Jump to content

U.S. Politics: Attaquer son cul orange!


DireWolfSpirit

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, sologdin said:

not knowing the identity of the whistleblower

is it fair to say that the whistleblower is irrelevant now that there are witnesses under oath?

Well...this is what I think (and I heard Schiff say the same just this morning).  But this little fact will not deter those on the right from desperately needing to discredit the whistleblower anyway.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, sologdin said:

is it fair to say that the whistleblower is irrelevant now that there are witnesses under oath?

In sane land, yes.  But as PotN said, Schiff's efforts to protect the whistleblower - which is, ya know, required by law - will (and already is) be used by the GOP to deflect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My take on this is the media is killing impeachment by overload.  It may well be the strategy - objective ....

Every website, every newspaper site, every television and radio site has live streaming, while their own talking heads talk talk talk repeating everything and then telling us what we are to think about it.

Local public radio station is airing it all live on both AM and FM frequencies.  Don't know what PBS finally decided to do after getting yelled at by Some for planning not to do gavel to gavel live.

My own approach is just to tune it it out, check my news sources no more than usual (which 'usual' is probably way too often), because everybody's gonna be talk talk talk so-called analysis.  Mostly it seems the rethugs are doing their best with plants and every other stunt they can come up with to disrupt and turn attention from the proceedings, making it about that instead.

Every voter is going to be so sick of this going into the second week of this they are all, no matter what side, gonna tune out and just pray for it to be over with.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My fear is that this is all happening too soon.  We're still a year out from the election.  We'll have it all laid out here, the House will obviously vote to impeach, the Senate will then have the last word/spin on it and will not vote to impeach, and the conservative media will have a very long time to also spin it leading up to the election.  I fear that it just won't matter very much in the end and people will simply vote their already completely baked-in, confirmation bias-fueled opinions/consciences:(  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

My fear is that this is all happening too soon.  We're still a year out from the election.  We'll have it all laid out here, the House will obviously vote to impeach, the Senate will then have the last word/spin on it and will not vote to impeach, and the conservative media will have a very long time to also spin it leading up to the election.  I fear that it just won't matter very much in the end and people will simply vote their already completely baked-in, confirmation bias-fueled opinions/consciences:(  

I think that the closer the impeachment hearings are to the elections, the more they'll seem like a political hit job rather than a serious investigation of serious crimes.  So I'm not at all sad that the Democrats are moving quickly on this. 

As for the rest, you are right, but IMO kind of missing the point.  Yes, partisans will view impeachment through their own lens, and partisanship is the overwhelmingly most important element in who people vote for.  But that doesn't mean that nothing matters.  If Democrats can, in a clear and simple way, show that Trump used public money to attack political opponents, that will damage Trump.  Doing that sort of thing is not popular with low information independents or milquetoast Republicans.  Both those groups voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 and he needs them again in 2020.  While it might show up as only a blip in national polling (like the difference between 41 and 42% Trump approval), it has the potential to be the difference between winning or losing a year from now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

@Maithanet I certainly hope you're right!   

Remember that I said it's possible.  I have no doubt that this COULD be a winner for Democrats.  But they could definitely drop the ball, they have a lot of practice at that sort of thing. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh this is hilarious now.

The Republican defense now is that Taylor’s actions as ambassador are all based on people lying to him or that he misunderstood them.

Just imagine, US embassies conduct business on lies coming from the State department.

eta: I assume this means that Sondland is going to be pushed under a great big bus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So the GOP's defense of Trump today is: None of these witnesses spoke directly to President Trump, so this hearing is a farce!

Also their defense: None of the President's inner-circle who spoke directly to him should testify before the House because this hearing is a farce!

The sad thing is I think they are going to get away with it again. They've sold their souls to stack the courts.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, DMC said:

It's quite interesting that the Trump/the House GOP has designated Jordan the hatchet man for the public hearings - even moving him to the intelligence committee so he can do so - considering the new allegations about his knowledge of the Ohio State wrestling abuse scandal.

It seems clear to me that the Republicans are going to throw Sondland under the bus, because Sondland is going to say Trump told him that both the aid and the meeting were contingent on an investigation being publicly announced.

After they do that, I think Sondland should announce he's funding an investigation into the Ohio State wrestling abuse scandal, particularly with regard to who knew what and when they knew it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Trebla said:

So the GOP's defense of Trump today is: None of these witnesses spoke directly to President Trump, so this hearing is a farce!

Also their defense: None of the President's inner-circle who spoke directly to him should testify before the House because this hearing is a farce!

This is one of two Alice in Wonderland defenses Jordan and the GOP employed today.  The other:  The military aid was released on September 11 and Zelensky never made a public statement - when the only reason the military aid was released on September 11 is because on September 9 the House became aware of the whistleblower report then on September 10 House committee leaders of both parties sent letters to the White House inquiring about the stalled military aid.  Further, according to the GOP's own timeline, Zelensky only became aware the aid was being withheld following this politico article published on August 29 -- and Zelensky was planning on publicly bowing to Trump's request in a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DMC:  Apparently there are other closed hearing witnesses who said the Ukrainians knew much earlier than that. I assume they were lying low on that info, hoping it wasn;t true.

The Republicans kept attacking Obama for not providing firepower aid to the Ukrainians. Since Congress controls the purse-strings and Congress was controlled by the Republicans, why didn't they vote for military aid to the Ukrainians? Could they not do that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

DMC:  Apparently there are other closed hearing witnesses who said the Ukrainians knew much earlier than that. I assume they were lying low on that info, hoping it wasn;t true.

Yeah, this NYT report (so paywall warning) from last week lays out that, yes, the Zelensky administration was agonizing over whether (and ultimately how) to bow to Trump's demands for well earlier than August 29.  My point is even by the GOP's attempted excuse that the Ukrainians weren't aware the aid was being withheld until Aug. 29, the timeline is still damning - now that we know Zelensky was planning to acquiesce to Trump's request.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

After listening to Jordan, all I can think is that Trump is going to win the his re-election, because the Republicans are supremely confident that the American people are fucking stupid. 

I'm not sure that they are wrong.

Per usual, Democrats won the battle over substance while Republicans won the optics. And yes, Republicans’ strategy has been and always will be relying on the fact that their voters are idiots.

Also, how can anyone listen to Jordan and walkaway thinking he’s an honest person.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Per usual, Democrats won the battle over substance while Republicans won the optics.

I'm quite cynical on these hearings changing public opinion much at all, but I hardly think the GOP won the optics today.  In large part because, as you mentioned, their designated hatchet man in Jordan comes off pretty objectively as a major league asshole.

 

IN NON IMPEACHMENT NEWS:  Multiple reports Deval Patrick is running and should announce very soon (the NH filing deadline is Friday).  Why, exactly?  That's one of those existential mysteries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

 

IN NON IMPEACHMENT NEWS:  Multiple reports Deval Patrick is running and should announce very soon (the NH filing deadline is Friday).  Why, exactly?  That's one of those existential mysteries.

Big pocket donors want to be sure that the winner won’t raise their taxes and are worried about Biden falling apart?

That would be the cynical take, anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm quite cynical on these hearings changing public opinion much at all, but I hardly think the GOP won the optics today.  In large part because, as you mentioned, their designated hatchet man in Jordan comes off pretty objectively as a major league asshole.

Absent some kind of smoking gun, I too am cynical that the hearings will change much.

The reason why I said the GOP won the optics is because despite Democrats rooting out most of the key details, they failed to create a cohesive narrative and all Republicans have to do is make a mess of everything, which they did. Their job is a lot easier than Democrats, and even a push is a win for them, though like you said probably a meaningless one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...