Impeaching Donald Trump

[jeremyrh]

The market controls the price of oil. 

In a simplistic way, yes, but the supply of oil is controlled by states to a large extent and the demand is rather inflexible.

[Robert Roaldi]

You want to abolish the first and second amendment (and some others along the way). You want open borders. You want to send people to jail for using the “wrong” pronoun for freaks. You want to send people to jail for using terms like “illegal alien” and “bitch.” You want people losing their jobs for a joke from decades ago. You wage a culture war on everything: on whites, on men, on Christmas, on Columbus, on Christians, on comedy, on humor, on sex, on families, on having children, on meat, on airplanes...

WTF are you talking about?

[faberryman]

WTF are you talking about?

Some people are adaptable; others, not so much.

[Peter McLennan]

Achieving in depth understanding of anything is hard work, it requires thought, evidence gathering and study. We may no longer have the infrastructure to do that.

Precisely.  It has been destroyed by toxic disinformation.  Hence the comment "Truth Decay"

[LesPalenik]

Quote from: Slobodan Blagojevic on Today at 10:58:19 am

You want to abolish the first and second amendment (and some others along the way). You want open borders. You want to send people to jail for using the “wrong” pronoun for freaks. You want to send people to jail for using terms like “illegal alien” and “bitch.” You want people losing their jobs for a joke from decades ago. You wage a culture war on everything: on whites, on men, on Christmas, on Columbus, on Christians, on comedy, on humor, on sex, on families, on having children, on meat, on airplanes...

               WTF are you talking about?

He is talking about the same things as our Jordan Peterson. Sometimes, the bleeding hearts cause more damage than the jerks. Of course, with good intentions.

[Peter McLennan]

You bet it is.

You want to abolish the first and second amendment (and some others along the way). You want open borders. You want to send people to jail for using the “wrong” pronoun for freaks. You want to send people to jail for using terms like “illegal alien” and “bitch.” You want people losing their jobs for a joke from decades ago. You wage a culture war on everything: on whites, on men, on Christmas, on Columbus, on Christians, on comedy, on humor, on sex, on families, on having children, on meat, on airplanes...

And then you wonder people like a jerk who has the tenacity to stand in your way.

Reductio ad absurdum


With accent on the "absurdum" part.

[PeterAit]

WTF are you talking about?

I wondered the same thing. I have rarely seen such a collection of straw men.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/339392/beto-orourke-pushes-tech-platforms-to-ban-hate-sp.html

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/04/new-york-citys-war-on-free-speech/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/massachusetts-leftists-want-to-throw-you-in-jail-for-saying-bitch

[Alan Goldhammer]

I would impeach the President for wasting a colossal amount of money on a border fence that apparently is easily breached:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-sections-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/01/25bf8ce0-fa72-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html

Quick trip to Home Depot or Lowes gets you all the needed equipment for a couple of hundred dollars.  I will admit that it is indeed a beautiful fence!!!!

[Alan Goldhammer]

The market controls the price of oil.  All countries try to influence others to some degree, but as an individual I basically don't care.


Kent in SD

Maybe you are not old enough to have lived through the oil boycotts in the 1970s.  It proves that your statement is false and I can tell you as an individual I had to care as there were long gas lines to get one's care refueled.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Can somebody provide evidence for that? I didn't dig deep into that, but the only "proof" I saw is that those Republicans are members of those committees. That fact might or may not mean that they are actually participating in those impeachment hearings. And if they are, then they are protesting the closed nature of the hearings in which, procedurally, they are not allowed to issue their own subpoenas or question witnesses. Again, I admit that I did not dig deep into the issue, so I welcome if someone proves me wrong.

What you say is totally irrelevant.  It makes no difference as the respective members had the 'right' to attend every meeting and question witnesses.  If they chose not to do so the fault is on them.  the only true thing you state above relates to the power to issue their own subpoenas but that's because the Republicans took this power away from the minority when they were  in power.  Dems did not have this power during the Benghazi hearings which were also closed to members not on the relevant committee.

[Alan Goldhammer]

People can convince themselves of anything. The coal miners won't get their jobs back and the manufacturing industries (which are doing fine btw, it's only unskilled factory workers who suffered) won't be hiring the unskilled to carry boxes around any more. But they think that Trump has solved these problems because the distance between high-level policy and low-level effects on people's daily lives is so great that nobody can see the link in the first place. It serves the purpose of many to convince people to not look beyond their fingertips for analysis and understanding. Achieving in depth understanding of anything is hard work, it requires thought, evidence gathering and study. We may no longer have the infrastructure to do that.

Latest data points out that in some regions of the country manufacturing is slowing down, particularly for industries in export driven businesses.  Were it not for financial services and health care industries things would be a lot worse.

[Alan Goldhammer]

What I really don't understand about Trump supporters -- and specifically you Slobodan -- is your acceptance of a guy like Trump. I assume you're pretty conservative. Trump isn't. Neither are his politics. I mean, as an economist do you think the signature Trump achievement so far, his tax cut, which has led to a near trillion dollar deficit at a time of increasing tax collections was a good idea? Or are you one of those people who believe the deficits don't matter? People say, "I don't like Trump, but I support his policies." Which policies? The trade war with China that's devastated our farm economy? The encouragement of such things as coal mining, at a time when we know if does great damage to the environment AND is already uneconomic, given the rise of fracking and natural gas? I personally don't disagree that socialism is a threat we need to deal with (see Soviet Communism, Mao, Pol Pot -- it's generally been as bad or worse than fascism, when it's leaders get cornered) but you don't deal with it by supporting a fascist like Trump. But the thing that worries me more than anything is the fact that Trump is deranged. He suffers from known mental illnesses called delusional disorder of the grandiose type and from narcissism. As I made clear in an earlier post, I can live with a conservative president, or, for that matter, a liberal President. I have a hard time with a crazy one, who makes decisions like the one he made on Syria, apparently without consulting virtually any military leaders.

It will be interesting to see if these questions elicit any serious responses from US posters on this forum. 

[Chris Kern]

I will admit that it is indeed a beautiful fence!!!!

Very expensive, however.  We're fortunate that México agreed to pay for it.

[faberryman]

Very expensive, however.  We're fortunate that México agreed to pay for it.

Then there are the repairs to the wall. No word on who is paying for those.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/smugglers-usd100-hardware-store-power-tools-saw-holes-in-trumps-usd10-billion-wall.html

[Alan Goldhammer]

Here is one of the best explanations of the impeachment process:  https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article230483449.html

For my good friends to the right of center who may not want to read the whole thing, here is the money quote:

“You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role,” the politician said. “Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

this was spoken back in 1999 by, wait for it...................................................................Lindsey Graham, now the senior Senator from South Carolina speaking about President Clinton.

[BernardLanguillier]

There is this little annoying thing called presumption of innocence, i.e., it is your job to prove his guilt, beyond a reasonable doubt, not his job or mine. Two years of investigations, with media screeching about his guilt 24/7, with everything and a kitchen sink thrown at him, and... nothing. No proof.

Now we are at the beginning of the circus #2, Ukraine. Good luck with that.

And again, a negative is impossible to prove. It is a basic formal logic. So, no one can “prove” that he didn’t violate the constitution.

You’ve answered the wrong post Slobodan. The most important one was the one where I highlighted the fact that you have not bothered to look at the clear facts about this case.

How can you know what Trump did or didn’t do without having done your job as a citizen to collect the facts?

To help you here, there is no comparison to the Muller report (even though it was far from exonerating Trump of any wrong doing), this time Trump himself confessed on TV his violation of the constitution. All you need to do is listen to him and read the constitution.

When supporting Trump blindly this way, you are clearly building the ground for any possible violation of the constitution to go unpunished. Don’t come whining if a President walks over the second amendment some day, you as an individual will have contributed significantly to the creation of the conditions that will make this possible.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Two23]

Maybe you are not old enough to have lived through the oil boycotts in the 1970s.  It proves that your statement is false and I can tell you as an individual I had to care as there were long gas lines to get one's care refueled.

Yes, I was in college.  I note you had to go all the way back about 45 years to find anything even close to an example.  At that time there were many fewer producers, and eventually the market did correct the problem.


Kent in SD

[BernardLanguillier]

Yes, I was in college.  I note you had to go all the way back about 45 years to find anything even close to an example.  At that time there were many fewer producers, and eventually the market did correct the problem.

My point was different though.

My point was that, until recently, the US$ was recognized universally as the currency in which oil was traded.

How is this providing a huge advantage to the US on the international scene?

Through the fact that the US can print US$ pretty much for free without any measurable downside.

But this is just one example of the huge influence the US has over various parts of the world.

This should explain quite clearly one of the reasons why many informed non US citizens appear to care more about Trump than the millions of his supporters who appear to blindly believe whetever lie they are being fed with. Talk about the great freedom...

But I gave a list of 10+ more reasons a few pages ago that I could summarize in “I respect too much positions of high governance to accept them being owned by people without the historical understanding, culture and mental abilities”.

Finally, I have a young child and I am trying to teach her about right and wrong. I would also prefer the world she will be evolving in not to be infected more by the level of mediocrity Trump’s approach has started to spread everywhere. A mediocrity best summarized by “instead of working hard to change the world, I’ll just lie about the fact it’s already the way I want it to be”. No, that doesn’t work. And it’s not fair to the millions of people suffering in America and elsewhere. It has nothing to do with the American dream I love, it’s just the opposite.

So I still don’t understand why so many smart people here prefer to go against their own values to support Trump out of fear that a socialist may come in office if they don’t. This really is a severe misjudgment of the terrible impact Trump is having on this world.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Two23]

1. My point was that, until recently, the US$ was recognized universally as the currency in which oil was traded.


2. Through the fact that the US can print US$ pretty much for free without any measurable downside.


3. This should explain quite clearly one of the reasons why many informed non US citizens appear to care more about Trump than the millions of his supporters who appear to blindly believe whetever lie they are being fed with. Talk about the great freedom...

4. But I gave a list of 10+ more reasons a few pages ago that I could summarize in “I respect too much positions of high governance to accept them being owned by people without the historical understanding, culture and mental abilities”.

5. Finally, I have a young child and I am trying to teach her about right and wrong. I would also prefer the world she will be evolving in not to be infected more by the level of mediocrity Trump’s approach has started to spread everywhere. A mediocrity best summarized by “instead of working hard to change the world, I’ll just lie about the fact it’s already the way I want it to be”. No, that doesn’t work. And it’s not fair to the millions of people suffering in America and elsewhere. It has nothing to do with the American dream I love, it’s just the opposite.

6. So I still don’t understand why so many smart people here prefer to go against their own values to support Trump out of fear that a socialist may come in office if they don’t. This really is a severe misjudgment of the terrible impact Trump is having on this world.

1. That will be true no matter who is president, or if there's even one at all.
2. There is always a downside.  The downsides are a weakening of the country and increase of percentage of annual budget paid for interest.  Eventually the rates will go up and that will be trouble.
3. Very few "blindly believe."  And the same could be said about Obama's constant BS of "Hope & Change."  Nothing substantive changed at all.
4. If there is little understanding it's because the national media is basically run by partisan fanatics intent on MISinforming the population.  They are dishonest to the core.
5.  When it comes to right/wrong and morals, politicians can universally be used as bad examples.  NONE of the top four people in the current U.S. presidential race are by any stretch moral and honest.
6.  I can help you with this.  I'm not a Trump supporter--I'm a "not Hillary" voter.  Here's what your national press won't tell you.  Hillary is corrupt and phony to the bone.  She has never told the truth about anything and her whole life has been about collecting wealth for herself by hook or crook.  She corrupted the Democratic Party AND the news media in charge of the national primary debates into giving her in advance the questions that would be asked, thus stabbing Bernie in the back.  One of her campaign themes was Trump had a "war" against women, and yet later it came out that she kept a predatory campaign manager despite numerous complaints by women because "he was so good."  Wikileaks founder Julian Assaunge recently went on record that the reason he leaked Hillary's emails was he believed she was a "sadistic, vindictive sociopath" and that the national media would never hold her to account.  (He has been proven correct.)  Finally, in a famous email by Colin Powell the media loved to quote the part where he was negative about Trump but only one provided the whole email.  In that we read Powell wrote, "Hillary always manages to screw it up, usually a result of her own Hubris."  The whole "Russia" investigation just concluded this year turns out to have been instigated by Hillary's campaign staff dirty tricks.    Hillary et al. are the type that could easily turn our country into something equally corrupt as any banana republic.  Most of the people I've talked weren't voting for Trump, they were voting for the "least bad."  Somehow the Democratic Party managed against all odds to find someone worse than Trump.  They seem to be doing the same now by promoting Elizabeth Warren, a person who stole a high paying job that was supposed to go to a minority person, lied about it for years, had the poor judgement to announce a DNA test that showed she was 1/1024 American Indian proved she had been telling the truth, and is now lying about being fired because she was pregnant.  This is another dishonest person who has spent their entire life in protected academia and never had to deal with the real world, and like Bernie is telling us, "Vote for me and everything will be FREE!"  No thanks.   Our political parties have been hijacked by emotion driven partisan fanatics, not people with real governing skills.  The other problem is a national media that is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party, and I would bet your's is exactly the same.


Kent in SD