US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[skidman]

Originally Posted by u crank

Simply put, any peaceful protest for any cause is ok. Any violent protest for any cause is not.

Rgr. that.

So: Blocking a public road / access? Wearing protective gear? Wearing sunglasses, a mask (in non-COVID times) etc. in order to make it impossible for the law enforcement forces to identify you? Chaining oneself to railroad tracks or street furniture? Is it violence? Over here it depends on what the judge has had for lunch and which federal state you are impeached in. Simply put, it ain't that simple.


German Antifa: "Der schwarze Block"

[u crank]

Originally Posted by skidman

So: Blocking a public road / access? Wearing protective gear? Wearing sunglasses, a mask (in non-COVID times) etc. in order to make it impossible for the law enforcement forces to identify you? Chaining oneself to railroad tracks or street furniture? Is it violence?

Well obviously there are a lot of variables but if you are committing a crime then I would say law enforcement could act. Blocking a road is illegal. Wearing sunglasses? Not in my country. But in some situations law enforcement would have a lot of discretion. One person blocking traffic is going to be treated differently than 5000 people. Is any of it violence? I would say no but the potential for civil disobedience to turn violent is always there. There are always those who think they are bullet proof. I've seen a number of YT videos where someone taunts a police line and then does something stupid. When the cops grab them they cry like babies. Kinda funny. I could never understand it actually.

But let's ask a question. Did the needle of racial injustice move at all after a summer of rioting and violence in the USA?

[skidman]

Don't know, but if it has moved, it did despite the riots and the violence. That much is clear.

[mapuc]

So Trump has become historical as the first President who has been impeached two time in his first term.

Markus

[Skybird]

The vicious weasel has used his disctractive stunt at the wall to raise new threats against his opponents, "warning" of people's rage in case he would be persecuted. Of course using suggestive Teflon language that allow his defenders to take him literal and turn his meaningn into right the opposite, making a warning of a de facto threat.

And not few people even buy it.

Call such wording "Teflonics".

Or to lend words from a famous one:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

So are they all, all honourable men.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by mapuc

So Trump has become historical as the first President who has been impeached two time in his first term.

Markus

“Given the rules, procedures, and Senate precedents that govern presidential impeachment trials, there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before President-elect Biden is sworn in next week.

“Even if the Senate process were to begin this week and move promptly, no final verdict would be reached until after President Trump had left office. This is not a decision I am making; it is a fact.

“The President-elect himself stated last week that his inauguration on January 20 is ‘quickest’ path” for any change in the occupant of the presidency.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

[Buddahaid]

I just realized Trump knows more about impeachment than anyone else.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I just realized Trump knows more about impeachment than anyone else.

He'll be the only President to survive being impeached twice.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I just realized Trump knows more about impeachment than anyone else.

LOL

[Mr Quatro]

They didn't have the votes last time is the only reason they lost and they still don't have the votes ...

at least for a long draw out trial in the US Senate that would upset President elect Joe Biden's 1st one hundred days in office,
which includes another stimulus check (of $2,000 this time).

and are your ready for this, lost in all of the impeach Trump proceeding, is the fact that Biden wants to pass a 2 Trillion dollar new green plan.

I kid you not

PS I think something is going to happen tomorrow January 14th

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I just realized Trump knows more about impeachment than anyone else.

I see a TV show here.

[gap]

Originally Posted by u crank

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Fair enough

Originally Posted by u crank

And I am not debating the right or wrong of any cause. Simply put, any peaceful protest for any cause is ok. Any violent protest for any cause is not. If that is not the case then who is the arbitrator of the just causes?

I am afraid there is not such an omniscient arbitrator but God for the ones who believe. Yet, democracies are ruled by written laws, and in order to apply laws some judgement - as arbitrary as human judgement can be - must be done.

Though a bit simplistic, the criterion you are suggesting «any peaceful protest for any cause is ok; any violent protest for any cause is not» could be a good start. Luckily I am not in the position to say who is ok and who is not, but according to my limited understanding it seems fair to to me to conclude that the two episodes we are commenting are totally different cases bringing only trivial similarities, and as such they should be judged separately.

You will probably disagree on that, and that's fair too

Originally Posted by skidman

So: Blocking a public road / access? Wearing protective gear? Wearing sunglasses, a mask (in non-COVID times) etc. in order to make it impossible for the law enforcement forces to identify you? Chaining oneself to railroad tracks or street furniture? Is it violence? Over here it depends on what the judge has had for lunch and which federal state you are impeached in. Simply put, it ain't that simple.

Good point

Originally Posted by Rockstar

I don't know which is worse. The kooks and crazy conspiracy theorists which think the election was stolen. Or the kooks and crazy conspiracy theorists that think Trump is the mastermind behind a plan to overthrow democracy and the U.S. government.

Hi Rockstar, it is not clear to me whether your comment above was inspired by my considerations or not. Probably not, but I will reply anyway just in case.

I think that concluding beforehand whether there was/there is a plot to overthrow the US Government is quite hazardous; indeed, the USA are not a banana republic, so I suppose some in-depth investigations are being carried on in order to ascertain any crimes that were possibly committed as well as the people liable for them. Before making silly statements I would rather wait for the results of those investigations.

That said, questioning the regularity of democratic elections without providing valid evidence of the allegations, and refusing to accept the verdict of public bipartisan and independent authorities who re-certified the validity of the 'suspect' ballot counts, according to my vocabulary classifies as sedition. This is especially true if we consider that the man having done so, is the upmost representative of the same institutions that he has been unduly delegitimizing. Even more so since the imprudent declarations - let's call them only 'imprudent' - were followed by the seizure of one of the temples of the American democracy by hundreds of lunatics, some of them armed as if they were going to war.

Whether these people are aware or not of the serious implications of their acts, they were accomplices in sedition. I only hope that they will be judged with clemency due to their mental insanity, but the facts still stand, and they were so overt that there is only a tiny space for interpretation.

A plot, a coup attempt, would imply covert actions and an higher level of coordination; they must be demonstrated in courts, and at this stage I wouldn't be so eager to incomodate those scary terms, but if all of the above is not a clear example of sedition, I wonder what else could be called so.

Originally Posted by mapuc

So Trump has become historical as the first President who has been impeached two time in his first term.

Markus

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I just realized Trump knows more about impeachment than anyone else.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by gap

That said, questioning the regularity of democratic elections without providing valid evidence of the allegations, and refusing to accept the verdict of public bipartisan and independent authorities who re-certified the validity of the 'suspect' ballot counts, according to my vocabulary classifies as sedition.

Were you aware that the last three times a Republican President was elected, 2000, 2004 and 2016 the results were disputed by the Democrats?

Now I will say that they didn't go to Trump's level of absurdity but they were challenged both when the Electoral votes were being certified and in the public sphere and there were violent demonstrations after Trump's win.

Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.

Nancy Pelosi
May 16, 2017

[gap]

Originally Posted by u crank

Were you aware that the last three times a Republican President was elected, 2000, 2004 and 2016 the results were disputed by the Democrats?

I am

Originally Posted by u crank

Now I will say that they didn't go to Trump's level of absurdity...

You are fair, and your statement above says it all.
As they say: "Error is only human, but to persist in it, is diabolical"

Originally Posted by u crank

...but they were challenged both when the Electoral votes were being certified and in the public sphere and there were violent demonstrations after Trump's win.

To be honest I don't remember as much clamour and divisive propaganda by Democrats as the show put in place by Trump. I don't remember Al Gore, John Kerry or Hillary Clinton embarrassing their own party nor them refusing to acknowledge election results after ballot recertification and/or Supreme Court pronouncement, but in an exchange of fairness I will admit that my memory might betray me on these points.

Yet, I do remember Al Gore's unenthusiastic speech in acknowledging Bush Jr's Victory (if memory serves, the Supreme Court had denied the recount of Florida votes asked by the Dem candidate), I remember the disappointment and the protests of Democratic electors after Trump's elections (but by far nothing comparable to the episodes of January 6), and I remember Obama shacking hands with Trump during his inauguration ceremony, something that Trump won't do with Biden, as he already announced.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

He'll be the only President to survive being impeached twice.

That too.