Trump wasn't impeached by House vote

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Vociferous, Dec 29, 2019.

  1. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    According to a Harvard law professor and House Democrat witness in favor of impeachment, Constitutional impeachment hasn't happened until the House notifies the Senate.

    Both versions, old and new, depend on the House officially communicating the fact of impeachment to the Senate. That communication has always taken place in short order after the House voted to impeach. The reason lies in the core element of what impeachment is by its very nature: a prosecution by the House that takes place before the Senate. If the message is not sent and the trial is not prosecuted, there is no genuine impeachment in the constitutional sense of the term.
    ...
    According to the longstanding understanding of impeachment, Pelosi has some modest leverage over the Senate trial. With the authority the House has given to her, she can control when impeachment officially occurs. Constitutionally, the Senate can’t try Trump until she triggers the trial by sending a message about impeachment to the Senate. The Constitution gives the House has the “sole power” of impeachment; and impeachment means the power to initiate and conduct a prosecution in the Senate.

    But if Trump has already been impeached by the House vote, then Pelosi has zero leverage, because the Senate can start the trial right away, without waiting for the House to initiate or conduct the prosecution. After all, the House only has the power to impeach. If it has already executed that power, then the ball is already in the Senate’s court. The Senate has the sole power to try the impeachment.

    Sure, the Senate’s rules say the trial starts “when the managers of an impeachment shall be introduced at the bar of the Senate.” But that’s because the Senate rules understand impeachment in the traditional sense, to require communication from the House and commencement of a trial. If the brand-new theory is right, however, the Senate can just amend its rules and start the trial now. McConnell, not Pelosi, would then control the trial’s timing.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...chment-why-can-t-the-senate-start-a-trial-now

    So either Trump hasn't been impeached, and Pelosi has some leverage solely in when the trial starts, or he has been impeached, and McConnell is free to start the trial, without or without the House sending managers to prosecute it.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Ah. Now we proceed into redefining words to protect Trump. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is, eh?
     
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  5. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I suppose you would like to offer a definition of "Proper Trial"or "Fair trial" or "Prejudiced trial" or "Fake trial" while you are at it...
    Basically it could be argued also that you can not offer the impeachment to a legitimate trial if there is no legitimate trial to offer it to.

    So explain how the Senate will construct a fair trial process... and perhaps discover why your argument is fallacious.
     
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  7. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Not me, one of the House Democrats own impeachment witnesses. And I don't see you refuting this Harvard law professor's statements about the constitutional precedence.


    The trial procedures are for the Senate to decide, as proscribed by the Constitution, which does not curtail their choices to any standard whatsoever, fair or otherwise. What you, or Pelosi, may imagine/fear those to be is immaterial. Either Trump has been impeached and McConnell is free to start the trial, or Trump hasn't been impeached and Pelosi has the leverage of delaying the trial. You can't actually have it both ways without equivocating over the constitutional precedence. Right now, the House vote is nothing more than censure.

    What partisan leftists think is a "legitimate trial" might be has no basis in reality, law, or the Constitution. But apparently you favor ignoring the Constitution and the sworn duty of the House.
     
  8. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    So you believe a trials outcome can be determined before a trial takes place?
    The Senate are making a mockery of the any judicial system and you agree with them...
    And you refuse to offer your definitions.
     
  9. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    That's just more of your ignorance speaking. The Senate and the judiciary are two completely different branches of the US federal government. Democrat Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer admitted that a Senate trial is not a legal proceeding, back when Clinton was impeached, and Schumer campaigned on voting "no". Are you just as indignant about Schumer's stance? Or just a hypocrite?

    As I've repeatedly told you, impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one. But I doubt you even understand the difference.
    There is no definition of a Senate trial other than what the Senate decides. Ultimately, any procedural questions come down to a simple vote of 51 Senators. Even summary judgement.
     
  10. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    So why use the word "trial"?
    What was the intent of the constutional provision?
     
  11. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    ahhh so the Constitution is merely a political document... I see... thanks
     
  12. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    It's a trial in the sense that there is a prosecution (House managers), defense (White House counsel), jurors (Senators), witnesses/evidence, and a verdict. The difference is that there need not be a criminal offense nor evidence that would hold up in the judiciary, which is the only reason this impeachment, including no statutory crimes as it does, can go to such a trial at all.
    No, you're still woefully clueless. The Constitution is law, but it establishes more than just the judiciary. Again, why don't you bother to learn about the three separate but equal branches of US government? You might just learn that each is tasked with a different duty.
     
  13. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    A different legal or political duty?
     
  14. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    The trial is not an actual criminal proceeding and more closely resembles a civil service termination appeal in terms of the contemplated deprivation. Therefore, the removed official may still be liable to criminal prosecution under a subsequent criminal proceeding. The President may not grant a pardon in the impeachment case, but may in any resulting Federal criminal case.
    src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States
     
  15. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    What is puzzling is that once Trump is allowed to continue in office after being acquitted by the Senate all his actions no matter how bizarre in the future will become the responsibility of those who acquitted him.
    I do not understand how any one would be foolish enough to expect Trump to make it through another term with out loosing it...
    That said the House of Reps are actually doing the Republican party a favor by providing them with an opportunity to rid them selves of this loose cog...
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,883
    He doesn't actually know what he's on about. It's one thing to repeat whatever bullshit runs 'round the right wing, but our neighbor hasn't the grasp of the basic civics.

    Regardless of his back and forthing about politics and trials, members of the U.S. Senate will swear an Oath of Affirmation, to "do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws".

    Meanwhile, he's sick of being told he's wrong, and wants to tell other people how wrong they are. Sadly, what he can't seem to figure out is that people will stop telling him he's wrong when he stops pretending he's that ignorant. And we're supposed to believe that he is somehow incapable of discerning the relationship between his lack of information and the wrongness of the poisonous pabulum he's regurgitating.

    Sure, it's a bit unbelievable, but truth is stranger than fiction, so puzzling out what the real problem is would be kind of a hit and miss, take or leave kind of gamble virtually promising dubious returns.
     
  17. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    What he also seems to be ignorant of is that Congress including the Senate ARE the law makers of the land, in that they create the laws that are later put into action, tested and enforced by the judiciary.
    So anything that Congress does is foremost legal work and the politics is or should be far from the primary concern.
    So to state that a constitutional impeachment trial is merely politics and has no legal basis is utter rubbish.

    The greatest danger here is that Trump will consider his fraudulent acquittal as a green light to continue doing as he pleases regardless of convention or precedent. The Senate would be condoning his unconscionable, reckless and impulsive behavior.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2019
  18. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry...

     
  19. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    OK. I guess it will be a week or two then it will be 'official'. Not sure why it should, but I hope that makes you feel better. [Shrug]
     
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,883
    Here's a non-equivocation: One striking aspect is that bringing this to bear won't be a betrayal of conservatism, but, rather an affirmation that it's been a lie the whole time. I mean, even in the Sciforums context, the nonreciprocal respect people are expected to show conservatives as if it was some ritual and reciprocal behavior is absurd. We've trashed the place over this kind of ignorance, so we might as well get it on the table: Certain arguments are difficult to make within the confines of rational discourse; in order to be "fair", as such, the community must alleviate some of the burdens described by rational discourse, or else they're jackboots and pitchfork mobs silencing political views.

    The sleight orbits a couple key elements. First is a failure or refusal to distinguish between behavior and political views. To wit, demanding some reasonable attendance of history would be unfair to Vociferous, because the abject defense of "political views" does not distinguish between behavior and outlook, such that we are to presume, at least functionally in terms of assessing what happens at Sciforums, that he is incapable of behaving any better.

    Now, sometimes this turns out to be true, and sometimes it's just easy cover for disrespectful presentation of challenging or controversial ideas that are difficult to support rationally. And sometimes, examples are complicated, but here's an explanation about that latter.

    †​

    A fairly commmon issue arose, and this time around we had a definitive statement to not do something, from one of the people adversely affected. As it happens, someone who participates in the custom chose to defend it, except, really, the only defense I can even imagine is that it shouldn't be any high priority, but that only perpetuates a specific part of a cycle which, societally, escalates to include violence. In this case, these are aspects of sexism, male chauvinism, and misogyny.

    But it starts off small, and it's not really the kind of behavior one punishes. Seriously, it's just an annoying insistence on a dysfunctional, self-consuming opinion. But that's just the thing: The only argument the one has is because he says so.

    (And, yes, there is a larger issue about that manner of say-so, that in this politic it is a bullying mockery that became normalized, but that is its own discussion for another thread.)​

    Discussions are what they are, but sometimes people just don't recognize themselves in the moment. As this one progressed, changing from manners of address to propositions of problematic behavior the say-so argument not only doubled down, but for all its resentment of the idea of persistent disdain toward women, repeatedly walking into a proverbial trap most assuredly didn't help. On this occasion, that means at least two things: First, there is the idea of reciting the script, so that despite resenting suggestions of prejudice, one seems unable to prevent himself from reciting chauvinistic, supremacist tropes; also, though, is the observation that when a woman shows up, it's pretty much over, because men in his position will tend to grind noses and show machismo to another man, but refocus and escalate when a woman arrives. And if these men are somehow distressed by poor associations and community relations with women, it's true such typal displays of hostility just aren't encouraging of better outcomes.

    But this focused escalation continued, even as the discussion continued to do its thing; there came a point when the entire thread was aflame, around us, with trolls showing up with rhetorical arson like actual rape advocacy, and all those rattles and horns and whistles, and when faced with the existential circumstance of women really existing and having their own living perspectives, our neighbor flat out lost it.

    At this point, the discussion was about hitting on random women just because they happen to be in proximity to an interested man. And like the bit about chauvinism, this particular man couldn't manage to not fulfill typal stations. In a way, it's actually fairly simple: Think of all the dumb things men say in these moments that get them just scorched, and, simply, don't recite those lines. Yet, one after another, it just keeps happening, and once upon a time, it was this guy's turn.

    The underlying connection to all three prejudicial stances—manner of address, the merits of problematic behavior, and hitting on women because they are present—was the objectivization and concomitant subordination of women: It doesn't matter what she does, like, say, being a grief counselor, or a doctor, dealing with a family who just lost a child; if some man in that moment tells her she would be prettier if she smiled more, well, gosh, she should be thankful, or do her part and smile for him, or something like that.

    At this point, there remains a whatever aspect to it all; like just some dude being a dude in that repulsively dudely way that no dude, anywhere, ever wants to answer for, to the point that many dudes would either pretend offense at the proposition of such dudeliness, or become genuinely offended because they are too delicate to accept what so many dudes' behavior amounts to.

    When our neighbor lost his stuff, he insisted on changing the subject as if it had always been the point of the discussion. And this is where the behavior becomes problematic; the focus and escalation leads to an absurd moment in which he snaps from toothgrit, heated machismo to prim, delicate, gelid fury, invalidating the woman, insisting on his subject-change, and then informing her, "that will be enough of that".

    To the one, mouthing off for the sake of putting a woman in some iteration of her mythical place does not an argument proper make. To the other, though, is the idea of rational discourse. This is actually the sort of thing we sacrificed rational discourse for.

    Some arguments are hard to support rationally; the results of these endeavors are not surprising. But at the point such abusive behavior arises, so also does the question of what to do about it. And here are a couple of general perspectives: At what point did our neighbor cross a line from simply being annoying and ignorant to being willfully offensive, how do we describe that threshold, and what do we do about it? That's one. The other postulates a shite-blithe, ignorantly featureless pretense against suppressing an undefined range of political views.

    No, really, that's it. Years later, we still don't what those political views are. The best we can figure is a strange vantage according to the shape of what is absent.

    Still, here's the thing: To apply those perspectives to our neighbor as I've described, there is, to the one, a question about how to deal with such behavior, while, to the other, the argument that would pass over such behavior as acceptable also inherently presumes the individual not competent to behave otherwise; if we need a ski-boxer's third, the complication is an apparent presumption that the question of what to do is answered by banning members; the lack of subtlety isn't subtle. 'Tis a curious trap we managed to set for ourselves, but the results ought to have been obvious over the course of years.

    (There is actually irony about it, an old joke about throwing bones to particular political labels, and questions of equivocation, because the punch line had to do with the only valid reason for allowing certain behavior being akin to what Americans describe as reasonable accommodation, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act.)​

    It's true, the rules are, technically speaking, still in effect, but if that sounds silly, consider the complication that within this mysterious range of undefined political views, we are not supposed to forbid known fallacy; that is, any discussion can be dragged back to antisocial pretenses of stupidity, and everyone else is supposed to just play along, nicely. As moderators fell away and stopped attending, the question might arise to wonder if they ever stood a chance, and the answer, according to hindsight, is, no, not really. The thing is, nobody wanted to come right out and say it, because, well, right. It would be kind of like admitting that the defense of certain behaviors requires the offending individuals be noncompetent. Some things, a person just doesn't want to say aloud.

    †​

    While I owe our neighbor an analytical response about fake news, the question has to do with using armchair metrics to validate the reporting of a website justifying itself by pointing out that commentary is commentary, and, furthermore, while including contributions from a handful of conspiracy theorists and white supremacists, represents itself as center-right and relies on its publisher, herself posturing a strange presentation, who has allegedly written, on average, in excess of eight posts a day for nigh on nine years. In the current gen, algorithmic regurgitations are called "pink slime", and fake-news consumers like our neighbor are considered targets.

    Notice none backing the argument remembering Daschle will bother with accounting the details; they simply don't want to, because they know they're putting on.

    I've reminded our neighbor, before, that ignorance stands out in his presentation. However, compared to what else we're expected to tolerate, and even shepherd, Vociferous' safe space was already carved out for him. For now, he doesn't need a clue, because requiring him to get one would, by current standards, be unfair.
     
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  21. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    cookie cutter politocrat splain-speaching ....

    is it a trial ?
    or a hearing ?

    you seem to wind up the difference in meaning of words towards ... republicans are always innocent and the victim of big nasty commy democrats....

    you wish to mince with words around the nature of the meaning of "impeachment" and then throw "hearing under the buss of the "trial monster"

    is this a sign that you think as long as you are the one doing anything then its ok ?
    as long as anyone else is doing it then it is always questionable based on your personal lust/greed/desires ... ?
     
  22. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    ... ? "The Senate Rules are a person?"
    huh

    tin-foil hat language
    Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress
    june 22 1937
    Page 6191
    Mr Chairman, I Cannot see the potency of the argument of the gentleman from new york against the cause being tried by the attorney general who represents the united states government
    in the first place if the house of representatives should send managers they would represent
    another department of the government tha would be trying the judiciary or prosecuting the cause.
    the gentlemen assumes the executive department would be less competent or more inclined to prejudice than the house of representatives.
    i cannot see the potency of his argument
    the attorney general tries all cases in which the united sates is a party and certainly within this class of cases would fall a good-behaviour case against one of the members of the ...... etc etc etc ....

    "good behavior of judges" ... ?

    huh ?
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2019
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Tiassa,
    Your posts inspires the following two points ( suggestions)
    My observations:

    1) Violence, impulsive sexual behavior, etc..

    The common denominator in all issues surrounding poor self restraint and discipline could be the fundamental lacking of one major aspect of human psycho-emotional make up.
    The lack of the "fear of future regret".
    It appears that most impulsive behavior, acts of violence ( lashing out), and poor behavior towards women is directly related to this missing fear. Most people govern, restrain and control their behavior by projecting consequences into the future. For Examples :
    • Forcing or other wise manipulating a women into a sexual act may lead to unwanted outcome such as pregnancy, resentment, and loss of sexual opportunity as reputation is established and destroys the opinion of other women in the future ...etc... It also could include homicide and domestic espionage against the man involved.
    • Striking out on angry impulse regardless of gender, could be seen again as a lack of concern about the future to the point where acts of impulsive violence are essentially nihilistic or an impulsive act of suicide. As you may be aware suicide is typically premeditated and planned and very rarely impulsive or reflexive. However if self esteem is so low and the person so internally marginalized and immature, impulsive suicidal behavior can become evident in the form of uncontrolled violence.
    Essentially it is a state of chronic depression brought about by a child hood where consequences for actions were often ignored or covered up.

    Trump for example is a typical product of a child hood that allowed him to act with little regard for consequences. Encouraging and condoning his impulsive anger and decision making accordingly. A typical spoiled brat syndrome where the parents probably found covering up his "crimes" was a lot easier than providing proper parenting and nurturing.
    Thus Trump, the victim, whose self esteem is so low, then goes on to generate countless other victims to support and most importantly justify his failing self esteem. Perhaps the essence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), perhaps not, but certainly a significant part of it.

    In summary:
    Impulsive violence, sexual behavior = lack of fearing future regret and other...
    (Limitations of discussion: Not including clinical conditions such as Asperger, Autism spectrum, or derivative ADHD etc..as these are considerably more complex.)

    2) In the case of Trumps impeachment and most likely result in the Senate.

    There appears to be two possible outcomes IMO
    1. That the Senate simply ram through an acquittal with out any regard for constitutionally required justification. A purely political act. ( lacking any objectivity)
    2. That the Senate find Trump guilty as the 2 articles indicate, and conclude by stating that the behavior is not significant or serious enough to force the removal of a sitting POTUS. ( this is the bit that could be deemed political)
    The trial in the Senate can be consider in two parts.
    1. the trial
    2. the sentence
    The sentence as in most trials is subject to the political whim of the judge. (Unless mandatory sentencing is in place by law)

    However:
    • Both outcomes facilitate Trumps future as POTUS.
    • Both ultimately condone, encourage and perpetuate future behavior.
    • Both outcomes ignore any fear of future regret.

    I can only hope that the USA and the world is prepared for the outcome that is most likely given the obvious emotional immaturity and mental instability of Trump into the future.

    The key to this puzzle of why and how IMO, is the lacking of any fear of future regret. ( a form of psychopathic or sociopathic debilitation)
    Our oft referred to neighbors posting behavior, deflections and straw-manning, ad hom etc are all associated with this key issue. Directly associated with no care for the future or his reputation as a critical thinker ( which I know he is fully capable of)

    Trump supporters simply do not care about the future consequences of their support.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2019

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