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it's tiresome seeing all these "tHaT wAs ThE lAsT sTrAw" headlines for years and years, while he just keeps doing whatever tf bullshit he wants with zero consequence
The camel's back is vibranium
Well, THIS is the last straw for real now!
Source: trust me bro.
After this straw, and that straw, we only have 16 straws left!
The majority of democrats in charge of this country seem to just not care... And the Republicans in charge at this point are full fascist steam ahead, and elated by every terrible thing that takes place.
No one's running out of straw!
Sigh. I keep reminding people that the 25th Amendment was not meant for this. It was meant for when a President is physically incapacitated. Like, if a President was shot in the head, and is still alive, but in a coma. Because all the President has to do is say "Naw, I'm good", and he gets his office back. If the VP and Cabinet still agree, it takes a 2/3 majority of both Houses to make the expulsion stick. And even then, the VP carries in as "Acting President", which is not formally defined anywhere.
Impeachment is the way to handle this. It has a lower threshold. It doesn't require the VP or Cabinet to sign off first, and only needs 1/2 the House to start the process. And once the President is removed from office by 2/3 of the Senate, the VP becomes the actual President, no "acting" involved.
What is impeachment usually meant to do? Because he's been impeached twice and here he is.
Colloquially it is also meant to include conviction by the Senate. Impeach + convict. But yes, Republicans have been assholes for many decades. It still needs to happen though, so it is what continues to get demanded.
Impeachment is meant as a check on an Imperial Presidency. In the Constitution, it is supposed to be triggered in response to "High Crimes and Misdemeanors". It leaves to Congress what that means. So it does not have to be a chargeable crime. The President is supposed to uphold the Constitution, and Treaties like the NATO treaty are supposed to have the same force as the Constitution. Threatening to attack our allies should count as impeachable.
However, he has been impeached twice and failed because Republicans in Congress have his back. In particular, the second time around McConnell said that Trump deserved punishment, but it was better done in the courts. Then Surprise! the Courts said the only way to hold a sitting President to account was through impeachment. It was an ouroborous of letting him off the hook.
We may have to live with the fact that there is no way to fix this, other than voters (or God Himself) intervening, as long as Republicans are too chickenshit to stand up to Trump.
It would lead to his removal, but it got cockblocked by the Senate. As intended.
For those that don't know. The Senate purely represents old money. They were created as a check/balance to keep citizens from taking away wealth, privilege, and power from the ruling class.
The British House of Lords used to hold the same sort of power with their ability to veto anything passed by the House of Commons. The House of Commons took this veto power away, but unfortunately they were only able to do this by getting the King to threaten to ennoble hundreds of new people and overwhelm the power of the traditional Lords. Our (US) current King would of course never agree to any such thing.
It was meant for when a President is physically incapacitated.
Dementia is physical incapacitation.
It never says physically incapacitated at all. It says:
"unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office"
If the president has a stroke and becomes a psychotic menace. Nervous breakdown and won't leave his room...all sorts of things.
That's the text all right, but the text also says that all the President has to do is present Congress with a "written declaration that no inability exists" to get his job back. So as long as the President has the mental acuity to write a letter, he gets his job back. Not a high bar at all, and your "psychotic menace" or "nervous breakdown" Presidents can still write a letter.
You're 100% right on the mechanics of it, but only 90% right overall. There is one small thing you might not be considering: Republicans might be more supportive of removing an "incapacitated" president than impeaching a tyrannical one because of the less damaging connotation of it.
Doubt it. Reagan likely had Alzheimer's while President, nobody cared.
The worst of his dysfunction came late in his Presidency. He wasn't demanding crazy shit publicly, so no one really wanted to kick him out, they just let me move on naturally.
And he was 77 when he left office, a year younger than Trump was when he started this term!
Excellent point. They aren't admitting that their party failed America, just that their beloved candidate is having a serious health issue. There's no shame in that.
25th time someone says we should use the 25th amendment.
In the year 2525, if anyone's left alive....
TL;DR: The US president is the walking talking definition of "Main Character Syndrome" (because he is quite possibly the biggest narcissist in recorded history). Because of this, he is risking the dissolution of NATO, and a possible global conflict, seemingly because Norway did not give him a medal. His letter to the Norway PM below:
Dear Jonas,
Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT.
Adding the following:
We have debated the extent to which we can call these claims “lies” because the president truly seems to believe many of them.
This, to me, is probably the scariest thing. I told my wife awhile back that the difference between people like Mitch McConnell and MTG was that McConnell knew he was pedaling bullshit to get what he wanted. He just didn't have any ethics. MTG (and Boebert, maybe Gym Jordan, and certainly Trump and plenty more) genuinely think that bullshit is true.
When that guy showed up looking for the child hostages at that DC area pizza place w/ his AR-15 and found out the place had no basement , McConnell privately laughed at the idiot people like him had created. The MTGs of the world figured he just had the wrong pizza place, but went on believing that prominent Democrats were harvesting the blood of children! If enough people like that get in charge of a country like the US, then all bets are truly off. That's not hyperbole. They are the kind of people who can be convinced that a country can win a nuclear war, because God would be on their side.
I'm not saying we're headed for a nuclear confrontation. It would have to be a means to an end for someone who can convince the President of the need to achieve that end, and I can't think of any billionaires who need a nuclear war. Yet. Still, it's important to recall that this president did once consider nuking a hurricane. I'm sure anyone on the right, and many on the left, will say he was just kidding. But looking at the context of that conversation, I don't know if that assessment is fully accurate.
Edit: formatting, grammar
There are billionaires who seek nuclear war though. You can argue that Peter Thiel (knows about the antichrist) actually wants a large collapse because he has some technobabble belief that he’ll come out on top
There are certainly billionaires who want Curtis Yarvin’s stupid predictions to come true, but I haven’t seen any of them advocating for nuclear holocaust. Not even Thiel. Not saying I’d be surprised to see it. “Love, Death, & Robots” had a disturbingly believable post-apocalyptic skit that covered how some powerful people might think they can survive something like that.
This post goes perfect with your username
It’s obviously not that critical cause they make you pay to read it.
Trump sent ~~Denmark~~ Norway a letter claiming they owe him Greenland for him not getting the Nobel Peace prize.
I thought he sent it to Norway. Either way Norway doesn't control Greenland and Denmark has no say in the Nobels.
"Not now. Just give him a bit more rope and he'll surely hang himself this time!"
This seems to be the world's approach to Trump, and I fear it will backfire on all of us. This is not how you successfully deal with bullies.