Not sure why the management tagged this as “humour” (or even “humor”) 😛
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56 comments to Donald Drumpf for Prez! |
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Yes, yes, yes, but what are the Donald’s plans for his second term?
It’s Trump or we get another 20 million Muslims dumped in our country.
England appears to be toast, but there are enough of us left who don’t want to be like you guys.
John Galt III if you think that immigration is the USA’s Big Problem… well… have fun becoming Argentina-with-nukes and by all means vote for this buffoon.
And frankly as screwed up as things are here in the UK, given the state of property rights and the collapse of due process in the USA even before Trump, I’d rather be here that over there.
Mister Ed,
Do nothing.
PdH,
Obama is an over confident narsist and shallow opportunist like Hillary Clinton.
To say the least.
If Trump would do nothing, he would actually be worth voting for. Sadly that is not what is going to happen.
Anybody who can manipulate a hostile media into doing his bidding unwittingly is not a buffoon.
A cunning schemer and scoundrel of the first order, perhaps, but not a buffoon.
Most of us can only dream of the rhetoric tricks and alpha mindset Trump employs.
The problem with Trump is that nobody knows if he can trusted to execute his stated plans. Is he a true conservative or just playing a role to reach the White House?
You could be pretty certain about the plans of Hillary (status quo – immigration, establishment politics and economics), Bernie (socialism), and Ted (evangelical conservative with strong Tea Party platforms) because that’s their record, but Trump doesn’t have that.
Milo – “If the lying mainstream media ever had the power to shape elections, those days are gone. Good riddance.”
Social media 1 v MSM O.
It’s with the greatest dismay I find Donald Trump as the lightning rod that has captured America’s attention. Donald Trump is the only one that could, of those who are left, that is, who could not win against Hillary in the general election.
From the beginning, Trump has served to deflect attention from those who have solutions those in power really fear, such as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, and the all too complicit media offer up dog and pony shows as “substance”, and “news”. If you understand “news”, it isn’t, in their code, what is new in fact, but how you ought to view the facts they narrate, and permit.
There is so little about this election that fits simple vignettes, and with what is at stake, getting to the truth, and getting there with a candidate that could actually effect the type of change that comports with our constitution is vital.
In almost any head to head poll with Hillary against Cruz, Hillary loses soundly. Trump is the loose cannon no one seriously wants, but so many seem to think is needed, in as much as those who are defined as the Republican Establishment seem more willing to deal with Trump, and loath the prospect of Cruz as the choice.
Bernie Sanders is like Trump, a sparkplug of the frustration felt by those under the umbrella of progressives, who seem to find Hillary as undesirable as republicans found Jeb. Bernie, as President, would probably be Barak Obama’s third term, on steroids.
All these factors together form a potential U.S. President whose real qualifications for such responsibilities is unknown, but what is really so bad is that he seems willing to govern er, rule that is, as Obama does; by Executive Orders and a telephone. His respect, and understanding of the limits the constitution places on those like him, and the structure of government, seems weak, at best.
Its a good thing America doesnt have a vain, racist, narcissist in chief, that would be unprecedented.
this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
…
I would put our legislative and foreign-policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.
…
“It’s very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth- or sixth-most interesting person.”
…
“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person…”
…
“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
As much of a solid gold Louis XIV clown car fire Trump might be, pretending the bloke currently in the job is better takes a fair stretch of the imagination.
The amount of hysterical horseshit against Trump is ridiculous. Especially for talking about doing less than Peanut Carter did to Iranians in 1979.And the number of supposed anti-leftists who are swallowing it whole is worse.
Trump can beat Killery. The others can’t. That’s it chums. He will not be a good President cos there is no such thing and likely hasn’t been since the start. But he is the least worst on offer.
Rand Paul isn’t a fraction of the man his Dad is and would end as a sell-out. Cruz is an establishment more-of-the-same hack and neither can win.
That’s it. Killery–let off all charges and beyond the reach of law before she even gets started –or Trump. That is your only choice.
Hillary, making America grate again.
The BBC 10’o’clock news coverage of Trump yesterday (15th Mar 2016) had some interesting omissions. Apparently, various calm unoffending people find themselves in the vicinity of Trump rallies – kind of thing that can happen to anyone in the US today, one gathers – and so are liable to be set upon by Trump’s violent supporters, egged on by his language (many shots of Trump saying those things he says). Or so one would spume if you were getting your information only from that source. One of Trump’s remarks was about punching anyone about to throw tomatoes: perhaps the calm unoffending victims were on their way back from shopping. Then we were shown some latino Floridans saying they’d vote for Trump in an air of “these americans are crazy’.
Bernie Sanders? Name was never mentioned in the report. Bernie’s brownshirts? Who could they possibly be. “We shut down Trump” – who could possibly have said that? (No mention of Michelle Field either – that would have meant the BBC having to refer to the existence of Breitbart, I guess.)
Some commentators say the media have cunningly built up Trump; once he gets the nomination, his ability to make them cover him will suddenly, mysteriously lessen. I don’t believe they _planned_ that strategy for a moment; if they were that farsighted, they could make socialism work better. I expect it’s _now_ their plan. Meanwhile, I continue to prefer Cruz. And I agree with those who suggest that Sander’s brownshirts, and their media allies, may help Trump.
In the above comment, for ‘spume’ read ‘assume’. 🙂
Are spell-checkers today’s example of why one size does not fit all? I don’t know for whom this system’s spell-checker is optimised but lately I’ve observed it seems very bad at guessing what I mean when I mistype. 🙂 (I must resume writing my texts locally and only pasting them into the site last thing)
Are spell-checkers also an example of why government’s well-meant but rule-based help so often make things worse (I just had to change the spell-checkers ‘work’ back to ‘worse’; maybe I’m beginning to guess for whom this site’s spell-checker is optimised 🙂 ). I don’t know what I typed to make the machine correct it to ‘spume’ but it would probably have been easier for readers to guess that I meant ‘assume’ if it had been left unaltered.
Mind you, I know worse. Skype corrects dll to ell ‘routinely’ (and I now observe that this system does too). Don’t get me wrong – I love ells. The rope that the elves gave Samwise Gamgee was 30 ells in length (IIRC). But when you are advising someone the way out of microsoft dll hell, having every ‘dll’ be corrected to ‘ell’ in your advice, though it enables many (too many!) a “What the ‘ell’?” joke, gets tedious after a while.
Well, duh. So can Bernie, and so could her husband if he ran. So what? Am I supposed to favor Trump just because he chose to leach onto The Other Party, and because he makes noises about hating Brown/Yellow People who take Our Jobs?
Indeed, and that must be why said establishment is doing anything and everything in its power to prevent him from winning.
So your question is: is the guy who contributed money to Obama, Harry Reid, Anthony Weiner, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy a true conservative or just playing a role to reach the White House?
Hmmm, lets ponder that for a while…
Mr. Ecks, what are you smoking? I want some.
“Trump can beat Killery. The others can’t. That’s it chums.” What is your evidence for this proposition? I mean I know that the Donald is popular with some factions of the party and with some independents and some democrats, but more than 60 percent of republicans voted against him yesterday and half of the republican exit polled yesterday said they would seriously consider a 3rd party candidate if Donald won the party nomination. Face the facts the party will not unite behind him. He can’t win.
“Rand Paul isn’t a fraction of the man his Dad is and would end as a sell-out.” What! He is a much stronger a libertarian than his father.
“Cruz is an establishment more-of-the-same hack” This is provably not true. There is a reason that after Cruz beat Trump in Iowa, the talk was all Rubio, Rubio, Rubio. It is not because Cruz is the establishment’s man. It is because he is not.
“The amount of hysterical horseshit against Trump is ridiculous.” This I admit is true, the Donald is just a progressive democrat who better than most at deceiving the public.
Mr Trump is a life long Progressive.
One thing that a certain sort of libertarian might like…..
Mr Trump supported amnesty for illegal immigrants only last June.
The point of the Trump campaign is (I believe) to get his long term associate Hillary Clinton elected President of the United States – after all he is the only “Republican” candidate who loses to her.
But, if by some freak event (say Mrs Clinton is in prison on election day) Mr Trump was elected President of the United States……
Mr Trump would be a Big Government Progressive President – like the politicians (and George Soros backed groups) he has always supported.
Under a “President Trump” (just as under a “President Hillary Clinton”) the United States will continue to decline – as will the rest of the West.
Mr Trump is not laughing with his supporters.
He is laughing at his supporters.
Trump is more of an expression of voter disgust than a candidate popular for his positions. But there is a lot of voter disgust out there, and Trump versus ‘more of the same’ may yet prevail.
One thing I think Trump will do that Republican candidates ought to have done long since: tell the MSM that news outlets that are blatantly in the Democratic camp will be cut off from direct access to his administration. That should discourage the sort of “Democratic operatives with bylines” (credit – Instapundit) coverage the Republicans have labored under for years.
Note to PdH: We’ve had Trump as Hitler and Mussolini, but I don’t believe we’ve had him as Perón yet. Well done.
“Well, duh. So can Bernie, and so could her husband if he ran. So what? Am I supposed to favor Trump just because he chose to leach onto The Other Party, and because he makes noises about hating Brown/Yellow People who take Our Jobs?”
What election are you talking about? I’m talking about the Presidential one. Vote for who you like. You seem somewhat confused. Have Hispanics gone yellow in colour now? Maybe an eye-check in case of jaundice might help you. Your problem is pro-leftist anti-freedom imports voting themselves your money to live on and completing the task of turning America into a socialist shithole. If they only came to work you could live with that.
Also– are the GOP battling Cruz as well as Trump? War on two fronts? Yeah–Cruz is such an enemy to the neo-cons.
The fact is that the ordinary people of America have had enough and want to put their fists in the faces of political, bureaucratic scum, leftist and media vermin, cop thugs and all the rest of the thieving tinpot “we-are-your-masters”gang. Trump has caught the mood of it and a vote for him is–or seems to be- a way of doing it. The more the media vermin squark about Big T being the ultimate evil the more attractive that vote becomes. Because it is good to see leftist scum suffer and be in fear that their PC paradise might be about to be squashed like a bug. Trump will probably be a disappointment but he is the least worst of the shite on offer.
Democracy eh.
Now taht I’ve voted in the primary,(one of two “polls” that actually matter to me) I might actually begin to give a crap again…beginning Nov 1.
Promotion and Decision by losers to move the goal posts with a “brokered” nomination aside, of course.
We already have the other party, famous for that at every bad turn.
If Mr. Trump ISN’T elected President, I’m going to move to…a new overstuffed recliner in my man cave.
(OK, false threat, I need a new one anyway.)
The good news: When the United States cannot provide world class leadership, it does at least provide world class entertainment.
The bad news: In the second, and at this point more likely case, it’s not just us but the entire world that has to live with it.
Given my opinion of Trump, would be extremely hard for him to disappoint me. I expect him to fully meet my expectations 😉
Well compared to the ghastly Hillary, maybe… but unfortunately I suspect Paul Marks may be correct and his actual function will be to make the intensely unappealing Hillary Clinton electable. Personally if I had to vote in this election, my vote would be to sell my house, buy a flight and go live somewhere else. Hong Kong starts to look better by the day 😉
Sure you have 😉
Drat, missed that. So it’s Perón vs. Evita?
Trump will be likened to a SJW and affirmative suicide advocate next.
“The point of the Trump campaign is (I believe) to get his long term associate Hillary Clinton elected President of the United States”
That’s some world-class conspiracy thinking on display. It is (barely) conceivable that such may have been Trump’s initial motive for entering the race: to fracture the Republican party in a contentious primary, siphoning off funds needed for the general election while Hillary (it was expected) cruised to the Democratic nomination with a full war-chest. But can anyone seriously believe that with the actual nomination clearly in sight, someone as vain, egotistical (he puts his name on everything he touches), even megalomaniacal as Trump wouldn’t pull out all the stops to actually win the election? Trump smells the presidency now, and I believe he will do everything in his power to gain it. And if he’s running against her (as seems likely) I believe he can win; she is irretrievably damaged.
@ Laird – I also cannot believe some of the conspiracy theories I hear – all careful balances of this person’s appeal against that person, etc, etc. Like you, I believe that Trump is running because he wants to be President, no more, no less.
However, I disagree with you when you say
‘And if he’s running against her (as seems likely) I believe he can win; she is irretrievably damaged.’
Self-evidently, given her polling numbers and her success in the Democratic primaries, she is not irretrievably damaged. Most of the people who will vote for her know little about her negatives, and care less. And she’s gone just far enough Left that, when she knocks out Sanders, many of his supporters will dutifully line up behind her.
Trump, on the other hand, is incredibly vulnerable to a full-on Democratic attack. To this point, he’s had no real resistance, apart from a bunch of punch-pulling milquetoast Republicans. The Democrats have pretty-much left him alone, on the sound principle of not disturbing your enemy while he makes a massive blunder. If he becomes the nominee – as they fervently hope – they will eviscerate him. The attack ads practically write themselves, his 30-year history of saying and doing stupid, foolish and regrettable things provides simply limitless material. His complete lack of any cogent or consistent policy positions, his fiscal ignorance, his complete failure to grasp basic Constitutional principles, the constant stream of stupid statements followed by pathetic walk-backs, his inability to control his temper – the well is bottomless. As I’ve said before, the man is a walking mess of pathologies – add to that his mindless incompetence, and it will be like shooting a very big fish in a very small barrel.
The Democrats do this sort of thing to each other – give them a Republican like Trump, and they will lose any last vestige of restraint or decency. They will find and publish stuff that you would never have dreamed could be used in a Presidential race. Remember, Barack Obama won his first election for US Senate by engineering the release of supposedly-secret custody records from the divorce of his Republican opponent. This is the sort of thing they do, they’ll do it to Trump, and he will have no effective counter, because it will all be his own words and actions.
Hillary is not irretrievably damaged, and will not be. Trump is not irretrievably-damaged – yet. Wait till the Democrats are done with him.
llater,
llamas
Llamas, I don’t disagree with any of your factual statements. However, I don’t think you’ve covered all the bases.
As to Hillary, she certainly has a core group of die-hard supporters who would vote for her come hell or high water. But that’s not a huge group. Most of her supporters are merely reflexive Democrats who simply aren’t paying a lot of attention (yet). Her negatives are little known because the mainstream media isn’t reporting them (quelle surprise!), and in the very first debate Bernie Sanders foolishly declared the whole e-mail issue to be off-limits. Unless you’re paying close attention (which, almost by definition, does not include Democrats) you wouldn’t know that the FBI has a huge contingent of 150 agents working on the issue, or that they are investigating her closest associates, or that they’ve granted immunity to the designer of her email system (which almost certainly means that they’ve impanelled a federal grand jury over the issue). Once her nomination becomes official the Republicans will be making this a yuuuge issue, which she can’t avoid and which even casual voters can’t ignore.
Trump’s foibles are well known, and even if there are some new ones lurking out there I very much doubt they will be of a different character than his others. “Nothing new here, move along” will be the reaction by most. And, of course, Trump has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for deflecting such criticisms, and even turning them into positives among his base. He’ll be attacked, viciously, and it will just roll off as it has throughout this race.
You’re also missing the fact that there is no real enthusiasm for Hillary. Look at Ohio yesterday: Hillary won the Democratic race. Trump came in second in the Republican one, and he had 50,000 more votes more than she did in her win (and Kasich had about 200,000 more than that). The numbers are similar in all other states: Republican turnout is up (mostly due to Trump) and Democratic turnout is down. In a Trump-Clinton race Republican turnout will be much higher than in either of the last two elections because he generates more passion than Romney or McCain ever could. But the Democrats won’t be galvanized as they were by Obama. The “turnout” factor used in the pollsters’ models is based mostly on the 2012 and 2008 elections, and I believe it substantially underestimates the Republican participation rate while simultaneously overestimating the Democratic rate. Also, there is a sizeable group of normally Democratic voters who are attracted to the Trump message and will vote for him; there is no equivalent group of Republicans for Hillary. I simply don’t believe the polls which show Hillary beating Trump by double-digits; I suspect in the end the reverse will be the case.
But time will tell which of us is correct.
Llamas, I doubt the Democrats will have that much luck besmirtching Trump; he is likely to fill the air with missiles against brickbats, and do so before the brickbats are tossed. The Democrats haven’t had an unshameable, aggressive opponent for years, and Hillary has much luggage.
I’m not a Trumper but there’s a big part of me that wants him to win to simply say “Fuck you and Fuck off” to the MSM.
Has anyone been following the Michelle Fields broohaha. What a complete load of fabricated bollocks from start to finish. I like Ben Shapiro. I applaud him when he calls out BLM and the nutty SJW’s. But his rabid support of Fields out and out lies was nauseating. All the points he made about the lefts love of narrative over facts and then he goes and does EXACTLY the same. Hypocritical arsehole.
Jesus is every member of the media a complete prick? I’m down to barely a couple of people I respect: Mark Steyn and Douglas Murray….
“Jesus is every member of the media a complete prick?”
I try to imagine the fifth grade public school classroom with “the usual suspects” desperately flailing their arms grunting “Oh oh oh oh Miss Crabtree Oh oh I know!!!!!”.
And when the competition for attention gets REALLY bad, they had to hold up their flail arm over their heads with their other arm.
Pretty much – those that are not are tainted by editorial and contextual association with the MSM.
But the fact remains Republican turnout in the primaries and caucuses through March 5 was up 40% from 2012. Trump’s enemies can spin those numbers anyway they like but I suspect that huge increase is due to to factor alone. Vote Trump!
I do not think it is a conspiracy, but I do think that Trump enabling Hillary to win might indeed be the net effect.
Yes, he might conceivably beat Hillary, but I have to say I know a lot of Republicans who will just stay home on election day if Trump is on the ticket, regardless of how much they loath the Hildebeest.
As one Tea Party Republican I know put it “Trump is not the lesser evil, he is just a different kind of evil”. My chum is a guy who could barely bring himself to vote for McCain and stayed at home when asked for vote for Romney. There is no way in hell he will vote for Trump. The only upside to Trump that my friend sees is he is convinced Trump will destroy the GOP as it now exists, and maybe something better can come from the wreckage. Sadly I suspect a successful Trump will not even do that, he will just poison the well even more completely.
@ PdH – your description of your friend applies exactly to me, and to many others I know. Many actually feel that Hillary is the lesser of two evils – a Democrat president like her and a Republican Congress will be so hopelessly deadlocked that they won’t be able to screw us over too badly. If Trump’s effect is to shatter the Republican party establishment – Good. At least he’ll do some good, and not too much harm.
It’s a total crapfest, though. I’m ashamed that this is the best we can do.
llater,
llamas
Llamas, (and Perry’s “friend”)
Rather than staying home if “any of these would make me puke”, consider going to the polls, and returning an unmarked ballot. Just for “the numbers”.
Or not, of course.
You have not been paying attention: among other life-saving measures Trump has been promising voter was a trade war with China.
Indeed, and your remarks just go to show how easy it is for the media to manipulate even some of the more intelligent voters.
Trump is a leftist scum, you are just confused by his current party affiliation. And as Perry here is fond of pointing out, voting for the least worst of the shite on offer was what got us here in the first place. So good luck with more of the same.
Hillary tried to frame Trump with a misogyny accusation and what happened?
Trump bitch-slapped her with her by breaking the MSM taboo surrounding Bill and it was all the MSM talked about for the next four days. Her numbers collapsed and Bernie emerged victor.
Trump hasn’t even started on her, watch this and try not to laugh.
But the Chinese are dumb enough fall for it – that’s the whole point!
Oh boy.
If The Donald was running as part of a secret plot to hand the election to Hillary, he wouldn’t be producing ads like this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE4h6tOgVgc
It’s the sort of thing a proper respectable candidate wouldn’t do. Which makes me think he’ll squeak an unexpected win, or lose in a landslide. Not a respectable Romney-esque mild falling short.
If I had a vote, I’d unhesitatingly pick The Donald over Hillary. The chances of The Donald being a ghastly President are high, say 75%. The chances of Hillary being a ghastly President are 100%. Hence it makes sense to vote for the 25% chance that he’ll do nothing but appropriate a few billion, and appear on game shows. Which would be fine.
Well, according to Politifact, it’s actually not that simple.
Trump has donated slightly more to Dems before 2011, but has since supported Repubs almost exclusively.
Given his donation record, it would be entirely correct to classify him as a crony capitalist.
It is not a ‘secret plot’, it is just a very plausible net effect.
Actually it *is* that simple and your figures reinforce the point I was making… and that point was “is Trump a true conservative or just playing a role to reach the White House?”… well by contributing to anyone from any party for years, until it then suited him to just contribute to Republicans, he is not a “conservative”, he is indeed just a crony weathervane (with the term “capitalist” being largely meaningless in the context). So anyone voting for Trump on the grounds he is now a conservative must have a screw loose.
While the ‘political’ Trump may come across as a horse’s ass, the ‘business’ Trump has a history of making money and not hesitating to fire people or shut down unproductive enterprises. I suspect a lot of his support comes from people who are looking past the ‘political’ Trump to a CEO who will not be much influenced by compassion for a self-serving workforce that many voters feel exploited by.
As far as his being a crony capitalist goes, who better to purge the corruption than someone who knows that bodies are buried, where they are buried, and who buried them? If he really means to, of course.
These perceived Trumpian virtues may be pure delusion, but there is more calculation in his support than his supporters have been given credit for. And his lack of piety is both refreshing, and reassuring that he won’t be acting out of a conviction that ‘niceness pays’.
Indeed…
Not really for I suspect that just means he can be bought off (in the most literal sense), even if the lack of any pretence of probity is also refreshing in a somewhat nightmarish way.
Leave it to Britain to give us an example of Trumpian voter disgust.
Trump is just our version of H’Angus The Monkey.
P de H : Not really for I suspect that just means he can be bought off (in the most literal sense), even if the lack of any pretence of probity is also refreshing in a somewhat nightmarish way.
This is precisely my point. You SUSPECT The Donald can be bought (in the most literal sense.) But we already KNOW that Hils can be bought (in the most literal sense) because we’ve already seen it done. (The innocent can google her name and cattle futures.) Why take a 100% risk, when there’s a 75% risk available ?
Mr. Trump is not Hitler or Mussolini. Mr. Trump is American Silvio Berlusconi.
I spotted this from Perry further up the thread :”buy a flight and go live somewhere else. Hong Kong starts to look better by the day”
It made me smile, because I happen to be in Hong Kong at the moment, and I remember thinking the other day “Trump would win by a landslide in Hong Kong.” The business elite and their English speaking, well travelled children map precisely to the elite business class on the East and West coast of the US, and their liberal arts student children, and they find the coarse uncouth Cantonese working man (or woman) terribly embarrassing just as the GOP top dogs find the people who vote GOP in the south and middle of America terribly embarrassing.
Meanwhile the ordinary Hong Konger LOATHES the local equivalent of immigrants – mainland “peasants” who clog up the streets, have nasty grubby habits, bid up property prices and think they own the place. No amount of boss’splainin’ from the business folk that these mainlanders bring trade and prosperity to HK has any effect. The local HongKongers want these mainlanders kept out, they want the government to increase handouts to them (they pay no taxes to speak of) and the local culture is extremely lively, funny and above all, coarse. Trump fits Hong Kong to a yuuuuuge T.
Hong Kong is slowly going down the tubes as in true RINO fashion, the local government is too cowardly to stick to free market principles (which it never had post independence anyway) and eases into a mixture of crony capitalism and bread and circuses. But it is still a paradise on Earth compared with almost everywhere else, as it hasn’t travelled very far down the road to ruin and it still benefits from its glory days, which were of course built on NOT being a democracy. But as they say, all things must pass, and HK will pass too, before long.
There’s nothing to stop the House impeaching a Mr Trump as President before the Senate and the Senate removing him on conviction should the requisite 2/3 majority be obtained, and as the Houses are masters of their own procedure, the truth need not get a look-in.
I wonder if this is a feverish Plan B for the Washington set?
And who might be the lucky VP?
Mr Ed is certainly correct, but impeachment (and removal) requires the commission of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, a term with a clear legal meaning even if it is unfamiliar to those not knowledgeable about legal history. It is quite possible that a President Trump could commit such (although, frankly, I think Hillary is far more likely to; she’s already demonstrated that she can be bought). But building a wall, cancelling the TPP “Executive Agreement”, and similar measures Trump has discussed would not fit that bill.
Whatever “high crimes and misdemeanors” might mean as a matter of law, in practice, impeachment doesn’t happen in the law courts, it happens in the Congress, and there it means whatever Congress wants it to mean.
Laird,
What Lee Moore said. Just suppose the Congress railroads an impeachment through and says ‘We are masters of our own procedure, we define it.”
Would/could the Chief Justice refuse to preside over such a trial? Would/could the SCOTUS intervene?
I don’t disagree; Congress decides what actions constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” in any individual case. If invoked, no Chief Justice would refuse to preside and no Supreme Court would intervene. While the term has a clear legal meaning (essentially, it means misconduct which is inherently peculiar to public officials by the nature of their office), the specifics vary depending upon the office held (i.e., that what would constitute hc&m for one office might not for another). Ultimately it is a political decision, which is why no court would intervene. But having said that, whatever their other failings the Members of Congress do generally respect legal tradition and would not vote either to bring Articles of Impeachment (House) or to convict (Senate) on spurious grounds. But you are correct; there is nothing stopping them from doing so, other than their own consciences.
Lee Moore:
I have many friends who went to HK and complained about the behaviour of the Mainland chinese.
Things should improve, but it’ll take time.