The September 2019 US Politics Thread is great Great GREAT GR8

Grab 'em by the phone call!

Binders full of harassment

i still don't understand what their argument is going to be for not handing over the whistleblower complaint to congress, as they are legally required to do. "we did absolutely nothing wrong...and we will do everything we can to stop from finding out what they said we did wrong!"

esp when the whistleblower is supposed to testify as early next week (i think i read somewhere today?)

oh man Chuck Todd of all fucking people has turned into Seymour Hersh interrogating that moronic tub of guts Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana.

I think whatever their reasoning may be is now irrelevant. I doubt they can stop the complaint from being heard by Congress at this point.

Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff and, of course, Maxine Waters! Can you believe this?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2019

interesting that Trump is releasing transcript - either he's so stupid he doesn't realize it has damning material in it (entirely possible), or he was sly enough to be obfuscatory and incomprehensible enough on the call to provide plausible deniability.

where do you think Don Jr. got it from

https://i.imgur.com/yQ8RVY5.png

At least there's another month of baseball.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) September 24, 2019

They never even saw the transcript of the call. A total Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2019

What a whiner.

Senate unanimously voted to bring forward the whole complaint. Now that's curious imo

They never even saw the information we've tried so hard to withhold from them!

Gonna be impeached under the Enough of Your Bullshit statute.

watch this all be an elaborate troll to own the Dems

Senate unanimously voted to bring forward the whole complaint. Now that's curious imo

formatting got me again

As others said, it’s going to come out soon anyway (the whistleblower is supposed to testify soon), so might as well make a show of “bipartisanship” at the beginning of this nightmare so that later they can claim that they tried to cooperate until democrats’ demanded too much, etc

A huge amount of the Mueller Report was about the things Trump did in reaction to an investigation, because he can't regulate his conduct.

Imagine how he'll react to impeachment and what else he might do.

— FormalInquiryHat (@Popehat) September 24, 2019

this plus the fact that all the relatively experienced/moderate people who were advising him in 2017 (e.g. telling him what to say on phone calls) are gone means he's going to commit more crimes before this is finished.

I'm guessing they're gonna pull the same thing they did with Jr.'s emails, like "well it doesn't explicitly offer a quid pro quo so there's nothing here"

The assumption is that it will be so vague / ambiguous as to be spun both ways.

As frogbs says, the normal GOP line will be "see, this was a nothingburger all along, Dems are still just butthurt about 2016 and keep trying to reverse a legitimate election. Just like the whole Russia witch hunt."

The calculation is that enough of the middle will hear two completely contradictory readings of the same data (just as with Mueller) and shrug because they don't know which to believe. I have a sad because that dynamic has generally worked.

But I am slightly heartened by stuff like caek said - when under scrutiny T. gets testy and may be more likely to make that critical mistake that he can't wriggle out of.

also if the D's are smart they'll have a readymade list of 10 reasons why he's got to be impeached, so even if this thing turns out to be nothing (even though lol he already admitted it) they've still got a ton to fall back on

like the idea that they've got to pin it all on this one thing is stupid, he's openly corrupt, obstructs every investigation into him, orders his subordinates to lie to law enforcement agencies, directs govt funds into his business, is arguably too senile to function, etc. etc.

not to mention that his personal lawyer & campaign manager are both in jail and both have directly implicated him in crimes

watch this all be an elaborate troll to own the Dems

It’s not. It’s what ymp said—they’re banking on the idea that they can throw enough dust in the air that people don’t know what to believe

What needs to happen is for Pelosi to just stick a fresh needle into his fat ass every day or two. News drops at 4:30 to get the anchors talking and bleed through into the next morning. If she does this right, "executive time" will be about nine hours a day, nothing will get done, and Trump's campaign rallies next year will be like those Lenny Bruce standup sets when he was just reading his trial transcripts onstage.

Speaker Pelosi ‘swatted down’ Donald Trump’s request to ‘work something out’ on whistleblower: reporthttps://t.co/aZfjHZSGY0

— Raw Story (@RawStory) September 24, 2019

kinda seems like he's a bit rattled by this

omg there's a continuing resolution that has to be signed next week. he's gonna throw a tantrum and refuse and we're gonna get a government shutdown, it's just too perfect.

— metal dot txt (@metaltxt) September 24, 2019

he always tells on himself xp

lol, now from NYT Opinion:

John Yoo

Beware of Impeaching Trump. It Could Hurt the Presidency.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos

Jesus Christ John Yoo

these people are ghouls, they would fit right in under any authoritarian regime

Someone like john yoo just wants to serve and legitimize power. In place of a moral instinct, they have obedience

Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2014

It’s so weird he still uses the same twitter account

he is going to lose what's left of his goddamned mind

Maybe

Pooooor Sméagol.

— Gollum J. Trump (@realGollumTrump) September 24, 2019

Whistleblower report seems key, and if that wasn't obvious, Trump trying to bargain a compromise on its release means he knows it's trouble.

Yeah the transcript alone must not be as bad

the report describes Trump making “duh DOY” faces and pantomiming masturbation while he’s on the phone

xpost Hasn't it already been downgraded to "notes" or something? And as pointed out earlier, it's one of just several calls. And likely those several calls are part of the broader whistleblower report, which must, by its definition and the process, be pretty serious, not least because it will end this person's career.

how long ago do you think this e-mail was initially drafted

President Trump’s reelection campaign on Tuesday began fundraising off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) announcement that the House will launch a formal impeachment inquiry into the president.

“To fight back, President Trump is launching the Official Impeachment Defense Task Force,” the campaign wrote in an email to supporters. “This task force will be made up of only President Trump’s most LOYAL supporters.”

The email asks donors to contribute $45 or “your best amount” to join the task force, noting that all donations will be double-matched.

Can't believe Nance wouldn't make a deal with President Deals. Such a nasty woman.

Given his reaction after just a few hours have elapsed, it seems like this whole affair could finally nudge Trump closer to an aneurysm, if nothing else. And that feels pretty solid.

lmao

Trump campaign just sent out a subject line "FWD: Call Transcript" with an attachment sign. But it's just a fundraising plea.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) September 24, 2019

Lol

I mean fair play I bet the open rate on that email is through the roof

He's probably asking his base how to find the paper clippy thing

i just want to document the phrase "chuck todd has a good point"

Chuck Todd has a good point—if there was something serious to investigate regarding Biden, why didn’t Trump go to the FBI instead of Ukraine?

If the FBI was investigating this, there would be no reason for Trump to pressure Ukraine. The FBI could reach out on its own. https://t.co/tp4TUvKG4d

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) September 24, 2019