Topic: US Politics [serious discussion - please read OP before posting] - page 2. (Read 5799 times)

Umm, many Democrats said that Trump was an illegitimate President, and said that Trump was Putin's puppet. Trump was doing the exact same thing that was done to him after the 2016 election, only he did not have the propaganda machine behind him to cause the same level of amplification.

The 2016 election wasn't called illegitimate, and they didn't accuse Trump of being a spy.
(I'm sure you can find someone that made those claims, but it wasn't what the democrats were claiming overall as a group)

The round two impeachment hearings are even better than the first!

https://twitter.com/NorahODonnell/status/1359565322056065028

This stuck out, maybe a poor choice of words from the gentleman from Texas, but for some reason I can think of something that's also a threat to democracy, like openly calling the 2016 election illegitimate and claiming the sitting US President was a Russian spy. Seems like democrats did a good job of convincing Americans that Trump was elected off an illegitimate election because he allegedly colluded with Russia, which turned out not to be true. Guess that's all fine and dandy.

So much unifying going on guys.

if you asked me last year . i would have agreed the puppet loyalty would have strong ties.
but now trump has been demoted from president to civil officer.. some ties are cut. less republicans fear trump. less republicans feel the need for the ties.


this trial (that already voted to continue) is not a criminal trial to judge on prison time.
its a government business meeting to decide if trump should retain any business interest in the business of american politics
so politicians are the judge of this business decision. and so those that are begrudgingly tied to trump out of fear, know this is the best time to cut ties and be rid of trump puppeteering is now.

once decided on if/when to remove him from his current civil office role and remove all privileges associated. he is then just a normal citizen and it is then for the courts to decide if he should be arrested for a crime

so right now and for the rest of the week the only thing being decided is a business policy of if trump should continue to receive business privilege

..
its like education. a school board deciding if they should sack a teacher
its like healthcare. a hospital board deciding if they should strike a doctor off the medical licence register

after that. then the cops can swoop in and arrest the guy if the cops decide its a crime for the acts they did while in office

the senators are not acting like cops. they are acting like business board members deciding on the status of a demoted employee if that demoted employee should be fully removed from the business.


.
and just for interest sake
last week this was the layout of opinion on if impeachment should continue

democrats      unsure         republicans
saying yes      D      R        saying no

actual result        <| all these left of the line
as you can see.. only
〇35 republicans are vocally siding with trump. so it only takes 2 to swing into undecided. ◍
and then
◍17 undecided join the democrats at the verdict vote

so there is a actual possibility that trump can lose all privileges. especially if it only needs 2 strong puppets to cut their ties

Pretty sure it’s not a waiting game at this point. I’d say that there is no way that you can flip 10 Republican senators to vote against Trump.

At the end of the day each one of these arguments are for the American people, NOT for the Senators, as they’ve already decided on party lines (minus a few) that they’re not going to find Trump guilty (in regards to the Republicans)

Doesn’t matter how this entire public trial goes b/c at the end of the day this is a political process that is determined by votes — not public opinion or what the media says.

the current state of impeachment yesterday was about if the impeachment should go on. yesterdays vote was purely about that.

as i said.. the bit about the final 'verdict'.. is a waiting game.
i do know the difference but i was mentioning current event. not future speculation.

we had not even heard the main arguments about things that will affect the verdict result. so far yesterday the discussion was just the legitimacy and lawfulness of if the impeachment process should even proceed.

to discuss the details of the verdict possible result.. is a waiting game

translating..
impeachment is a charge.. not a verdict.
so yes they voted and trump is being impeached(charged) - current event

future speculation is the verdict and if/when hi is removed from 'office of former president', and or losing all privelige, and or losing future access to government office

if you want to skip ahead and speculate the verdict
so far the 2/3 which is out of 100 they got 56:44. so its not much more to get the verdict. they just need to convince 11 more(67:33)

many republicans that have been puppets by fear. can eleviate their fears of trump by making him lose office then he no longer has power over them. many republicans followed trump under fear.
they can easily free themselves.
republicans know trump has hurt the RNC. he has stolen $150m from the RNC. he has done nothing for the RNC. so they carry no political favour that trump will make their lives better if he remained in civil office/privilege

.....

Do you know the difference between bringing up charges in the House — Which has been done twice and passed twice

Declaring that the impeachment can proceed in the Senate is something totally different, which is a procedural vote that Rand Paul forced to gauge what the opinion of the party was looking like — the measured still passed, but there wasn’t enough votes there to remove the President (as you need 2/3 of the Senate to do so)

Not to say that if they had the 2/3 votes on the procedural measure then Trump would’ve been removed, as that isn’t how the procedural vote worked — but it would’ve shown that the votes are there to find him guilty, which there aren’t.

Now do you understand what I’m saying? If not I can try to be a bit more clear if it’s not already.

Upon conviction the Senate can vote to make him ineligible to run for any political office again.

i edited my previous reply to include details you may have missed.
yes he does have an office. which makes him a civil officer. thus still impeachable

have a nice day, glad to clear up your misuderstanding

He doesn't even have an office anymore. This is really strange, is this how they hated Trump?
When an impeachment proceeding goes on and eventually since Trump doesn't;t have influence anymore, he will lose and the penalty to him is to be removed from office?  

It could backfire one day that the previous president could still be impeached while not in office anymore.  My country has the funniest politics but I'm starting to see why Liberals in my country act the same way.

the votes are in. they voted yes. the impeachment is going to proceed.
trump does currently hold office:
"office of former president"
this makes him a civil officer and one of the categories of people that can be impeached.
so yep he is going to be impeached.

due to having office and privileges he cant be easily charged as a citizen for criminal charges. hence the need for the impeachment process
once he has his office and privileges stripped. he can then have the police or district attorney knocking on his door with charges under criminal law.

now its a waiting game

Ah, did not know we were reusing this thread for the second impeachment but this works.

My view on this entire thing is that the defense of Trump is absolutely utetly laughable. It’s understandable that the defense is horrible though, given the fact that a lot of his previous lawyers didn’t want to represent him because they either didn’t want to anger establishment Republicans/Democrats who would blacklist them from future work OR they don’t want to defend this crime and think that it is indefensible.

None of this really matters though — we know that the votes aren’t there in the Senate already. 10 Republicans WILL NOT be joining Democrats in finding Trump guilty for impeachment.

This is a trial for the American people and convincing them to hold Republicans accountable for continuing to support Trump’s voter fraud claims.

We’ll see what the American people think about all of this, but it will take weeks / months to see a full image of polls that aren’t affected by this just being on the news all the time.

to explain some of the trump defence disorganised rebuttles, ill use some analogies even 5yo can understand

if you have the flu you can have a cough, a fever, and a runny nose
this does not mean you have to have a cough to qualify to then be at risk of having a runny nose or fever
these things can happen independently of a cough

so that debunks the (,and) defence that has been said as the reason to not go through with the impeachment if he is already not in office
EG
cough, fever, and runny nose
removed, lose privilege, and not have future access

also the ambiguities of "president"
constitution says president, vice president and civil officer
it does not says 'current elected president only.

and by the way trump still holds office. he is still a civil officer. getting certain civil privilege
"office of former president"

I'm pretty sure this is not true, but if you have any sources I'd be interested in seeing them. I know Dershowitz called it political theater, but he didn't say that's why he isn't on the team.

There are multiple reports that some of the lawyers from impeachment #1 consider what he did indefensible and according to Keith Whittington, a politics professor at Princeton University:

“I’m not terribly surprised that top tier conservative attorneys who a Republican president might normally turn to would not be interested in jumping on this particular grenade.  Those who might have been sympathetic to defending the president in other contexts such as his first impeachment don’t necessarily want to defend what he’s done here -- both because they aren’t easy to defend and they’ll tarnish people’s professional reputation down the road.”
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/trump-struggles-to-build-legal-team-as-impeachment-trial-nears

This was discussed when he was impeached the first time.  Legal experts seem to agree that SCOTUS does not have the authority to overturn an impeachment due to separation of power and the fact that the constitution gives the house sole power to impeach and the senate sole power to convict.  I agree he probably won't be convicted though, my guess is the final vote will be 55-45 in favor of convicting (they need 2/3).

There's tons of evidence.  Footage of the attack, his speech, records of all of his public statements and social media posts, plus every member of the Senate is basically already a witness.


The House has sole power to impeach.  The Senate has sole power to convict.  Impeachment results in two thing: removal from office and the ability for congress to make him ineligible to run for office again.

By claiming that he cant be convicted if he leaves office after being impeached would allow for officials to commit impeachable offenses without being held accountable by simply leaving office.

There's also precedent from like 100 years ago, so this wouldn't be the first time.

---

I believe they only included stuff from Jan 6th.  The video is intense.  I encourage anyone that thinks what happened isn't a big deal or that Trump played no roll in what happened to watch it.

There's a decent chance Trump is indicted for what he tried to do to the Georgia SS.

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I don't think being impeached would have much affect on criminal charges.  Like you said, the two are supposed to be completely separate.  It's possible prosecutors are waiting for the impeachment process to conclude before filing charges though, but I don't think it matters what the outcome is.

I skipped the video portion on purpose. Did they include Trump’s comment during the last debate regarding Proud Boys and Antifa?

“Disorganized and random” is accurate and the referrals to The Federalist Papers were odd and out of place for the point they were trying to make.
It was disappointing but not surprising to see only a handful of the GOP voting for an impeachment trial.
On the same but other note, Why his Georgia phone call isn’t enough to keep him from holding any public office again (aka: impeached) is also disappointing.

, and strip him from honours and privilege
, and prevent from future office
, and then liable to future court actions for criminal charges

There is no part of the constitution that allows for the Senate to impeach a former President. The constitution allows for the Senate to remove a President from office, however, Trump cannot be removed from office because he does not currently hold the office of the President.

bush, obama, lincoln and all other 'presidents' still get honours and privileges after their contract. meaning its harder to actually just treat them like normal citizens after. hence the lack of arrest and no 'conviction'

the impeachment is about stripping a president(current or former) of all honour and privilege and to remove them from ever having a chance of office again. .. and then normal criminal law can apply to them

this impeachment is stage 1 of striping trumps title.
later and separately he could be arrested, charged and convicted for crimes.

impeachment is not a process of criminal conviction. its a civil process of terminating any civil protections/privileges/titles/access to office

the whole criminal action is separate and after impeachment.

Many of the lawyers who represented Trump in his last impeachment trial have declined to do so this time around because it is of their opinion that this trial is nothing more than political theater.

My best guess is Trump will not get convicted, but if he does, I would say that any conviction will be thrown out by the SC.

I am not sure how this is even a decision. The House called no witnesses and held no hearings. I am not sure how anyone would consider voting to convict without any evidence.

Welp, here we are...again - after being impeached for Inciting an Insurrection, Trumps second trial in the Senate kicked off today. It's expected to finish this weekend, but it's possible it goes into next week.

The trial opened with a video of what happened on Jan 6th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivVOPWrFfW4

Most of the day was spent debating whether or not it's constitutional to have an impeachment trial for a president after he's no longer in office.  6 Republicans joined the 50 Democrats to vote yes, 56-44.

Republicans voting yes: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney ,  Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy was a pretty big surprise, he gave an interview afterwards saying that the legal defenses 'disorganized and random' argument it what swayed him to vote yes.

The next big question will be if they decide to call witnesses or not.