From our lords and masters at the BBC: "Trump impeachment - your questions answered."

Umm...that would be nice, but the BBC seems to very carefully not allow us to actually ask any questions when they are reporting on the impeachment proceedings. Nor can I recall them ever having done so in the last year or two leading up to the current proceedings. I think I am beginning to see a pattern. Boris, please do something.

Just what I'd expect, a balanced, non-partisan analysis of another country's politics, not.

Sadly, the days of bi-partisanship are over. You could argue that the Republicans started it with their impeachment proceedings against Clinton. Now the Democrats are responding in kind. The Senate is controlled by the Republicans, so this (impeachment) will go nowhere. I suspect it's real purpose is to cast a shadow over Trump going into next year's Presidential election.

It might, however, backfire. Just as we in the UK were told we'd got it wrong over Brexit, and indeed were told that we'd changed our minds, we ended up sticking 2 fingers up at the establishment at the first (and second) opportunity/ies (the EU elections, and the general election just gone), the "deplorables" in the US might deliver an electoral backlash against the Democrats' arrogance come the next POTUS election.

NB I am far from a Trump fan. The big issue is the arrogance of the establishment elites across the western world in refusing to accept democratic votes, and then not understanding when those pesky voters don't accept being told that they were wrong. The liberal establishment will never win back voters' trust by behaving in this way.

Tomo wouldn't dream of imposing my views of American politics upon others. I just observe, just as I did when I lived there.

Twit

Still here. No snide, but interesting that you self-identify. Opinions presented as fact, many devoid of any substance.

Mark the composition of the US House is the product of democratic votes.
Clinton beat Trump in the popular vote and Trump has never reached an approval rating even close to 50%. All this talk of democracy - which type do you prefer?
At least in the UK the Remain argument is now totally routed by both parliamentary election and by referendum.

Tomo. No improvement from you however. All still biased opinion with no balance whatsoever. But then I never had any great expectations.

Dec 19, 2019 at 8:49 AM Mark Hodgson

Agree in full.

The possibilities for major backfires from US Voters, happy to be employed, definitely exist.

Trump said he would not jail St Hillary. He did not offer a free pardon to her Democrat associates. Mueller did not find the evidence he was assured did exist. He published evidence that did exist.

For some reason, Republicans have held back from reprisals so far. They never offered anyone a free pardon.

Still trying to drag me down to your own biased level (with added insults)?
Keep proving my point for me, why don't you?

I have my opinions about the impeachment, but unlike you I feel no compulsion to broadcast them to all and sundry. My disrespect for Trump is well known, so just take it as read.

Perhaps others will see the trick described below as being relatively trivial compared to the revelations of FISA abuse in the IG report by Horowitz. However, there is more than a touch of irony here, as the trick was perpetrated within the IG report itself. AFAIK, it was first exposed by a commenter at theconservativetreehouse.com, but it is easy to confirm yourself with a little knowledge of Word and by downloading the IG report available here:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

If you search (use “find”) for the word Comey you will get zero occurrences. That’s odd. Now try Corney (CORNEY); you will get lots of occurrences except the word looks just like Comey (COMEY) in the text. Briefly, the trick is that prior to converting the Word version of the report, all references to Comey were replaced by the word Corney where the spacing between the letters r and n alone had been reduced to the point that they looked just like m. The first occurrence is in the Executive Summary section on OIG Methodology, second sentence. In Word, using the font Verdana, retype part of the sentence containing Corney and Attorney and compare the spacing between r and n for the two words, and then compare with the pdf version.

Imagine how useful this trick could be when responding to FOI requests that ask for, say, any report that includes the word Comey.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/this-lowers-the-standard-for-impeachment-say-republicans-who-did-it-over-a-blowjob-20191219191986

Why bother? You profess to be all knowledgeable (actually all opinionated).

AK, democracy is indeed a difficult concept. Under the UK's FPTP electoral system, we are frequently saddled with governments with huge majorities in terms of seats, yet the party in power gained nowhere near 50% of the votes cast, never mind having the support of 50% of the electorate. I think it was one of Blair's governments that had a substantial Parliamentary majority based on around 25% support from the electorate (low turnout explains why the support % was so low).

However, nobody complained. He won his majority in Parliament, based on the rules of the game as they apply here. So, Trump gained less than 50% of the vote. He still won, fair and square, within the US system. It is not all that uncommon for the loser of the popular vote to become POTUS.* Their system is no more perfect than ours.

Yes, the Democrats have a democratically obtained majority in the House of Representatives. Thus they can impeach away to their hearts' content. It doesn't mean it's a wise thing to do, any more than it was wise of the Republicans to try to impeach Bill Clinton.

I would like to see less partisan politics in both UK and USA, with politicians putting country before party (or, at least, if they put party first, at least to calculate intelligently how best to do it, rather than operating on knee-jerk impulses that play badly with the voters). I doubt if I'll see it any time soon.

*For info:

"Fifteen candidates (three of them twice) have become president of the United States with a popular vote less than 50% of the total cast. It should be noted, however, that in elections before 1872, presidential electors were not chosen by popular vote in all states. Adams's election in 1824 was by the House of Representatives, which chose him over Jackson, who had a plurality of both electoral and popular votes, but not a majority in the electoral college.

Besides Jackson in 1824, only three other candidates receiving the largest popular vote have failed to gain a majority in the electoral college—Samuel J. Tilden (D) in 1876, Grover Cleveland (D) in 1888, and Al Gore (D) in 2000."

https://www.infoplease.com/us/government/elections/presidents-elected-without-a-majority

Mark. Nevertheless, I find it of interest when people consider a referendum result grounds to argue that members of the minority position should or must cease arguing their case. I totally disagree.
Given your repeated statements that Western politicians should listen to what their electorates are telling them, what is your position upon the GE result in Scotland? It seems to me that the SNP have a strong case for another independence referendum and the Westminster government little reason to deny it, but I'm open to be persuaded otherwise.

At least in the UK the Remain argument is now totally routed by both parliamentary election and by referendum.

Except, ironically, 52% of the vote went to parties who supported Brexit or a second referendum.

PC however you cannot conclude that all those favouring a second referendum are (or were) opposed to Brexit. So what is your argument?