LAAMike

How does this proposal compare to a few years ago when Arte was to get the parking lots for development for a buck. I cannot remember the details.

At least they are consistent.

I am not quite sure what China's semiautonomous status with Hong Kong means. Is it similar to the US status with Puerto Rico?

God only knows.

A plumber? Is this an obscure AW reference? I cannot even tighten a toilet seat.

If it is going to be simply a political issue, then abuse of power may form the basis of articles of impeachment. But if you are to get the public to understand and support, then this seems like the wrong way to go. Holding back aid happens all the time and seems to be part of the horse-trading that is part of the diplomatic relations between nations/governments. There has to be an egregious and understandable lapse of conduct to get the public's support.

Assuming for a minute that the QPQ was a White House Meeting in exchange for Zelensky making a public statement about investigating either Corruption and/or Burisma and that there was no military aid as part of the QPQ as stated by Trump, then the Democrats have a problem as a "meeting or call doesn't qualify as an Official Act for the purposes of bribery prosecution" (per the Supreme Court in McDonnel vs US). Abuse of power and the obstruction of Congress are pretty weak arguments for something as big as impeaching a President.

Why would they be deported unless they came to the attention of law enforcement ? They would be like all the other undocumented folks that are already here.

I guess that we are supposed to be ashamed of our excessive after tax wealth because we are using these funds to invest in the stock market and other investments that do not provide a living wage and benefits to their employees.

Do any of you feel that Bloomberg's efforts in the Democratic primaries are to get his name and messages out there for a independent run.

A great article on Politico today about how it would only take three Republican Senators along with the Democrats to oppose the impeachment rules resolution and force the Senate vote on impeachment to be secret ballot. Many heads on this site and cable TV would explode if that scenario came to pass. The article also talks about how it might be better for Trump to take the Spiro Agnew route and get pardons for any federal, state or city crimes in return for resigning.

Well, I was certainly wrong about Kamala Harris using the early CA primary to get into contention. My only hope is that Yang stays the course although he seems to not be connecting with women (I guess because there are not too many women truck drivers).

As long as there is no fraud involved the penalty for aggressive characterization of items on your tax return is interest plus penalties on the disputed amounts. So you lose on a few claims, this is just the cost of doing business.

God does not do spell check.

That's between him and the IRS. I am sure that shady practices were involved, but were they illegal? He was found guilty of tax crimes once and fined. Trump pays his tax preparers a lot of money to skate as close to the thin ice as possible without falling in.

The IRS returns in question were not subpoenaed by a court but by the Manhattan DA in connection with an investigation whose scope is not publicly known. If there was some way to keep this information from leaking, such as a very limited and controlled release, it might be fairer. There just seems to be some political objective to it all and it seems at best a fishing expedition. The DA should ask for specific pieces of the returns that pertain to these "hush money" payments to determine if any state laws were broken rather than 7 years of returns. The federal case has already been closed with no indictments.

Trump was the fifth President elected by the Electoral College that did not have a plurality. NY and CA seem to run up the popular Democrat vote but I do not want those two states determining the Presidency.

I think that Trump would love to give her a rematch.

When will the Horowitz report and the Durham indictments arrive? They could have a huge impact on the impeachment proceedings. Basically I am hopeful that the House and Senate committees handling this mess proceed fairly. I am unsure that the average voter will be paying enough attention to see any partisanship for what it is. The press also are not helpful - yesterday's testimony was proclaimed as a bombshell vindicating their positions by both the liberal and conservative press.

Regarding the Democrat's resolution on the impeachment inquiry and the rules that will be followed in the House, I am unsure why Jerry Nadler can restrict Trump's calling of witnesses, etc. if he has failed to comply with any request for witnesses or documents sought by any House committee, which will not be drawing up the Articles of Impeachment. This would mean that Trump must submit his tax returns, which have nothing to do with the Ukraine and the complaint about the phone call. I think that the Democrat's are being "too clever" here.

I do not believe that that is true. On TV John Ratcliff, who supposedly asked questions of Bill Taylor that considerably weakened his statement, said he could not disclose these questions/answers due to Committee rules. I then read in the NY Times article that Bill Taylor could not cite any direct conversations or emails that supported his statement that quid pro quo occurred. Second hand or hearsay should not decide this question. The people that Bill Taylor said were supposedly his sources will have to testify to clear this up

I prefer to think of it as our Committee (as a voting citizen) which just happens to have a Democratic Chairman and a Democratic majority. Again my point is that polling on whether an impeachment should proceed will just yield misleading results until both sides get their respective chances to present the facts.

The whole deposition thing is because some of them would not appear for a hearing at the request of the Committee. Depositions have different rules and one is that the hearings must be closed. Since this was the Intelligence Committee, it is not unusual to have a closed hearing. If this was just a regular hearing and not a deposition the whole process would be telecast and any congressman, news reporter or member of the public could attend but obviously only the Committee members could ask questions.

I believe that these more recent polls are useless as the "facts" are still not in front of us because of the closed door nature of the proceedings. Leaking selected "facts" should not settle the issue. I personally would like to hear John Ratcliff question these witnesses before I form my opinion of which statements are the most believable. I also believe that the Syria pullout is coloring these polls.

I am unsure of how the ISIS prisoners should be dealt with. There is no ISIS nation for them to be returned to. The European allies are not allowing any to be returned to their countries. So the Kurds are just stuck with the responsibility and expense of jailing them? If there was any an operation that the UN should take over, it would seem to be dealing with the ISIS prisoners should be on their dance card.