Donald Trump 2019

[Jive Turkey 12624]

16 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The point isn't to get Trump out of office. The point is to convince enough of the American people that there actually is a difference between the parties, and that the entire GOP is complicit with Trump's criminality and corruption and must be removed from power at every level down to fucking dogcatcher.

But that is the point.  In a sane, rational world, Trump would never be POTUS in the first place.  We all knew what a con man and fraud he was, but he still won.  And he is doing exactly what we knew he would do - acting like a con man and a fraud.  But he still might be re-elected.  I know HG said above that "it's over" for 2020, but I don't believe that for one second.  We are in the Twilight Zone.  It is very possible Trump is re-elected.  And he knows the best path is for there to be impeachment hearings where he is exonerated by the U.S. Senate.  That carries with it significant gravitas to the masses for the very reason Hugo mentioned above:  most people don't understand how impeachment works.  That will work in Trump's favor.  The GOP and Fox News are so much better at defining the narrative than the Dems.  

Pelosi is not interested in making an impeachment case to "the American people."  She is solely focused on those hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin who will decide the 2020 presidential election.  That's it.  It's like Supreme Court oral argument prior to Trump.  You may have several incredible arguments for the panel that would have resonated, but you focused your argument on the 1 or 2 swing Justices - O'Connor and/or Kennedy.  You knew where everybody else stood.  So everything was focused on getting one of those Justices on your side.  Pelosi is doing that here.  She is focused solely on those voters who will determine the 2020 POTUS election.  And she's betting that exoneration of Trump by a clearly biased Senate will backfire and that those Midwestern folks will stick with Trump like they did in 2016.

[Biff Tannen 45692]

4 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Beginning an impeachment inquiry would open up a shitload of doors to evidence and testimony that would otherwise be unobtainable.

I think this should begin ASAP and then drag it out over the course of the next year.  Finally vote to impeach right before the election so Senate doesn't have time to have a trial.

[brown water 3778]

2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

Calksuckers. All of them. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

1 minute ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

i think the timing is important.  it's easy to see everyone on the left looking very impotent when they impeach and the senate just says 'nope' without a second thought.   you are setting yourself up to look like a non-entity.  time that wrong during an election year and you'd really be impacting how inspired people are to get out and vote for you.

The timing on taking a vote matters.  

There is enough material to drag out an impeachment process for over a year and the Dems control the clock.   

It will take a minimum of three months to run an impeachment process in the House.  At some point (early 2020), the narrative shifts to “let the voters decide”.

The democrats have approximately four months left on the clock to begin a genuine impeachment process without being rushed.

Also, if Mueller is going to testify, he should testify in an impeachment process because his report is an impeachment roadmap. 

[Chooky 13317]

I get it now. Like a penis is what ya'll are saying. Heh. A weiner. 

[ndawg 1242]

8 minutes ago, Jive Turkey said:

The GOP and Fox News are so much better at defining the narrative than the Dems. 

I used to parrot this line, but I now think it's wrong.

The GOP and Fox News are willing to lie, cheat and steal to win. They aren't better at defining the narrative, they're controlling it through completely unethical means.

It amounts to whitewashing to suggest that they're more skilled at shaping public perception.

Edited May 23, 2019 by ndawg

[Biff Tannen 45692]

Just now, ndawg said:

I used to parrot this line, but I now think it's wrong -- and dangerous.

The GOP and Fox News are willing to lie, cheat and steal to win. They aren

Welp, ndawg is dead.  It could be any one of us next.

[ndawg 1242]

I fat fingered the tab key, that put the browser's focus on the "Submit Reply" button, and then pressed the space bar, which pressed it. Then I tried hurriedly to fix it before anyone noticed. Clearly, I failed

Edited May 23, 2019 by ndawg

[Chooky 13317]

6 minutes ago, ndawg said:

I fat fingered the tab key, that put the browser's focus on the "Submit Reply" button, and then pressed the space bar, which pressed it. Then I tried hurriedly to fix it before anyone noticed. Clearly, I failed

Who are you and what have you done with ndawg? 

[ndawg 1242]

5 minutes ago, Chooky said:

Who are you and what have you done with ndawg? 

Nothing. And pay no attention to future grammar mistakes, that sound like Russian speaking English.

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

 

 

[elfenix 34329]

4 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I'd pay to watch him sit on the floor then try to stand back up again. 

i imagine it'd be like a boxing clown, he'd tip over to try to leverage himself up, then he starts to leverage up only to find himself still sitting with his legs crossed.

3 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Don't be so sure. 

much as trump looks like he doesn't know what he's doing here, and the result looks regarded, it's turnbull (peach tie) who has fucked it up.  the only way to do this is crossed, not-crossed, crossed, not-crossed, crossed, not crossed.  medvedev (just off screen to viewer's left) is not crossed, because he's an extraordinarily competent person and knows what he's doing.  trump shouldn't be crossed, and neither should turnbull. 

[Chooky 13317]

4 minutes ago, ndawg said:

Nothing. And pay no attention to future grammar mistakes, that sound like Russian speaking English.

You no find. He is comrade now. 

[Brisketexan 105161]

31 minutes ago, Jive Turkey said:

But that is the point.  In a sane, rational world, Trump would never be POTUS in the first place.  We all knew what a con man and fraud he was, but he still won.  And he is doing exactly what we knew he would do - acting like a con man and a fraud.  But he still might be re-elected.  I know HG said above that "it's over" for 2020, but I don't believe that for one second.  We are in the Twilight Zone.  It is very possible Trump is re-elected.  And he knows the best path is for there to be impeachment hearings where he is exonerated by the U.S. Senate.  That carries with it significant gravitas to the masses for the very reason Hugo mentioned above:  most people don't understand how impeachment works.  That will work in Trump's favor.  The GOP and Fox News are so much better at defining the narrative than the Dems.  

Pelosi is not interested in making an impeachment case to "the American people."  She is solely focused on those hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin who will decide the 2020 presidential election.  That's it.  It's like Supreme Court oral argument prior to Trump.  You may have several incredible arguments for the panel that would have resonated, but you focused your argument on the 1 or 2 swing Justices - O'Connor and/or Kennedy.  You knew where everybody else stood.  So everything was focused on getting one of those Justices on your side.  Pelosi is doing that here.  She is focused solely on those voters who will determine the 2020 POTUS election.  And she's betting that exoneration of Trump by a clearly biased Senate will backfire and that those Midwestern folks will stick with Trump like they did in 2016.

This.

Wildcat's and Hugo's takes above make sense....until you realize the stone-cold fact that the vast majority of voters are mouthbreathing idiots.  Stop expecting them to behave like intelligent rational actors.  They are neither one of those things.  They are walking amygdalas with the power to vote.

Then, when you layer on the fact that only a few hundred thousand of those amygdalas even matter -- swing voters in swing states -- and that's the whole game.  The SCOTUS analogy is dead-on.  The person with the left side of the case isn't trying to win over Alito.  The person with the right side isn't trying to win Sotomayor.  They're both aiming at Roberts, and trying to convince HIM.

Pelosi isn't looking to win any of the Trump base.  And she isn't worried about people who were loyal enough dems to vote for Hillary.  She's playing for the swing voters in the swing states, period.  Every strategy should be looked at through the lens of "will it win more of them or not?"

Edited May 23, 2019 by Brisketexan

[conVINCEd 21469]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

This.

Wildcat's and Hugo's takes above make sense....until you realize the stone-cold fact that the fast majority of voters are mouthbreathing idiots.  Stop expecting them to behave like intelligent rational actors.  They are neither one of those things.  They are walking amygdalas with the power to vote.

Then, when you layer on the fact that only a few hundred thousand of those amygdalas even matter -- swing voters in swing states -- and that's the whole game.  The SCOTUS analogy is dead-on.  The person with the left side of the case isn't trying to win over Alito.  The person with the right side isn't trying to win Sotomayor.  They're both aiming at Roberts, and trying to convince HIM.

Pelosi isn't looking to win any of the Trump base.  And she isn't worried about people who were loyal enough dems to vote for Hillary.  She's playing for the swing voters in the swing states, period.  Every strategy should be looked at through the lens of "will it win more of them or not?"

Meanwhile, bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran is a distinct possibility.

[GW Hayduke 1953]

25 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Beginning an impeachment inquiry would open up a shitload of doors to evidence and testimony that would otherwise be unobtainable.

Do you think this idea is a secret and Nancy somehow hasn’t factored this?

It wouldn’t open a shit ton of doors btw. This is misinformation. The potential exists that an open impeachment inquiry would in some cases strengthen a committee’s case in front of a judge but it isn’t certain that it would. 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-powers-does-formal-impeachment-inquiry-give-house

 

[Chooky 13317]

Iran is about pay bigtime for all the shit Trump did to himself. 

[Brisketexan 105161]

4 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

Meanwhile, bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran is a distinct possibility.

Like I said, there are no good options.  We've put a madman with zero flying experience who thinks he's Chuck Yeager in the locked cockpit of a plane we are all on.  How could you think this ends well?  There's no ending to this that looks like "cool, we arrived in Italy right on time, let's start our vacation!"

[henrygandorf 29194]

34 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Also, if Mueller is going to testify, he should testify in an impeachment process because his report is an impeachment roadmap. 

i'm not completely sure this is true.

they're not going to remove him via impeachment vote in the senate, so what he says is what he says, regardless of the context.  this is all about the court of public opinion leading up to 2020.

i am very curious, however, in the negotiations with mueller's team that might lead to a closed-door hearing, which i think is very possible.  i do think there are both positives and negatives to this outcome.

i'm also waiting for an actual answer to why he's still working for the doj.

[4th&Five 41565]

If that's the route they're going with then come out in public and say "Look, Dotard is a fucking criminal but there's no reason to impeach him in the House because the GOP Senate is full of traitorous assholes that will protect him at every step. You want him gone?  Vote his dumb ass out!"  I'd respect that at least.

[ChiTownDoc 21154]

8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Like I said, there are no good options.  We've put a madman with zero flying experience who thinks he's Chuck Yeager in the locked cockpit of a plane we are all on.  How could you think this ends well?  There's no ending to this that looks like "cool, we arrived in Italy right on time, let's start our vacation!"

How about Italy, Circa 1940?  Seems plausible. 

[henrygandorf 29194]

6 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

If that's the route they're going with then come out in public and say "Look, Dotard is a fucking criminal but there's no reason to impeach him in the House because the GOP Senate is full of traitorous assholes that will protect him at every step. You want him gone?  Vote his dumb ass out!"  I'd respect that at least.

i said something very similar a few pages upthread.  the dem narrative needs to be "we know the senate will not remove him, but this is the right thing to do."  make the senate republicans eat shit.

Edited May 23, 2019 by henrygandorf
suck it

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

12 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

Do you think this idea is a secret and Nancy somehow hasn’t factored this?

It wouldn’t open a shit ton of doors btw. This is misinformation. The potential exists that an open impeachment inquiry would in some cases strengthen a committee’s case in front of a judge but it isn’t certain that it would. 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-powers-does-formal-impeachment-inquiry-give-house

 

how I understand it, It doesn’t automatically open up the doors but it gives them a ton of leverage with the courts for things like grand jury material which isn’t accessible now. 

[GW Hayduke 1953]

1 minute ago, henrygandorf said:

i said something very similar a few pages upthread.  the dem narrative needs to be "we know the senate will not remove him, but this is the right thing to do it."  make the senate republicans eat shit.

The issue with that route though is impeachment should be on the table. Once it is ripe, once a majority of Americans are behind it, I think Dems will act on impeachment. I wonder if trymp’s financials would weigh on this

[ChiTownDoc 21154]

3 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

 

Nobody calm claims to be 'extremely' calm, you stupid motherfucker.  That's not how being calm works.  Christ. 

[wildcat09 29355]

I've started to type a more in-depth post twice now and stopped because it could take ten thousand words and I have to get work done, but I think this op-ed covers the broad strokes well:

Quote

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said President Trump was becoming “self-impeachable” and she’s right: The president keeps breaking laws and rejecting constitutional limits on his power. There is the Mueller report, of course, which spells out his multiple attempts to obstruct justice. There are his repeated efforts to criminalize his political opponents — first Hillary Clinton, now Joe Biden — by inducing official federal investigations.

Trump’s most recent offense is his total blockade of congressional oversight, which The Washington Post calls “the most expansive White House obstruction effort in decades.” The president has blocked aides from testifying, refused document requests and rejected congressional subpoenas. A 1924 law passed in response to the Teapot Dome bribery scandal says the Treasury Department “shall furnish” Congress with any tax returns it requests. But last week, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, refused to honor such a request from Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, arguing that the demand served no “legitimate legislative purpose.”

Trump’s move to refuse all oversight is arguably tantamount to rejecting Congress’s coequal status, similar to the tyranny denounced by Representative Benjamin Butler during the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson, during which he accused the president of “intending to set aside the rightful authority and powers of Congress.”

Despite the president’s lawlessness, key Democratic leaders are still wary of impeaching him. The same week she said he was “self-impeachable,” Pelosi also said “Trump is goading us to impeach him.” She continued: “He knows that it would be very divisive in the country, but he doesn’t really care. He just wants to solidify his base.” Pelosi believes impeachment would backfire and help Trump, raising his chances of re-election.

Impeachment is so rare in American history that it’s difficult to draw broad conclusions about its political impact, but congressional investigations are common and there’s no evidence of this backlash effect. The belief that says otherwise suggests a risk aversion that may prove counterproductive.

I have been revisiting a few popular histories of the Civil War, both for personal interest and future work. It’s almost impossible to count all of the connections to make between that period, Reconstruction and present-day political life. But there’s one event, or series of events, that stands out as a potentially useful analogy for thinking about the Democratic Party’s decision-making as it prepares, again, to face Trump in a presidential election.

In January 1862, after weeks of prodding from President Abraham Lincoln, Gen. George B. McClellan — at that point the commanding general of the United States Army as well as commander of the Army of the Potomac — submitted plans for a spring offensive against the Confederate garrison at Manassas, Va.

McClellan was a talented organizer but an infamously cautious battlefield leader. He believed Confederates held the tactical advantage at Manassas, with their strong fortifications and an army of nearly equal size. Instead of direct engagement with the rebels, he planned to send his force of 100,000 men down the Chesapeake Bay to the mouth of the Rappahannock River, placing Union forces between the Confederate garrison and Richmond, Va. The rebel general, Joseph E. Johnston, would have to head south, an 80-mile march from Manassas. By then, McClellan believed, the Army of the Potomac would have either captured the Confederate capital or forced Johnston into a battle on ground of McClellan’s choosing.

But Johnston anticipated this maneuver and withdrew his forces to a position behind the Rappahannock, forcing McClellan to improvise. When Union forces eventually surveyed the evacuated Confederate position at Manassas, they found modest defenses, not the impenetrable fortress McClellan feared. “The fancied impregnability of the position turns out to be a sham,” a newspaper correspondent wrote. “Utterly dispirited, ashamed, and humiliated,” wrote another reporter, “I return from this visit to the rebel stronghold, feeling that their retreat is our defeat.”

McClellan’s new plan was a landing and assault on the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers. He pulled off the logistics. But when half of his army approached rebel defenses near Yorktown, Va., he hesitated. McClellan believed he was at a disadvantage, if not outnumbered. In reality, his 55,000 men greatly outnumbered the roughly 13,000 Confederate defenders. Lincoln urged him to attack and warned that with “delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you.” But a wary McClellan opted for an artillery siege instead.

This pattern would repeat itself over the course of the campaign, with McClellan overestimating Confederate strength and opening his armies up to attack and defeat. At the Battle of Seven Pines outside of Richmond, Union armies sustained heavy casualties but successfully repelled a rebel assault. Unnerved by the experience, McClellan settled in for a siege of the capital rather than press his advantage. Now led by General Robert E. Lee, Confederate armies fortified defenses around Richmond and counterattacked, ultimately breaking McClellan’s will to fight. The Union commander withdrew to a base on the James River before returning to Washington on Lincoln’s command. A potential strategic breakthrough had become a bona fide defeat that would prolong an already brutal war.

The way I see it, the Democrats are roughly in McClellan’s position. With the House of Representatives in hand, they have the power and authority to aggressively check the president’s behavior. Voters, who cast a vote against Trump as much as they did for a Democratic majority, may not expect it, but it’s hard to think they would oppose it. And Trump is unpopular, with a 42 percent approval rating despite presiding over strong economic growth.

Democrats have the upper hand, but they aren’t acting like it. Yes, they have taken action against the president — that’s why he has fought to stymie their investigations. But the logic of their arguments and accusations leads to impeachment, and there, they have flinched, worried that the public — or at least Republican voters — will rally to his side. Instead of a direct confrontation using everything at their disposal, Democrats want to maneuver around the president as if there’s another path to victory.

But there isn’t. The next election will be about Trump. His base, as well as most Republican voters, will almost certainly be with him. What Democrats need is the confidence of their position. At this stage, when most Americans say they won’t vote for Trump in 2020, they have the public. They have evidence of wrongdoing. They have all the tools they need to seize the initiative and center the next year of political conflict on the president’s contempt for the Constitution and the welfare of the American people.

On April 9, 1862, an agitated Lincoln sent McClellan a telegram, urging him to move against Confederate defenses. “I beg to assure you that I have never written you, or spoken to you, in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act.” McClellan refused, the Confederacy claimed the field, and the Union paid the price.

At a very fundamental level, the Democratic leadership are terrified of acting. With the exception of getting Obamacare passed (at Obama's urging), they've never in their long careers fought for anything good unless that thing was already wildly popular and there was no perceived political risk to doing so. It's why non-divisive centrism appeals so much to them, and they think because they've been in Washington for so long that justifies their approach. But they've been losing the greater political war nearly that entire time to a fascist movement that now threatens to destroy American democracy. And still, they refuse to so much as clearly and publicly state what the Republican party is or that the problem is greater than Trump. Brisket is right that a lot of Americans are extremely dumb and easily manipulated. What he doesn't realize is that a lot of those idiots have and can again vote for Democrats. Leaving aside the racism for a minute, one of the biggest reasons a lot of undecideds broke for Trump was a common perception that Hillary was a politician who believed in nothing and would just say whatever the opinion polls suggested was good to say, contrasted against a common perception that Trump was a fighter who, even if he was bullshitting about a lot of stuff, would fight for what he thought was good.

As dumb as those voters were, Nancy is doing one hell of a job proving those perceptions to have been pretty accurate assessments of the Democratic and Republican parties. If Trump narrowly loses the election but those perceptions persist with the majority American public, we're still going to be utterly fucked as we're going to end up in short order with another fascist president who isn't as incompetent as Trump.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

9 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

they're not going to remove him via impeachment vote in the senate, 

Every time someone says this a democracy dies and McConnell has an orgasm.   I understand this is reasonable thinking but it is not set in stone.   Part of the reason we’re in this dilemma is because this has become an accepted truth that shouldn’t dare be challenged.   That how controlling your opposition works.  It’s how NATO works.  You will lose so don’t dare try to win. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

The best calm. 

[4th&Five 41565]

maga

 

[TornACL 7721]

Probably the most calm person of all time yesterday. People are saying that. 

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

i think he wants to get impeached because he'll get cleared by the senate.

i think he thinks this will help him.  it won't.

he will get crushed in 2020 regardless of whether the dems move on impeachment.  it's over.

 

the next several weeks will likely mean more unfavorable rulings against him on his financials and if those come out, he'll go full meltdown.  and the pushback on the subpoenas are a horrible look.  he will become more and more unhinged (was he ever really hinged?).  give him enough rope, he'll spend the next few months hanging himself.

right now, he has told the world he will not govern until the dems drop their investigations.  so there's no chance they'll drop their investigations.  he'll have to wear this stoppage of governing just like he wore the shutdown - both are horribly bad looks.  he could've maybe played the victim if this was a year from now.  but it's too far from election day to pull this shit.

meanwhile, every day, he's fixated on cable news and twitter, wondering what nancy is waiting for.  it's not the impeachment, it's the waiting, that may ultimately drive him insane.

i love political theater.

 

The bolded is spot on. Everybody thinks an impeachment will go down like it did with Clinton. The obvious difference of course is that Clinton was impeached over bullshit.

[JimmyJames 12271]

Trump down to 47 percent approval in Rasmussen. Which in reality means he’s about 38-39 percent approval. It will be mildly interesting to see how his latest antics effect that. But basically 99 percent of the country has made up its mind about the clown in chief which means unless Hillary smashes through through the glass ceiling to be the dem nominee then trumps days are numbered. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 minute ago, TornACL said:

Probably the most calm person of all time yesterday. People are saying that. 

Yes. Many people are saying how calm trump looked yesterday and that his calmness was both totally cool and totally legal. 

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

5 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

maga

 

 

To Maga-ots that is #winning

[F250 28789]

3 hours ago, Lagunamadre said:

He only likes you if you are dumb and fall in line. Rick Perry was born for his cabinet.  

Dude is a corp dork. He was trained to fall in line and not question the absurd.

 

As a state we need to really look into how that joke of an institution in college station is contributing to the public moral decay. As we all know, their entire world view is based on gross exaggerations or just flat out lies. That shit is really bad for our culture.

[Chooky 13317]

Squeezing army was a glimpse into the future that we all ignored. 

[henrygandorf 29194]

15 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Every time someone says this a democracy dies and McConnell has an orgasm.   I understand this is reasonable thinking but it is not set in stone.   Part of the reason we’re in this dilemma is because this has become an accepted truth that shouldn’t dare be challenged.   That how controlling your opposition works.  It’s how NATO works.  You will lose so don’t dare try to win. 

while i agree with what you're saying, i'm still right.  you know i am too, but i get it.  it's frustrating.

there are what, 51 republican senators?  and they need 67 to remove?  so 18 republican senators will have to break rank and go on the record. 

unless mike pence is a mastermind genius on par with some sort of movie super-villain, this will never ever ever happen.  this isn't a "you never know until the evidence is out there" situation.  it's out there.  everyone knows what a fucking criminal trump is, especially the republicans.  half of them probably hate themselves over it, but they'll never go against the party, unless they all decide to change lines of work.

amash came out last week in support of impeachment.  one of hundreds of house reps.  and it was a news story for days.  18 republican senators?  he could murder all of their grandmothers on tv and still probably only get 8-10.

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

4 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

while i agree with what you're saying, i'm still right.  you know i am too, but i get it.  it's frustrating.

there are what, 51 republican senators?  and they need 67 to remove?  so 18 republican senators will have to break rank and go on the record. 

unless mike pence is a mastermind genius on par with some sort of movie super-villain, this will never ever ever happen.  this isn't a "you never know until the evidence is out there" situation.  it's out there.  everyone knows what a fucking criminal trump is, especially the republicans.  half of them probably hate themselves over it, but they'll never go against the party, unless they all decide to change lines of work.

amash came out last week in support of impeachment.  one of hundreds of house reps.  and it was a news story for days.  18 republican senators?  he could murder all of their grandmothers on tv and still probably only get 8-10.

53

 

 

[4th&Five 41565]

 

[henrygandorf 29194]

7 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

53

shit, you're right.

so that number is now 20.  

20 republicans would need to break rank.

never ever ever ever.

[wildcat09 29355]

2 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

shit, you're right.

so that number is now 20.  

20 republicans would need to break rank.

never ever ever ever.

And we keep looking at this as a problem rather than an opportunity because Dems don’t understand how politics work.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

13 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

while i agree with what you're saying, i'm still right.  you know i am too, but i get it.  it's frustrating.

there are what, 51 republican senators?  and they need 67 to remove?  so 18 republican senators will have to break rank and go on the record. 

unless mike pence is a mastermind genius on par with some sort of movie super-villain, this will never ever ever happen.  this isn't a "you never know until the evidence is out there" situation.  it's out there.  everyone knows what a fucking criminal trump is, especially the republicans.  half of them probably hate themselves over it, but they'll never go against the party, unless they all decide to change lines of work.

amash came out last week in support of impeachment.  one of hundreds of house reps.  and it was a news story for days.  18 republican senators?  he could murder all of their grandmothers on tv and still probably only get 8-10.

We have never been in this situation as a country.  There is no benchmark for Trump’s crimes and malfeasance as president.  He’s well beyond Watergate territory.  Yet everyone is certain the Senate will co-sign their names to all of Trump’s crimes.  

Seems fucked up to make any assumptions at this point. 

That’s just me. 

[Chooky 13317]

A good defense if someone accuses you of crimes is to accuse them of crimes. And then when they say, "no seriously, you committed crimes," just say "your face committed crimes."

[Doc Sam Beckett 5795]

1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

Meanwhile, bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran is a distinct possibility.

We are going to war with Iran, and it's not Trump or his idiot followers' faults. They are who we thought they were. The blame will land on Mueller, Pelosi, Cocaine Mitch etc etc.....those who know better but are playing fucking games instead. 

[Biff Tannen 45692]

1 minute ago, Chooky said:

A good defense if someone accuses you of crimes is to accuse them of crimes. And then when they say, "no seriously, you committed crimes," just say "your face committed crimes."

This is my go to tactic with the wife.  Seems to work sometimes.

[Brisketexan 105161]

3 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

We have never been in this situation as a country.  There is no benchmark for Trump’s crimes and malfeasance as president.  He’s well beyond Watergate territory.  Yet everyone is certain the Senate will co-sign their names to all of Trump’s crimes.  

Seems fucked up to make any assumptions at this point. 

That’s just me. 

Yes, because the evidence that tells us that those assumptions would be wrong is....what?

Name one opportunity the GOP Senate has had to put the interests of this country ahead of those of naked partisanship and loyalty to the GodKing where they've actually done the right thing.  You can't.  They have a 100% track record of choosing evil.  But you want to bet that when it comes down to it, they'll put the country first.  That's like betting that the Orioles are gonna right the ship and win the World Series this year.

Edited May 23, 2019 by Brisketexan

[henrygandorf 29194]

6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

And we keep looking at this as a problem rather than an opportunity because Dems don’t understand how politics work.

i don't.  i don't even think pelosi does.  it's just a political reality.

i think she knows 2020 is going to be a blowout, and she doesn't want to rock the boat.

i think we keep letting trump stonewall while judges rule on his bullshit.  this was a bad week, next week will be another one.  and at some point, they'll figure out whether mueller will testify.  we're in no rush.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yes, because the evidence that tells us that those assumptions would be wrong is....what?

Name one opportunity the GOP Senate has had to put the interests of this country ahead of those of naked partisanship and loyalty to the GodKing where they've actually done the right thing.  You can't.  They have a 100% track record of choosing evil.  But you want to bet that when it comes down to it, they'll put the country first.  That's like betting that the Orioles are gonna right the ship and win the World Series this year.

All you have to do is make it in their self interest to convict Trump.  That’s it.  It’s not about party or country.  You just have to believe a compelling enough case can be made where not convicting is a huge political liability. 

[conVINCEd 21469]

The Iranians and possibly Venezuelans appreciate your patience.

[Brisketexan 105161]

2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

All you have to do is make it in their self interest to convict Trump.  That’s it.  It’s not about party or country.  You just have to believe a compelling enough case can be made where not convicting is a huge political liability. 

"To win the Super Bowl, all you need is someone as good as Tom Brady as your QB."  Great plan.  Except for the fact that nobody else has a Tom Brady.

IT IS NOT IN THEIR SELF-INTEREST TO CONVICT TRUMP.  A GOP party official CANNOT go against Trump -- disloyalty is punished with political death.  And if you're in even a light red state, that political death will come right soon.  There IS NO GOP outside of "the party of Trump."  The Venn diagram for "GOP" and "Trumpism" is two perfectly overlapping circles.  I can't believe we're still having this conversation 2.5 years into this shitshow.