All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Celgress]

I think this is appropriate today -

"Greatest teacher failure is."

[master of read]

at this point, i'd take my sister's dog, zara, over trump.

i personally don't care who wins the nomination. i just want trump and all those gutless wimps and liars out of office before they fuck things up even more.

[SquirrelMan]

Gunfire at Mar-a-Lago!

A Connecticut woman chastised for dancing on her car at a Palm Beach hotel late Friday morning ended up driving away and crashing her vehicle through two security barricades outside Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club and home, drawing gunfire from law enforcement officers, before leading police helicopters on a chase that ended in her arrest.

Hannah Roemhild, 30, a trained opera singer, is now in the custody of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

...

ok, I have to say it.

BECAUSE THE IMPEACHMENT AIN'T OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS!

[SquirrelMan]

https://twitter.com/KateAronoff/stat...50128083439621

By changing the rules to let in another moderate, they're totally rigging this against Biden, right?

Right?

[SquirrelMan]

Breaking: McConnell fucked something up.

Due to a mistake in drafting the rules, Senator Schumer now has ability to submit amendments—one implication is it can force GOP to make uncomfortable votes. Gives Schumer leverage he otherwise hasn’t had in the process

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/...829690881?s=20

[Tami]

I'm not too happy about it myself. They wouldn't adjust the rules to make it easier for Harris, Booker, or Castro but they are letting Bloomberg in.

[Tami]

Breaking: McConnell fucked something up.



https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/...829690881?s=20

Yeah, I saw. I hope Schumer takes advantage of this.

[SquirrelMan]

That's it, 51 Republicans put party before country.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Senate rehects calling witnesses and admitting additional evidence and with that the impeachment is pretty much over.

[Gray Lensman]

I'm not too happy about it myself. They wouldn't adjust the rules to make it easier for Harris, Booker, or Castro but they are letting Bloomberg in.

They are between a rock and a hard place with this. Bloomberg has managed to rocket to 4th place in the polls despite having been in zero debates and his very late entry. Do they shift requirements (and only donors if I read the news correctly) and let him in, or do they keep out one of the top polling candidates in favor of those who have much less of a chance?

[Panfoot]

So when do they vote to change Trump's title to King?

[Superbat]

DNC members discuss rules change to stop Sanders at convention

The talks reveal rising anxiety over the Vermont senator's momentum on the eve of voting.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...legates-110083

"DES MOINES, Iowa — A small group of Democratic National Committee members has privately begun gauging support for a plan to potentially weaken Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and head off a brokered convention.

In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.

“I do believe we should re-open the rules. I hear it from others as well,” one DNC member said in a text message last week to William Owen, a DNC member from Tennessee who does not support re-opening the rules.

Owen, who declined to identify the member, said the member added in a text that “It would be hard though. We could force a meeting or on the floor.”

Even proponents of the change acknowledge it is all but certain not to gain enough support to move past these initial conversations. But the talks reveal the extent of angst that many establishment Democrats are feeling on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

Sanders is surging and Joe Biden has maintained his lead nationally, but at least three other candidates are widely seen as viable. The cluster raises the specter of a convention requiring a second ballot.

If Sanders wins the Iowa caucuses on Monday and continues to gain momentum, it is possible he could arrive at the convention with the most delegates — but without enough to win the nomination on the first ballot. It is also possible that he and Elizabeth Warren, a fellow progressive, could arrive at the convention in second and third place, but with more delegates combined than the frontrunner.

If, on the second ballot, superdelegates were to throw their support to someone else, tipping the scales, many moderate Democrats fear the upheaval that would cause could weaken the eventual nominee.

Conversations about a potential rules change picked up as Sanders ascended in the primary, but they have not gained traction to this point within the DNC.

“There’s talk about somehow trying to change this rule at this convention — just casual conversation, and I have participated in it some,” said Don Fowler, a former DNC chairman from South Carolina who opposed the DNC’s decision in 2018 to strip superdelegates of much of their power in the presidential nominating process. “But I want to be clear that I would not be a party to any effort to do that in the 2020 convention … It’s bad sportsmanship.”

[BeastieRunner]

So when do they vote to change Trump's title to King?

It just happened.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Rubio: "Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office."

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It's kind of fitting that this happened the same day Brexit became official. In so many ways these two have been tied