5 ms·

I think that encouraging people to think about how silly the things they say during political discussions is productive. I've still yet to see someone propose

by rfrank 9y ago

I think that encouraging people to think about how silly the things they say during political discussions is productive. I've still yet to see someone propose a rational mechanism with which to impeach the current president.

anigbrowl 9y ago
It isn't. Constructive is when you point out a problem and suggest a better alternative. If you just point out problems (especially by taking a narrow legalistic approach to casual conversation) then you're just being a pedant and undermining their substantive argument (in this case, that finding a way to derail the administration is a matter of urgent necessity). You are of course welcome to disagree with that substantive claim, but if so then it's better to do so openly than under cover of fault-finding, which is regarded by many as concern trolling.
- rfrank 9y ago
  I'm not going to write out a comment that makes sense for the "any tbh" guy, so that I actually have something substantive to reply to. A non-answer gets dismissed, which is what happened. What piece of legislation would you choose to remove President Trump from office? If you want to have a conversation, that question from my first comment is still unanswered. "Liberals don't like him," isn't an impeachable offense, believe it or not. ANOTHER EDIT because this website's moderation team hates political dissent. If all you need to do is make an argument and ignore legislation, then MAKE THE ARGUMENT. I truly don't understand how that's so complicated. Here's an example reply, "The 25th Amendment." The first two people I replied to are arguing to remove the president for office but providing absolutely 0 suggestion as to how to actually do that? Is this supposed to be the level of discourse on HN? Holy shit.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Legislation is irrelevant. All that matters is Congress. "An impeachable offense" is anything Congress wants it to be. The Constitution is powerfully vague on this point, and in any case no court has jurisdiction to overturn a conviction. All that matters is getting enough of Congress to think that something is impeachable. Of course, since you need a lot of Republicans to be part of it, and they're loyal to their own, it's a big hurdle. But it's a different hurdle.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    Legislation and impeachment are unrelated. Trump has already committed multiple impeachable offenses. He hasn't divested from his businesses, he lies constantly to things that are easily proved lies, he's appointing family members white house positions, he's using his position as president to profit his own business by spending every weekend at a property he owns. Any one of these things qualifies as an impeachable offense. It hasn't happened yet because "how" to do it requires republicans to vote to do it and they're not going to do that unless the public forces them to because it's their own party. The 25th amendment could happen, but only if Pence decides he's ready to dethrone Trump and can convince Trump's cabinet to get on board and together they can simply fire Trump.
    - rfrank 9y ago
      Best reply so far. Might be misinterpreting, but I think that both you & the other person who replied to my above comment are taking the somewhat broad charge of high crimes and misdemeanors as allowing for just about anything to become grounds for impeachment, which just isn't the case. Per Wikipedia, "Impeachment in the United States is an enumerated power of the legislature that allows formal charges to be brought against a civil officer of government for crimes alleged to have been committed. Most impeachments have concerned alleged crimes committed while in office, though there have been a few cases in which Congress has impeached and convicted officials partly for prior crimes." [1] Wording in the Constitution, "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." [1] "The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct peculiar to officials, such as perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming, and refusal to obey a lawful order. Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for nonofficials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office." [2] Fun fact, the English version of the charge, in use since 1386, included losing a ship by neglecting to moor it as one of the offenses. All that goes to say that legislation (law) is related, and there's some fairly specific criteria any president has to meet to be successfully impeached. There is a degree of "prosecutorial discretion," but it comes in the context of misconduct in office, as I understand it. Two sitting presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act, and Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice. Of the things you list, I think the divesting/time at own property are probably the strongest case. Assuming they'd go after him with the Emoluments clause, it could still be challenging, however. Lots of opinions on how broadly applicable it is [3-5]. The family thing is something I'm not personally a fan of, but I doubt it would be impeachable [6]. To quote, "Interestingly, there may be a loophole around all of this. The law says that penalty for violating this law is that the person is "not entitled to pay."" Bit later, “While it’s true that the penalty for violation of the statute is just to withhold salary or other financial remuneration from the wrongfully appointed employee, there’s also the possibility that any action taken by such a wrongfully appointed employee could be subject to legal challenge and potentially even be voidable,...” I don't personally take the 25th very seriously. Lying is a critique that's been made of a pretty high percentage of politicians in history, I'd assume (not to be dismissive, happy to talk about examples you think are particularly egregious or w/e). "I am not a crook", "If you like your plan you can keep it", and on and on forever. At the end of the day I don't particularly enjoy impeachment talk from either side because it feels blindly reactionary, when that energy is probably better spent directly opposing bits of policy (which is obviously happening), and in this particular instance preparing for 2018, which will be a very important midterm year. Holding our elected officials to a high standard is important, and the microscope that Trump and his admin are under ultimately benefits everyone, but I think it's also important to be selective about where and when to fight. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_Stat... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors 3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/03/09/trump-runs-roughshod-over-the-constitutions-emoluments-clause/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/03/0... 4. https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/26/what-emoluments-clause-and-could-damage-donald-trump-presidency/kq54NgWXoI1lqvuo5yBAwN/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/26/what-em... 5. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911871 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911871 6. http://lawnewz.com/uncategorized/president-trump-is-legally-barred-from-appointing-his-family-members/ http://lawnewz.com/uncategorized/president-trump-is-legally-...

by rfrank 9y ago

anigbrowl 9y ago

It isn't. Constructive is when you point out a problem and suggest a better alternative. If you just point out problems (especially by taking a narrow legalistic approach to casual conversation) then you're just being a pedant and undermining their substantive argument (in this case, that finding a way to derail the administration is a matter of urgent necessity). You are of course welcome to disagree with that substantive claim, but if so then it's better to do so openly than under cover of fault-finding, which is regarded by many as concern trolling.

rfrank 9y ago
I'm not going to write out a comment that makes sense for the "any tbh" guy, so that I actually have something substantive to reply to. A non-answer gets dismissed, which is what happened. What piece of legislation would you choose to remove President Trump from office? If you want to have a conversation, that question from my first comment is still unanswered. "Liberals don't like him," isn't an impeachable offense, believe it or not. ANOTHER EDIT because this website's moderation team hates political dissent. If all you need to do is make an argument and ignore legislation, then MAKE THE ARGUMENT. I truly don't understand how that's so complicated. Here's an example reply, "The 25th Amendment." The first two people I replied to are arguing to remove the president for office but providing absolutely 0 suggestion as to how to actually do that? Is this supposed to be the level of discourse on HN? Holy shit.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Legislation is irrelevant. All that matters is Congress. "An impeachable offense" is anything Congress wants it to be. The Constitution is powerfully vague on this point, and in any case no court has jurisdiction to overturn a conviction. All that matters is getting enough of Congress to think that something is impeachable. Of course, since you need a lot of Republicans to be part of it, and they're loyal to their own, it's a big hurdle. But it's a different hurdle.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  Legislation and impeachment are unrelated. Trump has already committed multiple impeachable offenses. He hasn't divested from his businesses, he lies constantly to things that are easily proved lies, he's appointing family members white house positions, he's using his position as president to profit his own business by spending every weekend at a property he owns. Any one of these things qualifies as an impeachable offense. It hasn't happened yet because "how" to do it requires republicans to vote to do it and they're not going to do that unless the public forces them to because it's their own party. The 25th amendment could happen, but only if Pence decides he's ready to dethrone Trump and can convince Trump's cabinet to get on board and together they can simply fire Trump.
  - rfrank 9y ago
    Best reply so far. Might be misinterpreting, but I think that both you & the other person who replied to my above comment are taking the somewhat broad charge of high crimes and misdemeanors as allowing for just about anything to become grounds for impeachment, which just isn't the case. Per Wikipedia, "Impeachment in the United States is an enumerated power of the legislature that allows formal charges to be brought against a civil officer of government for crimes alleged to have been committed. Most impeachments have concerned alleged crimes committed while in office, though there have been a few cases in which Congress has impeached and convicted officials partly for prior crimes." [1] Wording in the Constitution, "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." [1] "The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct peculiar to officials, such as perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming, and refusal to obey a lawful order. Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for nonofficials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office." [2] Fun fact, the English version of the charge, in use since 1386, included losing a ship by neglecting to moor it as one of the offenses. All that goes to say that legislation (law) is related, and there's some fairly specific criteria any president has to meet to be successfully impeached. There is a degree of "prosecutorial discretion," but it comes in the context of misconduct in office, as I understand it. Two sitting presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act, and Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice. Of the things you list, I think the divesting/time at own property are probably the strongest case. Assuming they'd go after him with the Emoluments clause, it could still be challenging, however. Lots of opinions on how broadly applicable it is [3-5]. The family thing is something I'm not personally a fan of, but I doubt it would be impeachable [6]. To quote, "Interestingly, there may be a loophole around all of this. The law says that penalty for violating this law is that the person is "not entitled to pay."" Bit later, “While it’s true that the penalty for violation of the statute is just to withhold salary or other financial remuneration from the wrongfully appointed employee, there’s also the possibility that any action taken by such a wrongfully appointed employee could be subject to legal challenge and potentially even be voidable,...” I don't personally take the 25th very seriously. Lying is a critique that's been made of a pretty high percentage of politicians in history, I'd assume (not to be dismissive, happy to talk about examples you think are particularly egregious or w/e). "I am not a crook", "If you like your plan you can keep it", and on and on forever. At the end of the day I don't particularly enjoy impeachment talk from either side because it feels blindly reactionary, when that energy is probably better spent directly opposing bits of policy (which is obviously happening), and in this particular instance preparing for 2018, which will be a very important midterm year. Holding our elected officials to a high standard is important, and the microscope that Trump and his admin are under ultimately benefits everyone, but I think it's also important to be selective about where and when to fight. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_Stat... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors 3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/03/09/trump-runs-roughshod-over-the-constitutions-emoluments-clause/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/03/0... 4. https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/26/what-emoluments-clause-and-could-damage-donald-trump-presidency/kq54NgWXoI1lqvuo5yBAwN/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/26/what-em... 5. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911871 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911871 6. http://lawnewz.com/uncategorized/president-trump-is-legally-barred-from-appointing-his-family-members/ http://lawnewz.com/uncategorized/president-trump-is-legally-...