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George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

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Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#161

Post by oculusthrift »

downandout wrote: post #146
beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

Trump has been in office for 4 days. Conflict of interest laws do not apply to US Presidents, so the business interest argument is moot. We don't impeach Presidents because a loud group of people dislikes the fact that they lost an election. We impeach Presidents when they commit crimes, which he has not done and hasn't even been in office long enough to do.

Yeah I guess to you breaking the Foreign Emoluments Clause in the Constitution is nothing. And its funny you say that when that is exactly why they impeached Clinton.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#162

Post by Lramseyer »

flukus wrote: post #34
banku_brougham wrote: post #4

This is amazing. The womens marches over the weekend and these seem to be an indicator of a very sudden awakening.

Will this awakening by introspective at all? Because punishing wrongthink seems to be endemic with third wave feminists and modern "progressive" groups.

I thought the exact same thing myself when I saw this news. It made me think of this: https://medium.com/@aristoNYC/social-justice-bullies-the-aut...

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#163

Post by andrewfromx »

beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

Why tell such obvious falsehoods? - because it gives the media something to report on and like a child with ADD the media goes CRAZY for one lie, then CRAZY for the next, meanwhile DJT does 10 other "crazy" things and it's hard to even keep up. Why tell so many such obvious falsehoods? Because it distracts from other stuff he wants to get done. Just like how he made a big deal about the judge in his trump university case. Making a big deal about the judge distracted everyone from what he actually did with trump university!

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#164

Post by azernik »

sfeng wrote: post #113
caseysoftware wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Congress already consented decades ago: > The financial conflict statute prohibits federal employees from participating in matters where they could enrich themselves. It applies to everyone in the executive branch, from the lowliest file clerk up to the White House chief of staff – except for the president and vice president. Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/12/07/can-congress... You could try to…

Sure, but the courts enforce the constitution, not congress.

The issue isn't who enforces the constitution; it's what the constitution says. Congress has the power to decide which emoluments are okay. Assuming parent comment's interpretation of the law is correct (which it may not be), Congress has given blanket permission, in the same way that it has historically signed away large parts of its Constitutional war-making powers to the executive.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#165

Post by jakeogh »

g00gler wrote: post #100
knz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've probably all seen the emoluments clause raised as one way he may be breaking the law. I'm not a legal expert but I would assume, if it's true, that breaking the Constitution would be illegal? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause "The Title of Nobility Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that ... restricts members of the government from r…

So, wasn't Hillary Clinton breaking the Constitution when she was accepting donations from Saudi Arabia at the Clinton Foundation while secretary of state?

sssh:) Nobody wants to talk about that, it's way too instructive. And definitely don't mention that her campaign manager was/is literally on the Saudi payroll[0].

[0] https://www.fara.gov/docs/5926-Exhibit-AB-20150917-67.pdf

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#166

Post by refurb »

vixen99 wrote: post #86
banku_brougham wrote: post #4

This is amazing. The womens marches over the weekend and these seem to be an indicator of a very sudden awakening.

Why would a march be more significant than the votes of 62 million people? I agree that an awakening is overdue given that for instance, America’s child poverty levels are worse than in any developed country anywhere, including Greece and only Slovakia, Chile, Mexico and Turkey have worse infant mortality rates. Median adult wealth is 27th out of 27 high-income countries; internet speed and access is 16th out of 34 c…

people living below the poverty line - US is 36th out of 162 countries, behind Morocco and Albania

You do realize how ridiculous that stat looks right?

Are you arguing the poor are worse off in the US than in Morocco?

And let me guess, the poverty stat is excluding income transfers?

I swear to god politics has gotten even nuttier in the US than it has been. And it was nutty before! Facts don't matter, crushing your opponent matters. Truth be damned!

*Speaking as an American.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#167

Post by jdavis703 »

korrach wrote: post #23
banku_brougham wrote: post #4

This is amazing. The womens marches over the weekend and these seem to be an indicator of a very sudden awakening.

And a falling asleep as soon as a better clown takes control. Trump is marginally worse in content but infinitely worse in presentation. I mean ffs Obama care was a heritage foundation proposal and that's his shining achievement, it would be like Lincoln abolishing slavery by buying all the slaves and then making them work to pay off their freedom.

I think you're seeing two pieces of outrage over Trump. The first is the predictable liberal outrage: he's proposing policy that conflicts with what liberals want.

Then there's the anger and fear from what appears to be fascist, authorities tendencies in Trump. That's one reason why a President Pence doesn't scare me (and apparently others who are calling for Trump's impeachment). Sure Pence won't work for liberal interests, but at the same time I don't believe he'll be actively working to gut non-partisan areas such as a free press, due process, a free and fair voting process, etc.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#168

Post by azernik »

jobigoud wrote: post #133
dllthomas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever" Payments in exchange for regular business which would have been engaged in anyway would seem not to apply, although there's disturbing room for corruption there.

I'm not a native speaker but shouldn't this be "of any kind whatsoever"?

In current English, yes, but usage was different in the late 18th century. There's quite a lot of archaic language in the Constitution, which is one cause of the endless arguments about its exact interpretation. (Some of the language was very ambiguous even at the time.)

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#169

Post by jakeogh »

chris_va wrote: post #82
dllthomas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He literally does not meet the requirements set forth in the Constitution. You need to be more specific. If you mean the emoluments clause, I think it's more accurate to say that it's hard to verify whether he meets "the requirements set forth in the Constitution." If you know of an instance of his business accepting a gift from a "king, prince or foreign state" since he's assumed office , then he's actually in vio…

While they would prefer Pence, their base is still enamored with Trump. The legislators are scared, and don't want to endanger their reelection until he is no longer popular.

Na, he just won in a near landslide. Sure Pence could have won too, but he's nowhere as capable as Trump taking on the established false left-right MSM.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#170

Post by flukus »

mrbrowning wrote: post #77
beloch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flip the gender. Would you respect a bunch of dickheads marching around D.C.?

Unsurprisingly, the answer to "would you react the same way if a totally different thing happened in a totally different context?" is: no.

It's not a totally different thing, it's the same thing with male genitalia instead of female. We don't know if the context would be totally different or not.
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