$170 Million, Seriously?

#128
#128
He's a megalomaniac. What do you expect?

He rode the Lincoln train route. He is using Lincoln's Bible to swear in. He considers himself as great as Lincoln.

EDIT: Don't want any of these fool liberals reporting me to the Feds.
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Isn't it ironic that he styles himself after a man that didn't like black people?
 
#135
#135
UT IE 95 said:
I won't touch your fuzzy math. But keep in mind, my point is he didn't lift a finger for the 49.2%.
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What's fuzzy about the fact that in both Clinton's elections a majority of the voters voted for someone else. You're the one who said
When's the last time a lot of people weren't disappointed in who they elected? 92?

Clearly we have to go back to an election when someone got a majority to answer your question and it wasn't 92.
 
#136
#136
volinasheville said:
What's fuzzy about the fact that in both Clinton's elections a majority of the voters voted for someone else. You're the one who said
When's the last time a lot of people weren't disappointed in who they elected? 92?

Clearly we have to go back to an election when someone got a majority to answer your question and it wasn't 92.
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It's fuzzy because there are an infinite number of people running for president considering the ticket and write-ins. Based on that alone, a majority of people voted for Clinton both times as well as Gore if you want to be technical.

Add to that the percentage of voters went up from 92 to 96, which is further endorsement of his support.
 
#137
#137
nickknx865 said:
I will say this. Anyone who cheats on their wife is a MLD, Major League Douchebag, unless there are underlying reasons. However, that does not warrant an impeachment hearing.
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Slick Willy Clinton isn't just a cheater, he is a serial rapist, however that was not the reason for the impeachment hearings but it ended up as a convenient sidetrack to divert attention from the real issues which were very serious and remain unresolved.

(Being married to Hitlary would be underlying reason enough, wouldn't you say?)

If you really want to know what it was all about, say so and I will inform you.
 
#138
#138
In 1988 GHWB got 53% of the vote, in 1984 Reagan got 58.8%, in 1980 he got over 50%, in 1976 Jimmy Carter got over 50%, in 1972 Richard Nixon got 60%. The math isn't fuzzy at all. There are also a finite number of people running for president and in neither 1992 nor 1996 did a majority of voters vote for Bill Clinton, he did, however, win a plurality and that was all that was required.

GWB got 50.7% in 2004 v 47.9% in 2000 so by your logic he got a further endorsement of support, it sure hasn't seemed that way though.
 
#139
#139
Vol Mania 21 said:
cheating on ur wife in the white house is an honorable thing? i form my own opinions thanks. to be honest my mom is a dem. and my dad is a repub. they both encouraged me and my brother to do our own research. i'm neither, i consider myself a conservative.
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I never said wife cheating is honorable - regardless of where it is done. But men and women cheat on their spouses everyday. That doesn't incapacitate them from being good leaders.

Out of curiosity, who did you vote for POTUS?
 
#140
#140
UT IE 95 said:
It's fuzzy because there are an infinite number of people running for president considering the ticket and write-ins. Based on that alone, a majority of people voted for Clinton both times as well as Gore if you want to be technical.

Add to that the percentage of voters went up from 92 to 96, which is further endorsement of his support.
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Clinton won his first election with a plurality, not a majority.

He was a great admirer of one of our worst presidents of the twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson, who also use a third party candidate (Teddy R.) to get in office.

Ross Perot, a life long democrat who had made billions getting government contracts ran as a third party candidate, positioning himself as a 'conservative' he pulled away a lot of votes from Bush I but when he passed Clinton in the polls, he announced that he wasn't a candidate anymore but when Bush went ahead of Clinton in the polls, Perot reentered the race and so Clinton won the office with a plurality of the vote.

If you think Clinton won the first race with a majority, you are mistaken.
 
#141
#141
volinasheville said:
In 1988 GHWB got 53% of the vote, in 1984 Reagan got 58.8%, in 1980 he got over 50%, in 1976 Jimmy Carter got over 50%, in 1972 Richard Nixon got 60%. The math isn't fuzzy at all. There are also a finite number of people running for president and in neither 1992 nor 1996 did a majority of voters vote for Bill Clinton, he did, however, win a plurality and that was all that was required.

GWB got 50.7% in 2004 v 47.9% in 2000 so by your logic he got a further endorsement of support, it sure hasn't seemed that way though.
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correct. plurality and not majority by definition.
 
#142
#142
UT IE 95 said:
correct. plurality and not majority by definition.
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That and the impeachment hearings weren't called because of Slick Willy's sex life.

LESSONS FROM CLINTON'S IMPEACHMENT AND TRIAL

(In the link you can read about the credentials of the author, David Mayer, he is obviously not some political hack nor is he a msm spinmeister.)

excerpts:

Several important lessons can be drawn from the impeachment of President Clinton by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice, and his subsequent trial in the Senate, which voted on February 12, 1999 to acquit him of both charges. In my view, the response of both houses of Congress as well as the response of the American people to the Clinton case illustrate certain fundamental truths about the state of American politics today.
These are the lessons, as I see them, not necessarily in order of importance:

1. The Rule of Law.

This was the essential issue in the Clinton case, notwithstanding the efforts of Clinton apologists to characterize it falsely as a case about "sex." The case concerned criminal conduct, the offenses of perjury and obstruction of justice alleged in the articles of impeachment.

More fundamentally, the case concerned one essential aspect of the centuries-old principle of the rule of law: the concept of equality under the law, the principle that no one--whether king or president--is above the law.

And it concerned essentially the acid test for that principle: whether the law applies equally to a king or president, no matter how popular or politically powerful he may be.

In his excellent summation of the case against Clinton before the House Judiciary Committee, the Committee's chief investigative counsel, David Schippers, put the fundamental issue quite succinctly when he observed that Congress and the nation were "at a crossroad from which two paths branch off."

One was the path of principle, maintaining the integrity of our Constitution and the judicial system by holding the president answerable to the rule of law and to his oath of office; the other was the path of political expediency, in which high public officials would be answerable only to "politics, polls, and propaganda."

The House of Representatives, by impeaching Clinton, passed the test; it ignored the polls and did its duty, under the law and the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the Senate failed the test; it acquitted Clinton because he remains popular as well as politically powerful, for reasons I discuss below.

Regardless of their view of Clinton, however, all Americans should be happy and proud that we live in a country governed "by laws and not men"--that we live in a country where the head of the national government can be put on trial for his violation of the laws, under procedures established by the framers of the Constitution two centuries ago.

As Paul Gigot concluded in an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal February 5, Clinton's impeachment and trial--regardless of its outcome--has been "a triumph of principle": "In an age of political cynicism, Henry Hyde and House Republicans fought for the rule of law against a liberal establishment and despite a complacent public and cowering Senate. Our politics needs more such ‘defeats.'"

2. The Political Parties.

There's a real difference between the two major political parties in America today, a difference revealed rather starkly by their opposite positions on the Clinton impeachment.

The Republican Party, by and large, remains faithful to the principles of equality under the law on which it was founded in the 1850s. Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech (his "Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois") in 1838 in support of the rule of law, from which Congressman Henry Hyde quoted in his speech on the House floor preceding the vote on impeachment.

"Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of our country; and never to tolerate their violation by others," Lincoln had said.

Bringing Lincoln's advice home to the present day and applying it to Clinton's case, Hyde noted in his remarks to the Senate that members of Congress have a duty not simply "to weigh our mail every day and then to vote accordingly"; that, rather, they are "elected to bring our judgment, our experience, and our consciences with us here."

He added, "There are issues of transcendent importance that you have to be willing to lose your office over," among them, "the concept of equal justice under law," the concept vindicated by the House vote to impeach Clinton and by the heroic efforts of the House managers to prosecute him in the Senate.


The Democratic Party today, in contrast, has betrayed the principles under which it was founded by Andrew Jackson in the late 1820s.

A key principle of the Jacksonian Democrats, too, was that of equality under law; Jackson's party was formed, in part, to oppose special "privileges" under the law (such as the exceptional powers Congress granted to the Bank of the United States).

Nothing could be further from the founding principles of the Democratic Party than permitting a man like Clinton to violate the law, and his own oath to protect the Constitution, which imposes upon him as president the duty to see that the laws are "faithfully" executed.

One of the most amazing aspects of Clinton's political survival has been the willingness of his party to prostitute itself--sacrificing honor, integrity, and principle--in his defense. His Democratic supporters have put themselves in the embarrassing position of supporting the continuance in office of a man who's far more of a "crook" than Richard Nixon ever was, a man who committed perjury before a federal grand jury and who conspired to obstruct justice in order to evade liability in Paula Jones' lawsuit (incidentally, a lawsuit he sought to escape by having his Justice Department argue an extraordinary--and Nixonian--claim of immunity due to "executive privilege").

Why are Democrats so ardent in their support of this man? My theory is that it stems from the fact that the Democratic party today is intellectually bankrupt: all the interesting ideas in American politics today come from conservatives and libertarians (mostly, of course, from libertarians), while Democrats offer only the politics of envy, fear, and guilt as they cling to the welfare state, to the failed paternalistic policies of the past. (As evidence, consider Clinton's recent State of the Union speech, which David Boaz of the Cato Institute aptly described as a speech "promising to get us all further hooked on government money and government programs, at only the cost of our freedom." Clinton clearly offered his laundry list of more welfare-state programs as a sop to the "core" of his party.)

To Democrats, Clinton's political survival has become symbolic of their party's survival. They see Clinton's impeachment, conviction, and removal from office as a major loss to the Republicans, carrying with it not only Clinton himself but everything Democrats hold dear, such as affirmative action, the minimum wage, abortion rights, and of course, Social Security.

Consider, for example, Alan Dershowitz's well-publicized rant on Geraldo's show ("A vote against impeachment is a vote against bigotry--it's a vote against fundamentalism--it's a vote against anti-environmentalism--it's a vote against the radical right--it's a vote against the pro-life movement.")

Ideologically speaking, Democrats today are on the ropes. Thus, they've rallied to the credo that David Limbaugh (Rush's brother) has correctly identified as one of the ultimate reasons for Clinton's acquittal in the Senate: "Virtually no misconduct, regardless how odious, will justify impeachment and removal if it might appear to give Republicans a political victory."

Thanks to Clinton, the Republican Party today is the party of principle, the party devoted to the evenhanded and impartial application of the laws; the Democratic Party, the party of political expediency, of "politics, polls, and propaganda," for whom the laws have become a shield for the popular or politically powerful.

3. The House of Representatives.

One house of Congress--the House alone--took seriously its responsibilities under the Constitution, in spite of the efforts of the left-wing extremist Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the Democratic leadership in the House to "stonewall" in Clinton's defense.

Pursuant to its constitutional authority, the House impeached Clinton for offenses which clearly constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors."

In particular, the thirteen House managers who prosecuted the Clinton case in the Senate are truly, in the words of William Bennett, "authentic profiles in political courage," men who were willing to risk their careers to stand up for principle and the rule of law.

Equally courageous and admirable for their integrity were the five Democrats in the House who broke party ranks to vote in favor of the articles of impeachment, defying their party and even public opinion to do their duty under the Constitution.
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#143
#143
4. The Senate.

The other house of Congress, unfortunately, failed in its constitutional duty. The Senate, under the Constitution, has the "sole power to try" impeachments, which obliges the Senate to conduct a real, not a sham, trial--one in which the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court "shall preside," as the Constitution requires in the trial of a president.

Clinton's trial, however, was a sham--a kind of "political show trial" in reverse, with the defendant's acquittal, rather than his conviction, pre-ordained.

William Rehnquist, as author of the book Grand Inquests (a study of the impeachment and trials of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson in the 19th century), is arguably the Chief Justice best qualified to preside over an impeachment trial in the Senate; but he was reduced to a mere figurehead under the Senate rules.

No live witnesses were called (in contrast, forty witnesses testified at the trial of Andrew Johnson in 1868, a trial in which no key facts were in dispute); and the House managers, who bore the burden of proof, were denied the opportunity to present a formal rebuttal.

The 55 Senators who voted "Not Guilty" on the first article of impeachment (perjury) and the 50 Senators who voted "Not Guilty" on the second (obstruction of justice) succumbed to the strategy of Clinton's defenders, who blatantly called for the Senators to commit "jury nullification," to acquit Clinton because they argued that perjury and obstruction of justice did not "rise to the level" of impeachable offenses, warranting his removal from office.

That argument is not only ludicrous (both offenses clearly are impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors") but also unconstitutional, as it flies in the face of the Constitution's clear language giving the House of Representatives the "sole" power to impeach (which carries with it the exclusive power to determine what constitutes impeachable offenses).

Senate Democrats voted to acquit a man who their own draft censure resolution asserted has "brought shame and dishonor to himself and to the Office of the President" and created "disrespect for the laws of the land."

In a rare burst of honesty, one Democrat--Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia--in a well-publicized interview admitted that Clinton's offenses were indeed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting his removal--"no doubt about it," he said--but that he'd vote "Not Guilty" nevertheless because of Clinton's high poll numbers.

The result was aptly characterized by the Wall Street Journal in its February 11 editorial as "poll-driven jury nullification, with Senate Democrats in the role of the O.J. jury."

As for the five Republican Senators who voted "Not Guilty" on both articles of impeachment, it's interesting to note that three of them are so-called "moderates" from New England--Chafee of Rhode Island, Jeffords of Vermont, and Snowe of Maine--all up for re-election next year in states that Clinton carried in 1996.

That fact underscores the fundamental fact explaining the Senate's failure to convict Clinton despite the overwhelming evidence against him.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the Senate isn't the wiser or more deliberate body; it's actually more amenable to public opinion--more influenced by opinion polls to do what's popular rather than what's right--than is the House.

The Senate today is far different from the body described in Federalist No. 65 by Alexander Hamilton, who argued that the Senate was a "well-constituted court" for the trial of impeachments because it was "sufficiently dignified" and "sufficiently independent" of public opinion, a tribunal "likely to feel confident enough in its own situation to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an individual accused and the representatives of the people, his accusers."

Thanks to the 17th Amendment, the Senate described by Hamilton has ceased to exist in the 20th century.

5. The Seventeenth Amendment.

Why is the Senate today so amenable to public opinion?

The obvious reason is the 17th Amendment, which when ratified in 1913 changed the mode of selecting Senators from the framers' original design (by vote of the state legislatures) to popular election. In addition to destroying the "impartiality" of the Senate that Hamilton described in Federalist No. 65--its independence from popular opinion--which therefore has made the Senate wholly unsuited for the trial of demagogues like Clinton, the 17th Amendment also destroyed one of the most vital checks devised by the Constitution's framers for the preservation of federalism.

As a result, the states have been reduced to the status of yet another "interest group" which must form lobbying groups (such as the National Governors' Conference or the Conference of State Legislators) to try to influence Congress. One lesson to draw from Clinton's acquittal, then, is that the United States today suffers from an excess of democracy: the 17th Amendment ought to be repealed, and the original design of the Constitution should be restored.
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Read on.


6. The Independent Counsel Law.
(This is important in the current Blgojevic investigation.)

7. The Presidency.

8. Clinton.
"a slimeball on a sea of pus."

Clinton's "legacy," such as it is, is that he has headed the most corrupt and scandal-ridden presidential administration in American history, one in which abuses of power and criminal acts have been performed not only by members of the Cabinet and other presidential subordinates but also by the president himself.

9. Academics and the Media.

10. The American People.
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#144
#144
KB5252 said:
I think the public was more disappointed in the women he chose as much as anything.
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Seriously... JFK goes for Marilyn Monroe and Clinton goes after Monica??

Things have really changed in this country.

Even FDR's gf was prettier than Monica.
 
#145
#145
JZVOL said:
Seriously... JFK goes for Marilyn Monroe and Clinton goes after Monica??

Things have really changed in this country.

Even FDR's gf was prettier than Monica.
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Well, Monica is what everyone wants to talk about but;
(quoting David Mayer)


In his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Starr indicated the reasons why his referral to Congress focused solely on the Lewinsky matter. It wasn't--as Clinton apologists gleefully assert--because he "found nothing" on the other matters; rather, it was because he has too narrow a view of what constitutes impeachable offenses.

Laws indeed were broken in these other matters: in Whitewater, a fraudulent savings-and-loan was created and taxpayers were looted for some $40 million; in Travelgate, the powers of the FBI and Justice Department were used to bring false charges against White House employees to provide political cover for Clinton friends; and in Filegate, nearly 1000 raw FBI files were illegally kept in the White House for political purposes.

The problem was that Starr's office found no evidence linking Clinton personally and directly to these violations of law (or, in the case of Whitewater, the link depended on the dubious testimony of Clinton's fellow conspirators).

Had Starr followed the standards used by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 in its articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon--which charged Nixon with responsibility for acts committed by his subordinates--his referral to Congress could have charged Clinton with literally dozens of additional impeachable offenses.

Again, one can only speculate how history would have turned out differently if Starr were really as rabid a prosecutor as his enemies assert.

The Clinton case has exposed, if any additional evidence is needed, the strong left-wing biases of both the academic world and the news media. The nation's colleges and universities have been called the "last bastions" of socialism in America, and that's especially true of the nation's law schools. Professor James Lindgren of Northwestern has estimated that 80% of American law professors are Democrats (with 13% Republicans and 6% independents), which suggests that the real problem with "diversity" in law schools has much less to do with skin color or sex but rather ideology.

As for media bias, one obvious difference I've noticed between coverage of the scandal-ridden Republican president, Nixon, and his current Democratic counterpart is that, in 1973-74, the president was seldom dignified by the title of his office--he was not "President Nixon," but rather "Mr. Nixon," every night on the 6:30 news; while Clinton has been consistently called "President Clinton."

And to most of the media--even such supposed anti-Clinton outlets as the Columbus Dispatch and our local TV news stations--the crisis of the past year has been identified not as Clinton, but rather "The White House" or "The President," who's "under fire." That's simply wrong and misleading: it wasn't "The President" who was impeached and tried, but rather the man who temporarily holds the office of president.

As noted above, to anyone who cares about the integrity of the office--to anyone who considers Clinton's actions objectively, free of partisan Democratic biases--Clinton lost his right to use the title long ago.

Clinton's popularity, in my view, can be explained largely by what I'd characterize as the well-intentioned ignorance of the American people.

Clinton's defenders have been fairly successful in portraying the impeachment as a "political witchhunt," as "sexual McCarthyism," as if the effort to remove Clinton were based on adultery alone, and not on truly criminal acts.

Most Americans who naively support Clinton--including, ironically, many lawyers and law professors, who should know better--simply do not understand the rule of law issue, seeing instead the case against Clinton as one grounded in "right-wing" Puritanism.

Far more dangerous than the ignorance of many Americans is their political apathy. As noted above, the irony of Clinton's presidency is that it's so scandal-ridden that many Americans simply have become immune to news of further abuses of power
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During the time Starr was investigating the Clintons, Starr was working for a company wholly owned by China’s Peoples Liberation Army and notorious arms dealer Wang Jun. Wang Jun was Starr's private client.
 
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