Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

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JoeMorgue said:
I'm fairly lost here. That the Senate is who gets to hold the actual impeachment trial is not something anyone is arguing.

Outside of the 2/3rds majority needed to convict there is no rule in place as to how the Senate on a functional level is required to hold the trial on a nuts and bolts level. Arguing procedural requirements to people who don't listen is enough of a waste of time as it is, it crosses the border into almost suspiciously pointless when there is no actual procedure to hold them to.

They say no witness, no witness. They say no testimony, no testimony. They say televised, televised. They say secret, secret. They say everyone in the chambers has to wear a fez and a white carnation, so be it.

They can hold a trial in any way they see fit. They can sit on it forever and do nothing and 100 years from now "Donald Trump is still being technically impeached" becomes one of those little pieces of trivia you come across.

And all of that is without invoking the "We're gonna do anything we want because nobody is going to stop us clause" that has worked for them perfectly well so far.
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This is true as long as there is a majority.
 
acbytesla said:
This is true as long as there is a majority.
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So it's true until at least 2020 and this thing is going to reach some sort of breaking point before then.

If the idea from the Dems is to somehow keep Trump is limbopeachment until they get a majority back in the Senate... that's not a good plan.
 
JoeMorgue said:
So it's true until at least 2020 and this thing is going to reach some sort of breaking point before then.

If the idea from the Dems is to somehow keep Trump is limbopeachment until they get a majority back in the Senate... that's not a good plan.
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Everything is based on consent. I was trying to point out that the Senate could agree to Senate rules that are codified into law. By turning certain rules into law, the Senate would be giving up their power to change that rule. Or so, that is the idea. It seems unlikely the Senate would challenge a law it just voted on. But that doesn't mean they couldn't.
 
theprestige said:
It's entirely bizarre.


If they come to an agreement, they don't need to write it into law.


For a law, they'd need to have a floor vote in the House, a floor vote in the Senate, and a bill signing by the president. All for something that's completely unnecessary if they already all agree.


This is speculation on your part.

Further, it's unnecessary speculation, since if the agreement is that solid, no vote is necessary, other than the Senate vote on rules for the trial.

What is your obsession with passing an unnecessary and improbable law on this?
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A law tends not to be crafted just for the one instance of its necessity and then jettisoned. A law is typically crafted to apply in any and all future instances where applicable.

I happen to think that some codification into black letter law on matters relating to impeachments (yes, we should expect this one not to be the last) would really help to cut through the uncertainties arising from their comparative rarity, as well as dishonest posturing.

A Senate impeachment trial should be treated as just that--a trial--where evidence and witnesses appear. Whether to exonerate or railroad, such a proceeding occurring *without* fact witness testimony and other relevant evidence can only be seen as a sham.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'm fairly lost here. That the Senate is who gets to hold the actual impeachment trial is not something anyone is arguing.

Outside of the 2/3rds majority needed to convict there is no rule in place as to how the Senate on a functional level is required to hold the trial on a nuts and bolts level. Arguing procedural requirements to people who don't listen is enough of a waste of time as it is, it crosses the border into almost suspiciously pointless when there is no actual procedure to hold them to.

They say no witness, no witness. They say no testimony, no testimony. They say televised, televised. They say secret, secret. They say everyone in the chambers has to wear a fez and a white carnation, so be it.

They can hold a trial in any way they see fit. They can sit on it forever and do nothing and 100 years from now "Donald Trump is still being technically impeached" becomes one of those little pieces of trivia you come across.

And all of that is without invoking the "We're gonna do anything we want because nobody is going to stop us clause" that has worked for them perfectly well so far.
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The issue I was discussing was whether there could be a law that sets the rules for the trial. The answer is no. The Senate makes its own rules.

As for the rest of your post, absolutely correct.
 
Meadmaker said:
The issue I was discussing was whether there could be a law that sets the rules for the trial. The answer is no. The Senate makes its own rules.

As for the rest of your post, absolutely correct.
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It's true that it does. It does not mean there couldn't be a law. Remember, the Senate would have had to agree to the law before the law could have ever existed. So in effect the law was a product of the Senate.
 
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Trump Tweets

Why should Crazy Nancy Pelosi, just because she has a slight majority in the House, be allowed to Impeach the President of the United States? Got ZERO Republican votes, there was no crime, the call with Ukraine was perfect, with “no pressure.” She said it must be “bipartisan...

...& overwhelming,” but this Scam Impeachment was neither. Also, very unfair with no Due Process, proper representation, or witnesses. Now Pelosi is demanding everything the Republicans weren’t allowed to have in the House. Dems want to run majority Republican Senate. Hypocrites!
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm not talking past you, I don't agree with you.
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If that were the case, then what you were saying would be relevant to what I was saying. That it continues not to be, despite attempted clarifications, tells me that it's unlikely that it ever will be and is therefore not worth the effort of trying to engage with you.
 
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Paul2 said:
Cost/benefit ratio. If the cost is small enough, even an unlikely benefit is worth pursuing. Also, rather than thinking in terms of whether it will change or not, we should consider whether it might change a little, a lot, or somewhere in-between. A small change, even an unlikely small change, can still be worth playing the cards you have.
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This is becoming a pattern. I'm asking you if you have any reason to believe that there will be a change. Could you stop dodging that question?

By the way, labeling my point a "platitude" doesn't argue against it.
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I never said or implied that it is. But it does argue that it doesn't mean much. "You play the hand you're dealt" is almost meaningless, since it's always true. It sounds nice, though.
 
Trump Tweets

The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because “President Trump is a threat to National Security” (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!

Brad Blakeman “I happen to believe as a lawyer that the charges are defective, they don’t meet the Constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors, so I would like to see a Motion to Dismiss. At least 51 Republican Senators would agree with that-there should be no trial.”

“Nancy Pelosi has no leverage over the Senate. Mitch McConnell did not nose his way into the impeachment process in the House, and she has no standing in the Senate.” Brad Blakeman.
Crazy Nancy should clean up her filthy dirty District & help the homeless there. A primary for N?
 
Belz... said:
This is becoming a pattern. I'm asking you if you have any reason to believe that there will be a change. Could you stop dodging that question?



I never said or implied that it is. But it does argue that it doesn't mean much. "You play the hand you're dealt" is almost meaningless, since it's always true. It sounds nice, though.
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Kibitzers in the peanut gallery say you should play the trip aces, but what do they know? The hand you actually have is low pair.

You're criticizing the Dems for not making plays that aren't actually available to them. Paul is arguing for a more realistic assessment of their strategy.

---

Even a good analogy fails, on this forum, because it is never received in good faith.
 
acbytesla said:
To a certain degree it can. A public agreement now will not be something any of the parties would want to break. They could also write it into law.
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Pre trump times breaking such an agreement would have been seen as "political suicide", these days it wouldn't matter one iota.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets

The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because “President Trump is a threat to National Security” (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!

Brad Blakeman “I happen to believe as a lawyer that the charges are defective, they don’t meet the Constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors, so I would like to see a Motion to Dismiss. At least 51 Republican Senators would agree with that-there should be no trial.”

“Nancy Pelosi has no leverage over the Senate. Mitch McConnell did not nose his way into the impeachment process in the House, and she has no standing in the Senate.” Brad Blakeman.
Crazy Nancy should clean up her filthy dirty District & help the homeless there. A primary for N?
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It wasn't the Democrates who voted in the President Born to be Inpeached,
I kinda think it would the Republicans who put this Fraudulent Conspiracy theorist in office, so why are you blaming the Democrates for his bad actions sounds
Completely non Law and Order Republican to me. Also he has proven himself to be an actual danger too the United States, because he is easy to be manipulated by Idiot Conspiracy theories.
All the Conspiracy theories proposed by him are as easy to debunk as Birtherism, flat Earth, Apollo Moon Landing, or 9/11Truth.
Yep not much grey matter at play in his head at all.
 
Belz... said:
I am? What criticism have I made?
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My bad. You haven't made any criticism yet. You're just questioning why they've made the play they have. The answer being because it's the play that's available to them. By analogy to a card game, where you have to play the hand you're dealt. It's a good analogy, and it answers your question.

It looks like you were wanting more detailed information than Paul has, but we don't always get the answers we want. Sometimes we just get the answers that are available.
 
theprestige said:
My bad. You haven't made any criticism yet. You're just questioning why they've made the play they have.
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No, I'm not. I'm not questioning anyone's play. How can you not know what I wrote in my posts?

By analogy to a card game, where you have to play the hand you're dealt. It's a good analogy, and it answers your question.
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It absolutely doesn't. The answer is completely unrelated to the question I asked, which is "what indications do we have that any change in public opinion is expected?"
 
acbytesla said:
I don't follow you. Everything is different in a Trump no fact world.

A sham trial isn't about justice. It's about having different kinds of justice for different people. . This is a game where the rules are made up as we go along.

Who'd a thought that McConnell would refuse to conduct hearings on Obama's judicial nominees or refuse to send more than 300 house bills to his fellow Senators?

Complaining that Pelosi isn't playing fair while insisting at the same time that it's ok for the GOP to play unfair is humorous to watch.
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Why not choose something I actually said in this post to criticize, or at least the point I did make in the hypothetical? Sheesh.
 
We don't. But it's possible, and we can hope. And we can also make an opportunity to try effect some change. Which is what this play does.

Say the answer is, "no indication yet". What then? Do you need to hear it from Paul? Is there some conclusion or argument you'd make following from that answer? If there is, and you think that's the answer, why not just develop your idea from there, instead of getting bogged down on the question?
 
BrooklynBaby said:
Why not choose something I actually said in this post to criticize, or at least the point I did make in the hypothetical? Sheesh.
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In your hypothetical, did Obama spend his first term behaving in exactly the same way Trump spent his?
 
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