Ocasio-Cortez demands GOP specify actual crimes in Biden impeachment inquiry

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pressured Republicans to name the specific crime they are accusing President Biden of as they proceed with their impeachment inquiry.

Ocasio-Cortez noted the recent arrest of a former FBI informant for lying to the agency, fabricating the claim that Biden accepted a bribe while vice president to take actions to benefit the Ukrainian energy company his son served on the board of.

“At this point, the story isn’t the fact that the basis of this impeachment inquiry is wrong. The story is, ‘Why it is proceeding anyway?’” she asked, saying Republicans have “no charges.”

“I have yet to hear in the chairman’s opening the allegation that they are specifically charging the president of the United States with. I am hearing about the ‘Biden family.’ I am hearing about this and that. I am not hearing the specific allegation by this committee. What is it? It is not here. And that is the problem,” she said.

roguetrick, (edited )

I wish we could roll up the executive branch with an unspecified RICO charge. We’ll hit the entire US government with it. Unfortunately testifying as such to a committee just makes you deranged.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

If the GOP truly wanted to big dick this, they’d pin Biden’s ears for supporting Israel’s genocide in violation of a litany of UN treaties.

But it can’t be for anything real. It’s always gotta be “Joe Biden snorted coke off his son’s illegal immigrant during a trans pedophile abortion that raises your taxes.”

GladiusB,
@GladiusB@lemmy.world avatar

He can’t be held responsible for another country’s actions. The US has supplied Israel long before Biden and will do so longer after. They are an ally for a reason. They have the power to help stop many nations if they decide to do something very rash.

He is holding a status quo that has been around for a long time. Should that change? Maybe. But he is not solely responsible for the inner workings of diplomacy for over 50 years.

homura1650, (edited )

But he can be held responsible for the US’s actions.

The extant to which treaties carry weight under US law is untested. Congress tried going to court over this in Goldwater v Carter over Carter’s withdrawal from the Sino-American mutual defense treaty. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the case as “unfit for judicial review”.

Biden is also arguably violating the Foreign Assistance Act, which provides that:

Except under circumstances specified in this section, no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.

However, the Senate voted 72-11 against attempying to enforce the relevent provisions in this case.

GladiusB,
@GladiusB@lemmy.world avatar

I appreciate what you are getting at. However my point is that support started in 1948. Switching gears is not as linear as he says no and it happens. There are many other considerations with aid and diplomacy.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

The US has supplied Israel long before Biden and will do so longer after.

But also during. Which makes it Biden’s responsibility

FontMasterFlex,

Everyone in these videos are the fucking worst. ALWAYS talking over each other, avoiding questions, deflecting answers. Just the fucking worst. What they should do is have the microphones only on for a specific allotted time, and when one is on, not a single other one can be on at the same time.

Illuminostro,

The microphones should be muted until one is finished speaking.

Cornucopiaofplenty,

I’m pleased to say your reading comprehension module is still functional

Tinidril,

It has to do with the traditional rules of how the Senate operates. Senators only get so much time to both ask and receive answers to questions. It’s just too easy for a witness to burn up that time with long winded non-answers. That’s why Senators are quick to grab control back.

FontMasterFlex,

That’s why I said, each reply and response should be automatically timed and microphone switched.

Tinidril,

Again, witnesses would then be able to spew bullshit non-answers until their allotted time is up. If Senators don’t shut them down, they might as well never have hearings at all - especially with hostile witnesses. Time is also not allotted to the witnesses, it’s allotted to the Senators.

FontMasterFlex,

then why have witnesses at all? if the senators are just going to interrupt them and talk over them, why even allow them in the hearing? what’s the point? everyone should be given time to speak.

Tinidril,

That’s why Senators from both parties get time to ask questions. The witnesses do get time to say what they want to say but, when they are being evasive, Senators aren’t going to let them burn up valuable time.

There is a ton of actual dysfunction in the Senate, but there are very good reasons why these hearings function as they do. It’s not going to be a pleasant conversation when witnesses are subpoenaed to testify on subjects they would rather avoid. That’s especially true when one side of the isle is completely unconcerned with truth.

MrSpArkle, (edited )

If you want an example of how warped conservatives are:

web.archive.org/…/aoc-has-a-mental-breakdown-duri…

Their coverage of this is decoupled from reality.

Mongostein,

Can you change your link to this archive.org link? No need to give these assholes clicks. I even got it ready for you!

web.archive.org/…/aoc-has-a-mental-breakdown-duri…

Now my thoughts on it: When I was in journalism class the biggest then they told us is that you don’t inject your own opinions. This article definitely does that.

Also, when people try to tell me how I should feel about something it becomes very clear to me that they think I’m stupid and they’re trying to manipulate me. Guess what else this article is doing!

I don’t understand how these people can claim to be “free-thinkers” while everyone else are “sheep” when it’s so clear how manipulative the media they consume is.

buddascrayon,

This part of that article in particular:

AOC: Tell me the specific crimes committed by Joe Biden!

Bobulinski: RICO and corruption statutes

AOC: I said tell me the specific crimes!

Bobulinski: I just did

AOC: [SCREAMS]

Like, all you need to do is watch the video they linked to see how bullshit that take is. Yet the forums I’ve seen with this article linked have conservatives cheering Bobulinski’s “measured response” as if he wasn’t bumbling though his answers because he has nothing.

MrSpArkle,

Changed, thanks.

LucidNightmare,

I actually visited that cancerous site, because I do like to keep up with what both sides are saying.

It was hard, but I did go and read the drivel and also watch the video.

I’ve got to say, folks, and who would’ve guessed it, but what they put on the page and what was in the video did not add up at all. AOC was asking the guy what specific charge they were bringing with them for the impeachment, and his first response was some smart ass thing. Okay, par for the course with these idiots, but I’ll keep watching.

She asks again, and he says RICO.

en.wikipedia.org/…/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corru…

Which was not a SPECIFIC charge, it is a CATEGORY, which AOC even reminded him and the rest of the participants.

My tax dollars are paying for monkeys to wear suits, just to sling shit at each other. Good to know.

Dagwood222,

Even better.

They’ll get elected and then pass a law they know will arouse controversy, like abolishing Martin Luther King Day. They will use taxpayer dollars to defend the law while the Left has to spend donations that could have gone to other causes. They create a money drain for the Left, and the taxpayers foot the bill.

teamevil,

So then I would suggest that the left enact a law that specifically allows for the complete ignoring or bad faith bullshit Republican laws. If they can’t get their shit together to actually participate in DEMOCRACY then they should be ignored like we ignore the idiot yelling on a street corner.

Wes_Dev, (edited )

Pretty sure the thought process goes something like this:

Since Trump is being charged under RICO, we’ll point at Biden and say “Him too!”.

Theharpyeagle,

Seriously, one need only read a single paragraph of that page.

Under RICO, a person who has committed “at least two acts of racketeering activity” drawn from a list of 35 crimes (27 federal crimes and eight state crimes) within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an “enterprise.”[1]

So they need to name two crimes in that category. In the world of legalese, this is honestly so easy to understand.

Mastengwe,

I mean, shouldn’t they have had to do that from the beginning?

ChickenLadyLovesLife,

Like my mom used to tell me: “don’t talk with your mouth open”.

Valmond,

Too embarrassing :

Getting the economy back up, looking good

Silently working for the country, looking old but okay.

Recently (this might be added to the crimes) looking better than trump, slashing trump, and more.

Smallwater,

Yes. The whole thing is a sham, deliberately. They’re trying tomqake an impeachment seem ridiculous and frivolous, to make the impeachment against Trump seem like a non-issue.

Remember, these are modern-day politicians. They’re no longer interested in the truth. Only optics.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

Plus impeachment crimes only occur when in office. Even if something shady happened before 2020 it will have to wait until Biden leaves office

homesweethomeMrL,

What? Look lady, we’re in the middle of a very seereeus trial here. Why would we need a specific thing to accuse them of?? Dang libruls.

Okay Charlie back to you, as you were saying. Something about the danged libruls I think.

Texas_Hangover,

thumbnail looks like she’s really getting railed by that dude behind her lmao.

nulluser,

Tell us you’re a twelve year old boy, without telling us you’re a twelve year old boy.

Illuminostro,

Jokes like that kill at the bar, bro.

/s

Texas_Hangover,

You’re off by about 30 years but good guess! Believe it or not, grown ass men can have a sense of humor too.

postmateDumbass,

Seemed more like a Republican flailing to ad hominem AOC than humor.

Starkstruck,

That’s objectively worse than being a 12 year old saying this

Empricorn,

So… when do you get yours?

myusernameis,

As someone who taught that age range, this is an insult to most 12 year old boys.

metallic_substance,

Time to conclude your gooning session

Zetta,

I didn’t see that and I’d consider myself to be generally horny.

Texas_Hangover,

Yeah, I might be drunk.

AlligatorBlizzard,

How is that Texas hangover? I bet it’s huge, but not as big as an Alaska hangover.

dan1101,

Yes, Democrats allow way too much Republican nonsense to happen without challenging it. Maybe they assume citizens will realize how asinine it is but that isn’t working.

Spaghetti_Hitchens,

Not all Democrats, but most seem to simply be Republican Lite these days. They might be a little more socially progressive, but most don't seem to mind the Republican shenanigans

FenrirIII,
@FenrirIII@lemmy.world avatar

Every lie Republicans tell is repeated forever by Fox News and other right-wing outlets. Challenging them doesn’t undo the damage, but it does stifle them from making more talking points.

Catma,

I dont think it matters what Dems do in response to Republican antics like this. All any Republican is looking for is a quick 10 sec clip they can play on loop that makes them look good or Dems look bad. Media has become so fragmented that people disagree on basic facts. It wouldnt matter what a Dem said or did, it will never pierce the right wing media bubble.

thesporkeffect,

What they can do is cut off all oxygen. No one action is going to fix it, but they need to be deplatformed starting at the top and working downward, cut off funding anywhere possible: fix citizens united, don’t debate them without having control of the microphone, etc

UnpluggedFridge,

Calling them out also will not work. Modern republicanism hinges on Democrats being the enemy. It is a belief that lacks any specific evidence, but the idea has been repeated so many times through accusations with no evidence, predictions that never come to fruition, and outright lies that never get corrected that from the perspective of a Republican, even if some single allegation is proven false, they are hearing so many bad things about their countrymen that some of it has to be true.

The Russians perfected this type of propaganda and it is based on a couple quirks in how our brains work. First, even a wacky lie pushes your beliefs in the direction of the lie. Second, if a lie is repeated it is more likely to be believed. Wrap this up in a major media ecosystem that says over and over “You can’t trust other sources of information. Here are 10 reasons Democrats are pedophiles” and you have armed people storming into pizza shops searching for children locked in a basement that doesn’t exist.

The final quirk of our brains that sort of seals the deal is that direct contradictory evidence to a belief does not weaken the belief, it makes it stronger. The believer rationalizes a defense of the belief in light of the contradictory evidence. Changing someone’s beliefs requires an effort akin to cult deprogramming.

Zirconium,

They should still fight against it. They just roll over whenever Republicans lie about vaccines, borders, transgender people, Ukraine, Israel. When there’s not even a dissenting “opinion” from our president it’s really easy to tell why only Republican trash is heard

null,

But what does “fighting it” look like?

UnpluggedFridge,

The dissenting opinion is unlikely to be heard. Here is another brain quirk for you: we hate seeing information that contradicts our beliefs. The attention-optimized algorithms of social media have made it possible to spend a whole day consuming information without seeing anything we disagree with. Traditional journalism is no longer the source of shared truth for our society, we have surrendered that to the algorithms with the net effect of fracturing society into groups with very different ideas of what the truth is.

IMO the recent rise of far-right political power can be directly attributed to the “post-truth” bubbles we have found ourselves in. I know I have overused the brain quirk gimmick, but these bubbles are creating a huge amount of fear and uncertainty. This over-stimulation of our amygdala reduces empathy and causes us to further constrict our in-groups. This makes it easier for power hungry politicians to push out-groups into “enemy” territory and leverage the fear of the enemy into raw political power.

I do acknowledge the irony, as I type this message, that I will be heard only by people that share my values. My hope is that you the reader see that empathy is the cure, and choose not to close off your in-group despite the feeds and the mod bans and the powerful men profiting from this mess.

Zirconium,

I basically only have empathy left. I’m just trying to think of a way to help people I know that isn’t “stop watching propaganda.” Like I can’t think of something to convince my mother in law that the earth is more than 6000 years old because she thinks the English translation of the Bible is the greatest evidence of anything so y’know. It’s those lies that people so easily believe that if just explain where the lie came from it’s easy. But the bible is kinda a paradox in that, and I’m not risking that conversation because I don’t have money for my own place yet

fuckingkangaroos,

The Russians perfected this kind of propaganda

Yes, and then taught it to the GOP. The current GOP also uses other Kremlin tactics, an interesting example is “firehose of falsehoods”.

stewie3128,

Republicans have to be continually humiliated in front of the nation. That is the only thing that will work, and that is all that they will listen to (other than outright brutality). Utter and complete humiliation every day.

Dems as a party won’t do it because they a) fear losing imaginary “centrist” voters, and b) don’t actually want to be in power anyway, since they can fundraise more when they are in the opposition.

Fredselfish,
@Fredselfish@lemmy.world avatar

Glad she calling them out. To bad she talking to a brick wall they don’t care about charges they just want a distraction from all the bullshit they are doing.

Senokir,

I don’t think she’s really talking to them or expecting them to suddenly admit what they are doing and change their actions. I feel like she’s moreso talking to the American people. I know personally it at least gives me a modicum of hope to see that there are still people who will stand up for what’s right and call them out on the floor of Congress. It’s certainly better than living in a world where no one challenges them anyway.

nondescripthandle,

She can try to talk to the American people but the ones who need to hear this are only going to get the Fox News edit of the hearing.

Senokir,

I agree that those people need to understand her point the most and that they likely won’t even if they did hear it unedited but even the people who are already on her side like myself still need to hear it. Not because we don’t already understand what she’s saying but because it shows that we haven’t given up yet.

tryptaminev,

Everyone who speaks up, encourages others to speak up. You will not get the ones that only sit a t home only watching fox news, but if everyone who leaves the house is still met with opposition to their absurd claims, it will deterioate the effects of fox and co.

What we expect to be the normative view does influence our views. People want to hold the opinion that they think to be the majority opinion. That is why cults try to isolate their members from other people with other opinions.

By just giving up and letting their propaganda run unopposed we help them feed it to their followers.

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