Lurker > darkknight109

aDirtyShisno posted...

That is completely true... Except for the fact that its completely false. He was charged with Obstruction of Congress because they couldnt confidently prove a crime occurred to charge with Contempt of Congress.

Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Congress has generally applied to the refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by a Congressional committee or subcommitteeusually seeking to compel either testimony or the production of requested documents.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

aDirtyShisno posted...

Bull. The President was not charged with any crime, instead he was charged with 2 non-crimes.

He was charged with two articles of impeachment that detail four crimes.

Hell, the second article is *literally* exactly what you're asking for. Obstructing congress is a crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress

aDirtyShisno posted...

I also said that no President has been impeached without being charged with at least one crime and then you go and list off a couple of judges, who are not President and includes one who was impeached because he failed to even arrive to his own hearing on his intoxication in public.

If youre going to try and weasel your way through an argument at least stay within the defined constants.

a) I already pointed out that Trump has been charged with multiple crimes
b) The process for impeaching judges is the same as the ones for impeaching presidents, relies on the same statutes of the constitution, and has the same standards for "high crimes and misdemeanours". The only reason why you seem to be excluding judges - who, notably, make up the vast majority of individuals who have been impeached and the entirety of those who have actually been removed - is to try and scope the problem so narrowly that you're conveniently excluding the significant body of precedent that proves you incorrect.
c) Your whole point was that the constitution requires that impeached individuals be charged with a crime and that the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanours" refers solely to criminal conduct. Those assertions are false. I was merely correcting you. Don't try and move the goalposts after you've been proven wrong.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

aDirtyShisno posted...

Then charge him with a goddamned crime. No President has been impeached before without being charged with at least one crime.

Trump was charged with four. I already went over this.
1) Illegally withholding constitutionally-appropriated funds.
2) Solicitation of a bribe
3) Invitation of foreign interference in an election
4) Contempt of congress

aDirtyShisno posted...

And yet for whatever reason this Congress has decided that high crimes means something that is not a crime, but maybe should be, despite the fact that crime is literally in the phrase being defined so loosely.

The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanours" dates back to long before the US was even a country, and has its roots in British Law. Its application has been pretty consistent over that time and even back in pre-US times was intended to cover acts that were not covered by criminal law. The US, similarly, has historically applied the clause in the exact same way. Not all impeachable acts are criminal, and not all crimes are impeachable. That's one of the reasons why the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanours" is never defined anywhere in the constitution - the intent was to allow flexibility for congress to remove an executive that was behaving badly, even if that behaviour wasn't actually covered by extant criminal law.

It's worth noting at this juncture that the original definition of the term "misdemeanour" was not "a minor crime" the way it is used today in criminal law. In the time that the constitution was first written, it referred to general bad behaviour that was not necessarily criminal in nature (hence mis-"demeanour"). Alexander Hamilton spoke to this when he described impeachment as a response to "the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust", with such offences being "political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."

Not that that's really an issue here, because Trump's conduct was objectively criminal. Hell, bribery is one of the offences explicitly called out by the constitution as impeachable.

aDirtyShisno posted...

The Constitution requires it!

The constitution does not, in fact, require it.

Source: less than a third of all impeachment articles filed against federal officials have included mentions of crimes. Multiple judges and a senator were impeached for explicitly non-criminal conduct, and several were subsequently removed for their conduct. John Pickering was impeached and removed for drunkenness; Robert Archibald was impeached and removed for abuse of power (pressuring others to enter into financial deals with him). Multiple judges have been impeached for using their positions for personal profit.

This is longstanding practice in the United States. Even if we look exclusively at presidential impeachments, criminality has never been a requirement for impeachment, dating back to the first time it was ever used against a president. Andrew Johnson, in fact, is actually a good parallel for Trump, given that he was impeached for:
-Being rude to congress, ridiculing them, and questioning their authority
-Illegally diverting congressionally-allocated funds
-Refusing to follow laws passed and approved by congress

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

Worth noting: Johnson avoided removal by just a single vote. One wonders what the congress of 1868 would think of Trump's conduct.

OhhhJa posted...

And that's why a lot of people have a negative outlook toward Democrat voters

Not really an issue, given that there are more Democrat voters in the US than anyone else.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

BeerOnTap posted...

So then they would do the same thing if called by the Senate.

It helps to read my post fully before responding. Here, let me help:

Notably, Bolton has said he would voluntarily testify if the senate subpoenaed him and the Republican staff of the White House would probably be less willing to refuse a subpoena issued by Republicans than one issued by Democrats, due to the political implications.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Quatrerwin posted...

Did you read the transcript?

The one where Trump says that he needs Ukraine to "do us a favour" immediately after Zelensky brings up aid, and after which Trump starts talking about the Bidens and a debunked conspiracy theory?

BeerOnTap posted...

According to several sources Ive heard (Im not expert on the matter) the house could literally call these witnesses and question them in the house, right now. So why not? Its almost as if they know it wouldnt lead to much?

The House has already attempted to call several of them (most notably Bolton) and they refused to testify. They could subpoena them, but Trump has ordered pretty much everyone in the White House not to comply with congressional subpoenas, so the House would need to go to court to get it enforced, a process that would probably take upwards of a year.

Which is exactly what Trump wants - to push this past the elections.

Notably, Bolton has said he would voluntarily testify if the senate subpoenaed him and the Republican staff of the White House would probably be less willing to refuse a subpoena issued by Republicans than one issued by Democrats, due to the political implications.

Jen0125 posted...

What? Impeachment isn't a judicial process.

The courts would be involved in this specific case, however, in the enforcement of subpoenas for evidence and witnesses. The White House has claimed broad immunity to congressional investigation (a very legally dubious position) and has stated that witness testimony and evidence requested by the House is protected by executive privilege and, thus, is not discoverable (which is a more legally defensible position, albeit not as broadly as they've applied it). The courts would have to adjudicate the competing claims of congress and the White House.

aDirtyShisno posted...

Its been said time and again that while the impeachment process is somewhat like a trial it is not a judicial proceeding and isnt required to operate the same way as a trial.

Of course not, but in many ways it does operate functionally like a trial, even if it's not required to, which is why the comparison is valid. Congress themselves sets the rules and they have chosen to operate in the way I stipulated above.

aDirtyShisno posted...

This is evident in many ways, most obviously as the President has NOT been charged with a crime.

1) The allegations against the president are absolutely criminal in nature. Solicitation of a bribe is a crime. Contempt of congress is a crime. Accepting foreign assistance in an election is a crime. Withholding congressionally-appropriated funds is a crime. That last one is particularly noteworthy, given that the Government Accountability Office - a non-partisan government agency - confirmed that Trump broke the law in withholding the funds as he did.

If Trump was being charged criminally, the first article would be broken up into several charges. The second article would be virtually unaltered.

2) Impeachment need not involve crimes. If Trump gave an announcement tomorrow that he'd decided to pardon one person chosen by everyone who had donated at least a million dollars to his re-election campaign, that would be impeachable. If he announced he was going to spend the rest of his presidency playing golf and not attend to any of his duties, that would be impeachable. Neither of those are crimes, but both represent impeachable conduct that he would be removed for (pretending we lived in an alternate universe where Republicans actually had a spine).

aDirtyShisno posted...

Now since you insist on comparing it to a trial the response to your nonsense is obvious: You cant enter in new evidence after the trial has begun except in very rare circumstances.

Sure you can - happens all the time. When new evidence or witnesses are discovered that were not available during the discovery process, or when witness testimony or arguments from either side make relevant a witness or piece of evidence whose relevance could not previously be established, those can be considered at trial. Hell, you can even bring in new witnesses after the defence has rested their case in response to something alleged by the defence team (rebuttal witnesses). And yes, you can call rebuttal witnesses to rebut other rebuttal witnesses, meaning you can feasibly call more witnesses and evidence after you've rested your own case.

And this is without considering that the House and Senate have entirely different roles to play. The House merely has to determine that there is enough evidence that the President *may have* committed a crime and that a trial should go forward; the Senate is there to actually determine if the President *did* commit the crime and whether it warrants removal from office.

I also have to chuckle at the way you have immediately jumped from "It's not a trial" to an incorrect statement on "here's how it works in trials".

aDirtyShisno posted...

Have you ever seen My Cousin Vinny? I object your honor, this persons not on the witness list.

If you're getting your legal knowledge from movies and TV shows, that actually explains a lot about your posts.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

aDirtyShisno posted...

The witnesses that are being proposed by the House are the same witnesses that the House deemed of its own accord not to be necessary to the impeachment.

Yes, because the House - not unlike a Grand Jury - uses steelman arguments for the prosecution. In essence, you are assuming the most favourable view of the facts for the prosecution in order to determine whether or not to proceed to a trial. At the actual trial, you are supposed to steelman the other way, viewing the case as favourably as possible for the defence.

And while the proposed testimony wasn't strictly necessary (because it was already evident that Trump had committed multiple crimes), it would still have been beneficial, because Bolton could shed further light on what Trump knew and when, which would call several of the defences his lawyers raised into question.

Worth noting that majorities of all political alignments - including Republicans - were in favour of additional witness testimony in the trial.

Zeus posted...

Imagine pushing through a purely partisan impeachment without any merit

Trump illegally withheld congressionally-appropriated funds (Crime #1) in order to solicit a bribe (Crime #2) from a foreign entity for purely partisan purposes to interfere in an upcoming election (Crime #3), then refused to comply with congressional subpoenas for investigations into what happened (Crime #4).

That is the opposite of a purely partisan impeachment without merit. Hell, by the time the trial was over, even Republicans were admitting that Trump had done exactly what he was accused of and that it was, indeed, criminal. They finally wound up falling back on the defence of "Yes, he committed a crime, but we don't believe solicitation of bribery or interference in a federal election is worthy of removal from office", largely because that's the only defence they were left with that can't be disproven by the evidence on record.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Aculo posted...

i don't get it. google translate isn't great, but it's definitely not this bad, ok?

Japanese is such a context-heavy language I've seen Google Translate come up with some truly batshit bonkers translations that aren't even close to what the original text says. It's a language that machine translators seem to have particular trouble with.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

I'm not sure anyone who's been through multiple bankruptcies could be called a "great" businessman.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

I already have a gardener. Chef would be my next hire.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

The transcript didn't actually prove anything though.

On it's own? No, it didn't.

But cases aren't typically built off a single piece of evidence. And, in the context of all the other testimony and evidence offered, that transcript is damning.

OhhhJa posted...

And in one of the so called damning messages he says there's no quid pro quo of any kind and that he just wants to make sure there's transparency. Which has been trump's argument all along

He sure did... after the whistleblower had already made their complaint and the House had started investigating, both of which Trump was aware of when he claimed he wanted no QPQ.

Notably the person he made the claim to - Gordon Sondland - has testified that yes, unquivocably, there was an expectation of a quid pro quo from Trump.

This is basically like saying that if someone is accused of murder and subsequently says they aren't a murderer, you feel that statement is exculpatory evidence, even if the person they said it to has testified to the fact that yes, they are, in fact, a murderer.

Also, if Trump truly wanted transparency from Ukraine, why the cloak-and-dagger routine? Why did he illegally withhold funds and then ask Zelenskiy to announce an investigation into a political rival instead of, say, going to Congress and saying, "I believe there is substantial corruption in Ukraine and I would like to request a hold on aid money and a full investigation to confirm that said money is being spent appropriately."?

There are processes for this *exact* situation to ensure that there isn't even the appearance of impropriety. Notably, those processes are not, "Go talk to my personal lawyer, who is not a government employee and is not subject to any official oversight."

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Well, considering that they're facing no real accusations, what do you expect them to say?

The accusation is that Trump illegally withheld congressionally-appropriated funds (Crime #1) in order to solicit a bribe (Crime #2) from a foreign representative in order to discredit a political rival and interfere in the 2020 election (Crime #3) and refused to comply with congressional subpoenas investigating the issues around the same (Crime #4).

Pretty straightforward, honestly.

OhhhJa posted...

I think it's funny that what democrats consider mountains of evidence is a 100 hour opinion piece from Adam schiff lol

Yep, pretty laughable. Just ol' Schiff doing his thing. Well, him and the testimony of all the witnesses that got called during the House investigations. And the text messages. And the transcript that Trump helpfully provided, which remains the single-most damning piece of evidence in this whole affair.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

I don't know who my pick for "Best President" would be, but George W. Bush objectively wasn't a good president.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Lokarin posted...

Could ask Fark, or Snopes, or Ebaumsworld or Wikipedia or Amazon... lots of options

Where you choose to look up your info is entirely up to you. Whatever satisfies your curiosity.

I already have firsthand knowledge of the topic of conversation, so at this point this is entirely up to you how much you care to research the subject.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

What if they had been training from a young age or are a prodigy?

Well, as mentioned, a black belt (or any rank, for that matter) can signify whatever state of progress you want. 14 year old prodigy? Average 14 year old? 14 year old who started training six months ago? Sure, whatever. It's all set out by whichever person/organization runs the school. If they want to give a black belt to a four year old so they can get some free advertising from the local papers talking about "the World's Youngest Black Belt", that's their call.

I will say that for a lot of the schools where a second-degree black belt represents a high level of progress they straight-up won't allow you to get a second-degree black belt (or even a first-degree) at age 14, because they want to be sure you have the emotional maturity to handle the rank. In my karate dojo, minimum age for a first-degree black belt is 17 (as far as I know, I'm still the record-holder in my dojo for youngest black belt - I was ready for my test before I turned 17 and I tested 8 days after my 17th birthday); in my kobudo dojo, minimum age for a first-degree black belt is 18 and second-degree is 21.

Lokarin posted...

Well then, let's ask reddit!?

If that's where you want to seek your info, go nuts.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Lokarin posted...

Maybe that means you're a bad president?

Let's get some third party verification

I mean... don't know what to tell you - I can rattle off a list of martial arts where you continue to learn techniques beyond black belt level.

If you already mastered all the techniques by the time you reach black belt, what would there be to learn? Also, how would you expect to reach black belt unless you've been training for decades?

FWIW, Gichin Funakoshi - one of the founding fathers of karate - once famously held a class with some of his most senior students just a few months before his death at age 89, after a lifetime of training in an art he was widely considered a consummate master of. He performed a soto uke - a block you would typically learn in your first few classes of karate - and remarked, "I believe I might finally be beginning to understand this technique."

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prw2B_03IzY

https://imgur.com/a/hYpBxS4

Rough Translation:

"Appointment Certificate

[darkknight109]

The above-mentioned individual is hereby named branch president of the North American branch from the period of September 16, 2018 to May 21, 2021

Ryukyu Kobudo [our school's name] Association
President [our head sensei's name]"

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Lokarin posted...

Whereas all the ones I've seen do. Maybe it's just an American thing

I'm president of a North American martial arts federation, which includes American branch schools.

You are straight-up wrong about this.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Revelation34 posted...

That's an oxymoron.

No, there's definitely such a thing as an easy black belt.

Shitty schools where you can buy your rank absolutely exist. I frequently wind up judging tournaments where they compete and get their asses kicked.

Lokarin posted...

Well it's true of all of them.

No, it's not.

Frequently, you don't even know all of the "techniques" (whatever you mean by that term) by the time you've hit black belt, nevermind mastered them.

I've been in martial arts for almost 30 years; I've literally never run into a school that fits your description.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Mead posted...

Its honestly hilarious how much hate that game gets considering that its just a fairly benign indy game with an enthusiastic fanbase

I never understood any part of the Undertale craze.

Like, I played it when it first came out and it was a solid 7/10 game. Maybe 8/10 if I was feeling generous. But you had this swarm of people praising it unironically as the greatest game of all time, which then prompted a backlash from a bunch of people calling it complete trash, when in reality it was very clearly neither of those things.

I still don't know how or why the game received as much attention - positive and negative - as it did.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Lokarin posted...

A black belt just means you have mastered all of the techniques

I don't know of any martial art where that is true.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

dancer62 posted...

Black belt traditionally marks the journeyman level, where you can teach independently. 6-8 years, mastering 15-20 full-length katas/forms and 10-15 weapons, self-defense techniques, sparring, supervised teaching hours, success in tournaments.

This varies wildly from school to school and from martial art to martial art. You're ascribing a common standard where none exists - there is no universal accreditation that stipulates what a black belt must be capable of.

To use your degree analogy, in many Okinawan kobudo styles a black belt is like a high school diploma - a mark of basic proficiency. In the particular style of karate I practice, a black belt is like a PhD (you actually have to write a dissertation on martial arts philosophy and application as part of your test), though even staying within karate there's wild variation in terms of what is acceptable.

Also, your standards also seem a bit wonky, given that a lot of what you're stipulating isn't practised in a lot of martial arts - for instance, traditional karate does not use weapons, there are no forms or tournaments in arts like iaido or kyudo, so on and so forth. And for the record, unless you have a substantially different definition of mastery than I do, there is absolutely no way in hell you are "mastering" 10-15 weapons in just eight years. I've been training in kobudo for more almost 20 years now, run my own dojo, and I can use nine weapons with at least some level of proficiency - I wouldn't consider myself a master at any of them. Hell, there are people who spend lifetimes just mastering a single weapon, nevermind a dozen of them.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

No, not on anything of substance, because I'm an engineer - if I'm genuinely not wrong, I have a professional obligation to stick to my statements and render sound judgement.

If I *am* wrong, I have no problem admitting it, but this is not a career where you admit wrongdoing if none exists.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

PK_Spam posted...

Dont most reputable martial arts schools wait a very long time to give these out?

Depends entirely on the school.

A black belt is just a belt - there's no standard accreditation for it, so there's no universal standard for what quality of technique is required for it. It all depends on what the school expects out of its black belts.

In my kobudo dojo, a first-degree black belt is a mark of basic proficiency - you can easily earn it 2-3 years after starting and it's not uncommon for people to grade directly from white belt to black belt. By contrast, in my karate dojo a black belt is a mark of a high level of knowledge and skill; it usually takes close to a decade of solid training to earn one. Neither of those approaches is "wrong", it just indicates that the two different styles have their black belts signifying different levels of progress.

To answer your question, if a second-degree black belt is something that a 14 year old can earn, it probably doesn't indicate a very advanced level of progress in that school. Either that or that school is a scam trying to wring as much money as it can out of its students (frequent testing is one symptom of a belt factory that is mostly in it to earn cash).

Kyuubi4269 posted...

They're middle. You go through colours (Kyu) then through rankings (Dan). I think this means the kid is 2nd Dan.

Not quite correct. Not all martial arts use kyu rankings. Sometimes dan rankings are all you have. In iaido, for instance, you're either a mudansha (no rank) or you have a dan rank; there's no such thing as kyu rankings.

The kyu/dan colour/black belt division originated in judo and was popularized by karate, but it's far from universal.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

The original.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

If you count while vacation, this year. Otherwise, couldn't honestly tell you. It's been more than ten years.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

The_tall_midget posted...

Political impeachment is a legal process

Political impeachment is not a legal process; it's a political process and always has been. That's why the branch of government involved is the legislative branch rather than the judiciary, in whom sole power to decide matters of criminality is invested, and why congress is explicitly barred by the constitution from levying any penalty except removing the impeached party from office and/or barring them from ever holding office again (notably, the constitution also explicitly states that double-jeopardy does not apply to impeachment proceedings, so that actual legal proceedings can be levied against the politician in question once impeachment has been sorted out).

This is Impeachment 101, bro. Keep up if you want to stay with the discussion.

The_tall_midget posted...

and does not concern the peanut gallery filled with ignoramuses who aren't intelligent enough to understand what constitutes an actual crime or not according to the law

Sure. This is exactly why courtrooms don't have galleries where the public is allowed to sit and observe the proceedings. Oh, wait.

Anyways, whether or not something is a crime has surprisingly little to do with whether or not it is an impeachable offence. True, most crimes are impeachable and most impeachable offences are crimes, but what meets the standard of one does not necessarily meet the standard of the other.

If Donald Trump stole a candy bar from a convenience store, drove away while speeding, then tossed the wrapper out of the window, he's committed three distinct crimes (petty theft, speeding, littering) but no one would reasonably say those crimes constitute an impeachable offence. By the same token, if Donald Trump invited Russia to invade Hawaii to try and reduce Democratic influence on the government and refused to deploy the military when they did, or if he gave out free pardons to any felon who was selected by someone who had donated at least a million dollars to his re-election campaign, or said he was going to spend the rest of his presidency golfing rather than tending to anything related to his job, those would all be impeachable offences despite being 100% legal actions.

This is exactly why impeachment is a political rather than legal process - the constitution recognizes that the law does not necessarily capture all situations whereby an executive may need to be removed from office, nor does it lay out what crimes would meet the hypothetical threshold to merit removal.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

The old rule was don't date someone younger than half your age plus seven. By that metric, he's in the clear.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Jen0125 posted...

And now Senate Republicans are predictably rejecting any request to consider factual evidence or allow subpoenas to occur.

Makes sense to me. I mean, obviously when someone is innocent you want to make sure that you can't present any evidence to exonerate them or hear from anyone who can testify as to how totally non-criminal their conduct was.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It didn't start out as one, why should it continue as one?

What exactly was unfair about what the House did?

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

It happens sometimes.

My mother constantly told this story about her reaction to the Challenger disaster. She was driving at the time and when she heard the news, she had to pull over because she started to cry. She remembers looking in the back at my little sister - then just a baby - sitting in her car seat in the back as she tried to pull herself together.

Except... my sister was born in December of 1986, 11 months after the disaster.

I figure she must have got it confused with some other disaster, but to this day she still swears she had my sister in the back seat when she heard the news.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

LinkPizza posted...

Dont you have to play like 100 times to get all the endings.

No.

LinkPizza posted...

I heard that when you play a second time, they mention how you played the first time or something

Depending on the choices made, yes, they may reference your previous playthrough.

LinkPizza posted...

So, you have to play a lot to get all the endings...

No, because there's really only three endings (two of which you can get on a single playthrough, weird as that sounds). You can do things to mildly alter scenes in those endings, but you can see pretty much everything, aside from some extremely minor stuff, with two playthroughs total.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Blighboy posted...

Is there a reason Biden seems the most out of touch despite all the major contenders being about the same age? Even Trump, despite his other qualities, seems to know what year it is most of the time.

I mean, Trump gave very similar comments after... I don't even remember which mass shooting it was now, but he basically said the big reason why there were so many mass shootings was because of video games.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

It's worth a playthrough.

It's wildly overrated, but still a solid game.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

LinkPizza posted...

You may have had to enter the forest temple first, but I don't think you had to finish it first.

You don't have to finish the dungeons, but there's literally no reason not to once you enter them, given that you can full-clear every dungeon using only the items you enter with (only exceptions are Deku tree, where you need bombs and boomerang to get a single skulltulla, and Dodongo's cavern, which you have to revisit as an adult for a skulltulla). Additional items from later dungeons unlock nothing and don't make them any easier, so there's really no point in partial-clearing a dungeon, then returning to it later.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

a few OoT dungeons weren't really tied to any order either.

The only order switch-ups you could do in OoT was that Fire and Water were interchangeable as the 2nd/3rd temples, and Shadow/Spirit were interchangeable as the 4th/5th. Beyond that, all dungeons were set.

-Deku was obviously mandatory first
-You needed the bombs from DC to get into Zora's Domain and on to Jabu, so those were locked as second and third child dungeons
-Both the Water Temple and the Fire Temple require the bow to complete, so Forest was required as your first dungeon.
-The nocturne cutscene needed to access the Shadow Temple is only activated by having both the fire and water medallions, and either hover boots or longshot is required to access the Spirit Temple while the hammer is required to clear it, so that pretty much sets the remainder of the order.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

To the Moon. You know it's coming and it still hits you like a freight train.

GreenKnight127 posted...

5 pages in....and I'm the first to say Aeris(Aerith)???

5 posts in and someone beat you to it.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

You know, it's all kinds of hilarious that there are still people who think Trump is in any way respected on the world stage and not looked at as anything other than a bumbling stooge with his head up his ass. He got laughed at here by America's enemies, he was laughed at previously by America's allies at the NATO summit, and he was laughed at by the entire world at the UN.

The only people in the world who don't recognize how wholly unfit Trump is for the job he's currently in are his voters.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Because there's nothing actually special about Florida as far as craziness goes.

Congratulations on missing the joke.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

-Completely doing a 180 on Luke's character

I have never agreed with this idea.

TLJ is completely consistent with OT Luke. People seem to think that Luke is some pacifistic flower child, wise and patient, when that is literally the polar opposite of how he was portrayed in the OT. Luke was a creature of passion. He was reckless and impatient, always going with his gut instinct instead of thinking things through, one who habitually leaped before he looked, and one who frequently allowed his aggression to get the better of him.

These traits, particularly his emotional and empathetic nature, were sometimes his greatest strength and sometimes his biggest weakness. He ignored the advice of two experienced Jedi Masters when he rushed to confront Vader in ESB out of fear his friends were in danger, something that very nearly got him killed; he did it again in RotJ when they told him that Anakin Skywalker was dead and that the only way to deal with Vader was to kill him. The first one was a bad call, the second a far better one. In ESB he was the first one to draw his weapon against Vader and he made the first strike, showing his aggression; in RotJ, he very nearly lost himself to his rage when Leia was threatened and came within a hair's breadth of falling to the dark side and fulfilling the Emperor's plan.

And in TLJ? We find him a bitter, broken man and we eventually find out why. Because he failed. Because the son of his beloved sister and best friend was entrusted to his care and Luke was not able to save him from his inner darkness. Worse, Luke himself is the one who gave him the final push over the edge. When Luke glimpses inside Ben's mind and sees the darkness festering within, he panics - he is reminded of Vader, his own father and the man whose incredible power ended the previous Jedi order and brought the galaxy to its knees, ushering in three decades of darkness and tyranny that was only ended at a horrific cost in lives and treasure. And Luke knew those costs better than most, having lost friends and loved ones to Vader and his minions. So his instinctual reaction, his reflexive response to seeing a threat that could bring back the darkness that he had lost so much to was to end it then and there. That momentary panic, that spark of aggression is entirely in character and Luke immediately realizes it is wrong... but too late to save himself from the consequences of his actions.

I see absolutely nothing inconsistent in that characterization. I'm not sure what people were expecting from a sequel-era Luke, because from where I sit he was written perfectly (and Mark Hamill's acting was fucking fantastic - best character in TLJ and it's not even close).

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Hyperspeed skipping (literally impossible as established by the OT. Entire scenes revolve around the plotpoint that going to Hyperspeed needs to be done in a speific way)
-Taking absolutely hilarious liberties with The Force, allowing it to randomly now teleport objects, interact with objects physically from far away/via the Force, heal, life drain, apparently the ability to ghost possess people (or something), Force Ghosts can physically and metaphysically interact with the real world, etc. jesus I can;t go on

Pretty much all of this comes from RoS, and I'm not even going to attempt to defend that one. The hyperspace skipping scene was my least favourite scene in the entire sequel trilogy (I'm not sure what that says about it. Or me). Episode IX is the one movie where I completely agree that the charge of shitting on previous canon and just doing cool things for the sake of being cool, its viability based on previous lore be damned, is entirely warranted.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

How much random shit happens in TRoS without any explanation alone is staggering.

Again, I completely agree. RoS was a movie that had some cool moments, but only if you ignore the massive amounts of bullshit that were used to set the stage.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

There's a lot bad about the PT, but the ST look like they were made by someone who has no idea what Star Wars is, or simply doesn't give a fuck,

I mean, I guess that's the real difference.

The PT are terrible movies with bad scripting, bad acting, and massive logical jumps, but there is actually a narrative arc underneath that's reasonably consistent.

The ST are better quality movies with far better scripts and acting than the PT could manage even at its best, but the underlying arc is a mess.

Xfma100 posted...

I still have a soft spot for the prequels though.

I mean, they gave us Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, Christopher Lee as Dooku, Samuel Jackson as Windu, etc.

Of those, the only one who actually turned in a decent performance was McGregor who, bless his heart, acted his guts out on a trilogy of movies that didn't deserve him.

Jackson and Lee were, respectively, the first and second-biggest wastes of big names and acting talent that the prequel roped in. Lee looked like he was going to be able to give some interesting commentary on the Republic, the Confederacy, the Jedi, and the Sith given that he was in the fairly unique position of having been associated with all those entities at different points; instead, he's introduced near the end of the second movie and is dead by the end of the opening scene of the third, and never manages to do anything particularly noteworthy in his limited screen time that makes him worth of remembrance (beyond being acted by Chris Lee).

Jackson is the one that still bothers me. You have Samuel fucking Jackson on your cast and you can't find something better for him to do other than sit and scowl at people? Jackson could have been amazing in the prequel if he was cast as anything other than a Jedi master. Make him a Republic general, make him a crime boss, make him a bounty hunter, make him something where he actually has a chance to show off his acting chops and play to his strength! Or, if you absolutely must have him as a Jedi master, at least give him something interesting to do. I've always thought it would have been incredibly intriguing if the Jedi were more "factionalized" - like if there was a group that advocated for a greater, more active role in the Republic as generals and warriors, with Windu as their "leader", and another who felt that it was not the Jedi's place to in

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

That's not shitting on canon, though- hell, there's almost no way Anakin WOULDN'T be angsty.

Sure there is.

There's plenty of "original sins" that could have been substituted for teenage angst. Jealousy; arrogance; anger; impatience; there's no reason why Anakin's fall had to be so incredibly cringy.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Dumb, but this doesn't ultimately matter, and is never mentioned after TPM.

"Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create...life." - Palpatine, Revenge of the Sith.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

And...why wouldn't that be the case?

It's certainly not what Yoda and Obi-Wan suggested in their own representations of the Jedi and the Force in the OT.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

On top of that, I'm not sure what movies you were watching, but a big part of II and III WAS showing the Jedi be badass, enlightened warrior-mystics.

The only action the Jedi saw in Episode II was a fight in an arena, where they got their asses handed to them until the cavalry arrived in the form of the clones. In Episode III we saw a bunch of them get shot in the back by glorified stormtroopers. That is basically the sum-total of their characterization in the prequel trilogy.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

And no one seems to have ever concretely owned R2-D2, beside from maybe Luke from Empire onward.

Which doesn't change the fact that even though R2-D2 wasn't owned by Obi-Wan they still travelled together and had extensive adventures. ANH was far from their first time meeting. Even if Obi-Wan had (somehow) forgotten all about his apprentice and partner's droid, there's a zero percent chance that Artoo would have forgotten about him.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

And Anakin being an accomplished pilot comes from A) his Pod-Racing B) his exploits on the Battle of Naboo, which Obi would have heard about later.

Pod-racing isn't piloting, though. And Naboo was literally his first time flying a ship, where he won a battle almost completely by accident. Hard to call him "already an amazing pilot" based on that resume.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

JOExHIGASHI posted...

Sure I was intelligent enough and physically able but it doesn't fit my personality so suggesting all coal miners just pick up a skill so different from their current field is not a realistic solution

I mean, ultimately they're going to have to pick a different skill of some sort. Maybe not programming, but coal is a dying industry and technological process means that the manpower requirements for modern coal mines are far, far lower than the mines of the past. The jobs that have left that industry are never coming back, no matter what Trump says.

And coal is just one of dozens of industries where workers are threatened by increasing automation. We will need a strategy for what to do with those workers in the future, else we are going to see a massive unemployment spike, with all the economic, social, and political consequences that entails. Even if the specifics are wonky, I'm pleased this is at least being talked about as a problem and solutions are being batted around.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

BlackScythe0 posted...

It's not.

The argument seems to be "It isn't prohibited"

But without any basis for it in the law there is no legal grounds for it to be an actual thing.

If it's not a prohibited activity (and if it wasn't to the death, it probably wouldn't be), it would actually be legally defensible as a form of arbitration as long as both sides agreed to it. It would be kind of stupid, but not as implausible as you're suggesting.

That being said, courts generally can't impose arbitration terms where none previously existed, and certainly none as outlandish as this, so I'm amazed the judge didn't just quash the motion outright as soon as it was filed.

Also, how did this story not manage to come from Florida?

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Yes. Didn't cause any issues, though, and I consider it a positive influence in my life. My family has never been the fanatical sort.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Indiana Jones
OG Sonic the Hedgehog (but only if we're counting Knuckles as part of 3; otherwise 2 wins out)
Matrix
Donkey Kong Country
SNES Mega Man X
Pre-N64 Metroid
Trails in the Sky
Paper Mario (before the series went shitty)

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

https://consumerreportsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Rear-Spoiler-market.jpg

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

aDirtyShisno posted...

Im sorry, did he just say that dogs routinely hunt whales...?

He misidentified whales as fish, but otherwise I don't see the problem.

Anyways, I have yet to see any existence of these so-called "dogs" and I refuse to take it on faith that they're supposedly "out there" somewhere.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OniRonin posted...

Banjo

Major characters only, please.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

With the decade ended, it is time to settle this question.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

TigerTycoon posted...

You realize that while nobody thinks the Room is a good movie, they love the Room as a movie, right?

It's the defining "so bad it's good" movie.

The prequels can't even claim to be that.

Sure, but you're pretty much restating my point here.

The Room is beloved because it's bad (actually because it's a level beyond bad). The movie itself isn't entertaining, the absolute awfulness of it is what's entertaining.

And if people were saying the same thing about the prequels, fine. If they're saying that the movie was so terrible that its awfulness actually becomes entertaining... well, I'd disagree (as you pointed out, the PT can't even claim that small solace), but I'd see the logic.

But no, you have people saying that the prequels unironically were good movies because they provided a bunch of memes. Which is all kinds of ridiculous.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Muscles posted...

The prequels have the Clone Wars to really bolster the characters imo

Any movie trilogy that needs double digit hours of ancillary material covered in a completely different medium to wallpaper over its flaws has done something seriously wrong with its life.

Muscles posted...

Disney has one dimensional characters and shits on the OT

And the PT doesn't?

Seriously, have people forgotten that the PT turned Darth Vader, arguably the most iconic fictional villain ever, into an angsty teenager that leg-humped his way to the dark side? Or that it turned the Force from a mystical energy field into a bacterial infection? Or that the Jedi were portrayed not as a sect of enlightened warrior-mystics, but as a bunch of scowling old guys that sat in a circle and talked about politics all day?

And this is without touching the myriad of plotholes that the PT opened up, like how Leia could possibly remember her mother when she was all of three minutes old when Padme suddenly died of the dumbest cause imaginable; or how Obi-Wan somehow completely forgets R2-D2 (and vice versa) and also claims to have never owned a droid despite, y'know, owning a droid in Episode III; or how Obi-Wan claims Anakin was already an amazing pilot when he met him despite the fact that Episode I shows us that Anakin had never even set foot inside a starship when he met Kenobi (and also that he was nine years old).

I feel like people have forgotten just how badly the PT fucked with the OT and just straight-up ignored things it had already established when it was convenient to do so. Say what you will about the ST, at least the characters were consistent with their OT incarnations. At least it didn't inspire the creator to go back and retroactively edit the originals and add in a bunch of pointless bullshit that actively makes them worse.

TigerTycoon posted...

The prequels are dumb, but they are still memorable.

The Room is similarly memorable and for pretty much the same reasons; that doesn't mean it's a good movie.

---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!