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How do you feel about the fact that Trump has now officially been impeached?
@freemo They will vote, but as Jurors on the trial process.
Indeed unlikely to result in a conviction, as the party is holdign their noses and sticking with the man.
@design_RG Well juror isnt the right word. Even if they vote to kick him out of office that does not require or imply he did anything illegal. Impeachment is not a criminal court.
@freemo I have seen it reported in the media as a Trial process, and with the senators becoming a jury to deliberate on the veredict and the charges.
With one of the Supreme Court judges actually presiding over the proceedings.
All from media reports, I am not very familiar with the details.
@design_RG I take back what I said, doing more research on this...
@design_RG Ok so just checked some facts.
1) I was correct that the trial that follows impreachment is not criminal in nature, the reasoning can be as simple as improper conduct, or as severe as a criminal act. The exact wording according to senate.gov is this "if a federal official commits a crime or otherwise acts improperly, the House of Representatives may impeach" so it does not necessarily imply criminality occured.
2) it is further not really a jury or criminal trial in any sense because there is no possiblity of conviction should the vote pass for any criminal consequnces. The only consequence that the president can face as a result of the senate hearing would be being barred from holding office
3) you are correct in the fact that the chief justice of the supreme court ultimately presides over the hearing and gets to be a gatekeeper of what evidence is presented, what is not, who gets subpoenaed, etc. But keep in mind the senate is fundementally different than a jurt in the sense that before the hearing they already heard all the evidence unrestricted from the impeachment hearings. So while normally a jury is choosen to be unbiased and have no previous knowledge, and thus the judge gets to decide what evidence they hear, this doesnt apply to the senate. So it would still be improper to see them as a jury.
4) side note, once a president is removed from office, and only then, can a separate criminal trial be held where criminality is determined. however it is likely the case that the new president (since he was the president's vice) will simply pardon him and prevent him from facing criminal charges. This is what happened with nixon.
@freemo Looks like a distinction between the vernacular use of impeachment as in "removal from office" vs. strict use of impeachment, i.e. "formal charges filed by House of Representatives." For the record, I was one of those who read your question in the vernacular.
@werekat Nothing wrong with that "mistake" really, but the option was meant as a joke.
But the common "venacular" definition doesnt mean "removal from office" the layperson definition according to the dictionary is actually "the action of calling into question the integrity or validity of something."
There is also a definition which doesnt disagree with the senate hearing which is "a charge of misconduct made against the holder of a public office."
However if you use the word impeachment to mean "someone who has been removed from office" generally speaking you are using the word incorrectly even in its vernacular form.
@freemo I own the mistake, no trouble there. But my argument here is more descriptivist than proscriptivist, linguistically-speaking. I don't think it's the only time I've seen the meaning of a word that signifies part of a procedure be expanded, in common use, to cover the entire procedure when used as a kind of shorthand. A dictionary may or may not pick up the difference before such usage reaches its expiration date. It's interesting as a possible source of such mistakes.
@freemo Of course, another possible source is just people picking the "let's choose the option which makes me sound more knowledgeable than I really am" options, which is the effect that "but what about" question usually create! :P
@werekat Its certainly a very common mistake. Though to be fair a lot of words are used incorrectly by people who arent too critical about the actual meaning. Nothing wrong with that, it happens.
@freemo I'm thinking now of how the outcome would change if other terms were used in the poll. Say "how do you feel about Trump being formally accused?" In this case, an answer of "But the Senate hasn't voted yet" would infer "accusations are only the beginning". I would be curious to know if anyone interpreted your poll that way.
@werekat Sadly polls have very limited text limitations. So I was somewhat restricted in my wording.
@freemo
Oh, certainly - it's more of an idle linguistic curiosity rather than anything else.
@werekat Yea exactly. Though it is a nice stick to beat people with when they start getting an attitude in a political debate :)
@freemo this whole impeachment thing is a joke. The pubs will not impeach Trump in the Senate.
This is just a PR stunt by the Dems to say look we tried! Because if they didn't they'd look worse.
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@freemo
Just read (and shared) a brief article reporting that one of the professors who testified says he's not been Impeached until the house escalates to the senate. I'm not a legal scholar, but found this interesting.
@SecondJon The house did "escalate" to the senate as far as I know.. ill read the article, I'm no legal expert so could be something is up.
From the Washington Post :
A day after the House voted to impeach Trump, Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced she would refrain from transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate...
@freemo #Democrats will fuck up (they got nothing, just FUD and fiction) and this will guarantee #Trump2020. LOL, that would be epic! 
@CCoinTradingIdeas The senate will be a hard win, needing 2/3rds vote when everyone has been voting party lines for years, yea chances are he wont be removed from office.
But that was never the democrats goals I suspect. All they wanted to do was bring trump's illicit behaviors to light and make it look official. Their goal was to dirty his name and hurt his chances for reelection.
In that regard it seems they are having some limited success. There is no doubt it hurt his popularity and his chance of winning the 2020 election.
Except his behavior was necessarily linked with Biden's so the Dems fall along with him if he falls.
But he is doing better in the polls.
That makes the assumption that biden will even be the one who wins the primaries and goes up against Bush. If it isnt Biden but rather another candidate that wins the primaries then it does nothing to hurt the democrat's chances.
Yes, it does. It adds another layer of sleaze to the dem, along with Bill Clinton, then Hillary's emails...
I suppose, but there is more than enough sleaze from both dems and republicans, it never slowed down either party before.
@freemo " bring trump's illicit behaviors to light" Like what?
@CCoinTradingIdeas I'm not sure i have the time to recap the impeachment trials for you, ill get you a link when i have time
@CCoinTradingIdeas Thats not really valid. I suspect you may not completely understand what hearsay means legally.
If someone is actually in the room when the call is conducted or is listening in on the call, this isnt hearsay legally, it is considered direct evidence.
Hearsay would be overhearing trump talk abotu being guilty to someone else while not actually overhearing the incident which he is guilty of.
@freemo it's a joke and a moot point.
@CCoinTradingIdeas Are you laughing at that because it ironic and makes Trump supporters look like idiots for believing the disinformation in that meme?
Or are you laughing because you think the meme is true?
@freemo it's form Jack Posobiec and with someone commenting:
"Jack is just trying to get #Democrats to read something new to them, something that they have never read before."
@CCoinTradingIdeas HUH? The quote in the original meme was from Kaya Jones, what ever do you mean?
Nevermind, you are right Jack was the original source.
Note, the poll option "But the senate didnt vote yet" was a booby option to see how many people understand the fact that the impeachment vote is over, final, and done. The senate doesnt ever vote on impeachment.