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"The US House of Representatives has passed a resolution to formally proceed with the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
The measure details how the inquiry will move into a more public phase. It was not a vote on whether the president should be removed from office.
This was the first test of support in the Democratic-controlled House for the impeachment process.
The White House condemned the vote, which passed along party lines.
Only two Democrats - representing districts that Mr Trump won handily in 2016 - voted against the resolution, along with all Republicans, for a total count of 232 in favour and 196 against."
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Trump Impeachment: House Votes to Formalise Inquiry
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While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their
correctness never does.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 01 2019, @03:06PM (21 children)
Damn. I knew I should have put a -1 Goto mod in last site update.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @03:26PM
Should have used "-1 harmful" [acm.org] as it's synonymous.
/me ducks
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 01 2019, @04:12PM (19 children)
Buzzy, good conservatives have a lot to answer for. Believe it or not, I was once a Republican. I believed in balancing the budget. Still like the idea, actually. I am a fiscal conservative.
But the Republican Party today, good God, what the f*** happened? Where were all the fiscal conservatives when the War in Iraq over Weapons of Mass Destruction was being rammed through? While I would expect life to be the primary concern, especially of the party that claims to be Pro-Life, I hoped that at the least fiscal conservatives would raise concerns over the costs. But I have not heard of a single one who protested that that war would be very, budget bustingly costly. Closest I heard were murmurs that concerns over costs could not stand in the way of a clear and present danger. And then to learn that there never were any Weapons of Mass Destruction! And that the Bush administration knew that, before they made the call to go to war! George H. W. Bush was right, his son was badly served by those neocons, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.
Now the Republicans routinely spit on facts and science, to please the stupidest of the voters. Over the years, they've become more open and brazen about it, and have moved even further, pandering to racists, misogynists, and religious fundamentalists and evangelists. What the Hell is the business wing of the party thinking? To think that the Party of Lincoln should have sunk to this.
I'm not wild about Democrats, particularly so called centrist, Blue Dog ones, fiscally conservative though they profess to be. But damn, what are the options? Give us a viable 3rd party, please!
Oh, I forgot to mention another gift from Indiana: Mourdock. So extreme, he lost to a Democrat.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Friday November 01 2019, @05:04PM
Don't ask for a "third" party [independent], just vote for it. It's very easy for each individual to do so, if they don't let the grade school peer pressure fuck up their judgement.
As far as the war, it's costly for some, very profitable for others. Like everything else, cui bono. You will find it's not political. The dems only put up a facade of resistance, and not even that against the Afghanistan war.
It is these things and mass media propaganda that make people feel there is no choice. But the choice has always been there. They can vote for the same old shit, or against it. That is their choice, regardless of the chance of winning.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 01 2019, @05:22PM (1 child)
Then bring back Slick Willie (and the .com boom). Pretty shocking how easily the budget balances itself with a little loosening of the purse strings among the wealthy - no changes in the law or tax structure required.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @07:14PM
dotcom boom was caused by government giving money to telecoms to build out infrastructure (see telecom act of 1996)
dotcom bust was caused by telecoms keeping the money and not living up to the agreements to build out the infrastructure
Just another (pick a political party) dirty trick on the public
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bussdriver on Friday November 01 2019, @05:54PM
WHAT HAPPENED to the republican party is that it is ONLY a brand name. To a lesser degree the democrats also became a brand name. They hire marketing companies to sell the brand like it was soap. Post WW2 probably was the biggest shift. The GOP was bought out long long ago but today you can see it's marketing company, FOX NEWS has bought out the brand completely. The propaganda dept has taken over the party - it's not a healthy typical political party anymore (lets just assume "healthy" means normal.... and not get into the oxymoron.) Propaganda was always an essential component but it has been too refined and too powerful; in this case, it became too centralized and completely hijacked the brand. They promote tribalism and brand loyalty. Actually, I know some Military propagandists who retired and got jobs as consultants for FOX. Their jobs were demonizing the enemy and getting our soldiers to kill people effectively. Sound familiar??
I was never a republican. I rarely even say I'm democrat. I never identified with either tribe. I am personally so frugal people sometimes call me cheap. I'm for many government programs/services because it's a democracy and government is non-profit so if we can collectively provide something of better value for the most people I'm all for it. To use Smith's argument for capitalism, it benefits the most people so therefore it's the best choice. Well, if something else does better, then I'm all for it using the same reasoning... and that means that capitalism is the best solution but not absolutely all the time. The best solutions are often not ones you feel completely happy with. Also, aiming for perfection is inherently evil; thats another topic...
The government corruption overhead CAN be lower than the private profit margins and the quality can also beat the market's greed; NOT all the time. There are limits to how much a democracy can handle competently. The debate should be (but never is) about can we make X work better or is it beyond our collective competence to self govern and just leave it to the market chaos... and then it's about how to reign in the anarchy effectively (except for the libertards who are anarchists in disguise.) We end up talking about government as a alien entity and promoting it as NOT being a collective representation... it doesn't feel good to hate your own country so people instead hate their own messenger and instrument. That should be directed at dysfunction and improving representation but it is not (well, the democrats tend to encourage this but it is partially disingenuous because higher turn out helps them.)
check out politicalcompass.org and educate others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @06:56PM
So you don't like fighting in Iraq. OK, but that was bipartisan. Hillary Clinton voted for it. You may remember that she was controlling the democrat party, even forcing them to choose herself to be the 2016 candidate.
Meanwhile, we have Trump withdrawing troops from Syria and tearing down unfriendly structures on the Korean border. You should like the guy.
Racist: Joe Biden, who rudely noted that Obama was the first well-spoken articulate black candidate.
Misogynist: Nobody hates women. The closest is probably a woman herself, the one in congress who had her clitoris removed in childhood.
Religious fundamentalist: Don't ignore Islam. Democrats have been enabling it, and it will make you wish you were dominated by mere Christianity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 01 2019, @09:33PM
The Clinton impeachment happened.
In the 80s and mid-90s the Republican party was a party of principles and ideas. Remember the "Contract with America?" Today's Republicans could never come up with something like that. The Democrats have the "Green New Deal," which is kind of similar, except it's full of bad ideas instead of good ones.
Once the Clinton impeachment happened, Republicans decided to be the party of obstructionism. The only thing they care about now is stopping the Democrats from accomplishing anything, and getting anti-abortion judges into the courts. 9/11 and the Iraq war gave them a temporary reprieve, in the form of at least looking like they're doing something important, but what we're seeing today is pretty much what a party dedicated to power and nothing else looks like.
Trump himself, of course, could not have existed prior to the 2010s. I mean, the man existed, but his particular brand of politics wouldn't have worked before then.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday November 01 2019, @10:10PM (1 child)
The Republican Party has never been the party of fiscal responsibility in my lifetime. Seriously, just look at the budget deficits, and you'll see every Republican since 1980 ramming through massive deficits with both unwarranted tax cuts and spending boosts on stuff we don't need. The last truly fiscally responsible Republican was Dwight Eisenhower, and even he thought the US was spending too much.
They're doing that on purpose. The strategy that's been in place since 1980 was developed by Grover Norquist (a man who has never been elected to anything, I might point out) is to cut taxes until the budget has scary-looking deficits, then use the scary-looking deficits to convince a Democratic president that the Only Possible Solution (tm) is to gut Social Security. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama came close to falling for it too.
One reason I know they're doing it on purpose is that I walked up to one of my senators (the now-deceased George Voinovich), who always billed himself a moderate fiscal conservative Republican type, and asked him how he reconciled his fiscal conservatism with voting for the Bush tax cuts. He didn't give me a straight answer.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 01 2019, @11:19PM
Don't forget, that all along the cries for cutting the budget were really dog whistles, coded messages. They were never sincere about fiscal responsibility. What they really wanted was to discriminate, and all the talk about fiscal responsibility was just cover for that goal. Cutting some program for the poor always hurts disadvantaged minorities more. That was the part I didn't figure out until after the Clinton years.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday November 02 2019, @02:10AM (7 children)
Ike was the last good Republican. Anyone voting R after that was deficient in conscience, morals, intelligence, or some combination of the three. And not surprisingly, not long after that the Southern Strategy happened...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 03 2019, @11:46AM (6 children)
Eh, it's easier to say what folks voting D after JFK were deficient in, the only possibility is between their ears.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday November 03 2019, @03:29PM (5 children)
Not after Kennedy. After Clinton's first term, certainly.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 03 2019, @08:13PM (4 children)
No, after Kennedy. Carter was a great guy but a lousy President.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday November 04 2019, @08:44PM (3 children)
Even a decent Governor from what I've gathered. But, like all Presidents, gets hampered by the past and has limits as to what can be done in the future.
Maybe the President we deserved but not the one we needed then.... I just hope that we don't know have the one we deserve and didn't need now.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 04 2019, @08:55PM (2 children)
Don't sweat it too hard. There's not much seriously crazy shit he could get through a Republican Congress and he doesn't even have that anymore. Besides, we could very well end up with another Only Nixon Could Go To China situation. Nobody's shitty at everything and we have means in place to mitigate the bits they are shitty at.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 05 2019, @11:31PM (1 child)
Nice point, thanks.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @10:21PM
The way things are right now - one party controlling the House, the other controlling the Senate, and a President whose own party doesn't like him much - is honestly about my ideal governmental split. It's the least likely formation to pass insano bullshit because of the moderating effect of all the hurdles that have to be jumped.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 03 2019, @11:41AM (2 children)
Don't mess up a perfectly good coding joke by taking it seriously.
As for the rest, the last Republican President I dig on at this point in my life is Reagan. The Bushes may be distant family but they weren't especially good Republicans by my standards. Trump makes me laugh but the best I can label him is "mostly harmless" on account of not being able to get much of anything through Congress and do much lasting harm.
Mind you, the last Democrat President I dig on is JFK, so they're not faring any better. Carter was probably the best human being we've had in office in ages but he wasn't very good at it and had some fundamentally bad notions in his head.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 03 2019, @05:25PM (1 child)
Then you're an evil mother fucker. Reagan was the worst thing to happen to the US. Git edumacated son!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 03 2019, @08:16PM
Bitch, please. Ronnie was the best President in the last hundred years. Yes, very specifically including FDR in that comparison.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.