All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Celgress]

The Democrats did the right thing -- one can always second guess how it should have been done, but the result was always going to be acquittal under McConnell. What this situation has done is reveal how easily a president can abuse the powers of the executive branch, especially when in tandem with another branch of government.

The question is whether American voters will do the right thing with the information we've been given.

In that respect, it remains to be seen whether it's a loser's game, since the impetus is on the American public to accept or reject this kind of leadership.

I agree if you fail to convince the people it was a failure. Intentions mean nothing only outcome at the end of the day. Sure people tried to kill Hitler but they all failed thus WW II happened and continued until there was a military solution costing millions upon millions of lives. Saying the would-be assassins did the "right thing" but ultimately failed is cold comfort to those who died and had their lives ruined.

[Jack Dracula]

Trump behaves like a child to absolutely no ones surprise.

At a White House event on Thursday, Trump used the opportunity to take a victory lap and criticize those who led the impeachment effort against him. He attacked the two California Democrats by calling them “horrible” people.

[The Darknight Detective]

As Burr Redding of the classic HBO TV show Oz once said: "motives are less important than outcome".

WARNING GUN VIOLENCE IN FLASHBACK



The Congressional Dems should have censured Trump instead, using at least one of the articles so he could not be acquitted which we all knew was going to happen. They played a fool's game, a loser's game.

The House was betting on Trump's poll numbers hitting rock bottom like Nixon's did in '74. The difference is the latter committed a crime that would have placed him in jail if not for Ford's pardon, while Trump was never in danger of that.

As for censuring him, yes, that would have been the best option for the Dems.

[Superbat]

Buttigieg wins by 1 SDE.

https://results.thecaucuses.org/

[Celgress]

Buttigieg wins by 1 SDE.

https://results.thecaucuses.org/

Great, now we'll have to listen while Bernie's supporters whine about the "fixed Iowa Caucus" for months. Why did it have to be so close? *sigh*

[Celgress]

The House was betting on Trump's poll numbers hitting rock bottom like Nixon's did in '74. The difference is the latter committed a crime that would have placed him in jail if not for Ford's pardon, while Trump was never in danger of that.

As for censuring him, yes, that would have been the best option for the Dems.

Yup, they bet and they lost. Because your average person simply did not care, well, that and the holidays and now the Coronavirus outbreak consuming the news cycle. Bad planning and worse timing, IMO.

[aja_christopher]

Yup, they bet and they lost. Because your average person simply did not care, well, that and the holidays and now the China outbreak consuming the news cycle. Bad planning and worse timing, IMO.

Their bet is that he will be beat at the ballot box, not that the Republicans would acquit him.

The trial was to give the American people more information of exactly what we are dealing with before making that decision.

I don't believe that Trump committing a "crime" would have made a difference to the Senate, because even if he did, we'd never know the truth due to their obstruction of both witnesses and documents. And the GAO determined that Trump committed illegal acts in withholding aid, but none of that matters when there are no powers of enforcement, or even further investigation.

It has nothing to do with his "criminal" activities -- the Republican party is completely willing to overlook crimes if they feel they can get away with it.

Now, either the voters will hold them accountable, or they won't.

----
"Today, Donald Trump still commands the support of more than 80 percent of his fellow Republicans, which is why his approval rating is about twice that of Nixon’s. To be sure, two years elapsed between the Watergate burglary and Nixon’s resignation, but Trump’s cascade of presidential improprieties has been unfolding for two and a half years.

A straightforward reading of U.S. law makes clear that Trump’s threat to Ukrainian President Zelensky violated 52 U.S. Code 30121, which makes it unlawful for “a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph A of paragraph 1 from a foreign national.” That subparagraph A defines what it’s unlawful to solicit, accept, or receive as “a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value … in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.” 99.999 percent of the American people don’t know the particulars of 52 U.S. Code 30121, but only those in tribal denial don’t grasp that threatening Ukraine unless it cooked up something to help Trump besmirch Joe Biden violated something fundamental.

So why the difference between 2019 and 1974? Why no Republican demands to investigate Trump? What changed the Republican Party over those 45 years? Nixon, after all, relied on tribal enmity no less than Trump. Nixon’s campaigns railed against Democrats, whom it mushed together with radicals, crazy kids, militant blacks, and hippies. His 1972 campaign turned George McGovern, his Democratic opponent, into the candidate of acid, amnesty, and abortion. His history of red-baiting went all the way back to his initial 1946 run for Congress, when he linked the liberal Democratic incumbent he unseated, Jerry Voorhis, to the Communist Party, which Voorhis opposed. And as president, Nixon and his vice president Spiro Agnew went after the “liberal media”—specifically, the Times, the Post, and CBS—claiming they distorted the news and secretly sought to bring America down. Nixon was a vastly more intelligent pol (and man) than Trump, but he built his career on the fear and loathing he stoked within his base for his political adversaries.

Nonetheless, Nixon’s tribe bowed to the evidence and deserted him at the end—all of the Republican electeds, and probably most of the rank and file.

So why the difference now? What enables Republicans to deny, ignore, or not care about the evidence—not just in the Ukrainian affair but the little kids in cages and the thousand other shocks to which Trump has subjected the nation? That denial, ignorance, and indifference extends well beyond the case of Donald Trump, to such other notable realities as planet-threatening climate change. How did the “ism” that Republicans scorn the most become empiricism?

There are a host of explanations for why and how Republicans have cocooned themselves from reality, not least the realignment of Southern whites into the GOP, which pushed the party to embrace a much more hard-right politics that drove many moderates into the Democrats’ ranks. But the rise of right-wing mass media may well be the most important factor differentiating ’19 from ’74. In 1974, right-wing media remained on the fringe, save in portions of the white South. Most Americans came to understand Watergate from the newscasts of the three national television networks, and from the hearings those networks aired.

There was no counterfactual counternarrative coming from Fox News, as there was no Fox News. There were right-wing radio commentators, but few if any were national: Father Coughlin was gone and Rush Limbaugh had yet to arrive. Rupert Murdoch had only recently relocated to Britain from Australia (to which, if we had an immigration policy that penalized the truly evil, he would be instantly deported). If Trump is polling at twice Nixon’s final-days level, and if congressional Republicans still sing Trump’s praises for fear of estranging their counterfactually oriented base, Fox and its ilk are substantially to blame...

Would Richard Nixon have been compelled to resign, even once the Watergate smoking gun was found, still smoking, if Fox News had been around in 1974?

Quite possibly, not. Republicans now inhabit a different world than their forebears, encased behind walls through which facts seldom flow."

https://prospect.org/impeachment/rep...achment-media/

[Celgress]

Their bet is that he will be beat at the ballot box, not that the Republicans would acquit him....

But it hasn't impacted his poll numbers thus so far it is an L. If anything this gives him a talking point (the acquittal) that I predict will help him which he would not otherwise have had. You can spin it any way you want but this is a farce at best a disaster at worst.

[Tami]

Rachel Maddow reporting on how Republican Trump supporters tied up the phone lines that were supposed to be used to report results in Iowa. Messing with the Iowa election.

[Superbat]

Great, now we'll have to listen while Bernie's supporters whine about the "fixed Iowa Caucus" for months. Why did it have to be so close? *sigh*

NBC and the Associated Press won't declare Buttigieg the winner. They said there are too many errors in the data and we'll know the winner of NH before Iowa.

This is a never ending trainwreck.

[Celgress]

NBC and the Associated Press won't declare Buttigieg the winner. They said there are too many errors in the data and we'll know the winner of NH before Iowa.

This is a never ending trainwreck.

I'm beginning to think the leadership in both parties have to go, or else we need a viable third party or even fourth party

[Tendrin]

Rachel Maddow reporting on how Republican Trump supporters tied up the phone lines that were supposed to be used to report results in Iowa. Messing with the Iowa election.

While many of the errors we've seen come down to basic data entry issues it wouldn't surprise me to find some rat!&$?!ing was involved too.

[Steel Inquisitor]

I'm beginning to think the leadership in both parties have to go, or else we need a viable third party or even fourth party

This isn't solely about leadership, not that the left is offering any wunderkinds right now to replace Pelosi or Schumer, it's how politics works. No national party is going to convict their own president.

A national third party would be a spoiler for whichever side it tilted, due to FPTP. This is why Bernie Sanders went with the Democrats, rather than the Green's.

The national party isn't entrenched in this, either, it's mainly Iowa's Democratic party. I don't know why you're putting all the blame on Dem leadership on this.

[Tami]

This is bad. The Treasury Department, which broke the law to avoid giving Congress Trump's tax returns, is turning over records related to Hunter Biden in response to requests from GOP Senators. The sharp contrast demands answers, one exert tells me:

Twitter Link

Emboldened, Trump allies may already be targeting his enemies in new ways

[numberthirty]

This is bad. The Treasury Department, which broke the law to avoid giving Congress Trump's tax returns, is turning over records related to Hunter Biden in response to requests from GOP Senators. The sharp contrast demands answers, one exert tells me:

Twitter Link

Emboldened, Trump allies may already be targeting his enemies in new ways

If the son never has that job(or the one that he had during Biden going to bat for creditors), Republicans have no angle.

At some point, Democrats need to figure out "Basics 101".