Again look at history: Nixon, Clinton, et. al. — 3017amen

Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. Clinton was impeached for perjury--lying under oath, which most people agree qualifies under "high Crimes and Misdemeanors"--but was acquitted by the Senate.

And I will cover more stringent criteria that relates to the president putting his personal gain over national security interests — 3017amen

Again, there would have to be sufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump did something amounting to "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" for there to be a constitutional basis to remove him from office. Anything below that intentionally high bar is irrelevant. The voters will have the opportunity to deny him a second term on that basis in just 13 months.

Fast forwarding , 'High crimes and misdemeaners ' may be appropriate here.

10. Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani solicited a foreign government for political advantage.

11. Donald Trump use the word " favor" in approaching the Ukraine government about reopening an investigation.

12. An interview with ABC news Donald Trump said that he would take information from a foreign government for political advantage and ' maybe report it'.

Feel free to ask me questions as to the soundness of those propositions.

13. Ukraine: Trump has leveraged his authority for personal political gain and therefore is an abuse of power hence meets the empeachment standard.

Once again feel free to parse it.

Unless sufficient evidence is presented to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he is truly guilty of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors"- — aletheist

Soliciting a foreign power for information harmful to a political opponent for personal gain meets all criteria without breaking a sweat. From what I read, and I’m reading a lot, Trump and the administration have been caught red-handed in commission of a criminal act and if he is not removed from office on these grounds, then I really think we’re looking at the end of the Republic.

Induction can prove a normative. You're thinking deduction. — 3017amen

No it can't. There are no true normatives. No normatives that are factual.

It does seem Trump has Eye of Sauron type of power to persuade vast numbers of people that he’s beyond reproach. That’s why there’s something more than political skullduggery afoot here - something approaching actual evil, like a power of persuasion that can persuade otherwise rational people that lies are truth.

That's correct, it's called the abuse of power standard.

Then what does deductive logic do?

Abuse of power is the only thing Trump shows ability in. Everything else he does can be explained by that.

Ha, of course. And the reason why it can be construed as such is because the statute is 'high crimes misdemeanors and other...'

Abuse of power is 'the other'

Then what does deductive logic do? — 3017amen

With respect to normatives? Nothing.

And the reason why it can be construed as such is because the statute is 'high crimes misdemeanors and other...' Abuse of power is 'the other' — 3017amen

The relevant language is not in a mere statute, it is in the Constitution itself; and it does not say "high crimes, misdemeanors, and other," it says "Treason, Bribery, and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Whether alleged abuse of power rises to that level, and whether there is sufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a president is guilty of it--thus warranting removal from office--is for a simple majority of the House of Representatives (as grand jury) and then a two-thirds majority of the Senate (as trial jury) to decide.

Agreed. In politics that's why we have hearings to help confirm plausibility.

Sure it's an interpretation issue Trump's lawyer will have to defend. Abuse of power for personal gain however will be difficult to overcome. Stay tuned!

Public dissatisfaction with the President's performance, no matter how overwhelming, is not a constitutional basis for impeachment. That requires sufficient evidence of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" for the House of Representatives to adopt formal charges by a simple majority vote. Of course, this would not yet result in removal from office--that requires a subsequent two-thirds majority vote by the Senate, after a trial presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

I did not and will not vote for Donald Trump, because I consider him unfit for the office, temperamentally and otherwise. Nevertheless, it is clear to me that all this impeachment talk is pure political theater, predicated on flimsy pretense. The only viable strategy for getting rid of Trump is to offer voters a better alternative next November. — aletheist

High crimes and misdemeanors

The Supreme Court has held that such phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but according to what the framers meant when they adopted them. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote of another such phrase:

"It is a technical term. It is used in a very old statute of that country whose language is our language, and whose laws form the substratum of our laws. It is scarcely conceivable that the term was not employed by the framers of our constitution in the sense which had been affixed to it by those from whom we borrowed it."

Since 1386, the English parliament had used the term “high crimes and misdemeanors” to describe one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.

You don't think that there are reasonable grounds to consider Trump guilty of any of this? You yourself say that he is "unfit for the office" and being unfit to serve is right there in the description of what counts as high crimes and misdemeanors.

With all due respect are you trying to intimidate me (with your derogatory comments)?

You yourself say that he is "unfit for the office" and being unfit to serve is right there in the description of what counts as high crimes and misdemeanors. — Michael

Fitness for the office is up to the judgment of the voters. Evidence sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the commission of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemanors" is up to the judgment of a simple majority of the House (for formal charges) and a two-thirds majority of the Senate (for conviction and removal).

Fitness for the office is up to the judgment of the voters. Evidence sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the commission of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemanors" is up to the judgment of a simple majority of the House (for formal charges) and a two-thirds majority of the Senate (for conviction and removal). — aletheist

Given the meaning of the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" fitness for the office is also up to the judgement of Congress.

Yes, and we call that process an election, which will take place in just over 13 months. — aletheist

This is the most important point. I neither know nor care if Trump's actions are grounds for impeachment. What seems clear though is that there's a lot of ambiguity and disagreement about it. In those circumstances, pursuing impeachment is suicidal and likely to set back the liberal cause in the US for many years, as it will be seen as an establishment counter-revolution. So just from a tactical point of view, all anti-Trump efforts have to be about getting him voted out. Trouble is I'm not sure the Democrats are up to the challenge.

I appreciate your comments and I know we're all pontificating.... As an independent moderate myself , there is no disagreement about foreign meddling and abuse of power for personal gain particularly in light of the fact that he promised the voters he would drain the swamp and be different.

Further in my opinion I don't think it's an all or nothing proposition. I think you can do both... Because unfortunately having an impeachment inquiry is the only way to educate the public on whether or not to vote for him in 2020

having an impeachment inquiry is the only way to educate the public on whether or not to vote for him in 2020 — 3017amen

I see what you're saying, but it looks like a big mistake to me.

Thanks... Just to be clear it's my understanding that an impeachment inquiry in itself is necessary to preclude executive privilege over release of certain documents and information. In a sense the Democrats had no choice, they were backed in the corner if they wanted to get to the truth.

Otherwise unfortunately we have seen the White House restrict and mislead the public about similar information. It's sad and it really sucks honestly.

Sorry I'm just trying to dot the eyes and cross the t's and get caught up. Thank you for pointing out your previous concern me, accordingly I corrected the record in the OP thus:

"Like Andrew Johnson , Clinton, and to a lesser degree Nixon ( resignation before impeachment), presidents before us sometimes do not work out."

Logic can't prove a normative. — Terrapin Station

Can it support it?

No. Logic doesn't have anything to do with normatives.

Can anything? (... support a normative?)

My desire is to keep this thread specifically about political empeachment. I'm approaching this in a bullet-point syllogistic style, so that one can draw reasonable inferences from the premises or facts stated. Inductive reasoning relates to probabilities or likelihoods of things being true.

Even though other developments are happening guickly, relative to polical Agency heads resigning, file server cover-ups, possibilities of leveraging funds for political and personal advantage, I am not going to provide any bullet points for those at this time. I will await more information on those, from hearings scheduled this week.

In the meantime I am not opposed to a very brief detour in the philosophy of the so-called epistemic elements that I think both of you all are referring to...certainly worth devoting another thread to for sure.

I will then resume posting my enumerated bullet points when we get more information very shortly...

one can draw reasonable inferences from the premises or facts stated. Inductive reasoning relates to probabilities or likelihoods of things being true. — 3017amen

I don't at all buy Bayesian probability, which is what that would have to rely on.

At any rate, I also don't pay much attention to politics. (I'm interested in political philosophy; I'm not very interested in the daily political crap of the sort we see on the news.) So I can't offer much of an opinion about something like impeaching Trump. I did hear that it's supposed to have something to do with Trump approaching the president of the Ukraine for dirt on Biden, which doesn't sound to me like something that should be considered problematic (aside from the general fact that it underscores how stupidly we do political races in general), but I don't really know enough about it to have an opinion either way, and I'm not about to spend hours reading about it.

Bayesian probabilty? Are you absolutely sure that refers to Sociology and Political Philosophy, not to mention human behavior relative to cooberation viz. judicial process?

Basically if you're doing probability and it's not frequentist, it's Bayesian.