And the GOP talking-point “defense”, one they’ve used before, is “*Now *look what Obama made us do!” :rolleyes:
So does RudePundit:
But of course this is all a distraction by the Lamestream Media from what’s really important - Emailghazi!
Leading to that very famous Reagan quote, of course: Trust, but verify.
And more to the point, does anyone think that Iran believes the United States is honorable? If Iran believes they are negotiating with a dishonorable country, why are we incapable of negotiating with a dishonorable country?
Good question. Apparently, opinions vary.
The conservative Hemayat newspaper argues that the Americans are negotiating in bad faith, and simply cannot be trusted:
Piruz Mujtahidzadeh, writing in Iran, a newspaper described as “moderate,” argues otherwise:
So the idea there seems to be that at least this Obama fellow seems honest and honourable enough. Hasan Hanizadeh, writing in Arman, a newspaper described as “reformist,” seems to argue that the point isn’t whether Obama and the Americans are honest or not, but that they has come so far with the negotiations that it’s too late to back out now:
Not at all. I’m saying there is an explicit process in place for dealing with a president who the Congress thinks is not obeying the law. It may be rarely used, but the process is in place. OTOH, there is NO process in place, per “international law”, for punishing the US for backing out of an agreement. The two are not comparable.
What is the explicit process for dealing with a President who disregards the Budget Act? It is neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor to violate the Budget Act, so the plain text of the Constitution doesn’t apply. Instead, the Constitution contemplates a process for rather extreme violations of law. It doesn’t define a process to resolve piddly disputes.
Hmmm, the UN Charter also outlines a process for extreme violations of law, and leaves it in the hands of the Security Council to decide how to respond.
So once again, I ask if the Budget Act is binding law or not? If there’s no process or penalties associated with that law, by your logic, it is not binding.
HCaMs can be whatever Congress defines them to be. The plain text of the Constitution isn’t at all clear on what constitutes HCaMs.
See above. What is the process, per international law, of dealing with the US if the US decides to back out of an agreement?
Then the UN Charter giving the Security Council authority to intervene in any threat to security can also mean anything.
If one wants to argue that words like “high crimes” can mean literally anything, then one also has to accept that “treaty” can mean anything that the President wants it to, as well as the term “commander in chief,” or that the courts can make “freedom of speech” mean literally anything that they want it to. So, in your view, do words have meaning?
If Congress can decide that the President can be impeached for literally anything, the UN Security Council can decide to authorize the use of force by its member states for literally anything.
Let be throw one question out there: the plain text of the US Code on treatment of the flag is filled with words like “should” – men “should” remove their hats, etc. Do you believe this law is binding? Do you believe that the President’s failure to remove his hat constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor, even though the plain text of the law uses merely advisory language?
I don’t have much to add to the debate, but since you asked, “no.”
It pisses me off that they sent it, and further alienates me (a fiscal conservative) from the Republican party. Of course, the R’s gave up any semblance of being fiscally conservative during GWB’s administration.
Of course, if the Dems has done this to Bush, Fox News would have raked them over the coals and demanded that they be charged with treason. But any such talk is silly and won’t lead to anything of value other than humor. Only I’m to tired of the crap to find it very funny.
Not “literally anything,” but anything that a majority of the House of Representatives can vote for. You won’t be able to get them to vote a bill of impeachment for the President because he chews gum, or sang off key, or something totally trivial. So the phrase “literally anything” doesn’t apply. It isn’t within the limits of the possible.
Other than that, yeah. If the House votes for it, then it’s a high crime. There is no other constitutional definition.
Pretty much, no. Words do not have exact or objective meanings, only broad outlines that fall within the consensus, and the consensus is liable to change.
(The word “literally” doesn’t mean, today, what it meant twenty years ago.)
The government, and all its functions, have the legitimacy we grant to it by our consent. If it gets too ugly, we withdraw that consent (as we do anyway for the entire House of Representatives every two years, etc.) If things get totally out of hand, we get a Civil War.
Since enough of us really do not want a war, we ask our representatives (small-r, to include the President and the Courts) to keep themselves under control. By and large, they do.
Do you believe that during segregation, African Americans were actually separate and equal? Courts said they were. And if the government decides that equality means having terrible schools and little opportunity, so I suppose they get to decide the definition of equality, and we must accept that injustice is actually equality because the government decided it is.
And if government can arbitrarily decide what words mean, then international law is binding because the Supreme Court has simply declared it to be binding, even if it is simply the customs of other countries, regardless of written treaties and such.
From Paquete Habana, 1900.
Legality aside, the letter was extremely arrogantly worded, IMHO.
Yeah, but there you have an external reality you can compare the words to.
In an impeachment, you don’t.
Pardon me, but who the devil said we have to “accept” it? I’m just stating the facts: if the House of Representatives decide that Benghazi was an impeachable offense, then it is an impeachable offense. There is no other definition; the constitution doesn’t help here.
No, the plain words help. Also contrast the standard of impeachment for executive branch officials (“high crimes and misdemeanors”) versus the standard for judges (“during good behavior”).
if Obama were impeached for Benghazi I believe the plain text of the Constitution would show that the House abused its power, because the President would likely have been impeached for maladministration, not an actual criminal act. The House is just as capable of misusing its power with relation to “high crimes and misdemeanors” as the courts are in interpreting “equal protection of the laws.”
What you’re trying to say is “might makes right”.
If I get a Cliven Bundy on the government and decide to break some laws, but I have enough political supporters to prevent my arrest or punishment, I’ve gotten away with it. Doesn’t really change that I’ve broken a law, I’ve just intimidated the government into backing down. We all know what I did though and there’s no changing reality. The only thing you must accept is that the law is the best reflection of what we deem moral and right and legal, but sometimes enforcement is spotty.
I can’t speak for Trinopus but it is and always has been true that congress can impeach and convict a sitting president for any reason whatsoever. There is no appeal to be had.
It is not a “might makes right” in this case. It is how the law is written. I think I read the founding fathers wanted impeachment to be open and not defined. They figured if congress was that unhappy with a president then the president needs to go…whatever the reason.
Just because there is no appeal does not mean that the power is used appropriately. For example, let’s say the Legislative Branch went collectively bonkers and impeached and convicted President Chris Christie in 2017 for the high crime and misdemeanor of being Catholic.
If one truly believes that impeachment is whatever Congress decides it should be, then how can one criticize that action? My view, on the other hand, is that the boundaries of what a high crime and misdemeanor may be can be vague, but it does not encompass literally every possible action on earth, like being Catholic, eating pie on a Wednesday, or being too fond of One Direction, even if there is no appeal of such a decision. The term high crimes and misdemeanors is a generally understandable, though not precise, use of the English language and it is possible for Congress to abuse its unchecked power.
ETA: if the Founders wanted Congress to send the President packing whenever they would like, they could have used the phrase, “the President shall hold his office during good behavior,” which is what they did for judges. Just by the plain reading of the English language, one can clearly understand that the hurdle for impeachment of a judge is much lower than for a President.
One can only hope the public would hold congress accountable for this. I believe the FFs did not truly want impeachment to be nothing more than, “I don’t like that guy” but then they did not write in a more stringent process. In the end impeachment is a political matter more than a legal one.
EDIT:
They could have likewise written in more specific language than “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
They could have used better language in a lot of places in the Constitution. People are still poring over the Second Amendment like second grade grammar teachers to try to figure out whether the second comma changes the meaning of the sentence.
Whether they chose to leave it vague, or were just crappy writers to begin with, doesn’t really matter. Words mean things, and again, while the boundaries of the meaning isn’t clear, “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not infinite in its meaning, and it’s a lazy cop-out to actually believe the aphorism about it meaning whatever Congress wants it to mean. (Which if you read the context of the original quote, the meaning of that phrase has been twisted a fair bit, too.)
It is kind of amusing that in a thread where Bricker begins by pointing out that the Logan Act is too vague to be criminally enforceable, that we’re now debating whether or not a vague phrase in the Constitution should be considered unlimited in its application.
Bricker has also pointed out in the past that congress can impeach for any reason whatsoever (in fact I am pretty sure I got that notion from him). People may dislike that but the FFs did not see fit to be more explicit about it. There is no definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and even if there was there is no appeal process for the president if he is impeached and convicted.
And yeah, words mean things and we have seen the SCOTUS choose to ignore those words (ala the 2nd amendment). Literally. So apparently they can do linguistic gymnastics to make any words mean whatever they want or nothing at all.
At the end of the day, like it or not, an impeachment is a political process and not a legal one. One would hope our representatives would have some care with it but apparently they don’t give a shit.
I’ll be the first to cry foul and I’ll stand with you in the face of the bullshit but I doubt it will change much (e.g. when they impeach for lying about a blowjob).