US Politics - I'm not orange I'mpeach

[Gaston de Foix]

15 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides over the trial, but his role is fairly limited. The only real question is whether the impeachers can get 67 Senators to convict on at least one charge. That said, I'm sure Roberts is up to any legal maneuvering required -- he's been a judge at the highest levels long enough to have seen it all.

And he's familiar with how his former boss, Rehnquist, chaired the last impeachment trial in the Senate.  Rehnquist later commented that he did nothing in particular, and he did it very well.  Yes, he was a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan. 

The Volker transcript is still not out and Sonderland's testimony has been moved up.  Republican congressmen repeatedly insisting that Volker denied any quid pro quo in his testimony.  

That's hard to square with the episode involving the drafting of the statement as a prelude to the announcement of a WH visit (and Giuliani's involvement).  But, anyway, the question of whether a quid pro quo was ultimately consummated is less important than the fact that agents of both parties were acting to make it a reality in accordance with the President's wishes. The Trump appointees are all going to say their actions were for the sake of the US-Ukraine relationship, but the deformity in the relationship is really being introduced by the conspiracy-theory addled and transactional monkey at the top of the pyramid. 

 

[Fragile Bird]

There was the most vomit-inducing interview with Marco Rubio, little Marco Rubio, on CNN. He was asked about Trump calling on China to investigate Biden and his response was that he wasn’t concerned because it ‘wasn’t a serious request’ and that Trump was just playing the media like a violin, and the media were falling into a trap. 

Trump just normalizes crimes by openly talking about them. His call on China to investigate the Bidens was literally him shooting someone in broad daylight on 5th Ave.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Lmao even the sack of excrement that is Tucker has a headline calling Orangies call to Ukraine inappropriate.

Tucker Carlson says Trump's Ukraine call was inappropriate: 'There's no way to spin this'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/media/tucker-carlson-op-ed-ukraine-trump-impeachment/index.html

I didn't read anymore of his drivel, but I love a good headline, thanks Tucker.

[Martell Spy]

3 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Lmao even the sack of excrement that is Tucker has a headline calling Orangies call to Ukraine inappropriate.

Tucker Carlson says Trump's Ukraine call was inappropriate: 'There's no way to spin this'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/media/tucker-carlson-op-ed-ukraine-trump-impeachment/index.html

I didn't read anymore of his drivel, but I love a good headline, thanks Tucker.

Quote

 

In an interview earlier today, I described the scandal as one part corruption, one part fitness. Yes, it’s venal and corrupt to depart from any conventional legal process to urge a dependent foreign government (or a hostile foreign government, like China) to investigate a domestic political rival — especially in the absence of evidence of criminal wrongdoing. But the willingness to believe in conspiracy theories and conduct diplomacy accordingly also speaks less to Trump’s corruption than whether he has the character, knowledge, and temperament to be president. In fact, I’m starting to believe that the fitness aspect of this controversy may well be dominant.

Trump’s most extreme allies have built a large media following, but the most important person in that audience is the current occupant of the Oval Office. They’ve succeeded in convincing the most powerful man in the world that their theories are right. They’re influencing diplomacy at the highest levels. But they just might be planting the seeds of Trump’s political destruction. They’ve helped put their beloved president on the path to impeachment.

 

Trump’s Most Loyal Allies Are Putting Him on the Path to Impeachment
By DAVID FRENCH

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-most-loyal-allies-are-putting-him-on-path-to-impeachment/
 

[Ormond]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

 

Tucker Carlson says Trump's Ukraine call was inappropriate: 'There's no way to spin this'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/media/tucker-carlson-op-ed-ukraine-trump-impeachment/index.html

I didn't read anymore of his drivel, but I love a good headline, thanks Tucker.

I read this and it's not the original op-ed by Carlson and his colleague Patel, but a report on the same by Oliver Darcy.

I would tend to agree with Darcy that Tucker and Patel are actually trying to save Trump by modeling a "what Trump did was bad but does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense" argument for Republicans to use . However, I don't believe Trump himself will be capable of seeing it that way. If and when Trump finds out that Carlson and Patel's article includes the statement  

Quote

"Our leaders' official actions should not be about politics. Those two things need to remain separate. Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world's many corrupt countries.", 

,,,Trump himself is going to be livid and probably do a Tweet tirade against Carlson. It sort of seems inevitable that the right wing media are going to start cannibalizing each other over this. Trump will feel more isolated and continue to get more outrageous. 

[Trebla]

Patsy: noun, a person who is easily taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something.

 

Mmmmm...that's GOOD schadenfreude. 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

7 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

And he's familiar with how his former boss, Rehnquist, chaired the last impeachment trial in the Senate.  Rehnquist later commented that he did nothing in particular, and he did it very well.  Yes, he was a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan. 

You would have to be if you quote Iolanthe. 

[James Arryn]

15 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Lmao even the sack of excrement that is Tucker has a headline calling Orangies call to Ukraine inappropriate.

Tucker Carlson says Trump's Ukraine call was inappropriate: 'There's no way to spin this'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/05/media/tucker-carlson-op-ed-ukraine-trump-impeachment/index.html

I didn't read anymore of his drivel, but I love a good headline, thanks Tucker.

He’s also described the impeachment process as a coup. I think he’s just mitigating. If it actually works, that would be historically ironic.

Because in Watergate, the famous ‘what did the President know, and when did he know it?’ line so often trotted out as part of the usual American self-forgiveness process, to highlight the fact that the Republicans were putting country above party, was anything but. It was before they heard or knew about the tapes. It was when the GOP, and America in general, were steadfastly saying this was a waste of time, a hatchet job.

It was actually asked to protect Nixon...they were trying to establish a sea wall of blame, to tie it off much lower down because at the time they did not believe there would ever be any way to show that one side of he said/she said was lying, and they knew without that the public that elected him in a landslide would absolutely take Nixon’s side. It only became this resounding symbol for the diligence of the process after things got away from them. But it’s worth noting that public support was a minority until just over a week before he resigned, almost exactly when the SC ruled he had to produce the tapes. It had been growing, but most Americans still backed the Republican view that this was all a demonstration of sour grapes and systemic partisanship. On the part of the Democrats.

[Raja]

 

[Trebla]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

 

This would destroy that whole "it's all hearsay!" defense that the GOP has been spouting. Of course, they didn't care when Linda Tripp provided them secondhand knowledge when they used it to impeach Bill Clinton. But as I always say, the GOP has no shame. 

I suspect we will get some all-caps tweets ranting about spies and traitors. I mean, why not, he demanded Mitt Romney be impeached from the senate for daring to criticize him. 

 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

He knows how to spell 'pompous'? 

[Martell Spy]

Weird. It wasn't "entirely appropriate." 

 

Susan Collins: Trump made 'big mistake' in asking China to probe Biden

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/05/collins-trump-china-mistake-031116

Quote

 

Susan Collins on Saturday became the latest Republican senator to criticize President Donald Trump for calling on foreign countries to investigate a political rival, saying he made a "big mistake."

“I thought the president made a big mistake by asking China to get involved in investigating a political opponent,” Collins said at a press gaggle in her home state of Maine, according to the Bangor Daily News. “It’s completely inappropriate.”

 

 

[maarsen]

49 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

He knows how to spell 'pompous'? 

When Trump's tweets are understandable and grammatically correct, they were written by someone else. Someone who can spell 'pompous'.

[Makk]

It was probably a copy and paste, hence the capitalisation.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, Trebla said:

This would destroy that whole "it's all hearsay!" defense that the GOP has been spouting. Of course, they didn't care when Linda Tripp provided them secondhand knowledge when they used it to impeach Bill Clinton. But as I always say, the GOP has no shame. 

I suspect we will get some all-caps tweets ranting about spies and traitors. I mean, why not, he demanded Mitt Romney be impeached from the senate for daring to criticize him. 

 

And our President doesn’t know that  Senators and members of the House of Representatives... cannot... be impeached.  The impeachment process is for members of the Executive and Judicial branches, not the Legislative.  They can be removed from office (prior to the end of their terms) by a vote of the legislative bodies they are members, only.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

And our President doesn’t know that  Senators and members of the House of Representatives... cannot... be impeached.  The impeachment process is for members of the Executive and Judicial branches, not the Legislative.  They can be removed form office by a vote of the legislative bodies they are members, only.

#impeachSerScott

When you just vomit the word around it loses meaning.

[Zorral]

On The Media

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments

had a round-up about all of this today.  It made it all clear and comprehensible, starting with Manafort.

One of the segments in particular was interesting because of how it broke down bedbug's mind, which doesn't work like others' including Nixon. Bedbug's primarily a bullshitter and grifter.  He really doesn't know he's lying.  He just views any disagreement, and push-back as a conspiracy that victimizes him.  Which is why it's going to be very difficult to get him out of there even when losing an election or impeached.

As well, his enablers are so much like him and they're already, along with the rest of the gop constructing a new Glorious Lost Cause mythology for when he must go, to justify why they supported him for so long -- it's a coup! This was pretty convincing.

In the meantime -- more impeaches!

 

[Gaston de Foix]

The movement to impeach Kavanaugh is a political blunder.  It won't go anywhere, it will alienate the other judges of the Supreme Court, and it will drive him into the bosom of rightwing nutters like it did for Clarence Thomas. 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

And our President doesn’t know that  Senators and members of the House of Representatives... cannot... be impeached.  The impeachment process is for members of the Executive and Judicial branches, not the Legislative.  They can be removed form office by a vote of the legislative bodies they are members, only.

Awesome, a chance for some pedantic historical trivia!  Actually, the first federal official to ever be impeached was US Senator William Blount in 1797.  However, the Senate did not accept the House's right to impeach one of its members, dismissed the charges, then expelled Blount themselves under Article 1 Section 5 Clause 2, "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a member," which has been the norm ever since.

So, technically the House can impeach a member of Congress, but if it's a Senator the Senate would simply say fuck off, and if it's a House member it'd be pointless because if you want to expel the MC just do it yourself.

Also, neither here nor there, but looking at the history of impeachment in the wikipedia entry, the first official to be impeached and removed was John Pickering, a district judge, for "drunkenness and unlawful rulings."  How big of an alcoholic do you have to be to get impeached and convicted of drinking in 1803?!?

[Jace, Extat]

10 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

The movement to impeach Kavanaugh is a political blunder.  It won't go anywhere, it will alienate the other judges of the Supreme Court, and it will drive him into the bosom of rightwing nutters like it did for Clarence Thomas. 

Well he's already there, but I do agree. It's foolfuckwittery at its finest. Kamala is desperate to corrall some interest, so she's going for the moronic voters who like get their righteous indignation boners more than sensible political decison making.