Can you smell impeachment?

H

hundredmillionlifetimes

Banned
old goriot said:
Impeachment is one thing, war crimes are another.
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Joined-up reasoning is not your forte: impeachment for war crimes.


old goriot said:
Talk of war crimes doesn't belong in an impeachment thread. Thats the point I was making.
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That's not making a point, that's making a spurious, arrogant announcement.

old goriot said:
So why don't you take your war crimes rhetoric somewhere else where it belongs, this is an internal, domestic US issue.
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Discussion of war crimes in the context of impeachment belongs here, whereas your insular, evasive nonsense belongs in an "internal, domestic US" forum.
 
O

old goriot

Well-known member
hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Joined-up reasoning is not your forte: impeachment for war crimes.
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It's becoming clear that you don't even know what impeachment is. You can't be, and no one ever has been, impeached for international war crimes. It is legally impossible. What part of that don't you understand?

Your example of "joined up reasoning" is an oxymoron, sir.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Mr Tea, your resort to personal abuse to deflect from your breathtaking ignorance of history - specifically WWII - as manifested by your irrational and ridiculous question ["Does this mean that, under current law, it would have been illegal for the UK to declare war on Germany in 1939?"] betrays your inane agenda here: to turn history on its head by equating the [second world] war against facism with the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq etc. The Nazi invasions of numerous countries were war crimes, just as the US/UK invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are war crimes.

And what is also laughable here is all this rhetoric about impeachment - as if these crimes were simply an internal, domestic US issue. Under international law, Bush and Blair and their cabals of eager lapdogs should be heading, along with Bin Laden, to the Hague court, as with other war criminals, a position which most of the responsible members of the world's population support. This is not laughable, it is extremely serious ...
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Let's look for a moment at my original post: I asked a simple, honest question because I wanted to know the answer. The assertion was being made that 'pre-emptive self-defence' - attacking a potential enemy before they attack you (as Britain did to Germany, no?) - is illegal. The idea that I am somehow equating the Allies' fight against Nazi Germany with America's invasion of Iraq is preposterous - but then, as we've seen elsewhere, logic isn't exactly your forte, is it? I was aware that my question could be misinterpreted as deliberately provocative (like, ooh, most of your posts?), so I left a disclaimer to the effect that this was not the case.

Now let's look at your response. You reply to my question in a conceited, condescending way by suggesting I fuck off and read International Law, vols. 1-179, which naturally you'd memorised by the time you were eight (except the bit about what you can and can't be impeached for, apparently), accuse me of being 'deliberately provocative' (oh, the irony!) and finally, in what I can only assume was intended to be a put-down of withering causticness and wit, added a photo of Basil Fawlty doing his 'Nazi' walk.
Well done, you win at the Internet.

It's quite clear from reading your other posts that you're a hysterical, immature and generally ignorant ranter with political convictions based on the liner notes of your System Of A Down albums and the half-remembered contents of Anti-Capitalism For Dummies. Rather than resorting to personal insults whenever anyone with a political world-view less cartoonishly black-and-white than yours dares to voice an opinion, why don't you go and watch Loose Change again and let the grown-ups discuss important things, eh?
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
Well done, you win at the Internet.

It's quite clear from reading your other posts that you're a hysterical, immature and generally ignorant ranter with political convictions based on the liner notes of your System Of A Down albums and the half-remembered contents of Anti-Capitalism For Beginners. Rather than resorting to personal insults whenever anyone with a political world-view less cartoonishly black-and-white than yours dares to voice an opinion, why don't you go and watch Loose Change again and let the grown-ups discuss important things, eh?
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I've just spat coffee all over the monitor (sorry it wasn't tea). Cracking stuff squire.
 
H

hundredmillionlifetimes

Banned
old goriot said:
It's becoming clear that you don't even know what impeachment is. You can't be, and no one ever has been, impeached for international war crimes. It is legally impossible. What part of that don't you understand?
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Of course no American preznez has ever been impeached for mass murder, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the law, though one almost was for frolicing with a member of staff. I think that tells us all we need to know about the irrelevance and dishonesty of your response here.

Mr Tea said:
Let's look for a moment at my original post: I asked a simple, honest question because I wanted to know the answer.
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Your original post was a request for information regarding the international law relating to illegal invasion. When this request was met, your response was to ignore it by immediately asking a deliberately provocative question [cynically disavowed, of course] which shits in the face of all such international law, a sick, clueless question yet again repeated by you here:


Mr Tea said:
The assertion was being made that 'pre-emptive self-defence' - attacking a potential enemy before they attack you (as Britain did to Germany, no?)- illegal.
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Again, you seem to be completely ignorant of WWII. It was nothing of the kind. Again, you appear to be totally unaware of the simple fact that the international laws referred to did not exist prior to WWII, but were formulated as a response to that war.

Mr Tea said:
The idea that I am somehow equating the Allies' fight against Nazi Germany with America's invasion of Iraq is preposterous
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That is precisely what you are doing here in this thread, repeatedly. It is indeed preposterous. But your knee-jerk, ignorant pronouncements are not confined to this topic but are in fact your modus operandi on this forum, making ridiculous untrue claims based on [ironically self-confessed] ignorance - your dissing of Baudrillard's ideas, as another example, only to later confess that you hadn't ever read any of his writings. So go hither and acquaint yourself with international law before further embarrassing us with your parade of ignorance concerning WWII.

Mr Tea said:
Now let's look at your response. You reply to my question in a conceited, condescending way by suggesting I fuck off and read International Law, vols. 1-179 ...
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Not at all: it was very direct and explicit, and entirely appropriate for someone who had just requested international law references with which to fuck off and read.

Finally, I won't be responding to any more of your infantile posts on this forum [ at least until you learn how to engage in rational discussion]: you are clearly yet another classic and predictable case of an irritating troll [as others here have recently discovered, and as all the threads you initiate here testify], with the unexamined, twisted agenda of a right-wing looney. A Basil Fawlty indeed.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Again, you seem to be completely ignorant of WWII. It was nothing of the kind. Again, you appear to be totally unaware of the simple fact that the international laws referred to did not exist prior to WWII, but were formulated as a response to that war.
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Hence my question, "would it have been illegal under current law?"

I don't see why this is so hard for you to understand. Also you did not "meet my request" for information, you told me to go and read up about it, which I could have figured out myself without your help, thankyou very much.

Before you start slagging me off for my supposed 'ignorance', I'd advise you not to spout to off about the things you know nothing about, which (taking a very quick survery) seems to include formal logic, impeachment law and semiconductor electronics. I am entitled to my opinions and I am entitled to voice them on here, and if you don't like that I suggest you stop taking part in internet forum discussions and find a new hobby.

Heil fucking Hitler.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well exactly. What's the point of having a discussion with people who already agree with everything you think?
 
H

hundredmillionlifetimes

Banned
I'll address the rational parts of your reply.

Mr. Tea said:
Hence my question, "would it have been illegal under current law?"
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No.


Mr. Tea said:
Before you start slagging me off for my supposed 'ignorance', I'd advise you not to spout to off about the things you know nothing about, which (taking a very quick survery) seems to include formal logic, impeachment law and semiconductor electronics. .
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Translation: "I disagree with what you seem to have said on the topics of formal logic, impeachment law and semiconductor electronics. Therefore you know nothing about them."

But seeing as this thread relates to the subject of impeachment, and observing that no post here has made any reference to impeachment law, perhaps its appropriate to get to the point by other means:

Are We Experiencing The Last Days of Constitutional Rule?

By Paul Craig Roberts

The Bush administration’s greatest success is its ability to escape accountability for its numerous impeachable offenses

The administration’s offenses against US law, the US Constitution, civil liberties, human rights, and the Geneva Conventions, its lies to Congress and the American people, its vote-rigging scandals, its sweetheart no-bid contracts to favored firms, its political firing of Republican US Attorneys, its practice of kidnapping and torturing people in foreign hellholes, and its persecution of whistle blowers are altogether so vast that it is a major undertaking just to list them all.

Bush admits that he violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spied on US citizens without warrants, a felony under the Act. Bush has shown total disrespect for civil liberty and the Constitution and has suffered rebukes from the Supreme Count. The evidence is overwhelming that the Bush administration manufactured false “intelligence” to justify military aggression against Iraq. The Halliburton contract scandals are notorious, as is the use of electronic voting machines programmed to miscount the actual vote.

The chief-of-staff to Vice President Cheney has been convicted for obstructing justice in the outing of a covert CIA officer. Proof of torture is overwhelming, and the Bush administration has even had the temerity to have permissive legislation passed after the fact that permits it to continue to torture “detainees.” The Sibel Edmonds and other whistle blower cases are well known. The Senate Judiciary Committee has just issued subpoenas to Justice (sic) Dept. officials involved in the scandalous removal of US Attorneys who refused to be politicized.

Yet the Democrats have taken impeachment “off the table.” Many Democrats and Republicans and a great many Christians can contemplate illegal military aggression against Iran, but not the impeachment of the greatest criminal administration in US history. Far from being scandalized by what the entire world views as an unjust invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US, leading Democratic and Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination rushed to inform the Israel Lobby, AIPAC, that they, if elected, will keep US troops in Iraq.

The previous occupant of the White House could not escape being impeached by the House of Representatives for lying about a consensual Oval Office sexual affair. President Nixon and his vice president, a saintly pair compared to Bush-Cheney, were both driven from office for offenses that are inconsequential by comparison. Liberals branded Ronald Reagan the “Teflon President,” but the neoconservatives’ Iran-Contra scandal was a mere dress rehearsal for their machinations in the Bush regime.

What explains Bush-Cheney invulnerability to accountability?

Perhaps the answer is that Bush has desensitized us. Like kids desensitized to violence by violent video games and movies and pornography addicts desensitized to sex, we have become desensitized by the avalanche of Bush-Cheney crimes, lies, and disdain for Congress, courts, and public opinion.

Our elected representatives, if not the American people, now regard as normal such heinous actions as war crimes, the rape of the Constitution, self-serving use of government office, and the constant stream of lies and propaganda from the highest offices of the executive branch.

Perhaps that is what disillusioned foreigners, who once looked with hope to America, mean when they say that America does not exist anymore.

If the notion has departed that the highest political offices in the land are supposed to be occupied by people who are honest and faithful to their oath to the Constitution, then we are far advanced on the road to tyranny.

In future history books, will Bush-Cheney mark the transition of the United States from constitutional rule to the unaccountable rule of the unitary executive who cancels out Congress with signing statements and silences critics with the police state means that are now part of the US legal code?​
 
O

old goriot

Well-known member
hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Of course no American preznez has ever been impeached for mass murder, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the law, though one almost was for frolicing with a member of staff. I think that tells us all we need to know about the irrelevance and dishonesty of your response here.
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Clinton wasn't almost impeached, he was completely impeached.. and he wasn't impeached for having an affair in the Oval office. really, do yourself a favour and spend 5 minutes reading up on what impeachment actually is.
I think you are the only person who views impeachment as an all-purpose moral-political condemnation of the president.

FYI: What Clinton was impeached for was perjury and obstruction of justice, not frolicking with an intern (even though that is what he lied about). The senate voted not to convict, so there's a lot of people who think that means he wasn't impeached.

one thing that makes your concept of the president being impeached for an illegal war difficult is that Congress voted to support the war, so it is kind of difficult for them to turn around and charge the president for war crimes that they voted to approve. secondly, there are no American laws applicable to the type of war crimes that George Bush carried out.

What he could be impeached for is lying to congress about the weapons of mass destruction. That is an impeachable offence, and is at the heart of the misconduct of the Iraq war.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
old goriot said:
FYI: What Clinton was impeached for was perjury and obstruction of justice, not frolicking with an intern (even though that is what he lied about). The senate voted not to convict, so there's a lot of people who think that means he wasn't impeached.
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Well, that second sentence applies to me, so can you explain this? Surely impeachment means a vote has to be carried in both houses?
 
O

old goriot

Well-known member
crackerjack said:
Well, that second sentence applies to me, so can you explain this? Surely impeachment means a vote has to be carried in both houses?
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impeachment is the process of trying a president for a criminal offence. congress votes to lay charges, then the senate votes on which charges to convict on. impeached is another word for "charged", but it specific to the president and has a special procedure.

I think there is a common misconception that impeachment is a vote to remove the president from office. This is not the case. It is a criminal prosecution.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
hundredmillionlifetimes said:
No.
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OK, thanks. That's what I wanted to know. Wasn't too hard now, was it?

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Translation: "I disagree with what you seem to have said on the topics of formal logic, impeachment law and semiconductor electronics. Therefore you know nothing about them."
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OK, let's see what you seem to have said about...

a) formal logic (from the 'Borat' thread):

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
...if Kubrick had no problem with the film, if he believed it to have been harmless, then why on earth would he withdraw it? And in total secrecy? Are you implying that he was irrational, that he was behaving in an utterly stupid manner by requesting the withdrawal of a film he believed to be harmless (the logical corollory to this implication being that he would not have withdrawn the film if he believed it to have been harmful)?"
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So if I fail to take an umbrella with me today even though it's raining, it follows that I must take an umbrella when it's not raining? News to me, I don't even have a fucking umbrella. But anyway...

b) impeachment law:

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
"Joined-up reasoning is not your forte: impeachment for war crimes."
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From Wikipedia: "At the Federal level, the House of Representatives has the sole power of impeaching the President, Vice President and all other civil officers of the United States. Officials can be impeached for: "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." " No mention of war crimes there. You saw fit to call Old Goriot's response 'irrelevant and dishonest' when he pointed this fact out to you because you really, really want Bush to be put on trial (or impeached, or given a like totally painful wedgie, or whatever) for all the simply horrid things he's done and you won't stand for any Rebublican stooges trying to disrail the righteousness of your conviction by such dishonest, irrelevant means as pointing out facts (which are actually just racist phallocentric constructs perculiar to Western culture, anyway).

c) semiconductor electronics (from the 'Sciences and Humanities' thread):

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
"Current digital microchips/CPUs have no connection with quantum mechanics"
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This claim is about as valid as claiming that lightbulbs have nothing to do with electricity.

If I've vastly misconstrued what you've said in each of these cases, please feel free to set me straight.

Edit: quantum mechanics isn't 'stochastic' and Franziskaner brew wheat beer, not rice beer. Man, this is fun... :)
 
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H

hundredmillionlifetimes

Banned
old goriot said:
Clinton wasn't almost impeached, he was completely impeached.. and he wasn't impeached for having an affair in the Oval office. really, do yourself a favour and spend 5 minutes reading up on what impeachment actually is..
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No. As you say below, the Senate voted not to convict, the whole charade mere theatrical, histrionic simulation.

We all know that the impeachment proceedings were not directly based on the frolicing, but on the lying about it, on the rhetoric, not the act.

old goriot said:
I think you are the only person who views impeachment as an all-purpose moral-political condemnation of the president.
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Your strawman is hilarious. You are the one attempting to demonstrate that impeachment is so grave a process that not even a proven mass-murderer who has committed the worst crimes imaginable should be subject to such horrendous legalistic torture

old goriot said:
FYI: What Clinton was impeached for was perjury and obstruction of justice, not frolicking with an intern (even though that is what he lied about). The senate voted not to convict, so there's a lot of people who think that means he wasn't impeached..
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Oh please, we know. That's what made it all a sick joke (and all this happening while he was committing terrorist acts in Sudan).


old goriot said:
one thing that makes your concept of the president being impeached for an illegal war difficult is that Congress voted to support the war, so it is kind of difficult for them to turn around and charge the president for war crimes that they voted to approve. secondly, there are no American laws applicable to the type of war crimes that George Bush carried out..
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Untrue. Just as Clinton was subjected to impeachment proceedings for lying about his affair, Bush can be similarly subjected for lying about the Iraq invasion (with Congress hysterically declaring that their vote was based on believing the lie to be true etc).

Type of war crime? What, are there legal war crimes? Bush can be impeached for lying about his mass murder, and jailed via the Hague court for engaging in it. You are seriously deluded if you can't see this.


old goriot said:
What he could be impeached for is lying to congress about the weapons of mass destruction. That is an impeachable offence, and is at the heart of the misconduct of the Iraq war.
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How very clever of you! Impeached for lying, again. The sick joke, again. We know, Goriot.

Goriot, the "misconduct" of the Iraq war was the war itself, the illegal invasion and the mass murder, still continuing [and the number of US troops there is still increasing, not decreasing], not the lying about it. So if he had "told the truth," the invasion would have been okay?

[I'm reminded of Tony Blair's psychopathology: "Oh, but I didn't lie: I genuinely believed Saddam had WMDs. So, even though I was mistaken, I was being totally truthful!"].
 
H

hundredmillionlifetimes

Banned
Mr. Tea said:
OK, thanks. That's what I wanted to know. Wasn't too hard now, was it?
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Whereas its not simply hard, but impossible, for you to properly study both the relevant international law and history, when a Big Other soundbite will do.

Mr. Tea said:
OK, let's see what you seem to have said about..

a) formal logic (from the 'Borat' thread):

So if I fail to take an umbrella with me today even though it's raining, it follows that I must take an umbrella when it's not raining? News to me, I don't even have a fucking umbrella. But anyway...
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You're oblivious to your own contradictions.

It was the illogical ludicrousness of the original claim - withdrawing a film because the film-maker believed it to be harmless - that had its corollory in the equally ludicrous screening of a film because it is believed to be harmful. But you'd rather rant about what you might do with an umbrella that you don't have ...

Mr. Tea said:
b) impeachment law:

From Wikipedia: "At the Federal level, the House of Representatives has the sole power of impeaching the President, Vice President and all other civil officers of the United States. Officials can be impeached for: "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." " No mention of war crimes there.
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High crimes and misdemeanors excluding the category of war crimes, of course.

Mr. Tea said:
You saw fit to call Old Goriot's response 'irrelevant and dishonest' when he pointed this fact out to you because ...
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Because it was irrelevant and dishonest, being a chronic misreading of the law, here again repeaded by yourself.

Mr. Tea said:
you really, really want Bush to be put on trial (or impeached, or given a like totally painful wedgie, or whatever) for all the simply horrid things he's done
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Of course I do [whereas you're more interested in trivialising his acts as poor etiquette (simply horrid!).

Mr. Tea said:
c) semiconductor electronics (from the 'Sciences and Humanities' thread):

This claim is about as valid as claiming that lightbulbs have nothing to do with electricity.
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No, digital computation is not based on quantum mechanics, as noted in the relevant thread elsewhere on this forum.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Whereas its not simply hard, but impossible, for you to properly study both the relevant international law and history, when a Big Other soundbite will do.
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So a yes/no answer to a yes/no question is a 'soundbite'? Er, OK.

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
You're oblivious to your own contradictions.

It was the illogical ludicrousness of the original claim - withdrawing a film because the film-maker believed it to be harmless - that had its corollory in the equally ludicrous screening of a film because it is believed to be harmful. But you'd rather rant about what you might do with an umbrella that you don't have ...
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So the idea that he might have withdrawn the film because he knew others to have believed it harmful - with all the implications this might have had for the funding and distribution of any films he might make in the future - simply didn't occur to you?
Oh, and nice whitewash over your glaring dislogic, by the way.

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
High crimes and misdemeanors excluding the category of war crimes, of course.
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Yet you earlier called for Bush "to be impeached for war crimes". How rare.

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
Because it was irrelevant and dishonest, being a chronic misreading of the law, here again repeaded by yourself.
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Eh? You're not even making a stupid kind of sense now. Presidents can be impeached for what amounts to crimes against their own country, NOT war crimes committed against another country. OG was correcting your misinterpretation of the meaning of impeachment and got insulted for his trouble. I've just been reading up about it on Wikipedia and he's dead right, of course. How horribly dishonest!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors

I also like the way you've gone from claiming that Clinton was *almost* impeached for having an affair, to having a go at OG when he pointed out that Clinton WAS impeached, and for the crime of perjury, to using this fact in your next rebuff to OG, along with a bitchy "Oh please, we know!" (well, you do now, because he just told you). Classy stuff, I have to say.
Not to mention how Bush should now be impeached for lying about the WMDs rather than war crimes.

hundredmillionlifetimes said:
No, digital computation is not based on quantum mechanics, as noted in the relevant thread elsewhere on this forum.
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You've got your fingers in your ears, your eyes closed and are going "LALALALALALA!!!", aren't you?
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"That's your opinion, but it certainly makes what they did less illegal"
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If she wasn't covert which hasn't been proven so it's not certain is it?

If it were proven to be the case then, yes, it would be "less illegal" but I think you would agree that their actions would still be morally wrong. Previously you argued that morality is more important than law so I don't see what your point is.
 
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