The problem with being the side that believes in actual democracy more is that in a “democracy” like ours ran mostly by who has the most money and corruption you lose. Period.
That’s literally the last 30-40 years of our country(maybe all of it I’ve only been alive that long). If you keep putting your head in the sand nun style and think we are about to invoke the constitution to right the wrongs you are delusional AF.
Yeah, summarily because that’s what its called. Summary contempt. It’s a civil process. There is no due process, no trial, do not pass go, they vote you into jail. Congress should not have that power. They just shouldn’t. There’s a reason why this isn’t being seriously considered by anyone in power right now.
Subpoenas can be enforced through the judicial process. If that isn’t working than the solution is to fix the judicial process. It’s not to summarily jail people. The answer to a problem is not to create a bigger problem.
Edit: Honestly nobody should have the power of summary contempt, including the courts. It’s an anathema to due process. If someone is guilty of a criminal contempt they should be tried by a jury of their peers, not summarily sentenced to jail by congress, or a court, or any other body.
With Barr as AG, the judicial process is broken. I support threatening to cause a constitutional crisis with a ton of uncertainty about the outcome.
We should be brokering a Weld administration, or an Olympia Snowe administration… Perhaps a Merrick Garland administration, or a Colin Powell (promising to serve only the remainder of this term and not to run) administration.
I could come up with more if I really thought about it.
Recall that Trump brought the action in federal court to prevent Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. from subpoenaing Trump’s accountants for his tax returns as part of Vance’s criminal investigation. (This is the same case that the Justice Department recently entered, on behalf of Trump.)
The court’s technical ruling Monday is that it would abstain from entering the fray based on a general court-made doctrine — it’s known as the Younger abstention — that instructs federal courts not to meddle in pending state criminal prosecutions. Trump (and the Justice Department) had argued that fundamental questions of presidential immunity justified ignoring that doctrine here. The court’s rejection of the president’s position could not have been more emphatic.
Marrero, who could have made quick and summary work of Trump’s argument, went on at substantial length to explain just how lawless and brazen the position was.
Marrero began the opinion by calling the president’s claim “extraordinary.” Things went steeply downhill for Trump from there.
He wrote that Trump was asserting a constitutional shield from judicial process that was “virtually limitless,” a notion of “unqualified and boundless . . . presidential immunity that stands at direct odds with the framers’ constitutional plan and the Supreme Court’s precedents on executive immunity.”
More: The president’s position was “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” At its core, the court wrote, the argument reduces to the “very notion that the Founders rejected at the inception of the Republic.”
And all that in just the first eight pages of the opinion, which continues on to demonstrate, using Supreme Court case law and basic political theory and history, the fundamental arrogance and lawlessness of Trump’s argument.
Democrats are Exhibit A of why you don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Colin Powell, the guy who sold the Iraq War…kool
Well the judicial process is thoroughly broken. There is zero possibility of criminal contempt because that requires the DoJ to bring charges. Civil contempt is a joke, Eric Holder’s civil contempt case is still fucking going afaik. I’m all for causing a crisis right now and congress chucking cabinet members in the House Dungeon sounds like a great place to start.
Flip it around and it’s still true. Each impeachment uses political capital, you know why?
Impeachment. Is. A. Political. Process.
Eventually, you run out of capital. Likely after the first one. Unless you do Trump first, then maybe you can clean up Barr and/or Pompeo afterward (they’ll both get acquitted though, or just resign and avoid it) or shame Pence into resigning after brokering a compromise VP. Maybe. But if you do anyone else first, you’re never getting Trump. You’re playing RIGHT into the GOP’s hands if you do Pence first. Right. Into. Their. Hands.
They’ll slow the trial down as much as possible, create as much spin as possible, feed into the witch hunt narrative and then acquit Trump quickly saying it’s way too close to the next election to engage in such partisan nonsense.
Right, right… But, we still live in America in 2019 and they’re still mainlining Trump and Fox News… And that’s pretty important since
Impeachment. Is. A. Political. Process.
Oh really? How many are on the record in support of impeaching Pence, Pompeo, and/or Barr? Or for your cockamamie order that should be done in?
And if Pelosi’s not in charge, I’d like to know who is. Because they’re still going slower than the progressives would like, they’re still not doing shit about anyone else, they never would have gotten there based on the Mueller Report which is a huge fail that many of us predicted… And you’re out here claiming the caucus has taken over and is forcing Pelosi’s hand on this, with little/no evidence.
If they’re in a position where they are inclined to remove Trump, they’ll have basically zero leverage. Only the eDems would be dumb enough to cave and give them someone as high profile and stereotypically presidential as Romney.
Yep, and we should not help them with their next election/grift by giving them President Romney.
Yep.
If they don’t have the stones for inherent contempt, start defunding the executive branch of their shit, all of it.
United States[edit]
In the federal government of the United States, the power of the purse is vested in the Congress as laid down in the Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 (the Appropriations Clause) and Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 (the Taxing and Spending Clause).
The power of the purse plays a critical role in the relationship of the United States Congress and the President of the United States, and has been the main historic tool by which Congress has limited executive power. One of the most prominent examples is the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, which eliminated all military funding for the government of South Vietnam and thereby ended the Vietnam War. Other recent examples include limitations on military funding placed on Ronald Reagan by Congress, which led to the withdrawal of United States Marines from Lebanon.
The power of the purse in military affairs was famously subverted during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.[1] Congress denied further aid to the Contras in Nicaragua. Unwilling to accept the will of Congress, members of the Reagan administration solicited private donations, set up elaborate corporate schemes and brokered illegal arms deals with Iran in order to generate unofficial funds that could not be regulated by Congress.
If you want to be strategic about it, why not Ron Johnson or Susan Collins?
Donald Trump calling for jailing Hillary Clinton is one of the most broken pieces of our system right now. Congress should not be jailing people. I’m sorry, you’re never going to convince me otherwise. There’s always another option.
I honestly have no idea what your point is or why you think a recommendation for criminal charges would preempt congressional action, but I do know that you can honestly go fuck yourself with your continued personal attacks on my profession. This forum was a much better place without you.
Isn’t it inherent contempt? Either way, you go to jail until you honor the subpoena. And “jail” could just be a room in Congress somewhere, or a hotel room nearby.
If you think the GOP won’t do it because “they shouldn’t have that power” you’re crazy. The second it’s in their best partisan interest to do it, they’ll do it.
How’s that working for us so far?
Fix the judicial process? So, like, win 10-20 years of elections to slowly get the sane judges to outnumber the Trump appointees? Or maybe pass a constitutional amendment?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s kind of crisis mode right now, we don’t really have time for that. If you’ve got a fix that can work now, not in a decade, I’m still all ears.
Well that’d be a great way to go if the POTUS didn’t get to appoint the AG who gets to say, “LOL no” to charging himself and his co-conspirators with criminal contempt.
Again, if you’ve got a better way to address this constitutional crisis now, I’m all ears. If not, you’re just supporting rolling over for the GOP.
You’re going to have to lay out those options for me. Impeachment proceedings don’t seem to be compelling the White House to obey subpoenas. Right now there is no way to indict a sitting president and there is no way for Congress to effectively investigate a sitting president. We can’t wait a decade for the courts to decide who was right or wrong. We can’t have a system that relies of whistle-blowers or leakers to give the congress the information they need to make decisions. Nobody said these assholes can’t appeal to the courts once they are locked up, but there is no reason congress should have less power to enforce subpoenas than an elected county judge who never went to law school.
Maybe, and I don’t know, Congress should impeach him and try to convict him, adding counts for obstruction of congress for not obeying subpoenas. Maybe, if he isn’t removed from office we should try to beat him like a drum in the next election. That’s all I got.
Let me help you, bro, they’re on a Congressional recess. I’m the most heated person on impeachment on this site, and you’re telling me that it’s not going fast enough when I’m the guy pushing. JLaw ok gif
Maybe use my reaction as a bar as opposed to your lukewarm crap of we’re not getting anyone.
We are in unprecedented waters on this stuff, stop applying it to the past. You’re not right about what’s going on here. There’s nothing similar ever that has happened in our country’s history. And thinking we get one bite at the apple is fucking ludicrous sorry.
Very few people are in town [Congressional recess], and I wouldn’t expect anyone to be on the record about any of this without the process of an investigation that is barely being uncovered. Barr’s involvement was discovered two Thursdays ago. His gallivanting was discovered something like last Tuesday or Wednesday. Pompeo’s involvement was uncovered last Monday. Pence’s was uncovered last Tuesday. NOW NOW NOW I’M CUSE APPEASE ME NOW NOW NOW
No. They will have a ton of leverage, because they…do…not…care.
I really really hope you don’t become a Democratic strategist one day.
I’ll make a deal with you. How about we just don’t respond to each other during Congressional recesses since that’s when we are absolutely at each other’s throats? We can open the hand wringing game the week after the first week of their return.
Also Jman this isn’t you said mean things while testifying so we are sentencing you to jail contempt, this is you have the keys to your own freedom contempt. Order your department to give us what we want and you’re free to go.
I am by no means an expert on suits and ties, but… it’s not supposed to work like this, right? Like, none of this is right at all.
