US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[mapuc]

I have Clinton network since yesterday and ny watching some of the USA-Middle east relation news and NK-USA related news I can't help thinking.

Do Iran and NK think USA is week just because there are some domestic political problem and Trump may face an impeachment ?

USA may be weak diplomatic I doubt they are week military.

Markus

[Buddahaid]

Trump is impeached. That part is over with.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Wait a minute... I thought that the articles of impeachment where passed but Trump still has to go through the Senate trial before he is impeached or am I mistaken?



And meanwhile the USAF did a thing that might have severe repercussions.

Washington Post
BAGHDAD — The United States killed a powerful commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, in a strike on the Baghdad International Airport early Friday, the Pentagon said.General Suleimani’s death was confirmed by official Iranian media.


“General Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “General Suleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.”


This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” the statement added. “The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”


The strikes followed a warning on Thursday afternoon from Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, who said the United States military would pre-emptively strike Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria if there were signs the paramilitary groups were planning more attacks against American bases and personnel in the region.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...0Zs?li=BBnb7Kz

[eddie]

Going to be a mess in the Middle East now. Of course its always a mess over there, but its going to get much worse.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Trump is impeached. That part is over with.

Were the articles delivered to Senate yet?

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Originally Posted by August

Oooh he's in trouble now!

Well, he IS going to Hell, so there's that..

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Were the articles delivered to Senate yet?

No, not yet.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by ME

Nah; so far all the Democrat parlimentary harrassment leads to boring smoke and 'quid pro quo' does not add up to the necessary 'high crime and misdemeanor'. Like previous impeachees, Andrew Johnson and Clinton, the motion will fail to carry...Moreover, cooler heads will prevail; does anyone really want VP Pence to take over!!??

AND A POOR IMPEACMENT IT IS; PELOSI IS NOW HOVERING, DELAYING; AND SHE KNOW IT'S ULTIMATELY A 'NO GO'...

Originally Posted by TODAY'SW.S.J.

The Senate Knows Enough to Acquit Trump. Give Nancy Pelosi this: She has chutzpah. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded Friday on the Senate floor to the House’s refusal to appoint managers and transmit its articles of impeachment against President Trump to the upper chamber. “For now,” Mr. McConnell said, “we are content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate while House Democrats continue to flounder. For now.”
Mrs. Pelosi’s response: “The GOP Senate must immediately proceed in a manner worthy of the Constitution.” Never mind that the hold-up is at her end.
Yet now that Mr. Trump has been impeached, the Senate is constitutionally obliged to address the matter. Neither Mrs. Pelosi’s intransigence nor Senate rules, dating from 1868, that peg the commencement of an impeachment trial to the House’s appointment of impeachment “managers” justify an indefinite delay.
As Mr. McConnell noted, the Constitution’s Framers emphasized the importance of a speedy trial in cases of impeachment. “The procrastinated determination of the charges,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 65, would do “injury to the innocent,” work to “the advantage of the guilty,” and sometimes do “detriment to the state, from the prolonged inaction of men whose firm and faithful execution of their duty might have exposed them to the persecution of an intemperate or designing majority in the House.”
Mrs. Pelosi is holding the impeachment articles hostage, she says, to ensure that the Senate holds what she regards as a “fair” trial. Her central demand is that the Senate permit House managers to call witnesses the House didn’t hear from before impeaching the president. Putting aside the rank hypocrisy of this demand, the Constitution provides that “the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” The House has no say in how the trial is conducted.
Mr. McConnell appears to believe it is to his advantage to let Mrs. Pelosi fumble about “for now.” But the Constitution obliges the Senate to act at some point. If the House does not relent, the Senate has two options. It could take the position that because the House bears the normal prosecutorial burden of production and persuasion, Mrs. Pelosi’s refusal to engage with the Senate requires the summary dismissal of the articles. Alternatively, the Senate could take a page from the judiciary’s handbook and appoint outside counsel as managers to make the House’s case against Mr. Trump.
If managers are appointed by either the House or the Senate, the Senate should not conduct a trial on the facts. Instead it should dismiss the articles as a matter of law. The House has alleged no impeachable offense, and therefore no evidence can convict Mr. Trump.
The first article charges the president with “abuse of power” in his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. There are two ways a president can abuse power: by doing something that exceeds his constitutional authority (such as unilaterally imposing a tax) or by failing to carry out a constitutional obligation (refusing to enforce a law). Neither is applicable here.
Mr. Trump had ample constitutional authority to ask Mr. Zelensky to investigate Ukrainian involvement in the alleged Democratic National Committee server hack, the related genesis of the Russia collusion narrative, and Joe and Hunter Biden’s potentially corrupt dealings in Ukraine. The Supreme Court stated in U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936) that the president is the “sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations,” with exclusive authority to conduct diplomatic relations.
House Democrats don’t dispute this, or claim Mr. Trump’s actions were illegal in themselves. Rather, they allege that he had “corrupt motives” for doing them.
The “corrupt motives” theory is inherently corrosive of democracy. Motives are often mixed, difficult to discern and, like beauty, generally in the eyes of the beholder—which in this case sees through partisan lenses. To Democrats, the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call demonstrate the desire to harm Democrats; to Republicans, a desire to root out corruption.
Any investigation involving governmental malfeasance can damage the president’s political rivals or benefit allies. But the president has a constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” even if his political opponents may be violating them. To bar investigations of the president’s political opponents would effectively hand them a get-out-of-jail-free card and traduce the rule of law. And virtually everything elected officials do serves political ends. If a president’s pursuit of his political interests is impeachable, every president is removable at Congress’s whim.
The House Democrats’ theory will encourage impeachment whenever a President exercises his constitutional authority in a manner offensive to the party controlling the House. The Framers vehemently opposed impeachment for policy disagreements, as legal scholar Michael Gerhardt noted during President Clinton’s impeachment inquiry in 1998. He told the House Judiciary Committee that “one of the most often repeated pronouncements of the framers” was “that impeachment is not designed to address policy differences or opinion.” He referred the committee an “excellent study” by Peter Hoffer and N.E.H. Hull, which warned that “impeachable offenses are not simply political acts obnoxious to the government’s ruling faction.”
The second impeachment article charges Mr. Trump with “obstruction of Congress” for asserting executive privilege in response to subpoenas. But impeachment doesn’t abolish the separation of powers The president has ample constitutional basis to resist congressional demands of documentary and testimonial evidence, particularly when it involves his White House advisers and sensitive national-security issues. This article is not only legally baseless but outrageous, since the House didn’t bother asking a judge to compel White House aides to testify. Instead, Mrs. Pelosi insists Mr. McConnell make it happen. The Senate must stop the madness. If the House chooses not to pursue its case, the Senate has the authority and the duty to move forward and acquit the president without hearing additional evidence. Both with respect to the timing of the impeachment trial and the actual trial procedures, the Senate must fulfill its constitutional duty as the ultimate check on the House majority’s partisan passions and abuse of its impeachment power.

George Washington is said to have told Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to "cool" House legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea. MR TRUMP IS NOT A PRETTY MAN TO BEHOLD IN OR OUT OF OFFICE BUT HE'S NOT WORTH THE FUSS TO IMPEACH AND THE SENATE WILL 'COOL' MADAME SPEAKER'S 'HOT' AGENDA.

[Bilge_Rat]

Ok, so first polling results coming out on Solemeini extermination. USA today/HuffPost poll.

Of those that have an opinion:

53% of all adult americans approve

90% of Republicans approve

57% of independents approve

and of course, 83% of democrats disapprove

So neutral/positive for POTUS and neutral/negative for Biden and co.

[Skybird]

54% of Americans approve of President Trump receiving the death penalty, but believe his transgressions have not risen to a level that warrants removal from office.[...] “Of that 54%, approximately two-thirds said that after he is put to death—preferably by hanging, beheading, or crucifixion—Trump should not only remain in the Oval Office but also be permitted to appear at public events, attend official White House functions, and have a seat at global summits like the G7.

LINK

[MaDef]

@ skybird. Try Again.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MaDef

@ skybird. Try Again.

LINK

President Trump responded to Zelensky’s appeals for further cooperation between the two countries by hitting nine and then star 30 times in a row while yelling ‘Ukraine!’ into the phone. This was reportedly followed by an eight-minute exchange where the president repeatedly held down the entire keypad in an attempt to hang up the phone. [...] Legal analysts going over the call were expressing the most interest in the final five minutes, where President Trump attempts to order a meat lovers pizza and cinnamon sticks from Domino’s before launching into a six-minute diatribe about how someone with President Zelensky’s thick accent shouldn’t be working at a pizza place.

Meanwhile LINK evangelical magazine calls for removing Trump from holy trinity.

“While it is not a decision we undertake lightly, our position is firm: If we do not reverse course now—if we continue to accept Mr. Trump as our Lord and Savior in spite of his blackened moral record—who will take the evangelical community seriously in the years to come?”

[Mr Quatro]

In case you didn't know the State of the Union address is
three weeks from next Tuesday two (2) days after the Super Bowl

2020 State of the Union Address - Wikipedia

The 2020 State of the Union Address is scheduled to be given by the 45th President of the United States,
Donald Trump, on February 4, 2020, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives at the
United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Date: February 4, 2020
Type: State of the Union Address
Location: Washington, D.C.
Venue: House Chamber, United States Capitol

[MaDef]

. Got any original inanities?

[Skybird]

Well, how about reality turning more absurd than satire:

LINK - Trump says somebody else got his Nobel peace prize.

And no, this is not from The Onion. This is BBC World. This is real.


-----


However, The Onion still knows how to do it: LINK