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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: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @06:04AM (3 children)
Politicians have lots of power but very little pay. Corruption is ensured.
We don't like the politicians, so we think they don't deserve the pay, but that is the wrong attitude. It gives us corruption. If we won't pay anything close to the market rate, we deserve the corruption. Somebody else will be glad to pay our politicians.
Another part of the problem is that the pay seems high to the median American voter. Somebody looks at their own $60,000 and the senator's $195,000 and thinks the senator is well-paid. No dummy, look at CEO pay. Elon Musk gets about $500,000,000 for his pay, without even a fraction of the power and responsibility. Even our president gets only $400,000. That's just FAANG software developer pay. It's less than 0.1% of what Elon Musk makes, yet the president is responsible for so much more: nuclear weapon usage, tariffs, millions of employees, regulations that affect hundreds of millions of people, etc.
Pay some serious clean money, and the dirty money problem goes away.
Right now it is dirt cheap for China to bribe our politicians. That should terrify every American.
On a per-GDP basis, there isn't a single non-trivial nation in the entire world that pays the leader less. (combine the salary of head-of-state with head-of-government for places with separate people, exclude micronations like the Vatican, exclude places that don't report GDP reliably like North Korea, etc.)
On an absolute basis, the USA pays less than Ireland and Iceland. Running those countries literally pays better than running the USA. Reminder: the USA is largest economy in the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @01:10PM (2 children)
If they REALLY loved America, they'd do it for free.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 15 2021, @02:40AM (1 child)
They should do it for the pay of the average voter. This gives them the incentive to raise the pay and standards of living for the average voter, and not the 0.01%.
A $15 minimum wage would pass really easily under such conditions. There would also be more interest in creating long term jobs and not shit "gigs."
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @07:41AM
Maybe you should have specified "average" more carefully. (arithmetic mean, geometric mean, harmonic mean, median, mode...)
In any case, when an election costs a member of congress a few million dollars, what would a low salary even count for? Might as well donate it to charity to look good, then pay for the campaign with bribes!
Even $500/hour is nothing much for a senator. It's unprofitable compared to taking bribes, and very unprofitable compared to being a CEO.
Oh, and on the matter of "creating long term jobs and not shit", you seem to be confused about what congress does. Congress kills the jobs created by industry. Take the health care situation for example. By mandating expensive health care for workers doing 30 hours per week, congress effectively mandated a work week of less than 30 hours for the typical worker. Yeah, less work! Uh, well, two jobs with two commutes, because humans compete and will thus run up the cost of everything if they can. Another great example is environmental regulation, also known as pushing factories out of the country.