US Politics: Ballot Mainetenance

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Republican needing to remind his colleagues of the obvious.

From article at The Hill-

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) is warning House Republicans that President Biden could not be impeached and removed from office for any conduct or crimes committed before he was elected president in 2020. 

Mullin’s statement in an interview with Newsmax pours cold water on a House GOP investigation into Biden’s family’s business dealings, particularly Hunter Biden’s work with foreign companies, while Biden was vice president during the Obama administration and immediately after.  

He warned that any high crime or misdemeanor that may serve as the basis for articles of impeachment “has to be committed while he was in office, the current office he holds.” 

Rep. Mullin may take the personal view that such is the limitation but I’m not at all certian that such a limitation actually exists.  Impeachment and trial for removal from office in the Senate are political actions… not legal ones.  

No person subject to impeachment is at risk of losing life, liberty, or property as a direct result of being impeached and removed from office.  Hence no “due process” beyond what the Constitution expressly states is required.  

I would be extremely surprised if courts at any level would be willing to intervene in impeachment and removal from office.  Impeachment and trial by the Senate for removal from office is a political process dressed up to look “kinda” legal.

This has been true of every impeachment and every trial for removal from office… from Johnson, to Clinton, to Trump… twice.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[kissdbyfire]

55 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Rep. Mullin may take the personal view that such is the limitation but I’m not at all certian that such a limitation actually exists.  Impeachment and trial for removal from office in the Senate are political actions… not legal ones.  

No person subject to impeachment is at risk of losing life, liberty, or property as a direct result of being impeached and removed from office.  Hence no “due process” beyond what the Constitution expressly states is required.  

I would be extremely surprised if courts at any level would be willing to intervene in impeachment and removal from office.  Impeachment and trial by the Senate for removal from office is a political process dressed up to look “kinda” legal.

This has been true of every impeachment and every trial for removal from office… from Johnson, to Clinton, to Trump… twice.

I heard a few lawyers/expert pundits claiming this impeachment is bogus b/c a) no crimes and misdemeanors to justify starting it and b) impeachment only applies to said crimes and misdemeanors are perpetrated by the sitting president.

What do you think of these opinions? 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I heard a few lawyers/expert pundits claiming this impeachment is bogus b/c a) no crimes and misdemeanors to justify starting it and b) impeachment only applies to said crimes and misdemeanors are perpetrated by the sitting president.

What do you think of these opinions? 

I think in a platonic sense… they may be correct.  However… I would be very surprised if any court were to willingly entertain or rule upon such a question.    Impeachment and trial for removal from office are the ultimate in “political questions”.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

It's strange to me that anyone who works in Congress would feel as though he had to remind his colleagues of what they already know and mostly don't care about. The impeachment inquiry vote was not about high crimes and misdemeanors; it was primary insurance. Nobody wants to lose their seat in a primary to a Republican even more of an asshole then they are, no, so any time they can vote against Biden, they do. I tend to doubt this inquiry will ever go to actual impeachment, but even if it does, relatively sane House Republicans probably figure, "What's the big deal? We'll impeach, the Senate will acquit, no harm done." These are probably many of the same people who said, "Let Trump spread lies about the 2020 election...what's the worst that could happen?" On January 6, they got their answer.

Yeah, most Republicans are happy to have a sham investigation to create a cloud of suspicion, like the Benghazi hearings. They're also hoping to maybe find a nugget they could nail him on, like the Clinton Whitewater investigation leading to tales of secret sex in the Oval Office.

But more than anything, it's the projection theater that they want, to flood the zone with relativism and cynicism.

[Kalbear]

24 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I heard a few lawyers/expert pundits claiming this impeachment is bogus b/c a) no crimes and misdemeanors to justify starting it and b) impeachment only applies to said crimes and misdemeanors are perpetrated by the sitting president.

What do you think of these opinions? 

I think it doesn't matter in the least, and it is largely wishful thinking. SCOTUS isn't going to weigh in, it's not clear if anyone would have standing even if they would, and impeachment is just an exercise in political power. 

Democrats continue to not recognize this and they will continue to lose as a result.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

This has been true of every impeachment and every trial for removal from office… from Johnson, to Clinton, to Trump… twice.

However tRump certainly committed high crimes and misdemeanors -- Clinton did not -- and Johnson, as much as he was unfit to be POTUS, particularly post the Lee surrender, was essentially drunkenly ham-handed racist, and was an idiot thinking the Sesh senators could resume their seats along with the Representative Sesh -- particularly as Jeff Davis was in prison, held to be tried for treason,  though in a great error, which in a multitude of ways the nation has been suffering from every since, instead of actually being tried they decided to “nolle prosequi”.

As for Biden, even those bringing the impeachment have said they don't have anything. But let's bring it and work backwards and we'll find something, which among some of them seems to include impeaching Hunter!  How does one impeach somebody who not only doesn't hold an elected office, but never has held one?

In the meantime with the one who most certainly has indeed committed high crimes and misdemeanors, including committing treason and violating all the provisions of the Secrets Acts -- the latest:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/12/15/missing-russia-intelligence-binder-cia-katie-bo-lillis-cnntm-ldn-vpx.cnn

Hear how classified Russian intel went missing in final days of Trump administration

Quote

 

A binder containing top secret information related to Russian election interference went missing in the final days of the Donald Trump administration. The mystery around its disappearance has raised alarm among intelligence officials that national security secrets could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. CNN's Katie Bo Lillis report

CNN reporters pulled together evidence from a number of sources to explain how “a binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.” The missing collection of documents was ten inches thick and contained 2,700 pages of information from U.S. intelligence and that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies about Russian efforts to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election. 

The binder went missing in the last days of the Trump presidency and has not been recovered. Its disappearance has raised “alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed.”

Reporters Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand, Evan Perez, and Zachary Cohen have pieced together the story of how in his last days in office, Trump tried to declassify most of the information in the binder in order to distribute copies to Republican members of Congress and right-wing media outlets. According to an affidavit by reporter John Solomon, who was shown a copy of the binder, the plan was to begin releasing information from it on the morning of January 20, 2021, so that it would hit the news after President Joe Biden had been sworn in. 

But late on January 19, while Solomon was copying the documents, White House lawyers recalled the copies to black out, or redact, sensitive information, worrying that while most of the facts in the binder were apparently already public, the methods of collection and persons involved were not. At some point in that process, an unredacted copy of the binder disappeared. 

A former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, told the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol last year that she thought Meadows took the unredacted binder with him. 

Today, in statements that seemed very carefully worded, Meadows’s lawyer, George Terwilliger, told CNN: “Mr. Meadows was keenly aware of and adhered to requirements for the proper handling of classified material, any such material that he handled or was in his possession has been treated accordingly and any suggestion that he is responsible for any missing binder or other classified information is flat wrong.” Terwilliger told the New York Times: “Mark never took any copy of that binder home at any time.” 

The missing binder was not among the material the Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered from Mar-a-Lago last year, and intelligence officials briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee about the missing information (the CNN story does not say that the House Intelligence Committee has been briefed). In April 2021, Trump allegedly offered to let the author of a book about him see the binder, saying “I would let you look at them if you wanted…. It’s a treasure trove…it would be sort of a cool book for you to look at.” ....

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Zorral

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

37 minutes ago, Zorral said:

However tRump certainly committed high crimes and misdemeanors -- Clinton did not -- and Johnson, as much as he was unfit to be POTUS, particularly post the Lee surrender, was essentially drunkenly ham-handed racist, and was an idiot thinking the Sesh senators could resume their seats along with the Representative Sesh -- particularly as Jeff Davis was in prison, held to be tried for treason,  though in a great error, which in a multitude of ways the nation has been suffering from every since, instead of actually being tried they decided to “nolle prosequi”.

As for Biden, even those bringing the impeachment have said they don't have anything. But let's bring it and work backwards and we'll find something, which among some of them seems to include impeaching Hunter!  How does one impeach somebody who not only doesn't hold an elected office, but never has held one?

In the meantime with the one who most certainly has indeed committed high crimes and misdemeanors, including committing treason and violating all the provisions of the Secrets Acts -- the latest:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/12/15/missing-russia-intelligence-binder-cia-katie-bo-lillis-cnntm-ldn-vpx.cnn

Hear how classified Russian intel went missing in final days of Trump administration

 

But… as Kalbear points out above… and as I’m repeating… that doesn’t matter.  There is no “proof” required to bring impeachment.  No proof required to vote to remove from office.  Impeachment and removal are political not legal actions.  

I’ve wondered, given the orginal structure of the US Constitution where the person coming in second place in the electoral college becoming Vice-President, if “impeachment” wasn’t originally conceived as a “vote of no confidence” to bring the “shadow cabinet” to power.

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

But more than anything, it's the projection theater that they want, to flood the zone with relativism and cynicism.

Yup. As has been said (I forget by whom), the point of propaganda is not to get people to believe different things; it's to make them stop believing anything. So once we all get the idea that no one is sincere, that everyone is on the make, and that all human endeavors are doomed to corruption and failure, then people like Donald Trump win.

Edited December 16, 2023 by TrackerNeil

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I think in a platonic sense… they may be correct.  However… I would be very surprised if any court were to willingly entertain or rule upon such a question.    Impeachment and trial for removal from office are the ultimate in “political questions”.

Gotcha. But the crazies don't have the Senate, right? Something they would need to get a conviction? Or am I misremembering?

[Zorral]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

There is no “proof” required to bring impeachment.

Maybe with these evil ignorant clowns.  However, in the past to bring impeachment one needed some proof, so the proto rethug fash were reduced to publicly browbeating a young woman to describe Clinton's penis and the blowjobs she gifted him.

Prototypical of Them -- whereas there was ample proof and evidence to impeach tRump, but the fash wouldn't allow it.

Also, again, how do They impeach someone who has never held any elected office -- other than, of course exhibiting full fascist operations, which is anybody anywhere anytime can be accused of anything and be disappeared into a non-disclosed prison or put up to a firing squad.

That's how Hitler and Mussolini and Franco did it.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Zorral

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Gotcha. But the crazies don't have the Senate, right? Something they would need to get a conviction? Or am I misremembering?

I believe it takes two thirds of the Senate to convict to remove from office.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Maybe with these evil ignorant clowns.  However, in the past to bring impeachment one needed some proof, so the proto rethug fash were reduced to publicly browbeating a young woman to describe Clinton's penis and the blowjobs she gifted him.

Prototypical of Them -- whereas there was ample proof and evidence to impeach tRump, but the fash wouldn't allow it.

Also, again, how do They impeach someone who has never held any elected office -- other than, of course exhibiting full fascist operations, which is anybody anywhere anytime can be accused of anything and be disappeared into a non-disclosed prison or put up to a firing squad.

That's how Hitler and Mussolini and Franco did it.

Zorral,

I appreciate your passion.  I do.  There is no proof required or standard of proof laid out in the US Constitution to bring impeachment or to convict and remove from office.  Because it isn’t expressly stated… there is no such legal requirement.  Nor, will the Courts jump in to create one in my earnest opinion.

The real failure of will was McConnell failing to signal he would start a removal trial before Trump left office.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Durckad]

8 hours ago, mormont said:

I think this view should be encouraged, Biden would walk the election if floating voters thought Obama was secretly still in charge.

Not sure I agree. 

For one, I don't think it's an especially good strategy to say "Hey, our presidential is secretly being puppeted by the previous president you kinda like." 

For two, I don't think liberals are as prone to the same cult of personality worship that is currently afflicting conservatives. And even if they are, the left does not view Obama as favorably. And the Never Trumpers? They spent 8 years hating Obama. This is a good way to potentially turn them off.

Have Obama be involved in the campaign? Fine. Hint or outright state he's "the power behind the throne?" Uhhh, no.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Durckad said:

Not sure I agree

I sure don't.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for the legal analysis of why no one can be legally held to book for anything concerning why impeachment charges have been brought, here's an analysis of an adjacent matter:

Did the Confederates have a point, kind of? Here's a hint: not really
Peter Radan argues the South had every right to bust up the "slaveholders' union." Intriguing! But not convincing.

https://www.salon.com/2023/12/16/did-the-confederates-have-a-point-kind-of-heres-a-hint-not-really/

Quote

"There is no hermetically sealed legal sphere that stands apart from the rest of existence; that's a dangerous fantasy that can — and does — justify unspeakable horrors."

 

[A True Kaniggit]

Like OMG! 
 

Were you all aware some commercials pop up that only speak Spanish? That must mean America is ending!

(According to Magats)

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, Rudy might not be hiding his assets, he might actually be broke, with all those Trumpian cases and legal fees. I mean his lawyers have sued for outstanding bills.

In the meantime, we should congratulate Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss on their New York appartment, and hope they get a swift eviction notice on Rudy. Sorry about the Florida condo, but they can at least sell that (altho the goverment has put a lien on it over outstanding tax payments iirc). Anyway, lawyers are rumoredly good at chasing money, esp. if they want their share of it. Just ask scot while his wifi is stable over at the beaches of Bermuda. Or rather you could ask him, if he had picked civil litigation instead of compliance law. Think of that scot, you could be on the beaches of Bermuda now, cell phone in one hand checking the cash flow of some MAGAts you took to the cleaners.

Edited December 16, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Like OMG! 
 

Were you all aware some commercials pop up that only speak Spanish? That must mean America is ending!

(According to Magats)

 

MAGAts, Chico son estúpidos.    (MAGAt's, Boy are they stupid)   

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Well, Rudy might not be hiding his assets, he might actually be broke, with all those Trumpian cases and legal fees. I mean his lawyers have sued for outstanding bills.

I'm calling this now, "Rudy," and not that hack movie everyone who was on the team besides him hates, is going to be a major Broadway play and/or movie. This dude's story is wildly entertaining for good and bad. It could be QT's masterpiece to retire on. We just need the right lead. I kind of like Ed Harris. Maybe it could even be a musical. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Nah, it's too silly for a musical, neither Trey Parker nor Tim Minchin could turn this into a musical.

I can see this as some sorta of documentary material in a few years in the spirit of that OJ Made In America thing.

Altho him only being a supporting char in his own downfall takes teh shine of that project, too. Let's face it, Rudy is only the bridesmaid and not the bride, altho the way things are going I can really see him go down to Mexico to audtion for the donkey and the bride (I have no idea, whether this is a real thing or (more likely) an ubran myth, but I can see Rudy ending up there either way).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I have to disagree, seeing Rudy singing and dancing would be great. I'd set it up sort of like a Little Shop of Horrors.