"The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) formulated a mathematical model of the cod fish population which they used to calculate the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). The U.S. government had a similar concept which was called optimal yield. ...
In 1989 the DFO advised that the total allowable catch (TAC) of codfish should be 125,000 tons. The Canadian Minister of Fisheries thought this figure was too low and arbitrarily increased it to 235,000 tons. In the course of DFO management the TAC was often set by negotiation between the DFO, the fishing industry and politicians. The DFO, using their defective model, was setting setting the TAC too high. The politicians responding to pressure from the industry increased the TAC from the already too high figures. The net result was that in the last years of codfishing on the Grand Banks the catch was about 60 percent of the population instead of 16 percent. The collapse was catastrophic.
In January of 1992 the DFO was advising that the TAC should be 185,000 tons. By June of 1992 the DFO was advising that the cod fishing should be stopped."
25 years later, the cod haven't recovered to healthy levels. In 1989 the industry representatives probably thought that getting politicians to discount the scientists' advice was a victory.
"The E.P.A. routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government. The conflict of interest here is clear."
Yes, how dare they put scientists on the "Scientific Advisory Board". What we really need is businesspeople from the coal industry!
Is there no shame? No limit to the blatant disregard for science and public safety in favor of coal companies?
You're downvoted but I think you're right. Climate change won't wipe out everyone; it'll be a long process that takes hundreds or thousands of years, during which time there will be an enormous concentration of power to war-lords and the creation of a new slave class. This is the outcome that I believe is being banked on by some of the most powerful people. There are others who believe in the "rising tide floats all boats". Game on for the ultra-powerful. The rest of us are mostly bystanders.
"rising tide floats all boats" is just attractive psuedo-logic made up by "supply siders" (which is cover for "hyper rich") or their shills (Congress and the President) to lull have-nots into taking on a larger share of the tax burden.
No there isn't because the people in this country are simply too stupid to realize there should be. And because politicians like this idiot don't get shamed, they get reelected. And so on and so forth, forever and ever the stupidity is not only passed forward, but celebrated. There is no hope for people who celebrate their own stupidity.
Game theory wise though, this is a sound statement. Science and scientists have shown that they are beholden to the powers of self-interest.
Public choice theory[0] goes a long way.. not sure if this is an improvement, but the lack of progress on actually addressing climate change, instead of just debating is, is peculiar.
I'm very fond of public choice theory but you need to offer something better than simply pointing to its existence after opening with the claim that all scientists are self-serving, which has the primary effect of foreclosing discussion before it even gets started.
Are fines and coercion realy the only way positive change can happen to deal with climate change?
Are there no significant projects that could be accomplished through private funding? No public outreach campaigns? etc
There were hundreds of millions of dollars going to Clinton's campaign and other anti-Trump PAC. That kind of money put on issues could go a long way.
Not to mention the fact that EPA's budget was $8,139,887,000 in 2016 with 15k employees. They are still a significant force in the country. https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/budget
If we're just talking about marketing alone I'm pretty sure there is still a significant amount of work that needs to be done just to convince the public (and not just your everyday simpletons) that this is something serious that requires a top heavy government approach. Cleary many influential people still believe otherwise and they have influence in American politics.
If you look at other controversial issues in America that have made progress over the years, across both parties, such as gay marriage [1] and marijuana [2] it's clear that opinions can change.
Yeah, basically. We don't need another damn public outreach campaign, as if somehow we just haven't been marketing it right all this time and suddenly everyone who has vested interests in fossil fuels is gonna see the light and want to protect coral reefs and fluffy animals. Let's get real here, this fight has been going on about a quarter of a century now and the problem is not a lack of effort to explain the importance of the issue to the public.
I think this could "devolve" naturally to states. California is already making noises about its own enforcement efforts.
Maybe even more so with health care/insurance, since people who are dying can see themselves die every day, while it's a bit easier to ignore "the environment."
I'd like to see states, probably led by California, possibly with New York and Washington, start their own single-payer system, open to any state that wants to join, contribute and comply. Because I'm kinda tired of being a football kicked back and forth every two years for nothing but political points.
Wait until you see what abuses of power and logic they can achieve now with power in all three branches. CA won't be able to enforce a thing. "States rights" as a slogan was accurately described by Atwater, there is no real principle there.
Your garden hoses and cars are greatly influenced by California's large market and their regulations. Your textbooks are greatly influenced by California and Texas. Large states, or groups of states, can influence things by simple scale, if it's not practical to go against them.
I know this, what's your point? What if the EPA drops regulation of lead in garden hoses, Congress introduces a bill that says "states cannot have more stringent regulations for lead in garden hoses than the EPA", the president signs it, and the legal challenge to it reaches the Supreme Court where it's defeated 5-4? You take it for granted that states have certain rights historically, and that the current government will respect established norms and rules (and failing that, the institutions of government that should protect against this will not fail). My point is you should not take that for granted any more.
My point is exactly that, that states do have a right to self-regulate, notwithstanding constitutional questions.
The end-position that you describe would be terrible, but it's very possible. But I don't think the states would go down without a fight, and I don't think the Supreme Court should ever be looked at as a slam-dunk; many Presidents have learned that lesson.
It would be a very awkward argument that the Feds know garden hoses best, at the same time that the Feds are saying that States know health care best. And courts so far have shown themselves willing to consider what this administration has said in recent history about the Muslim/Travel ban to judge intent and constitutionality. So the two self-contradicting points of view ("We know best," "they know best") are likely to get some scrutiny.
Just because things look dark doesn't mean it's over. Even if you're a cynic.
Is it crazy to have research separate from government, and enforcement the job of the "real" EPA? I'm thinking something like how the FCC and FTC work. They do very few studies on their own; they evaluate evidence, make binding resolutions, and enforce rules.
We have the Second Amendment because the Governor of Massachusetts, Bowdoin, couldn't raise enough guns during Shay's Rebellion to safely take down the rebels.
I don't think it had much to do with permitting citizens to enforce Federal policy that the government could be doing, but isn't.
Please explain. Are individuals going to, at their discretion, point guns at people to enforce individual environmental preferences? I don't see anything that implies that in the 2nd Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...
We need the force of law to compel good behavior and discourage bad behavior.
However, the EPA is still bound by existing law, which may mean that activists could force their hand through lawsuits.
The Administrative Procedure Act[1] may provide some leverage. If I understand it correctly, federal agencies can't just do whatever they like; they have to have good reasons and some sort of legislative mandate.
"A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate" sounds like it
This sentence scares me. Although it makes total sense. It seems the only people who are supposed to have a say in this administration are from industry. Nobody else matters.
Imagine if computer programming were a regulated profession, and all the regulators were academics from universities who had never actually worked professionally in their lives. Would it feel fair?
This is how it feels to people of any particular regulated industry---that they're being reproached by who may have quality credentials, but honestly don't know anything about the byplay common in the industry day-to-day and whose goals clearly diverge from that of professionals.
It is, and they are. There is a wide variety of governmental standards programmers have to follow in a wide variety of industries (healthcare, education, banking, defense/military, etc) and programmers manage not to bribe their way into total control of the government because being a good citizen is too hard.
Having regulators with interests that diverge from people in industry is exactly the point; the things they are doing are often dangerous, reckless, and careless. It does not matter if it's "standard industry practice" or part of the "byplay common in the industry day-to-day". In fact it's crucial that regulators ignore this; we didn't particularly care that it was commonplace to put asbestos or lead in products when it started killing people, we just stopped it.
I don't care if it's "commonplace in the industry" to hash passwords with MD5 and leave a telnet port on the database server open to the Internet. It should be criminal because of how careless it is with people's personal data and I wish there were more regulators in the IT industry to come down on people who do it.
If industry people feel that way they should be told that their activities can cause a lot of harmful side effects that also need to be taken into account. There is a lot of history that shows that if business can do whatever they want they'll end up destroying the environment quickly and harm people.
Once upon a time there was a public pool. Everyone used the pool and enjoyed it, but very soon it became apparent that a few of the pool-goers were relieving themselves in it. The pool quickly turned yellow and smelly.
So the community got together and formed the pool-pissing committee; the goal of which was to cut down on the general amount of pool-pissing that was being done. They would do this by hiring some local experts from the town to measure the pool water regularly, and tell everyone when somebody had taken a leak in it, and to the best of their ability, who was responsible.
Right away, some chronic pool-pissers were caught and yanked from the pool. This was very embarrassing for them, so everyone paid attention when it happened, and so the new standards of pool play caught on very quickly and were known by everyone. Soon the water cleared up, and people were able to enjoy the pool again. It wasn't perfectly clean, but it was much, much better than before, and it was improving every day. This worked pretty well for a long time.
A few people didn't like the pool-pissing committee. Some people didn't like the idea that someone could tell them what they could and couldn't do in a pool. Others were mad because every once in awhile, the committee would accuse them of having peed in the pool when they had only peed a little bit, while Jimmy over there drank a whole 2 liter bottle of mountain dew before he swam and let it all out through his bladder, but the committee didn't catch him and that wasn't fair.
But by far, the people who hated the pool-pissing committee the most were the biggest pool-pissers. The pool-pissing committee was always bothering them, they complained, embarrassing them in front of their friends, and cruelly yanking them out of the pool. All they wanted to do was play in the pool, and didn't they have a right to do that? So what if a little pee leaks out every now and then. Worse (they argued), if the committee was allowed to yank anyone who peed out of the pool, then pretty soon the pool would be empty and the community center would be bankrupt.
Of course the solution was simply to not pee in the pool (as most of the rest of the community was able to handle this just fine), and to hold it until afterwards, but that really cuts into out pool-playing time, the pool-pissers whined.
So the pool-pissers got together a plan: They would band together and take over the pool-pissing committee-- but first they had to convince the other pool-goers that this was a good idea.
"The system is rigged!" the pool-pissers squawked. "The pool-pissing committee gets paid to test the pool! So you see, they all have a stake in the outcome of the piss tests! This is a conflict of interest! They're on the take!"
A lot of the swimmers began to nod their heads-- this sounded really unfair. They started to worry if the pool-pissing committee could be trusted.
"We're being paid to do our jobs," said the pool committee. "That's not a conflict of interest. And we all signed up for this job because we care about having a clean pool."
But the swimmers didn't hear them, or maybe they didn't care because they were all very worried that something unfair might be happening. And they were right, something very unfair was happening, but it wasn't what they were thinking of.
"We should kick out these crooked pool experts from the pool committee," said the pool-pissers. "They don't know the reality of what it's like to be a swimmer, or how hard it is to hold your pee. Besides, us swimmers have the biggest stake who stays in the pool. It would be much more fair to put swimmers on the pool committee".
This sounded reasonable to everyone and soon enough the pool experts were sent away, and the pool committee was filled with swimmers. Someone noticed that everyone on the pool committee happened to be swimmers who had been caught many times pissing in the pool, but it was decided that this was okay because they knew the most about pool-pissing, so it made sense that they were on a committee about pool-pissing.
Almost immediately, the pool turned bright yellow and smelled rancid. Nobody was really sure why. Some swimmers kept saying something about strengthening the pool committee, but it seemed clear that pool committees didn't work, because we have a pool committee, and look how yellow the pool is.
Many people got very sick, and the mystery of why the pool turned yellow remains to this very day.
After Trump and his gang are finished gutting the EPA, there will be a much wider purge of scientists and intellectuals from all facets of the executive branch. The only rational response is an organized campaign to convince American citizens to remove Trump from office as soon as possible.
First, you have to convince them that science is a good thing. I have a friend, who literally believes that scientists are either evil people, who's primary goal is to gain power over others by outsmarting them, or, willfully ignorant tools of a predatory political / economic system. To him, big-S Scientists represent a threat to his way of life.
I reminded him that many of my own family members, people that he trusts, work in scientific endeavors; a marine biologist, for example, who has dedicated his life to the wellbeing of the various Pacific salmon species, for the sake of our food supply and forest health. He just lumped me into the second category, insisting that salmon are only managed for profit. That the funding for wild salmon research was being redirected towards improving the yield of fish farms, to the detriment of both the forests of western Canada, and to the detriment of the families and communities that live off of the wild salmon fisheries.
We don't talk much anymore. In order to convince people like this to support science, instead of attacking it, we must convince them of two things: that "real, working" scientists have a conscience, and that they have the power to follow their conscience without losing their status as real, working, scientists.
I see you are just a random developer guy, so I would recommend you talk to your friend more. Then, improve your skillset in the sciences, so that you may outsmart him/her and put whatever resources they possess to better use.
In my opinion, this would only reinforce his assumptions, and possibly even radicalize him to the point of violent rebellion. It would be a form of oppression, and we all know how that plays out over the long term.
Sun Tzu's philosophy of "taking whole", of carefully manipulating your opponent into aligning their goals with yours, is the best strategy that I can come up with. But, because of the communication barrier between us, I am unsure of how to apply it.
Convincing people this far gone down the rabbit hole of ideology is actually not politically effective or expedient. You're just as likely to convince an Objectivist that Maoism is the way to go.
The more effective strategy, which Trump employed, is to find people on the edge of indecision in opportune areas and tailor your message to their interests.
Yes, that is what I do. Like I said, now that him and I have made our positions clear, we no longer attempt to communicate with each other. I can only hope that he discovers the value of rational thought on his own, and I imagine that he is hoping that I will someday choose loyalty to my peers over cold logic.
> ... now that him and I have made our positions clear, we no longer attempt to communicate with each other. @devrandomguy
Well, that's disgusting. What you're intimating is that if you cannot convince someone that they're wrong, you want nothing to do with them. Horrid.
Instead of always being right, how about you try tact? Ask non-related questions, and show interest in his chosen hobbies or field of study/work.
The above is no reason to /disconnect/ from another human being. It's reason to get to know them better. Lead by example, not by force-feeding them your dogma.
> The above is no reason to /disconnect/ from another human being.
Sure it is; finding out another person is incapable of rational thought is a great reason to remove them from your life. You can't fix stupid and why would you want to be connected to someone whom you're only ever going to continually disagree with because they lack the ability of reason?
> It's reason to get to know them better. Lead by example, not by force-feeding them your dogma.
You can't fix those people or lead them anywhere, they're the ones stuck in dogma, not him.
Personally, I think people need to meet more scientists, and get to know us. But, for reasons that probably include both economics and culture, we're concentrated in specific places and social settings.
That's a good link, but midterms are 18 months away. What do you mean they 'happen first'? Do you mean they have to take place so impeachment proceedings become possible? I disagree with that contention.
The constitution is so vague on what constitutes and impeachable offense that it's pretty much whatever congress decides at the time.
There is enough of an argument that he's violating the emoluments clause that if congress wanted to they could almost definitely use that as grounds for impeachment.
I wholeheartedly agree that we need to work together to wield whatever power we have, using all of our creative resources.
We need a cultural change. This is good news in that we know the long tail of society's critical judgement is, well, very long. Cf ads for pointless junk. "All we need to do" is provide something more compelling than what the machine is providing. We need new art. We need new music. We need new mainstream values. And by "values" I mean what is esteemed, and what is reviled. We'll never solve this as long as teachers are not paid and regarded as professionals. (This is about "convincing people," right?) We need to "fail 90% of the time" 10 times a day at trying anything that could possibly work. We need an Uber for activism. We need to forge a world where it's imaginable that a hunter in rural south Louisiana can be a globally-minded environmentalist without risk to his social standing. We need to suck it up and dump Facebook, or at least turn it against itself. The anti-intellectuals have changed normal, and we need to change it again. The good news is, we know how fast normal can change. If we can indeed claim the mantle of rational truth, then we need to use that to our advantage in every thinkable way. Break your bad habits, and help your friends break theirs. Eat better. Sleep better. We'll never win this if we're leaving anything on the table. I'm sick of feeling powerless and letting this go on. I know I'm not alone. We need to figure out how to channel this feeling into useful, radical action, and fast. And by radical I mean, unexpected, lateral, risky, uncomfortable. Conservative people like me (and I'm very risk-averse) need to get over ourselves and think of our children. I have two. At this point, we are leaving them a weaker democracy, a meaner society, and a metastasizing corruption. We make systems, we have resources, let's effing Xerox PARC this thing. I'll write code, I'll pay for hosting, I'll canvass. What? What do we need to do? How can we get together and change this game?
Or you could set a somewhat more attainable bar, and support non government organizations to take over the good work the EPA did.
Every administration has pressured the EPA to get the "right" results - or equivalently, to do the right studies - for the administration's political agenda. Hopefully this spurs people who believe in science, like you and me, to protect future science from nutjob politicians.
I agree. Therefore, I am donating at least $25,000/yr for basic medical and scientific research that is essentially otherwise unfunded. It broke my heart seeing my PI waste every waking moment writing grant proposals, most of which I doubt were even read. I was crushed when my best friend was driven to suicide by the pressures of this hyper-competitive, ultra-PC environment where funding is scarce and new $100,000,000 building construction is outpaced only by the unchecked growth of administrative overhead.
If you want politics and PC agendas out of research and scholarship, you have to fund it yourself.
>The only rational response is an organized campaign to convince American citizens to remove Trump from office as soon as possible.
There was plenty of opportunity 6 months ago during the election, when Trump presented it as part of his platform. Are you surprised he is doing what he said he would do to the environmental agencies? What makes you think the people who voted for him are not happy with his policy implementation so far?
There may be some surprised faces come midterms...again. I'm not a Trump fan, but he's doing some interesting things re: the economy (free trade only works if everyone plays fair, so he's trying to bully people). If the economy takes off (which could happen despite his economic policies) it will "trump" any of the terrible things he does to these agencies. Remember, standard Republican playbook is "government is bad", so the base doesn't really mind seeing the EPA things gutted.
Remember, standard Republican playbook is "government is
bad", so the base doesn't really mind seeing the EPA things
gutted.
That's a critical point. If your narrative is that government is intrinsically broken, then you already have an excuse for when you fail at governing.
The GOP has turned into a permanent opposition party, incapable of governing. IMO, anybody who earnestly casts a vote should vote for a Democrat, or some candidate willing to caucus with Democrats. Even if you're a classic small government, low taxes kind of person. Even if you're libertarian. Even if you're a conservative culture warrior.
Americans who vote for the GOP are like Venezuelans who vote for the United Socialist Party (of Maduro and Chavez). Both parties have crafted a political narrative that effectively immunizes them from criticism, even as they sink the country into political chaos. Anything they do wrong can be blamed on the opposing side, and the base largely accepts it, or at least acquiesces. Things won't turn around until the leftists in Venezuela hold their noses and vote for the capitalist "elite". Likewise, things won't turn around in the U.S. until those on the right hold their noses and vote for the leftist "elite". And in both cases they need to do so for as long as it takes for the broken party to re-internalize notions of compromise and power sharing.
People need to put their ideology on the back burner for a few election cycles and focus on rebuilding civic society. If you agree with that then I think your choice in the next election is an easy one. Don't listen to the rhetoric or campaign promises: focus on the past 30 years of legislative outcomes and political strategy. One major American party more than any other has systematically worked toward destroying, both rhetorically and in actuality, efficient governance and the legitimacy of political compromise. To do so they've had to attack the fundamental legitimacy of science, but science is just one of many victims along their path to power.
After Trump and his gang are finished gutting the EPA, there will be a much wider purge of scientists and intellectuals from all facets of the executive branch
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? We couldn't care less about your politics, but you've routinely broken the rules here, often egregiously. That will eventually get your account banned if you don't fix it.
Why don't you try being constructive instead of nitpicking and reaching straight for the edge cases? Like, try offering more moderated but credible alternatives to achieve the implicit end of having governance be informed by science.
It isn't. Constructive is when you point out a problem and suggest a better alternative. If you just point out problems (especially by taking a narrow legalistic approach to casual conversation) then you're just being a pedant and undermining their substantive argument (in this case, that finding a way to derail the administration is a matter of urgent necessity). You are of course welcome to disagree with that substantive claim, but if so then it's better to do so openly than under cover of fault-finding, which is regarded by many as concern trolling.
Legislation is irrelevant. All that matters is Congress. "An impeachable offense" is anything Congress wants it to be. The Constitution is powerfully vague on this point, and in any case no court has jurisdiction to overturn a conviction.
All that matters is getting enough of Congress to think that something is impeachable. Of course, since you need a lot of Republicans to be part of it, and they're loyal to their own, it's a big hurdle. But it's a different hurdle.
Legislation and impeachment are unrelated. Trump has already committed multiple impeachable offenses. He hasn't divested from his businesses, he lies constantly to things that are easily proved lies, he's appointing family members white house positions, he's using his position as president to profit his own business by spending every weekend at a property he owns. Any one of these things qualifies as an impeachable offense.
It hasn't happened yet because "how" to do it requires republicans to vote to do it and they're not going to do that unless the public forces them to because it's their own party. The 25th amendment could happen, but only if Pence decides he's ready to dethrone Trump and can convince Trump's cabinet to get on board and together they can simply fire Trump.
Best reply so far. Might be misinterpreting, but I think that both you & the other person who replied to my above comment are taking the somewhat broad charge of high crimes and misdemeanors as allowing for just about anything to become grounds for impeachment, which just isn't the case.
Per Wikipedia, "Impeachment in the United States is an enumerated power of the legislature that allows formal charges to be brought against a civil officer of government for crimes alleged to have been committed. Most impeachments have concerned alleged crimes committed while in office, though there have been a few cases in which Congress has impeached and convicted officials partly for prior crimes." [1]
Wording in the Constitution, "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." [1]
"The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct peculiar to officials, such as perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming, and refusal to obey a lawful order. Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for nonofficials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office." [2] Fun fact, the English version of the charge, in use since 1386, included losing a ship by neglecting to moor it as one of the offenses.
All that goes to say that legislation (law) is related, and there's some fairly specific criteria any president has to meet to be successfully impeached. There is a degree of "prosecutorial discretion," but it comes in the context of misconduct in office, as I understand it. Two sitting presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act, and Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Of the things you list, I think the divesting/time at own property are probably the strongest case. Assuming they'd go after him with the Emoluments clause, it could still be challenging, however. Lots of opinions on how broadly applicable it is [3-5].
The family thing is something I'm not personally a fan of, but I doubt it would be impeachable [6]. To quote, "Interestingly, there may be a loophole around all of this. The law says that penalty for violating this law is that the person is "not entitled to pay."" Bit later, “While it’s true that the penalty for violation of the statute is just to withhold salary or other financial remuneration from the wrongfully appointed employee, there’s also the possibility that any action taken by such a wrongfully appointed employee could be subject to legal challenge and potentially even be voidable,...”
I don't personally take the 25th very seriously. Lying is a critique that's been made of a pretty high percentage of politicians in history, I'd assume (not to be dismissive, happy to talk about examples you think are particularly egregious or w/e). "I am not a crook", "If you like your plan you can keep it", and on and on forever.
At the end of the day I don't particularly enjoy impeachment talk from either side because it feels blindly reactionary, when that energy is probably better spent directly opposing bits of policy (which is obviously happening), and in this particular instance preparing for 2018, which will be a very important midterm year. Holding our elected officials to a high standard is important, and the microscope that Trump and his admin are under ultimately benefits everyone, but I think it's also important to be selective about where and when to fight.
The point stands, there's enough that congress could impeach him at any time; if democrats were in control of congress it would have happened already as there's plenty to nail him with already.
And you should take the 25th seriously, because it's the only way that he can be outed without even committing a crime of any sort. With the 25th he can be fired for merely being incompetent by his own cabinet and VP.
He is unarguably the most incompetent and dishonest president ever to hold office in modern history. His sheer ignorance is astounding, he is utterly unqualified to hold office.
> The point stands, there's enough that congress could impeach him at any time...
No, it doesn't, as I've just pointed out why all of your listed items have legitimate legal defenses that would probably win in court. I don't take the 25th seriously because it's basically fan fiction by people who hate Trump, and is completely impractical as an actual means of impeachment.
Probably and definitely are vastly different things; there's enough to attempt to bring charges, that's all that matters. And no, the 25th isn't fan fiction, it's a legitimate means to remove a president for incompetency via his own party wanting him out of the way. I don't care if you don't take the constitution seriously, the courts do. And the 25th isn't impeachment, it's a different thing entirely.
> ...there's enough to attempt to bring charges, that's all that matters.
Considering he'd still be in office, and any later attempt to impeach would likely fall on its face due to the embarrassing failure, no, charges aren't all that matters.
Attempting to remove Trump with the 25th Amendment is a ridiculous pipe dream that will never happen. Thinking that doesn't mean I somehow don't take the Constitution seriously, but thanks for the super reasonable interpretation of my comment.
You said that; the 25th is part of the Constitution which implies quite directly that you don't take the Constitution seriously, I didn't interpret anything, words have meaning and you said directly that you don't take part of the Constitution seriously.
> Considering he'd still be in office, and any later attempt to impeach would likely fall on its face due to the embarrassing failure, no, charges aren't all that matters.
Nixon resigned on the threat of being impeached, so please lets not pretend the threat alone isn't enough to cause action. Trump could very well resign to avoid the embarrassment of even having charges brought. His ego is quite easily injured. Just because you think they need a solid indefensible case to even attempt charges doesn't mean that's what everyone thinks and quite simply isn't how the world works. You live in a country where plea deals are taken every single day to avoid the risk of even going to court; quite often in cases where the DA knows they don't even have a good case.
The only thing preventing Trump from being impeached is that it's his party in control; that's it. There's plenty to impeach him with that will hold up in court and you're simply incorrect to say otherwise.
An application of an Amendment to the Constitution is different than the entire document. Context is important, but I see you're committed to ignoring that.
> The only thing preventing Trump from being impeached is that it's his party in control; that's it.
This is objectively, factually incorrect. Nixon's case was a slam dunk, 100% win. Nothing you've presented comes even close, try harder. Yes, it is theoretically possible to push for impeachment charges with a worse case. I'm arguing that would be very stupid to do, because it wouldn't work and it would destroy potential for stronger cases in the future.
You're ignoring history; Clinton was unsuccessfully impeached, to assert that no one will bring impeachment charges unless they're sure they can win is simply objectively factually incorrect.
We're not going to agree, not remotely, so just leave it at that.
Plenty of people seem to be fine with foreign governments interfering with US elections. What is OK with people is a mystery that only continues to deepen.
An open endorsement is not at all comparable to breaking the law, stealing information, turning it into misinformation, and leaking it anonymously. You also could say that Muhammad Ali and I both have thrown punches and that Linus Torvalds and I both have contributed to FOSS projects, but what would it mean?
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/grandbanks.htm
"The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) formulated a mathematical model of the cod fish population which they used to calculate the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). The U.S. government had a similar concept which was called optimal yield. ...
In 1989 the DFO advised that the total allowable catch (TAC) of codfish should be 125,000 tons. The Canadian Minister of Fisheries thought this figure was too low and arbitrarily increased it to 235,000 tons. In the course of DFO management the TAC was often set by negotiation between the DFO, the fishing industry and politicians. The DFO, using their defective model, was setting setting the TAC too high. The politicians responding to pressure from the industry increased the TAC from the already too high figures. The net result was that in the last years of codfishing on the Grand Banks the catch was about 60 percent of the population instead of 16 percent. The collapse was catastrophic.
In January of 1992 the DFO was advising that the TAC should be 185,000 tons. By June of 1992 the DFO was advising that the cod fishing should be stopped."
25 years later, the cod haven't recovered to healthy levels. In 1989 the industry representatives probably thought that getting politicians to discount the scientists' advice was a victory.