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Comment by beloch | Hacker News Reader

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 "alternative facts". Why tell such obvious falsehoods? We're all laughing (nervously) now because the lies seem to be harmless, self-serving vain ones. However, is Trump just a little insane, or is he actually finding out who is willing to say "We've always been at war with Eurasia" and who isn't?

This is probably a good time for people to be reading 1984.

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I really wish people and the media stop over emphasizing about every gaffe and focus on real news stories. For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere, from TV news channels to news parody shows to talk shows to social media etc. But, at the same time it seems like there is so much more important news that one would think deserves more attention like the executive orders, withdrawal from TPP, revival of oil pipelines, changes in healthcare spending etc. I even just saw news articles headlining on the guardian now about agencies being banned from sharing information on social media or to reporters and few journalists getting felony charges after covering the protests around the inauguration.

It almost makes me wonder if it would be a good idea if there was a website that covered the latest gaffe and the corresponding actual news worthy story that was lost out on optimal coverage because of it.

Edit: I couldn't find this before but here is an interesting article I read yesterday [0]. It's an opinion piece by Alexey Kovalev. - "I’ve reported on Putin – here are my tips for journalists dealing with Trump".

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/23/report...

This is what people have been noticing during and since the election, you can't pin down Trump on anything because he is a controversy machine. He says something ridiculous and the media gives it attention and even begins to get some momentum on the story, but a week later, sometimes even days later, he does or says something that's even more ridiculous and now most people are concentrating on that new thing. Its hard to say if this is intentional or if his bombastic style is just something we're not used to in politics, but it seems to be effective in that the media is always chasing after the latest controversy.

For me it looked like the media had really nailed him on not releasing his tax forms, even going so far as to uncover damning ones from the 90s, but then the inside edition tapes came out and everyone focused on that instead.

Berlusconi used to do the same. They know the media cycle and play it to their advantage. It's a sort of "fire and motion" strategy where you keep enemies talking about the previous position while you're already gaining a new one. Anyone can play it, but your "suppressing fire" must be strong enough to distract effectively; that sort of bombastic bravado doesn't come naturally to "reality-based" personalities on the left who are constantly walking a tight rope between very different positions in their base.

I think your description is definitely spot on and Trump has also been playing this game — in one form or another — since the 80s.

The similarities between Trump and Berlusconi are terrifying - and Berlusconi was in power for what, 10 years?

Trump has tapped in to something and I fear it's going to work quite well.

More like 20, considering the years in which he passively controlled part of the political narrative.

More like 20 years, but Italy does not have the hard culture of "8 years and GTFO" that is so ingrained in the US. There are no term limits for Prime Ministers, election losers are not required to step down from party-leadership roles, and even the unofficial limits for President (which is mostly a ceremonial role) reelections, have recently been broken.

It is one of the great achievements of US democracy, although one has to question how much meaningful change can realistically be achieved in a massive country with little more than 7 years available (because re-election campaigns and lame-duck status in practice will consume a full year). For all the drama that they generate and the feeling of electoral power, strict term limits are a very conservative measure. On the other hand, you're guaranteed Trump will be gone by January 2025 at worst.

Makes me think of a certain tech personality that is no longer with us...

I think that Joel Spolsky popularized "fire and motion" (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/) but the Hebrew original more accurately translates to "fire in motion" or, more awkwardly "firing while moving"

The Youtube channel Charisma on Command has interesting videos explaining Trump's success.

https://www.youtube.com/user/charismaoncommand/search?query=...

It's completely intentional, and very effective. Mix big lies and small lies with truths and half truths. Lie about friends and enemies, and that's what the media will focus on. So much misinformation that nobody knows was what is truth.

This is why he got that far in the primaries and then eventually got elected. Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true which muddied the water to a point where people stopped listening when serious things came up.

All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story.

We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. For example the airport shooting. So much false information is reported just because they have to be the first/exclusive.

> Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true

Just about everything was true.

> Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true

What wasn't true? Honestly curious as I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him.

> All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story.

Certainly, but that doesn't discount the validity of the reported incidents.

> We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. For example the airport shooting. So much false information is reported just because they have to be the first/exclusive.

Yes and no. I think a lot of that comes from reporting on a developing real-time situation where information is constantly revised. That's rarely the case with speeches or political coverage of this sort.

His obsessive marijuana habit as a youth; his decades-long black nationalist religious associations; his gangster affiliations; his lengthy professional work with convicted terrorists; his family's foreign intelligence connections, etc, etc.

I suspect all of these things were widely reported, yet largely spurious accusations.

This sounds like you just took the largest aspersions of the last 5 presidents and threw them together. That's intentional, right?

  I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him.

The only one I can think of is the MLK story. In 2009, Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill (lent by the UK to George W Bush after the 9/11 attack) from the Oval Office, returning it to the British Embassy in Washington [1].

Obama had a bust of Martin Luther King on display in the Oval Office.

After Trump's inauguration, a WH press-pool reporter noticed and reported on Twitter that the Churchill bust was back in the office (it was), then added that the MLK bust had been removed (it hadn't, it was simply obscured by a door).

It was never really a story - just a handful of tweets - and the reporter tweeted the correction within an hour [2]. Trump has used this as an example of "media dishonesty:".

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/462314...

[2] http://www.snopes.com/mlk-bust-oval-office/

There's a meme that Trump is anti-gay or even dangerous for LGBTQ people when he's pretty liberal-to-ambivalent about LGBTQ issues. At least given his statements and positions so far.

Peter Thiel got the same treatment despite being gay and clarifying his position, which wasn't at all unreasonable.

While his personal opinions don't seem to be broadcast regularly I don't think this serves as a great example given his choice of VP.

Only if you don't count virtually everyone he has picked in his administration, starting with his VP.

Here's a more in-depth record of some things that have been inaccurately and widely reported[0], and interestingly enough, from a right-wing magazine that refused to support Trump's nomination.

[0] http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/23/mainstream-media-still-b...

That's a great reference. And very accurately describes the state of the media (broadly speaking).

In one respect, the gaffe is insignificant to current events. In another, it's vastly more important, because while small it erodes the underpinnings of the system by which we actually disseminate information.

It's like having to choose between being upset about the person that mugged you for $500 on the street, or the bank that surreptitiously added 0.05% APR or the loan you just got for your house. One feels more important in the moment, but the other has much farther reaching implications, not just to your pocketbook, but as to whether you can trust anything about that institution going forward.

If this is the beginning of a new trend for the Whitehouse where nothing presented can be trusted, and it continues through future presidencies, I can definitely tell you which I think will be more important in 20 years.

The cynical among us have been saying that nothing presented by the White house (and any other government institutions) can be trusted at face value for years. I guess now is the time where everyone becomes a cynic.

But is that such a bad thing?

They say access journalism is dead, but access journalism is just repeating stuff said by people with power. Making them accountable is a good thing.

Trump may have unintentionally restored investigative journalism...

>> Trump may have unintentionally restored investigative journalism...

This can happen if they can find a way to monetize text that costs 100x more to produce and has 100x less engagement than clickbait.

If there's 10000 times less competition in investigative journalism than in clickbaiting those numbers add up to being profitable

Maybe people will actually pay for something that isn't trash.

(Or, maybe not, who knows.)

> I guess now is the time where everyone becomes a cynic.

For a transition of normative systems it seems that it is required that at some point people "don't believe in anything" anymore.

> But is that such a bad thing?

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Your point may be valid, but I think the current (up until very recently, anyway) situation is just as bad.

A new trend?

You think Trump is inventing Whitehouse lies, right before our eyes? Politicians have a looooong history of lying, big lies that get peole killed ("Iraq WMDs are a slam dunk!") . Where have you been?

Those lies were not immediately able to be proven wrong. This is different because not only did they lie about something that could be checked but the continued to lie even after being called out on it. Further the president repeated the lie and continues to repeat the lie. O bet both George W. Bush and Tony Blair would agree that there were no WMDs in Iraq if you asked them today, if you also Trump, today or in 10 years, about the turnout for his inauguration he would repeat the same lies.

Those lies were not immediately able to be proven wrong.

But there was serious doubt even if it did not constitute a clear proof. And doesn't this actually make matters worse? An obvious lie about something without much if any consequences versus a somewhat convincing lie about something that affected the lives of millions? To me the former one seems more like a stupid thing to do, the later one seems ruthless, evil or what ever you want to call it.

> O bet both George W. Bush and Tony Blair would agree that there were no WMDs in Iraq if you asked them today, if you also Trump, today or in 10 years, about the turnout for his inauguration he would repeat the same lies.

You can use the Obama birth certificate turn around as counter point and that was definitely less than 10 years.

Right. That and the birth certificate thing wasn't a "lie", it was ignorant, dog whistle politicking.

Telling people you are going to strengthen whistle blowing laws to empower workers, then prosecuting a record number of people under the Espionage act is closer to a damaging lie.

No, I don't think you can since it's entirely possible Trump will simply declare he never backtracked and that he still has doubts or evidence Obama wasn't legitimate. He's repeatedly denied saying things _he is on video or twitter_ saying. He can simply make up any facts whenever he wants because no matter the evidence to the contrary, what he says is true simply because he's said it.

> No, I don't think you can since it's entirely possible Trump will simply declare he never backtracked and that he still has doubts or evidence Obama wasn't legitimate. He's repeatedly denied saying things _he is on video or twitter_ saying. He can simply make up any facts whenever he wants because no matter the evidence to the contrary, what he says is true simply because he's said it.

President Obama is on video, audio, Twitter, and just about every other form of media saying things that subsequently were proven false. A brazen example of that is the infamous line, "If you like your plan you can keep your plan." which he knew to be false (and Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of much of the ACA had apparently laughed at as impossible).

I don't mean to single out President Obama as it's really all Presidents, or more generally politicians, that do it. It's not unique to Trump, didn't start with him, nor will it end with him.

All politicians lie, what's seemingly different about Trump is the scope and frequency of those lies, and his refusal to admit he even said them given evidence.

Just the refusal to admit them would be bad enough, but since he's gotten away with it just about every time, it shows a worrying trend of there being no accountability. Combined with the frequency, the problem is just multiplied.

I find a politician that can't seem to be held accountable for his actions and that trades on this for more political power very troubling.

So it's more acceptable for politicians to admit to their lies at a later date, that to stick to them? Hmm...

Is that what I said?

> if you also Trump, today or in 10 years, about the turnout for his inauguration he would repeat the same lies.

I bet good money he'll be saying billions of people watched his inauguration by then.

Why Trump's Staff Is Lying (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-23/why-trump...)

I choose my words carefully. I even emphasized specific words to attempt to make my point more clear. Then you ignored all that.

I wasn't trying to imply that the White House could be trusted in all things, but that there was some level of truth you could probably assume, especially about things that were already known or weren't worth lying about. What we have now is an example of disputing obvious facts, and over something inconsequential, as issues the White House responds to about go. This is clearly different than what we could expect before, even if we couldn't always expect for an entirely honest answer before.

That actually sounds like a great idea! Or even better, two columns on the same site - on first one latest gaffe, on the second one proper news. You can't avoid having "popular" stories on the page, but if they compete with themselves and not with the important news, they can't push them to oblivion.

Yes, and that is exactly the way Trumpet wants it, bait and switch.

the horrifying stuff were his campaign promises, yeah? though, in fairness his campaign was also all about alternative facts.

For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere

That's exactly why they said it. Notice how it distracted everyone from talking about the marches? Trump knows how to change the media narrative.

The part I hate is that the media and everyone is eating up all these new sound bytes for things like "alternative facts" instead of just calling them what they are, lies, and moving on to more important things like focusing on the actual issues. To give it a fun name like that plays into the spectacle and is exactly what he wants.

Because "The standards you walk past, are the standards that you implicity accept/allow"...

Most of the worst dictators and tyrants in the world didn't start off at 'maximum mayhem'. They tend to start with lies, misinformation, subterfuge and misrepresentations, then they move up to things like false accusations, inquisitions, persecution and the like.

Every step just makes it easier to move closer to full blown deportations, incarcerations & executions etc.

A bit harder to stop them at the last step, when you have allowed the previous 99 steps to go unquestioned.

A few good governments too. Wilson, usually rated in the top 10 presidents, ran with "America First" and "He Kept Us Out" for his re-election. We joined the war only a month after his re-inauguration. In hindsight, that was likely for the best but it seems a misrepresentation.

> In hindsight, that was likely for the best but it seems a misrepresentation.

Was it? American involvement created a decisive winner in what would have been a stalemate. Imagine if Versailles hadn't been so one sided?

WW1 was a stalemate, it was only really ended by strike action and mutiny within Germany. Hence dolchstosslegende.

How was that for the best? American involvement in WWI led to the Treaty of Versailles which was the direct cause of Hitler and WWII. All of that could have been avoided if America had just stayed uninvolved.

> It almost makes me wonder if it would be a good idea if there was a website that covered the latest gaffe and the corresponding actual news worthy story that was lost out on optimal coverage because of it.

There are publications that tend towards policy focus, and there are even more publications that are half policy-wonk half-commentariat but at least not trapped in the gossip column soundbite minutia.

If you look at circulation numbers, though... The Economist is about 1.5 million in the US. Time seems less news-digest these days and more commentary, but it's got double the circulation.

But both of those are, of course, below Sports Illustrated, People Magazine, Better Homes And Gardens, and Costco Connection in terms of regular readers.

One could surmise that the real issue is that there isn't a large audience that actually wants what you (and I) think we should be paying attention to. Most of us are used to having a set-it-and-forget-it approach to how government works, and don't really believe we should have to pay attention.

And on top of that, some large portion of the country resents the very idea that expertise, education, and focused thinking should represent any authority worth respecting more than their opinions. Why would anyone in that demographic care to read news and policy details at all? The only important thing is knowing that people who are in their ostensible tribe are in charge.

This isn't just to bag on people -- everybody has limited attention and if possible it's nice to not to have to give it to things unless you have to. It's to underscore the problem: in a market economy, publications that stay afloat are going to try to provide what people pay attention to and/or pay for. And that may not be the same thing as what "deserves" attention.

There are two forces at work, Trump and the Republican party. The gaffes are all Trump, the sweeping executive orders mostly the party.

He never had much of a platform beyond "build the wall!", and is happy to roll with Republican dogma. The Republicans proved during the last administration that they're willing to bend the rules to breaking point to damage their opponents; they've decided they're willing to humor Trump so they can get him to do what they want.

If the president were a more established Republican like Ted Cruz, we'd still be seeing huge and destructive changes to health care, climate change policy, etc.

It's hard to know which is the bigger threat. Trump is a new style of threat in the way he arrogantly ignores the old polite conventions and even the law itself, lining his pockets in plain sight. Letting that pass unchallenged could result in a permanent autocracy, one "strong man" after another.

The Republican party is "just" pushing an extreme agenda, similar to what they did under Bush, which is more of a known threat (or not a threat at all if you agree with their platform). But they're also neglecting their duty to push back against Trump's abuse of the system. They should be fighting tooth and nail to force him to sell his businesses.

> I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.

Impeachment requires a crime.

Lying isn't usually a crime, and as best I can tell hasn't been one any of the times Trump has done it (.. yet?). It also hasn't been a crime any of the times Obama has done it.

Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal.

When we come up with something criminal (and especially if it rises to the level of "high crimes") we can hope Trump gets impeached. As yet, I don't see it, and certainly not in your examples.

Failure to give up his business interests is an impeachable offense. He literally does not meet the requirements set forth in the Constitution.

He isn't being impeached because his party controls both houses.

> 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 violation.

> He isn't being impeached because his party controls both houses.

There is also that. Although I think a not insignificant fraction of that party would much prefer Pence, and if they were going to oust him doing it as far from the next election as possible would seem preferable.

Does it say "gifts" or "payments"?

"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.

U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8. states:

"No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." [1]

Add to that:

- The lack of case law or Congressional guidance;

- George Washington receiving and accepting "two gifts from officials of the French government" without asking for nor receiving any Congressional consent [2]; and

- Almost every Founding Father from the South operating their plantations while in public service.

I think it's safe to say (at least as a non-Constitutional scholar) that this clause is far from definitive on anything. Please note that I am not defending Trump's behavior nor saying this clause cannot be interpreted to apply. I'm saying we cannot comment on this with any reasonable degree of certainty.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/11/17/would-trumps...

It's certainly untested. One scenario that might be trouble for Trump would be, for example, an easement, tax credit, extraordinary incentive, or other streamlining of a Trump project in a foreign state.

What nation, looking to create a favorable deal of some kind with the US, would allow a Trump project to languish in frustrating red tape -- or allow a Trump project to lose out to a competitor in cases where the government is the decision-maker? What would the informal Trumpian chatter be like around that international negotiating table?

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.)

"Whatsoever" is the stronger form, but either is correct.

"Emolument" is exactly the word that's supposed to cover that. Unless he's operating not for profit.

Whether it does or not is ultimately something that'll have to be decided in court.

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.

What landslide

he barely slid in a electoral vote disaster, despite the electoral vote being meant to be used against men like Trump

227 vs 306 is not close. I said near-landslide because a landlside (I think) is usually something >=370. No worries, it might still happen.

I'll also point out that Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes (2%), which makes it really stretch the imagination to even call it a "near-landslide".

Sure, except popular vote does not matter, nor should it. If it did, CA and NY's echo boxes would run the US, and there would be no US in short order. Don't forged why the Unites States exists; taxation without representation.

He could have lost FL _or_ OH and still won.

I don't understand this idea that just because somebody lives in a particular state their vote should count less than somebody in a different state. That seems evidently unfair.

The fairness is intended at the state level. How your state decides on electors is their law. It doesn't even have to poll each individual, historically state legislatures even did it themselves.

It exists because some states are very sparsely populated while others actively suppress the votes of a large portion of its population, first by slavery, then by other methods. It's fair to increase representation of underpopulated states because their interests would be underrepresented if not (and it's a good thing because it allows large areas to be dedicated to nature).

Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in place that actively punishes voter suppression. Voters per inhabitant ratio and election turnout could be used to penalize states with low engagement to ensure voter suppression does not occur.

I still don't get it. Why would sparsely populated states' interests be underrepresented if every individual vote were equal? That only makes sense if you think land area or population density is a primary unit of relevance regarding political influence, which to me seems completely arbitrary.

One sq mile, one vote!

People who live in underpopulated states have a valid argument in that, if their votes are not weighted to compensate for the low density, their voices may end up not being heard. This weighting creates a minimum limit for representation.

It, however, removes the penalty for suppressing votes because the remaining votes continue to have a fixed weight.

Popular vote doesn't matter for who becomes president, but neither does the presence or lack of a "landslide." But both can certainly be relevant when analyzing an election.

Also, the "CA and NY would run the US" is an extremely weak argument. It's logically equivalent to saying that Texas and Oklahoma are currently running the US, since their electoral votes are sufficient to swap the winner from Trump to Clinton.

>Also, the "CA and NY would run the US" is an extremely weak argument. It's logically equivalent to saying that Texas and Oklahoma are currently running the US, since their electoral votes are sufficient to swap the winner from Trump to Clinton.

Actually, I don't think it's equivalent, since basically no Congressional majority or Presidency has been won without the South for the past 50 or so years. You can actually estimate which party will be dominant in an American party system by looking at who consistently holds the South, irrespective of how other regions vote.

So California and the Northeast can consistently vote one way, and it basically just doesn't matter if the South happens to disagree.

I don't understand. It sounds like you're saying that the South "runs the country" in the wording of the original claim.

That is what I'm saying. The South runs the country, and the rest of us are forced along for the ride, whether we want it or not.

We all know that the Electoral College and these complaints about California and New York are disingenuous. They're devices to make sure the South controls the country.

So, did Trump win by a lot when you take out California and New York? Yes. He also lost by a lot when you take out the South. Population is the only fair metric for weighting regions against each other. The South is not entitled to control everyone else's lives, especially since they're the damned region that demanded extra Representatives for their slaves.

Funny that you think CA and NY are so entitled. I don't have a map handy, are MI and PA in the south too now?

The problem with calling it close based on the popular vote, is that you have to retroactively change the rules. The MSM made the game of winning the popular vote much different than winning the electoral college, by being so biased against Trump, and he campaigned hard in the swing states. Only those people really heard what he had to say. The rest of the US was hearing information filtered by the MSM.

Since state electoral votes are mostly awarded all-or-nothing, the electoral count can't tell you anything about how close an election was or wasn't.

Looking at a number of swing states with significant numbers of electoral votes can, though. The margin of victory was just over 1% in Florida (29EV). It's less 1% in Pennsylvania (20EV) and Wisconsin (10EV). Michigan (16EV) was less than .25%.

That's 75EV won by that thin a margin. Half that could have swung the election.

(And yes, you can play this game the other way, but the only state Clinton won that was that closely contested was... New Hampshire, 4EV)

The election was quite close. Trump's electoral victory was very thin.

That's the state of affairs to be expected when the EC winner loses the popular vote.

> he barely slid in a electoral vote disaster, despite the electoral vote being meant to be used against men like Trump

Did you not pay attention to the election at all?

About 3 million votes LESS, winning only because of which particular states he got majority in?

How's that a landslide victory?

I think they are just taking their sweet time with it because he is well enough aligned with their agenda. The second a big enough scandal comes up, away we go.

I think you have it backwards. The second he is no longer aligned with their agenda, they will clutch their pearls, blow up one of the existing scandals, and away we go.

That too, but I think a big enough scandal will be used regardless of alignment. Pence isn't unpredictable.

Trump won the Presidency, and his impeachment by Paul Ryan et al would tear the Republican Party asunder. Impeachment has to be an option of last resort for them. There's absolutely no guarantee that they'll be able to maintain their majority in the House after that. There's indirect evidence of this in how Republicans treated Trump in the run-up to November.

There's also no indication that they'd be able to get enough Democratic support for it.

I would hope so, because frankly Trump is such a loon that I would rather Mike "electrocute the gay away" Pence, but...

Sigh.

> Failure to give up his business interests is an impeachable offense...[as] set forth in the Constitution

U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8. states:

U.S. Const. art. II, § 1 cl., 7 states:

"The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." [2]

There isn't a lot of case law surrounding these clauses [3] nor guidance from Congress. It could be an impeachable offense, though frankly that's true of anything. Impeachment is a political, not judicial, process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-is-the-emolumen...

"Failure to give up his business interests is an impeachable offense."

Nope. They've had lawyers on this for a while, and I think he's ok on it.

FYI - do you know how many Republican secretly wished that Trump were 'gone'? Probably most of them. He's a) a loose cannon and b) not actually a conservative on many issues.

I think he's legally in the clear on his ownership issues.

They wish he were gone for sure, but they're also too scared of his voters. If they impeach him? They're going to be facing a new pro-Trump Tea Party-like wave in the primaries, and many of them will get kicked out pronto. They need a really, really good excuse to kick him out... to the point where they could say "we really didn't want to, but we had no choice" to their constituents.

The Republicans don't want him gone at all. With him in the office, they can aggressively push the conservative agenda and have him be the fall guy if things don't work out.

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 receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress."

I suspect we will hear a lot more about the "consent of Congress" in the next 6 months if this has any merit.

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 convince Congress to re-apply the rules, but that's a different discussion.

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.

Congress hasn't given blanket permission. The law says that it's illegal for certain government officials to accept gifts etc. It doesn't say anything about whether it's legal for the president to accept them; it merely says that the president is not within the scope of that particular law.

You don't have to have a law for something to be legal. All actions are legal unless stated otherwise.

Yes, and the constitution states otherwise.

In the absence of any law, yes, it would be legal.

Constitution has a clause that prohibits it for any public official including the president (assuming for the moment that it is the meaning of the emoluments clause), unless Congress specifically authorizes it.

Congress additionally passed a law - 18 U.S. Code § 202 and § 208 - that regulates conflicts of interest among government officials. Its domain intersects with the Emoluments Clause somewhat, but it is not an implementation of the Emoluments Clause. It says that certain actions by people other than the president are illegal. Insofar as it intersects with Emoluments Clause, it is at best redundant (although even then it defines clear penalties, so not really).

But there's nothing in it authorizing the president to receive emoluments. § 202 does contain language excluding certain people from the categories of "government officer" and "government employee", which are the target of § 208; but this simply means that § 208, and prohibitions in it specifically, do not apply to those people. In other words, the law doesn't say anything about them. It most certainly doesn't contain any language explicitly authorizing emoluments. Here, see for yourself:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/208 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/202

If we look at other past cases where the Emoluments Clause had to be dealt with, Congress specifically authorized such things, with clear verbiage to that effect. For example, here's the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/7342

Note the language: "The Congress consents to ..."

There's nothing even remotely similar in the law we are discussing.

The only real question for the courts here is whether receiving payment for goods and services from a foreign government qualifies as emolument or not. The originalist interpretation is in favor of that - this is one of those clauses in the Constitution where the Founders wrote a great deal about why it was there, and it's clear that their concerns were broad rather than narrow (preventing "foreign corruption" of all kinds).

Well then. My assumption of parent comment's correctness was wrong :-)

There is an argument that the spelling out of cases in which it would be illegal implies that they're okay with it in other cases. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule...

Courts interpret the constitution. I'm no lawyer, but "without the consent of the United States Congress" seems very clear-cut to me. It's up to congress, as per the constitution.

The courts have historically been unlikely to see a Constitutionally-required affirmative permission in the fact that an additional restriction is not applied by Congress.

The fact that Congress has specifically granted permission under the Emoluments Clause to Presidents, at the latter's request, while the conflict statute was in effect wouldbsuggest stronglynthat neither past Presidents, nor, more importantly, the Congress has viewed the non-application of the conflict statute to the President as a grant of permission under the Emoluments Clause that makes more specific grants unnecessary.

OTOH, absent coverage under the conflict statute or some other statute establishing judicial remedies, there may an argument that there is no such remedy for a Presidential violation of the clause, and that the only remedy is via impeachment. That's probably the biggest weakness in an Emoluments Clause lawsuit.

On the gripping hand, a court ruling to the effect that the only remedy is by impeachment may create additional political pressure on Congress, which would probably have value to those bringing the claim, perhaps moreso than a judicial remedy that, e.g., forced Trump to give up past gains and avoid future gains through divestment.

This is a different issue. Trump is correct that the conflict of interest laws don't apply to him. However the emoluments clause is something else, and most constitutional scholars say that it clearly does apply. This doesn't prohibit conflicts of interest; it prohibits federal employees and office holders from receiving gifts, titles or emoluments from foreign governments. Profits from business with foreign governments would certainly be covered by this, as would beneficial terms on loans and, arguably, things such as building permits. You'd struggle to find a single non-partisan expert who would say that he isn't violating this right now, and even plenty of Republican lawyers agree.

The trouble is that impeachment is the responsibility Congress, and it would be a brave Republican congressman who would vote to impeach a Republican president right now.

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

So does Hillary get to spend the foundation money on herself?

Didn't the leaks reveal that Chelsea's wedding was paid for by the foundation?

No, they didn't.

No, those were fake news headlines run by Fox and Russian news agencies.

Here is the email in question so you all can judge for yourselves:

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046

For context, Doug Band is a very close Clinton associate and he's discussing an initiative apparently launched by Chelsea Clinton to investigate money within the Clinton Foundation (which is also mentioned in some of the other Podesta emails).

That's the one. Thanks for digging it up.

I would guess Hillary's situation would depend on the structure of the foundation. Likely she was not the one "accepting" it, and the ownership structure, such as it is, might not even include the Clintons. It might just have their name on it. This is all just speculation though.

Why is anyone still talking about Hillary Clinton?

Donald Trump is the man in office. Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with anything.

However Clinton may or may not violated the Constitution is absolutely irrelevant to the question of whether Trump is violating it now.

> Why is anyone still talking about Hillary Clinton?

Because we're trying to ascertain if the complainers are genuinely principled or partisan hacks. I've a feeling most of them would be turning a blind eye if it wasn't trump.

Complainers can't prosecute and convict. Courts can. That's a difference I'd recommend coming to terms with as it's the crux of this discussion at a level that's intensely germane.

In this case particular, actually, it's the legislature that can prosecute and convict. Still not random people on HN, though :-P

Why does it matter? The complaints are either right, or they're wrong. The complainers' motives for making their complains have no bearing on that.

Maybe, but for those of us who aren't experts on constitutional law, it's difficult to ascertain exactly who is in the right, we have to decide which self-proclaimed experts to believe.

For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument.

I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this person still be saying the same thing?" If the answer is no, I ignore that person. This cuts out about 97% of all political discussion and saves a lot of time.

Right. I didn't like either of them, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat.

I just think it's odd to say that Trump should be impeached for something his opponent did while in office.

I don't think that rule can apply for anonymous Internet commenters listing objective claims. You probably don't have enough information to determine the partisanship of the commenter, and even if you did, their claims are either true or false, and debating that is almost certainly a better use of time.

I've noticed this a lot in Reddit too. There I feel it is A distraction tactic. Posters seek to make a comment about very in every Trump thread and it is always some distracting sound bytes about the emails or something. Totally irrelevant to the thread at hand.

Seems to work like a charm to derail conversation about the real topic at hand.

Because it show the duplicitous nature of people like you. Clearly this wasn't an issue Hillary, so it's obvious that is all political nonsense.

I am willing to put money that this is being brought up so no one can set up another clinton foundation again. trumps press conference a while back he spent a considerable amount of time talking about his company and the legalities. he knew what he was talking about and they had spent some time working on it.(then he called cnn fake news). Now all this talk about nobility... This gets ruled on and he is totally inside the rules... but the real message is don't set up "Clinton Global Inititave" as it wound be outside the rules.

I did a spot of research on the emoluments clause and found three instances where specific events were evaluated for breaching this clause:

1 - Theodore Roosevelt. Nobel Peace Prize. He accept both the cash award and the medal.

2 - Barack Obama. Nobel Peace Prize. He accepted only the medal.

... and most interestingly ...

3 - Ronald Reagan. Receipt of pension payments from the state of California as a former Governor and California pension plan participant.

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/198...

The way I read the analysis of Ronald Reagan's situation, any benefit from a domestic state, city, or county could potentially fall afoul of the emoluments clause. Think here of any local property tax rebate from a city to entice a Trump business to build a hotel or set up shop. Maybe even a tax rebate / waiver from prior business development agreement could fall afoul. Who knows how deep this particular rabbit hole could go.

I also was puzzling over Hobby Lobby the other day and I realized that Trump's situation vis-a-vie the emoluments clause could be parallel to Hobby Lobby versus the ACA. Hobby Lobby wanted out of the mandate for birth control and the Supreme Court sided with them because Hobby Lobby was a closely held corporation; close enough where the owners' religious beliefs could be infringed upon by ACA birth control mandates on the corporation they controlled.

I believe the Trump empire is a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby. Per the Supreme Court a closely held corporation like Hobby Lobby has a personal connection unlike widely held corporation. Simply saying payments made to Trump's corporation is a sufficient separation from the person to avoid the emoluments clause may not be a strong argument for those arguing Trump's side.

Edit: IANAL, but rather a politics major.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is not a "foreign state".

No, but the committee is directly appointed by the Norwegian parliament, so the argument could reasonably be made that they're essentially accepting a prize from a foreign state.

No, "Despite its members being appointed by parliament, the committee is a private body tasked with awarding a private prize" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Nobel_Committee

Yea, I know that's the official line. But it would be fairly easy for a lawyer to argue otherwise.

That is what lawyers get paid for, but no attempt to impeach Obama was made for accepting the Nobel peace prize which indicates any such argument would have no chance of succeeding, would not be valid.

But Obama did turn down the cash part of the prize, only accepting the medal and diploma, specifically to avoid any such potential problems.

I wouldn't think there is a legal distinction between the cash and the medal. Accepting the money would probably been politically unacceptable even with out any legal issues. But I accept you are correct about the potential legal difficulties in accepting the prize at all:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10...

I don't know about that. Look into the 2010 price to Liu Xiaobo. Norway worked for 6 years to try to repair relations with China after that and trade has only recently been opened again.

The Liu Xiaobo case shows that (some) other countries see the Nobel committee as an unofficial extension of the Norwegian government. If China thought that the Nobel prize was handed out by 6 random dudes in some private club then the Nobel prize probably wouldn't have had such an impact on the relations between the Chinese and Norwegian governments.

Or perhaps China is trying to pressurize the Norwegian government into removing independence from committee, as well as warning other countries not to do anything similar.

Trump has had reams of lawyers on this one for a while.

If the Dems thought they could 'get him' on his ownership of whatever, they would have been pressing it already.

I think as it stands, he's on decent legal footing.

Which admittedly is a little ridiculous, you'd think the Prez. would not be above conflict of interest.

Aside from that, Trump says ridiculous things, but they are mostly in the vein of ridiculous populism. It makes him look ridiculous to most people, I don't know why he does it, that said, none of his policies so far are as gonzo as his ridiculous rhetoric.

Give it time. Maybe he'll cool down, or maybe he'll do something impeachable.

I predict: tons and tons of PR snafus, but nothing illegal.

The Dems are just standing by for this lawsuit:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/24/14358654/tr...

The interesting thing about this is that it's a bipartisan affair as far as party affiliations go: the two main guys behind it are the ethics people for Bush and Obama, respectively.

> The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Trump is in violation of the emoluments clause. Even if he is, though, it would be up to Congress to decide whether that merits impeaching him and removing him from office — and Republicans in Congress so far have been reluctant to look into Trump’s break with tradition on ethical issues.

But it would mean Trump would be serving at the mercy of Congress, and at the mercy of maintaining a Republican majority, which could have substantial effects on policy in itself even if he's never impeached.

If SCOTUS were to rule for the plaintiffs in this case, the Congress would be in a much more difficult spot. Right now they can dismiss it all as "he said she said" and "not really illegal". But if there's a SCOTUS ruling that the president is in violation of the Constitution, and they don't impeach, they'd basically be saying that either they don't care about the Constitution, or they don't care about SCOTUS. Either would cause a major constitutional crisis with unclear consequences.

I don't know. I think Trump could literally say that he doesn't care about SCOTUS and it would be unlikely to be the wildest thing he said that day. A Republican majority Congress could definitely ignore a SCOTUS ruling.

I'm not saying that they can't do it. I wouldn't even be particularly surprised if Trump does it - he is, allegedly, a big fan of Andrew Jackson, the only president to date in US history who openly defied the Supreme Court ("John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it").

I would be somewhat surprised if the Congress ended up doing it, but seeing how spineless they already are wrt Trump even where he contradicts them, not super surprised.

My point, rather, is that, should such a thing happen, it would be a bona fide constitutional crisis. If two branches of government are openly in defiance of parts of the Constitution, it becomes a free for everyone else, as well. Secession would suddenly be on the table for real - after all, the Constitution is what makes the Union, so if the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land, then the states could reasonably argue that they aren't bound to the Union in any sensible way. Or they could simply state that per the Emoluments Clause, they consider the president illegitimate from there on, and so no EO and no act of Congress signed by him has force of law on their territory. Or even invoke the 9th and the 10th Amendments in a full-on literalist vein (stealing the book from fringe factions of the right), and just claim that the feds simply don't have most powers that they claim as well.

This is all very far-fetched, but in the event of an open defiance of SCOTUS by the other two branches, we'd already be in the realm of far-fetched things, so the impossible becomes possible, and unlikely becomes probable.

> I predict: tons and tons of PR snafus, but nothing illegal.

I predict something illegal

> If the Dems thought they could 'get him' on his ownership of whatever, they would have been pressing it already.

Impeachment is sort of a legal process but it's really political, while Republicans control congress and he hasn't sunk with the base impeachment won't happen.

Do people really want him to get impeached and convicted, with Pence being the successor? Seems like a terrible idea...

Pence has successfully kept it more or less between lanes for the ~17 years he's been a career politician. The guy might have snakes in his head but part of me would rather risk that than what is, to all appearances, an unhinged budding fascist surrounded by sycophants. YMMV.

>an unhinged budding fascist surrounded by sycophants. YMMV.

I'm not so sure. I almost get the impression that he doesn't really care about a lot of those things except as a means to get that part of the republican base to the polls.

I've heard people say this on a number of occasions. Let me say why I'm not so worried about it. The thing that makes Trump different from almost any other politician I've seen is the control he has over his followers. They don't care if he lies or if any unpleasant fact about him comes to light. They're just transfixed by the guy. I don't believe that Pence or any other current politician has the same power or the same ability to do this. I imagine that, if Pence did have to assume office for some reason, he would just come off to Trump supporters as seeming like a typical politician. He wouldn't be able to drum up the same kind of enthusiasm.

Going to take off the objective hat and talk as a liberal. The answer I give to this is for the US, the President is both the head of state and the head of government. As is clear from recent articles about Trump's manner in the white house, his team is very much making many of the small policy decisions while Trump gets to strut out as the figurehead.

So yes, Trump stepping down wouldn't mean much difference when it comes to his role as a head of government since his team seems to be handling that, but the head of state is still a very important role. Don't forget, he said,

"I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything[,]"

essentially describing sexual assault, emphasized by me. Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity, the fact he was a reality-TV star. Having such an individual represent the nation is an embarrassment and does not inspire confidence in the nation nor does it abroad. Understand, no international body would respect Trump if he weren't the President. He does not prop us up as a country, he receives respect because we prop him up, and even then, he still depreciates his image by trying to project and strengthen his fragile pride and by involving himself in frivolous engagements on Twitter.

So yes, having a different head of state would be beneficial for us, at least in our view. It would not make much of a difference in terms of actual policy, but it would give us with a better representative, which isn't a difficult bar to exceed.

EDIT: I almost forgot, despite the politics of it, I do personally feel that a conflict of interest as a President is detrimental to the role as the head of government. We have already seen for example his orders on DAPL, which he still owns some shares of, a direct conflict of interest. And worse, of course, there are his foreign investments, which is worse from a national security standpoint. Sorry, but a head of government should represent us, not their own personal financial interests. You don't even need all my feeling about Trump as a figurehead, although that is important, but his conflicts of interests are a significant issue with him as an elected official.

I hear what you're saying. For me, actively working to make someone president (Pence) who has a proven track record in politics doing things for many years I disagree with seems even less desirable to me. Hard to say what the 'lesser of two evils' is here.

Perception of the country and international policy and diplomacy.

his team is very much making many of the small policy decisions while Trump gets to strut out as the figurehead.

Which is pretty much exactly how you would expect a "I have no idea what I'm doing but I don't want to fuck it up so I'll fill my cabinet with people who know what they're doing and let them do their thing" administration to work.

>Not to mention his poor demeanor, his lack of likeability, his unpopularity, the fact he was a reality-TV star. Having such an individual represent the nation is an embarrassment and does not inspire confidence in the nation nor does it abroad.

Are these seriously that much more important than how well the job gets done. On some level I don't care if the president is a member of the goddamn KKK if the job gets done well enough.

i think some of those things are part of the job, right? is your country getting rich really worth it if it means you cross every moral boundary and inflict continual psychological trauma on half the people in it?

>>Which is pretty much exactly how you would expect a "I have no idea what I'm doing but I don't want to fuck it up so I'll fill my cabinet with people who know what they're doing and let them do their thing" administration to work.

Sorry, but have to actually seen his cabinet? Ben Carson heading Housing and Urban Development. Betsy Davis heading Department of Education. Rick Perry, a guy with a bachelors degree in animal science, heading the Department of Energy... these people are some of the least qualified people on the planet.

> Are these seriously that much more important than how well the job gets done. On some level I don't care if the president is a member of the goddamn KKK if the job gets done well enough.

You should

The fact that he is openly racist is one of the biggest marks against him

> Are these seriously that much more important than how well the job gets done. On some level I don't care if the president is a member of the goddamn KKK if the job gets done well enough.

That's very true, if they're the sort of person you trust to put their personal feelings and opinions aside when they make decisions. If you don't feel they're that sort of person, you better hope their values align to your own.

Absolutely. Without a second thought. My issue has nothing whatsoever to do with politics.

While Pence may have worse policies than Trump on average, Trump has much worse downside risk because he is unpredictable. Today we have the worst of both: Pence already implementing his domestic policies plus the chance that Trump might nuke someone.

"plus the chance that Trump might nuke someone."

You're delusional if you think Trump will perform a first strike. That's complete nonsense.

He's a businessman, not a warmonger. His rhetoric is entirely along those lines as well.

From my (quite far-left) perspective, I would be very okay with that outcome. The Presidency's most unchecked power is in foreign policy, where Trump truly scares me. Pence as President would not change the balance of power in Congress, which is where most of the social and economic decisions (where I really have problems with Pence) would be made.

Putting on my non-partisan hat, though, I am nervous about the precedent of removing a president from office iff it is seen as a partisan move. The removal of Trump without widespread Republican support (as opposed to a small defecting faction) might be seen as precedent for a higher frequency of partisan impeachments - a danger to be weighed against (in my not-very-objective opinion) the dangers of a Trump presidency.

Is there something about Pence's track record that suggests he'd be better for USA on foreign policy?

I doubt Pence would accidentally put American international agreements, institutions, and treaty organizations into question with weird rambling tweets. I also doubt he'd find any value in antagonizing Mexico over a silly monument to xenophobia.

Pence is no foreign policy wiz but I'm not worried about him precipitating huge geopolitical shifts against America's interests.

As far as I know he's more or less the proverbial generic Republican on foreign policy. Which sounds a lot better to me than Trump's uneducated unpredictability.

Pence is predictable. Diplomats can build plans around predictable. You can make deals, treaties and alliances with predictable. Your opponents know what to expect from you.

If nothing else, it at least provides some stability.

In other words: Who knows, because we don't know what Trumps foreign policy will be tomorrow. And every day will be like that.

Or in Hacker News terms:

Downvote only if the comment detracts from the discussion, not just if you disagree.

Impeach only if the President commits crimes while in office, not just if you dislike the President's politics more than the VP's.

>Putting on my non-partisan hat, though, I am nervous about the precedent of removing a president from office iff it is seen as a partisan move. The removal of Trump without widespread Republican support (as opposed to a small defecting faction) might be seen as precedent for a higher frequency of partisan impeachments - a danger to be weighed against (in my not-very-objective opinion) the dangers of a Trump presidency.

We already have a one-party state in which the Republican Party plays partisan hardball, as much as possible, to prevent elections from altering their control over the government. Why not fight back for once?

Unilateral disarmament is not a good idea, but neither is escalation.

Yes

Pence is at least a sane conservative theocrat

Trump is a lying corrupt racist who is extremely unpredictable and may or may not blow up markets, start wars, abandon our allies, or deport millions of people

>Trump is a lying corrupt racist

Whenever I read something like this, I always wonder whether people posting it legitimately think this kind of rhetoric will advance their argument, or is it all just about social signalling.

If I was to criticize someone with the intent of changing others opinions about the person in question, the last thing I would do is interject my criticism with a bunch of derogatory and emotional labels. It would simply make me sound biased, irrational or extremely partisan/dogmatic.

And yet, this is exactly what people do, even in the media, who has all kinds of incentives to project a rational and detached image. Extreme social signaling is the only explanation I can come up with.

In most cases I would agree, and I get your point about the language not helping the case the poster is trying to make, but is there anything inaccurate in saying he is lying, corrupt or a racist? You'd have a hard time arguing against any of the accusations.

I haven't seen any very compelling evidence that he's a racist.

He may be (most likely is) corrupt but, as has been extensively discussed elsewhere, it is not clear that has done anything strictly illegal, which makes it tricky to say definitively.

He definitely spouts outrageous lies all the time, though.

>He may be (most likely is) corrupt but, as has been extensively discussed elsewhere, it is not clear that has done anything strictly illegal, which makes it tricky to say definitively.

Legalized corruption remains corruption. It was when Clinton did it, and it is when Trump does it.

> Whenever I read something like this, I always wonder whether people posting it legitimately think this kind of rhetoric will advance their argument, or is it all just about social signalling.

I'm not the one who commented that, but I think it's simply true and easily demonstrable given any widely-accepted definitions of the terms. Will saying it "advance an argument"? I don't know. But it is true.

Does it sway you at all that the market reacted extremely positively to Trump's win?

If you are correct, you must know something that most people who are willing to bet money on their opinion do not.

> Lying isn't usually a crime

It also isn't lying if the person saying it believes it to be true.

What is it then called when you could and should have easily verified your belief and even after pointing out that your belief is wrong, you refuse to admit that your belief was actually wrong, if not lying?

"No, sir. I did not lie in my CV. I _believe_ that this funny looking letter I received from my mother some time ago means that I have Ph.D from MIT"

Technically it's still not a lie. But you would be delusional. I don't know what is worse in a president.

> even after pointing out that your belief is wrong

Some people believe their arguments are so strong that the other person must have been secretly convinced, and is therefore lying.

Setting aside for the moment that people often believe their arguments are far more convincing than they actually are, people can and do believe anything, so a better reason than that is necessary to accuse people of lying.

"Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal."

It is not "breaking precedent". George Washington kept his farm.

It's entirely unreasonable to expect a regular citizen to give up his business simply because he's elected to public office. Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.

He's taken the appearance of many steps.

Owning a farm is a little different to being involved in sprawling international ventures that leave you open to pressure from foreign powers.

Since he's gifting all profits from foreign ventures to the US Treasury, there is no "pressure".

When did he say he was gifting all profits from foreign ventures to the US Treasury? Last I read about it, his pledge only related to profits from foreign governments for his hotels and similar businesses. The WaPo addressed the shortcomings of that pledge in [1].

Since it is a pledge, it also supposes that his word has any value. Anyone who looked at his business or charity dealings knows that his promises are worthless.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plan-to-donate...

Even if that was true, this would not solve the issue. Consider if any Trump company decides to pursue a big new project in, oh, say China.

Consider that just the knowledge of that, which might not be more than he might read in the papers, could very well cause him to adjust his policies either in the hope of favours, or even just subconsciously to avoid causing trouble for them.

Beyond that there is plenty of scope for outright blackmail. E.g. what if some Chinese representative whisper in the ear of some Trump employee that significant legal problems might appear as long as China's relationship with the US is still strained over Trumps apparent lack of support for the One China principle. They'd not even need to mention his company, for that matter, or contact him.

A slightly pointed press release about how there will be a crackdown on companies believed to not represent interests that don't fully support the One China principle would work too.

Chances are we'll never find out how Trumps policies are affected (or not) by foreign interference, but it'd be naive to think that there aren't multiple powers that have people considering how they can take advantage of Trumps business ventures presence or prospective interests in their country to curry favour with him or try to pressure him right now.

I know if I was running a country, then at this point I'd have a whole team on looking into opportunities, because even though it'd be rather unethical I'd want something in my back pocket in case Trump were to do something unpredictable that'd harm our interests. I'm sure there are plenty of regimes with less scruples about unethical methods.

>Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.

This an outright lie.

Is lying about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a crime?

Is lying about WMDs and then destroying the lives of millions of human beings (also known as iraqis) a crime?

> Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal.

On the contrary, it's explicitly legal as nothing the President does is considered a conflict. It's like that because otherwise everything and anything could be a construed a conflict of interest. In the interests of not having a continual flood of lawsuits the top of the executive branch is considered to be exempt from conflict of interest laws that otherwise affect the rest of government.

It doesn't, in any practical sense. It requires an extremely unpopular president, and a congress who dislikes him enough to vote him out.

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.

The emoluments clause of the constitution applies to all members of government.

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.

They impeached Clinton for committing the crime of perjury, so your comparison makes no sense. With regard to the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Trump is donating all proceeds from stays in his hotels by foreign officials directly to the US Treasury. I am not a constitutional lawyer, but apparently he has been advised by those who are that this solution solves that particular legal issue.

I realize that this issue will never be solved in the minds of Clinton voters, but as long as it legally resolves the problem, opinions simply don't matter.

Trump claimed that he will do so with hotel profits, but we have no evidence that he's actually doing that. This is exactly the place where his finances should be disclosed, at a minimum, to a bipartisan ethics commission for review.

And it's not like he only has hotels. He owns, or has stake in (not necessarily controlling, but still enough to derive profit) many other businesses. Some of which aren't even in US.

As many people - including several specifically involved in government ethics compliance - states, the only thing that can truly and definitely resolve this problem is divestment and transfer of control to a blind trust. Anything else is going to be suspect.

>Trump claimed that he will do so with hotel profits, but we have no evidence that he's actually doing that.

Given how hard he fought for the Presidency, I seriously doubt that he would endanger his ability to continue in office just to keep a few tenths or hundredths of a percent of his overall hotel revenue.

Given how he actually used one of his campaign speeches as a hotel infomercial I have no doubt that he will use the office for his own benefit.

You may be right you may be wrong. Do you remember that time when he claimed he was going to personally donate money to veterans and then only did so when the media caught him having not done it (though others in his fundraiser had)? [1] And then he bought a giant portrait of himself with charity money? [2]

The point is when it comes to ethics in leadership is that you are supposed to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. For that to happen, we must see evidence. If its good enough for rank and file members of corporate America, it's good enough for the President of the United States. He must disclose his financial conflicts of interest and resolve them -- in public.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-clue-to-the-wherea...

>but we have no evidence that he's actually doing that.

He has been President for exactly 5 days now.

it is one hell of a stretch to claim that any foreigner making standard use of a business you own or have interests is somehow violating this law.

if anything it seems tailored made to keep non politicians from ever taking office without sacrificing a lot. funny how many politicians come in with little and leave with a lot more

"We impeach Presidents when they commit crimes, which he has not done and hasn't even been in office long enough to do."

Can you clarify how long one must be in public office to commit a crime?

Conflict of interest laws do not apply to US Presidents

That is Trump-level spin. Wow.

The President is exempt from conflict of interest laws.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/208:

(a) Except as permitted by subsection (b) hereof, whoever, being an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government... has a financial interest—Shall be subject to the penalties set forth in section 216 of this title.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/202:

(c) Except as otherwise provided in such sections, the terms “officer” and “employee” in sections 203, 205, 207 through 209, and 218 of this title shall not include the President, the Vice President, a Member of Congress, or a Federal judge.

>We don't impeach Presidents because a loud group of people dislikes the fact that they lost an election.

That's an incredibly disingenuous statement.

I think that will be up to the Supreme Court to decide. Not you.

The Supreme Court does not try impeachment cases. That would be the Senate, and it requires a 2/3 vote, after Congress first adopts articles of impeachment with a majority vote. It is unlikely that either would happen.

> We don't impeach Presidents because a loud group of people dislikes the fact that they lost an election.

As a matter of fact, that's exactly why they impeached Clinton. Face it: America impeaches Presidents for being not-Republican, and empowers Presidents for being Republican. It's a one-party state.

Nope. Clinton was impeached because he committed perjury.

> Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power

Interestingly, Clinton was impeached for breaking his own law, the Violence Against Women Act, which he created to win reelection. (The rape shield part of the law is what created the ground rules for how he was questioned in court, and what he was allowed to say and not say in his defense.)

This law also created a series of social programs that Trump defunded today via an executive order.

Impeachment is about politics and power.

For whatever reasons (and I still don't fully understand it, no, check that, I don't understand it at all), the Clintons were an absolute hate-magnet for the Right. Clinton's sexual relations -- essentially no different from what any of the GOP opposition leaders turned out to be engaged with, if not far less serious (Dennis Hastert's long-time homosexual exploitation of minor boys under his care, for example) -- turned out to be the hook that the GOP could finally snag him with.

In the case of Trump, I suspect there's a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes jockeying and assessment of power. Questions over who the party (or any possible coalition or new political force) wants to see him replaced by -- Pence might well be no better, potentially worse. The question of how deeply tainted Trump's entire cabinet (and more) may be.

The GOP has been fractured for years, and only barely holds itself together. The prospects of real violent rebellion or reaction to a deposal of Trump may also be staying hands.

> For whatever reasons (and I still don't fully understand it, no, check that, I don't understand it at all), the Clintons were an absolute hate-magnet for the Right

It's funny you mention that, since by all metrics Clinton was about the most conservative democrat to gain office recently. A shame we've steadily moved away from middle-of-the-road since then.

The whole point of lying is to blur the lines between truth and lies so people believe nothing.

HyperNormalisation2016

Going to share that thing until I'm blue in the mouth. That documentary mentions that Surkov[0] uses this tactic, confusing the public about what is true and untrue.

I have to say, whether people on the right believe this or not, this has been at least subconsciously adapted as one of their tactics. When there is no truth or lie, then whatever you want is true, which makes you ripe for manipulation by the powers that be.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Surkov

Adam Curtis bingo!

https://twitter.com/chrisapplegate/status/787751065315840000...

The process requires a majority of the House, and then it goes to a trial that requires two thirds of the Senate for conviction. Considering the Republicans have a majority in both, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Exactly. Clinton's impeachment passed the House majority hurdle but never got the 2/3rds majority of the Senate required for the conviction.

Agreed on the Republican majority. I suspect the best the US can hope for is a Republican bloodbath in the 2018 midterms to deliver House and Senate back to Democrat control. I don't believe the chances of that are high though.

Once everyone loses their healthcare they might change their minds

Well, the legislators won't be losing their healthcare :)

If you mean the voters, my understanding is it's a fairly high hurdle from a structural standpoint -- there are far more democrats up for reelection than republicans.

I didn't know that last part. Well, shit. Reagan years are here again...

Even elizabeth warrens reelection looks rough. Im really hope the non wall street democrats get their act together.

"This is probably a good time for people to be reading 1984."

This is ridiculous.

The hate for Trump has caused people to go into utterly misguided tizzies, and it's pathetic.

I loathe Trump - but he's not a totalitarian.

He has given no indication of encroaching on civil liberties, there's no indication he wants to socialize large parts of the economy, or expand control by government, or even expand surveillance programs.

He's boorish, loud-mouthed and says crude things - but his policy actions are not that drastic.

'Enforce immigration laws' - fairly reasonable.

'Build pipelines' - outside of environmental concerns - absolutely normal.

'Re-negotiate trade deals' - not sure if I agree but not crazy.

'Get NATO allies to pay their share' - not crazy.

A 'mild' social conservative totalitarian might roll back laws on gay marriage, abortion etc. - but Trump hasn't mentioned it at all.

He has been forceful on trying to get American jobs back, and he'll likely overhaul the tax code, likely with some tax breaks.

He hasn't been nearly as aggressive in terms of foreign policy as Clinton.

He's indicated that he wants to get along with Russia. Is this such a bad thing? Clinton/Obama tried it earlier as well.

I think he presents himself in a manner unfit for someone who's in public office, but in the end, his actual actions are not particularly outlandish - and nowhere near totalitarian.

Obama would have socialized the entire healthcare system if he had the choice, and vastly expanded the welfare system, and would likely have introduced far more controlling legislation if allowed - and we do know he oversaw a fairly robust expansion of the surveillance state.

So Obama happens to be a 'nice guy' and 'not boorish' - does that make him any more or less totalitarian.

People need to grow up.

Trump is kind of a blow-hard, not a Nazi.

Wait...why do you loathe him? You seem reasonable in everything else you say. Trump is basically Nelson Rockefeller with the difference that he never got denounced as the liberal he is outside the pages of the National Review.

> He has given no indication of encroaching on civil liberties

You mean, except for that part where he mentioned that he wants to strengthen the [non-existent] libel laws, so that "press can't get away with lies about me"?

Or his early remarks on Muslims? Surveillance etc?

> A 'mild' social conservative totalitarian might roll back laws on gay marriage, abortion etc. - but Trump hasn't mentioned it at all.

Now we're firmly in the "alternative facts" territory. Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dngW-FKKuo Or when he said that Japanese interment camps were a tough choice, but "that's how you win wars"?

" he wants to strengthen the [non-existent] libel laws, so that "press can't get away with lies about me"?"

The press has called him out for his lies - but they have also blatantly lied about him - and others.

There is nothing 'totalitarian' about being able to sue someone for printing lies.

You're blaming me for having 'alternative facts' when you're inventing them?

The video indicates that 'campaign trail' Trump indicated that he was pro-life - because he was asked. (Of course, his whole life before that he was pro-choice, but to get GOP votes, he had to have this position publicly).

But in the very video you offered as 'evidence' - he didn't at all indicate he'd be legislating on the issue. In fact - he said it would be decided in the courts.

So a president indicating that issues 'decided in the courts' is now a 'Hitler totalitarian'?

Just today, on Charlie Rose - the leftist PBS commentators were indicating that he's made no real indication of anything related to social justice.

He did not mention 'abortion' in any of his policy docs, nor during any of his major speeches.

I'd argue you're making up facts if you think Trump has any plans to press the abortion issue in any meaningful way. There will be zero legislation.

But it doesn't matter - there's nothing at all in Trump's outlined policies that hint at 'totalitarianism'.

Nothing.

Obama murdered American citizens without a trial via drone strikes - and oversaw a massive expansion of the surveillance state. Those are 'scary totalitarian' things.

And I don't even like Trump.

> I'd argue you're making up facts if you think Trump has any plans to press the abortion issue in any meaningful way. There will be zero legislation.

He literally already has signed an executive order about it.

'Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ban federal money going to international groups which perform or provide information on abortions.

'The US president's order shows he "wants to stand up for all Americans, including the unborn," his press secretary Sean Spicer said.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38724063

He should have done that. There is absolutely no reason why other people should pay for someone's abortions.

The US already had a ban against paying for international abortions. This is a ban of funding organisations that even talk about abortions, even if the US funding isn't related to abortions.

(I also disagree with your point from an ethical point of view, but that's not relevant here.)

Federal funding. You are free to fund it yourself.

Twist it however you want, it's still about abortion.

>There is nothing 'totalitarian' about being able to sue someone for printing lies.

There is everything totalitarian about being able to sue people for printing anti-Republican lies, but not pro-Republican lies. If you could sue people for printing or broadcasting lies, we would have driven Fox News off the air years ago.

I'd say we're probably closer to 25th amendment territory than impeachment. It isn't clear (to the extent the law requires) that Trump has high crimes or treason, and whether he will or not is immaterial until he does. It does appear very clear that he is not fit to discharge his duties, however. What is going to happen the first time there is a crisis like a shooting or a hurricane. The next time the south gets wiped out by a cat 5 they are going to be BEGGING for Brownie to come do a hell of a job.

it's actually phrased "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" in the Constitution, so the President could be impeached for a misdemeanor.

Different meaning of misdemeanor. "High crimes and misdemeanors" was a phrase in common use at the time of its writing:

http://www.crf-usa.org/impeachment/high-crimes-and-misdemean...

Theoretically

> "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."

Practically it's all about politics

The other impeachment was of Andrew Johnson who barely avoided conviction by one vote was also by radical republicans and also about politics. Although in their case they were radically pro civil rights for former slaves so I'm a lot more sympathetic. Still the law they passed to try to explicitly trip up Johnson (banning him from dismissing Lincoln's secretary of defense) was arguably unconstitutional.

The reason Trump may not be impeached is because his party controls both houses of congress and they are afraid of the base. If his popularity craters finding a reason to impeach won't be that hard. The emoluments clause makes for an easy one (no proof of corruption needed just benefit, ultimatley congress is the judge). For other formal charges it may be my bias and low opinion but I have no doubt that if congressional investigations occur something about pre-election russian ties, corruption, or abuse of power will be found.

He was voted in by the people, through a legitimate democratic process. Democracy works. Freedom of speech works. 1984 didn't get it right. It's not the government that needs to be feared. It isn't the big evil corporarions. It's the people. The mob.

4chan ran a more effective propaganda/misinformation campaign than any dark shadowy corporate entity. Our insitutions are less than stellar, but at least they are run by adults. Americans are run by bedtime stories and mass hysteria generated by their own delusions, the manifestation of which now occupies our highest office.

1984 was a warning against communism, but China has a brighter future than we do. Nobody wrote a science fiction novel taught in high schools warning us against democracy in the age of decentralized peer to peer media. Government surveillance isn't ruining lives, but a poorly worded tweet can.

1984 was a warning against totalitarianism of any kind, communism, fascism, nazism.

Hitler was also democratically elected, democracy can fail.

>He was voted in by the people, through a legitimate democratic process.

Every part of this is wrong. The people voted for Clinton by a plurality of 3 million votes. The Electoral College is a device for permanent Southern hegemony and, consequently, Republican supremacy -- there's nothing legitimate about it.

Clinton was impeached because Congress was Republican and was trying like heck to pin something, anything, on him. It started with Whitewater and went wherever they could push it after that. Remember, this is when the government shutdowns started.

Trump is a Republican, so the current Republican Congress isn't going to be too picky.

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!

Sounds like by that measure we should have impeached every President we've had so far. They all at some point probably told lies.

Also just because Clinton was impeached doesn't mean he was removed from office. Those are different things.

Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, not abuse of power.

Impeachment is done by the congress. We currently have a republican congress as we did in '98 when Clinton was impeached. However, this time there's a republican president, so it's much less likely.

There is no apolitical mechanism to impeach. And the Republican congress, for all they can't stand the man in private, knows they rise and fall with Trump. So essentially he can get away with murder right now.

The body politic is slow to react but swift and harsh once engaged. It is literally the first week on the job for this guy, and while it is not showing a lot of promise it takes a couple of months before people really get settled in.

That said, if it looks like he is going to put the nation at grave risk by his actions, and grave risk is something a bit more serious than being the butt of a lot of jokes, then there are a wide variety of tools built into our institutions to address that.

I think you answered the question, he was impeached for perjury. Trump hasn't committed perjury yet. I think the best case to make against him is that he is violating the Emoluments clause, but that's not really lying because we already know he won't really divest himself of his businesses and investments.

To answer your possible subtext on Clinton's impeachment, the answer is yes, that impeachment was political.

If there's another book that people need to read, its "Strange Defeat" by Marc Bloch, as its a commentary/oral history on the fall of France to the Nazis and Vichy regime. The comparisons are eerily similar to what many of us are seeing now.

Now is a good time as any.

If only now you become worried about politicians lying, boy do I have bad news for you.

I think we're past impeachment, and need to get people on the streets. The women's march was a good start, but it needs to be followed up every weekend.

What we really need is a general strike. We have to shut down the economy to force him out.

One has to be careful not to get carried away by those little mistakes, lies and glitches as it may be just a bait to distract general public from the bigger picture and his agenda.

> "alternative facts"

I think people are taking this and running at breakneck speed without stopping to look at what they actually mean by this.

After watching the first few press conferences and Kelly Anne's interviews where she said that, it seems clear to me they weren't trying to say there were more people physically at the inauguration in their "alternative facts" but what they are referring to specifically is the viewership.

It's very possible they are correct in saying this and I guess their point is "well the media isn't reporting on these facts so we are going to present them ourselves".

but only the media can be right cause DRUMPF

https://youtu.be/pa9YUDNHobE

FYI, NSFW

> * they are referring to...the viewership*

Charitably, Conway might have meant that Trump's inauguration may have been the largest if TV viewers are counted. Unfortunately, that's not what she said. You can't be both unambiguous and wrong, repeatedly, in any human game (EDIT: and win).

Bet you I can!

No, it's still false when you count viewership. This has been covered by countless news organizations. You are making a mistake by imagining that these people are operating in good faith.

Has anyone actually done an unbiased comparison? I've seen the picture but there are plenty of possible explanations for that.

And people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case.

> people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case

Executive orders, cabinet appointments and apparently agency gag orders left right and centre with more, plus SCOTUS nominees, to come. But all my Facebook feed talks about is rain and lawn coverings.

Really? My facebook feed is a nonstop stream of political organization, grass-roots advocacy, media takedowns of the day's latest outrage, and the odd picture of someone's dog.

Good chance you've created your own bubble.

Chance has nothing to do with it. I've intentionally sought out the groups that I follow and the people I socialize with.

Just don't look surprised if Trump gets re-elected. And don't pretend to know what his voters interests are.

>Has anyone actually done an unbiased comparison? I've seen the picture but there are plenty of possible explanations for that.

What better way to compare attendance of an outdoor event other than photos? There are also DC metro numbers, but they don't seem necessary as we have high-resolution images.

>And people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case.

Seems emblematic of bigger issues. Such as: unwillingness to correct previous mistakes, a penchant for conspiracy theories, ego disrupting day-to-day operations.

> What better way to compare attendance of an outdoor event other than photos?

Someone posted a good list of possible ways this could be misleading yesterday: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/there-are-l...

As far as reading too much into it, I meant that the election of the first black president was a much bigger deal then the 40 somethingth white old dude. I'd expect trumps turnout to be lower and I'm not sure why it would be news in the first place.

> I meant that the election of the first black president was a much bigger deal then the 40 somethingth white old dude

But that (and many of the questions in that link) are not relevant to the specific question of how many people were at the inauguration. Which is the topic at hand. Those questions would be more relevant in a discussion of drawing other conclusions from the attendance numbers

I'm just trying to work out why it became a thing in the first place. Was Trump trying to play up attendance numbers or was someone trying play up the lack of them to be something meaningful?

The media mentioned it a bit on Friday, even more on Saturday due to the Womens March outdrawing the Inauguration itself, and Trump couldn't handle the coverage.

There are tons of valid reasons why there was less attendance at this inauguration (many listed in the link you posted), which is exactly why it's weird and disgusting that Trump is blatantly lying about having attendance he very clearly didn't have.

It's not that big of a deal, and doesn't mean much that there was less attendance. The weather was bad and it was not historically significant because he's not the first black (or anything significant) president ever. So why is he so blatantly lying? He could just move on and it would be no big deal... but instead he makes a very large deal about it, dedicating a special press briefing specifically to make up lies about to explain how the media got it wrong.

He's 70 FWIW

GP wasn't giving an age. GP stated Trump was the 40-something-th white old dude to be president.

I'm guessing it wound up news because of the boasts and claims made by Trump and his staff about how it was the best turnout ever, with fictitious numbers added in to the claims.

For the health of the republic, I'm keen to see the media become the adversary calling out lies, lies, and all damn lies. No matter what they are. Maybe then we can be free of all the lies.

You can watch the full timelapse PBS compiled that shows from start to end of the inauguration[1]. It's nowhere near the numbers they were trying to suggest.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdantUf5tXg

Direct quote from Sean Spicer:

> This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe

If "in-person" doesn't mean "physically at the inauguration" what does it mean then? It is not ambiguous.

Spicer made an unsubstantiated claim, and has since been defensively walking it back to the equally unsubstantiated second part of "around the globe."

"The media" is a very broad category, so I am not going to universally defend or attack them. But the Trump administration has simply been making things up and, as of yet, has not backed up any of these statements with evidence.

The media is a bit more hit or miss. It is true that some media outlets seem determined to make fun of Trump no matter what he does. That doesn't give Trump a free pass to make up shit. Obama had to deal with the same crap.

Why are you ignoring the second part of the sentence? He even clarified that he was saying total number of viewership (in person, TV, streaming). There is way more access to watching the Inauguration today than 4 years ago.

> If "in-person" doesn't mean "physically at the inauguration" what does it mean then? It is not ambiguous.

The ambiguity isn't what "in-person" means, it's what "both in-person and around the globe" means. Does it mean "both 1) in person and 2) around the globe (each independently)" or does it mean "both (the total sum) in person and around the globe"?

Obviously the second is more strained, but it's not completely absurd, especially if you allow for the inelegant phrasing common in live briefings.

It's easy to find things like this if what you're really looking for is to start a fight.

Good point. Of course, it's still total B.S. since they just made the claim up.

On the other hand he spent the whole press conference talking about metro ridership, the national parks service, and the physical event, which leads me to think in context that they weren't talking about tv. Never even mentioned the word tv actually.

The phrase "both in-person and around the globe" is ambiguous. It could mean either that there were more witnesses in person, and more witnesses around the globe, or it could mean that the total number of witnesses, anywhere, was the largest ever. This is the (terrible) beauty of it: a supporter can believe the former, while the administration needs only to defend the latter.

The phrase "alternative facts" too is ambiguous and, in the way it was used by Conway is classical doublethink. Doublethink involves two actions: a public lie and wilful self-delusion. One interpretation (without context) of the phrase "alternative facts" is that the facts are merely unknown and up for debate. But one merely needs to look at a photo of the inauguration to see that the facts are that Obama had higher attendance in 2009. [1] To claim otherwise is a lie.

Another is that the _true_ facts are known, but Conway is explicitly stating: these are the facts which I am telling you to believe. This is the wilful self-delusion.

From 1984:

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink."

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38716191

>> This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in-person and around the globe

>If "in-person" doesn't mean "physically at the inauguration" what does it mean then? It is not ambiguous.

You're right, it's not ambiguous. "In-person and around the globe" is clearly means viewing on TV or online streaming.

You are deliberately ignoring the "around the globe" part to create "alternative facts" of your own.

See I don't even know why people care. Everyone latched on that phrase and keep belaboring it. Wonder how many hours were spent totally talking about how many people at the inauguration. Why not talk about other stuff, cabinet picks, TPP, aid cancellation, Federal hiring freeze except such and such, etc.

This is like the media equivalent of bike shedding. Other stuff is complicated so they latched on to that phrase...

People care because the White House was seen to be lying in one of the first statements made to the press.

If, instead, they'd just said n-thousand people attended, and made some comment about bad weather, the attention would have moved on to the next thing a lot sooner.

Well when wasn't the White House lying :-). I guess I've come to expect very little from govt officials. It still seems like bike shedding to me

> After watching the first few press conferences and Kelly Anne's interviews where she said that, it seems clear to me they weren't trying to say there were more people physically at the inauguration in their "alternative facts" but what they are referring to specifically is the viewership.

In the original claim, Spicer explicitly claimed Trump's audience was the greatest both in-person and by remote media (and stated I. a way which clearly implied this was beyond debate and supported by incontrovertible evidence), and, in any case, the only metrics I've seen anyone bring out for the revised claim (for which, incidentally, the Administration provided no evidence) also are indicative of it being false (but not absolutely conclusive on that pointz as published metrics aren't available for all media channels, particularly many non-YouTube online channels.)

At best Spicer both seriously misspoke and referenced separate standards when he meant to reference an aggregate and, even so, presented rank hopeful speculation as certain fact.

But even that stretches plausibility considerably.

Think of something highly dangerous and highly improbable any POTUS could do and it most likely it will happen with this guy.

>Already screeching for impeachment when he's been in office for two days

And this is why you lost the election.

To be fair, alternative facts wasn't meant as sinister as you may have been led to believe. What was meant was "additional" facts.

Don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining. We all saw the same video. Her intent was quite clear and was backed during the same interview with a naked threat.

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