The Impeachment Thread

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

So... What did I miss?

People are unfairly persecuting a man of integrity. A man of good judgment, keen intellect, and eloquent speech. Despite the fact that he always behaves with the utmost courtesy and respect towards others, there seems to be people who don't like him. It's most puzzling.

Truly, this is the darkest chapter in our nation's history. Will our Republic withstand this brazen attempt to overturn an election won through the honest, time-honored American tradition of voter suppression? One can only hope so.

 

[Tellenbach]

Here's the thing. The abuse of power charge can be levied against all presidents; it's a subjective criterion.

JFK used the IRS to go after political enemies. Reagan traded arms for hostages; Obama traded terrorists for a hostage and surveiled not only reporters but the family of a reporter. Clinton bombed an aspirin factory in the Sudan.

If that's the bar for impeaching a President, then we might as well impeach every president.

 

[Jaguar]

What can I say, Jag? Some of us change and grow and evolve, while others are too stuck in their ways.

Is that supposed to fly - really? Horse shit. And speaking of horse shit, it's in the post above this one.

So... What did I miss?

Crazy posts from people who think Trump did nothing wrong.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Here's the thing. The abuse of power charge can be levied against all presidents; it's a subjective criterion.

JFK used the IRS to go after political enemies. Reagan traded arms for hostages; Obama traded terrorists for a hostage and surveiled not only reporters but the family of a reporter. Clinton bombed an aspirin factory in the Sudan.

If that's the bar for impeaching a President, then we might as well impeach every president.

So because other people should have been impeached, but they weren't, we should impeach no one. That makes sense. We definitely shouldn't convict criminals because some people commit crimes and aren't convicted.

 

[Tellenbach]

So because other people should have been impeached, but they weren't, we should impeach no one. That makes sense. We definitely shouldn't convict criminals because some people commit crimes and aren't convicted.

Impeachment should be reserved for HIGH crimes. Notice that the founders put a descriptor in front of the word "crimes". Impeachment should be reserved for serious crimes, not making a damn phone call or not releasing aid for a couple weeks.

 

[Jaguar]

The Common Misconception About ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors’
The constitutional standard for impeachment is different from what’s at play in a regular criminal trial.

What Does ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanors’ Actually Mean? - The Atlantic

“High crimes and misdemeanors” is surely the most troublesome, misleading phrase in the U.S. Constitution. Taken at face value, the words seem to say that impeachable conduct is limited to “crimes”—offenses defined by criminal statutes and punishable in criminal courts. That impression is reinforced by the fact that the phrase follows the obviously criminal “treason” and “bribery” in Article II’s list of the kinds of conduct for which the “President, Vice President and all civil officers” may be impeached.

But this is not, in fact, what the Constitution requires. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is not, and has never been, limited to indictable criminality. Nonetheless, despite centuries of learning on the point, there the phrase sits, begging to be taken at its delusory face value.

 

[highlander]

Actually, anyone who thinks impeachment is deserved, based upon the last 100 years of the presidency and the acts of those presidents, is an idiot or misinformed, or blinded by propaganda. All it takes is knowing history, listening to the facts, and being able to know when someone is lying to them.

Sounds like you didn't listen to much of the witness testimony either - or possibly you think it's ok for a president to pressure a foreign government to investigate a political rival.

 

[Tellenbach]

Here are some examples of actual abuse of power:

James Bovard: A Brief History of IRS Political Targeting

A 1976 report by the Senate Select Committee on Government Intelligence on the Kennedy program noted: "By directing tax audits at individuals and groups solely because of their political beliefs, the Ideological Organizations Audit Project established a precedent for a far more elaborate program of targeting 'dissidents.'"

In the subsequent years, many organizations mentioned in the White House report were hit by IRS audits. More than 20 conservative organizations—including the Heritage Foundation and the American Spectator magazine—and almost a dozen individual high-profile Clinton accusers, such as Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, were audited.

Using the IRS to harrass your political enemies doesn't meet the bar for impeachment; it has to be something much more serious.

 

[anticlimatic]

Is that supposed to fly - really? Horse shit.

In other words, Bah! Humbug! Get off my lawn!

 

[Totenkindly]

Impeachment should be reserved for HIGH crimes. Notice that the founders put a descriptor in front of the word "crimes". Impeachment should be reserved for serious crimes, not making a hell of a lot of damning phone calls or not releasing aid for a couple of weeks number of months, clearly infringing on the Legislative Branch's' jurisdiction and only releasing it immediately after he was afraid of getting caught, and meanwhile his entire staff knew it was wrong to the degree they reported it and/or tried to cover it up for months (with John Bolton quitting over it), and he continues to obstruct evidence and testimony that could exonerate him if it existed, all for the purposes of collaborating with a foreign country to attack a political rival in order to win the 2020 election.

Fixed. But srsly, ffs, what is wrong with you? This is stuff any president of any party should be removed for.

 

[anticlimatic]

The Common Misconception About 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' The constitutional standard for impeachment is different from what's at play in a regular criminal trial. What Does 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' Actually Mean? - The Atlantic

The weak sauce is still technically sauce, yes. Thank you.

 

[Tellenbach]

Fixed. But srsly, ffs, what is wrong with you? This is stuff any president of any party should be removed for.

Impeachment should be reserved for serious crimes; FDR's internment of a 100,000 Americans wasn't impeachable. Clinton and Obama's targetting of political enemies using the IRS wasn't impeachable. Obama's killing of an American using a drone wasn't impeachable.

What Trump did isn't even on the same order of magnitude as what previous presidents have done. This is the political equivalent of jay walking.

 

[highlander]

Yes let's all devolve into preschoolers calling each other idiots unworthy of respect. For fucks sake people, can't you hear yourselves? Shame on you. Especially @highlander. Very disappointing.

I'm sorry. You are right. The honest truth is I actually do feel that way though. It seems to me that the Republicans refuse to see facts and truth in favor of a bizarre twisted narrative. How many hours of the witness testimony did you watch? [MENTION=25377]SearchingforPeace[/MENTION] - same question for you

 

[highlander]

A lot of the political thinking in this thread (and other political threads around TypoC) shows strong evidence of a cognitive bias called the "Halo Effect."

The Halo Effect is a common cognitive bias in human thinking. It has two aspects:

1) If we gain a positive impression of someone based on limited knowledge (a first impression), we will tend to think of that person positively and associate him with positive characteristics that we know nothing about. For example, if we are told that X is intelligent, we tend to ascribe to him other positive characteristics like leadership, charity, etc. until proven otherwise. Even if that person screws up, we will tend to give that person the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an error or consider the screw-up inconsequential. The name Halo Effect comes from the idea of the goodness of a person spreading like a halo over that person until we assume positive features about the person that we can't actually know about.

2) Conversely, if we gain a negative impression about a person based on superficial knowledge, we will quickly come to dislike pretty much everything about that person. When that person screws up, we will tend to judge the screw-up as indicative of his poor character and want to see him punished. Sometimes the Halo Effect is called the "horns and halo effect" due to the two-sided nature of its effect.

From Wikipedia: The effect works in both positive and negative directions (and is hence sometimes called the horns and halo effect). If the observer likes one aspect of something, they will have a positive predisposition toward everything about it. If the observer dislikes one aspect of something, they will have a negative predisposition toward everything about it.

People frequently demonstrate the Halo Effect when describing their like or dislike for political figures and political policies. Due to the celebrity status of political figures and the fact that we can only have fairly superficial impressions of them based on "sound bites" from mass media, it's easy for the Halo Effect to take hold. The same applies to political policies: It's easy for a person to become a fan or enemy of a big government program based on limited knowledge about that program gleaned from the mass media.

Why does this cognitive bias arise? Because our "intuitive" grasp of the people and events around us likes to imagine a world that is more coherent and makes more sense than it does in reality.

Also, it's part of lazy thinking. If we assume that all the good is on one side of the equation and all the bad is on the other side of the equation, then the choice is easy: We don't have to make any difficult trade-offs or compromises. We just see the equation as black-and-white and choose accordingly.

The world, however, is rarely black-and-white. When it comes to moral or political issues of any complexity, there are almost always difficult trade-offs or compromises to be made. Good and evil rarely line up neatly on one side or the other. Instead, both sides tend to be a mix of strengths and weaknesses.

So if you see someone praising or condemning a political figure or party or policy without reservation and without recognizing the trade-offs necessitated by that choice, think to yourself "Halo effect."

Very good post. I wonder if it's true. I never disliked Trump to be honest. I was very concerned that he wouldn't be a good president due to a lack of experience and competence. His running always seemed ridiculous to me. After he got elected I really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and see the positives. The testimony in the impeachment hearings convinced me that he had done something very wong and illustrated just how damaging his incompetence is. I think about this one episode he got impeached for and consider it being replicated dozens and perhaps hundreds of times and it deeply concerns me - the cost to our country of this incompetence. He should be removed from office.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Impeachment should be reserved for HIGH crimes. Notice that the founders put a descriptor in front of the word "crimes". Impeachment should be reserved for serious crimes, not making a damn phone call or not releasing aid for a couple weeks.

Or perjury when asked irrelevant questions? But Clinton.....!

Impeachment should be reserved for serious crimes; FDR's internment of a 100,000 Americans wasn't impeachable. Clinton and Obama's targetting of political enemies using the IRS wasn't impeachable. Obama's killing of an American using a drone wasn't impeachable.

What Trump did isn't even on the same order of magnitude as what previous presidents have done. This is the political equivalent of jay walking.

Translation: Trump isn't a Democrat, therefore, he shouldn't be impeached.

 

[Jaguar]

In other words, Bah! Humbug! Get off my lawn!

Don't come crying to me when Rudolph craps on your yard.

Translation: Trump isn't a Democrat, therefore, he shouldn't be impeached.

He was at one time. But then he's changed his party affiliation so many times, I've lost count.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

He was at one time. But then he's changed his party affiliation so many times, I've lost count.

He's not now, so he is therefore incapable of wrongdoing, unless he becomes a Democrat again.

It's called critical thinking.

 

[ygolo]

I was actually drawn back to the forum because of this debate.

I think it's clear people are split on the impeachment question, but far more in agreement that he did something wrong:
Impeachment inquiry: 70% say Trump's Ukraine acts 'wrong,' poll finds
70 percent in new poll say Trump's actions in Ukraine call were wrong | TheHill

That was last month, and support for impeachment has waned a bit, but pollsters now ask if they support impeachment or not, but stopped asking the basic questions about belief they had been asking earlier.

1) Did he take the actions he is accused of?
2) If he did those actions, are they wrong?
3) If they are wrong do they rise to the level of impeachment?

I'd be interested to find out how people stand on those questions.

1) Regarding the first point:
A) I personally think given all the testimony and other evidence, that Trump did indeed delay aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get Zelensky to make an announcement about the investigation into the Bidens. He did not seem to care about the investigation itself, just the announcement.
B) He barred people who had first hand knowledge from testifying.

2) A) I definitely think this is wrong, I am not a legal scholar, and I am not going to try to categorize it as bribery, extortion, or just abuse of power, but delaying foreign aid to get an announcement about a political opponent is wrong.
B) I am less clear about his barring of people from testifying. Part of me feels like it is in the same spirit as not incriminating oneself, but the level that it's done, again, using his office to do it, is what is scary. It seems like a means of placing the President above the law, and I am not okay with that.

3) Do either of these things rise to what is required to remove a President from office, I don't know. Nixon resigned, the others did not lose office. I am sure most people will agree that what we decide is vital for the future of out country.

From a future-of-this-country perspective, however, it isn't logical to just wait for an election that we believe is rigged--not just with propaganda from foreign actors, but added on top of the history of gerrymandering, voter suppression, election machine irregularities, census tampering, and host of systemic issues that makes a poor colored (usually urban) vote count a lot less than rich white(usually rural) vote.

Most megalomaniacs and despots would much rather live in a rigged electoral system than an official open dictatorship/oligarchy. The march towards that rigged system as a front for oligarchy has been scary lately.

 

[ceecee]

Impeachment should be reserved for HIGH crimes. Notice that the founders put a descriptor in front of the word "crimes". Impeachment should be reserved for serious crimes, not making a damn phone call or not releasing aid for a couple weeks.

Justin Amash said ...

"In fact, ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’ is not defined in the Constitution and does not require corresponding statutory charges. The context implies conduct that violates the public trust—and that view is echoed by the Framers of the Constitution and early American scholars."

What counts as a high crime or misdemeanor for impeachment? Justin Amash got it right | PolitiFact

This is the second time I've posted directly due to something you have said on this issue. The word "high" comes from the the official in a high position, such as a president and a breech of public trust, not the severity of the crime. No one trusts Trump, obviously, his voters even claim to not care what he does but you all trip over yourselves to defend him and keep getting the impeachment definitions amazingly wrong. Guess what? You can sit on it and stew and the Dems will keep blaming Mitch McConnell and you'll have no recourse at all. The law doesn't demand it go to the Senate.

Justin Amash is a Libertarian, after years of advertising the superior intelligence of libertarians, you should just nod and agree.

 

[Nicodemus]

Very good post. I wonder if it's true. I never disliked Trump to be honest. I was very concerned that he wouldn't be a good president due to a lack of experience and competence. His running always seemed ridiculous to me. After he got elected I really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and see the positives. The testimony in the impeachment hearings convinced me that he had done something very wong and illustrated just how damaging his incompetence is. I think about this one episode he got impeached for and consider it being replicated dozens and perhaps hundreds of times and it deeply concerns me - the cost to our country of this incompetence. He should be removed from office.

I guess there is cause for hope after all.