Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/18/truck-fump.html
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There is a 6th benefit…I would get to rub it in the face of every family member and friend that voted for the asshole because as they put it “Hillary is a crook”.
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“Denergous” is my word of the day.
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7th benefit: it’s less violent than the alternative for removing an unpopular leader (and his cronies) from power. points the the vast history of assassinations, civil wars, and other regime changes
and the republications might just retain that last shred of dignity and respect, too.
EDIT: Republicans. Sheesh. (Eye kun spel reel gud- huked ahn fonix werks fer meh. Take THAT.)
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As in “Too many hamberders can be denergous for your health.”
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has the shutdown affected everyone’s spell checker?
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I’m highly skeptical that this would actually be one of the benefits. I don’t see any Trump supporters backing down on conspiracies especially since Trump will most likely be tweeting them out himself.
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Additional possibility…
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Good article. I find myself agreeing with most of the points but I keep finding my reading guarded because I’m hung up on a logical issue in the part BB quoted,
Appelbaum says that the framers wouldn’t have put impeachment into the Constitution if it wasn’t part of the normal functioning of a Constitutional democracy, a check on an otherwise imperial presidency (and incidentally, he argues that the presidency has grown increasingly imperial and is overdue for a good trimming).
This relies on the oft-made assumption that the framers were infallible. I’m going to take exception to that (three-fifths is only a starting point for later corrections). I don’t think Appelbaum’s conclusion here is wrong - the mechanism exists because it was anticipated to be needed - just the reasoning.
Edited for typos
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I was just wondering if the whole ‘intelligent design’ thing that came out of the US is a kind of intellectual side-product of Americans attributing infallibility to the constitutional framers - if you grow up in an environment where the logic that any weird side-effect of a legal framework must have been intended by its all-knowing creators has been propagated your entire life, it’s not a huge jump to assuming any weird side-effects of evolution must have been intended by an all-knowing creator…
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They put the impeachment content into the Constitution precisely because they knew neither they nor anyone else is infallible. They foresaw there might be times when an idiot or a monster was elected, and the country would need a legal nuclear option.
Appelbaum is right in saying the presidency is overripe for trimming. The entire Federal government is.
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They likely cared less that she was “a crook” than they do that she’s a woman who has the audacity to try to do “a man’s job.”
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It’s time for the House to go forward. Before the midterms I wouldn’t have said so, not only because the House Dems were in the minority but also because their leadership would have tsk-tsked about how reluctant they were to upset civility and a spirit of compromise in government.
Now the Dems have not only a majority there, but Reps. like Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib who are enthusiastic about doing it, because this is not normal.
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I agree with this assessment.
If the GOP senators refuse to remove him it will reflect badly on them, and the expose of the trial will destroy trumps chances for re-election.
If the GOP senators do remove him they will try to claim they acted responsibly, which most will see for the bullshit it is. Pence will most likely be damaged goods as well.
The GOPs best option is for Trump to resign, but he won’t because it will mean he is not winning. And his legal peril will multiply when he is no longer president.
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8th benefit: We’ll finally get to open the bottle of Taittinger Comtes de Champagne that I put aside for just this event.
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Is there a way to impeach or remove Pence as well? Then the Presidential duties would go to Pelosi, right?
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The ‘chain of succession’ argument just suddenly became a lot more attractive since Ryan stopped being in position 3 now that you mention it 
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No, I don’t think so. I think the assumption is that the framers were wise, and they studied the hell out of history. They probably knew more about Julius Caesar than you and me combined. They couldn’t find a solution to slavery, but they got a lot of things right.
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