Trump Impeachment inquiry and the Ukraine

I don't know.

I don't have a problem with Trump getting impeached, and it may very well be the case that there are legitimate grounds to do exactly that.

But...my overall sense of all this is that it reflects Trump's ham-handed approach to, well, just about everything (which of course is a primary reason--like his dishonesty--why he's a lousy President). And in that regard, his bull-in-a-china-shop antics are leading to some covers being pulled back that most career pols would have preferred were never pulled back (to say the least).

Relatives of powerful politicians trading on such relationships are, of course, not a new thing. That's been going on as long as there have been politicians (and politicians, themselves, have used their offices to enrich themselves since time immemorial). And by and large, most people seem to just chalk such conduct up to "business as usual." Such activities are only a "problem" when they're overly blatant. Trump is, as a rule, overly blatant. But then, what went on with Biden, his son, and the Ukraine was kinda blatant, too.

I think, if I could have my way, the end result here would be Trump resigning (before getting impeached), Biden retiring from politics, and Biden's son forking over some hefty fines.

Of course, that would leave us with President Pence...

Another one for the ol' signature line...

What I said was that "what went on with Biden, his son, and the Ukraine was kinda blatant, too."  And it doesn't equate to anything Trump has done, nor does it need to for it to be wrong, imo.

Biden's son traded on his father's political office to make some major jingle in the Ukraine. And Biden pressured the Ukraine to fire a prosecutor, an action that seemed to help the company his son was involved with. Biden may have had the best of intentions when he threatened the Ukraine over Shokin, Shokin may have been corrupt as hell, but it all still looks like shit, in my view. It doesn't look clean or right, at all. That's mostly the fault of Hunter Biden, to be sure, but Joe Biden didn't try to stop the bs, but instead chose to pretend he didn't know what was going on when I think anyone with at least half a brain knows he knew, full well.

And again, this is the kind of stuff that maybe we've all been conditioned to accept, to treat as no big deal, and not "corruption" per se. Trump's biggest problem with his various transgressions is his lack of subtly, his lack of understanding how these various games are played. 

So again, I'd like to see Trump resign, I think, though I guess if he doesn't he'll need to be impeached (I really don't think actual impeachment will serve the country well, going forward). But at the same time, Biden needs to sit down, because he's not going to get out from under this, regardless, especially if Trump gets taken down. Again, it may be more his son's fault than his, but he ultimately let it go on.

And if these things happen, maybe we'll get some common sense rules finally put in place that prevent the family members of national politicians--and this includes spouses--from making money off of political connections.

 Your first sentence may well be correct with regard to the actions of Biden's son.

The rest is incorrect.  Have you read the articles I posted?  Getting rid of the prosecutor did not help the son's company.  Firing the corrupt prosecutor actually made an investigation of the son's company more likely.  E.g., from the NY Times article:



From the Bulwark article:

It's straight out of the Trumpian playbook -- an attempt to confuse things, to throw up a miasma of bullshit so that lots of people say "both sides" and/or throw up their hands and say "oh, it's confusing who knows what happened" (but a vague stink of wrongdoing still sticks, unmerited though it may be). It sets dead aim at the Dem frontrunner, who, rightly or wrongly, Trump allies feel is Trump's biggest threat. And now, instead of talking about the truly egregious acts Trump has unquestionably committed, people like Rob and I are arguing about Biden.

The Bulwark article put it well:




It's incredibly harmful and it pisses me off--and it's damn effective, unfortunately. And that's why I'm bothering to combat it.


ETA:

God help me. If anyone here genuinely finds the GOP "but the whistle blower complaint is hearsay and you can't impeach on hearsay" or the "but there's no quid pro quo and without a quid pro quo there's no problem" nonsense at all convincing, speak up and I'll go into why it's nonsense. Because it's seriously fucking nonsense on several levels.

Fine. Let us assume HUNTER Biden is not a good egg. HUNTER Biden is not running for office. The relevant question is whether JOE Biden did something wrong. And I agree, if JOE Biden did something wrong, that's bad and for the record, I'd care.

But all your quote there does is note that maybe HUNTER Biden did something wrong. You throw in this vague "not saying anything when one's son is doing something wrong". Where are you getting this from? Do you have a cite for the assertion that Joe was in fact aware of proven wrong-doing on his son's part, had a duty to disclose it, and failed to disclose it? Can you be more specific about what it was Joe was supposed to disclose and to him? Because damn, that's vague.

And again, assuming Biden's son's company was corrupt, how does getting rid of a corrupt prosecutor--who is corrupt because he refuses to investigate corrupt companies-- assist either Biden or Biden's son?



Absolutely amazing that in a thread started to talk about the impeachment inquiry against Trump, with this past week's worth of absolutely stunning news of corruption in the Trump administration, with his impeachment gaining plurality, if not majority, support among the voting public (I think it's majority at this point), we are talking about really vague allegations against Joe Biden.

But again, that's exactly what Trump and his cohorts were aiming for.

I feel like that Ukrainian guy pretty much 24/7 these days.