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Republicans milked Benghazi for all its worth for over a year, I don't think it will hurt Dems to actually take their time in uncovering the full truth. One thing that occurs to me now, do Dems now have the ability to actually hold people in contempt and jail people now that refuse to show up? They have both the Senate and the DOJ?
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Jan 14, 2021 06:50
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Raenir Salazar posted:Republicans milked Benghazi for all its worth for over a year, I don't think it will hurt Dems to actually take their time in uncovering the full truth. it should be noted, they milked benghazi while they were in opposition and dropped it like a hot potato when they actually got control of the executive branch. these kind of things are much better of bogging down the agenda of the party in power than as an actual electoral issue the democrats should strike a balance on speed vs thoroughness, but if there isn't a sign of buy-in from republican senators that might result in a conviction, i would lean more towards speed
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Jan 14, 2021 07:24
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:it should be noted, they milked benghazi while they were in opposition and dropped it like a hot potato when they actually got control of the executive branch. these kind of things are much better of bogging down the agenda of the party in power than as an actual electoral issue Didn't Republicans have control of the House though? I don't think they only milked Benghazi a specific way, the reason why they were able to milk it iirc was because they controlled those committees. They could yell and scream about it when they didn't hold the committee but couldn't actually do anything because the committee wasn't going to humour them beyond their 2 minutes of speaking time.
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Jan 14, 2021 07:36
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Raenir Salazar posted:Didn't Republicans have control of the House though? I don't think they only milked Benghazi a specific way, the reason why they were able to milk it iirc was because they controlled those committees. They could yell and scream about it when they didn't hold the committee but couldn't actually do anything because the committee wasn't going to humour them beyond their 2 minutes of speaking time. Yea they controlled the house while Obama was President. So they used Benghazi to help stall anything in congress and try to drag Obama and Clinton through the mud.
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Jan 14, 2021 13:58
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:it should be noted, they milked benghazi while they were in opposition and dropped it like a hot potato when they actually got control of the executive branch. these kind of things are much better of bogging down the agenda of the party in power than as an actual electoral issue This is what I was trying to say. I just don't see anyone who isn't convinced by a speedy trial being convinced by a drawn out one, and democrats bogging down their own agenda doesn't make sense.
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Jan 14, 2021 14:47
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Blue Footed Booby posted:This is what I was trying to say. I just don't see anyone who isn't convinced by a speedy trial being convinced by a drawn out one, and democrats bogging down their own agenda doesn't make sense. The Republicans don't want a drawn out trial either, they also don't want an up or down vote I bet. You don't want numerous cycles of HEY REMEMBER THIS GUY, they want him sent to the memory hole as quickly as possible.
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Jan 14, 2021 15:15
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I think that the longer an impeachment trial drags on the more the Republicans will be able to shift to arguing that “Democrats are trying to politicize this” and rally the troops to vote it down. I don’t believe they should just hold a vote, but I think if the trial goes on for more than a couple weeks the chances of getting Republican votes approaches zero.
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Jan 14, 2021 16:18
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Blue Footed Booby posted:This is what I was trying to say. I just don't see anyone who isn't convinced by a speedy trial being convinced by a drawn out one, and democrats bogging down their own agenda doesn't make sense. It really depends on what exactly you mean by "speedy". There's definitely a case for getting a number of key witnesses to put in the public record some of the worst things that occurred. Not only is it likely we don't even know some of those yet, but a lot of people missed what happened first time around. I've met numerous people who didn't know about zip tie man, the gallows, or even officer Sicknick.
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Jan 14, 2021 19:30
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Blue Footed Booby posted:This is what I was trying to say. I just don't see anyone who isn't convinced by a speedy trial being convinced by a drawn out one, and democrats bogging down their own agenda doesn't make sense. I don't think the calculus is simply one of drawing out the trial or speeding it up, I think it favours Dems to let it run its proper course by investigating and interrogating the leads and witnesses that are most relevant to the proceedings to get a full picture. Daduzi posted:It really depends on what exactly you mean by "speedy". There's definitely a case for getting a number of key witnesses to put in the public record some of the worst things that occurred. Not only is it likely we don't even know some of those yet, but a lot of people missed what happened first time around. I've met numerous people who didn't know about zip tie man, the gallows, or even officer Sicknick. This. Also of course just because impeachment was passed already doesn't mean Dems can't just form a new select committee specifically to investigate the riot and Trump's involvement, this time with proper subpoena power.
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Jan 14, 2021 19:34
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Pobrecito posted:I think that the longer an impeachment trial drags on the more the Republicans will be able to shift to arguing that “Democrats are trying to politicize this” and rally the troops to vote it down. I don’t believe they should just hold a vote, but I think if the trial goes on for more than a couple weeks the chances of getting Republican votes approaches zero. Agree. I think the Mitch posturing was more about trying to control him for the rest of his term than actually removing him. Removing him would be an existential risk to the GOP, once he's gone, they'll do what they did with Bush and be like "How long are you gonna blame everything on Trump that was over 2 weeks ago". I'd be shocked if there's a single non Mitt R vote in the Senate for impeachment, far from the "20-30 GOP votes to convict" that the press was writing about last week. Something people need to realize about conservatives: there is never a point when they will admit they were wrong. Even when we're awash in seawater in Arkansas and billions are starving, they won't say they were wrong about climate change. There is no evidence, no argument that exists that will move a single GOP vote from whatever leadership deems is expedient. A mob tried to murder the congress on the orders of the president and a couple of hours later, 2/3s of the House Republican caucus voted to contest the election results. They are unpersuadable.
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Jan 14, 2021 20:29
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Here's a number https://mobile.twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1349562843235028992 Repeating Trump by whining a lot and being a fascist is going well
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Jan 14, 2021 22:51
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James Garfield posted:Here's a number Only Trump can be Trump, none of these other grifters have the dark gift of his deranged narcissism, and even Trump's people see it.
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Jan 14, 2021 23:05
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Pobrecito posted:I think that the longer an impeachment trial drags on the more the Republicans will be able to shift to arguing that “Democrats are trying to politicize this” and rally the troops to vote it down. I don’t believe they should just hold a vote, but I think if the trial goes on for more than a couple weeks the chances of getting Republican votes approaches zero. Yep. At this point having a trial is not going to convince anyone else that Trump is bad. Right now we are at peak anger over the Capitol riots (and it's already starting to wane) - if we wait a few more weeks any R's who are on the fence will probably feel like they can deflect. Either they have the votes or they don't, and if they don't, the Dems should just get it over with and move on towards helping Biden's agenda.
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Jan 15, 2021 00:16
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Seph posted:Yep. At this point having a trial is not going to convince anyone else that Trump is bad. Right now we are at peak anger over the Capitol riots (and it's already starting to wane) - if we wait a few more weeks any R's who are on the fence will probably feel like they can deflect. Either they have the votes or they don't, and if they don't, the Dems should just get it over with and move on towards helping Biden's agenda. This is assuming no more violence, which is probably not a good assumption.
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Jan 15, 2021 00:29
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paternity suitor posted:This is assuming no more violence, which is probably not a good assumption. We might see random violence here and there but I don't think it's going to be anything as large and coordinated as what happened at the Capitol. Especially with all the beefed up security. It will also be much harder to tie any new violence to Trump if he continues to lay low for the rest of his term. The Capitol riots had so much blowback on Trump because they were literally marching from a Trump rally where he had been encouraging them minutes beforehand. All the rioters were in Trump gear - the optics were terrible for him. If it's a random attack on a state capitol or something like that, I don't see it blowing back on Trump nearly as much. And personally if there's more violence I'd rather the focus be on the right wing terrorists rather than Trump. They are still going to exist when Trump is out of office so the government should be focused on flushing them out and arresting them, rather than impeaching Trump.
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Jan 15, 2021 00:40
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James Garfield posted:Here's a number These guys really don't understand that you have to be an authentic caveman idiot, the Trump cult doesn't work at all with some conniving slime like Hawley or Cruz.
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Jan 15, 2021 00:54
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Probably another reason they aren't so hot to proceed is that, from all appearances anyway, he's effectively no longer the president https://twitter.com/Mike_Pence/status/1349869939914633216 Why enrage his base when he's already been marginalized?
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Jan 15, 2021 01:32
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zoux posted:Probably another reason they aren't so hot to proceed is that, from all appearances anyway, he's effectively no longer the president
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Jan 15, 2021 01:45
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The Artificial Kid posted:Why act in a way that tacitly endorses the idea that his base gets to dictate terms to the rest of America through their rage and violence? I assume by they he's referring to the Republican Party specifically who rely on that base to, you know, exist, and therefore are incentivized to not upset them as much as possible while in the process of saving their own lives from his attempts to enact a coup.
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Jan 15, 2021 01:48
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I don't want you to doxx yourself but man I wanna find out more about that book I don't remember all the places he mailed copies but if you're ever somewhere and find a nice hardcover book thats full of insane rambling conspiracy theories that is weirdly positive about middle easterners you've found one of his.
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Jan 15, 2021 01:58
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Barudak posted:I don't remember all the places he mailed copies but if you're ever somewhere and find a nice hardcover book thats full of insane rambling conspiracy theories that is weirdly positive about middle easterners you've found one of his. If it's Wild Animus you're required by law to tell us.
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Jan 15, 2021 01:59
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Sanguinia posted:I assume by they he's referring to the Republican Party specifically who rely on that base to, you know, exist, and therefore are incentivized to not upset them as much as possible while in the process of saving their own lives from his attempts to enact a coup. Yes, specifically establishment and institutional Republicans, who saw themselves lose 40 seats in the House and both GA Senate seats in elections when he's not on the ballot. I don't think Trump just brought out an untapped voting demo, I think he turned some "normal" Republicans goddamned MAGA making them less inclined to show up when Trump isn't up. He's also still, somehow, extremely popular at the grassroots level, which is why 2/3s of the GOP House caucus voted to steal an a election they knew was fair (well maybe not Gohmert he might've believed it all) because Reps tend to be closer to the base than Senators. Reps have smaller constituencies so fringe groups have more say and they have to run every 2 years, which gives them brainworms. Like, it is absolutely insane that a literal seditious mob bent on violent overthrow of the government that same loving day probably didn't move a double-digit number of votes. The absolute best outcome for the establishment GOP is that Trump drops dead of a heart attack on Jan 21, although maybe that would just lead to insane outrage over Q conspiracy MKULTRA heart attack drugs delivered by CCP drones. zoux fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 02:06
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No no its not Wild Animus. They had, and its been a long time, boring titles since they are not intended to be fictional works. Like "The Deprivation of Freedom" or some other shite. The funniest part of this is his parents were both life-long US government employees who provided him with everything but you refuse to take one plea deal as part of your slam dunk fraud scheme and become a felon and suddenly its all 200 page books with footnotes about how they're going to round up all white* people in camps because bayesian mathematics is a fraud. *Middle Easterners
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Jan 15, 2021 02:11
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I really, REALLY wish people would stop claiming that the 2018 midterms went blue because "Trump wasn't on the ballot." The president's party ALWAYS loses seats in the midterm. That's been a constant in US elections for almost 100 years (with only ~3 exceptions, iirc). The only data point that corroborates the idea that Trump is special is the Georgia runoffs, which swung towards the Democrats by a whopping 1% from their performance in the GE. And there were a lot of confounding factors there: the insane amount of money and attention poured into the race, the fight for $2000, Trump's election fraud claims, unusual ease of voting, etc. There's nowhere near enough statistical evidence to suggest that long historical patterns have suddenly broken.
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Jan 15, 2021 02:43
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Donald Trump's term broke just about every rule out there. I usually agree that it's premature to ever assume things have ever "really changed", however Donald Trump is a sincere oddity and what we've seen does deeply suggest he has unique characteristics and effects. What they are, who knows.
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Jan 15, 2021 02:49
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that duck posted:I really, REALLY wish people would stop claiming that the 2018 midterms went blue because "Trump wasn't on the ballot." The president's party ALWAYS loses seats in the midterm. That's been a constant in US elections for almost 100 years (with only ~3 exceptions, iirc). On the flip side, there is also not enough statistical evidence to suggest that these "long historical patterns" have any merit. The Great Realignment was starting about 50 years ago, 30 years before that was the New Deal, then consider the years of the Gilded Age and Reconstruction before that, these "trends" I don't think have the certainty to them you're attributing. The "ruling" party has to defend their record yes, but there's nothing to really suggest that this is "ALWAYS" the case that they lose seats.
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Jan 15, 2021 03:47
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Pobrecito posted:I think that the longer an impeachment trial drags on the more the Republicans will be able to shift to arguing that “Democrats are trying to politicize this” and rally the troops to vote it down. I don’t believe they should just hold a vote, but I think if the trial goes on for more than a couple weeks the chances of getting Republican votes approaches zero.
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Jan 15, 2021 03:53
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lurker2006 posted:I think it's doomed regardless. Every single republican has an out, "It's over, he's done, let's move on", getting into an even deeper hole with their base isn't something many of them can afford. Well, the Republicans (particularly McConnell) would love to be rid of Trump and barring him from serving again in the future is really appealing to them. However, they also don't want to alienate Trump's gangs and so they don't really want to convict, either. Consequently, they may be cool with letting things slide for a month or two to see how things develop without having to commit to one path or the other right away. Rs may yet vote to convict if it ends up politically convenient for them. Their "I want to see the evidence before I decide" statements are the precise sort of fence-straddling I expect to hear from them for a while.
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Jan 15, 2021 03:59
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Pobrecito posted:I think that the longer an impeachment trial drags on the more the Republicans will be able to shift to arguing that “Democrats are trying to politicize this” and rally the troops to vote it down. I don’t believe they should just hold a vote, but I think if the trial goes on for more than a couple weeks the chances of getting Republican votes approaches zero. I believe its a moot point already. Based on how Pence acted when Pelosi attempted to just talk to him to invoke the 25th amendment, given Pence's stooge like status among the GOP, I think there is no way they're going to successfully vote to impeach in the Senate. McConnell is just trying to slow things down to give time to do some rear end covering for himself and some R's in the Senate because right now people are paying attention to what is going on with him and the Senate and the actions that are being taken here are going to stick in people's memories because this is a big deal and he knows it. You can tell because he is doing his "I'm on the fence" song and dance about whether he'll vote to impeach or not. Anyone who is saying stuff like that at this point is clearly full of poo poo about how they'll vote.
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Jan 15, 2021 04:05
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I'm honestly 50/50 on (impeachment)conviction at this point, I can see it going either way but the recent actions are extremely negative. Even worse than the ACA Repeal. Let's look at the impact so far, https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1349839738858041344?s=20 https://twitter.com/Civiqs/status/1348789395319492611?s=20 Edited Per Pick's reply. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 04:44
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He's already impeached. This is conviction.
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Jan 15, 2021 05:56
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Removal is extremely unlikely at this point There are only two types of Republican Senators who have any reason to convict: A Romney - won't be hurt in the primaries for going against Trump and doesn't like Trump/wants to remove him from the party. A Toomey (or McConnell?) - retiring, and doesn't like Trump/wants to remove him from the party If you aren't a Romney or a Toomey, why would you convict when you can just say, "Well, he's out of office now, we should move forward"? Those career-minded doofuses will swallow their pride and do the safe thing for their career, regardless of their feelings about Trump. Any who vote to remove will be putting a big target on their back in the primaries and will be angering the side that is violent. I haven't seen anything yet to convince me that the current backlash will be any more permanent than any of the other backlashes we've seen. For example, those corporate dollars will be flowing again soon enough. e: vvvvv yeah, the one wild card would be if some damning evidence came out, like audio or a transcript of a phone call. I think anything less than that won't cut it. pthighs fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 07:40
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It's unlikely but one big [?] is what we're going to find out once he's out.
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Jan 15, 2021 07:47
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that duck posted:I really, REALLY wish people would stop claiming that the 2018 midterms went blue because "Trump wasn't on the ballot." The president's party ALWAYS loses seats in the midterm. That's been a constant in US elections for almost 100 years (with only ~3 exceptions, iirc). There are a lot more data points than that. There were also a ton of special elections in 2017 where Democrats way over performed. They still lost most of those, but they made what were R +15 districts look competitive. Maybe you could say the Dems were just way more motivated, but it could also have been Republicans were not interested because Trump wasn’t there.
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Jan 15, 2021 13:32
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pthighs posted:Removal is extremely unlikely at this point Is there a third type? The Republican senator who is eyeing a 2024 bid and wants to get him out of the running and open the field?
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Jan 15, 2021 14:19
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Leon Sumbitches posted:Is there a third type? The Republican senator who is eyeing a 2024 bid and wants to get him out of the running and open the field? No anti-Trumper is winning the nod in 2024 without some serious retooling of the GOPs ‘winner take all’ primary rules. It’s how he got in in the first place.
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Jan 15, 2021 14:32
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pthighs posted:If you aren't a Romney or a Toomey, why would you convict when you can just say, "Well, he's out of office now, we should move forward"? Those career-minded doofuses will swallow their pride and do the safe thing for their career, regardless of their feelings about Trump. Any who vote to remove will be putting a big target on their back in the primaries and will be angering the side that is violent. I haven't seen anything yet to convince me that the current backlash will be any more permanent than any of the other backlashes we've seen. For example, those corporate dollars will be flowing again soon enough. If they don't convict Trump all he's going to do for next four years is continually litigate the election but not in court but merely constantly whining on television. This won't just demoralize the party but he'll continue to leech all of it's funding. I don't believe the majority of corporate donations will ever return. It's absolutely not in anyone's business interest to have a civil war. I think we will have more detail on this but I highly doubt they are returning. And let's also think about the recent election. The democrats did decisively win we're just numb after the last four years. If we hadn't had an election with such a authoritarian president it would have been over on that night.
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Jan 15, 2021 14:42
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pthighs posted:Removal is extremely unlikely at this point There is a third type, which is the type that wants to damnatio memoriae Trump by banning him from ever running again. That recent poll showing Hawley failing to capture Trump's support despite all his posturing shows why they might want to do this. Right now Trump has the entire Republican Party held hostage and the 2024 nomination is his to lose if he wants to run, which he probably does. He's going to spend the next four years fighting the 2020 election and continuing to define the discourse around who the Republicans are, and then after 2024 you get one of three options: either a second Trump presidency, which a lot of senators probably don't want, or Trump losing a general election and then spending the next four years fighting that one as stolen too, or Trump losing a primary and then spending the next four years fighting that one too. Any of those results means Trump remains the face of the Republican Party for the next eight years. There isn't a scenario where Trump fades into the background as a quiet ex-president the way GWB did and lets the Party move on, all these scenarios involve him continuing to hold court as the most powerful Republican in the country, which just led to them losing the presidency, Senate, and House. Convicting him in the Senate goes some way towards preventing that because it bans him from running again, and a senator of this type might want that because they might think doing that not only closes off those three paths where Trump keeps defining the discourse, but might also mean nobody else is able to capture that lightning in a bottle and take over Trump's role as arbiter of conservatism, like that Hawley poll suggests. I don't know if there are enough senators who fall into these three categories and aren't scared of primary challenges to actually convict Trump, but I don't think it's just Romney or Murkowski-type "moderates" and soon-to-be retirees that want to see Trump banned from ever running again.
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Jan 15, 2021 15:07
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Maybe I'm being optimistic about Trump's impending death, but I just don't see how that guy even has the energy to run again in four years. He'll by 78, so the same age as Biden is now, but in way worse health. We know he's way overweight, doesn't sleep, and possibly takes lots of meds to keep him going. Not to mention he's constantly putting himself into high stress situations. I would be really surprised to see Trump healthy enough to run again. What he should do is primary Rubio for the Florida senate seat in two years. That would be a lot funnier.
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Jan 15, 2021 16:04
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https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1350096551868305409
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Jan 15, 2021 16:14
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