by liberal japonicus
New Year's is a big holiday in Japan, but it snuck up on me (if that is possible) and I wasn't prepared for so many things to be closed. Still, it is a lot better than my first New Year's in Japan, when there were no convenience stores and everything was closed for 3 days. Not sure how I managed it. Anyway here's hoping that 2018 will treat you better than 2017 did. Feel free to put your thoughts on that or anything else below.
During the conventional exchanges of good wishes with friends and family over the holidays, it occurred to me that 2017 treated me, personally, plenty well enough, and my most rational wish would be for 2018 to be as indistinguishable as possible from 2017. Personally speaking.
Speaking as a member-at-large of the human race, I would erase 2017 and all its works from the history books.
Speaking as a citizen of the USA who shares a decent respect to the opinions of mankind with the likes of young Tom Jefferson and his ilk, all I can do is apologize to the world for the damage we Americans have done, and the dangers we have created, by indulging ourselves to the extent of electing a madman to preside over us — and putting up with him. That we should be ushering in a new year with a nuclear-threat pissing match between our elected wannabe-dictator and … well, anybody … is simply an admission that our day as a rational nation has passed.
ITMFA. Despise those who won’t. We might possibly make it through 2018 that way.
–TP
Tony-
RE: apologies to the world and our nation crossing some rational tipping point of no return …
I’m traveling to Europe this year and I’m reminded of a time when I was in the UK and briefly considered getting a Canadian flag patch for my backpack as the initial reports debunking the rationale for the second Iraq war came to light. Sitting in the common room of a youth hostel in Notting Hill watching the BBC, my face got hot and I was embarrassed to be an American.
This year my accommodations will be a bit more posh and my luggage has wheels instead of shoulder straps, but the same feeling of unease lurks.
But I didn’t hide being an American then and I won’t this time. Trump is a colossal embarrassment. There is no overstating that, but I didn’t vote for him (most Americans didn’t). I’d like nothing better than to see him removed from office, but the rule of law is more important than my discomfort and even more important that the short term damage that Trump can do to our nation’s reputation.
I don’t think we are “putting up with him”. He has historically low approval ratings and the midterms will most likely create a major roadblock for the remainder of his Presidency. Mueller is continuing his work and while it’s easy to get impatient, the current investigation is still young compared to Watergate.
Of course if Trump pushes things with NK from a twitter war to a shooting war, all my efforts maintaining sanguinity will be tragically quaint. I’m reading the Guns of August and it’s disconcerting to draw parallels between the accounts of those (mostly in Britain) who thought that WWI would not happen simply because it was unthinkable. But what’s the alternative beyond the ballot box and the impeachment process?
As much as I hate the thought of an another second of the Trump presidency, we can’t become what we hate; we can’t turn our back on the rule of law. In large measure, that’s what separates us from Trump and his ilk. In the end, not “putting up with him” means not allowing him to drag us to his level.
He has historically low approval ratings
his approval rating today is identical to the one he had in the poll Gallup released 11/8/16.
he has always been unpopular.
what we have here is a fundamentally broken electoral system and a disengaged electorate.
Or we have fundamentally inaccurate polling and an electoral system working exactly as designed.
nope. that’s not it.
I don’t think it’s fundamentally broken. I’d be in favor of moving away from the electoral college, but I don’t see an easy short term path for that … we have a structural problem in that small states have disproportionate power both in the electoral college and in constitutional amendment process.
It sucks, but is not fundamentally broken.
If Florida continues to trend blue, the electoral college path for Republicans could get so narrow that perhaps they’ll agree to an amendment, but it will take some time. These next two elections are vital at the state level in advance of the 2020 census.
It sucks, but is not fundamentally broken.
it’s fundamentally broken. it was broken by design. but it’s still broken.
the President of everyone can’t be elected by a minority of people who voted.
there is absolutely no rational reason that the election for this one seat, out of the thousands of seats people get elected to, should be selected by an anti-democratic weighted average.
we don’t weigh the votes from people on one side of my town more than people on the other side. no state says “people who live in this county get three votes, people who live in these counties get two, and people who live in the cities get one”. no judge, mayor, congressperson, governor, DA, clerk, dog catcher or school board member is elected that way. why? because everybody knows it would be unfair and undemocratic.
that there is no hope that we will never be rid of the EC is yet another fundamental breakage.
the President of everyone can’t be elected by a minority of people who voted.
Sure. But what if he’s the president of everyone except California and New York? Ever think of that, smart guy?
an electoral system working exactly as designed.
But the design is a bad one. That doesn’t mean it’s broken, just that it needs redesign.
it’s not even working as designed.
the majority of states make it illegal for pledged electors to vote against their party’s choice. and that breaks the idea that the EC can act as a last-chance goalkeeper to keep unsuitable candidates out (itself an anti-democratic feature). Hamilton himself cited that as justification for the EC.
it doesn’t provide stability.
that leaves the ridiculous notion that a vote’s worth should be determined by the location of the voter’s residence. and that’s completely indefensible.
furthermore, the Senate already gives small states an extraordinary amount of influence over the federal government.
It boggles the mind that Cal and NY shouldn’t have to take their huge electoral advantage and just convince enough other states to vote with them.
The EC is broken. It broke in 1800 with the introduction of political parties, so that electors are no longer exercising the independent judgment which the design of the EC is predicated upon.
Those electors? They had ONE JOB. And if ever there was a time to do it, 2016 was IT. Yet, here we are.
till, it is a lot better than my first New Year’s in Japan, when there were no convenience stores and everything was closed for 3 days…
Reminds me of weekends in Oxford back when I was an undergraduate.
*Nothing* was open on a Sunday… except the tobacconist – and that was only for a half day.
Trump is a colossal embarrassment. There is no overstating that
But isn’t part of the reason that there is no overstating it a simple lack of imagination on our part? Just because we can’t imagine any President doing the sorts of half-assed, lame-brained things that Trump comes up with repeatedly.
Yesterday was the capper . . . if only for the moment. “Mine is bigger than yours” (to the leader of North Korea). How pathetic is that?!?!?
It boggles the mind that Cal and NY shouldn’t have to take their huge electoral advantage and just convince enough other states to vote with them.
We’ve been having this same debate since about 1788.
Are we a nation of people, or a nation of states?
Take your pick.
In other news, the new year has brought the passing of Rick Hall. You might not know the name, but you sure as hell know the music.
In what IMO ought to be a source of national embarrassment, I got this news from the Guardian UK and the BBC before I saw it in any domestic news outlet.
Are we a nation of people, or a nation of states?
The Constitution would appear to address that right up front. The very first words of the Preamble being:
“We, the people, of the United States…” (emphasis added)
wj-
Pathetic is the right word. Trump can actually be relatively gracious when he is in his comfort zone, i.e., having his ego stroked. As he becomes less comfortable, his tweets get more unhinged.
I wonder if Trump got an advance copy of “Fire and Fury”:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/03/new-trump-book-bannons-treasonous-claim-ivankas-presidential-ambitions-and-melanias-first-lady-concerns/?utm_term=.ae11c6410d14
But what if he’s the president of everyone except California and New York? Ever think of that, smart guy?
Here’s the question I’m interested in come the elections in November: Will the long-term current geographic regional trends continue to play out? Namely, will the Dems continue to make gains in the northeast urban corridor states and the West, while losing in the Midwest and South. Measure it by US Senate and House seats, state legislative chambers, and state governors.
For example, wrt the US House, it is common to read pieces about this being a wave election, but almost all of them start by talking about picking up seats in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. When they talk about vulnerable Republican Senators, the list starts with (and sometimes ends with) Heller(NV) and Flake(AZ).
Alabama was a freak case, as was the Louisiana governor’s race a couple of years ago (note to Republicans: don’t nominate candidates accused of improper sexual advances towards minors, or with a prostitution scandal in their background).
If you ask me to bet, I’d bet on the Dems getting stronger where they’re already strong, and breaking even in the places where they’re not.
It’s something when the reality outdoes the parody, even when it was fully expected to do so. Thanks for playing!
The problem is not with the states or with the EC, the problem is with the people. If you want your vote to count more than it currently does, just freaking move.
Obviously the apportionment and distribution of people, power, and party affiliations have varied drastically over the centuries. If California was 80% Republican with 50 million voters say 25% of total electorate, Democrats would not be as enthused about a fairer EC.
Our current problem is entirely contingent and historical, and a general ruling document and system should need to be changed everytime a few people cross border.
We are ruled by states, but that does not make politics impossible, it makes politics necessary. If every faction can isolate itself geographically and then escape having to compromise, negotiate, of persuade any neighbors, then we do have a clear perhaps inevitable path to civil war.
Etc. Two solutions for Democrats. Move to Red States or turn Republicans into Democrats.
Will the long-term current geographic regional trends continue to play out? Namely, will the Dems continue to make gains in the northeast urban corridor states and the West, while losing in the Midwest and South.
…
Alabama was a freak case, as was the Louisiana governor’s race a couple of years ago
At some point, you have to wonder whether you are really seeing anomalies. Or signs of an emerging trend.
That last comment was not in response to you, Michael Cain. You posted while I was reading.
But, in response to your comment, as was mentioned previously, Florida is going to change things, though mostly for the presidency, but also in the congress, if to a lesser degree. (Obviously, the presidency is an all-or-nothing situation.)
Florida has already done away with gerrymandering by constitutional amendment and the Dems netted three seats in a tough 2016 election (Clinton was extremely unpopular here as was DWS outside of her home district). If there is a wave in 2018, then there may be a few more pickups. Unfortunately, Rubio was reelected in 2016, so we’re stuck with him for a while.
Sure as hell, I know the music:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3mz_EXHKGHs
In the age of rump, nothing, and everything, is an embarrassment, unless one is a dupe, in which case America is great again, circa 1857.
Bannon seems to think the money laundering is the key, and Mueller is going to roll em all up in the most flagrant, corrupt, and seditious election-stealing scandal in the history of democracies.
rump will foil all of it with unconstitutional obstructions of justice never encountered in American history and then all of the talk here the other day regarding the political spectrum and who sits where will be irrelevant, as we encounter something wholly new and monstrous, a traitorous, lawless kleptocracy aided and abetted by Russian agents “serving” in Congress and the now compromised bureaucracy corrupted by rump roaches.
Hundreds and thousands Alger Hiss’s hissing like snakes, Nunes, Sessions, the lot of them.
Richard Hofstadler in “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, but especially in “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt-1964″‘ and “Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited 1965, but most especially in “Goldwater and Pseudo-Conservative Politics” as freshly prescient as if those essays were penned this morning.
He missed the ascendancy of these racist, right-wing John Birch Society mofos to corrupt leadership of all three branches of our dead form of government, but the American imagination of how low the filth who infest this country will go has never been particularly imaginative enough.
Here’s some small gummint conservative principles about to go into practice:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14538420/trump-ice-jail-politicians-sanctuary-cities/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-sessions-marijuana-adviser-wants-doctors-to-drug-test-everyone?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
The best of all right wing John Birch plans for America, with KGB Putin designated as partner.
Ohhh, hep me!
This morning’s stirring of the pot. Here’s Steve Bannon(!) saying that the Trump Tower meeting over Russia providing access to dirt on Clinton was “treason”. I can hardly wait for the tweet storm….
Re: Pollo de muerte | January 03, 2018 at 01:38 PM
Puerto Ricans are and will continue to be flowing into FL. They are not happy with Republicans.
HSH-
Exactly. The demographic changes to Orange County are not trivial. We are going through the process of transitioning from a swing district to a solid blue one. The Pubs are not going quietly (they have suddenly developed a fervor for nonpartisan elections), but it’s a matter of time.
Florida is going to change things…
Can I interest you in a bet? Four regions: NE urban corridor states (the Census Bureau’s NE plus Delaware, Maryland, DC, and Virginia); the South (the Bureau’s South less Delaware, Maryland, DC, and Virginia), the Midwest, and the West. Governors, state legislative chambers, and Congress critters each worth one point. The Dems’ net gains in the NE-plus-West will be at least twice as large as the net gains in the Midwest-plus-South.
I’d say three times as large, except that 2016 was already a +6 year for the Dems in the West.
The Dems’ net gains in the NE-plus-West will be at least twice as large as the net gains in the Midwest-plus-South.
I wouldn’t be against that, but Florida will not act like the rest of the South.
It will only marginally affect the overall picture for state legislative chambers and governorships (since it’s only one state), will have a somewhat bigger effect on the US congress, and will make very difficult Republican attempts to retain or later take back the White House.
well, this is depressing
thanks again, “conservatives”
Marty (or a Putin sock-puppet using that handle; hard to tell) wrote:
Or we have fundamentally inaccurate polling and an electoral system working exactly as designed.
Marty claims to disdain He, Trump which is why I suspect some Russian hood hijacked his username to post that comment.
Pollo de muerte (seemingly from the best of motives) wrote:
As much as I hate the thought of an another second of the Trump presidency, we can’t become what we hate; we can’t turn our back on the rule of law.
Impeachment is written into The Law just as much as the Electoral College is. ITMFA.
–TP
Tony-
I’m fine with impeachment as soon as we can meet the legal/evidentiary standard.
the only requirement for impeachment is sufficient votes in Congress.
Cleek-
I can’t square your statement with an adherence to the rule of law.
It’s a different law for impeachment than for, for example, money laundering. With different restrictions, different evidentiary standards.
Pdm,
Can you square “I can do what I want with the Justice Department” with (your idea of) the Rule of Law?
If The Law permits a petulant megalomaniac to launch a nuke, do you think maybe The Law is a ass?
In all seriousness, I want to know …
1) What “evidence” would you consider adequate?
2) What “legal standard” should we go by?
… when it comes to impeachment?
–TP
I can’t square your statement with an adherence to the rule of law.
Congress can impeach over literally anything, if the votes are there. the Founders knew this, and they assumed the political cost would be too great, if Congress was to impeach for a transparently political reason. but that’s the only check in the system. there’s simply no higher power that forbids Congress from impeaching over partisanship.
seems to me that we’re pretty close to – and maybe past – the point where most Congresspeople are safe enough in their districts that they would suffer no electoral consequences for a purely political impeachment.
The rule for impeachment under the law is what cleek describes. It is an act of political will that the law allows for.
It requires one legislative body to vote to impeach and another to convict, as they see fit as duly elected representatives of the people. The reasons or justifications required are for them to decide, given the political costs. It’s actually a fairly high bar, particularly as an actual conviction goes.
I’m the king of cross-posting today.
I don’t think it’s “literally anything”. You still need Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
I think obstruction of justice, if Trump used the powers of his office, would fit the historical definition of “high crimes”.
I like that the originalists on the court would end up using the lower standard for “high crimes”.
But once you include “misdemeanors”, the field is pretty wide open. Not, perhaps, for what should be grounds, but certainly for what could be within the letter of the specification. And who among us has contrived to live our lives while avoiding even an occasional, mismisdemeanor?
Pdm,
You seem to have answered my 2nd question: the “legal standard” is “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”.
Cool.
Now, how about my 1st question:
What “evidence” would you consider adequate?
Do we need a video-tape of Vladimir Putin handing He, Trump a briefcase full of $100 bills with non-consecutive serial numbers? Do we need a signed confession that “I, Donald John Trump, promised to lift sanctions on Russia in exchange for dirt on Hillary Clinton”? Do we need to see He, Trump actually drop his trousers on national TV to prove that his nuclear button is bigger than Li’l Kim’s? Or what?
And, not incidentally, do YOU, personally, get a veto on what constitutes adequate evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors”?
ITMFA. You’ll regret it if you wait.
–TP
I am sure that the members of Congress understand that the reason better be clear, legitimate and explainable.
I don’t like him or his style of communicating simply isn’t enough. What he says is no more dangerous than what other Presidents have said, personally or through their talking heads.
Collusion, proven to the satisfaction of the Senate, would be a reason that fits the criteria. But, if they take him out they better be sure there is bipartisan agreement at some level or the President becomes fair game for literally any reason. The next one as well. In a political climate like we have we might never get a President to serve a full term again.
Two solutions for Democrats. Move to Red States or turn Republicans into Democrats.
I’m not sure political identities are all that firm and fast. If lots of (D)’s move to red states, they won’t all remain (D)’s. Vice versa for (R)’s moving to blue states.
Some (many?) red states are red because the social and economic issues that are relevant to folks there skew toward being (R). Vice versa for blue states.
If nothing else, typical / average population density lends itself to going one way or the other. Economic base, ditto, e.g. agricultural vs industrial vs post-industrial (tech, finance).
Take 100 liberal (D) MA residents and move them to AR. Within 5 or 10 years, fewer than 100 of them will be (D)’s. Don’t know how many, but fewer.
Take 100 conservative (R) ID residents and move them to CA. Within 5 or 10 years, fewer than 100 of them will be (R)’s. Don’t know how many, but fewer.
Because what makes sense in MA and AR are different, and what makes sense in ID and CA are different.
My personal completely non-scientific take on what’s going on in the country now is that people in general are drifting toward places that are more likely to skew (D). Conservatives are losing their base, so they are freaking out and resorting to bullsh*t like gerrymandering and voter suppression to retain power. The emphasis on states rights is of a piece with this.
All in my opinion.
So, “move to a red state” is not really going to get it done, if your goal is just to dilute the pool of (R) votes in that red state. Not long term, anyway.
Unless so many blue staters move there that they change the fundamental character of the place.
AR is just under 3 million people. Move 2 million folks from metro NY there, and you won’t make a big change in the character of NY, but AR will be unrecognizable.
But 2 million NY’ers aren’t going to move to AR.
I don’t think it’s “literally anything”.
Maybe not, but it’s practically anything. Again, it’s an act of political will. That’s not nothing. Political will sufficient to impeach and convict even a particularly terrible president is hard to come by. And it’s not entirely independent of bad actions by a given president.
Think of it as a recall election, done via legislative representation. It’s democracy in action.
No hsh, it’s not that. He is supposed to have done something wrong that rises to an impeachable offense. It is specifically not “anything”.
they better be sure there is bipartisan agreement
My take, which is to say my opinion, is that 90% of the (R)’s in the House and Senate are, straight up, in the tank. There will be no bipartisan agreement on the merits of the case, ever, short of replacing nearly every (R) in Congress. And I don’t care if we replace them with other (R)’s, fine with me, as long as they are remotely honorable. But the guys there now are living the wingnut dream, and if impeaching Trump is going to put that at risk, it ain’t gonna happen with their participation.
Kushner wanted to set up a back channel to Russia, using Russian diplomatic comms infrastructure. For one readily available example.
If anything remotely similar happened in a (D) administration there would be a guillotine installed on the White House lawn.
Trump’s an (R) and he’ll sign whatever they hand him, so it’s a yawn.
I have no idea how we get from where are to something than reasonably be called “bipartisan”. That well is pretty much poisoned. Maybe we’ll get back there in a generation or so. You and I will probably be dead and gone.
Ok, Marty, I’ll ask you too:
What does He, Trump have to have done do justify his impeachment?
What evidence would YOU demand before agreeing that he had done it?
–TP
He is supposed to have done something wrong that rises to an impeachable offense.
It’s not a particularly well defined term. What “misdemeanors” justify impeachment?
Being a jerk probably doesn’t qualify. “Abuse of office” probably does. Abuse of office covers a lot of ground, and is to a large degree in the eyes of the beholder.
And that’s just one of several things that are equally squishy, and equally reasonable reasons to impeach.
Johnson was impeached for firing the Secretary of War. It violated the Tenure of Office Act. He “broke the law”. But mostly he pissed off the Senate.
Saying a president has to have done something that rises to an impeachable offense in order to be impeached is tautological. There’s no information there. “What is a florg? A florg is a florg. Duh!”
As a practical matter, the idea that Donald Trump hasn’t done something that could be considered impeachable – in the right political environment – is laughable. In fact, it’s hard to think of any president who hasn’t done something that could be considered impeachable in the right political environment. It goes with the territory.
What’s so hard about the concept of political will? That’s what it comes down to. The rest is window-dressing.
TP, they need to put something that resembles abuse of the office or collusion in getting it at his feet.
The real problem is that it’s now sport on the left to over dramatize everything he says or does. So the list of things they, maybe you, think are ok is so unrealistic we can’t have a conversation about it.
Johnson was impeached for breaking the law, he might have gotten away with breaking the law if he hadn’t pissed off Congress. Nonetheless they had a clear, explainable nonpartisan reason to present.
It is specifically not “anything”.
From time to time I ask my British acquaintances why, when a different party gains control of Parliament (and in the Westminster system, the entirety of government), they don’t just promptly repeal all sorts of stuff the previous party did and change the direction of the country radically. The answers all seem to me to boil down to, “It’s just not done.”
Much of the long-term success of the US system has been because some things “just aren’t done.” Linz and Valenzuela argue that the US is the only example of a strong-president democracy where this hasn’t broken down. The two features of the Trump administration that concern me the most — and admittedly, the policy areas where I concern myself are limited — are (a) rapid reversal of policies by changing regulations, not laws; and (b) nominating (and the Senate approving on party-line votes) judges with a history of supporting the new regulatory directions.
“It’s just not done” is failing. No telling how bad things can get.
First an observation … IIRC the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is a single term of art. Don’t read “misdemeanors” on its own … you can’t impeach a president for jay walking.
I will admit that some have argued that impeachment can be born of the political will of Congress. (A) I think that’s a terrible idea; and (B) I don’t think it’s well founded. In Nixon v. US (not the president, a recent judge named Nixon who was impeached), the SCOTUS held that it could not review Congressional impeachment of judges, but held the door open if a president was impeached without some connection to a legal standard.
So for policy reasons and legal reasons, I don’t think “literally or practically anything” is defensible.
Again, IIRC, “high crimes and misdemeanors” relates to misuse of the powers of one’s office. I don’t want to imply that this is completely settled law, but I believe it is a good policy and consistent with the use of the term when the Constitution was drafted.
Tony … I think if there is evidence that Trump used the power of his office to obstruct justice, then that’s enough. That’s within the old definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors”. We might already be there with the firing of Comey. Treason is a separate basis for impeachment, and IMO you would need some quid pro quo related to helping Russia for monetary gain. The standard for treason is and should be higher. Much higher.
What evidence would YOU demand before agreeing that he had done it?
A semen stained blue dress should do it.
Michael,
The challenge in what you are pointing out is that this administration is rolling back regulations used by the last administration to implement things they couldn’t get through Congress. Particularly over the last two years.
It’s just not done failed then. So now the shoes are on the opposite feet. D’s are obstructing R’s are getting around them. If this level of mtual petulanve doesnt convince one that a poorly supported impeachment is a bad ideathen nothing will.
Political will is just saying we want to so screw it let’s impeach him. That’s not hard to understand, it’s wrong.
Nonetheless they (radical Republicans) had a clear, explainable nonpartisan reason to present.
This claim has no basis in the actual historical record:
Sir, the bloody and untilled fields of the ten unreconstructed States, the unsheeted ghosts of the two thousand murdered negroes in Texas, cry, if the dead ever evoke vengeance, for the punishment of Andrew Johnson.
Yup. No vicious partisanship there!
Political will is just saying we want to so screw it…
Sorta’ reminds me of the concept of “the unitary executive”, but no matter. It’s OK when Republicans do it.
So to those who defend Trump and the GOP, please tell us why George Bush was not impeached and convicted for his torture regime? Was it because his actions did not constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” or was it because there was a lack of “political will”?
So for policy reasons and legal reasons, I don’t think “literally or practically anything” is defensible.
Then you aren’t taking “practically” to mean “practically” in the context of the discussion. Let’s put it this way: If the house voted to impeach, and the senate to convict, for some unnamed transgression, how ridiculous of an alleged transgression would the least ridiculous alleged transgression available to justify impeachment and conviction have to be for the courts to prevent the impeachment and conviction?
What president in the real world hasn’t plausibly done something plausibly bad enough for impeachment and conviction in a sufficiently conducive political environment, if any? Is Trump one o fhem?
I’m not even suggesting that Trump should be impeached, at least not now (not that I think he could be, practically speaking). But, if the political will existed, the rest would be academic.
HSH …
To suss out “the least ridiculous alleged transgression”, I’ll let you unpack the dicta from Nixon v. US:
“Finally, as applied to the special case of the President, the majority’s argument merely points out that, were the Senate to convict the President without any kind of trial, a Constitutional crisis might well result. It hardly follows that the Court ought to refrain from upholding the Constitution in all impeachment cases. Nor does it follow that, in cases of Presidential impeachment, the Justices ought to abandon their constitutional responsibilities because the Senate has precipitated a crisis.”
***
“If the Senate were to act in a manner seriously threatening the integrity of its results…judicial interference might well be appropriate.”
I can’t glean much detail from these quotes, but I think we need more than political will with no other basis.
Political will is just saying we want to so screw it let’s impeach him. That’s not hard to understand, it’s wrong.
It seems to be hard for you to understand, because “political will” means something other than “I just want to.” It means that politicians believe that whatever political price is to be paid is worth what they intend to do. That means that either the political price is very low (in the current discussion, the president is broadly and strongly unpopular) and/or that impeachent is an extremely important and necessary step (in the current discussion, the president represents a clear danger or some sort to the nation).
Simply initiating impeachment proceedings can be political suicide. That’s why political will isn’t just a whim.
Bobby …
I was also reminded of the “unitary executive” when thinking back on Watergate. When Nixon’s presidency was in trouble, Republicans pushed for a standard that required an “Indictable Crime”, which is significantly higher than what I’m advocating.
If you are looking for some balance to your “checks and balances”, the “political will” standard shifts the power to Congress and the “Indictable Crime” standard to the executive. The abuse of official power standard sits somewhere in between.
were the Senate to convict the President without any kind of trial
There. Unpacked.
The idea that the Supreme Court stepping in to overturn a Senate conviction of a sitting President would not in and of itself be a highly partisan act is simply risible.
Also, the actual fact of a lawless Supreme Court is not something buried in the mists of history or simply unthinkable. cf Bush v. Gore.
Marty has GOT to be kidding: The real problem is that it’s now sport on the left to over dramatize everything he says or does.
“I alone can fix it.”
“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
“I can do anything I want with the Justice Department.”
Marty will be telling us next that He, Trump is the least self-dramatizing president evah!
Some things are just too ridiculous to take seriously. But, since I positively seethe with goodwill toward those who defend He, Trump at every opportunity while proclaiming their disdain for Him, I feel obliged to address this:
… this administration is rolling back regulations used by the last administration to implement things they couldn’t get through Congress.
“This administration” is refusing to continue the “last administration” policy of NOT DEPORTING a large cohort of people who grew up American after being brought into the country as kids. So the original sin was obviously Obama’s. I suppose this is one example of what Marty is talking about.
I find that particular example despicable. I think people who support “this administration” on that score are despicable. I would be pleased to learn two things:
1) That Marty also finds it despicable; and
2) What non-despicable examples Marty has in mind.
–TP
HSH…
I’m not against political will because it reduces impeachment to a whim. I’m against it because it abandons any pretense of due process and allows something approaching mob rule to remove a president.
Bobby …
The words “any kind of trial” implies some level due process and not merely “political will”.
I can’t glean much detail from these quotes, but I think we need more than political will with no other basis.
There’s almost never no other basis. There’s practically never no other basis if the political will exists. Those things aren’t independent variables. There’s a correlation between the politicial will and other bases, in the real world. This isn’t an abstract discussion about possible universes. It’s a practical discussion, and the law doesn’t have specific standards beyond the congress following the proper procedures.
My take on what you quoted was the court avoiding explicitly declaring that they have no recourse whatsoever if something totally outrageous were to happen, not that anyone would give a crap about the courts if the conditions were that bad. (They don’t have an army.) But judges (i.e. lawyers) don’t always think that way.
I’m not against political will because it reduces impeachment to a whim. I’m against it because it abandons any pretense of due process and allows something approaching mob rule to remove a president.
I was responding to Marty on that point. But, to your point, as a practical matter, I’m sure the congress will always be able to manage the pretense of due process. If it got to the point that they didn’t bother with such pretense, all bets would be off. It would be like worrying about which mutual fund to invest in when money, itself, became worthless.
No hsh, you are describing political will as being bereft of any actual reason for impeachment. That means I just want to, the rest is rationalization.
Articles of impeachment have been brought to the floor of the house, no ones political career was ruined.
If they impeach him at this point, with the information thats public,it is simply a coup, and he isnt the one making us a third world country.
HSH …
I’m not trying to be dense, but I don’t completely follow your 8:51 post.
I’m not saying that political will is not a necessary condition for impeachment (it is). I’m saying that it isn’t sufficient (or shouldn’t be)
You say: “the law doesn’t have specific standards beyond the congress following the proper procedures.” The problem is that the Constitution is light on what those procedures are.
I guess I’ll take a guilty plea w/r/t the charge that as a lawyer I have a judicial mindset in approaching this issue, but if the Constitution is not clear on the procedure for impeachment, where else can we turn to fill in the blanks but the courts?
On your 8:56 post, I would hope the bar is set higher than mere pretense.
the SCOTUS held that it could not review Congressional impeachment of judges, but held the door open if a president was impeached without some connection to a legal standard.
You’re awfully sanguine about the legal standards of the Supreme Court. Always remember: Bush v. Gore.
In any case, there’s plenty of “legal standard” applicable to Trump, including, most obviously, violation of the emoluments clause and obstruction of justice, not to mention threatening witnesses, which certainly would fit the definition of high crimes or misdemeanors. Not sure what your idea of a “legal standard” is if these things don’t fit it.
It’s also quite obvious that his campaign was run in collusion with Russians, who criminally hacked emails in order to impugn the integrity of the Democratic candidate. If we don’t have a “smoking gun” with regard to Trump himself (which we kind of do), so what – he knew or should have known about the Republican criminal enterprise that was working to get him elected. I’m happy for the investigation to continue to go forward so that traitors (using that term in a nontechnical sense) such as Nunes can be frogmarched out of office, and so that the entirety of the Trump criminal enterprise can be exposed.
I guess I’ll take a guilty plea w/r/t the charge that as a lawyer I have a judicial mindset in approaching this issue, but if the Constitution is not clear on the procedure for impeachment, where else can we turn to fill in the blanks but the courts?
As a lawyer too, in what way are we confused about the procedure for impeachment? And as to the courts, political question doctrine anyone? Pollo, for whatever reason, you’re trying too hard.
allows something approaching mob rule to remove a president.
How would it be that a bunch of elected officials in the House, and 2/3 of the Senate would constitute “mob rule” in impeaching a President that didn’t even obtain a majority of the country’s votes?
Again, keep pearl clutching if that’s your thing, but it will be just fine if impeachment happens in this case.
You still need Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
you seem to be under the impression that there is something – some body or process or regulation – that can tell Congress “no, you can’t do that”. but there is no body that can tell Congress that it can’t impeach a President for any reason it feels like. the only thing that matters is the votes. there is no procedural hurdle or higher power that can stop Congress if its reason isn’t up to “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
if you disagree, you’re going to need to point to the statute that says otherwise. because, the process is simply:
the House votes. if that passes, the Senate votes. if that passes, the process is over and the person is impeached.
there is nothing stopping either chamber from voting to impeach for literally any reason.
literally all that matters is political will.
but if the Constitution is not clear on the procedure for impeachment, where else can we turn to fill in the blanks but the courts?
the Constitution is perfectly clear on the procedure. the people who wrote it spent a lot of time trying to come up with a way to make it workable. they were well aware of the problems with this and all of the other proposals on offer. and what we have is what they settled on. and with this one, they were totally aware that the only backstop to the procedure they came up with was political will. as with many other things, they were wrong about how much hold things like honor and dignity would have on people.
F
Actually, if the House votes, that’s impeachment. When the Senate votes, that’s removal.
the House votes. if that passes, the Senate votes. if that passes, the process is over and the person is impeached.
there is nothing stopping either chamber from voting to impeach for literally any reason.
literally all that matters is political will.
I agree with this, except that I think that in real life, Congress will want to have an excuse that looks like a violation of law, be it ever so small. In the current situation, Congress really doesn’t need to make stuff up. It’s there.
Pedantry lives! (Even outside the legal profession.)
Actually, if the House votes, that’s impeachment. When the Senate votes, that’s removal.
Right, and it’s due process, not mob rule. And it’s also, as cleek said, pretty unassailable.
If they impeach him at this point, with the information thats public,it is simply a coup
which definition are you using?
sapient …
Bush v. Gore was an abomination. Having said that, I won’t abandon the rule of law because the SCOTUS screwed the pooch on that decision.
As for Trump, I’ve already suggested obstruction of justice as a potential basis for impeachment. I think emoluments is kind of a difficult argument. I’ve also suggested that treason may be in the cards, but that one’s also hard.
As for the questions about procedure, I don’t think the standard for “high crimes and misdemeanors” is clear. I like the abuse of power standard, but some have suggested political will is enough and some have argued for a higher “indictable crime” standard.
If we have a wave election and Dems sweep into power and then impeach Trump without anything that approaches due process, then I think that would approach mob rule.
I don’t think I’ve been clutching any pearls. I haven’t even been snarky. I’ve tried to be even handed in explaining my understanding of ambiguities of the impeachment process.
“Pollo, for whatever reason, you’re trying too hard.”
I’m starting to agree with you there.
where else can we turn to fill in the blanks but the courts?
I take pains to remind you we had this thing called “The Civil War”, and if one party imposed its ‘political will’ via a vote in the Senate “without even the pretense of a trial” then the Court’s adverse opinion on the matter would essentially be as meaningless as Dred Scott was, and the tragedy of mass slaughter could well be repeated.
The outcome of such a struggle would not be a matter of law, but one of raw power, and the subsequent justification for that outcome, whatever it may be, is a matter for historians, not the legal profession.
If the Senate had voted 68-32 to convict Clinton, would that have met your standards for adhering to de jure and de facto legal niceties, or would it have been the ruthless application of raw political power?
“you are describing political will as being bereft of any actual reason for impeachment.”
For crying out loud, marty, there is always a reason. For good or for ill.
If we have a wave election and Dems sweep into power and then impeach Trump without anything that approaches due process.
In what universe do you imagine this happening? This is an argument totally devoid of historical grounding or even actual existing political analysis.
regards,
The constitution is clear enough: impeachment is to be for “high crimes and misdemeanours”, where “high”, in context in the language of the time, means “abusing the power of high office”.
Nixon abused his power to try to cover up the Watergate burglary, and recorded himself doing it. Once the tape was made public, there was overwhelming bipartisan support for his impeachment, which he forestalled by resigning.
Bill Clinton lied (or was deliberately misleading) about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, in a civil action and in response to partisan questioning. Whatever you think of that, it was not an abuse of power. His impeachment was a partisan affair, and he was rightly acquitted by the Senate (which requires a two-thirds majority for conviction, but, thanks to a few Republicans voting on the right side, failed to reach a simple majority).
Trump has abused his power to further his business interests in a small way, which would seem to qualify as a high misdemeanour. But his “treasonous” dealings with Russia occurred, so far as is yet known, before he took office. I think for impeachment you’d have to demonstrate some reciprocal favour to Russia he’s granted as president.
I don’t suppose the US really wants to get rid of Trump because he’s made his hotels more profitable since his election. Rather you (the sane ones) want to get rid of him because he’s an embarrassment (constitutionally that’s insufficient grounds) and perhaps because he can’t be trusted not to press his big nuclear button in a fit of pique. The nuclear button worry would be grounds to get rid of him, but you should use the 25th amendment for that.
Trump is obviously unfit to be president, but that was nearly as obvious before he was elected, and the electorate (combined with the undemocratic electoral college rules, and voter suppression) voted him in anyway. Impeachment is not supposed to replace voting.
And do you really prefer Pence as president to Trump? Yes, if you are genuinely afraid of nuclear war, but probably No otherwise.
…used by the last administration to implement things they couldn’t get through Congress. Particularly over the last two years.
Some yes, some no, at least for the things I watch. The “waters of the United States” changes are suspect, in the sense of whether they are within the authority Congress granted to the EPA. Congress was pretty wishy-washy about diffuse non-mobile sources. All of the CO2 regulations, plus MATS, plus the CSAPR, plus coal ash regulation, are the result of the SCOTUS ruling that not only could those regulations be done, but that they must be done under the plain language of the amended CAA and CWA. You and I may not like it, but the rules are such that Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts get to make those calls.
I admit that the one that has pissed me off the most is that ten years — starting pre-Obama — of work by ten western states to reach a compromise agreement on habitat maintenance involving the oil/gas companies, private land owners, and the BLM was tossed when the new administration pulled out with no explanation.
“Congress can impeach over literally anything, if the votes are there. the Founders knew this, and they assumed the political cost would be too great, if Congress was to impeach for a transparently political reason. but that’s the only check in the system. there’s simply no higher power that forbids Congress from impeaching over partisanship.”
Gack. You’re having an argument over the power to do something and the right to do something. Lots of people have the power to do lots of wrong things. Congressional power is essentially unreviewable in cases of impeachment. So they have the POWER to impeach over whatever. That doesn’t make it ‘right’ under the Constitution. Under the Constitution they can only impeach for Treason and High Crimes and Misdemeanors. That is famously not well defined, especially because we don’t impeach anyone very often (arguably we should impeach more often). But it isn’t just “I don’t like him and his policies”.
That said, if Trump has done anything in the zone of what I think he probably has done, he ought to be impeached. I mean I think that the Clinton Foundation operated at a money funnel level that was inappropriate and very suspicious (see especially when we find out how much the donations were down in 2017). Trump very very likely goes well beyond that. If we find evidence that Russia has been say buying up his properties at inflated prices, or if he laundered money, or did stuff like that, he should be impeached.
For me the evidence that Russia has him by the short hairs is circumstantial but strong–he crazily shifts on EVERYTHING–except Putin.
For crying out loud, you can always make one up, diesnt mean there is one. More important, this is how crazy dictators come to power, we don’t care how, just get rid of that guy. Kill the EC, impeach him for no reason at all, just f the constitution. We want him gone. At any cost.
Bobby …
“In what universe do you imagine this happening? This is an argument totally devoid of historical grounding or even actual existing political analysis.”
The hypothetical of a completely political impeachment was raised by others. I’m just saying it would be a bad thing. I’m not suggesting it is plausible … the Dems would be lucky to get a simple majority in the Senate with the current map, a ⅔ majority is not happening. Trump won’t be impeached without some Pub votes in the Senate.
PB …
“Trump has abused his power to further his business interests in a small way, which would seem to qualify as a high misdemeanour. But his “treasonous” dealings with Russia occurred, so far as is yet known, before he took office. I think for impeachment you’d have to demonstrate some reciprocal favour to Russia he’s granted as president.”
I was thinking about this as well. “High crimes and misdemeanors” implies abuse of power in office and would require an act after he became president.
Both treason and bribery are set off by themselves in Art II § 4 which could imply that commission of those crimes before taking office may be a basis for impeachment.
…the Dems would be lucky to get a simple majority in the Senate with the current map, a ⅔ majority is not happening.
Screw two-thirds for impeachment or overriding a veto; if the Dems win every Senate seat currently held by a Republican that is up for election in 2018, and hold all of the seats they currently hold, they will be short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.
Bobby …
“If the Senate had voted 68-32 to convict Clinton, would that have met your standards for adhering to de jure and de facto legal niceties, or would it have been the ruthless application of raw political power?”
I think it would have been purely political based on the fact that Clinton did not commit any “high crime and misdemeanors” as I understand the term. He abused his position as ML’s “supervisor”, but there wasn’t anything particular to the office of the president involved.
Who is Marty arguing with?
PdM, what does “completely political” mean? Who raised that, as such? Politics isn’t physics. It doesn’t exist without humans making judgements about other humans, and the judgements of those other humans, or the judgements those other humans will make about the judgements one might make about those other humans or their judgements (or whether they’ll vote you out of office).
Political will doesn’t exist in a vacuum like the force of gravity. Yes, it’s necessary for impeachment and/or conviction, but it also depends on the things that are sufficient so long as there is also the politicial will.
Ultimately, the standard that actually is clear is the number of votes in the chambers of congress. And it’s a high standard, practically speaking.
Removing someone from office by impeachment and conviction is the preferred alternative to a coup or assasination, if that makes anyone feel better. That’s why we have that method under our system of government.
if one party imposed its ‘political will’ via a vote in the Senate “without even the pretense of a trial” then the Court’s adverse opinion on the matter would essentially be as meaningless as Dred Scott was, and the tragedy of mass slaughter could well be repeated.
The question which simply leaps to mind is, how many people (with how many guns) will refuse to accept even incontrovertible facts in such a case? And how will they react when the real world (yet again) declines to conform to their fantasies? We are, sadly, well past the point where we are operating on the basis of shared facts.
HSH …
It was raised several times.
e.g. cleek: “Congress can impeach over literally anything, if the votes are there. the Founders knew this, and they assumed the political cost would be too great, if Congress was to impeach for a transparently political reason. but that’s the only check in the system. there’s simply no higher power that forbids Congress from impeaching over partisanship.”
I accept that a ⅔ vote in the Senate is hard. I’m suggesting that reaching that threshold without some finding of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors is not appropriate.
I’m going to call it a night.
I disagree that “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” is well defined.
I disagree that the courts have no role in reviewing the application of the “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” standard.
I disagree that “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” is window dressing for a purely political exercise of reaching a voting threshold.
I am, as usual, late to the party, so let me just make a couple of comments to prove I showed up at last.
First, from Cleek: “we don’t weigh the votes from people on one side of my town more than people on the other side. no state says “people who live in this county get three votes, people who live in these counties get two, and people who live in the cities get one”. no judge, mayor, congressperson, governor, DA, clerk, dog catcher or school board member is elected that way. why? because everybody knows it would be unfair and undemocratic.”
Just keep an eye on North Carolina, where a minority of (Republican) voters consistently gets greater representation in both the US Congress and the NC Legislature, thanks to extreme gerrymandering. “Unfair and undemocratic” is, I believe, the state motto of the Republican Party here. (Not that the Dems are consistently fair and democratic, I hasten to add.)
WRT grounds for impeachment, I can see the problems both for treason (hard to prove, and it happened before Trump was President) and emoluments (Trump could reasonably argue that if Congress had wanted him to give up his income stream, they should have asked – which of course they didn’t).
But the big issue here would seem to me (and IANAL, of course) obstruction of justice. It was what brought down Nixon and many of his henchmen, and what the Trump administration seems most openly to be doing. And that is using the power of office to prevent justice from taking its course. That’s certainly a “high crime,” and not just IMHO.
Watergate was nothing until the coverup. The various attempts to pin something on Trump will probably falter or bog down in legalisms, but deliberate sabotage of the process may be what does it.
The real problem is that it’s now sport on the left to over dramatize everything he says or does
the real problem is that the POTUS is a venal, vain, willfully and proudly ignorant horse’s ass and unevolved rich-boy brat, who has no understanding of or regard for the importance, responsibilities, or obligations of the office he holds.
that is the real problem.
“It’s just not done” is failing
see also “the president can’t have a conflict of interest”.
the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is a single term of art.
fine. WTF does it mean?
Again, IIRC, “high crimes and misdemeanors” relates to misuse of the powers of one’s office.
fine. upon taking office, Trump doubled the membership fee to mar-e-lago.
he fired comey because comey wouldn’t drop the investigation into flynn’s activities.
it’s a really long list, ranging from almost comically petty cupidity, to the profoundly wrong.
there is no crisp definition of what is meant by the Four Impeachable Offenses. it’s only come up a very small handful of times. the language is less than crystal clear and the body of precedent is thin.
your guess is as good as mine.
articles of impeachment have already been introduced based on obstruction in the case of comey and violations of the emoluments clause. all are reasonable, demonstrable bases for proceeding.
it won’t happen, because the political will in fact is not there. most likely, the fact that the freaking wheels would come and people would likely end up dead is another factor.
i do not expect trump to be impeached, but it really depends on what coms out of mueller’s work.
we are living in a profoundly low point in our national history. let’s hope it doesn’t get a lot worse. it could.
“till, it is a lot better than my first New Year’s in Japan, when there were no convenience stores and everything was closed for 3 days…
Reminds me of weekends in Oxford back when I was an undergraduate.
*Nothing* was open on a Sunday… except the tobacconist – and that was only for a half day.”
Try arriving in Canberra for the first time on a weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Day!
High crimes and misdemeanors” implies abuse of power in office and would require an act after he became president.
Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. Broke the law, but hard to see as an abuse of office.
Is just breaking the law sufficient?
BobbyP: So to those who defend Trump and the GOP, please tell us why George Bush was not impeached and convicted for his torture regime? Was it because his actions did not constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” or was it because there was a lack of “political will”?
Not many people remember, I guess, but in the early drafts of the bill of impeachment against Nixon there were charges relating to his conduct of the “secret” and illegal bombing of Cambodia, which was in direct violation of US law as well as international justice. It was dropped, presumably because of the belief that there was no way that anything under the general heading of foreign policy – even a murderous and illegal one – could serve as a serious basis for impeachment. Sad, but there it is, and I’m afraid it’s the answer to your question.
I think the answer on Bush and torture is that the people who would have impeached him were all complicit. It’s pretty clear all of the congressional leadership was briefed regularly on the program, and the intelligence committees.
I think the answer on Bush and torture is that the people who would have impeached him were all complicit.
Well, this speaks again to political ‘will’ and not ‘standards of evidence and/or due process’.
Andrew Johnson was impeached because he opposed the anti-slaver wrath of the northern radicals in Congress.
Watergate would NEVER have gone anywhere if the GOP had held significant majorities in Congress.
The Clinton impeachment was an act of pure political will to destroy a president because he was of the other political party.
The failure of the 2009 Congress to impeach Bush was a political calculation…i.e., the absence of political will, despite overwhelming evidence of legal (de jure) “high” crimes.
Where did this little discussion start? Pollo is OK with impeachment st meeting an ‘evidentiary standard’ (1/3/2:33 abv) and cleek replying that all that impeachment requires per the law is votes.
As a matter of technical law, cleek appears to be correct. As a matter of human decency, justice, and due process, well, OK, chops to pollo. As a matter of the actual historical record: meh, mixed.
Another demonstration that politics ain’t bean-bag.
So I declare HSH the winner.
Pro Bono: The nuclear button worry would be grounds to get rid of him, but you should use the 25th amendment for that.
Thanks for the advice, but who is this “you” that you’re speaking to?
The 25th is not long or arcane. It does not empower The American People to remove the POTUS. It speaks of “the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments, or of such other body as Congress may by law provide”.
I suppose Congress could designate the ObWi Central Committee (ha! is joke) as that “other body” but if He, Trump tweeted back in all caps that He is the sanest and healthiest president in history and Obwi commenters should all be locked up, the 25th puts the ball right back in Congress’s court.
Congress, Congress, Congress. Not the American Psychiatric Association, or the ABA, or the Supreme Court. Certainly not “you Americans”. Congress. A strictly political institution for a strictly political job.
–TP
It’s pretty clear all of the congressional leadership was briefed regularly on the program, and the intelligence committees.
FALSE
Did I see the term “mob rule” invoked above?
Had the 2016 election not been stolen from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton by a cast of characters outnumbered only by the dozen or so suspects in Murder On The Orient Express, and one doesn’t need to be a Clinton partisan to know this, 2017 would have been a race between the mob rule of certain impeachment for any number of made up shit reasons in the Republican Congress and republican/tea party/alt right assassin’s bullets murdering her, with dozens of shadowy republican conservative grassy knolls left uninvestigated under pressure from the paymasters who bankrolled both corrupt republicans in Congress and the assassins, not to mention the right wing deep state at CIA and the FBI.
No doubt the fake news commission seated to get to the bottom of her assassination would conclude she died of lingering complications from the flu she suffered from during the campaign, despite the pool of blood from her bullet wounds witnessed by half the Nation on TV.
The Rump Channel would lead the “reporting”, and “interview” smirking republicans and be believed in pigshit America.
If the bullets came first, the republican filth in Congress, who outgun by a fair margin any of the right wing vermin described in Hofstadter’s essays, would have followed up with impeachment just in case the b*tch c$nt would rise from the dead.
Ho hum, no tiresome mob rule to see there would be the response from the usual suspects here as they went back to studying both sides of their nails in feigned boredom.
Batshit, Betty.
Batshit.
dr ngo …
North Carolina is an example of what happens when a party is trying to maintain power beyond they actual popularity. Pubs in SC are not above engaging in voter suppression and gerrymandering (they do), but it is milder than what we see in NC because pubs in SC are actually secure in power. NC is trending purple and when that happens it brings out the worst.
On emoluments, the difficulty is (a) not much precedent to lean on, and (b) the fact that Trump has not been receiving unambiguous “gifts”. If foreign dignitaries are staying in Trump properties to curry favor with him, that looks bad, but it’s not a pure gift because those dignitaries are receiving something of value in exchange for what they pay the resort or hotel.
I agree that obstruction is the most obvious path and for me it would be legally sufficient. I hope that Mueller finds a strong money laundering case that leads directly to Trump because that would help avoid a major schism in the country. Impeachment based only on obstruction would be ugly. I think it would be legally sufficient but it would cause more damage to an already divided county as compared to impeachment based on financial ties to Russia
Russel …
“Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. Broke the law, but hard to see as an abuse of office.
Is just breaking the law sufficient?”
As I posted above, I don’t think Clinton abused the power of the presidency and should not have been removed from office for either the sex or lying under oath.
Bobby and dr ngo …
GWB’s torture policy is a tough call. FWIW, I absolutely lost my mind over the Cheney/Bush torture policy; domestic surveillance and baseless foundation for war in Iraq … essentially the entire toxic overreach associated with the 1% doctrine. Upthread I was accused of clutching at pearls. There are posts at another forum where I went into full blown histrionics over this stuff. Having said that, you create a really difficult standard if impeachment can be brought when the President is acting under the advice of counsel and intelligence services at a time of “war”. The original sin here was the AUMF giving Bush (and subsequent presidents) a blank check to pursue global war against a tactic (terrorism). As much as I think Cheney did a horrible disservice to the county, Congress was complicit and to allow Congress to then impeach a president or a vice president when the legislative body was guilty of dereliction of duty would be troubling.
That doesn’t make it ‘right’ under the Constitution.
the fact that you put it in quotes says it all. there is no arbiter of ‘right’ in the process. ‘right’ is irrelevant. ‘right’ is the perceptions of scolds. it has nothing at all to do with the plain and simple fact that Congress could impeach a President over anything they could muster the votes for.
pretending ‘right’ gets a say is superstition and self-righteous preening. if the votes are there, for any reason, it’s valid under the law.
“pretending ‘right’ gets a say is superstition and self-righteous preening. if the votes are there, for any reason, it’s valid under the law.”
I don’t see how to square your statement with the SCOTUS quotes I supplied upthread.
Just keep an eye on North Carolina, where a minority of (Republican) voters consistently gets greater representation in both the US Congress and the NC Legislature, thanks to extreme gerrymandering.
[posting from snowy Pittsboro]
indeed.
gerrymandering is a blight. but at least it’s not part of the Constitution, and is available to be abused by all, or to be corrected to courts now and then.
I think it would be a bad idea generally to impeach a president over his conduct of foreign affairs. It would not be to the advantage of the US if its foreign policy were to be regularly subject to hostile public investigation.
The proper thing would have been to indict Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld after they left office. But it’s easy to understand why Obama chose not to go that way.
I don’t see how to square your statement with the SCOTUS quotes I supplied upthread.
which?
SCOTUS is not given the power to review or overturn impeachment articles. it would probably like to have a bigger role in the process, but according to the Constitution, it doesn’t.
in any case, it’s all moot, since the GOP will never impeach one of their own (neither would the Dems).
i’m hoping for Natural Causes.
I don’t think Clinton abused the power of the presidency and should not have been removed from office for either the sex or lying under oath.
And yet, he was impeached. And could well have been removed from office.
Because the (R)’s in Congress wanted him out.
Which is, I guess, the point that many here are making.
“SCOTUS is not given the power to review or overturn impeachment articles. it would probably like to have a bigger role in the process, but according to the Constitution, it doesn’t.”
I’m not so sure SCOTUS sees it that way. Perhaps we’ll have a Marbury v. Madison moment.
I don’t see how to square your statement with the SCOTUS quotes I supplied upthread.
Are you referring to the quotes you included from White’s and Souter’s concurrences? The majority opinion concludes:
It seems, reading the whole opinion and concurrences, that the Supreme Court might be ready to examine a failure by the Senate to have any standards of procedure whatsoever, but it’s difficult to imagine how even that would play out (except, as others have noted, in violence). And, yes, it’s moot for the moment, since no R will ever betray Dear Leader.
I agree that it’s difficult to see how it would play out. I’ve been responding posts claiming that it’s completely settled law that Congress can impeach on purely political motivations and the SCOTUS can’t do anything about it.
I’m not claiming to know how it would play out. I have advocated for using “abuse of power of the office” as a standard, but lord knows that what I advocate and how a judge rules do not always produce a Venn diagram to my liking.
russell …
Pubs have used whatever standard suits them. They wanted an “indictable crime” standard for Nixon and a political standard for Clinton.
I’m not inclined to have Republican opportunism be my guiding light on this topic.
I, for one, am very tired of North Carolina. For as long as I have been interested in politics – many decades – it has sat on the cusp of becoming a sensible place.
It never makes it. What is the line about Brazil – it’s the country of the future, and always will be? So it is with NC. It’s always going to move out of the Confederacy in the next election.
I’m not inclined to have Republican opportunism be my guiding light on this topic.
And that’s a political opinion, one of many that factors into political will.
I think we’re talking past each other to some degree, because on one hand we’re discussing what the technical legal standard is for impeachment/conviction (i.e. a required number of votes). On the other, we’re talking about when it is or isn’t a good idea. One’s opinion on whether or not it’s a good idea, given any number of circumstances that bear on that question, is what at least in part determines one’s political will. And the political will of the electorate bears on the political will of the elected.
Marty asserts that impeachment and conviction based on political will is mob rule. But it’s always based on political will, regardless of what transgression is the basis for the impeachment and conviction. That basis may party determine whether or not the political will exists, and it’s hard to imagine a situation where the political will exists but no transgression does. In any case, it’s kind of silly to refer to a majority vote in the house combined with a 2/3 supermajority vote in the senate as mob rule.
And we’re talking about removal from office, not imprisonment or execution.
Fairly conservative finance capitalist sees what is coming:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-sessions-marijuana-adviser-wants-doctors-to-drug-test-everyone?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
And we’re talking about removal from office, not imprisonment or execution.
and the consequence of removal is … someone else becomes President, not the mob.
Fairly conservative finance capitalist sees what is coming
fine.
as long as Congress is included in the testing and the results are made public.
I’m not inclined to have Republican opportunism be my guiding light on this topic.
Nor I.
I have no idea if Trump will be impeached, or if he should be impeached. I have no idea what the consequences of his being impeached would be, other than that it would be a freaking mess.
I can’t imagine what would incite the current Congress to bring articles of impeachment. I am acutely aware of the double standard applied by, and to, folks with (D)’s and (R)’s after their name. I think it sucks, but since I don’t speak Italian or French well enough to move to Italy or France and Canada’s too freaking cold, I just accept it, for now, as part and parcel of living in this country.
The founders were, painfully, scrupulous about safeguarding the privileges of political and regional minorities and (frankly) socio-political elites against the democratic rabble, and the (R)’s have learned to make good use of the institutions they (the founders) created to implement minority rule.
Hard to see how to change that without breaking everything other than through steady, disciplined effort.
Impeachment would make no difference in any of that. I’d be pleased if Trump was not POTUS, but there’s about 1/3 of the country who would still be Trumpers, with or without dear leader. The (R)’s have been working this stuff long before Trump, they will continue to do so after he’s gone. Whenever that is, and for whatever reason.
Mueller should, and hopefully will, be allowed to pursue his work to its end. The congressional investigations into the various issues around Trump will produce nothing, it’s basically down to Mueller’s team to see if there is anything that deserves action.
As far as I can tell, the only thing on the table that would clearly merit impeachment would be obstruction of justice, in the form of interfering with Comey’s investigation of Flynn. Money laundering, soliciting political dirt from the Russians during the campaign, probably not enough. Actions of Manafort, Flynn, Trump Jr or Kushner, probably not enough.
So my expectation is that Trump will see out his four years. Unless he dies of KFC-induced heart failure. But I don’t see that happening either, if that was going to do it, he’d have been gone years ago. The man has the personal habits of an germophobic OCD teenager.
I think we’re saddled with the crappiest POTUS ever, the most ignorant, incompetent, and corrupt man to ever hold the office, until further notice, probably until at least 2020. Maybe longer.
We need to figure out how to deal with that.
careful with those defamatory comments, russell. Trump’s feeling all cease and desisty today.
Fun linking on the IPad. That link should be:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/head-of-largest-hedge-fund-says-economic-downturn-could-leave-us-at-each-others-throats-2018-01-03?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
But, the Sessions link reminds me that today Sessions gave the green light to U.S. Attorneys to prosecute marijuana sale and usage, including in states where free women and men, not the slaveholder types who pant over states rights, have deemed marijuana a legal substance.
My sources in Colorado, where marijuana is a legal substance, tell me the many purveyors and users, among which I am not, are as of today referring to the U.S. Attorneys’ Office in Denver as Fort Sumter on the Platte.
Sales of semi-automatic weaponry and accoutrements are sure to spike as the business owners beef up their staffs’ abilities to resist and interdict federal encroachment of states rights by illegitimate federal confederate lunkheads who believe the Negro should be property but a relatively harmless weed product is not property.
I’m dying to hear what my female all in rump supporter friend, he’ll make America great again, will have to say when she is prosecuted for imbibing the cannibus candies she enjoys.
She likes the concept of private prisons, so she’ll feel right at home.
Trump can kiss my keister
We need to figure out how to deal with that.
Incessant coverage of “The President Show” (as opppsed to “The Policy Show”) is NOT helping. Grafting celebrity/tabloid culture onto political culture enables Trump and all those who would distract us from concern for the general welfare.
Why oh why is the MSM leading w Trump vs Bannon?!?
For the same reason the wife of the founder of the WWF is heading up the Small Business Administration.
Because America is full of shit.
By the way, I signed the OBWI disclosure agreement wherein it was stipulated that rump will kiss Russell’s keister.
U.S. Attorneys’ Office in Denver as Fort Sumter on the Platte.
Don’t overestimate the resistance. As far as know, it’s a slam dunk case, and state officials can be drawn in quickly in terms of conspiracy to distribute a Class I narcotic, aiding and abetting, etc. Serious time, and I don’t know a defense other than nullification. I think most officials will fold.
Congress may step up quickly, but I think they will have to go farther than the Rohrbacher amendment this time.
HSH …
“I think we’re talking past each other to some degree, because on one hand we’re discussing what the technical legal standard is for impeachment/conviction (i.e. a required number of votes). On the other, we’re talking about when it is or isn’t a good idea. One’s opinion on whether or not it’s a good idea, given any number of circumstances that bear on that question, is what at least in part determines one’s political will. And the political will of the electorate bears on the political will of the elected.”
We may or may not be talking past each other, but to be clear I am saying that I think the technical requirement is more than garnering enough votes. I am saying that even though it is very hard to get to ⅔ majority in the Senate, if there is no record made as to treason, bribery or HC&M, then it isn’t good enough.
I don’t know that for sure (no one knows for sure) but I think that’s the standard under the Constitution as suggested by the SCOTUS (so far) and I also think that’s the proper standard.
On the marijuana thing … my firm represents some of the new grower/distributors of medical marijuana in Florida. We also represent banks. We thought we had a bank lined up to receive deposits from the medical marijuana firms but that just fell through.
Sessions is creating FUD and Florida still has a terrible Trumpian AG, so financial institutions are understandably nervous.
I think it will work out in the long run and in states with sane state and federal prosecutors, it shouldn’t be much of a problem, but at this moment we are scrambling a bit down here.
Re the Sessions’s marijuana thing…
Here in Colorado growers/dealers violating state law — forest growers, illegal house conversions, people with hundreds of pounds of weed in the car trunk — remain a routine thing. I’m sure the state authorities would appreciate the feds’ assistance in finding those sorts of things.
Should it turn out we have a federal prosecutor who wants to shut down the legal industry, and young males being young males, I anticipate a low-level terrorism campaign. The prosecutor’s car keyed and windows broken; their spouse’s tires ice-picked; their kids’ school lockers vandalized.
I hope that Mueller finds a strong money laundering case that leads directly to Trump because that would help avoid a major schism in the country.
I wouldn’t be so sure that most Trump supporters would believe a solid money laundering case against Trump either. More likely, they would argue that “Everybody (among politicians) does it (illegal stuff with money)”. So their boy is being unfairly singled out. Just like he would be by any other attempt to refute the theory that he is above the law.
I am saying that even though it is very hard to get to ⅔ majority in the Senate, if there is no record made as to treason, bribery or HC&M, then it isn’t good enough.
And I am saying that, if those votes actually exist, because the collective political will is sufficient, there will always be, at the very least, something satisfying the loosely (or un-) defined requirement of HC&M.
state officials can be drawn in quickly in terms of conspiracy to distribute a Class I narcotic, aiding and abetting, etc.
For repealing a law that makes something illegal under state, as well as Federal, law? Lots of stuff is a Federal crime, without being a state crime. (Not to mention the cases where the law was repealed by initiative, not by the legislature at all.) So I’m just not seeing if for that piece.
And does requiring licensing amount to “aiding and abetting”? When everybody knows that regulation and licensing is a government plot to make doing business HARDER? Difficult sell, there.
So where do the charges arise from? I’m just not getting it.
then it isn’t good enough.
for whom?
which body gets to tell Congress “No”? and where is that power described in the Constitution?
HSH ..
“And I am saying that, if those votes actually exist, because the collective political will is sufficient, there will always be, at the very least, something satisfying the loosely (or un-) defined requirement of HC&M.”
You have more faith in the purity of motivations underlying political will than I do.
cleek …
“which body gets to tell Congress “No”? and where is that power described in the Constitution?”
SCOTUS. I don’t know for sure if that’s how it would work out, but they’ve certainly suggested that they’d be interested in a case where the Senate ignored standards and process. That’s why I said we’d potentially see Marbury v. Madison part deux.
Speaking of courts, I’m off to one … y’all have a nice rest of your day.
So where do the charges arise from? I’m just not getting it.
They get grandmothers for allowing their cars to be used.
Maybe you think “And you knew 500 lbs were being transported across the state?” is not prosecutable, but there is a lot of precedent.
Class I production is maximum 7 years. That obviously takes place within states, and “requiring licensing” is nothing but permitting, aiding and abetting. What, if a state licenses murder, slavery, or the production of tommy guns, they protect themselves? By licensing an illegal activity? Licensing in itself strikes me as a violation of federal law, conspiracy.
Re: the Feds fighting cannabis legalization:
This is the perfect Trump administration issue:
-no benefit to the public
-stokes culture war
-makes great political theatre
wj: can you explain? Seems pretty obvious that growers, distributers, retailers, and consumers in legalized jurisdictions are breaking Federal law.
R-Co Brandon Rittiman (in defense of his state’s legalization) tweets that it’s a Commerce Clause issue (‘cuz the cannabis market is intrastate commerce). Good luck w/ that…
If we see SCOTUS intervening in an impeachment, it definitely will be a Marbury v. Madison moment.
b9n10nt: Seems pretty obvious that growers, distributers, retailers, and consumers in legalized jurisdictions are breaking Federal law.
For them, definitely obvious. But the comment was in regards to politicians and state officials being hauled in for conspiracy and aiding and abetting. That was the part I wasn’t understanding.
SCOTUS
where is that power described in the Constitution?”
Colorado uses much of the taxes raised from marijuana on investing in public education infrastructure, and I expect the other states where weed is legal arrange things in similarly fruitful and worthy ways.
Which is precisely why this minority tyrannical gummint is going after the industry. They can’t let the blue states invest in an institution conservative filth seek to destroy.
This follows the same destructive logic that revoking the deductibility of state and local taxes does.
Betsy Devos and Steve Moore will explain it to you.
Brush up on your Cyrillic so you can read chapters 11 thru 16 in Atlas Shrugged, wherein Dagny Taggart de-catheterizes a homeless person who passed out on her railroad right-of-way with one slice from the flick knife she keeps in her stiletto heels.
Defund public institutions and the common good.
Lest we lose track of the occasional good news in the new year:
The so-called voter fraud commission has been (quietly!) disbanded. Sure, it was always bullsh*t. But it’s still good that it’s gone.
Hairshirt up thread:
“And we’re talking about removal from office, not imprisonment or execution.”
Once again, we cede the fun stuff to the Rumplican Party base without a torch being lit.
wj: Ahhh, got it.
You have more faith in the purity of motivations underlying political will than I do.
It’s not about purity. It’s about how politics work. A majority of the house and 2/3 of the senate aren’t going to vote to impeach and convict a president who isn’t extremely unpopular. And guess what – it’s never happened! We’ve had some pretty unpopular presidents, right?
So, considering the looseness of the HC&M standard, it’s very hard to imagine a president that unpopular who hasn’t something that could meet that very fuzzy standard. The standard that is very clear is the number of votes required, something that doesn’t come easily (and, so far, never has).
As it turns out, not so fast on the demise of the voter fraud gestapo:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14743241/trump-kobach-vote-integrity-commission-disbanded/
Here in Colorado growers/dealers violating state law — forest growers, illegal house conversions, people with hundreds of pounds of weed in the car trunk — remain a routine thing.
People have been growing, buying, selling, and using marijuana in quite large numbers for at least the last 50 years. Quite large numbers within certain communities for the 50 years before that. And in unknown numbers for millenia before that. “Unknown” in the last case because it wasn’t illegal and nobody paid much attention to it.
Sessions is not likely to change any of that.
If they start locking up white people in large numbers they’re going to have a serious mess on their hands.
I anticipate a low-level terrorism campaign.
Is keying a car going to be “terrorism” now?
In any case, more effective might be outing all of the prosecutors to like to spark one now and then.
Cleek, you write:
.
What you call superstition and self-righteous preening is what looks to me like the underpinnings of how the rule of law works. No country functions purely on the black letter law, and resorting to it as if might made right is exactly the kind of thing that kills liberal systems.
There are all sorts of things that you ‘can’ do, which aren’t right to do. A totalitarian despot almost always changes the laws so that he isn’t violating them. That doesn’t make it ‘right’.
If your institutions don’t restrain themselves in various ways, you end up in a mess. That is one of the reasons why trying to export a number of institutions to other countries hasn’t always worked out well. There are thousands of things that sort of have to work even though they aren’t directly spelled out in the laws.
My biggest beef with Clinton, before Trump came on the scene, was that she seemed hellbent on pushing the laws on bribery and sketchy fundraising to the very black letter limit. I wasn’t comfortable with that. Now Trump blows past all of that. I hope the republic can survive him. If we do survive him, I hope we reset the norms at a tighter threshold than Clinton was willing to play with (though I’m cynical so I doubt that will happen).
My point on Congress is that yes they are the final authority on what counts as impeachable. Yes, they aren’t really reviewable. That means they have the might to rule on a purely political basis. Nevertheless that hasn’t happened. The reason that hasn’t happened is that they don’t have the right to do that. Violating that would be at or past the end of our functioning republic.
Just because you CAN doesn’t make it right.
My biggest beef with Clinton, before Trump came on the scene, was that she seemed hellbent on pushing the laws on bribery and sketchy fundraising to the very black letter limit.
Non capisco. Please explain.
Just because you CAN doesn’t make it right.
of course!
i certainly haven’t been advocating that we should start impeaching people over frivolous partisan nonsense. like you said, that would put us ‘at or past the end of our functioning republic’.
for Trump, i expect Mueller will turn up something borderline impeachable, the GOP will decline to go there, and the Dems won’t win sufficient majorities until the appetite for impeachment is gone or moot.
The reason that hasn’t happened is that they don’t have the right to do that.
i think they absolutely do have the [legal] right. the only thing stopping them is that it’s a huge norm to knock over, bigger than the legislative filibuster even. but they’ll get to the latter, eventually. hopefully not the former.
[of course i wouldn’t have thought they would nominate and elect someone as scummy as Trump, either. nor that they’d try to follow that up with Roy Moore. so, who knows…]
i’m in the same boat as sapient. please explain.
The reason that hasn’t happened is that they don’t have the right to do that.
No it isn’t, they impeached Bill Clinton. The reason it hasn’t gone as far as a conviction is that a party which wins the presidency is bound to have at least a third of the seats in the Senate.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/the-president-of-the-united-states-threatens-lawsuit-to-stop-publication-of-a-book/#
If it was an automatic weapon he was trying to ban, conservatives would be emptying the gun shops and threatening armed insurrection.
But it’s only the First Amendment, so no worries.
Maybe it will be a trigger warning.
Sir Thomas More on giving the Devil the benefit of the Law. A passionate echo of our current discussion.
Don’t let it bother you that More got his head chopped off anyway.
–TP
The reason that hasn’t happened is that they don’t have the right to do that.
I’d consider that to be a far too idealistic statement. Imo it has little to do with having the legal right or not but with lack of opportunity and fear of political (not legal) fallout for the individual congressbeing.
And as stated above by others, ALL* presidents have committed acts that would suffice. It’s just stuff the US do not prosecute their highest officials for like massacring civilians abroad.
*maybe except the guy that caught a lethal infection during his own inauguration and died not long after.
While we’re playing around with what the law and the Constitution require in various situations, perhaps one of the legal minds here can analyze this for me.
Suppose (purely for the sake of discussion; I have no clue how likely it is!) the President orders a military (nuclear or otherwise) strike on North Korea. And the military says, “Sorry, sir, not until you’ve gotten Congress to sign off.” (Maybe even “to declare war”, but even just anything short of that.)
What is those guys legal position? Can they successfully argue “illegal order”, because the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, and so be OK legally? Or are they in big trouble for disobeying a direct order?
My, definitely IANAL, guess is that “illegal order” would probably fly. (Always assuming they were willing to make it.) But an expert opinion would be interesting.
I wonder if the people so worried about impeachment for political reasons are just as worried about not impeaching for political reasons. (I’m curious like that.)
I’m not sure cleek is saying when anyone should or shouldn’t impeach a given official, nor am I. We’re just talking about how high the bar is legally. And for the nth time, getting a majority of the house and a 2/3 supermajority to agree is no small thing.
The constitution could just as easily have been written to say that congress can remove a sitting president from office simply by voting in favor that way – first a majority in the house and then a 2/3 supermajority in the senate, period.
Would that be a horribly undemocratic check for the legislature to have on the president? If so, why?
But it’s only the First Amendment, so no worries.
For cripes sake, nobody tell him about the Alien and Sedition Acts.
What is those guys legal position? Can they successfully argue “illegal order”, because the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, and so be OK legally? Or are they in big trouble for disobeying a direct order?
My understanding is that if the military lawyers (org?) sign off on it, they must obey to be legal, but they have the right to wait on that judgement (which might be appealed?). This came up re: Bush administration torture, when I think Marty Lederman said that a soldier may not decide on his own what is legal or isn’t. After the fact, it could be argued and litigated in courts, but “only following orders” under the above conditions was an adequate defense.
All complicated in the field, real-time conditions, etc. The grunt refusing to shoot under orders from a lieutenant could be punished, but the court-martial would decide his fate. The grunt who shot would not necessarily be protected until a ruling came down, but likely protected.
My Lai Courts Martial
Only the officer was convicted, and he had his sentence reduced.
The post-WWII warcrime* trials had a different standard, but certainly the lawyers should be aware of how many lawyers were hung.
*I dislike calling them “Nuremburg,” there were many other courts.
Obeying Unlawful Orders
“It’s clear, under military law, that military members can be held accountable for crimes committed under the guise of “obeying orders,” and there is no requirement to obey orders which are unlawful. However, here’s the rub: A military member disobeys such orders at his/her own peril. Ultimately, it’s not whether or not the military member thinks the order is illegal or unlawful, it’s whether military superiors (and courts) think the order was illegal or unlawful.”
To put it another way, I have been told by career military that if Trump says “Nuke Toronto” either Toronto gets nuked or Pence becomes President in five minutes with a general going to jail for murder. My impression is that most officers find the first option more palatable.
Not commenting on the memorial thread. It was an illegal war of aggression, and Olmsted had a choice.
As long as we are daydreaming, I would go with the 25th Amendment. Every time Trump puts out another tweet about North Korea he seems to this non expert eye to demonstrate his mental instability. But getting enough Republicans to place the risk of nuclear war above their own careers is probably expecting too much. But to me Trump is why you need a 25th Amendment. We would still be screwed on every other issue.but we wouldn’t have a dimwit with nukes picking twitter fights with another dimwit with nukes.
Thanks, Bob. I hadn’t realized you were a lawyer.
cleek …
“which body gets to tell Congress “No”? and where is that power described in the Constitution?”
I’d start with Art II, § 2, “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution”.
I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t know for sure exactly how much process is required for impeachment, just that naked politics, i.e. “Trump is a bad guy”, is not enough. SCOTUS has also implied that you need more.
Keep in mind that many of the cases dealing with judicial reluctance to interfere with impeachment come from cases where federal judges are being shown the door. Those cases may not be directly applicable to a presidential impeachment. First, SCOTUS has been loath to be seen as interfering with impeachment of members of its own branch out of a concern of eroding checks and balances; that same concern would not exist in a presidential impeachment. Second, unlike a judicial impeachment, the impeachment of a president is presided over by the Chief Justice, so the camel’s nose is already under the tent.
We are obviously not going to convince each other. The practical reality is that the Senate with Chief Justice Robert presiding is not going to remove Trump without significant process. I happen to think that’s a good thing. Others can differ.
We are obviously not going to convince each other. The practical reality is that the Senate with Chief Justice Robert presiding is not going to remove Trump without significant process. I happen to think that’s a good thing. Others can differ.
I differ. Your concern about “rule of law” doesn’t seem to extend to the President, who has blatantly obstructed justice, and just as blatantly violated the Emoluments clause (or, if we want to be less technical about it, engaged in self-dealing to the point of egregious malfeasance in office, which would have gotten anyone in business fired). I admit to being extremely confused as to why you feel espoused to such a narrow interpretation of the impeachment power under the circumstances we have in front of us.
But, sure, the R’s will not go forward with it, so all of this discussion is merely entertaining.
Hard cases make bad law.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
My own guess is that a Mueller-negotiated 25th amendment solution is rapidly approaching, which will involve a whole passel of folk skating or getting pardoned.
Times have changed since Watergate, and there are no longer people willing to take a fall, or people willing to prosecute. Democrats will be satisfied with a symbolic victory, and Trumpkins will take their profits and move on.
Obama set a precedent. Should have at least gone after Woo.
Times have changed since Watergate
Yes, Times. They’re called Republicans in Congress.
Bob …
Dems are more interested in political gains reaped from an unpopular Trump. Unless they can make a three rail bank shot and take out Pence with Pelosi as Speaker of the House (assuming the Presidential Succession Act is constitutional), then I think they are OK with the country suffering under Trump.
I agree that Obama should have investigated W and Cheney, but unless there was a knowing misleading of the country or Congress, I still think that it would (and should) be hard to convict them of anything during a time of war. The original sin lies with Congress abdicating its war making authority.
Pdm,
I repeat: More got his head chopped off in the end.
–TP
Fortunately we have the 5th Amendment in the US.
The original sin lies with Congress abdicating its war making authority.
The actual original sin was with people voting for Nader. Just saying,
I lived in Florida at the time and did the Nader Trader thing with a Dem in Kansas.
I lived in Florida at the time and did the Nader Trader thing with a Dem in Kansas.
Why am I not surprised.
Gore got my vote in a swing state and a third party got a little love towards qualifying for federal funds … what’s the harm? It’s not like Gore was going to win Kansas anyway.
Gore got my vote in a swing state and a third party got a little love towards qualifying for federal funds … what’s the harm? It’s not like Gore was going to win Kansas anyway.
All of that vote trading stuff: ask the former commenter nombrilisme vide what the effect of that was. So we have two strikes: Gore v Bush = didn’t work out well; Clinton v Trump = didn’t work out well.
What works out well? Supporting with all your heart the Democratic candidate/lesser of two evils. Do it. Campaign for them. Convince yourself that you love them. C’mon, it’s really not that hard.
C’mon, it’s really not that hard.
And, by the way, it begins with pushing back on the bs that Sebastian H was trying to push upthread (an issue that he was challenged on, but, of course, didn’t answer).
” Convince yourself that you love them.”
This is just religion. Same attitude on the right would get your absolute disdain. Some of us on the right did not convince ourselves to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. By your thinking he might have won the popular vote. I am happy having not voted for either one of them. He has proven me right and she had long ago.
When I was just a baby chick, I had a bumper sticker that said:
Vote for Cthulhu! Why Settle for a Lesser Evil?
I save my “heart” for local candidates.
Dems get my vote in a swing state. My wife occasionally sends them money. They’re pushing their luck if they ask for more.
Some of us on the right did not convince ourselves to vote for the “lesser of two evils.
“Some of us on the right” murdered a woman in my town in August. I have nothing to say to you, and no harbor for your “thoughts”.
Dems get my vote in a swing state. My wife occasionally sends them money. They’re pushing their luck if they ask for more.
Ypu are pushing your luck if you do less. I should say “our luck”.
By the way, like wonkie, I need glasses now (whereas before, I didn’t). ‘splaining the typos.
As I understand it, it’s Russian money being laundered by Trump. Specifically so that Russian criminals can get access to funds to use in the West. (Even, or perhaps especially, they don’t want to invest in Russia these days.) So the Russians lend Trump money to stay afloat, which nobody honest will any more. He pays them back (less a fee) into accounts already in the West. Everybody (at least those involved) happy.
Byomtov, my understanding is that there is a lot of Russian money which potentially is locked up under various sanction programs. So it needs to get laundered so it can be spent in the West.
Re Clinton, and why I would be happy to dial the corruption adjacent level down below what she did:
The multi-million dollar (for personal money, not fundraising)speaking thing isn’t good. I figure we have to live with it in former politicians as a cash-out, but for someone who knows full well that she was running for President it fits my definition of corrupt practices (note I say corrupt, not ILLEGAL).
The Clinton Foundation wasn’t remotely appropriate for a current presidential candidate either. First of all, claims to the contrary it was definitely not just a charity. It was a place for future Clinton appointees to hang out and get paid huge amounts of money while waiting for her administration. See especially Sid Blumenthal at $10,000 per month for years (while he was still working for other people). So he had a PART TIME job at the Clinton Foundation for $10,000 per month. That’s corrupt. (Not illegal because they write the laws about what counts as illegal. Corrupt). And again, if you are talking about the fact that people can cash out when they are done, that’s annoying but harder to deal with. But Clinton knew she was running for President (hell we all knew she was running for president).
But the most clear is yet to come. There were massive foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation ‘charity’. Those donations (used to support Sid Blumenthal’s $10,000 per month part time job) look atrocious. The proof comes in about 18 months when we get to see the 2017 and 2018 disclosures. If this was a non-corrupt charity that foreigners were donating to because of its good works, we should see foreign donations continue to the Clinton Foundation. There are a bunch of reports that the giving is down, but we don’t have the numbers yet.
I would give 2:1 odds on a $100 bet that donations are down at least 30% off 2015. I wouldn’t be at all shocked if it was down by half or two thirds.
That doesn’t make sense for a functioning charity. But it makes perfect sense for a corrupt grey-funded political machine after the politician in the middle of it fails.
What drop in funding level would you agree would suggest that there were some heavy corrupt elements? Cleek? Russell? Sapient?
Pdm: Fortunately we have the 5th Amendment in the US.
Let us enjoy it while it lasts.
A “president” who says “I can do anything I want with the Justice Department” is perfectly capable of trying to drown your 5thA rights in a bathtub, but not impeachable on that account. He has to actually violate them — and his partisans have to agree that he did. Got it.
–TP
How money laundering works in real estate
$10,000/month! Why that’s just about what an average corporate director makes for doing just about nothing except regularly vote a big pay raise to the CEO. Surprisingly, I have yet to meet a conservative decry this corruption.
I wonder why.
This has been yet another example of Clinton Rules.
“Why that’s just about what an average corporate director makes for doing just about nothing except regularly vote a big pay raise to the CEO.”
Hmmmm, I thought we were defending as a charity?
That doesn’t make sense for a functioning charity. But it makes perfect sense for a corrupt grey-funded political machine after the politician in the middle of it fails.
Of course, it could be BOTH a legitimate charity AND have foreigners (or citizens, for that matter) donating to it on the assumption that they would gain some corrupt benefit. No matter how utterly pure it’s actual actions were. If you live in a totally corrupt country, it’s hard not to assume that everybody else is the same.
Not saying that was what was happening. Just that a mere drop in donations doesn’t prove much regarding whether corruption was happening.
Clinton Foundation tax exempt status: 501(c)(3)
Heritage Foundation tax exempt status: 501(c)(3)
Apples and apples?
–TP
The Clinton Foundation wasn’t remotely appropriate for a current presidential candidate either.
it was founded in 1997.
which Clinton was running for President in 1997?
It was a place for future Clinton appointees to hang out and get paid huge amounts of money while waiting for her administration
1997.
this was before Bill was even out of the WH, before Hillary was in the Senate.
. See especially Sid Blumenthal at $10,000 per month for years
maybe that’s too much. maybe that’s too little. what did he do there?
There were massive foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation ‘charity’.
and there were also massive foreign outlays. as in, they spent a lot of money on improving the lot of people in other countries. should they not have? should they have only taken American money to spend on other countries?
do you mean to imply that non-Americans only donate to charities for political reasons ?
again, 1997.
I would give 2:1 odds on a $100 bet that donations are down at least 30% off 2015. I
actually, they fell dramatically in 2016, while she was running.
The Charity Navigator rating for the Clinton Foundation.
If we want to make laws stating that national officeholders are barred from making megabucks for giving speeches, that’s fine with me. Apparently we don’t want to make those laws, so former office holders rake it in, along with pop musicians, football players, and CEOs of large corporations.
I have no argument with the claim that the Clintons have enriched themselves as a consequence of their public careers. What I find kind of laughable is the idea that they are, in any way, exceptional. Between the two of them, they’ve been governor, POTUS, US Senator, and Secretary of State. They’re notable people, and they’ve had notable careers. People like that quite often get rich.
You need to tell me what is, in any way, notable about the Clintons in that regard. At least they have a charity.
Clinton rules. It’s gonna be that way until they’re dead, Chelsea’s dead, and probably Chelsea’s kid. The stuff they get called out on compared to the other bullshit that goes on makes me shake my head.
Cleek, the most recent numbers I’ve seen are from 2015. Where have you seen 2016 numbers? The reports I heard were that the Clinton Global Initiative was being wound down in late 2016 back when we thought she would win and it provided an even clearer conflict of interest than the general foundation. Are you talking about that?
I’m not sure what you are trying to get at with your bolded “1997”. Organizations change. The Catholic Church was founded relatively early, and did some good work early, but became corrupt and unseemly at some point afterwards…
Russell, “I have no argument with the claim that the Clintons have enriched themselves as a consequence of their public careers.”
I’m not particularly concerned about enriching themselves with cheesy talks AFTER their careers are over. Its unseemly, but whatever. I’m concerned with the corrupting influence of raking in millions of barely earned dollars while still campaigning.
Also it is a bit weird to say that they aren’t exceptional. Is there some other political couple that has made more than $150 million in ‘speaking’ fees alone? At the very least we should admit that they are exceptionally good at cashing in.
It is weird that the very same people who get worked up about the corrupting power of money in Citizens United for money given to campaigns for advertising, seem completely insensitive to the idea that money might have corrupting power when given to a candidate for their own personal wealth.
Again, if you’re leaving public service I’m not going to whine if you cash in. But when you’re still running for President you shouldn’t open yourself up to corrupt money and you shouldn’t run organizations to keep your campaign staff employed when the State Department won’t let you hire them.
Bob and Liddy Dole?
http://prospect.org/article/senator-doles-greatest-harvest
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-01-25/news/mn-28599_1_elizabeth-dole-got
L-j the stuff in that first article looks corrupt to me, though in the range of about ten million if I’m reading it right—and most of that in campaign messaging, not personal wealth. The very similar Clinton scheme was almost a hundred million. The second article suggests less than a million in speaking fees. I’m not happy about that, but there we are. But Russell finds it laughable that people think of the Clintons “in any way exceptional”. They have over $150 million in speaking ‘fees’.
10x and 100x is notably different in scale.
The window for the Clintons is a lot bigger (longer?) that the Dole’s and the Clintons won. I don’t particularly like it, but I don’t think that the difference in degree becomes a difference in kind.
http://www.cityam.com/221317/forget-politicians-salaries-its-afterwards-they-make-big-bucks
http://publicspeaking.co.ke/post/10-highest-paid-public-speakers-in-the-world
My impression is that you concentrate on the Clintons when it looks to me like a systemic problem.
Is there some other political couple that has made more than $150 million in ‘speaking’ fees alone?
I don’t know what folks’ total lifetime take is. There are a number of former officeholders who earn or have earned stratospheric fees for speaking.
Giuliani, Reagan, Bush. Colin Powell. Alan Greenspan, Tim Geithner. Tony Blair. All folks who command six figure fees for speaking.
Reagan got a million for one freaking speech. Sarah freaking Palin gets $100K, probably for guaranteeing that she will shut up after some reasonable number of minutes.
Why limit this to speaking fees? Board positions, lobbying, consulting fees, you name it. Former office holders make a bundle.
Do you think there aren’t former office holders other than the Clintons who have cashed in for $150M? More accurately, $75M, there are two Clintons.
Why limit it to compensation after leaving office? Phil Gramm got futures deregulation passed, which made a lot of money for Enron, while his wife was on the board of Enron. Enron was, of course, a major contributor to Gramm. And what has Gramm’s post-office UBS gig been worth to him over the years, do you think? Why do you think he got that gig?
This analysis has the Clintons earning $230M since Bill left office, with a current net worth of as much as $62M. That’s as of the date of writing, 8/2016, so $230M over about 15 years.
That’s a whole lot of money. It’s probably more than average for former elected officials. Then again, maybe not, I don’t know. I would be extremely surprised if it was outside the fat part of the bell curve for people with their resumes.
If you want to get money out of politics, I’m all for it. Campaign money, cashing in with both fists after holding office, all of it. I think over the freaking decade or more that I’ve been hanging out here that I’ve been very clear about all of that. Citizen’s United is one tiny corner of the crap I’d love to see cleaned up.
But I do not find the fact that the Clintons have earned nine figures over the 15 years since Bill left office to be in any way remarkable, in the sense of being any better or worse than any of the rest of it.
The intersection of money and politics in the US is profoundly and thoroughly unseemly and corrupting. All of it, every inch and pound of it. Want to clean it up? Fine with me.
Singling out the Clintons as being somehow unusual in any of this just seems like a kind of monomania. To me.
People hate the Clintons, for reasons that seem to have little to do with the quality of their service in office. Every thing they do or say is subject to a level of scrutiny that would empty the Cabinet, the halls of Congress, and quite a bit of the regulatory apparatus of government, if it was applied consistently. Probably lose a SCOTUS justice or two as well.
So I just figure haters gotta hate. I don’t know why, neither do I need to participate in it. They were pretty damned good public servants, actually, and now they’ve made a lot of money, because they’re famous and well-connected. It’s kind of a club, and they’re in it. They’re not alone.
Shorter me:
I shoulda read before posting.
“Again, if you’re leaving public service I’m not going to whine if you cash in. ”
You are conceding too much. Politicians ( not just the Clintons) who cash in after their political careers end raise the suspicion that some of their stances while in office were made with the understanding that future employers might reward them later. It doesn’t even have to be insincere. If you favor helping the banks, you are the sort of person they might want to hire as a lobbyist or whose speeches they want to hear.
Carter was a mediocre President, but his behavior after he left office should be be the norm, not the exception. Nobody sees anything even remotely sleazy about the Carter Center afaik.
Btw, I am aware that Trump sets new standards for open sleaziness. But he is just the culmination of a lot of bad tendencies in American politics, sort of a test case of just how low we can sink. I expect the bar to be permanently lowered now.
https://nypost.com/2016/11/20/donations-to-clinton-foundation-fell-by-37-percent/
donations fell after she announced. that’s a strange kind of corruption.
I’m not particularly concerned about enriching themselves with cheesy talks AFTER their careers are over. Its unseemly, but whatever. I’m concerned with the corrupting influence of raking in millions of barely earned dollars while still campaigning.
there’s the problem.
the Clinton Foundation was not the Clinton’s “personal wealth”. and Clinton’s speaking fees were high, but not totally out of range of other people with her credentials (of which there are very very few, and she was extremely popular until the GOP decided she shouldn’t be).
but, if you’re asserting corruption, explain the corruption in her speaking to The Gap, to the Vancouver Board of Tourism, to the American Deli Association, to the American Jewish University, the National Association of Convenience Stores, A&E TV, etc., etc., etc..
it looks like you’re starting with a presumption of corruption and then assuming everything that she does is due to that corruption. but what if your initial assumptions are wrong?
the Clinton Foundation was not the Clinton’s “personal wealth”.
Just bears repeating.
Oooh! Look! A salmon!
Oooh! Look! A salmon!
Oooh! look1 Corruption!
It’s the emails, you see.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/10/27/memo-shows-bill-clintons-wealth-tied-clinton-foundation/92842822/
Gosh, nearly 20 years. Time flies. Let’s say Bill knocked down $100m of that $150m…lessee here, that comes to about $5m/year…maybe $120k/speech.
Unseemly, indeed.
And what insidious influence did these shady foreign characters (cf. House of Saud for example) get in return? Looks like bupkis to me.
How does this stack up on the corruption scale? Fiorina steers a famous company into the ditch and walked off with $20m to go away.
I’d say the Clintons did themselves a disservice. They should have used their celebrity to become CEO’s.
But you know, Clinton Rules.
Oooh! look1 Corruption!
Bears don’t say that.
The problem is not the Clintons raking it in. The problem is there are too many people who can throw such financial sums at them.
Therein lies the true crime.
This is an odd thread. What does Bill Clinton getting personal income from the same people who donate to his family’s foundation have to do with what we were talking about. I mean, it’s old news, right? And he hasn’t been president for 17 years.
It’s an odd thing anyway. Were the donors getting the privilege of paying him personal fees in exchange for their donations? It’s usually pay-to-play, not pay-to-pay.
It’s the emails, you see.
the first quoted line of the memo is:
“Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation,…”
so, no: this doesn’t say donations to the Foundation were the Clinton’s “personal wealth”. it says Clinton used the Foundation staff for personal purposes. that’s shitty. but it’s not what was alleged.
Independent of those activities we did all these other things, but we were only on the foundations payroll.
Great guys getting Bill all those gigs for no pay.
it says Clinton used the Foundation staff for personal purposes. that’s shitty. but it’s not what was alleged.
What it demonstrates to me is arrogance and a sense of entitlement. That’s what I see as the major Clinton flaws.
What those flaws let to in this case wasn’t so much corruption as a failure of ethics as I see it.
Also, too, who’s getting impeached over it?
I suspect my donation in my name to the Clinton Foundation, had I made it to influence an elected Clinton to continue the path Obamacare opened to more universal subsidized healthcare insurance, would be considered rank corruption by some, who conversely believe that xyz super PAC, who will not reveal the identities of its mega-doners who send the contributions to unmarked mail drops, and who funds efforts to revoke subsidized health insurance for tens of millions of Americans, the highest form of free speech in a free society.
Citizens United is a little like the bump stock the Las Vegas shooter used in his corruption, a caliber booster designed to do as much damage as possible.
But we can’t curtail the use of bump stocks on account of freedom. America doesn’t so much have a Bill of Rights as it does a Bill of Ultra-Fetishized Rights as we decline into maximum full of shitness.
I find it odd that we believe politicians are corrupt for accepting favorable donations, even in the hundreds of millions of dollars, to influence their decision-making, but the influence peddlers themselves …. us …. which includes the mega influencers, are considered mere practitioners of the First Amendment.
Besides, it’s the true believers who can’t be bought off who worry me.
I doubt very much that earnest, righteous, devout Jeff Sessions could be swayed to cease his prosecution of the legal pot industry by mega millions of pot money flowing into his offshore accounts or maybe a free bale of high quality pot fedexed to him the first of every month, because the private prison industry where blacks and Hispanics go to rot for petty crimes and the opioid pain relieving industry align perfectly with his God-sponsored, racist republican conservative principles spreading throughout the land.
i’m trying to understand if Sebastian objects to speeches-for-hire by Clinton *during the 2016 campaign*, or prior to that.
did Clinton speak for big (or any) fees after she announced?
The whole pot thing is mind-boggling. Sessions is an anachronism, and Trump’s enough of an idiot to go along with him.
This administration has the most incoherent priorities, except possibly for satisfying the oligarchs.
When they do things that almost no one wants, is that supposed to demonstrate some form of conviction? Or is it just stupidity? (You can only hope to guess my answer.)
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/mr-trump-he-crazy-michael-wolff/
“Also, too, who’s getting impeached over it?”
Well, we may see, for the first time in bizarro America, the losing candidate in a presidential election, already returned to private life, impeached and removed from an Office she does not hold, merely to avoid impeaching the corrupt filth holding the Office.
http://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/blog_trump_quiz_idiot.gif
I would make an addition at the bottom of that list:
Marty H. Not Hillary, otherwise translated as lower taxes
That said, any sweeping from office of rump and company must include Pence and the entire Republican Party, and if not I’m in favor or retaining rump and taking my chances with worldwide nuclear war, global warming and savage revolution on the American mainland.
Why is it one or the other. In some cases it’s conviction, in others it’s stupidity, in others it’s both.
HSH …
If you don’t want to stand in line to purchase the book, this NY Mag extract is eye opening:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html
If this is only 20% accurate, the Trump admin is as chaotic, unfocused, self-serving, petulant and incompetent as feared.
Worrying about Clinton graft and corruption at this time is quaint.
I’ll take competent and corrupt over incompetent and corrupt any day.
Fallows’ take on this is spot on.
what Wolff describes is exactly what everybody already knew: Trump is an idiot child who is completely unsuited to the job, and everyone around him knows it too. but nobody on the inside wants to admit it because they’re either afraid or they want to keep the gravy train rolling.
what we have here is yet another “open secret”, of the same kind that swirled around people like O’Reilly and Weinstien and Matt Lauer and Louis CK. people close to those men knew exactly what was happening, and did nothing. everybody around Trump knows he’s a moron, but they do nothing.
Reading thru some of my pot sources, there still appears to be some disagreement. One source says that Feds can arrest state officials, and that the threat would shut down the industry overnight. Another says that state officials can’t be arrested for following state law. This makes no sense to me.
The obvious historical example would be the civil rights era, and the end of Jim Crow. But I can’t think of many examples of officials going to jail, because I don’t remember it ever really being challenged. The Federal Law ruled immediately and completely, and there was no question of state officials not complying or disobeying, however they might stall, cheat, or otherwise covertly try to evade. As I remember, the usual situation involved a court case and injunction, Roy Moore’s rock for example. I do not remember state official being prosecuted. If the Colo Fed Attorney got a court order to obey Fed Law, I would expect Colo officials to comply.
An interesting twist on this is the motivations of that weasel Jeffrey B Sessions. Do not assume you know his motivations. A high profile case like this, taken to the Roberts-Alito-fucking Gorsuch Court, could do incredible damage to the incorporation doctrine and expand the areas reserved to the states and severely limit Federal jurisdiction in areas that would appall Democrats. Regress on this front has been moving. This neo-confederate racist fuck is likely not a deadly enemy of “states rights,” and may not mind losing.
Why limit this to speaking fees? Board positions, lobbying, consulting fees, you name it. Former office holders make a bundle.
Long, LONG before I start worrying about people getting speaking fees, I want to see something done to address lobbying by former office holders. Specifically and especially former legislators.
Until and unless you address that, don’t waste our time talking about speaking fees — a speech to a private gathering isn’t, after all, going to leverage their (past) office in order to cause something to happen in government. THAT’S corruption.
any sweeping from office of rump and company must include Pence and the entire Republican Party
Count, do you really want to make the perfect (by your lights) the enemy of the good? That is, if you could only get rid of Trump (or just Trump and Pence), would you refuse to do it because you couldn’t get rid of the entire GOP? Somehow, I don’t think so….
The obvious historical example would be the civil rights era, and the end of Jim Crow.
The type case, it seems to me, would be Little Rock and the end of segregated high schools. Nobody in the Arkansas government got tried, let alone sent to jail. They sent the freaking 82 Airborne in to enforce the Supreme Court ruling! (I remember watching it on the TV news.) But nobody went to jail.
“and Trump’s enough of an idiot to go along with him”
Harkening back to Sebastian’s remark up thread that ump (I’m subtracting one more letter of his name to track his total but gradual disappearance) shifts crazily all the time, we have to open ourselves to the possibility that Sessions is being set up ….. by ump.
The blowback from this decision could move ump by tomorrow morning to fire Sessions, thus placing ump in the position of the savior of the pot industry and states rights, and ridding the Prez of one more guy that thinks he’s smarter than ump, which includes everyone.
I don’t fully buy the dementia angle on ump. This craziness is fully in line with his behavior in conducting his criminal business enterprises his entire career. Being close to ump does not confer the normal perks it does for the rest of us. Indeed, the closer you get, the more danger you are in of having a trap door opened under you leading to a pit of ravenous crocodiles.
ump is a creature completely unlike any customary individual. My sense from reading about his business community nauseates is that his “associates”, even the rank sociopaths among them, seek one thing in his presence … to relent and give him what he demands and then get the fuck outta the room and away from him, because he makes their skin crawl.
It’s very Joe Pesci/Beelzebubby the way he manipulates his world. He may well be illiterate, as in, he actually can’t read, but his reptilian will to dominate overcomes all shortcomings.
The dementia thing could be a ruse. It’ll come in handy when he is eventually wheeled before his prosecutors, like those Mafia chieftains who one week are partying at the Badabing Club and the very next show up in Court in a wheelchair (perhaps like Cannibal Lechter on an upright gurney), slumping to one side with a blanket over his lap and drooling from one side of his mouth into a drool cup.
There has never been anyone as simultaneously high-functioning and full of shit, but able to use his full of shitness to effectively get what he wants, as ump. You can see that judgement in the eyes all of his dupes.
The dementia ruse also helps with the republican anti every fucking thing base.
Look, they beam, he’s just as fucking stupid as we are.
Read “business community nauseates” as business practices.
I am indeed nauseated, but auto-correct thinks it’s smarter than I am, so auto-correct will be found soon at the booth of a river in cement running shoes.
Boots, not booth.
Eff.
I don’t fully buy the dementia angle on ump. This craziness is fully in line with his behavior in conducting his criminal business enterprises his entire career.
Habits can be persistent things. You can pretty totally lose touch with reality, but you will still put on your shoes in the same order (right or left first), long after you lose track of when to put them on.
Bottom, not boots.
I couldn’t care less about perfection. Or what follows the death of the Republican Party or the relative imperfections of the Democratic Party.
I want vengeance.
ump is merely the fatal mestastization of the republican cancer these last 45 years. Bury the final tumor and the body it infests.
Gotta say, McManus may have nailed Session’s motivations and the fucking Gorsuch Court in his final paragraph above.
Yes, Colorado winning the Supreme Court case over marijuana could set a precedent for demanding in future cases the cessation of all federal intervention in state matters, including all environmental regulation and the constitutionality of the entire social safety net since circa 1932.
Perhaps even ending the federal income tax.
These crapmeisters may look like spaced out potheads, but they play the ruthless long game better than any hapless liberal.
Our joints have been bogarted by the straight cracker in the armchair across the room.
It’s not me that wants perfection. It is conservatives with their pristine Word of God and the final word of the original Constitution.
No compromise is another word for perfection.
Again, read Hofstadter’s Goldwater and Pseudo-Conservative Politics.
These killers never go away.
Indeed, I like wj because he is imperfect, like normal people.
“habits can be persistent things”
True. My mother at her dementia-ridden end couldn’t find her feet her shoes were on, but despite not being particularly religious, if you sat her down in a church pew, she could sing every word of every hymn the church organist threw out there.
She didn’t know me from Adam, but her sister who passed twelves years earlier, was a constant, palpable presence, as a little girl and when she wasn’t there in my mother’s mind, you’d better have had a damn good answer to “Where’s Betty?”
And, she died 12 years ago, Mom, was NOT the answer she was looking for.
It’s an open thread, so I’m gonna chuck this in the pot. Mostly for Michael Cain.
Not a lot of open land where I live, but lots of open ocean. A lot of fish live there, and people have been making a living off of it for, conservatively, 600 years. It’s a breadbasket equal to that of any other region of the country.
It’s also teetering on the edge of collapse, because it’s been over-fished for a long time. I usually find “tragedy of the commons” stories to be mostly bullcrap, but this one is pretty much a textbook example.
The solution to the “tragedy of the commons” is to actually enforce the status of the resource as a commons. Trump and Zinke want to do the opposite.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/chart-of-the-day-net-new-jobs-in-december/
Remarkable, all of the jobs created under the Commie Kenyan Zulu guy with the outrageous taxes.
Things seem to be regressing a bit under prez gimmeawinwhere’smywin.
Must be the deep state cooking the stats.
Liberal Japonicus, “My impression is that you concentrate on the Clintons when it looks to me like a systemic problem.”
I concentrate on the Clintons as a particularly bad example of a systemic problem. For me that is the opposite of concentrating on the Clintons as just a pair of people I don’t like or whatever. Radley Balko concentrated on the Cory Maye case because it was a particularly bad example of how no-knock police raids of the wrong house could end up with policemen dead and innocent black men railroaded into murder charges. That doesn’t mean that Cory Maye was the only case of no-knock raids gone wrong. It was just a particularly bad case of no-knock raids gone wrong which is used to argue that we shouldn’t be as permissive with SWAT style arrest warrants.
“The window for the Clintons is a lot bigger (longer?) that the Dole’s and the Clintons won. I don’t particularly like it, but I don’t think that the difference in degree becomes a difference in kind. ”
I don’t agree with that statement at all. Things that happen on a medium scale can be medium troubling, and then become much more troubling as you scale it up. There are all sorts of semi-corrupt things we can overlook on the margins, that become terrible if allowed to become a major preoccupation.
That is why, in the context of where the norms for corruption get set after a (hopeful) dispatch of Trump, I write things like “My biggest beef with Clinton, before Trump came on the scene, was that she seemed hellbent on pushing the laws on bribery and sketchy fundraising to the very black letter limit. I wasn’t comfortable with that.”
The Clintons are a particularly yucky example of a systemic problem that we should be addressing. I can’t tell if most of the quibbling is on “particularly yucky example”. I’m totally willing to defend it, but it seems like a waste of time if you’re agreeing with me that it is a big problem.
Hairshirtthedontist “the Clinton Foundation was not the Clinton’s “personal wealth”.
Just bears repeating.”
Ugh, this is why I stopped commenting. It makes me feel like I try to write out exactly why I think something, going to great lengths to be vulnerable about how my mind works, as flawed as it is, and then get dog piled with dismissive remarks that clearly didn’t even read what I wrote.
The $150 million that I raised regarding speaking fees absolutely IS CLINTON’S PERSONAL WEALTH .
That wasn’t money raised for the Clinton Foundation.
That wasn’t money raised for charity.
That wasn’t money raised for the Democratic Party.
The Clintons raised all sorts of money for those things too. And some of that looks a little shady to my eyes too.
But I didn’t want to try to carefully parse out which fundraising things were shady and which weren’t. That would take the full time work of a reporter looking into it for a year or more. And it probably wouldn’t be worth it because neither Clinton is running again. I fully agree that some of them might be shady too, but really who knows?
I also didn’t mention all the ‘board directorships’ which are absolutely a bullshit cash in opportunity. And someday I have lots to say about exactly how bullshit the board of directors scams are–even for non politicians. Those are definitely an area of corruption potential that there is every indication that the Clintons worked to the hilt. (The fact that Chelsea Clinton gets appointed to a bunch of board of directors is especially galling but you can’t win everything).
Ideally we would reduce all of those things to more manageable levels.
But what I did highlight is absolutely Clinton *personal wealth*. $150 million in speaking ‘fees’.
My point on the Clintons is that they are a pretty clear example of a nasty systemic problem.
But especially troubling is that the Clintons appeared to want to do all the cashing in *and still want to run for president afterwards*. When you go for the big cash out, you need to stay OUT because then all of the “well we let them get away with cashing out because at least it can’t be bribery because they don’t directly do policy anymore” thing no longer applies. This is especially true when everyone paying those big fees knew full well that she was running for President.
I’m not *comfortable* with the norm of having politicians cash out into a tens of millions of dollar ‘reward’ for ‘public service’, but I admit that I’m at a loss for how to restrict that after they quit. But at the very least we should be able to say “Nope, you cashed out, sorry”.
The whole conversation feels a bit like talking about why Trump is so awful. There are so many moving parts that the conversation has trouble settling on any one.
So yes. It is a systemic problem. Yes, the Clinton’s cashed out even more than almost anyone in recent memory. Yes, they are emblematic of something that I would like to see scaled way back.
And yes, I suspect even if we survive Trump, we won’t even be able to reset the tolerable corruption level as low as 5x the stuff that the Clintons did, because Trump has just blown the doors off that kind of stuff. And that depresses me immensely about the future of the US.
Very late to the party, but totally what russell said at 07.28 this a.m
Ugh, this is why I stopped commenting. It makes me feel like I try to write out exactly why I think something, going to great lengths to be vulnerable about how my mind works, as flawed as it is, and then get dog piled with dismissive remarks that clearly didn’t even read what I wrote.
Sorry. It’s very common for people generally, at least those very few who dislike the Clintons (ha!), to discuss the Clinton Foundation as though it’s their piggy bank. (You shouldn’t stop commenting over such mindless, off-handed things, btw.)
dismissive remarks that clearly didn’t even read what I wrote.
what you wrote was here : http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2018/01/a-new-years-open-thread.html?cid=6a00d834515c2369e201bb09e5b232970d#comment-6a00d834515c2369e201bb09e5b232970d
you wrote a multi-paragraph comment that started out with the Clinton Foundation, moved to speaking fees, then to C.U., then to State Department staff. and the “personal wealth” phrase is in the penultimate paragraph:
if you were only talking about speaking fees there, then i apologize for my mis-read. but i did read it, and it wasn’t at all clear to me that you were only talking about speaking fees there.
My biggest beef with Clinton, before Trump came on the scene, was that she seemed hellbent on pushing the laws on bribery and sketchy fundraising to the very black letter limit.
The $150 million that I raised regarding speaking fees absolutely IS CLINTON’S PERSONAL WEALTH .
You’re talking about two different things here.
First, unless I’m mistaken the apostrophe in “CLINTON’S” needs to be after the S. The Clintons, as a couple, earned about $150M in speaking fees between 2000 and 2015. Ten million a year, between them.
Second, I’m not seeing how it amounts to “bribery and sketchy fundraising”.
The point about not letting people “cash in” if they’re going to subsequently return to public office is interesting, but I don’t know how you would possibly enforce that, or even define it crisply enough to say when it was or was not happening.
The Clintons have enriched themselves to a degree that would likely not have been available to them absent their public careers. Maybe more than most, but then again they’ve done more, and been far more visible and in the thick of things than most. So they command six-figure speaking fees, rather than five-figure speaking fees.
I generally agree that people parlaying public careers into great personal wealth is unseemly and corrupting. Every suggestion I’ve made about how to address that over the last ten years here, and some number of years prior to that in other venues, has been declared to be, variously, an unfair restriction on people’s ability to earn a living, or an unconstitutional restriction on people “speaking” via their dollars, or a disincentive for successful and accomplished people to enter public service.
Apparently, we don’t want to do the things – any of the things – that would address the systemic problem.
I disagree that the Clintons are an unusually egregious example. They are, at this point, members of a very elite club, and making money hand over fist in a variety of ethically questionable ways is one of the prerogatives of being a member of that club.
I think it sucks, but apparently it’s how we want to roll.
I’m not *comfortable* with the norm of having politicians cash out into a tens of millions of dollar ‘reward’ for ‘public service’, but I admit that I’m at a loss for how to restrict that after they quit.
I agree with Sebastian here. I find it worse than unseemly for ex-Presidents, especially, to rake in huge sums after they leave office. I don’t think there is any way to stop this, but maybe they could lose their Presidential pensions and other perks once the income reaches ridiculous levels. More useful would be a norm, if there still is such a thing, that they just don’t do that.
Let them take a university position, write a memoir, or head a foundation. They can even take a board seat or two. But the money-grubbing – that’s what it is – should stop.
Exorbitant speaking fees are particularly bad, IMO. If a President has valuable or interesting things to say, as a result of the White House experience, that in some sense belongs to the people. Pick some spots and speak for free – to students, civic groups, etc., not to the big-money people who will pick up a six-figure tab for the prestige.
Pick some spots and speak for free
A la Harry Truman.
We’re a different country than we were 60 years ago. Better in some ways, but definitely not in others.
I have no disagreement with Sebastian’s distaste with people cashing in on a career in public service. I just don’t see the Clinton’s as a particularly egregious case. Bill maybe, Hillary not really.
The reason I make a point of it is that the “Crooked Hillary” thing is one of the reasons we are where we are now.
I would like to say that the very thing I miss about Sebastian’s contributions here is the way his mind works, which is powerfully subtle and makes connections no one else notices, even when I think he’s mistaken.
Slart was much the same kind of thinker, though more from an engineering point of view rather than the background in law Sebastian possesses.
It reminds me of the tweezing out of angles and weird cornices in language that lj brings to the table when he is talking about his specialties.
Or Russell’s ability to point out musical subtleties.
To the extent that my manner frustrates those exposures of vulnerability in others here, all I can say is that it is nothing personal.
So keep on keeping on and maybe not be so sensitive about the background blathering, speaking for my own self.
In the blathering vein, could we reset the corruption scale back to some status quo ante, whatever that happens to be, it could very well happen as a radical over-reaction placed into law and we might be saddled with a group of individuals in leadership who can’t be influenced/corrupted away from their principles in any way or by any means.
Most despots, the world-class ones, can’t be corrupted. Some of the most honest folks I know are intensely unlikable or at the very least a pain in the ass to work with if compromise is what is needed.
Thus, I fear Mike Pence. His smug, chaste certainty, obliged to him alone from on high, makes me more nervous than a beauty pageant contestant standing half-dressed at her dressing room locker as ump passes by with his hands busy working over time.
ump leaves dead bodies lying around because of rank carelessness; Pence will point to them as evidence of his own uprightness and steadfastness of principle.
I would like to say that the very thing I miss about Sebastian’s contributions here is the way his mind works, which is powerfully subtle and makes connections no one else notices, even when I think he’s mistaken.
Agreed. There is not one damned thing wrong with Sebastian’s mind, and IMO he is one of the most honorable people I’ve bumped into here in the blogiverse.
Exorbitant speaking fees are particularly bad, IMO.
Maybe we should just put them away in the witness protection program after they stack time in public service, or make sure they stay broke and grudgingly bail them out later a la’ HST.
A systemic problem would seem to warrant a systemic solution.
One sided screeds repeating BS about Sid Blumenthal are not going to move the ball forward. Period.
Thanks.
And what cleek said at 1:17 above.
Doesn’t matter, Obama is going to make the rest look like blind men with tin cups, and is going to be raking in millions long after the Clintons and Trump are dead.
Seb: … even if we survive Trump …
ITMFA, so we can resolve that “if”.
Then we can discuss Teh Clintons for sport.
We can then also discuss what to do about the proliferation of right-wing sinecures provided to their sycophants by the rich, in “think tanks” which pass themselves off as charitable foundations.
–TP
Colorado winning the Supreme Court case over marijuana could set a precedent for demanding in future cases the cessation of all federal intervention in state matters, including all environmental regulation and the constitutionality of the entire social safety net since circa 1932.
The problem for Sessions, is that the Court (and Roberts tends to this sort of thing) may rule for Colorado on extremely narrow grounds. That is, that marijuana is not in interstate commerce . . . with no mention whatever of other possible grounds (“promote the general welfare”). Thus failing to get him the state’s rights decision he would like.
Not that that would break my heart.
I disagree that the Clintons are an unusually egregious example. They are, at this point, members of a very elite club, and making money hand over fist in a variety of ethically questionable ways is one of the prerogatives of being a member of that club.
What the Clintons are is an unusually visible example. And one that a lot of people, including some who are pretty egregious examples themselves, have an interest in highlighting.
Obama is going to make the rest look like blind men with tin cups
And the evidence for this would be what? I don’t doubt it’s possible. I don’t doubt that you sincerely believe it. I just wonder if you’ve got any, you know, evidence to back it up.
I’m not comfortable with how the Clintons have comported themselves since Bill left office and I’m horrified by Trump’s opportunism.
Having said that …
I don’t get where people think that the flood gates will be opened for even worse activity. I don’t see a bar lowering in the offing, but a (healthy) backlash. If the expected financial connections between Trump and Russia are uncovered by Mueller, does anyone doubt that we’ll never allow a president to be nominated without full financial disclosures? I think we are headed for an era of greater transparency.
Thus, I fear Mike Pence.
#metoo
Russell “Agreed. There is not one damned thing wrong with Sebastian’s mind, and IMO he is one of the most honorable people I’ve bumped into here in the blogiverse.”
Thank you very much. I’m sorry I overreacted. But see my next post.
Obama is going to make the rest look like blind men with tin cups, and is going to be raking in millions long after the Clintons and Trump are dead.
and that will affect the world negatively, in what way?
he’s admired and respected, and he’ll be out there as an example of what a decent American president looks like. if he collects some cash on the way, why should anyone give a shit?
Maybe we should just put them away in the witness protection program after they stack time in public service, or make sure they stay broke and grudgingly bail them out later a la’ HST.
A systemic problem would seem to warrant a systemic solution.
Bobbyp,
There is a large gap between penury and a $200K pension, plus whatever other reasonable income an ex-President might earn via teaching, writing, etc. Let them make money, but not grab for it at every turn.
Let them make money, but not grab for it at every turn.
I’m amazed that we’re talking about Clinton or Obama getting wealthy from perfectly legal behavior when the news is full of what it’s full of today.
If we’re so offended by Democrats (who started out without money) becoming rich, we need to pass some laws about post-office behavior, and see whether they meet Constitutional scrutiny.
Most Republicans are wealthy before they hold office, and the matter of icky ethics seem never to be a problem for them. In the first place, nobody expects them to be ethical, and they’re probably good to go anyway – they can take up painting in the bathtub rather than providing medicine to millions of people with AIDS.
Let them make money, but not grab for it at every turn.
Thanks byomtov. I can only say I come at this from a more “mcmannuslike” angle than most here. When you have a system that promotes a central virtue of grabbing for the dough at every turn by everybody, then you should not be surprised at the results.
Where is our (my) outrage at the Clintons, asks Seb rhetorically? My outrage is directed at a society that is structured to allow ANYBODY to acquire that kind of financial advantage, and the power that inevitably flows from from that fact.
Others may disagree.
Where I depart from bob is, when push comes to shove, mostly on tactical grounds where I see more shades of gray and become a neoliberal sellout. 🙂
Most Democratic officeholders are rich too. I don’t agree with the idea that ‘perfectly legal behavior’ is the final word on what can be criticized in public office holders’ behavior. I can’t put them in prison for anything less than bribery, but I can still want them to not do it. Extra-especially if they are going to run for President afterwards.
I *criticize* post-public-office behavior, but it is something that I don’t know what to do about. The corruption seems evident to me, but I’m not someone who believes that just because you can identify a problem you can also solve it. So if a politician makes decisions while in power which are influenced by the fact that they can cash out at the end, I’m *bothered* by that but I don’t see any good solution. There may be some larger society-wide way of dealing with some of the cheesier methods of cashing out (as mentioned by someone else above, corporate directorships are a ripe place to attack even without giving them to ex-politicians). But I don’t really see the solution.
But understanding the difficulty of letting a retiring politician cash out doesn’t mean we should ignore all sorts of additional problems with someone engaging in cash out behavior while still wanting to run for higher office.
put me down for : raise the percentages on the higher tax brackets and classify more kinds of income as income; do not create laws that try to ban “money-grubbing”.
if people want to pay to hear Obama speak, or to buy the books he writes, that’s between him and those people.
and that will affect the world negatively, in what way?
There is absolutely no social or personal need, and horrendous social and personal costs for incomes over X amount a year. You can mark X at 1 million, I might make it 100k. Any amount of unequal luxury and power corrupts, both the rich and the relatively poor, and corrupts proportionally as the amount increases. Personal wealth itself is evil. My book collection, a few thousand used paperbacks, is a shameful vice.
After considering expenses audited conservatively (each according to her need) no one should make any more than another. Talent and effort can receive other more socially beneficent rewards and incentives.
Personal wealth itself is evil.
counterpoint: LOL. no it isn’t.
he’s admired and respected, and he’ll be out there as an example of what a decent American president looks like.
I sometimes wonder if Americans realise how true this is. People may criticise elements of his e.g. foreign policy, or failure to capitalise on his first 2 years, but in general it seems to me that he is a symbol of intelligence, thoughtfulness, probity (the mortgage!) and an overt wish to make his country, and to some extent the world, a better place. We can only hope that his example lasts long enough to swing the pendulum back again to something the opposite of Trump, because Jimmy Carter is just too long ago. An old friend of mine, long retired from the senior foreign service of the State Department, remarked to me “I think Trump is the Manchurian Candidate, sent to destroy America”. Let’s hope he doesn’t succeed, although it will take years to repair the damage, always supposing he is not the John the Baptist for the next, more competent, authoritarian strongman.
One thing about ex-Presidents. nobody is paying them in hopes of future government favors. (John Q. Adams and William H. Taft being very much exceptions in their post-Presidential careers.**)
So unless you can find evidence of someone who is paying huge speaking fees having gotten exceptional breaks from the government under a specific President, it might be an idea to focus more attention on those with less high profile political positions. Just because you are likely to find more real corruption (as distinct from stuff that just “looks bad.”)
** For those who don’t know, and don’t want to look it up, after leaving the Presidency John Quincy Adams served again in the House of Representatives. And Taft, of course, went on to serve as Chief Justice. The only other ex-President to come close was Herbert Hoover leading the Hoover Commission (Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government) in the late 1940s.
I’m sorry I overreacted.
Really and truly, no worries. You “overreacting” is most people’s calm and measured conversation. Including mine.
What I’d like to see:
You can’t go to work in an industry over which you’ve had a position of oversight for five years after leaving office. “Go to work” includes not only direct employment but also lobbying, consulting, and participation in corporate boards.
If anyone in the household works in an industry for which you have oversight, you either recuse yourself from that responsibility or the household member finds another job.
No exemptions on restrictions against insider trading, for anyone, ever.
Contributions to campaigns, parties, or PACs, etc are limited to natural human persons only, or to organizations consisting of natural human persons only and incorporated specifically for political / social cause advocacy.
Some reasonable per-person annual limit on any such contributions. Feel free to make it a great big fat limit – $100K per year, per person – but it’s a hard limit.
Financial disclosure for all federal office holders includes disclosure of tax filings for previous five years.
Personal finances for all federal office holders must be placed in a blind trust for the duration of their time in office.
Don’t want to sign up for the above, then you don’t get to hold federal office.
That’s what I think is reasonable.
ump
Every couple of days, the guy loses another letter from his name.
In about a month, he’s just gonna be “”.
Of course you could stop ex-presidents cashing in. Give them a pension of, say $10m per year, and an income tax rate for all other income of, say, 99%.
I rather like this idea. Where’s the downside?
Overall, Russell’s 5:57 sounds pretty reasonable. But I do see one problem:
If anyone in the household works in an industry for which you have oversight, you either recuse yourself from that responsibility or the household member finds another job.
That would seem to ban anybody in the household being employed anywhere in the government. Specifically including as a member of the military. That seems like a somewhat excessive restriction.
That would seem to ban anybody in the household being employed anywhere in the government.
i would have no problem with an exemption for public sector employment.
https://www.vox.com/2016/8/25/12615340/hillary-clinton-foundation
honest question: does the SoS have final say in arms deals? seems like that would require several other agencies to sign-off on.
The Vox article is very much to the point. The problem isn’t that Hillary Clinton is a crook – she isn’t. It’s that she doesn’t have a well developed sense of what is and isn’t a good idea in the way she conducts herself. And it really was a bad idea for the Clinton Foundation to be taking large donations from very wealthy people who stood to gain from Hillary’s decisions as Secretary of State.
The Vox article is very much to the point. The problem isn’t that Hillary Clinton is a crook – she isn’t. It’s that she doesn’t have a well developed sense of what is and isn’t a good idea in the way she conducts herself.
This would be funny, given the situation now, if the situation now weren’t so apocalyptic.
An article about the sales written at the time. Congress was notified and Patrick Leahy objected.
A description of the procedure for arms sales.
This article states that :
“Bahrain is a longtime ally and the home to a large American naval base, which is considered particularly important amid the current tensions with nearby Iran.” and
“The U.S. has long sold weapons to Bahrain, totaling $1.4 billion since 2000, according to the State Department. The sales didn’t come under scrutiny until security forces killed at least 19 people in the early months of the crackdown in 2011. (Dozens have died since then.)
Weird that the only sales to Bahrain under scrutiny are those during the period of Clinton’s service. Oh, sorry, not weird. Clinton rules.
NB: our current secretary of state is the former CEO of ExxonMobil, and his lifetime of business dealings with foreign heads of state and sovereign enterprises was touted as one of his primary qualifications.
so, ?????
I get, and share, the concern about corruption and the appearance of corruption. The focus on the Clintons just seems to be a kind of monomania. to me.
Clinton rules, yes of course, compared with Republicans. But try the comparison with Obama. I want people on my side who get this stuff right. If Republicans are as bad as we think they are (and for many of them we’re right) we should aspire higher than being no worse.
But try the comparison with Obama.
The comparison doesn’t work in this instance. Obama wasn’t ever Secretary of State. The alleged sketchiness occurred in his administration, so shouldn’t it have raised a red flag? It didn’t because it wasn’t a real issue. It’s a made up issue.
If you don’t think there’s anything wrong with the donations, or the email server, we disagree about that. If you do, and think Hillary is uniquely blameworthy, you’re a Republican partisan. If you think it’s wrong when Republicans do that stuff, but not when Hillary does, you’re a Democrat partisan. But if you want to blame Obama for not acting as Hillary’s moral guardian, wow.
But if you want to blame Obama for not acting as Hillary’s moral guardian, wow.
That’s kinda funny.
My point was that Hillary Clinton’s behavior as Secretary of State was not corrupt. Good for you for buying into the right wing narrative – maybe we should lock her up? You’re going to have a lot more to swallow since that’s you’re wont, and since they’re on a tear. You’re probably gnashing your teeth over Andrew McCabe as well?
If Obama had believed that deals were being done in the State Department as some kind of a payoff to the Clintons, he probably should have fired her, don’t you agree? Of course, he didn’t think so, because unlike you, he didn’t buy into the right wing narrative.
From all appearances, Obama is on my side in this, not yours, so don’t twist this into a criticism of Obama by me. Or at least provide some evidence that he had issues with the Clinton Foundation.
Oh, and I see you’re still worried about … her emails. What a crock.
Pro Bono, by the way: “you’re a Democrat partisan”
Maybe “Your a Democratic partisan” is more correct, unless you’re a Republican partisan. It’s the “Democratic Party”. Did you learn your grammar from the right wing, as well as your sensibilities about the “Clinton crimes”?
Sorry, in my rage, I made a typo as well: “You’re a Democratic partisan” would be the correct way to describe a Democratic partisan.
Yes, I am somewhat enraged, and I apologize – time for bed. In your leisure, Pro Bono, maybe you can explain why “the emails” are so troubling.
Yes, we disagree. Goodnight!
I was told by somebody in the know that Sid Blumenthal went to the Clinton house every day in the evening to sit by the notorious server culling out all the personal emails proving the Clinton Foundation was just a vast influence peddling slush fund dreamed up by Vince Foster who paid for that insight with his life.
And for this Sid was paid a measly $120,000 per year. What ‘effing cheap ingrates.
If you think it’s wrong when Republicans do that stuff, but not when Hillary does, you’re a Democrat partisan
Not once have I ever complained about Colin Powell using a personal server for St. Dept. business communications.
But I will admit to being a partisan Democrat (in the correct grammatical usage of the terms).
I know you’re just joking about culling the emails. But Blumenthal didn’t just get paid $120,000 a year. That was what he got from the Clinton Foundation. He was earning about three times that much. The Clinton Foundation was just his side job.
There’s nothing remotely ungrammatical in English about using nouns as modifiers.
how much should Sib Blumenthal have received from the Clinton Foundation ?
the vox article calls out the fact that making donations might make it more likely for the donor to have their voice heard.
i’m kind of dumbfounded by this. of course they will be more likely to have their voice heard. that is literally how our government functions.
is it ethically questionable? yes, it probably is. and, it is how our government functions. cut a check and you phone call will be more likely to be answered.
there is *nothing whatsoever* unusual about it. there is likely no person who has run for or held national office about whom that claim could not be made. including saint bernie.
other highlights were that the saudis and bahrainis made contributions, and subsequently had arms sales approved.
we have been selling arms to both of those countries for, like, ever. with or without contributions to clinton foundation. before the clinton foundation existed. the saudis and bahrainis do not need to make donations to the clinton foundation to get favors, they have been joined at the hip to US foreign policy ever since crude oil was discovered under their sand.
people don’t like the clintons. so be it. but this stuff is just silly.
There’s nothing remotely ungrammatical in English about using nouns as modifiers.
In case you weren’t aware of the connotation of your usage, here’s a helpful Wikipedia article. Also NPR. Also Daily Kos.
Your self-expression is obviously your own call, but if you’re not aware of how it comes across, perhaps you should take a look.
Go ahead and call people “Democrat” partisans. We’ll take that as permission to call you a “Teabagger”. You’ll just have to “suck it up”.
Ok, I’m English, I didn’t know it was an issue. I’m generally happy to use the terminology people prefer. But I do suggest you give up the “ungrammatical” argument, which is palpable nonsense.
Oh, and this being the internet, you can call me anything the moderators allow. If you can’t tell from my comments here that I have no sympathy for the Republican Party, either my powers of expression or your powers of comprehension are sadly lacking.
But I do suggest you give up the “ungrammatical” argument, which is palpable nonsense.
Well, I’m not a grammar pedant – and we all have just seen why. But since we’re chatting about it, “Democrat partisan” is at the very least redundant.
Bashing Clinton may not indicate sympathy with the Republican party generally, but you are helping out with one of their tactics: to change the conversation to “Look! Clinton! Lock her up!” instead of “Look! Democracy is over! Let’s act now!” That’s a beef I have with Bernie sympathizers, much more so than my actual disagreement with their policy views.
I’ll accept what you say at face value, that you’re English, and didn’t know this is “a thing”.
Thought this might be of interest in the context of the Clinton / corruption / screwed up politics discussion.
Thought this might be of interest in the context of the Clinton / corruption / screwed up politics discussion.
There’s a useful comment underneath the article by someone named Alan.
Because we live in a market economy where money is influential, people use money in this way. If money were removed, people would use something else. People with whatever currency of influence there is will always be able to influence. We can and should (and do) draw lines, and enforce them, but the phenomenon can’t be eliminated entirely.
There’s a useful comment underneath the article by someone named Alan.
That is an excellent and thoughtful comment, thanks for pointing me to it.
We can and should (and do) draw lines, and enforce them, but the phenomenon can’t be eliminated entirely.
I agree, however IMO the status quo has gone profoundly awry. It’s not a matter of eliminating it entirely, it’s a matter of having it not be the norm.
My feeling on the topic generally is that people who assume positions of responsibility should also expect and accept that they will be subject to stronger rules about their conduct. They should expect to be under a microscope, and they should expect that they may need to forgo things that they may have a right to enjoy, but which could be seen as undermining or compromising their integrity and impartiality in office.
A higher bar.
Not everyone will want that, and those folks should not seek positions of public responsibility.
I’m not picking on Clinton here, IMO both of the Clintons were excellent public servants, and the paths they’ve taken to enrich themselves are well within the norm. They are, in many ways, more transparent than most in their position.
the Clintons have been under a whole biology department’s worth of microscopes for decades. whatever there is to find has been found.
TrumpCo on the other hand is just getting started!
I agree, however IMO the status quo has gone profoundly awry. It’s not a matter of eliminating it entirely, it’s a matter of having it not be the norm.
I think so too, but agree with you that the focus on the Clintons is misguided. When I said that we enforce lines, we certainly aren’t doing that now, so I retract that. Pre-Trump, we did have lines, and we did enforce them. It might have been worthwhile (and maybe in the future will again be worthwhile) to discuss how to tighten our expectations of public officials, but now that everything has gone kerflooey, it seems like just getting back to the previous baseline is our immediate task.
I should apologize, perhaps, for being so sensitive about the Clintons, and I know my reputation here is to be a bit overzealous. But if the Clintons were a baseline as the standard for public service, our country would be in good shape. The Obama administration even more phenomenally so. I don’t think we can do much better than that, so I find the constant refrain from some people about Clinton corruption to be really tiresome.
TrumpCo on the other hand is just getting started!
Just a shout out to Di Fei – Yes, I know she’s done some stuff that people, including me, don’t like, but good on her! This was spectacular! Thank you, Dianne!
“But if the Clintons were a baseline as the standard for public service, our country would be in good shape.”
They are, thus Trump. I don’t see that as good shape.
Pie filters are nice because you can peek, take a pause, and remember why you did that.
For all the back and forth on this site I have never filtered anyone. I disagree with many here, really take some shots from others, but I read them all.
Proof, if it were still needed, that the irony gene is absent from the Trump genome….
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/09/ivanka-metoo-supporter-trump-daughter-329038
Good for you, Marty. I peek at your posts, obviously, but I have an anger management problem (only on ObWi, where I have been banned, not with my family or pets), and the pie filter helps me to take a step back.
Thanks, cleek, for providing us with that pause moment!
sapient, I am pretty good at just not logging in if I reach that point so I understand.
Thanks, Marty.
Not worrying, at all…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/09/us-to-loosen-nuclear-weapons-policy-and-develop-more-usable-warheads
They are, thus Trump
Trump is POTUS because a lot of people voted for him. At a certain point, those folks need to own that, and leave the “Hillary made me do it” stuff behind.
Until Democrats stop colluding with them, Republican Hillary-haters are not gonna stop.
–TP
Until Democrats stop colluding with them
Good thing I am no longer a Democrat.
History will judge the Obama/Clintons hegemony. Not kindly.
Question, if things ever get better, and
weyou get enough Democratic to bring back better healthcare, say single-payer or Medicare-for-All or whatever…will the mandate come back? No way. And how will historians view the mandate? And Obamacare in general?A catastrophic failure, a giveaway to industry, that damaged health policy for a generation. And along with the ending of Glass-Steagall, the bank bailout, the semi-austerian economics, the dragging of feet on net neutrality (See CT today) etc etc the whole Obama administration will be viewed as an ineffective feckless failure, in both policy and politics.
Give it a couple decades, and Obama will be ranked with Buchanan and Hoover or Quincy Adams down at the bottom of Presidents.
If we survive his incompetence.
bob,
It’s actually a relief to know that you are “no longer a Democrat”, because that way we Democrats can focus on saving your ass from He, Trump and you can focus on elevating our sights toward a purer, nobler Utopian States of America after we ITMFA.
–TP
History will judge the Obama/Clintons hegemony
so, by hegemony, you mean… Democrats? people who have shaken hands with Jimmy Carter? self-made successes?
what’s this secret society that the Clintons (a white couple from Arkansas) and Obama (a mixed-race guy from Hawaii with a Kenyan, Muslim father) share?
or, is that yet another formerly well-defined word that has become a generic insult like “neo-liberal” and “fascist” ?
At a certain point, those folks need to own that
they won’t.
modern conservatism is fundamentally “they have gone and broken [an imaginary] it!”
responsibility is only given, never taken. and the whole notion of the rugged individualist is gone. it’s a grievance-based ideology, now.
Neoliberalism isn’t hard to define. In the US it has referred to people in the Democratic Party starting in the 80’s and 90’s who wanted to move away from New Deal and pro regulatory policies towards what were ostensibly more free market friendly policies. People online started objecting to it as a vague insult as part of the Sanders vs. Clinton fight or more generally, as part of the left vs. centrist liberal fight.
Since we are still helping the Saudis commit murder, it seems appropriate to the people at FAIR to see how MSNBC has covered it.
https://fair.org/home/msnbc-yemen-russia-coverage-2017/
Basically, almost not at all. There is a chicken and egg thing here. When some portion of the media avoids or distorts an important story, are they trying to fool their viewers or just pandering to them? I think it is a bit of both. I have a friend on the far right who watches Fox and reads the far right press and he is clearly making a choice to live in that bubble, but I think to a lesser extent some liberals do the same.
Good thing I am no longer a Democrat.
History will judge the Obama/Clintons hegemony. Not kindly.
for that matter, history will judge the united states in its entirety. our greed and wastefulness. our self-righteousness and self-satisfaction. our belligerence and sense of entitlement. our complacency with our own wealth, and our lack of concern for the poverty of so much of the rest of the world.
also our optimism, and energy, and scattershot generosity, and idealism, however myopic.
history will judge all of it, and all of us.
even you, bob.
it seems appropriate to the people at FAIR to see how MSNBC has covered it.
i don’t know about MSNBC, but a google search for “US Yemem 2017” shows stories about US involvement in Yemen from WaPo, NTY, Guardian, al-Jazeera, CNN, Newsweek, PRI, Politico, the Atlantic, the Intercept, Vox and Fox. and that’s just the first two pages of hits.
How long has Mike Pence’s wife been blackmailed by this guy? I don’t expect she’ll comment because she’s tied up at the moment with a sock in it.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/01/11/scratch-a-repub-find-a-creep-mo-edition/
As Governor, he encouraged the murder of senior citizens and the poor at the behest of conservative sadistic dark money.
The sociopathic pig, recruited to run for office for those explicit characterisitics, typifies all and every republican and conservative, a perfectly reasonable conclusion given the conservative republican practice of generalizing about all Muslims from a small ISIS sample, all blacks from a small sample of fake fat black welfare mothers, all Hispanics from old Eli Wallach depictions in movies, all liberals from the carbuncles on Karl Marx’s backside, all unemployed and uninsured Americans from the
last guy Mitt Romney layed off and destroyed to enrich himself, all gays from the small sample of Roy Cohn, all Jews from the small sadisitic sample of Roy Cohn (while admiring and emulating and employing his individual sadistic viciousness).
Teach a republican Navy Seal to tie knots and they will restrain your wife. Give them enough rope and they will hang the disadvantaged.
A Pence favorite. An ump clone. Like all conservative filth in America.
Are people still doubting that we’re facing a neo-Nazi in the White House?
Or is it still too early, or unkind, to place what’s happening here in that category?
Are people still doubting that we’re facing a neo-Nazi in the White House?
I presume you mean Miller. Trump hasn’t got the wit to be a neo-Nazi. At most, he’ll parrot what a neo-Nazi just said.
At a certain point, wj, we can’t evaluate the mental acuity or competence of the person who has been elected as President of the United States. We have to take his comments for what they are. And Republicans are letting this happen. Don’t be one.
i feel comfortable concluding that he is an asshole.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-in-oval-office-meeting/2018/01/11/bfc0725c-f711-11e7-91af-31ac729add94_story.html?utm_term=.a499671b719f
Aint no ideologues as I see them in this WH. Just conmen, grifters, greedheads, clowns, using half-baked bullshit to get richer, powerful, popular. If Gorsuch’s opinions made him poor and impotant he’d drop them. They make the Nazis look good.
Can’t think of much in history that was this bad, this outrageous and contemptible. Even Louis Napoleon had Hausmann and the Rothschilds, constructed Frances infrastructure. The Greece of Alcibiades?
Maybe Rome at its worst, 3rd century before Domitian. Help me here.
I suppose scarey if we get a crisis, bank failure or war, but what I think is worse is that, noting than millions will suffer somewhat, I suspect we will just muddle through, keeping on keeping on, slow decline and decent times for most. Dogs ain’t carrying severed hands in the street.
Until Oprah puts Deprak Chopra in charge of our chakras. The US is now ridiculous, without hope.
People from Norway don’t want to come here.
“The US is now ridiculous, without hope.”
Hmmm, Kemosabe.
My chakras do not align with the dog’s dinner of Amerifuck conservatism has given us.
From cleek’s link, did the White House really trot out a guy named “Raj Shah” to defend mp’s “shithole country” comments?
Is he a poodle dog? A dressage show horse from the sub-Continent? One of them a-rab nazi pigfuckers whose faces melted in the Raiders of the Lost Ark?
An Aryan wannabee? Was he wearing a fez?
Norway? Blonde, blue-eyed, a riding crop snapping against the jodphurs as they pop a monocle and steer the little mothers to the boxcars?
No wait, those were the American Nazi fifth columnists during World War II, now ascendant in republican city councils, PTAs, and the entire federal government in 2018.
Norwegians have universal healthcare, reasonably high taxes to pay their fucking bills, and other civilized amenities, so Russell is on the money.
mp and his fascist lapdogs and the entire fucking republican party would welcome Anders Behring Breivik to American citizenship, along with a path to free NRA membership pending his upping his body counts to match the republican conservative Vegas shooter as a show of Supreme Court sanctioned freedom to mass murder.
Lindsay Graham and the other murderers were taken aback by mp’s comments?
Bullshit.
“Shithole” is just another word for “nigger” added to the republican hate edifice.
Mass murderers:
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/01/trumps-closed-door-back-room-slimy-deal.html
Republicans are subhuman pig shit.
What we talk about when we find out Commie nigger Kenyan Obama may have written the 1956 Republican platform, with footnotes by Hillary Clinton.
The Overton Window now. in 2018, has a view right up republican mp’s fascist asshole.
sapient’s right. All fascists now.
Look what you have done, America.
Vengeance is coming to you.
link to 7:21 pm
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/01/11/republicans-then-and-now/
America, the republican shithole, sends its lying republican filth to serve as Ambassadors to decent countries:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/11/1731810/–This-is-the-Netherlands-you-have-to-answer-questions-Dutch-reporters-tell-U-S-ambassador
The few countries who have been “privileged” to have republican corrupt vermin appointed as ambassadors should immediately shackle the filth and put them on planes to the American Aryan homeland. Maybe in body bags. Then shutter the embassies.
Russia will probably demure from this suggestion.
We apparently sold fake fighter jets to Norway:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2018/01/11/trump-lauded-delivery-of-f-52s-to-norway-the-planes-only-exist-in-call-of-duty/?__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true&tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.de077e215979
They should use them to bomb Washington D. C.
Aint no ideologues as I see them in this WH. Just conmen, grifters, greedheads, clowns, using half-baked bullshit to get richer, powerful, popular.
Certainly there are lots of conmen and grifters. But there are also a few ideologues — Miller being one. (A conman, after all, wouldn’t waste time and effort opposing DACA. Which a substanial majority, even of Republicans, aprove of.)
People from Norway don’t want to come here.
This is going to be the USA’s new marketing slogan. (Is Virginia still for lovers?)
Small gummint republican:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/i-am-the-state
He, Trump is not America’s problem. America is America’s problem.
We see sensible Americans arguing that He, Trump has not been proved, by due process, with all the niceties of law, to be a shit-for-brains racist kleptocrat. This alone shows that America’s decline and fall is underway.
The ancient Romans watched Caligula make Incitatus a Senator; Americans watched He, Trump try to make Roy Moore a Senator. The Romans redeemed themselves by hacking Caligula into little pieces; Americans are too squeamish to even ITMFA.
Mehercule, hoc quidem lapsus et ruina
–TP
Bashing Clinton may not indicate sympathy with the Republican party generally, but you are helping out with one of their tactics: to change the conversation to “Look! Clinton! Lock her up!”…
I disagree with the implication that we should censor our discussions of how our side should behave for fear that Republicans may come here, read critical remarks introduced with “Hillary is not a crook”, and be inspired to redouble their lies about her.
Yes, Trump is much worse than I could ever have imagined a US President being. (Even after my scale of badness had been expanded by the extraordinary incompetence of GW Bush.) But we lost an election to him. And one of the reasons we lost is that we selected a candidate because two previous presidents owed her, rather than because she was good at getting herself elected.
How are we going to change things so that the President is usually a Democrat, and when it’s a Republican it’s a competent Republican?
Maybe a good time to point out that Roy Moore isn’t a Senator, because our institutions are not destroyed, because Trump isn’t capable or empowered to destroy them. There is a way to get rid of him, in 2020.
TP thinks I’m sensible, thanks man!
I think that’s the first positive thing that you’ve posted about me.
And not to reopen a debate that long overstayed its welcome, but neither I nor anyone else said impeachment required “all the niceties fo law”. I only said it required some due process beyond the purely political.
Adherence to the rule of law is not an indicator (singular or otherwise) of the decline and fall of America; it’s what might save us. The comparison to Caligula may only be superficially satisfying, but to the extent it has anything to teach us today, the lesson is the opposite of your assertion. The conspiracy to assassinate Caligula was motivated by a desire to restore the republic. That didn’t work out so well. The republic was not restored and the Romans got Claudius, a decent administrator but his reign was marked by more assassinations including his own (probably), and then Nero.
I can’t say that adhering to the rule of law would have saved Rome from its eventual fate. I can say that ignoring it almost certainly didn’t help matters.
italics?
Fixed — wj
What does purely “political mean”? What level of due process is sufficient?
Just move those quotation marks one word to the left.
What level of due process is sufficient?
and where in the Constitution is it described?
no.where.
I didn’t add the italics and I’m not inclined to rehash this again. I’ve previously cited both dicta in SCOTUS cases and the relevant portion of Art II.
We are not going to agree; let’s move on.
Seriously, if this has gotten tiresome for me (a participant), then I can’t imagine how irritating it is for everyone else.
How are we going to change things so that the President is usually a Democrat, and when it’s a Republican it’s a competent Republican?
By 1) supporting the Democrat who wins the primary (meaning working for her, and leaving whatever primary arguments people may have had behind); 2) trying harder to ignore Republican propaganda; 3) trying harder to insure people’s voting rights, 4) trying to understand what influence Putin played and eliminating it to the extent possible.
Those things might be a start.
I didn’t add the italics…
That problem apparently arose in Pro Bono’s comment. Did you think I was accusing you of something?
Seriously, if this has gotten tiresome for me (a participant), then I can’t imagine how irritating it is for everyone else.
This is a blog … on the internet!
Sorry, I forgot to close the italics after the text I quoted.
in SCOTUS cases
which are not in the Constitution.
that SCOTUS wants to insert itself into the process is notable, however.
I just want to know how getting a majority of the United States House of Representatives and a 2/3 majority of the United States Senate to vote in favor of something isn’t due process.
By 1) supporting the Democrat who wins the primary etc…
No, just no. After 25 years of paying attention again, I have no reason to believe that Harris or Gillibrand won’t net make things worse. Yes, they will improve on the Trump years, as Obama was an improvement on Bush, but it is still two steps back, one step forward at best, at best…and I happen to think it is worse than that.
So I can’t keep contributing to a system, to a delusion that is not only making America worse, but is hurting the world.
Are we better off than the 60s? Well, black wealth and opportunities I think are worse, and I can make a case that our 25 year ME war is much worse than Vietnam. The New Deal and Great Society are getting shredded.
Sure, blame as much of this, more than me, on Republicans. Fact then remains, that Democrats ain’t resisting or countering Republicans for shit, and I am seeing nothing in the Party, in the leadership or rank and file, that makes me think they will grow a spine or abandon the corruption and opportunism that allows the leadership to get rich and secure while the 80% get screwed.
I don’t have answers. I just know that repeating the same failures for decades isn’t one either.
So Bob, who do you think would make a good Democratic candidate? That is, who among those who are a) Governors (past or present), b) Senators (ditto), or c) have some other kind of a track record to judge them on. Anyone?
Fact then remains, that Democrats ain’t resisting or countering Republicans for shit
this is utterly incorrect.
“which are not in the Constitution.”
Lot’s of things are not explicitly set out in the Constitution, e.g., the right to privacy.
As a politically moderate attorney who is not much of a strict constructionist, I find it amusing that liberals on the internet will channel Antonin Scalia if it means lowering the bar to impeach Trump.
If we’re talking specifically about Trump, and not generally about the clear constitutional requirements for impeachment and removal from office, do you think it would be difficult to find a reasonable-enough basis for Trump’s impeachment, such that it would not be purely political? (Any impeachment is necessarily political to some degree or other.)
the impeachment process is described in the Constitution. we know why it was designed the way it was. we know the people who wrote it were aware of the things that seem to worry you. but you are not satisfied with it and insist there must be more to it.
this isn’t my problem. it’s yours.
hsh … I think there’s enough w/r/t obstruction to impeach Trump, but that’s not politically sexy on its own; and I agree with you that there is a political hurdle to overcome, which is appropriate in my view. I don’t know that he’ll get tagged with collusion (conspiracy).
cleek … the Court’s job is to fill in the banks and they’ve indicated that in the case of a presidential impeachment, they may step in if removal from office is based on the president just being a bad guy (IIRC, “bad guy” was the phrase used). When you say that “we know why it was designed the way it was”, I’m curious what your perspective is on that. I’m pretty sure the framers did not intend for impeachment to be used as a recall vote by proxy.
“this isn’t my problem. it’s yours”
My only problems are a couple of posters who seem to enjoy hectoring me with a dead horse whenever I post. ;-P
Maybe a good time to point out that Roy Moore isn’t a Senator, because our institutions are not destroyed, because Trump isn’t capable or empowered to destroy them.
It’s great that Roy Moore isn’t a senator. In and of itself, that doesn’t demonstrate the health of our institutions one way or another.
IMO it’s sufficient to say that the Trump administration is stressing our institutions to an enormous degree. Deliberately so, in the case of many things that are not matters of black letter law, but which have evolved over time as, for lack of a better word, best practices, and which are intended to foster confidence in the system.
Our institutions aren’t unbreakable. There’s more than enough wiggle room in the Constitution, per se, to allow bad actors with a little bit of luck to burn a lot of stuff down. That not happening depends on a certain basic level of good faith. It depends on people seeing them as valuable, and *not actually wanting to burn them down*.
It remains to be seen where the Trump presidency will take us.
Trump is not America’s problem. America is America’s problem.
We have a winner.
they’ve indicated that in the case of a presidential impeachment, they may step in if removal from office is based on the president just being a bad guy
right!
like i said: they want to insert themselves into the process.
I’m pretty sure the framers did not intend for impeachment to be used as a recall vote by proxy.
they didn’t intend it to be that. but they were certainly aware that it could be used that way. as with many things, they put way too high a value on honor and propriety. they thought the fine upstanding citizenry would not tolerate such undignified shenanigans.
hectoring me with a dead horse
there’s a house with horses on my running route. a few times now i’ve seen this one big brown horse lying on its side in the pasture, legs out, motionless. cars will slow down to look at it while it’s lying there. i try not to breathe when running past. because, obviously, (the first couple of times i saw it at least), i assume the horse is dead. there are horse graves on the other side of the house and i was expect this one is going to join them.
but i always see it up and grazing the next day!
maybe the horse isn’t dead after all? 🙂
Sunbathing horses do look a bit like they’re dead…
Pro Bono: … one of the reasons we lost is that we selected a candidate because two previous presidents owed her, rather than because she was good at getting herself elected.
In 2004, “we” selected John Kerry partly because Howard Dean was “not electable”. Turns out Kerry — a man I admired long before 2004 — lost anyway. Dean might have lost worse, maybe, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have run a much feistier campaign.
In 2008, “we” selected Barack Obama, but NOT on grounds of “electability”, I think. “We” renominated him in 2012 because that’s what Americans of both parties do to incumbent presidents.
In 2016, “we” nominated Hillary “because two previous presidents owed her”, you say. Not because “we” thought her more electable than Bernie, nor because “we” wanted a 3rd term of Obama.
It’s a theory, “we” suppose.
–TP
It’s great that Roy Moore isn’t a senator. In and of itself, that doesn’t demonstrate the health of our institutions one way or another.
But if he had won, that would definitely say something about the (ill) health of our institutions.
Maybe more about Alabama voters.
…”we”…
Obama won the nomination because he was brilliant at getting people to vote for him.
Hillary Clinton won the nomination because she had so much political and financial muscle behind her. Who knows what other candidates might have emerged in a more open field.
The Democratic Party candidate lost an election to Donald Trump. Such a disaster ought to prompt consideration of what went wrong.
The Democratic Party candidate lost an election to Donald Trump. Such a disaster ought to prompt consideration of what went wrong.
Don’t hold your breath
Just to save sapient the trouble, what went wrong apart from Comey and Russian interference.
“The Democratic Party candidate lost an election to Donald Trump. Such a disaster ought to prompt consideration of what went wrong.”
This has been duly noted here. Speaking for myself and the horse sunning itself after its frequent beatings, the Democratic Party is hapless, useless and has near-McManus noted complicity in American horseshit.
Abraham Lincoln running at the top of the Democratic ticket would have had that election stolen from him, because America is at its core, full of shit, even without Hillary Clinton’s contributions.
I voted for her.
That said, I didn’t elect vermin mp by voting for Gary WhatsAllepo or highly principled vote-trading. That’s all the splainin required of me.
However, the election was stolen (I would explain, but you don’t speak Russian) as will be the 2020 election Marty thinks might be an out from re-electing vermin.
I spit on voting until the Republican Party is reduced to a ragtag mob of thirty or so white fucks showing up heiling their asses off to preserve the last racist Confederate monument and beaten to death by hooded patriots, the latter of whom will have monuments erected in every American town square for their charitable, patriotic deeds.
Doug Jones won his Alabama election over racist Christian vermin Roy Moore by a mere percentage point, despite the latter’s finger fucking of the underaged and the nigger nooses he’s been fashioning all these years and and frequent calls for Jew- and liberal-burning in the pizza ovens at Papa Adolph’s.
Anyone want to explain the 48.5% Moore received?
I hope North Korea targets Alabama for its first nuclear strike.
Among the many qualifying red state targets. Some other pigfucking republuican state could move into the lead by tomorrow.
What GFTNC said and John Jay haters can bite me.
I voted for Hillary, but it was clear that purple Florida was going for Trump in the lead up to the election.
If Dems want to learn any lessons from that, I suggest an avoidance of hacks like Debbie Wasserman Schultz being the public face of the party would be a good start.
The HRC/DWS combo was toxic down here. I’m sure misogyny played a nontrivial role in that, but their reputations for being “transactional” were legitimate.
Transactional, strategic hackery is a necessary part of politics, but it shouldn’t be the forward facing part. Dems need to find candidates that inspire or motivate voters with something more than competence at sausage making.
That’s especially true in Florida where Dems have not produced an exciting politician in a long time.
I voted for Hillary, but it was clear that purple Florida was going for Trump in the lead up to the election.
If Dems want to learn any lessons from that, I suggest an avoidance of hacks like Debbie Wasserman Schultz being the public face of the party would be a good start.
It seems more logical using this view of things that Democrats should nominate someone more like Donald Trump. After all, he won, right?
That’s especially true in Florida where Dems have not produced an exciting politician in a long time.
Five years ago does seem long ago, doesn’t it?
If “more like Donald Trump” implies an ability to excite crowds, then I suppose so.
Again, it was the HRC/DWS combo that was so bad. If just one of them came across as authentic, then the result in Florida may have been different.
“Five years ago does seem long ago, doesn’t it?”
Check out the current roster of Dems:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/FL
who excites you out of that group?
This is exciting to the American voter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUbvc5U-H-I
mp is exciting as Hell, the reality show.
A mushroom cloud shaped Hell, coming soon.
I agree regarding Wasserman Schultz.
who excites you out of that group?
Not sure what I’m supposed to take from your question. I don’t know them intimately, but there are some attractive faces, and interesting backgrounds. Stephanie Murphy comes to mind, although she wouldn’t be eligible for the presidency. Why do they bore you?
This guy just got a tax break:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xMKBV3idL4
This guy’s church was always emitting tax free conservative political speech from the pulpit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me2H7Ja93Wg
I suggest an avoidance of hacks like Debbie Wasserman Schultz being the public face of the party would be a good start.
i agree.
but, honestly, how many people know or care who DWS is? and how many of them weren’t already committed to one candidate or the other?
the first number is pretty small: political junkies and cable news addicts. the second number is probably minuscule: if you know and care enough to be familiar with her, how can you not have made up your mind already?
All republican vermin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUP7r5S6rRw
What the F? …Enough House Democrats (55) vote with Republicans to get drastic surveillance powers reauthorized for, ya know, Hitler II the crazed authoritarian racist Russian spy Trump.
“the power of the intelligence agencies to engage in domestic surveillance, and much more.
On Thursday, as Glenn Greenwald reports, liberals and Democrats were given a similar opportunity to reign in a presidency they’ve deemed the most authoritarian in American history. What’s more, they had nearly 60 Republicans willing to join them. 125 Democrats went for it. But 55 of them—including the top two Democrats in the House, the former head of the DNC, and one of the most visible faces of “The Resistance”—did not. Thereby sinking the bill.”
An argument against incrementalism as an approach to climate change.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/01/trumps-gift-climate-movement.html
“I didn’t elect vermin mp by voting for Gary WhatsAllepo ”
I have a soft spot for Gary Johnson. He is an idiot, but he defended his remark by saying at least he wouldn’t be bombing places he never heard of. Bet he wouldn’t be helping the Saudis bomb Sanaa.
On our own bombing, apart from what the Saudis do with our assistance, it is pretty hard to see much of a difference between the Russian bombing in Syria and our bombing in Iraq, but we heard much more about Aleppo. Our bombing became worse under Trump, but just as with Yemen, you don’t hear much about that here even as criticism of Trump, because I suppose people realize it isn’t just Trump responsible. Our military doesn’t seem to have any idea how many civilians it is killing, or prefers to believe in massive undercounting.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html
“I have a soft spot for Gary Johnson. He is an idiot, but he defended his remark by saying at least he wouldn’t be bombing places he never heard of.”
We don’t know that. He might sit with the Joint Chiefs and say “So when do we start bombing whatchamacallit?”
“Norway’s got those F-52s we can use.”
Plus the countries and cities he HAD heard of would change their names to avoid his bombing missions and then where would we be?
liberals and Democrats were given a similar opportunity to reign in a presidency
politicians are well aware that voting against stronger “anti-terrorism” measures is a sure-fire way to get blamed for the next successful terrorist attack.
the incentives don’t point them in the direction of less surveillance.
Pro Bono: The Democratic Party candidate lost an election to Donald Trump.
The Republican Party nominated Donald Trump, but let that pass.
As I have pointed out before, the American electorate habitually:
1) Re-elects incumbent Presidents; and then
2) Switches party in the White House.
If the GOP had the decency to nominate a “normal” Republican, any Democrat would have started out at a disadvantage in 2016. The fact that the plutocratic GOP threw in its lot with the deplorable “base” and nominated a carnival barker might have erased that disadvantage except for:
1) Comey’s holier-than-thou posturing; and
2) Putin’s under-the-table help.
Not to mention the acres-count-more-than-people structure of the Electoral College.
Suppose Democrats had accommodated the GOP’s overt and Putin’s covert Hillary-hatred by nominating somebody else. What do you think the popular vote margin might have been?
Suppose Bernie had got the nomination. (I wrote here in January 2016 that I longed for a Sanders vs Trump race.) Would Putin — a kleptocrat, not a communist — have refrained from ratfucking the “socialist”?
–TP
No, Putin and his kleptocrats would have feared Bernie’s nationalization of FOX News and Breitbart and the many mp enterprises and republican PACS through which they launder their ill-gotten cash, so the ratfucking would have been even more virulent.
Such a disaster ought to prompt consideration of what went wrong.
not quite half the folks who showed up to vote, voted for a guy who started his campaign by descending a golden escalator to declare that Mexicans are a bunch of rapists.
I agree, that is worthy of consideration. there is something profoundly wrong going on, but I’m not sure Clinton is to blame.
it’s also worth reminding us all that 10 million more people voted against Trump than for him. so, apparently all is not lost.
a lot, but not all.