Clearly, William Taylor perceived there to be the impeachable quid pro quo:
"“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign".

That constitutes evidence.

The fact that Trump actually withheld the funds is consistent with Taylor's inference, so it constitutes circumstantial evidence.

I'm not claiming these are sufficient to convict, but how can you claim "zero" evidence?

"Sole" reason? Are you saying he shouldn't be impeached & removed for this if there was also a second precondition?

Do you agree that there is some evidence to suggest he might have been doing this impeachable thing?

I have a question.

If it could be established that Trump actually withheld funds for Ukraine to influence them to investigate Biden, would you agree that is worthy of impeachment and removal?

I feel certain that most rank and file Republicans would actually be OK with Trump doing this (i.e. they would still oppose impeachment), so I'm curious about your position on it.

I do not think the video will result in violence toward media. I just see it as yet another example of Trump devotees' slavish devotion, uncritically accepting that the media is enemy, so that nothing they report is to be believed. This devotion makes them blind to his corruption - because all negative reporting is perceived as the work of the enemy to bring down their hero. I'm not angered, I'm saddened. Trump is not the real problem; the real problem is that so many fail to see reality.

Why would I provide facts for something I have never argued? — NOS4A2

You must not have read the post from Wallows before you responded to it. There is ample evidence that Trump is a detriment to American values, and yet you indicated it's unknown if history will deem him a net good or net bad TO AMERICAN VALUES (that is the implication of the context).

That's great you feel that way Nosferatu. Sadly, the facts aren't on your side on the issue as to whether Trump is a net good or detriment to upholding American ideals about governance and foreign policy. — Wallows

The facts aren’t on your side. We won’t know whether Trump’s presidency is a net good until his term(s) are over. History might tell us, as anti-Trumpists presume, that his term is an aberration. I happen to suspect it will be the other way about. — NOS4A2

Provide some facts that support the notion that Trump is upholding American ideals. Be sure to state the ideals he is upholding.

See this:

"Federal law establishes a unique process for disclosures made to OSC. This process is intended to protect the confidentiality of the whistleblower and ensure that the alleged wrongdoing is investigated and, where necessary, corrected."

It is long established procedure to allow second hand information in whistleblower reports. The Republican lie that this was a recent change is exposed Here

There are Christian apologists who absolutely insist Jesus was actually resurrected, and that this can be"proven". I've debated Christians on this for years. They would argue that Christianity is a fraud if Jesus was not actually resurrected. You seem to have a different view; it seems almost that you think it fine to pretend the Jesus stories are true, because this serves the purpose.

Your stated reason is contrary to whistleblower law: 2nd hand information is reportable. The report was even judged credible by the IG.

I'm still awaiting a comment regarding the obvious hypocrisy: there was no evidence of a crime by Biden, so are you decrying that investigation as well? Do you agree with Miller that we have a "right to know" about Biden? If so, we why do we not have the right to know about Trump?

Wherein in that sentence does it say anything at all about anything's being true? — tim wood

I never said anything about it BEING true. What I said was:

(I believe p) = (I believe p is true).

... which is consistent with the article. Bizarrely, you took issue with this, and now you're conflating (I believe p is true) with (p is true).

And yet, you're fine with Trump doing exactly that with regard to Biden.

Regarding Trump's offenses, we also have the whistleblower report, which provides the damning context. This is certainly not proof, but it is more than adequate cause to investigate further.

Neither the “whistleblower” or IG Atkinson saw the transcript of the call. It’s all gossip. It’s inadequate. — NOS4A2

You sidestepped my points: 1) It is inadequate as a sole basis to impeach, but -like any credible whistleblower report- it warrants investigating further. 2) it ia hypocrytical to suggest Biden should be investigated based solely on circumstances, while claiming investigating a whistleblower report is a "witch hunt."

It appears all you’ve done is assumed motives, without evidence. — NOS4A2

And yet, you're fine with Trump doing exactly that with regard to Biden.

Regarding Trump's offenses, we also have the whistleblower report, which provides the damning context. This is certainly not proof, but it is more than adequate cause to investigate further.

And? So? Please make your point in something that requires fewer than several thousand words, 123 author citations, with about 175 papers cited. It's clear, in any case, that the topic, belief, can be understood in various and not necessarily compatible ways. Equally clear is that each of these ways is criteria based. That is, from differing starting points, one arrives at differing understandings of what belief is.

Your proposition P ≡ ((I believe X) = (I believe X is true)), then, may be true under some criteria, but I deny that it is universally true. Let's try this: do you affirm or deny that P is universally true? — tim wood

You only need to read the first sentence of
this article. It defines the term "belief", as the word is commonly used among english speaking philosphers. Yes, under this definition, it is universally true. It seems you use a nonstandard definition. Please provide it, and give me an example of something you believe, but do not believe to be true.

The whistleblower’s complaint is hearsay, appears to be written by lawyers, and riddled with inaccuracies and assumed motives. — NOS4A2

You are repeating the Republican talking points, and overlooking the obvious: the whistleblower complaint is within the legal guidelines, is credible, and worthy of investigation. Trump should not be impeached solely on the basis of the complaint, but if the investigation confirms Trump's behavior crossed the legal line, then it will be appropriate to impeach. Alternatively, if the administration makes it impossible to investigate, then this would constitute illegal obstruction and this would be impeachable.

Surely you at least notice the administration's hypocrisy regarding investigations. On the one hand, they argue Hunter Biden should be investigated despite there being no evidence of his having committed a crime, but because of the circumstances of a VP's son being hired for a well-paying job. And yet we have a credible report of actual wrongdoing by Trump, that clearly warrants investigation, and it gets labelled a "witch hunt". Steven Miller said the American people have a right to know the truth about Biden. Don't we also have a right to know about Trump?

I recommend you read this article.

For any proposition p:

(I believe p) = (I believe p is true).

What, exactly, is meant - do you mean - by "the truth of Christianity"? Whoever said that any test of Christianity was dependent on "truth"? — tim wood

By "the truth of Christianity", I am referring to key doctrines of Trinitarian Christianity being true. In particular, that Jesus actually existed, was executed (died), and was resurrected (he lived again, walking the earth), and that Jesus is God (of the same substance as "God the father", and the "Holy Spirit". This does not apply to non-Trinitarians, such as Jehovah's Witnesses.

Yes, your ‘whistleblower’ doesn’t even have direct knowledge of Trump’s conversation, according to CNN. — NOS4A2

Please elaborate. I've found nothing on this.

You guys have propped up DNC propaganda, conspiracy theories and investigations for years now it’s not surprising that you’re now calling foul when you beloved candidates and parties are receiving scrutiny of their own.

Let's compare facts. Here's the facts I'm aware of:

1) A whistleblower from the U.S. intelligence community filed a complaint Aug. 12 that alleged some kind of wrongdoing at high levels of the U.S. government.
2) Intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson has reviewed the complaint and determined it was credible.
3) Atkinson also determined that it was a matter of “urgent concern,” which is a legal threshold that requires notifying the relevant congressional committees. In this case, that would be the intelligence committees.
4) Leaks to the press have indicated that the whistleblower report related to Trump's call to the Ukranian President.
5) These leaks also indicated that the nature of the complaint entailed Trump pressuring the Ukranian President to launch an investigation involving the Bidens.
6) The Trump administration began reviewing a $250 million Ukrainian aid package just weeks after the August call and chose to release the aid earlier this month
7) The Trump administration has not complied with their legal obligation to provide Congress with the whistleblower report.

Do you disagree with any of these? What additional facts do you consider relevant to Trump's actions?

Regarding Biden- I'm fine with investigating anything he may have done. Hypothetically, if an investigation were to bear fruit after he's elected President, I'd be fine with impeaching him. Unlike you Trumpists, I apply a uniform standard. Corruption should not be excused or ignored, regardless of party.

You complain about DNC propaganda, and yet you embrace Trump's accusations of Biden. The matter HAS been investigated in the US and no wrongdoing was uncovered. No new evidence has been uncovered to warrant Trump's accusations against him. There is no fact-based motivation to pursue it - so it appears to be politically motivated. Contrast this with Trump's call: there are facts that have not yet been investigated. I'm not proclaiming him guilty of a crime but it seems highly likely he made a politically motivated and inappropriate request to a foreign leader.

↪Echarmion
That’s corruption. That’s exactly what Joe Biden is being accused of: firing the official that was investigating his son’s company. Not only that, but the DNC is also a target for investigation for working with Ukraine, a foreign power, to influence the 2016 election.

According to the press and their followers, Trump’s big crime is speaking with the president-elect to work with Guilliani. It’s all DNC spin, because it’s actually themselves and their candidates who allegedly broke laws, — NOS4A2

Ah, such faith in your orange god! You regard it as "DNC spin" to have suspicions aroused by knowlege that there was a whistleblower report. These suspicions could easily be shown to lack merit by providing the whistleblower report to Congress, as is required by law. Refusal to deliver it ADDS to suspicions. Did he offer a quid-pro-quo to the Ukrainian President? That would be illegal and impeachment-worthy. On the other hand, was he just asking for dirt on a political rival without a quid-pro-quo? That is apparently legal, but it is the public interest to know if he indeed engaged in such indecent behavior. IMO, this sort of behavior ought to be criminalized because even if there is no explicit quid-pro-quo, there's always an implicit one when a President asks for political help from a country that is beholden to us for economic or military aid.

Yes, the alleged corruption between Biden, then vice-president of the US, and his son was committed in and with Ukraine during the Obama administration. The alleged crimes occurred in Ukraine and with the Ukrainian government. I know you’re smart enough to see the problem here. — NOS4A2

So...you're OK with witch hunts, as long as the alleged witch is a Democrat.

I asked you to "point me to somewhere in the New Testament where there's mention of an eternal soul, and an afterlife that is clearly not a BODILY afterlife", and you haven't done that. Instead, you made some inferences based on your own flawed understanding of 1st century Judaism. Their beliefs were not homogeneous. There were a variety of views about the afterlife. The apocalypticists believed an afterlife was of a body, and this is exactly what Paul describes this in 1Cor15.

You can believe whatever you want, but the question pertains to what the Bible actually says, not what you believe.

No, Cohen's testimony alone isn't enough to indict, but there is at least a bit more than that. It may or may not be sufficient. What makes you so certain it's not? Is it the statements of a proven pathological liar, who is on camera lying about having knowledge of the payment?

Michael Cohen was a lawyer. His duty as a lawyer is to interpret and advise clients as to the law, regulations, legal rights and obligations. You’re assuming, without evidence, that Trump was privy to complex campaign finance laws and ordered Cohen to break them. That’s utter nonsense. — NOS4A2

I have not judged Trump guilty of this charge. I haven't even said there's necessarily enough evidence to even indict him. You are the one expressing confidence that Trump committed no crime.

I find it particularly pathetic that it's irrelevant to you that he screwed a porn star right after his wife gave birth, paid her hush money, and publicly lied about it. All that matters to you is that it's not a provable crime. True to form since you also don't care that he lies so frequently - it's all OK, because he doesn't do it under oath.

No, Cohen's testimony alone isn't enough to indict, but there is at least a bit more than that. It may or may not be sufficient. What makes you so certain it's not? Is it the statements of a proven pathological liar, who is on camera lying about having knowledge of the payment?

LOL! The Justice dept has ruled that a sitting President cannot be indicted.

It may result in some Republicans staying home, and it may sway some independents.

That may not be entirely true:

No, Trump isn’t Teflon. Scandals lower his approval among Republicans — if they see the news

I didn't realize that was what you were advocating. I'd be OK with delaying an impeachment vote until then, but I think they should hold impeachment hearings as soon as possible.

If he survives impeachment procedures it means in the eye of the public that he didn't do it. — Benkei

OJ was acquitted, but it didn't change anyone's mind about him.

It is possible you're right, but it is also possible that failure to indict (which is what impeachment is) will result in people thinking he's innocent. There's no way to know which is optimal, so why not err on the side of doing what's right?

Yeah all that stuff about Trump losing the election, nuclear war, economic collapse, the death of NATO, the second-coming of Hitler, Russian collusion, fascism—it was all the failed prophecies of people who thought they knew better. — NOS4A2

A lot of different people have made a variety of hyperbolic remarks about Trump, and you lump them all together into one boogeyman. Let's get real and focus on me.

I did not predict economic collapse nor the death of NATO. I just thought the guy was stupid. I prophesied a guy who thought running the country was just like running a company. I thought he lacked ethics. He didn't treat his wives ethically (cheating on each) and he didn't run his company ethically (reneging on contracts; avoiding debts through bankruptcies). He lacked the ability to think critically (birtherism), he would do anything to win, and he thought it would all be easy. I did make one specific prediction: Mexico would never pay for a wall.

It's true that I didn't expect him to win. But save for that one error of prediction, Trump has behaved like the idiot I thought he was.

Oh yes, one other error: I was surprised that his minions would be blind to all his idiocy. No, I did not expect there to be so many like you.

Now it’s deficits and future presidents raising taxes and empty threats. Just what we need: more empty fortune-telling.

If you think these deficits will take care of themselves, you are delusional.

Great. As I said, a Schroedinger equation indeed does that for a quantum system.

The tricky part is that a measurement does something. What it DOES is subject to interpretation, and there are a variety of interpretations of quantum mechanics. For example, according to the "Copenhagen" interpretation, a measurement causes the wave function to collapse (the Schroedinger equation defines a wave): prior to measurement, all the eigenvalues exist concurrently; after the measurement only one exists: the wave function has collapsed to the single value.

By contrast, in the "many worlds" interpretation, a measurement entails the measurer becomes "entangled" with a single eigenvalue, but the others continue to exist - but not within the world wherein lies the measurer. From the point of view of the measurer, this looks the same as the Copenhagen interpretation.

It is unpredictable which eigenvalue will be collapsed to (Copenhagen) or experienced (Many Worlds), but it is a certainty that it will be one of them, and the probability for each is known. This is not strict determinism, but it is probabilistic determination. This is the term used by physicalist philosopher David Armstrong. The connotation is that these states are still the product of physical laws of nature.

↪Relativist
I'm still not sure how probability can factor into determinism, it seems like a contradiction of terms. — Sunnyside

Do you agree that a system can be considered deterministic if it evolves over time strictly per an equation over time? That is the case with a quantum system. (I'll defer your question about measurement until you consider this).

A quantum mechanical system evolves over time in strict accordance with a time-dependent Schroedinger equation. This means that at every point in time, the system is in a deterministic quantum state.

A quantum state is a multivalued vector; i.e. it's not a discrete number, but rather a set of numbers - where "number" is referring to something that can be measured. Prior to measurement, all the values exist simultaneously, in what's called a "superposition". When a measurement is made, only one of the values will be measured. Across multiple measurement, the set of measured values will be consistent with a well-defined probability distribution.

What hoax nose4? — tim wood

The hoax that Trump told him exists/existed.

It's interesting that he says Trump's words don't matter, and yet he believes whatever words Trump speaks.

That’s the sort of sleaze that got Trump elected in the first place. These are the same guys who thought the economy would crash when he got elected, and nuclear war was immanent. These are the same guys who pushed a hoax about Russian collusion for years. It turns out, they don’t know what’s best, or even likely. — NOS4A2

We certainly know more about Trump now that he's been in office awhile. We know that his "fire and fury" comments are B.S., and that he's committed to isolationism. He threatens war, but won't follow through on those threats. Not that I want him to, but it's become obvious his threats are empty. Reminds me of a woman I know who tried to get her kids to behave by making threats, but never following through on those threats. 2 of the children are now in prison.

I have no problem giving Trump credit for signing Paul Ryan's tax cut plan into law, and that this boosted the economy in the short term. But this put the U.S. on a trajectory of unsustainable deficits. Taxes WILL have to be raised sooner or later, and when they do - this temporary period of relative prosperity will be offset by the negative impact we will experience at that time. Given the short-term focus of voters, it will be ironic that the future President who is forced to raise taxes will be blamed for the negative impact.

It's funny how Trump supporters echo Trump's words ("hoax about Russian collusion"), and ignore what Trump did that looked suspicious. There is zero evidence of a "hoax", but what the heck - Trump calls it a hoax, and that's good enough for them. Critical thinking doesn't seem to be their strong suit.

I'm not a scientist but Newtonian physics applies at the quantum level. — TheMadFool

Not true. Newtonian physics is strictly deterministic. Quantum mechanics is not.

I believe the "problem" (?) with quantum mechanics is that it's random. — Sunnyside

That's true but imprecise. Quantum mechanics is probabilistically deterministic. This means there is not one discrete possible outcome; rather, there is a well-defined probabilistic distribution of possible outcomes.

There are references to "soul" in the Old Testament, and none in the New Testament. None refer to a soul being immortal. — Relativist

How would you interpret the resurrection of Lazarus then? — Shamshir

Lazarus was dead, then Jesus "woke" him up to life. Paul also speaks of dead people as "asleep". Resurrection in the New Testament is about BODILY resurrection.

Maybe I'm missing something, so please point me to somewhere in the New Testament where there's mention of an eternal soul, and an afterlife this is clearly not a BODILY afterlife.

I did a search fit "soul" on biblegateway.com
There are references to "soul" in the Old Testament, and none in the New Testament. None refer to a soul being immortal.

In the 1Cor:15,42-56 Paul refers to a resurrection of a pneumatic "body" - often translated as "spititual" body. But this doesn't seem consistent with soul.

Then they have no good reason to deny an extension. UK just has to ask.

I understand a no-deal Brexit will be bad for the UK, but is it also bad for the EU? This is relevant as to whether the EU is motivated to grant another extension.

I would love to hear some predictions about what will happen, particularly (but not exclusively) from UK residents. Not what you want to happen, but what you actually think will happen both short term and long term.

I'm just describing my account of accountability. You don't have to accept it. My account treats individuals as causal agents which makes them a nexus of accountability. In this context, the distinction between a logic chain and causal chain is relevant. I can extrapolate from here to some notion of "free will", but you seem averse to the term so I didn't take it there.

I think my account is coherent. My only issue with your position is that I don't see that you have a basis for accountability. You accepted that it's reasonable to have accountability, but I don't understand how you can rationalize it without there being a causal agent to HOLD accountable.