NOW! It's time for impeachment proceedings in the House.

[MineralMan]

It wasn't before now, but the evidence is now clear. Obstruction of justice. Time to act and investigate on that basis. No brainer!

[uponit7771]

1. K&R, ... and they couldn't find collusion because of sooo much Obstruction of Justice !!

[MineralMan]

2. Yes. Exactly.

[gilpo]

3. Sorry, MM but I disagree...

This Senate will never, ever, ever remove him. If he's impeached and not removed and then somehow wins the election, we are all so very, completely and utterly fucked.

I'm not usually a fan of keeping the powder dry arguments, but the stakes are just too high here.

[MineralMan]

6. I've been waiting. Now the evidence of

obstruction is clear. It's time for Articles of Impeachment. Mueller did all the work. The evidence is there. The Senate will not remove, but the facts will tell the story. Pay it all out in public.

[Takket]

20. Exactly

If letting a guilty man have a fair trial and then letting him run the country is the hill the GOP wants to die on, let them.

There isn’t going to be any hiding from a Senate trial. No submitting “written” responses your lawyer wrote, no firing people who get too close to the truth. No tweeting to your supporters lie after lie.

He’s going to have to face hard questions with no filter. And the American people aren’t stupid. (At least not the 66% of Dems and indies watching this).

[PatrickforO]

33. I'm with you on this.

Just what I've read so far present ample grounds for impeachment. And, yes, we do know the Senate will not try and remove, but that does not in any way relieve the people's House of doing its duty. Just the things I've read so far are smoking guns. Yep. That's enough for me.

Worst.

President.

Ever.

[Thekaspervote]

46. Yes, all that is correct, but what is gained if we loose 2020 over a failed impeachment!?

[Bettie]

48. What if we lose 2020 over

our leadership refusing to act when faced with clear evidence of criminality?

Will it energize our side to know that he can do whatever he wants with absolutely no repercussion?

Fact is, we don't know what is going to happen, either way.

[treestar]

15. Though that happened with Clinton

It might not happen with Dotard. Most of the general rules of thumb don't seem to apply to the Dotard. So maybe that acts in a positive fashion, too.

[spanone]

4. K&R... Mueller spelled it out in this report....wake up congress

[dumbcat]

5. I don't see why any more investigation is needed

The investigation has been done. The House just needs to write up the articles of impeachment and just VOTE.

When it gets to the Senate, just submit the redacted Mueller report. No more evidence is needed.

[MineralMan]

8. Oh, there will be more ivestigation, complete without

Public hearings. All televised. It will all come out. Mueller just provided the framework.

[dumbcat]

10. But they're not needed

It will all be political theater. There is already more than enough to write up articles of impeachment. Further hearings will just be grandstanding, waste time, and take it closer to the election.

[TwilightZone]

9. Several of the investigations are still ongoing.

Mueller referred more than a dozen issues to other jurisdictions and the House is continuing investigations, as well.

We get one shot at this. The more information we have at the time, the better.

"When it gets to the Senate"

It will die. That's the unfortunate elephant in the room that we don't want to spend much time contemplating.

[dumbcat]

11. Why do you say "We get one shot at this."?

Is there some sort of double jeopardy provisions for impeachments? I don't think so. Why artificially limit ourselves? Keep pushing and don't give up.

[TwilightZone]

12. We get one shot at impeachment.

This isn't complicated.

[dumbcat]

14. Why?

If it isn't complicated it should be easy to explain.

[TwilightZone]

16. What's there to explain?

We're not going to impeach him more than once between now and election 2020. Are you seriously having trouble with that concept?

[dumbcat]

18. You have spoken!

I hear and obey.

[PatrickforO]

41. Well, that was a little snarky.

I think she was talking about the concept of double jeopardy, where if House Dems draw up articles of impeachment now, based on what they have, but the trial by Senate fails, is it over? Or, if something else comes up, could a second set of Articles be drawn up and voted on?

To my mind, I think they need to allow the tsunami to build with some testimony from Mueller, but only for a couple weeks. Then, they should have enough.

As to dumbcat's question, to my mind, any time the House ever gets evidence that a president has done something impeachable, they are duty bound under the Constitution to act. That's whether it happens one time or ten times.

I'm thinking the best thing we could do is subpoena Mueller, make as many of the redacts public as possible, and then move with the Articles. The yeas will surely carry, and Trump will be impeached, putting the Turtle in quite a quandary.

If he doesn't allow it to come to a vote, that will make him and the Republicans in the Senate look really bad towards a much wider audience than they are used to - the whole nation. If he does allow a floor vote, then every Republican who votes against will be vulnerable when they are up for reelection, because the people will see more and more damaging things about Trump emerge as the investigations continue.

The proverbial chickens are about to come home to roost.

You should smooth things over with dumbcat because we are generally polite to one another on here.

[Honeycombe8]

35. Because if it doesn't pass the first time,....

it's a waste of time to keep trying. It looks more like a partisan "we're gonna get this guy 'cause we don't like him" thing.

The public won't stand for it, IMO. And it's very expensive and time consuming. It costs millions, and the politicians' time will be devoted to investigations and impeachment hearings.

Unless there's new evidence, there's just no point. You get one shot at it.

[dumbcat]

39. Thank you

So, it's purely optics, as we all know.

But this struck me as funny:

It looks more like a partisan "we're gonna get this guy 'cause we don't like him" thing.

Well, Duh! That's the whole point. It's not like we like the guy, but we're going to impeach him anyway.

[Honeycombe8]

40. Liking him or not has nothing to do with it. I would impeach someone I like.

If he committed an impeachable offense.

[Honeycombe8]

34. True. nt

[brooklynite]

13. You mean like they voted for Impeachment immediately after the Saturday Night Masscre?

Might want to check your history book.

[dumbcat]

17. Is it written somewhere that we have to follow

that, or any other precedent?

And I don't need a history book. I watched that all unfold.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

7. Emotionally satisfying idea, but this would not work in the long run.

The Senate will not convict. Trump and his supporters will spin this as total exoneration for Trump and political vindictiveness on the part of the Democrats. Given the fact that this denouement will probably occur much closer to the 2020 election, Trump is likely to be reelected.

Yes, lets investigate, try to uncover more of the truth, let the voters know clearly how awful this administration is. But unless the investigation uncovers enough to make the Republican Senators willing to convict, impeachment is a loosing strategy.

[honest.abe]

22. Stop worrying about what "Trump and his supporters" will do.

Better to be more concerned about what the rest of America wants.

[BBG]

28. This!

What you said. A thousand times over.

Thanks for the shot of reality and brevity.

[Traildogbob]

36. Agree

Sick of cowards being concerned it might rile up his base. Have ya seen a tRump KKKlan rally? Have you seen the death threats to women in congress, anti gun activist, abortion rights groups, Maxine, Muslims of any kind? If they rile anymore they will pop a vein. Then let em bleed out.

[Honeycombe8]

38. We'd have to see a poll.

I'm guessing that since Mueller didn't recommend indictment or declare a crime was committed, many in the public would view it as a partisan "angry Democrats" thing and would just be tired of the drama. This has been an exhausting two years.

All for getting impeachment on the historical record, since we can't remove him from office.

I did think that Congress should impeach just for the historical record thing, but now, I'm not so sure.

I'm sure the Democratic Party leaders will discuss courses of action and make careful decisions.

[PatrickforO]

42. You say better to be more concerned about what the rest of America wants, but

that isn't really it.

They need to be concerned about whether Trump has committed impeachable offenses, because if they let him off the hook for that, they will be going against the Constitution and the oaths they swore to uphold it. Some people, I think more than a few of the new batch of Dems, still believe in the moral aspects of public services.

Unlike the Republicans, who lost the moral high ground, and morality itself, a long time ago.

[stillcool]

19. it is necessary that someone..

start communicating with the American people, and at least impeachment hearings will accomplish that, so why not?

[MineralMan]

21. Exactly.

[Evolve Dammit]

25. Agree

[humbled_opinion]

23. 100 % K&R

Evidence is screaming get this imbecile out of office before he does something really, really stupid and gets people killed.

[MineralMan]

24. True.

[BeyondGeography]

26. Mueller to House Democrats

I did my job. Time for you to do yours.

[MineralMan]

27. Yes. It's all in the report.

The case is laid out, point by point.

[Honeycombe8]

29. I thought so before. But now? To what end?

To have impeachment on his record? Well, that's something. It's in the historical record. But to do that by Democrats only, in the year before a Presidential election? I don't know. Maybe.

But I don't see any Republican signing onto that, since Trump can't be removed (because of the Senate). His wrath in all its glory would be directed toward any Republican who voted for impeachment. So the impeachment would be viewed by many in the public, IMO, as a partisan thing. This would give Trump the "angry Democrats" spin he loves to use at rallies.

The public is also exhausted from all this drama. So, although I used to think we had no option but to go for impeachment, now I'm not so sure.

[State the Obvious]

47. I specifically agree with your 2nd paragraph.

"....since Trump CAN'T be removed (because of the Senate)".

If the Senate needs a super majority (2/3 of the Senate) in order to impeach. Wouldn't we need approximately 16 Republican Senators to "jump ship" and join the Democrats' vote in order to get that super majority? Not going to happen. We couldn't even get 3 Republicans in the Senate to join Democrats against Brett Kavanaugh?

Republicans would like nothing more than to distract Democratic candidates from talking policy. They can do this IF they can get us into a fight about impeachment.

[still_one]

30. I think we need Mueller to testify first under oath, before that happens

[Tipperary]

31. I wish I believed they would do it.

I heard a lot of mealy-mouthing today. I just do not think they will do it.

[OliverQ]

32. Apparently Democrats aren't interested.

Steny Hoyer and Adam Schiff both said no point impeaching him since Senate wont' convict. They're just going to let him continue to destroy the country and commit crimes and hope he gets voted out.

[Hekate]

37. Big shift today. I await developments, and boy are they developing.

[C_U_L8R]

43. Open investigation before impeachment.

A sizeable percent of the country needs to be informed. If they see and recognize the truth, they will be outraged.

[gulliver]

44. Nope. Let the Republican Party swallow the hook. That's the big fish.

[BarbD]

45. Absolutely agree.

[Ahpook]

49. I like what Maddow just said

The ball is in Pelosi's court and everyone else that can and should do something.

If we hear "Off The Table" this time, fuck her and every one of them. They are part of the problem!