I do wonder what it'd mean for the presidency, though, if Trump ends up getting re-elected by a minority vote, while the Senate acquits him with a vote of more than 50 Senators finding him guilty. I mean, it'll be clear at that point that the majority of voters don't want the guy and the majority of his peers think he is a criminal, but the system allows him to be president and remain president. Maybe things will start to shake up in government as a result of that. Maybe not.

I have pretty much zero faith in the vast majority of our elected officials. While I believe the Trump is pretty much a jerk and a self-centered loudmouth, I do believe he is doing great things for the US. I'm a big believer in an "America first" policy, like he is. Our economy is doing great. Our military is much stronger. All this foolish impeachment hearing is just the Dems trying to stir up their base. To me, it's nothing more. It's trying to get people out of vote against Trump as opposed to voting for Democrats. They know they can't win on the issues, so they're going to make it a vote-against-Trump cause they got nothing else. I don't think Trump broke the law in the slightest and I haven't seen any evidence that would cause me to change my mind. How witness felt or what they think is totally irrelevant to me. Facts, not feelings count. But I also think that it's all part of the same waste of space that Congress has become. They will never hold each other accountable. Hillary and all her cronies will never stand before a judge. Comey. Holder. Obama. Biden (either of them). They protect each other. Republicans and Democrats. They won't go after each other because what that means is that if the Republicans go after a certain Democrat, for instance Schiff, that means that their position is also open for someone else to go after. The deep state is alive and well and the elected few keep it going that way.

I agree with everything, with the exception of Trump breaking the law. His refusal to separate himself from his personal business ventures is a break with the law, and to argue that it's not would be silly. What the consequences are or should be based on that is totally unclear, however. Trump's unabashed and direct obstruction of a federal investigation is breaking the law. His defense that the investigation is BS in the first place, whether morally right or not, is in direct juxtaposition of federal law, and therefore, there is no question whether it's breaking the law or not. Those ARE the facts. The feelings are what the Trump camp is using to justify those breaks with the law, not the other way around, so, if you want this to be black and white, well, that's where we're at, plain and simple. The thing they are actually impeaching him over (withholding federal money over a favour) is the greyest thing he's done. I think we all agree that the reason this is what got the fire going is the fact that the target of Trump's action was a prominent democrat's family. If he had called the president of the Ukraine and demanded an investigation open over Joe Schmo Jr., then this would have been a fart in the wind for the democrats. But as for obstruction and violating the Emoluments Clause, those are directly against the law. Are they "high crimes and misdemeanors?" I really don't think so. Better presidents than Trump have done worse things than these.

He doesn't have to separate himself from his business, he just has to keep it separate from his government job. And I see no evidence that he hasn't done that. Speculation and opinions are not evidence. And as far as obstruction, exercising executive privilege in whether or not people are going to testify, might piss people off and make them think they're being obstructed, but in reality, it's no crime. While you're insisting it's criminal, why are there no charges? Where is the evidence? When you go to his holding onto money for Ukraine, I'm all for him doing that. Actually, giving money to a corrupt government is a federal crime. He's allowed to withhold that money if Ukraine is corrupt. Whether or not the corruption is due to the son of a person running against him is irrelevant. The whole idea that Biden is off-limits because he's running for President is plain BS.

"He doesn't have to separate himself from his business," actually, yes, according to the emoluments clause of the US Constitution. You should read it some day. It's a really cool document. It says that, as president, you can't accept anything of value, domestically, other than your salary. It doesn't say that giving away your salary makes it okay to disregard the law, either, but I commend him for donating his salary to veterans groups. "Speculation and opinions are not evidence." on that we agree, but what's your point? "And as far as obstruction ... it's no crime." Hard disagree there. And the justice department disagrees with you, too. There are thousands of folks in prison for obstruction. Whatever you are saying about obstruction not being a crime is just plain old wrong. Maybe you just don't know the law, though. "He's allowed to withhold that money if Ukraine is corrupt." Again, not really. He's allowed to withhold the money for a certain amount of time if reason is given. The time window was exceeded and the reason was only given after the aid was released anyway, and the alleged corruption that supposedly caused the hang up was never resolved, so no. "The whole idea that Biden is off-limits because he's running for President is plain BS." You saying that my assertion that the only reason this is happening is because it was a Biden or that it's BS that the only reason this is happening is because it involves a Biden?

Also Article II Section 2 Clause 2 of the US Constitution was clearly violated by establishing any foreign diplomacy channel through Giuliani without consent of the Senate. Since the Senate didn't know about Giuliani's involvement as go-between for Ukraine, it violates constitutional law. There are a ton of constitutional violations happening left and right here, and congress isn't even bothering to try to address them all. The main point of contention here is whether president Trump committed "High crimes and misdemeanors." While the left wing media is dancing around screaming how Trump was caught in a lie and right wing media is so busy trying to "whatabout" through a pile of red herrings, the real issue is that the entire system of checks and balances is at risk. If Trump is found guilty and removed from office, congress gains a power-up, in that they learn that they can remove a president from office through what boils down to pure politics. If they (most likely) fail to remove him from office, it proves to Trump that he can do whatever he wants without consequences. What the president has been doing is wrong, but it's nothing new. GHW Bush bullshitted his way into a war, Clinton committed perjury without remorse to save his own butt, GW Bush bullshitted his way into two wars (when we probably were justified into another war that never happened, because of politics) and unabashedly set up that infernal gitmo prison, then Obama promised to fix all of the bullshit and instead just waded us even deeper into all of it. Trump has, at least, been turning the ship around, even if it's going toward a different hell than we were headed toward before, it's more than we've seen in the past 30+ years. But he also f'ed up with this Ukraine garbage - it wasn't right, and now it's all public. Fox News might find the whistleblower and Trump could hang that person for treason, but it won't put the cat back into the bag and it won't help anyone out of this mess. Unfortunately, the only thing that would help would be for Trump to be a big boy and say he's sorry and that he will be a good president for the American people, and also for congress to say they are sorry for being awful lawmakers and promise to do better. But I think we all know that neither of those two things will ever happen, because the people in our government, including Trump, are corrupt to the core.

I agree, Linda. It's a farce and has been from the day Trump was elected. He was elected to stir the pot and now they're trying to stop him from doing just that.