However, the trial judge in the Manafort case would be entirely justified in ordering Trump not to make further statements that could prejudice the case. If he then did so, criminal proceedings should follow.
Trump has placed himself above the law. His lawyers regularly argue that he can't be charged with criminal charges for crimes he commits while President. It appears this is correct and a huge loophole that people who wrote our Constitution assumed that the President wouldn't intentionally commit criminal acts as President like Trump does. The remedy for this behavior is impeachment but the Republican controlled Congress is not interested in acting as a check to criminal behavior of President Trump.
Additionally, the judge in the Manafort case appears to be kind of a loose cannon lunatic who should not be a judge. Described as no-nonsense this idiot judge has been doing all he can to help the defense. In the beginning he blasted Muellers team because he said their intentions was to get to Trump and he could not stand for that. Judges aren't supposed to guess intentions. Since the trial started he has admonished Muellers team to not use the term oligarch and not let them show pictures of the things Manafort has bought will his illegal income.
That article doesn't suggest to me that the judge is an idiot, nor that he's doing all he can to help the defense.
In relation to whether a president can be indicted I realize that Trump is arguing that he can't, but it is not at all clear that is correct. The constitution is silent on the issue, so strict constructionalists won't find an answer there. Instead they would need to consider whether it is in the interests of the country to allow a prosecution. SCOTUS has considered this issue before in United States v. Nixon and Clinton v. Jones. In both cases presidents claimed immunity from legal process while in office and in both cases the Supreme Court denied the claim (but without setting a binding precedent).
This article provides a good summary of the issues.
I think it's a toss up what SCOTUS would decide if the issue came up again - although their previous decisions might suggest allowing an indictment, recent changes in their make-up could lead to a different answer. However, I think there is virtually no chance of a decision saying the president can never be indicted - at most a decision would prevent an indictment during the term of office. Such a process would be worthwhile even if the decision were that an indictment must be delayed - it could potentially lead to impeachment and at worst it would still help point out the nature of some of Trump's actions.
Yes the article doesn't literally say that. I'm saying that.
The article does support my position. The extra stuff I mentioned (re: his psychic divination of intentions, his banning of word oligarch and pictures of Manaforts wealth banning) are outside the article.
I can post links to those things if needed but they are unfolding now. Here's a opinion piece from a Trump toady on thehill with high praise for the judge because in the hearing in Virginia, Ellis rudely interrupted the prosecution by declaring, "Come on man!" and "You don't really care about Mr. Manafort. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever." http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/386409-mueller-puts-politics-above-the-law
But correct no the first article I linked above doesn't literally spell out that the judge is nuts but taken in context I'd say this guy isn't "tough" or "no-nonsense" as described by people afraid to call him what he is. He's just wrong and the type of guy power tripping who should not be a judge.
If you read the first article, it states some of the stuff he's done above and beyond the call of a reasonable judge. If you read the hill and see that Trump loves this judge - well there you go that is enough of a black mark right there considering the type of lowlifes Trump admires. On the other foot, this judge is sort of allowing the trial while only sabotaging it a little bit so we will see where this goes.
It's very clear Trump will not comply with any subpoena in regards to this investigation. In the end, it WILL end up before the Supreme Court, and Trump is literally choosing his own judge for that case RIGHT NOW, as judge who had NO problem pursuing Clinton to the ends of the earth, but has now changed his mind on what can only be described as executive immunity. And then there is FOX News, which (I have mentioned before) was started by Roger Ailes for the EXPLICIT purpose of never having a situation like Watergate play-out again for Republicans. If Nixon had had FOX News and AM talk radio in the mid-70s, he would have never left office, and I am nearly 100% sure of this. In then end, it will be proven that Trump was guilty as sin the entire time. And at the same time, it is VERY likely he will walk away with no consequences for doing so. The deck is already being stacked. The goalposts continue to not only move, but be transferred into completely different stadiums.
It's very clear Trump will not comply with any subpoena in regards to this investigation. In the end, it WILL end up before the Supreme Court, and Trump is literally choosing his own judge for that case RIGHT NOW, as judge who had NO problem pursuing Clinton to the ends of the earth, but has now changed his mind on what can only be described as executive immunity. And then there is FOX News, which (I have mentioned before) was started by Roger Ailes for the EXPLICIT purpose of never having a situation like Watergate play-out again for Republicans. If Nixon had had FOX News and AM talk radio in the mid-70s, he would have never left office, and I am nearly 100% sure of this. In then end, it will be proven that Trump was guilty as sin the entire time. And at the same time, it is VERY likely he will walk away with no consequences for doing so. The deck is already being stacked. The goalposts continue to not only move, but be transferred into completely different stadiums.
Obviously I agree that Trump is attempting to stack the deck, but I don't think he will be able to do so sufficiently to achieve immunity.
The judge you refer to may well push SCOTUS into agreeing executive immunity for a president during his term of office, but there is no chance of either that judge or the full SCOTUS agreeing a full general immunity. I think it's a long shot, but it's just about conceivable that SCOTUS could also agree a narrow immunity for a president in relation to his actions specifically as president. That could provide cover for Trump in relation to a few matters, e.g. in relation to family separations. It wouldn't though help him with most of the multitude of potential offenses he faces, e.g. relating to sexual assaults, campaign finance violations, breaching the emoluments clause, obstruction of justice, historic financial irregularities, conspiracy, fraud, non-payment of taxes, defamation, incitement to violence and no doubt many others.
I agree with the judge on Manafort’s spending habits. How he spends his money has nothing to do with if he obtained that money illegally.
I have no idea if oligarch is a big deal, but if the person isn’t officially considered one, and is only a slang, then the term should not be thrown around.
Facts should decide if Manafort is guilty, not opinions.
The Washington post says Ellis regularly interupts trial testimony with his own questions and demands that certain lines of inquiry be cut short.
No judge should be a character in a trial like that. He's actively inserting himself into the case in ways he shouldn't. He should be up there calling balls and strikes not trying to shape the testimony based on his own opinions.
The cost of something should never be an arguement do or not do something. Prices fluctuate especially with technology and usually downward. When price becomes more reasonable and a governering body does want to restrict the use of the technology for any reason, the arguement always becomes, “This has been available for years? Why restrict it now? What happens to those who legally obtained it before this restriction?” It’s a larger can of worms. I am glad this discussion is happening instead of 20 years from now after either some of these plastic guns have exploded on their owners, or have been used in a crime.
@deltago The premise of this statement is a major point of disagreement. Typically, those of the opposite opinion regarding governmental restriction and interference believe it is immoral for anyone, including the government, to forcibly restrict at gunpoint what a private citizen can do with his own property. Then, when the government decides to make a restriction, this is one general argument of many made against doing so.
I hate to point this out, but the power structure in the US does not have a real way of removing a president from power. Impeachment doesn't work because it has no teeth. If a president, Clinton for instance, refuses to step down neither Congress nor POTUS has any authority to force the issue. Neither of those branches has any police force. It would take somebody from the Executive branch (ie: the FBI, or NSA) to step in and force the issue. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Executive branch is in charge of enforcement. No amount of shaming, adverse public opinion or Congressional/Supreme Court scoldings is going to make Trump go down without a fight.
I hate to point this out, but the power structure in the US does not have a real way of removing a president from power. Impeachment doesn't work because it has no teeth. If a president, Clinton for instance, refuses to step down neither Congress nor POTUS has any authority to force the issue. Neither of those branches has any police force. It would take somebody from the Executive branch (ie: the FBI, or NSA) to step in and force the issue. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Executive branch is in charge of enforcement. No amount of shaming, adverse public opinion or Congressional/Supreme Court scoldings is going to make Trump go down without a fight.
That's not really true.
Impeachment is in the constitution (Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6) - giving the HoR the right to bring charges against the President. Senate is empowered in Article 2, Section 4 to try any claims made by the House of Representatives. Upon a successful conviction, whomever was impeached is then legally removed from office.
So in this case - If Trump were impeached by the House, and convicted by the Senate... then he isnt the head of the executive branch anymore. He doesnt get to chose to enforce or not enforce any crime. He's out of office. The Vice President would take over at that moment (I guess? Or would he need to be sworn in on the 25th amendment first? Interesting question - but irrelevant here).
It implicitly has teeth because impeachment cannot be stopped or otherwise prevented by the executive branch. That's how it is a check on the executive branch.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
At Trump's rallies the last couple of weeks, there have been an increasing number of people showing up with either t-shirts or signs espousing an almost militant faith in an online conspiracy movement call "QAnon".
There are conspiracy theories, and then there is this movement, which seems to be the equivalent of all former conspiracy theories rolled into one. And much like "Pizzagate", we already have actual people showing up at actual locations with actual weapons looking to meet out "justice" because of it. Never let it be forgotten that Trump is, for all intents and purposes, was the original and best known of the "birthers". And let's try imagine what would have taken place in the media if large swaths of 9/11 Truthers had started making their presence felt at Obama rallies. This kind of lunacy is going to get someone killed. It almost has on numerous occasions already. As Trump fuels this paranoia machine, this movement will only grow.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
Whether you want to consider the near-entirety of one party and a handful from the other partisan or bipartisan is a matter of semantics I care little about, and matters far less to me than legitimate use of impeachment as a check on executive power. Clinton's case which is one of the few on record was as trivial as they come, far more so than Trump's, even, and shouldn't have happened as far as i'm concerned. Did his affair with Lewinsky compromise his ability to act as President or, really, have any significant political impact? Not at all, and to call it a "check on executive power" would be a joke. Politicians get away with much worse lies with far more political impact all the time. Would that those lies had consequences.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
Whether you want to consider the near-entirety of one party and a handful from the other partisan or bipartisan is a matter of semantics I care little about, and matters far less to me than legitimate use of impeachment as a check on executive power. Clinton's case which is one of the few on record was as trivial as they come, far more so than Trump's, even, and shouldn't have happened as far as i'm concerned. Did his affair with Lewinsky compromise his ability to act as President or, really, have any significant political impact? Not at all, and to call it a "check on executive power" would be a joke. Politicians get away with much worse lies with far more political impact all the time. Would that those lies had consequences.
Perhaps the Clinton impeachment wasn't justified, but it certainly displayed the lack of any enforcement mechanism. What did Clinton do? He ignored it. What happened? Nothing...
My favorite argument used by people to try to completely distort history/science is "Academia has been influenced by the left" . Interestingly - you can never get those people to factually validate their claims, or usually even give specifics. They speak in vagaries - "Wow. The DNC and NSDAP wanted the same thing, if you look at it!".
Er. No. The Progressive party in the USA in 2018 looks nothing like the Nationalist Right Wing party of 1930's Germany.
Perhaps the Clinton impeachment wasn't justified, but it certainly displayed the lack of any enforcement mechanism. What did Clinton do? He ignored it. What happened? Nothing...
Wait. What? How did he ignore it? He was tried infront the Senate. He wasnt convicted. That's the opposite of ignoring it. He won the case.
Whether you want to consider the near-entirety of one party and a handful from the other partisan or bipartisan is a matter of semantics I care little about, and matters far less to me than legitimate use of impeachment as a check on executive power. Clinton's case which is one of the few on record was as trivial as they come, far more so than Trump's, even, and shouldn't have happened as far as i'm concerned. Did his affair with Lewinsky compromise his ability to act as President or, really, have any significant political impact? Not at all, and to call it a "check on executive power" would be a joke. Politicians get away with much worse lies with far more political impact all the time. Would that those lies had consequences.
If Trump were impeached today, it'd be pretty trivial (Due to lack of concrete evidence). If Collusion is reasonably proven, it's a FAR cry from trivial.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
At the current moment we don't have the facts fully. After Muellers report, we will know more and be in a better position to judge.
What we know is damning but not a 100% smoking gun. It's only an 80% smoking gun in that it's likely Trump knew about the Trump tower meeting with his sons and campaign manager and Russian spies and has been lying for over a year.
We do have Trump obstructing justice daily including yesterday when he said Sessions should shut down Mueller now. And Trump fired Comey because of the Russia thing and told NBCs Lester Holt that was the reason
So yeah its true pure partisanship is preventing impeachment. You could possibly make the case he should be impeached but not removed from office for his clear obstruction of justice but if things are more serious that we haven't yet seen the proof of that may even be off the table as a reasonable punishment.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
Whether you want to consider the near-entirety of one party and a handful from the other partisan or bipartisan is a matter of semantics I care little about, and matters far less to me than legitimate use of impeachment as a check on executive power. Clinton's case which is one of the few on record was as trivial as they come, far more so than Trump's, even, and shouldn't have happened as far as i'm concerned. Did his affair with Lewinsky compromise his ability to act as President or, really, have any significant political impact? Not at all, and to call it a "check on executive power" would be a joke. Politicians get away with much worse lies with far more political impact all the time. Would that those lies had consequences.
Perhaps the Clinton impeachment wasn't justified, but it certainly displayed the lack of any enforcement mechanism. What did Clinton do? He ignored it. What happened? Nothing...
I can't help but feel like if Trump did that today (as in actually ignored a real impeachment not won a case) we'd see a nuclear meltdown from the media class unlike anything seen before. That alone almost makes me want it to happen, but really, that whole process should be cleaned up because it should be used for serious issues and not trivial nonsense.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
Whether you want to consider the near-entirety of one party and a handful from the other partisan or bipartisan is a matter of semantics I care little about, and matters far less to me than legitimate use of impeachment as a check on executive power. Clinton's case which is one of the few on record was as trivial as they come, far more so than Trump's, even, and shouldn't have happened as far as i'm concerned. Did his affair with Lewinsky compromise his ability to act as President or, really, have any significant political impact? Not at all, and to call it a "check on executive power" would be a joke. Politicians get away with much worse lies with far more political impact all the time. Would that those lies had consequences.
Perhaps the Clinton impeachment wasn't justified, but it certainly displayed the lack of any enforcement mechanism. What did Clinton do? He ignored it. What happened? Nothing...
Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. What do most people do when they are found not guilty? They move on.
My favorite argument used by people to try to completely distort history/science is "Academia has been influenced by the left" . Interestingly - you can never get those people to factually validate their claims, or usually even give specifics. They speak in vagaries - "Wow. The DNC and NSDAP wanted the same thing, if you look at it!".
Er. No. The Progressive party in the USA in 2018 looks nothing like the Nationalist Right Wing party of 1930's Germany.
Academia typically ignores or is openly hostile to religion, which, more often than not, is a trait typifying the left on the political spectrum. By being antagonistic to religion they get the reaction they should expect. Well, if they study psychology at all they should expect it. My guess is most of them haven't got the first clue about human nature...
Academia typically ignores religion, which more often than not, is more to the left on the political spectrum. By being antagonistic to religion they get the reaction they should expect. Well, if they study psychology at all they should expect it. My guess is most of them haven't got the first clue about human nature...
I dont know what you're trying to say here. Religion has its own circle in Academia (Theology). It's not really a factor in Science (since Religion is definitionally based on faith, which is belief in the absence of proof, and science is based on evidence). History draws a neutral line - religion is a really big deal there. However it still requires evidence and sourcing. So while Christianity's impact in Western Europe is huge for a hundred reasons, and well documents - things like the historicity of Jesus as a real life historical figure is far, far less concrete.
Academia typically ignores or is openly hostile to religion, which, more often than not, is a trait typifying the left on the political spectrum. By being antagonistic to religion they get the reaction they should expect. Well, if they study psychology at all they should expect it. My guess is most of them haven't got the first clue about human nature...
Okay - you edited your post to make it clearer. Thank you. I still dont fully agree. Academia is populated by people who tend to skew liberal - and those people might be less receptive to religion. It's still an evidence based system, and therefore there's not much of a role for religion to play there.
Trump argues that Democrats on Muellers team have a conflict. Why? Because they are hardened Democrats what should they be then limp Republicans?
Here's how that logic goes:
Can Democrats investigate Republicans? No they are biased against Republicans!
Can Democrats investigate Democrats? No they are biased for Democrats!
Can Republicans investigate Republicans? Oh sure no problem.
So stupid. And Republicans are clearly the most biased and hyper partisan of all. They are constantly freezing out Democrats of things just cause. The 18 investigations into Bengahzhi we're all Republican investigations (still found nothing other than "should have done better"). I remember all the Republicans complaining that Hillary was being investigated by hardened Republicans and were so conflicted. Right? Right? No bunch of frauds and liars in the Republican party lost their damn minds.
Academia typically ignores religion, which more often than not, is more to the left on the political spectrum. By being antagonistic to religion they get the reaction they should expect. Well, if they study psychology at all they should expect it. My guess is most of them haven't got the first clue about human nature...
I dont know what you're trying to say here. Religion has its own circle in Academia (Theology). It's not really a factor in Science (since Religion is definitionally based on faith, which is belief in the absence of proof, and science is based on evidence). History draws a neutral line - religion is a really big deal there. However it still requires evidence and sourcing. So while Christianity's impact in Western Europe is huge for a hundred reasons, and well documents - things like the historicity of Jesus as a real life historical figure is far, far less concrete.
Religion is not based on fact and cannot be argued against using facts. Has anybody on this forum read the Dune novels? Jihad is the most terrifying thing that can happen in a civilized society. Trump is a symptom of the attack on the religious right. Don't think for a minute that your typical anti-war, anti-police, throw yourself in front of a bulldozer type liberals would have any chance against the religious right if they got truly fired up. I'm not a fundamentalist but many in my family are. They think this fight is a war for their souls and believe in life after death. Truly. Forcing the short path instead of the long road will be liberalism's undoing if they're not careful...
Trump is a symptom of the attack on the religious right.
I doubt that most of the religious right (by which I mean the voting population) care when a scientist calls a particle the "God particle", or publishes a paper or essay that denounces religion. The Religious Right consider things like Same-Sex marriage as an assault. Which is depressing, since it's really just letting people be equal.
Don't think for a minute that your typical anti-war, anti-police, throw yourself in front of a bulldozer type liberals would have any chance against the religious right if they got truly fired up. I'm not a fundamentalist but many in my family are. They think this fight is a war for their souls and believe in life after death. Truly. Forcing the short path instead of the long road will be liberalism's undoing if they're not careful...
I also dont buy this at all. When things come down to it, there will be no difference. Doesnt matter is more guns are owned by the right than left (true), or that there are more self identified liberals in the country than conservatives (also true). There is no reckoning.
Regardless of the feasibility of impeachment, the act of doing so at the current moment would be borne out of nothing more than a sense of partisanship or vindictiveness rather than acting as a legitimate check on the executive branch, which in my view would mean used in the case of some form of massive unconstitutional over-reach or gross criminal wrongdoing.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
Whether you want to consider the near-entirety of one party and a handful from the other partisan or bipartisan is a matter of semantics I care little about, and matters far less to me than legitimate use of impeachment as a check on executive power. Clinton's case which is one of the few on record was as trivial as they come, far more so than Trump's, even, and shouldn't have happened as far as i'm concerned. Did his affair with Lewinsky compromise his ability to act as President or, really, have any significant political impact? Not at all, and to call it a "check on executive power" would be a joke. Politicians get away with much worse lies with far more political impact all the time. Would that those lies had consequences.
Perhaps the Clinton impeachment wasn't justified, but it certainly displayed the lack of any enforcement mechanism. What did Clinton do? He ignored it. What happened? Nothing...
I can't help but feel like if Trump did that today (as in actually ignored a real impeachment not won a case) we'd see a nuclear meltdown from the media class unlike anything seen before. That alone almost makes me want it to happen, but really, that whole process should be cleaned up because it should be used for serious issues and not trivial nonsense.
I don’t know how that’d play out truthfully.
If everyone recognizes he was removed from office but him, what can he do, lock himself in the Oval Office?
Pence wouldn’t deny the Senate their power. He would be sworn in and every Western Nation would probably recognize him as President. Trump would tweet furiously about being treated unfairly by everyone, but he can’t do anything else IMO.
If an impeachment ever got to the Senate level, that alone would cause a nuclear reaction IMO.
My favorite argument used by people to try to completely distort history/science is "Academia has been influenced by the left" . Interestingly - you can never get those people to factually validate their claims, or usually even give specifics. They speak in vagaries - "Wow. The DNC and NSDAP wanted the same thing, if you look at it!".
Er. No. The Progressive party in the USA in 2018 looks nothing like the Nationalist Right Wing party of 1930's Germany.
Does the fact that they outnumber their opposition by orders of magnitude by basically any metric we want to use count as influence, or a specific?
This is anecdotal evidence so feel free to ignore, but my college sent me an email just after Trump's election literally apologizing to us for it happening. It was lol-worthy and I happened to save it.
I make light of it now, but I was legitimately offended, triggered even, when I received this. We need to start worrying about "violence and intolerance" because those darn Trump voters, *me*, were lurking around? **** right off.
Trump is a symptom of the attack on the religious right.
I doubt that most of the religious right (by which I mean the voting population) care when a scientist calls a particle the "God particle", or publishes a paper or essay that denounces religion. The Religious Right consider things like Same-Sex marriage as an assault. Which is depressing, since it's really just letting people be equal.
Don't think for a minute that your typical anti-war, anti-police, throw yourself in front of a bulldozer type liberals would have any chance against the religious right if they got truly fired up. I'm not a fundamentalist but many in my family are. They think this fight is a war for their souls and believe in life after death. Truly. Forcing the short path instead of the long road will be liberalism's undoing if they're not careful...
I also dont buy this at all. When things come down to it, there will be no difference. Doesnt matter is more guns are owned by the right than left (true), or that there are more self identified liberals in the country than conservatives (also true). There is no reckoning.
I truly hope you're right. I myself am not so sure. How many people on the far right do you know?
My sister truly belives in Pizzagate and my parent's believe absolutely nothing bad about Trump and they all believe that George Soros is one of the Illuminati who's going to usher in the Anti-Christ disguised as liberal ideology. No I am not shitting you...
Hmm. First - I was referring to their argument. They say "Academia is wrong!", but dont provide specific examples of how they're wrong. See that article, and how Trump Jr. never explains specifically how the two are similar.
Second - Rather counterproductively, the article you listed essentially concludes that the liberal leaning of professors doesnt overly translate to student liberalization. So the "danger" of a liberal factulty doesnt seem to be that big of a deal. Additionally, I suspect that since more highly educated demographics tend to be liberal, there's a correlation is not causation issue happening here
Relating to your other point- There was a massive uptick in issue of racial violence following the election, and seen by the Southern Poverty Law Center and such.
Hmm. First - I was referring to their argument. They say "Academia is wrong!", but dont provide specific examples of how they're wrong. See that article, and how Trump Jr. never explains specifically how the two are similar.
Second - Rather counterproductively, the article you listed essentially concludes that the liberal leaning of professors doesnt overly translate to student liberalization. So the "danger" of a liberal factulty doesnt seem to be that big of a deal. Additionally, I suspect that since more highly educated demographics tend to be liberal, there's a correlation is not causation issue happening here
Relating to your other point- There was a massive uptick in issue of racial violence following the election, and seen by the Southern Poverty Law Center and such.
I truly hope you're right. I myself am not so sure. How many people on the far right do you know?
Haha. I know a few. I'm from South Carolina. I'm not too terribly close to any of them anymore, though,
Ever try to argue with them using logic? My family loves the old 'wisdom of the world is foolishness to God' scripture every time I try to use my brain to talk to them. It's the perfect Bible verse to excuse ignorance. Gee, why study when God (aka: my pastor, radio talk show host, priest, youth minister, evangelist, etc...) can tell me everything I need to know.
Hmm. First - I was referring to their argument. They say "Academia is wrong!", but dont provide specific examples of how they're wrong. See that article, and how Trump Jr. never explains specifically how the two are similar.
Second - Rather counterproductively, the article you listed essentially concludes that the liberal leaning of professors doesnt overly translate to student liberalization. So the "danger" of a liberal factulty doesnt seem to be that big of a deal. Additionally, I suspect that since more highly educated demographics tend to be liberal, there's a correlation is not causation issue happening here
Relating to your other point- There was a massive uptick in issue of racial violence following the election, and seen by the Southern Poverty Law Center and such.
I truly hope you're right. I myself am not so sure. How many people on the far right do you know?
Haha. I know a few. I'm from South Carolina. I'm not too terribly close to any of them anymore, though,
Ever try to argue with them using logic? My family loves the old 'wisdom of the world is foolishness to God' scripture every time I try to use my brain to talk to them. It's the perfect Bible verse to excuse ignorance. Gee, why study when God (aka: my pastor, radio talk show host, priest, youth minister, evangelist, etc...) can tell me everything I need to know.
I'm at a loss with people like that. As in I don't want anything to do with them usually because I think they are mentally ill. I don't know what you do with your family but as for mine mostly I just don't open up to to to them anymore. Can't trust people conpletelt that believe in magic and superstition. I kind of have to tolerate them because we are related but it can get to be very difficult to not put them in their place.
Comments
In relation to whether a president can be indicted I realize that Trump is arguing that he can't, but it is not at all clear that is correct. The constitution is silent on the issue, so strict constructionalists won't find an answer there. Instead they would need to consider whether it is in the interests of the country to allow a prosecution. SCOTUS has considered this issue before in United States v. Nixon and Clinton v. Jones. In both cases presidents claimed immunity from legal process while in office and in both cases the Supreme Court denied the claim (but without setting a binding precedent).
This article provides a good summary of the issues.
I think it's a toss up what SCOTUS would decide if the issue came up again - although their previous decisions might suggest allowing an indictment, recent changes in their make-up could lead to a different answer. However, I think there is virtually no chance of a decision saying the president can never be indicted - at most a decision would prevent an indictment during the term of office. Such a process would be worthwhile even if the decision were that an indictment must be delayed - it could potentially lead to impeachment and at worst it would still help point out the nature of some of Trump's actions.
The article does support my position. The extra stuff I mentioned (re: his psychic divination of intentions, his banning of word oligarch and pictures of Manaforts wealth banning) are outside the article.
I can post links to those things if needed but they are unfolding now. Here's a opinion piece from a Trump toady on thehill with high praise for the judge because in the hearing in Virginia, Ellis rudely interrupted the prosecution by declaring, "Come on man!" and "You don't really care about Mr. Manafort. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever."
http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/386409-mueller-puts-politics-above-the-law
But correct no the first article I linked above doesn't literally spell out that the judge is nuts but taken in context I'd say this guy isn't "tough" or "no-nonsense" as described by people afraid to call him what he is. He's just wrong and the type of guy power tripping who should not be a judge.
If you read the first article, it states some of the stuff he's done above and beyond the call of a reasonable judge. If you read the hill and see that Trump loves this judge - well there you go that is enough of a black mark right there considering the type of lowlifes Trump admires. On the other foot, this judge is sort of allowing the trial while only sabotaging it a little bit so we will see where this goes.
The judge you refer to may well push SCOTUS into agreeing executive immunity for a president during his term of office, but there is no chance of either that judge or the full SCOTUS agreeing a full general immunity. I think it's a long shot, but it's just about conceivable that SCOTUS could also agree a narrow immunity for a president in relation to his actions specifically as president. That could provide cover for Trump in relation to a few matters, e.g. in relation to family separations. It wouldn't though help him with most of the multitude of potential offenses he faces, e.g. relating to sexual assaults, campaign finance violations, breaching the emoluments clause, obstruction of justice, historic financial irregularities, conspiracy, fraud, non-payment of taxes, defamation, incitement to violence and no doubt many others.
I have no idea if oligarch is a big deal, but if the person isn’t officially considered one, and is only a slang, then the term should not be thrown around.
Facts should decide if Manafort is guilty, not opinions.
No judge should be a character in a trial like that. He's actively inserting himself into the case in ways he shouldn't. He should be up there calling balls and strikes not trying to shape the testimony based on his own opinions.
Terrible judge.
The premise of this statement is a major point of disagreement. Typically, those of the opposite opinion regarding governmental restriction and interference believe it is immoral for anyone, including the government, to forcibly restrict at gunpoint what a private citizen can do with his own property. Then, when the government decides to make a restriction, this is one general argument of many made against doing so.
That's not really true.
Impeachment is in the constitution (Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6) - giving the HoR the right to bring charges against the President. Senate is empowered in Article 2, Section 4 to try any claims made by the House of Representatives. Upon a successful conviction, whomever was impeached is then legally removed from office.
So in this case - If Trump were impeached by the House, and convicted by the Senate... then he isnt the head of the executive branch anymore. He doesnt get to chose to enforce or not enforce any crime. He's out of office. The Vice President would take over at that moment (I guess? Or would he need to be sworn in on the 25th amendment first? Interesting question - but irrelevant here).
It implicitly has teeth because impeachment cannot be stopped or otherwise prevented by the executive branch. That's how it is a check on the executive branch.
Assuming you mean conviction of impeachment (The senate part) - it cannot be purely partisan, as it requires 66 votes to actually pass. Obviously neither party is close to having that number. So for any president to be removed from office, it's necessarily out of bipartisanship.
For the actual House of Representatives issuing articles of impeachment, all you need is 50% + 1 to initiate the procedure. I suppose it's up to them what "gross criminal wrongdoing" would include, but I suspect a lot of liberals (and people in general) include conspiracy with a foreign government to influence the election and the attempted obstruction of an investigation into that conspiracy as qualifying.
If the Democrats win the house in November, as they look relatively likely to do - I dont think they'll vote to impeach. If after that, Mueller's investigation returns something particularly damning, then I could see them voting to impeach (but only after they have a sense of if the Senate would vote to convict, and only after popular opinion sways significantly behind them).
Academically, I dont think it will really matter too much at that point. If the Democrats win the House, they'll use their position to torpedo most of Trump's initiatives. They'll also use the GOP's Benghazi tactic and probably run as many investigations as is humanly possible into Russia, Trump's finances and anything else that can be politically damaging. It might do nearly as much damage as any impeachment effort, without the potential for blowback like when the GOP impeached Clinton, and he came out of it with improving poll numbers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/us/politics/what-is-qanon.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/08/02/what-makes-qanon-so-scary/?utm_term=.0a8fceecaa5e
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-the-false-fringe-qanon-conspiracy-theory-aims-to-protect-trump
There are conspiracy theories, and then there is this movement, which seems to be the equivalent of all former conspiracy theories rolled into one. And much like "Pizzagate", we already have actual people showing up at actual locations with actual weapons looking to meet out "justice" because of it. Never let it be forgotten that Trump is, for all intents and purposes, was the original and best known of the "birthers". And let's try imagine what would have taken place in the media if large swaths of 9/11 Truthers had started making their presence felt at Obama rallies. This kind of lunacy is going to get someone killed. It almost has on numerous occasions already. As Trump fuels this paranoia machine, this movement will only grow.
My favorite argument used by people to try to completely distort history/science is "Academia has been influenced by the left" . Interestingly - you can never get those people to factually validate their claims, or usually even give specifics. They speak in vagaries - "Wow. The DNC and NSDAP wanted the same thing, if you look at it!".
Er. No. The Progressive party in the USA in 2018 looks nothing like the Nationalist Right Wing party of 1930's Germany.
Wait. What? How did he ignore it? He was tried infront the Senate. He wasnt convicted. That's the opposite of ignoring it. He won the case. If Trump were impeached today, it'd be pretty trivial (Due to lack of concrete evidence). If Collusion is reasonably proven, it's a FAR cry from trivial.
What we know is damning but not a 100% smoking gun. It's only an 80% smoking gun in that it's likely Trump knew about the Trump tower meeting with his sons and campaign manager and Russian spies and has been lying for over a year.
We do have Trump obstructing justice daily including yesterday when he said Sessions should shut down Mueller now. And Trump fired Comey because of the Russia thing and told NBCs Lester Holt that was the reason
So yeah its true pure partisanship is preventing impeachment. You could possibly make the case he should be impeached but not removed from office for his clear obstruction of justice but if things are more serious that we haven't yet seen the proof of that may even be off the table as a reasonable punishment.
Okay - you edited your post to make it clearer. Thank you. I still dont fully agree. Academia is populated by people who tend to skew liberal - and those people might be less receptive to religion. It's still an evidence based system, and therefore there's not much of a role for religion to play there.
Here's how that logic goes:
Can Democrats investigate Republicans? No they are biased against Republicans!
Can Democrats investigate Democrats? No they are biased for Democrats!
Can Republicans investigate Republicans? Oh sure no problem.
So stupid. And Republicans are clearly the most biased and hyper partisan of all. They are constantly freezing out Democrats of things just cause. The 18 investigations into Bengahzhi we're all Republican investigations (still found nothing other than "should have done better"). I remember all the Republicans complaining that Hillary was being investigated by hardened Republicans and were so conflicted. Right? Right? No bunch of frauds and liars in the Republican party lost their damn minds.
If everyone recognizes he was removed from office but him, what can he do, lock himself in the Oval Office?
Pence wouldn’t deny the Senate their power. He would be sworn in and every Western Nation would probably recognize him as President. Trump would tweet furiously about being treated unfairly by everyone, but he can’t do anything else IMO.
If an impeachment ever got to the Senate level, that alone would cause a nuclear reaction IMO.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/11/the-dramatic-shift-among-college-professors-thats-hurting-students-education/?utm_term=.6fed43e039c9
This is anecdotal evidence so feel free to ignore, but my college sent me an email just after Trump's election literally apologizing to us for it happening. It was lol-worthy and I happened to save it.
I make light of it now, but I was legitimately offended, triggered even, when I received this. We need to start worrying about "violence and intolerance" because those darn Trump voters, *me*, were lurking around? **** right off.
My sister truly belives in Pizzagate and my parent's believe absolutely nothing bad about Trump and they all believe that George Soros is one of the Illuminati who's going to usher in the Anti-Christ disguised as liberal ideology. No I am not shitting you...
Hmm. First - I was referring to their argument. They say "Academia is wrong!", but dont provide specific examples of how they're wrong. See that article, and how Trump Jr. never explains specifically how the two are similar.
Second - Rather counterproductively, the article you listed essentially concludes that the liberal leaning of professors doesnt overly translate to student liberalization. So the "danger" of a liberal factulty doesnt seem to be that big of a deal. Additionally, I suspect that since more highly educated demographics tend to be liberal, there's a correlation is not causation issue happening here
Relating to your other point- There was a massive uptick in issue of racial violence following the election, and seen by the Southern Poverty Law Center and such.
Haha. I know a few. I'm from South Carolina. I'm not too terribly close to any of them anymore, though,