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Trump impeached for 'inciting' US Capitol riots:
The US House of Representatives has impeached President Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at last week's Capitol riot.
Ten Republicans sided with Democrats to impeach the president by 232-197.
He is the first president in US history to be impeached twice, or charged with crimes by Congress.
Mr Trump, a Republican, will now face a trial in the Senate, where if convicted he could face being barred from ever holding office again.
But Mr Trump will not have to quit the White House before his term in office ends in one week because the Senate will not reconvene in time.
Mr Trump will leave office on 20 January, following his election defeat last November to Democrat Joe Biden.
The Democratic-controlled House voted after several hours of impassioned debate on Wednesday as armed National Guard troops stood guard inside and outside the Capitol.
[...] Impeachment charges are political, not criminal.
Also at Newsweek, c|net, Al Jazeera, Washington Post.
[Ed Note - The linked article has been revised since submission. The quoted text has been revised accordingly. - Fnord]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by helel on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:39AM (11 children)
Your argument makes a kind of theoretical sense but falls apart in the face or real world facts. For example, older voters overwhelmingly vote for politicians that run up the national deficit than younger voters. Likewise voters without student loans are more likely to vote for politicians that run up the deficit than those voters who do still have student loans.
If anything, the metrics you've presented of building economic growth and balancing the governments budget would suggest we should stop older people and people without higher education from voting. The favored candidates of the uneducated and elderly almost always hurt the economy and fuck up the budget while the young and well educated routinely support candidates who, when elected, at least try to balance the budget and who's terms are economically better, even when they inherit a massive recession from the war criminal before them.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:23PM (10 children)
So the small government Republicans must be the younger voters, then? How does that explains all their grey hair.
TIL Ron Paul was 17 and is looking forward to getting the vote.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by helel on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:24PM (9 children)
Ah, I see you don't understand how statistics work. Let see...
Some old people vote for candidates who try to balance the budget. More old people vote for candidates who expand the deficit by orders [huffpost.com] of magnitude [newsweek.com].
Some young people voted for candidates who can't balance the budget. More young people vote for candidates who reduce [factcheck.org] the deficit [newsbreak.com].
So, one of the metrics you chose for good voting decisions was selecting candidates who are fiscally responsible. If you banned all younger voters from voting it's likely we would not get any fiscally responsible candidates elected. On the other hand if we banned all older voters from voting it's likely we would get only fiscally responsible candidates elected.
Does that make it any clearer or is there something you're still not understanding?
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @10:59PM
I would just like to add that it seems to be more of a generational and culural disparity and not a simple age.difference. I don't think it is true that statistically old people will prefer fiscally irresponsible candidates, and it is more that they are a product of the times and who is targeting them with propaganda. In 40 years maybe liberals will become overly tax and spend and the fiscal conservatives will be the sane voices in the room.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @02:43AM (1 child)
Budget bills originate in the US House of Representatives. Obama and Clinton both had GOP running the house for 6 of the 8 years.
Clinton also had GOP running the senate for 6 or 8 years, and Obama had that for a couple years.
Both had things slightly more GOP than Bush Jr., much more GOP than Trump, and much more GOP than republicans of the post-WWII 1900s.
So really, by the numbers, it looks like the answer is a GOP congress. Ignore the president. If you care about the budget, you need a GOP congress.
(Score: 3, Informative) by helel on Friday January 15 2021, @05:34AM
Actually the process starts with the presidential budget request, then it's passed off to both house and senate budget comities to decided what modifications to make. It's not like the president doesn't play a major, if not the single largest, roll in setting the budget.
As for your analysis, Bush Jr and Trump both spend half their term with full Republican control of both house and senate and still somehow managed to increase their deficit spending, allot. In theory your analysis suggests that the best mix is Democrats in the Oval Office and Republicans in the legislature so you have somebody responsible writing the budget request and greedy old pricks trying to cut anything they can cuz when it's Republicans everywhere they just can't seem to figure out how the whole revenue vs expenses thing works.
Then again judging by conservative talking points the deficit doesn't even exist while a Republican is in the White House so that might have something to do with it...
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 15 2021, @10:44AM (5 children)
There's a *huge* difference between voting for someone who later through incompetence is fiscally irresponsible, and voting for someone who has fiscal irresponsibility in his manifesto.
Your argument is entirely dependent on assuming that (a) politicians don't lie; and (b) politicians are competent, and keep their promises.
Neither of those are in evidence, in fact, the contrary is evident.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by helel on Friday January 15 2021, @03:53PM (4 children)
My argument is based on the outcomes of past presidencies. Nowhere did I reference anything a politician said, only what they did.
I would suggest you take a long hard look at your beliefs. Democrats routinely, at the national, state, and local levels, do a better job of balancing budgets than Republicans. It's not a trick or an accident. It's a result of monetary policy that (mostly) breaks along party lines.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 15 2021, @05:05PM (3 children)
And this might explain why you're only understanding half of the argument, you're ignoring half of it.
> I would suggest you take a long hard look at your beliefs.
My beliefs are irrelevant. You don't even know what my beliefs are, as I've not even expressed any, all I've done is reported facts that cover a wider range of things than you've been bothered to look at, which is why you're getting confused.
> Democrats routinely, at the national, state, and local levels, do a better job of balancing budgets than Republicans. It's not a trick or an accident. It's a result of monetary policy that (mostly) breaks along party lines.
It may shock you to realise that that is also totally irrelevant. The topic at hand is *what voters vote for*, not *what politicians do*. If you can't understand the difference between the two, you 're out of your depth in this argument.
You're also not just irrelevant but not even particularly on the money - have you forgotten QE1, QE2, and QE3? The last thing that saw monetary expansion that massive was a freaking world war. Ooops!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by helel on Friday January 15 2021, @10:01PM (2 children)
The original argument was about how to elect "good people" with fiscal responsibility being one of the metrics used to judge which political leaders are "good people" and which are not. I interpreted your post through that lens.
Given your clarification let me say that if leaders who you would describe as having "fiscal irresponsibility in (their) manifesto" routinely achieve better fiscal outcomes it's probable that your views on what consists fiscal responsibility probably need some rethinking.
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 17 2021, @10:11AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by helel on Sunday January 17 2021, @02:18PM
Bush, and the Republican controlled house and senate loved easy credit and hated government oversight. In fairness, apparently Bush did try to get the Republican legislature to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but government regulation is the kind of things Republicans don't like and over in the executive branch when his own bureaucracy tried to crack down on predatory lending Bush reigned them in and even when to court to stop the states from doing anything about the growing problem.
So, Republicans created a nation wide economic collapse leaving the US in crisis as Obama took office. Any solution to the kind of dumpster fire Republican presidents like to leave behind would have cost enormous piles of money.
The same is true right now, by the way. Trump was so eager to save a billion dollars a year on the CDC that he axed our pandemic response team. Sure hope the economic fallout of that doesn't end up costing us three trillion dollars or something!
I think this might actually play into what you consider "fiscally irresponsible manifestos." I understand how it's easy to criticize a Democrat who wants to spend a billion dollars a year fighting disease in other countries and "fiscally irresponsible." It makes a kind of intuitive sense that "that's allot of money" and "if it isn't helping us it should be cut." The thing that requires a little deeper thinking is realizing "oh, a disease is like a fire - It's easy to fight when it's small but very ver hard to fight once it gets big."
Republican Patriotism [youtube.com]