions are to people that are not white Christians and how it is emboldening people to say the quiet parts out loud that they should have learned decades ago wasn't OK.
I just needed to get that off my chest because I've been in a really miserable mood for the past couple of days.
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