US Politics: 2 Fash 2 Impeach

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

we've got to be careful lest it become more like a litany of titles., like in, "Danaerys, mother of dragons, ..."

Snap!  So excellent!  You win!  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Polls?  What about these?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/majority-americans-trump-convicted-barred-holding-federal-office/story?id=75729878

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The thing that makes me sad though, is that Biden's following in the Hillary - Obama footsteps with Haiti.  Truly screwing the pooch there.  Haitians are doing ceremonies against Biden.

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Just saw a youtubes saying that a survey found 64% of Republicans and 15% of Democrats would possibly switch allegiance to a D. Trump MAGA party.

Not entirely sure which number is more surprising, I'm leaning the 15% of registered Democrats.

Assuming this poll is legit.

An other question is, if such a party was formed, would sitting members of congress keep an eye on MAGA party registrations in their district / state and switch their membership accordingly if it seemed like it would help get them re-elected at the next election?

I mean if I took that survey I'd say yeah, I'd switch parties, I'm sure I'm not the only shitty troll out there 

[The Anti-Targ]

No doubt, but I also doubt 64% of Republicans and 15% of Democrats are shitty trolls. Perhaps the number of Democrats who would actually switch is in the low single digit %s. But it seems like there could be a double digit % of Republicans who would actually do it.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

10 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I mean if I took that survey I'd say yeah, I'd switch parties, I'm sure I'm not the only shitty troll out there 

Polling has become useless due to the money balling of the whole process. Since there's a ton of money being made in polling, though, it isn't going anywhere. Nate Silver will continue to be wrong for a long, long time.

[Fez]

17 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Just saw a youtubes saying that a survey found 64% of Republicans and 15% of Democrats would possibly switch allegiance to a D. Trump MAGA party.

Not entirely sure which number is more surprising, I'm leaning the 15% of registered Democrats.

Assuming this poll is legit.

An other question is, if such a party was formed, would sitting members of congress keep an eye on MAGA party registrations in their district / state and switch their membership accordingly if it seemed like it would help get them re-elected at the next election?

Both numbers seem way too high, considering that 2020 exit poll estimates are that Trump got 5% of the Democratic vote and that way-too-early 2024 primary polling over the past month shows Trump getting between 29% and 57% of the Republican vote.

[Starkess]

Maybe some of those 15% of Democrats are saying that to help encourage him to do it and thereby rupture the GOP forever...but also people are people and lots of people are stupid, D or R.

[Lollygag]

12 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Just saw a youtubes saying that a survey found 64% of Republicans and 15% of Democrats would possibly switch allegiance to a D. Trump MAGA party.

Not entirely sure which number is more surprising, I'm leaning the 15% of registered Democrats.

Assuming this poll is legit.

An other question is, if such a party was formed, would sitting members of congress keep an eye on MAGA party registrations in their district / state and switch their membership accordingly if it seemed like it would help get them re-elected at the next election?

When you throw in other factors to consider, it puts the weight of the poll into question.

• Some form of Trumpism is sticking around, but it's debatable whether it's tied to Trump himself for much longer (dude's 74ish, lazy, and eats only pizza and McDonalds) and it's hard to predict what form the populist right will take.
• The country in general regardless of party and demographic is highly interested in a third party.
• There's no viable conservative alternative right now to choose from. The so-called establishment Republicans are pretty much defined by their opposition to Trump's populism which isn't much to go on. An alternative conservative party would need to deal with the fact that coddling rich mega companies is popular with *nobody* anymore. Trumpists still coddle them, of course, but they do it behind the populist curtain of Fox News, etc who's viewers are still unaware of the Republicans' rich folks tax cuts which blew up the deficit. Any conservative alternative would also have to clearly establish just where they lie on social issues as they're not social conservatives but are still engaging in the conservative habit of selectively ignoring social issues they don't want to deal with in hopes they will magically solve themselves.
• As another alternative, the Democrats will change form somehow. Perhaps it will be some sort of moderate/progressive/socialist split somewhere. Brown, Fetterman, Tim Ryan, Connor Lamb and other middle America Dems (Warnock was also reported as appealing to conservatives) are breaking into a special type of Dem at odds with so-called coastal Dems and I don't know that'll shake out, but at this point I think the current coalition is just too broad to hold long-term.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Maybe some of those 15% of Democrats are saying that to help encourage him to do it and thereby rupture the GOP forever...but also people are people and lots of people are stupid, D or R.

Have the sub-zero temperatures already broken you, Nora?  

[DMC]

It may just be the wording of the item - the amount of people that say they'll "possibly" do something is always gonna be higher than the number that actually do it.  Some people just wanna sound open minded.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Just saw a youtubes saying that a survey found 64% of Republicans and 15% of Democrats would possibly switch allegiance to a D. Trump MAGA party.

Not entirely sure which number is more surprising, I'm leaning the 15% of registered Democrats.

Assuming this poll is legit.

An other question is, if such a party was formed, would sitting members of congress keep an eye on MAGA party registrations in their district / state and switch their membership accordingly if it seemed like it would help get them re-elected at the next election?

been seeing comments related to this on my Facebook and elsewhere.  Conservatives enraged by 'treasonous republicans' (like Cheney and Romney) have been posting more and more comments to the effect of they will see the republican party destroyed and replaced by 'true patriots,'  (insufficiently crazy). Cautions that this will, at best split the party and lead to multiple lost elections - maybe even handing the democratic party control of congress for a decade or so - are dismissed out of hand.  Trump jumps into this mess, driven by a desire for revenge against the republicans who 'betrayed him'....this could be a grand mess.

[GrimTuesday]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

The thing that makes me sad though, is that Biden's following in the Hillary - Obama footsteps with Haiti.  Truly screwing the pooch there.  Haitians are doing ceremonies against Biden.

I mean, Democrats and Republicans aren't THAT different in the grand scheme of things when it comes to foreign policy. Both parties support American empire and are more committed to allowing global capital to extract the wealth of these nations and installing regimes that further that aim than they are in actually improving the lives of these people. Look at how bi-partisan the support of installing Guaido in Venzuala was, and the bi-partisan support for killing Castro, and now we are seeing this with the rapprochement of Iran and the nuclear deal where Iran was holding up their end of the bargain for years, and the US and Europe were just not. Now, after we were the ones who ripped it, we are the ones trying to dictate terms. It's disgusting, Iran has already been burned after playing ball, and as the one who burned them, it is the US that has to take the first steps in rebuilding that relationship.

Remember that we accept Israel's claims that they need their nukes to ensure their continued security, and deny that same reasoning from a country that is currently being threatened by Israeli nukes.

[Kalbear]

In case anyone was still thinking that partisanship or party alignment was easy to fix - nope! Make people happier or angrier or whatever and it's not enough. 

 

[Martell Spy]

Democrats push temporary Obamacare expansion in Covid bill
The bill, which the Ways and Means Committee will mark up later this week, would fully subsidize ACA coverage for people earning up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level and those on unemployment insurance.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/08/obamacare-expansion-467776

Quote

 

Pieces of the Covid-19 relief package House Democrats released Monday night include the first major expansion of Affordable Care Act subsidies in more than a decade — a key plank of President Joe Biden’s health care agenda that they hope to pass in the coming weeks.

Democrats are hoping that the beefed up subsidies, combined with Biden’s recent executive order to reopen the ACA's markets and advertise heavily to entice people to enroll, will make a major dent in the ranks of uninsured Americans that have grown during the pandemic and ensuing economic recession.

The bill, which the Ways and Means Committee will mark up later this week, would fully subsidize ACA coverage for people earning up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level and those on unemployment insurance. It also ends the so-called subsidy cliff for people making over 400 percent of the federal poverty level, making them eligible for subsidies for the first time and capping their premium costs at 8.5 percent of income.

The subsidy boosts would only last for two years, though Congress later could vote to extend them or make them permanent.

Another provision would have the federal government cover 85 percent of the cost of private health insurance for workers laid off during the pandemic through Sept. 21.

 

 

[Ran]

6 hours ago, Zorral said:

The thing that makes me sad though, is that Biden's following in the Hillary - Obama footsteps with Haiti. 

What exactly is this referring to? Correctly stating that Haitian election law was plain that Moïse has another year to his term as president? Or trying to rein in a Trumpist-infected ICE that is pushing deportations despite executive orders to the contrary?

[Mindwalker]

14 hours ago, DMC said:

I'm totally fine with a very short trial.  My issue is they should've had the very short trial immediately.

In addition to what Fez said, ...

Thank you for the info, I'm not up to snuff with those details.

As for the trial, I agree that immediacy would have been very important. Now it's been over a month, which in the publc memory is like a decade...

And they shouldn't drag it out, but one week (especially if shortened because of the sabbath) seems very short. Then again, I would prefer they call witnesses.

[Mindwalker]

Biden admin asking all except two Trump DoJs to resign. (One of the two is investigating Hunter.)

 

ETA: Apparently the Senate will whote on whether to call witnesses. My guess is no. Any bets?

[Zorral]

8 hours ago, Ran said:

What exactly is this referring to? Correctly stating that Haitian election law was plain that Moïse has another year to his term as president? Or trying to rein in a Trumpist-infected ICE that is pushing deportations despite executive orders to the contrary?

The history of the Clintons and Haiti is very long and it is very nasty.  Obama also supported this corrupt, evil joker, who insists he is now entitled to another year as president -- when he wasn't even living in the country, but Miami, because he was so bad the people rose up against him.  And now Biden's putting his support under him.  Not a good look, not good at all.  The history of his crimes, committed with impunity due to the support of Obama's sec of state, is as long as the aggregation of the recently ousted US toxic criminal.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

ETA: Apparently the Senate will whote on whether to call witnesses. My guess is no. Any bets?

I mean, what's the point? You can go on YouTube and watch him committing the crime if you want to. And the Republicans don't care.

[Ran]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

who insists he is now entitled to another year as president

He won the election in 2016 and was sworn in for his five year term in February 2017.

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The history of his crimes

Would be either an extremely short list of truly questionable conduct that every Hatian politician appears to be involved in, or an extremely long list of propaganda from the fractious and equally-corrupt opposition desirous of preventing any efforts to establish a norm of democratic rule in favor of a constant circus.

 

[Mindwalker]

21 minutes ago, mormont said:

I mean, what's the point? You can go on YouTube and watch him committing the crime if you want to. And the Republicans don't care.

Well, if there's no point, just cancel the trial, because the QOP senators won't change their minds anyway...

I think it would make a difference. Have one of the particularly targeted ccongresspersons on. And a staffer who had to cower under a table, or who had to clean the shit from the walls. Have a couple insurrectionists explain how they did it for the former president, and so on. And how they'd do it again, or still believe the former one is the rightful president. Oh, and maybe a cop on how they tried to protect the capitol and the lives of those who work there, or how they were beaten up, or how they watched officer Sicknick get beaten. Or how they found a pipe bomb.

ETA: Oh, and if at all possible, someone who confirms the former pres' behaviour while watching the riots! The people who tried to reach him etc.

It may be the only chance for Fox et al. to show some of this before they mock it (like they did with the AOC videos).

And it's a lot different to video clips, particularly when I'm sure the defense will make some nice collage of their own, pretending BLM wrt Dems is exactly the same... (Not that this should even matter if it were true, but well, Republicans.)

Will it change the made-up minds of the QOP congresspeople? No. But if you hold a trial, at least make the best case you can.

PS: @Zorral, the defense refers to Biden as "the former Vice President"...