The dumbest thing you'll read today (maybe this week)

[BmorePat87]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/09/why-democrats-should-make-stacey-abrams-speaker-house/

I came across this op-ed over the weekend.

It's arguing that Democrats should make Stacey Abrams the Speaker.

I know what you're saying, "she's not in the House...", but they're arguing that because the Constitution doesn't explicitly state that the Speaker or any officers HAVE to be in the House, they should try to challenge 230+ years of tradition and procedure.

They should challenge the Constitution for someone with ZERO national legislative experience...

God damn it, progressives...

[GMDino]

(11-12-2018, 04:39 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/09/why-democrats-should-make-stacey-abrams-speaker-house/

I came across this op-ed over the weekend.

It's arguing that Democrats should make Stacey Abrams the Speaker.

I know what you're saying, "she's not in the House...", but they're arguing that because the Constitution doesn't explicitly state that the Speaker or any officers HAVE to be in the House, they should try to challenge 230+ years of tradition and procedure.

They should challenge the Constitution for someone with ZERO national legislative experience...

God damn it, progressives...

It worked for the Republicans....


All seriousness aside, yeah...not a bright idea.  But apparently anyone can write an op-ed these days. 

[6andcounting]

I for one think it should be Pelosi's turn again. Sometimes I make it to lunch without once hearing a call for the immediate impeachment of Trump and that won't happen to me anymore under Pelosi's leadership.

[Belsnickel]

(11-12-2018, 06:17 PM)6andcounting Wrote: I for one think it should be Pelosi's turn again. Sometimes I make it to lunch without once hearing a call for the immediate impeachment of Trump and that won't happen to me anymore under Pelosi's leadership.

Yeah it will. Pelosi isn't going to focus on impeaching Trump, in fact she was the one who pushed hard to Democrats running for the House to not talk about impeachment. She knows it's a poison pill right now.

I'm mixed on Pelosi, myself. She's good at what she does. She's just a giant foil for the right at this moment.

[Yojimbo]

Barbara Lee should be speaker.

[fredtoast]

(11-12-2018, 06:58 PM)Yojimbo Wrote: Barbara Lee should be speaker.

I think Peavey would be better.

[6andcounting]

(11-12-2018, 06:23 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Yeah it will. Pelosi isn't going to focus on impeaching Trump, in fact she was the one who pushed hard to Democrats running for the House to not talk about impeachment. She knows it's a poison pill right now.

I'm mixed on Pelosi, myself. She's good at what she does. She's just a giant foil for the right at this moment.

She did say to not use impeach as a reelection strategy and said there has to be something to impeach him for before they start harping. I'll give her that, but now that mid-term are over I have a feeling she's going to be forced to change her tune. Plus now she's actually is back in power.

[ballsofsteel]

How can there be any talk of impeachment now. Trump didn't do anything wrong or against the law so far to impeach him. It will all depend on what the Mueller investigation turns up.

[hollodero]

(11-12-2018, 04:39 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: They should challenge the Constitution for someone with ZERO national legislative experience...

God damn it, progressives...

Well, isn't that just what republicans are actually doing regarding the not so experienced Trump.
At the very least, they challenge if a president can even be indicted - which is challenging the constitutional boundaries on Trump's behalf. God damn it, conservatives.

(11-13-2018, 07:16 AM)ballsofsteel Wrote: How can there be any talk of impeachment now. Trump didn't do anything wrong or against the law so far to impeach him. It will all depend on what the Mueller investigation turns up.

...or the Cohen thing, right? Those two cases aren't necessarily connected.

[BmorePat87]

(11-13-2018, 08:11 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, isn't that just what republicans are actually doing regarding the not so experienced Trump.
At the very least, they challenge if a president can even be indicted - which is challenging the constitutional boundaries on Trump's behalf. God damn it, conservatives.

Not quite. The constitutionality of his presidency was never in question. He was 100% eligible, even if he lacked informal qualifications.

In terms of indicting sitting presidents, that's a hypothetical legal question that has been toyed with for decades with varying differences of opinions. There's no real answer until it happens and the courts make a decision on that. What is 100% clear is that, if any wrong doing is discovered, the House has the authority to formally accuse the president of a crime (impeachment) and he can be removed after a trial in the Senate. 

Hell, I'm not 100% sure a sitting president can be indicted outside of the formal impeachment process and I'm not conservative. 

[GMDino]

On the subject of Speakers...and impeachment.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-as-democrats-consider-impeaching-trump-gop-leaders-regret-pursuing-clinton

Quote:If Democrats are trying to reassure anyone that they won't impeach President Trump, they're aren't doing a very good job of it.



Just days after her party won control of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi made clear that Democrats might impeach the president even if Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller does not find evidence to warrant charges against him.


"Recognize one point," Pelosi told the Atlantic. "What [Trump-Russia special counsel Robert] Mueller might not think is indictable could be impeachable."


"We're waiting to see what the special counsel finds," Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who will run the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN. "And we will then have to make judgments. I certainly hope that we will not find the necessity for an impeachment. But you can't rule that out."


Before Pelosi and her fellow Democrats turn down the road to impeachment, they might do well to listen to the last Speaker of the House who tried to remove a president. Newt Gingrich famously led the Republican impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998-1999. Today, he has regrets.



In a recent interview at the Washington Examiner's Sea Island Political Summit, I asked Gingrich about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's recent statement that the Republican campaign against Bill Clinton backfired on the GOP. "The business of presidential harassment, which we were deeply engaged in in the late 1990s, improved the president's approval rating, and tanked ours," McConnell said.



"I think McConnell is largely right," Gingrich told me. "I think we mishandled the [Clinton] investigation...and I think that we should have been calmer and slower and allowed the country to talk to itself before we reached judgment."



Gingrich pointed to another House leader, Democrat Tip O'Neill, who handled House action against Richard Nixon during Watergate. "O'Neill was better than I was at managing that process," Gingrich said.



Gingrich's words -- and McConnell's, too -- are extraordinary admissions of mistakes. Together, they serve as a warning to Democrats to be cautious when it comes to impeaching Trump.


On the other hand, some might see Gingrich and McConnell as simply trying to scare Democrats away from pursuing a Republican president. In any event, though, they point out that impeachment can put a party in a very dangerous position.


Of course the Trump and Clinton cases are different. Yes, Trump's job approval is nearly the same as Clinton's was at this point in his presidency, according to Gallup. But Trump has been the target of relentlessly negative media commentary, while during the Clinton scandals much less of the commentary targeted the president, and a good portion instead targeted Republican investigators.


Today, there is one group that really wants impeachment, and that is Democratic voters. According to an NBC News exit poll, 78 percent of Democrats who voted in the midterms say Congress should impeach the president, versus just 17 percent of Democrats who oppose the move.


Outside of Democrats, 57 percent of independents are against impeachment, versus 34 percent who support it. And 94 percent of Republicans oppose it, versus five percent who support it.


But any impeachment would likely be based on the Russia affair. As Nadler suggested, Democrats will wait to take action until after special counsel Mueller reports his findings. But as Pelosi suggested, Democrats reserve the right to impeach Trump even if Mueller does not uncover evidence of serious wrongdoing.


What is extraordinary, given some Democrats' appetite for impeachment, is how little a role the Russia investigation played in the midterms that brought Democrats to power. Democratic candidates did not campaign on an elect-me-and-I'll-impeach-the-president platform. Indeed, in many races the issue never came up at all. Democratic strategists warned candidates against using the I-word, suggesting they instead pledge to serve as a "check and balance" on the president and hold him "accountable."


Now, however, with the elections safely over, impeachment talk is back. Democratic leaders know that nearly eight out of ten of their voters want them to impeach Trump. Political leaders do not usually ignore the wishes of eight out of ten of their supporters.

Perhaps Mueller will produce some shocking new revelation that will turn overall public opinion toward impeachment. In the absence of that, though, it seems difficult to envision a Democratic impeachment attempt succeeding. Which means that, if Democrats plow ahead against the president, they might in the future, like Gingrich and McConnell today, regret the path they chose.

So a couple things:

1) I don't believe that Gingrich is really upset they went after Clinton.  I think, as the article tosses in as an aside, that this all "Yeah I know I've been hitting you with a hammer for all these years but now that you have the hammer I am really sorry and I think you'll feel sorry too if you hit me instead."

2) When did "Presidential harassment" enter the lexicon of the right?  Was it right after the election last Tuesday?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-13-2018, 08:11 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, isn't that just what republicans are actually doing regarding the not so experienced Trump.
At the very least, they challenge if a president can even be indicted - which is challenging the constitutional boundaries on Trump's behalf. God damn it, conservatives.




...or the Cohen thing, right? Those two cases aren't necessarily connected.

The Cohen thing is a complete irrelevance.  The Stormy Daniels payoff is an inane story with zero actual meaning.  Its sole purpose is to feed the outrage of some and the salacious needs of others. 

[Belsnickel]

(11-13-2018, 11:42 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: The Cohen thing is a complete irrelevance.  The Stormy Daniels payoff is an inane story with zero actual meaning.  Its sole purpose is to feed the outrage of some and the salacious needs of others. 

Campaign finance violations are felonies. If Trump played a role in the payoffs, then I don't see how they are irrelevant.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-13-2018, 12:32 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Campaign finance violations are felonies. If Trump played a role in the payoffs, then I don't see how they are irrelevant.

We've been over this.  All Trump has to say is the payments were intended to spare his wife embarrassment  Once said, no campaign finance laws are broken.  The burden of proof for such a claim is so tenuous in this case that no prosecutor would ever press forward because the charges are easily disproven.  Unless they have a smoking gun type recording of Trump saying something to the effect of "Pay her off or she's going to hurt our campaign", this is a dead end and exactly as I described it above.

[Belsnickel]

(11-13-2018, 12:39 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: We've been over this.  All Trump has to say is the payments were intended to spare his wife embarrassment  Once said, no campaign finance laws are broken.  The burden of proof for such a claim is so tenuous in this case that no prosecutor would ever press forward because the charges are easily disproven.  Unless they have a smoking gun type recording of Trump saying something to the effect of "Pay her off or she's going to hurt our campaign", this is a dead end and exactly as I described it above.

If Cohen violated the law (which he did, as he has pleaded guilty), and it was done at the direction or request of Trump (which is what he is claiming), then Trump is at the very least guilty of conspiracy to commit those campaign finance violations. We don't know what Cohen had that was swept up in the investigation, so we don't know if there can actually be a situation in which guilt can be proven because it is almost certainly in the hands of Mueller. This is why Cohen pleading guilty to the campaign finance violations is so big, because proving that a felony occurred has already happened. It doesn't matter if Trump says explicitly the payment was because of the campaign. If he directed it in any way he could be found guilty of conspiracy.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(11-13-2018, 12:45 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: If Cohen violated the law (which he did, as he has pleaded guilty), and it was done at the direction or request of Trump (which is what he is claiming), then Trump is at the very least guilty of conspiracy to commit those campaign finance violations. We don't know what Cohen had that was swept up in the investigation, so we don't know if there can actually be a situation in which guilt can be proven because it is almost certainly in the hands of Mueller. This is why Cohen pleading guilty to the campaign finance violations is so big, because proving that a felony occurred has already happened. It doesn't matter if Trump says explicitly the payment was because of the campaign. If he directed it in any way he could be found guilty of conspiracy.

I have to give you credit, Matt.  This is a very well worded and reasonable rebuttal.  It also doesn't hold an ounce of legal water.  The sole reason you have a crime is that Cohen admitted to one as part of a plea deal.  If Cohen and Trump's statements on why the payments were made differ then you have the word of a man trying to save his own skin due to completely unrelated charges (tax related) versus a man who has not been found guilty of anything.  In short, Cohen created a crime by admitting to one in an attempt to save his own ass.  This would get eviscerated in court.  Essentially the prosecution created the crime by including as part of a plea bargain.  In order to prove a conspiracy you have to prove that all parties were actively engaged in planning an activity they knew to be illegal.  Once again, all Trump has to say is that he made the payments for any other reason than to protect his campaign and you have no crime on his part.

[GMDino]

(11-13-2018, 01:16 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I have to give you credit, Matt.  This is a very well worded and reasonable rebuttal.  It also doesn't hold an ounce of legal water.  The sole reason you have a crime is that Cohen admitted to one as part of a plea deal.  If Cohen and Trump's statements on why the payments were made differ then you have the word of a man trying to save his own skin due to completely unrelated charges (tax related) versus a man who has not been found guilty of anything.  In short, Cohen created a crime by admitting to one in an attempt to save his own ass.  This would get eviscerated in court.  Essentially the prosecution created the crime by including as part of a plea bargain.  In order to prove a conspiracy you have to prove that all parties were actively engaged in planning an activity they knew to be illegal.  Once again, all Trump has to say is that he made the payments for any other reason than to protect his campaign and you have no crime on his part.

Are you contending (without knowing all the evidence Mueller might have) that a plea deal shouldn't be used in court?  'Cause I see them used often.  Sometimes to convict people who have never been found guilty of anything before.  

[Au165]

(11-13-2018, 01:16 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I have to give you credit, Matt.  This is a very well worded and reasonable rebuttal.  It also doesn't hold an ounce of legal water.  The sole reason you have a crime is that Cohen admitted to one as part of a plea deal.  If Cohen and Trump's statements on why the payments were made differ then you have the word of a man trying to save his own skin due to completely unrelated charges (tax related) versus a man who has not been found guilty of anything.  In short, Cohen created a crime by admitting to one in an attempt to save his own ass.  This would get eviscerated in court.  Essentially the prosecution created the crime by including as part of a plea bargain.  In order to prove a conspiracy you have to prove that all parties were actively engaged in planning an activity they knew to be illegal.  Once again, all Trump has to say is that he made the payments for any other reason than to protect his campaign and you have no crime on his part.

Actually, none of this is true. You literally just said that a criminal turned state's evidence, which happens every day, will get eviscerated in court. In fact it is one of the main pieces of evidence used in prosecuting conspiracy based crimes.

[fredtoast]

(11-13-2018, 01:24 PM)Au165 Wrote: Actually, none of this is true. You literally just said that a criminal turned state's evidence, which happens every day, will get eviscerated in court. In fact it is one of the main pieces of evidence used in prosecuting conspiracy based crimes.

He also claimed that all Trump has to do is "say it isn't so" and there is no evidence.

The fact is that the money Cohen received to pay off Horse Face was identified as re-imbursement for "campaign related expenses".  So it is going to be hard for Trump to claim it was for some other purpose.

If criminal defense was as easy as the accused saying "I did not do it" then the jails would be pretty empty.  Amazingly juries do not always believ the claims of people accused of crimes.

[fredtoast]

(11-13-2018, 01:16 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote:  If Cohen and Trump's statements on why the payments were made differ then you have the word of a man trying to save his own skin due to completely unrelated charges (tax related) versus a man who has not been found guilty of anything.  In short, Cohen created a crime by admitting to one in an attempt to save his own ass.  This would get eviscerated in court.  Essentially the prosecution created the crime by including as part of a plea bargain.  In order to prove a conspiracy you have to prove that all parties were actively engaged in planning an activity they knew to be illegal.  Once again, all Trump has to say is that he made the payments for any other reason than to protect his campaign and you have no crime on his part.

1.  Cohen did not avoid the tax charges.  He pled to them.
2.  There is a paper trail showing that the $150,000 hush money was re-imbursed to Cohen as "campaign related expenses".
3.  Prosecution cannot just "create crimes".  They have to show evidence of at least probable cause in order to get an indictment and in this case they had plenty.