• Gumby@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Contempt of Congress. For invoking the Fifth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    16 hours ago

    He has a legal right to respond the way that he did. Are they saying that you can no longer take the 5th?

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      18 hours ago

      They are claiming that Biden’s pardon means that he had no legal issues to incriminate himself over, making the 5th Amendment moot. So he could go ahead and admit to anything, and he couldn’t be prosecuted, but they could still twist and pervert anything he says into something nefarious, something that the Conservative Propaganda Machine excels at.

      So he refused to give them any ammunition to use against him, and they characterized his self-defense as Contempt of Congress, which I’m sure he has in the most literal meaning of the word, but not in the legal sense they mean.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    we’ve seen the Congress. the contempt of such a corrupt genocidal body can only be a badge of honor

  • Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    It was a damned if he did, damned if he didn’t set up. The GOP are going to prosecute him no matter what. He knew that. Everyone watching knew that. GOP for sure knows that. They were looking for any trivial thing that they could possibly use as cover but whatever it was, they were going to use it to try to charge him and now they have done so. If he had answered every question they would have found some sentence that wasn’t 100% the exact same as a previous time and used that to charge him instead. It is really making Americans look as stupid as imaginably possible and after decades of North Korea drama, that is something.

  • HubertManne@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    To be clear the vote was along party lines and was about him excersising his rights under the fifth amendment. So just to be clear the republicans are not just derelict in their duty to impeach the president do to his violations of the constitution but they are directly violating it themselves.

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    So what is it when all the Trump administration lie and say that don’t recall to every question? Or just don’t answer at all? Or yell about the DOW for some reason while actively in violation of the Epstein File release legally required deadline and terms for reductions (and still are)?

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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      20 hours ago

      This new made up standard only applies to people not Republican. Republicans will be allowed to continue to pull bullshit.

  • siravious@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This is truly the land of fuck you. It’s a race to the bottom to see who can be the biggest asshole.

    • Tiger666@lemmy.ca
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      21 hours ago

      Ask the world and you will find out that it always has been like that, you are just realizing that now with trump.

  • VitoRobles@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    Instead of helping people buy food or dealing with the Epstein papers.

    Fuck off government

  • Dryad@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Can we do the Doj next then for failing to release all the Epstein files as legally obligated by Congress and failing to answer why?

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Poor guy was screwed either way. It was a no-win situation for him.

    If he answered the questions they would have demonized him for his answers and prosecuted him on some bullshit charges.

    If he pleaded the fifth (which he did) they would have demonized him for that. And prosecuted him for contempt.

    And the whole argument that he has a pre-emptive pardon from Biden is bullshit. This administration - with the judicial system firmly in their pocket - will find a way to dismiss that if they need to.

    • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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      24 hours ago

      Pardons can only be retrospective: they can only cover past events. So Biden (or any president) cannot pardon someone for a contempt charge that relates to a court appearance that happened after that president left office. So no chicanery required.

      But the notion that you can be held in contempt of Congress for pleading the Fifth is insanely unjust. Which is not to say that the corrupt Supreme Court wouldn’t uphold it.

    • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      This is quite literally the entire reason the 5th amendment exists, in the first place. If someone is trying to trap you into incriminating yourself, you have every right to simply not play along.

    • fonix232@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      I mean, the prosecutor (?) admitted it on Fox News that they’re trying to trap him into perjuring himself… the whole thing should’ve been shut down at that very point.

    • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      “Congressman, I was force to recommend quarantine lockdowns by the Anti-Trump deep state.”

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz
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        17 hours ago

        “Right after the deep state forced the Chinese government to leak a virus from a lab and claim it came from a market.”

        The amount of bullshit Republicans are coming up with to distract from real issues such as releasing the rest of the Epstein files is amazing.

    • starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      They’re saying he helped fund China’s bioengineering lab which ended up developing covid 19, and since he has said “my lawyer has advised me not to respond to those questions” as they try to pigeonhole him into whatever they can twist as his fault, they try to hold him in contempt for not answering.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Jesus christ, they’re serious conspiracy nuts in charge looking for a scape-goat.

        I got parents who believe in conspiracy bullshit, and you just can’t have a reasonable argument with that level of stupid. Literally anything you say that isn’t in line with their ideology will either be turned into something in line or rejected as a lie or just being brainwashed.

        “No comment” is the most reasonable and none-time-wasting response you can give.

    • yogurt@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Rand Paul thinks China genetically engineered covid and released it to sap Aryan bodily fluids. But the oriental brainpan is incapable of biochemistry, so he thinks Fauci is the white that did it for them.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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        24 hours ago

        Rand Paul is a cynical, lying cunt who is unlikely to actually believe any of the bullshit he spouts. He just thinks his idiot constituents will fall for his conspiracy horseshit.

      • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Under no circumstance should you start diagnosing large swaths of the population with a mental disorder without proof. You definitely shouldn’t use a mental health disorder as a catchall insult (seriously, that’s how new slurs are born). And you most assuredly shouldn’t be labeling people with ODD when there is more evidence that have issues with defying authority, seriously can not overstate how much they ride their conservative leader’s collective dicks, rather than the opposite.

        TL;DR don’t use mental health disorders in order to church up your insults. It makes you sound like a massive ass and kind of demonstrates that you’re not a safe person. Any one who grew up diagnosed with ODD will not trust you and with good fucking cause.

      • FrChazzz@lemmus.org
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        2 days ago

        To be fair, the stay-home orders and all that REALLY screwed over lots of small businesses. But the bigger issue there is the expectation that the US economy is predicated on tiny margins (saw a post around that time that said we work paycheck-to-paycheck for a paycheck-to-paycheck business, with a paycheck-to-paycheck landlord, that all answer to a paycheck-to-paycheck government and pretend that this is all sustainable). If basic needs were provided apart from employment, then I highly doubt that people would’ve been as angry about stay-at-home orders. That and the fact that “it’ll be 14 days, folks!” began to stretch into months.

        There’s also the fact that, in the US, there is no guarantee that a government order will ever be rescinded. Case in point: the theater we all have to participate in when we try to fly.

        • KeithD@lemmy.nz
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          19 hours ago

          That and the fact that “it’ll be 14 days, folks!” began to stretch into months.

          That’d be at least partly because of all the fucktards going against sensible advice for “muh freedumbs!” That really stretched things out a lot.

        • flandish@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          since when are businesses important? if they can’t handle stay at home orders and fail, that’s just the market they pretend to love. seriously. fuck capitalists. pandemic safety for humans trumps people thinking businesses are important.

          solution: get good. or maybe running a business is not for you.

          • aquovie@lemmy.cafe
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            1 day ago

            You’re arguing that, to buffer against a black swan event, businesses should be making significant extra profit.

            I think you’re creating a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

            • flandish@lemmy.world
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              21 hours ago

              no. i am arguing that a black swan event taking out a business is fine if it means that the humans are given the proper attention. but instead we got “save the businesses” rules and whatnot.

              businesses are not more important than humans even if they hire humans they’ll then need to fire because they failed. this is because businesses are designed to exploit already.

            • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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              24 hours ago

              There’s a way that businesses can mitigate risks of low-probability, high-impact events. That’s called insurance, and it’s not so expensive that it requires “significant extra profit” to pay for it.

        • BigPotato@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Having most of your customer base die in a pandemic would’ve also screwed the businesses. The only math was “short term gain” vs “human life.”

        • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          saw a post around that time that said we work paycheck-to-paycheck for a paycheck-to-paycheck business, with a paycheck-to-paycheck landlord, that all answer to a paycheck-to-paycheck government and pretend that this is all sustainable).

          In an economy based even the slightest minor disruption will result is a significant collapse.

          • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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            24 hours ago

            It’s almost as though there are downsides to operating finely-tuned just-in-time supply chains without contingencies being taken into account.

            Resiliency isn’t free, so beancounters are always resisting any change to improve it.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Doesn’t matter. They’re looking for a witch to distract from Trump’s assorted crimes.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    If we have another pandemic it will kill millions. Luckily it will mostly kill those like these senate dipshits. Unfortunately it will kill a lot of innocent people with it.

    • Catma@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The fuck it will. Everyone of these senate assholes would throw a baby off a cliff to be first in line to get the vaccine when it becomes available. They wont risk themselves one bit but will pay lip service to “freedom” to ignore all public safety warnings