All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[PwrdOn]

Obama ran as a centrist. Just putting that out there too.

Then again, I shouldn't have to say that. He won office, therefore we know exactly how he ran.

And if any of these moderates running now had a sliver of the charisma that Obama had, maybe I'd vote for them too. Someone like Klobuchar trying to run on Obama's platform would lose and lose badly, period.

[Tami]

Live updates: House debates pivotal resolution on Trump impeachment inquiry as another key witness comes to testify

A deeply divided House opened debate Thursday on a resolution defining the parameters of the next phase of the impeachment inquiry as lawmakers prepared to hear from another key witness in the Ukraine controversy.

Democrats and Republicans alike were heavily lobbying their members to stay in line ahead of the vote scheduled for Thursday morning that will set up a new phase of the inquiry with nationally broadcast public hearings.

Meanwhile, Timothy Morrison, a deputy to John Bolton when he served as President Trump’s national security adviser, is expected to shed light in a closed-door deposition on Trump’s efforts to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

House to Vote on Trump Impeachment Inquiry Rules: Live Updates

The House will vote on a resolution Thursday to guide the impeachment process as it heads into a more public phase.

[Tami]

NUNES: "What we're seeing among Democrats on the Intelligence Committee down in the SCIF right now is like a cult. These are a group of people loyally following their leader as he bounces from one outlandish conspiracy theory to another. And the media are the cult followers."

Twitter Thread Link

That is more descriptive of Nunes and his Republican cohorts

[wjowski]

Ugh. This makes me a sad panda. I could see him taking my home state.

Why are the Dems having so much trouble with what should be a wounded, scandal-weakened GOP in what's supposed to be one of their home territories?

[Tami]

Why are the Dems having so much trouble with what should be a wounded, scandal-weakened GOP in what's supposed to be one of their home territories?

From the article:

CAN HE REALLY WIN HERE?

But even with a full-court press, can Trump actually win Minnesota?

It’s possible, but not likely, says political operatives and experts.

“Running against incumbent President Donald Trump is a lot different than running against insurgent candidate Donald Trump,” said Jeff Blodgett, a longtime Minnesota Democratic operative. “The Democratic base is incredibly energized and I think everyone is going to rally around that candidate like you haven’t seen in a long time.”

[worstblogever]

From the article:

I'll note that Democrats didn't lose any state-wide offices in Minnesota of late.

Wisconsin being a "surprise" that it slipped to red in a presidential election for the first time in decades shouldn't have been. Republicans won state-wides, including Governor, in Wisconsin that year. With a narrow majority, they then gerrymandered the state maps to hold onto power at the state level, and that legislature passed laws to act as voter suppression tactics, which the Walker administration pushed even harder to try and ensure that temporary upset could be repeated for years to come. Walker probably thought doing so would help him in his 2016 presidential run, and that HE would be the one to win Wisconsin, of course.

In Minnesota, however, none of those factors have been implemented. The only thing that has happened is, Republicans have been fear-mongering against non-white Somali immigrants there. Just a dash of white nationalism being normalized. But no policies to back it up.

Thus, I'm not as worried about the big implications of Minnesota, compared to the rest of the mid-West swing states.

[Tami]

A divided House passes resolution on impeachment inquiry, setting stage for televised hearings and release of witness testimony

A divided House approved legislation Thursday formally authorizing and articulating guidelines for the next phase of its impeachment inquiry, a move that signaled Democrats are on course to bring charges against President Trump later this year.

The 232-196 vote, which hewed closely to party lines, was likely to fuel the partisan fighting that has accompanied every stage of the impeachment probe and much of the Trump presidency. Nearly all Democrats backed the resolution, and House Republicans, who spent weeks clamoring for such a vote, opposed it.

At issue is whether Trump abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign leader to investigate his domestic political rivals.

In remarks before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) described the impeachment inquiry as a “solemn” and “prayerful” process — “not cause for any glee or comfort.”

[Tami]

How Each House Member Voted on Trump Impeachment Inquiry Rules

[Malvolio]

And if any of these moderates running now had a sliver of the charisma that Obama had, maybe I'd vote for them too. Someone like Klobuchar trying to run on Obama's platform would lose and lose badly, period.

If it comes down to a choice between someone with charisma, but no ability to do the job and someone with ability, but no charisma, I'll vote for the candidate with ability. Obama had both, so that worked out well, but we don't always get that lucky.

[Tami]

1/ The Alabama Democratic Party is in crisis.

It's been in crisis for years, but no one has noticed. But now it's spilling over and it's likely to affect the national politics in 2020 next year.

Twitter Thread Link

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a man who we have to work up all of our energy to not just post, “F*** you, Mitch” in our update once a year, because he’s an utter dips*** who completely has broken the legislative branch of our government. And loathing this putrid husk pretending to be a human is hardly a partisan thing, as he was even booed when he took the stage to give a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention by members of his own party. He is, for us, one of the most infuriating politicians in modern history, for his hyper-partisan tactics, and his apparent desire to bring all government action to a grinding halt in the name of simply obstructing the other side from being able to govern, as well. McConnell is a six term senator (Jesus, really?) who has risen from unlikely beginnings as an ordinary turtle to being covered in radioactive ooze and forgoing a "teenage mutant ninja" stage to instead become a fixture in Washington, D.C. He has an extremely conservative voting record, which he does his best to misrepresent (y'know lie) about every six years to try and ensure his re-election while he airs some of the weirdest ads on his own behalf.

McConnell boldly stated his primary goal as Senate Minority Leader was to "make Barack Obama a one term president", so based on his own expectations, he's a complete failure. Under his leadership in the Senate from 2010-2016, McConnell led Republicans to double the usage of invoking cloture to filibuster laws, triple the number of filibustered nominees of any previous presidency, and has seen the GOP push back against confirming judges so that only 43% of judges nominated by President Obama for the bench were confirmed within 14 months of their nomination. Sen. McConnell’s filibustering ways were so out of control that he literally filibustered bills THAT HE HIMSELF WROTE. Mitch McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland Supreme Court Justice for ELEVEN F***ING MONTHS after the death of Antonin Scalia.

So what happened when the 2016 elections got stolen by help from the Russians hacking American social media feeds, and widespread voter suppression of traditionally Democratic voters by Republicans in swing states? Well, guess what, Mitch McConnell got all lathered up and almost immediately changed the rules for the filibuster so that Democrats couldn’t prevent the Trump administration from stacking the courts full of conservatives even if they had a rampant history of racial bias, promoting conspiracy theories, or making sexist or homophobic statements that clearly showed they had no business serving as a judge, let alone a FEDERAL judge. And it was all so they could get people like Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, who, for the record, is so much of a conservative f*** face that even John Roberts is getting sick of his s*** already,and even worse, a drunken fratboy accused of multiple sexual assaults with a habit of multiple perjury by the name of Brett Kavanaugh. Hell, upon learning of the accusations, McConnell moved the Senate to try and confirm Kavanaugh FASTER rather than have the FBI investigate the attack. And McConnell sees zero hypocrisy for that. Hell, only two years after insisting it would be wrong to confirm a Supreme Court Justice in the last year of a presidential term, inventing that “rule” on the spot, now this miserable, bloated tortoise has conveniently forgotten that it’s a rule, and is ready to confirm any Justices if needed in 2020.

[worstblogever]

Double Post.

[worstblogever]

So perhaps then, it’s at least satisfying to know that Mitch McConnell, who has orchestrated Kentucky politics to sustain his own four decade long political career and ensure no serious challengers can rise out of the state to cut his career short, is currently watching an incompetent he helped get elected to the White House and handed the reins of power to when he had never held any office turn on him for every perceived failure, and instead serve him a heaping helping of ridicule and humiliation casserole. People have noticed that when Sen. McConnell is forced into joint press conferences with Trump, he looks like he’s being held hostage and would rather be anywhere else.

But maybe that’s because he only has the courage to say he’s “upset” even when Trump can’t bring himself to criticize Neo-Nazis after they murdered an innocent woman in Charlottesville, Virginia. McConnell’s next Senate term is up in 2020, and we’re wondering that if McConnell is Dr. Frankenstein whole political maneuvering helped create a monster like Trump that he’ll get some kind of poetic justice for his part in that creation. Sometimes, it already has worked out for Democrats, as evidenced when the president was forced into a debt ceiling deal by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Hell, Mitch McConnell is such an ***hole that Sen. John McCain flew in from Arizona from his deathbed to deliver a huge “f*** you” to the old tortoise back in July of 2017 with a dramatic thumbs down vote on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. This would be a repeal attempt that McConnell knew he would only be able to pull off with a simple 50 vote majority (Mike Pence being his tie-breaker) to destroy the ACA after promising to do so for SEVEN YEARS. And NOPE, John McCain hateds McConnell more than he loves conservative dogma, and that’s saying something.

This man is enough of a loathsome twit that he can push for the biggest tax break for the wealthy in a century, and then feign concern about the federal deficit it created, but blame that shortfall on Medicaid and Social Security. (Just a quick reminder, older voters elected Mitch McConnell, and he’s going to f*** them over if he gets his way).

So after McConnell has been Majority leader now for about three years of abject failure, people continue to call for him to step down from his position on both sides of the aisle. Commentators also have spread the meme that McConnell’s tombstone will read, “He Broke America”, and he and his wife Elaine Chao are getting shouted out of restaurants when they try to dine out in public back in Louisville, he’s so loathed. They’ve been chased out of establishments repeatedly, and that may have something to do with the fact that the would-be power couple have focused on aligning side deals between Kentucky businessmen, and Russian oligarchs.

And somehow, the motherf***er always has the gall to act surprised when people snub him.


McConnell actually has come to revel in being an obstructionist prick, to the extent that he enjoys killing whatever legislation that House Democrats send his way now that they have control of the lower chamber, giving himself the moniker “The Grim Reaper”. Yeah. This man has no qualms about killing legislation, or the actual lives that could be saved by passing it.

McConnell is currently trying to navigate his way through the political mindfield of the Trump Impeachment Inquiry, and signs of cracks forming are already beginning to show… McConnell has on more than one occasion, distanced himself from the White House when bad news hits the media cycle, and if offering no respite for Trump. Because, honestly, Trump is becoming radioactive for Republicans to handle in general, but after McConnell’s being linked to Russia as well to the extent that people are taunting him with the nickname “Moscow Mitch”? That might test the limits of McConnell’s loyalty. Because if he votes to acquit Trump in a trial in the Senate where he’s obviously guilty… he’s going to be skating uphill when he’s up for re-election in about a year.

We’re hoping that these moments are a sign that in 2020, the residents of Kentucky finally realize that this old bastard doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and uses their power to vote to metaphorically grab him by his neck waddle and throw him out of office on his arse by it, and replace him with a hero like Amy McGrath.

[BeastieRunner]

How Each House Member Voted on Trump Impeachment Inquiry Rules

Got any links not behind a pay wall? I'd like to read that.

[Tami]

Got any links not behind a pay wall? I'd like to read that.

Can't find a similar article, but there is this from the House of representatives site