All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tendrin]

I feared this would happen but everyone told me - "nah, don't worry it's in the bag". I know people will say I'm wrong but the Dems shouldn't have launched a public impeachment inquiry. Everything should have remained behind closed doors. Trump is in his element when he is mudslinging and playing the victim.

No one said that it was in the bag. Literally no one. I don't think ignoring the president's brazen criminality and keeping things behind closed doors would have, you know, worked any better at all.

[Celgress]

No one said that it was in the bag. Literally no one. I don't think ignoring the president's brazen criminality and keeping things behind closed doors would have, you know, worked any better at all.

Maybe not here but I know many people in real life who have said so.

The crimes should not be ignored. They should have had the vote then televised the actual trial. As things now stand, I doubt there will be a trial as it would surely fail.

[Tendrin]

Maybe not here but I know many people in real life who have said so.

The crimes should not be ignored. They should have had the vote then televised the actual trial. As things now stand, I doubt there will be a trial as it would surely fail.

I don't think you understand how this works as well as you think you do. The Dems were under fire for holding closed hearings. The GOP is now putting on a televised shitshow that anyone who is paying attention to, at all, can see for what it is. None of this was ever going to matter to the folks in the Fox-News, One America and Breitbart alternate universe because nothing ever would, but it might still pluck a /few/ off and rally a lot of people who are otherwise mortified by the continuing criminal enterprise that masquerades as our government. If the Dems /not/ done this, then you'd be giving unprecedented power to Mitch Frigging McConnel to decide what gets on TV and what does not.

This is a bad idea.

No one believes that the Senate is going to convict -- not because Trump isn't guilty -- but because there's no way Mitch McConnel will give up the thing he's sacrificed everything for: court-packing. They don't care what Trump does so long as they can continue to make it easy for the GOP to suppress the vote and gerrymander and court-pack. He's already flipped a few appeals courts to majority conservative control. This will have generational ramifications. It's the entire ball game of destroying the federal governments capacity to enact any progressive legislation, alongside passing massive tax cuts for their billionaire friends to further hinder government spending later.

Conducting secret impeachment findings, then delivering the articles of impeachment, simply lets Mitch control the narrative because the House won't get to broadcast moments like it *has* been.

It's been widely said that if Nixon had had Fox News, he wouldn't have been impeached, and that's the /entire reason/ we have Fox News today.

[numberthirty]

Maybe not here but I know many people in real life who have said so.

The crimes should not be ignored. They should have had the vote then televised the actual trial. As things now stand, I doubt there will be a trial as it would surely fail.

If folks do or do not hold onto said hope is an issue separate from the valid reasons to investigate and go through with this.

As for the second part, there was never going to be a particular path that would lead to a successful outcome. Again, that is a separate issue from it being worth undertaking.

[JCAll]

Trump polling well with the GOP has nothing to do with what the Dems are doing, or with Trump constant whining. This is what the Republicans want, they voted for him to do what he's doing.

[Tendrin]

https://twitter.com/darrensands/stat...20975472013314

Corey Booker doing some good stuff there.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I don't think you understand how this works as well as you think you do. The Dems were under fire for holding closed hearings. The GOP is now putting on a televised shitshow that anyone who is paying attention to, at all, can see for what it is. None of this was ever going to matter to the folks in the Fox-News, One America and Breitbart alternate universe because nothing ever would, but it might still pluck a /few/ off and rally a lot of people who are otherwise mortified by the continuing criminal enterprise that masquerades as our government. If the Dems /not/ done this, then you'd be giving unprecedented power to Mitch Frigging McConnel to decide what gets on TV and what does not.

This is a bad idea.

No one believes that the Senate is going to convict -- not because Trump isn't guilty -- but because there's no way Mitch McConnel will give up the thing he's sacrificed everything for: court-packing. They don't care what Trump does so long as they can continue to make it easy for the GOP to suppress the vote and gerrymander and court-pack. He's already flipped a few appeals courts to majority conservative control. This will have generational ramifications. It's the entire ball game of destroying the federal governments capacity to enact any progressive legislation, alongside passing massive tax cuts for their billionaire friends to further hinder government spending later.

Conducting secret impeachment findings, then delivering the articles of impeachment, simply lets Mitch control the narrative because the House won't get to broadcast moments like it *has* been.

It's been widely said that if Nixon had had Fox News, he wouldn't have been impeached, and that's the /entire reason/ we have Fox News today.

All of the above....and more!

====================

Fiona Hill Testifies It’s A ‘Fictional Narrative’ That Russia Didn’t Attack Democracy

The former White House adviser said at the impeachment hearing that Russia “systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016.” Can't put it any clearer than that. And you can bet the Ivans are ready to do it again next year.

**********

Lindsey Graham Begins Senate Investigation Into The Bidens

The GOP senator decided to indulge an unsubstantiated right-wing theory as the Trump impeachment inquiry marches on. Well, of course he did. I'm sure that'll give Trump a throbbing blue veiner.

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Netanyahu Indicted On Corruption Charges, Israel’s Attorney General Announces

The charges included bribery, breach of trust and fraud. It’s the first decision of its kind against a serving Israeli prime minister. WHAAAAAAAAT? A buddy of Trump in trouble? Say it ain't so!

**********

Jewish Groups Demand Stephen Miller Resign From White House

As the White House smears critics of the Trump adviser as anti-Semitic, Miller’s “fellow American Jews” cited “irrefutable proof” of his white nationalism. Sadly, my chances of stealing Beyonce from Jay-Z are better than Kid Jackboot leaving.

**********

Trumps Signs Stopgap Spending Bill, Averting Shutdown

Trump signed the bill, which will extend funding through December 20, hours before government funding was set to expire. Mighty white of Trump whom I still suspect might use the threat of a shutdown to end the impeachment hearings.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled of Mark Souder, who was a big proponent of abstinence-only sex education, who just so happened to have been caught sleeping with the wife of a Republican County Commissioner. The same wife who he once went on a local Indiana talk show to promote... you guessed it, abstinence. Further adding to his hypocrisy is the fact that he was in office long enough to have voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for... lying about being unfaithful to his spouse. Souder's hypocrisy goes even deeper, when you also include the fact that he filed legal challenges to stop same sex marriages from taking place in Washington, D.C. to "protect the sanctity of marriage" when he wasn't even protecting the sanctity of his own. The fact that Souder was also a big ally of Rick Santorum, with both claiming they were victims of discrimination for believing in intelligent design and creationism while denying the science of evolution.


In 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted profiles of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who in our first profile, we discussed his three terms as Texas Attorney General where he worked with Gov. Rick Perry, serving as one of the front line soldiers in the sorts of Fundamentalist conservative culture wars the state of Texas has fought against equality, and frankly, facts over the past decade and a half, including filing 27 separate lawsuits against the federal government in the first five years of the Obama presidency alone, once joking that his daily routine is "I go into the office in the morning. I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home.” The great majority of those legal challenges were obviously doomed to fail upon review by judges at some level, but that didn't stop Abbott from filing them anyway to prolong a constitutional battle at of partisan spite at a cost of millions of dollars to Texas taxpayers. No ridiculous legal statute passed in Texas is beneath him, including his obsessive quest to make sure that dildos cannot be sold in the Lone Star State, but fighting tooth and nail to make sure that firearms can be purchased without a background check. In 2007, The Washington Post reported Attorney General Abbott declined to pursue charges against employees of a Texas youth prison who were sexually abusing underage inmates after a Texas ranger had sent e-mails to him with evidence and asking him to put a stop to the abuses for TWO YEARS. Greg Abbott is a man who violated the tenets of our very democracy to suit partisan ends by gerrymandering in his own state, and then sued when the Department of Justice tried blocking the racist policy by arguing it wasn’t racist, by pointing out it was just wholly partisan based on party affiliation, writing, ”DOJ’s accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats.” Prior to the 2012 elections, Abbott threatened to arrest poll watchers from Europe, who were monitoring the ethics of American elections, and claiming there were “closely affiliated with ACORN” which was amazing because ACORN ceased to exist three years prior to that election. In 2016, he sued the federal government (and lost) because he didn’t want Texas to resettle any refugees fleeing Syria, and threatened to sue any Christian organizations that would, y’know, follow the Bible and take in refugees like it preaches.

Greg Abbott is also an opponent of all kinds of immigration, be it legal or otherwise, fights back against equal pay for women, is a gay reparative therapy supporter, and a climate change denier who is beyond “hands off” with giants of industry, arguing that the government should not regulate chemical giants and that if citizens wanted to be aware of what chemical agents were being used by them, they should just “drive around and ask”, and the companies would simply acquiesce. Gov. Abbott is hyper-partisan enough that he has been quoted saying that “Democrats are a more dangerous threat than North Korea” and has thanked supporters for referring to his opponent in the 2014 elections, Wendy Davis, as “Retard Barbie”.

Perhaps the most egregious example of Greg Abbott being a paranoid lunatic, though, was over the summer of 2014, when several radical conspiracy theorists, the kind who are avid fans of Alex Jones and InfoWars, were frothing at the mouth in fear of routine military exercises known as Jade Helm 15 that they, as kooks are wont to do, imagined to be a government invasion coming to take their guns away, ship them off to work as slave labor in WalMarts (as if WalMart needed any help with that) and impose Sharia Law upon the imprisoned populace. Abbott actually sent the Texas State Guard to “monitor” the activities of the joint exercise between the Green Berets and Navy Seals, our own armed forces, just in case they really were going to swoop in when no one was looking and conquer poor Texas (which is still already a part of our country). Unbelievably, Gov. Abbott decided to waste taxpayer money to keep a watchful eye on American troops to make sure they didn’t come for us all in the night, rather than just dismiss an insane conspiracy theory, that he seemingly also fell for (or exploited). Fast forward a few weeks, though, and after Texas had a series of storms that left the state flooded, Greg Abbott’s mistrust of the federal government was gone when he started asking for relief aid funding to be sent to his state. Because apparently, he also has the memory of a goldfish.

Gov. Abbott won re-election in 2018, and he’s already hitting the fear-mongering hits by sending out fund-raising letters to drum up fears of an “immigration coup” and warning about how gun control will just lead to Hitler, when people asked about maybe changing Texas gun laws after a lunatic murdered a couple dozen people in a Sutherland Springs church, which maybe shows you his priorities are a bit f***ed up. It was only after another mass shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, that Abbott finally started to make noise about doing something about mass shootings in his state, all that he really accomplished was postponing his campaign giving away a shotgun at a campaign rally.


That brief flirtation with even moving in any way towards a stance of being a human being ended pretty quick, though, as Abbott has most recently drawn headlines by trying to insert himself into a custody hearing about a transgender youth to grant custody to the father who wants to deny hormone blocking treatments and prevent his son from having a sex change. Classic Republican hypocrisy… they’re “smaller government” unless it involves someone’s genitals.

There still are not term limits upon Texas governors… and we’re wondering if this hyperconservative lunatic will run again when his current term is up in 2022. He might be happier if Democrats retake the White House in 2020 and he can resume just being a bitter obstructionist. He seems to thrive in that role.

[Tami]

When Trump speaks the truth

Trump: “I do want corruption”

Twitter Link with video

[Tendrin]

Oi, WBE. I don't know who all the sponsors are but they've all earned a spot on your list:

The new Ohio HB413, p.184: To avoid criminal charges, including murder, for abortion, a physician must “…[attempt to] reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the women’s uterus”

This is medically impossible, of course, but since when did the GOP ever care about that?

[Tendrin]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...hopath/524502/

This article is two years old but it's a fascinating look at the difficulties that arise when your child is, well, an actual psychopath.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...hopath/524502/

At 11, Samantha is just over 5 feet tall and has wavy black hair and a steady gaze. She flashes a smile when I ask about her favorite subject (history), and grimaces when I ask about her least favorite (math). She seems poised and cheerful, a normal preteen. But when we steer into uncomfortable territory—the events that led her to this juvenile-treatment facility nearly 2,000 miles from her family—Samantha hesitates and looks down at her hands. “I wanted the whole world to myself,” she says. “So I made a whole entire book about how to hurt people.”

[Celgress]

I'm ready to make my 2020 prediction.

I predict Trump will coast to reelection and the impeach debacle will be the reason why. You can say I don't understand the process or that I'm wrong as much as you want. I've never been wrong with my political predictions (I can produce witnesses and documentation in PMs). My one caveat is Biden as the Democratic nominee. If someone other than Biden gets the nomination Trump could still lose. I simply see no way Biden beats Trump due mostly to base engagement (Biden is simply not popular enough with the fractured Left Wing) and the Ukrainian issue hurting Biden more than Trump (once again many groups on the Left vehemently detest Biden and say he and his son are guilty of corruption).

[Tendrin]

I'm ready to make my 2020 prediction.

I predict Trump will coast to reelection and the impeach debacle will be the reason why. You can say I don't understand the process or that I'm wrong as much as you want. I've never been wrong with my political predictions (I can produce witnesses and documentation in PMs). My one caveat is Biden as the Democratic nominee. If someone other than Biden gets the nomination Trump could still lose. I simply see no way Biden beats Trump due mostly to base engagement (Biden is simply not popular enough with the fractured Left Wing) and the Ukrainian issue hurting Biden more than Trump (once again many groups on the Left vehemently detest Biden and say he and his son are guilty of corruption).

I said you don't understand the process because you demonstrated that you don't understand the process.

That's a separate issue from whether or not impeachment will backfire on the Democrats. Even if it does, Trump's actions left them little room not to impeach him. I mean, the Dems could have done nothing while sham investigations were launched with the power of the justice department behind them, I guess.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Even if Trump wins re-election the Republicans comically don't realize the damage and door they leave open for the next President. They won't always have a Republican in office. They really will lose their **** when a Democrat decides to basically do what Trump has done and just laugh in their faces while he does it. "Impeach me ? You guys kept Trump in power for what I'm doing..."

They maybe enjoying a victory tomorrow and Trump supporters are creaming themselves with glee. But how will it look when a Democrat does the same exact game and to see Republicans lose their minds in Congress as that President decides to throw out Executive orders and flaunt that as President they can't face impeachment for ANYTHING. Because the door was opened. You allowed someone to have power.

[Tendrin]

Even if Trump wins re-election the Republicans comically don't realize the damage and door they leave open for the next President. They won't always have a Republican in office. They really will lose their **** when a Democrat decides to basically do what Trump has done and just laugh in their faces while he does it. "Impeach me ? You guys kept Trump in power for what I'm doing..."

Remember, the Republicans believed a short time ago that there was going to be a 'permanent Republican majority'. They'd still like to see that, just by ensuring that only Republicans get a vote. One party, Authoritarian rule is their goal and all else is de facto illegitimate.