Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 3

[JoeMorgue]

I think there is a Trump Fatigue - people are fed up with the constant drama and the endless Tweets.

If only there was something that could be done to end this, say, around November 3 or so.

I'm on the fence about this because it doesn't really mesh with I view the overall situation, but I have heard some really solid arguments that the best things the Democrats could do right now is find someway of saying, not directly but in that coded political doublespeak way, to sell a message of "Listen everybody just vote for us in November and WE CAN ALL STOP HEARING ABOUT THIS GUY."

 

[Ziggurat]

I think you’re parsing “crime” a little too pedantically.

Driving faster than the posted limit is against state statutes, which are laws. Violation of those statutes/laws are punishable by fine, license suspension or revocation, or even imprisonment. That qualifies them as “crimes” by most common definitions.

I’m not merely being pedantic. In fact, the comparison to speeding understates the difference. Many of the legal obligations that government itself has carry no penalty for violating them. This case appears to fall under that category. Without any prescribed punishment, it’s not a crime even under colloquial definitions. It’s merely an unfulfilled obligation.

 

[Ziggurat]

No it's not: https://www.gao.gov/products/D21272



That's the conclusion from the GAO, which is that the President violated the law in withholding the aid from Ukraine.

You ignored it before when I provided you with a link, so this is the primary source.

Do you know what word is absent from that GAO report? “Crime”. A violation of the law is often not a crime.

 

[JoeMorgue]

"The President violated the law, but he didn't commit a crime."

Stunning. Simply stunning.

 

[Ziggurat]

But the GAO is a much more believable source than the OMB. So for our purposes they are the last word.

You may find them more believable, but that’s a subjective evaluation on your part. So there is no “our” here.

 

[Ziggurat]

"The President violated the law, but he didn't commit a crime."

Stunning. Simply stunning.

The GAO made similar conclusions about Obama having violated the law. I doubt you would find the distinction irrelevant in his case. Nor should you, because the distinction is actually pretty damned big.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The GAO made similar conclusions about Obama having violated the law. I doubt you would find the distinction irrelevant in his case. Nor should you, because the distinction is actually pretty damned big.

"There's nothing in the rulebook that says a Golden Retriever can't play football" is not the level we should be happy with our government being run on.

Spare me the "But I'm tribalist, so I know you must be too because I can conceive of no other thought process" subtext. "Okay but whatabouta Obama" doesn't work on me.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

"The President violated the law, but he didn't commit a crime."

Stunning. Simply stunning.

I guess it all depends on what your meaning of "crime" is.

Which sounds vaguely familiar!

 

[Armitage72]

Senator Joni Ernst says that if Joe Biden becomes president, the Republicans will likely start impeachment proceedings the day after his inauguration

Trump repeatedly said that if he were allowed to be impeached, then in the future every President would be impeached as soon as the opposing party had a majority in the House. At first it was a warning, then it became a threat. It's only natural that his toadies have begun making the same threat.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I guess it all depends on what your meaning of "crime" is.

Which sounds vaguely familiar!

It's been the argument for a while.

"He did something wrong, but he didn't commit a crime. Okay he committed a crime but he didn't commit an impeachable crime. He just committed a 'process crime.' He committed a crime, but he didn't commit a... you know 'crime.'"

Every time we prove Trump did something wrong his cultist will subdivide the wrongness into levels and try and make us prove he committed the highest level of it or admit that it doesn't count.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I'm not too bothered in getting caught up on the definition of "crime". I don't think there's much of a distinction in this case (and nor is it relevant to whether or not impeachment is warranted). The GAO also called the withholding of information from the GAO as something of "constitutional significance". So it's not a little thing, either way.

And nor does any of it change the fact that both bribery and obstruction of justice are crimes, and that both of those were in the Articles of impeachment.

The Democrats didn't refer to specific statutes because that allows the whole thing to get bogged down in the details of those statutes and a crime is not necessary for impeachment. They are still crimes, though.

 

[TragicMonkey]

"There's nothing in the rulebook that says a Golden Retriever can't play football" is not the level we should be happy with our government being run on.

This is an aside, but you frequently use the Air Bud analogy so I feel justified in pointing it out: most organized sporting matches would have a minimum age requirement for participation, which would serve to prevent a lot of dogs in their athletic prime from competing. Granted you could get a nine year old retriever into a Little League game but would you want to?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Oh, and I'm not a tribalist, either. There's plenty I'm happy to criticise Obama for. #1 is his use of drone strikes.

I don't know what the GAO said about him, but I'm happy to say that if he broke the law he should have received the appropriate punishment for breaking that law. Without looking in to it I can't assess what he did or did not do, but were I to do so there's absolutely nothing preventing me from finding it to be as bad as, or even worse than, what Trump did WRT Ukraine. Or it could be not as bad. I'm not bothered enough to look it up. The point is that I don't consider myself to be on the same team as Obama and there is absolutely nothing that prevents me from criticising him, even harshly, in areas where I feel that is warranted.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is an aside, but you frequently use the Air Bud analogy so I feel justified in pointing it out: most organized sporting matches would have a minimum age requirement for participation, which would serve to prevent a lot of dogs in their athletic prime from competing. Granted you could get a nine year old retriever into a Little League game but would you want to?

And the Republican counter-argument would be something along the lines of getting a 3 year old Golden Retriever and arguing "But technically speaking he's 21 in dog years."

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

This is an aside, but you frequently use the Air Bud analogy so I feel justified in pointing it out: most organized sporting matches would have a minimum age requirement for participation, which would serve to prevent a lot of dogs in their athletic prime from competing. Granted you could get a nine year old retriever into a Little League game but would you want to?

I think you're being speciesist - dogs don't measure their age using the same time scale that humans do. They're called "dog years", bro. Get woke.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

And the Republican counter-argument would be something along the lines of getting a 3 year old Golden Retriever and arguing "But technically speaking he's 21 in dog years."

...and now you're calling me a Republican...

 

[Meadmaker]

No it's not: https://www.gao.gov/products/D21272



That's the conclusion from the GAO, which is that the President violated the law in withholding the aid from Ukraine.

You ignored it before when I provided you with a link, so this is the primary source.

The word "crime" has a meaning. That isn't it, and the difference isn't pedantic.

 

[JoeMorgue]

"The President isn't a criminal, he's just a lawbreaker" is

A) massively pedantic piled on pedantic piled on more pedantic no matter what any pedant says.
B) Not the point anyway.
C) Not the standards we should have for our Commander in Chief.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I think you're being speciesist - dogs don't measure their age using the same time scale that humans do. They're called "dog years", bro. Get woke.

From what I've read modern consensus in veterinary medicine is that the one-to-seven ratio is not an accurate estimation of canine aging. "Dog years" is pretty much a dead concept now.

 

[JoeMorgue]

From what I've read modern consensus in veterinary medicine is that the one-to-seven ratio is not an accurate estimation of canine aging. "Dog years" is pretty much a dead concept now.

Fake news. My specialists that I don't don't have in my pocket with bribes and kickbacks say otherwise. It's like your global warming hoax or your silly Hillary doesn't have a child sex pizza parlor dungeon fantasies.