US Politics, October 2019 — I guess statement you could say with thread. I made a thread. The thread was PERFECT.

Trying to imagine a Trump official who would be the slightest bit inconvenienced by a contempt charge.

"Contempt of Congress? Yes, that's absolutely right - I DO hold Congress in contempt."

"Also: neener neener; nanny nanny boo boo; I'm rubber, you're glue; whatcha gonna do about it?"

"Contempt of Congress? Yes, that's absolutely right - I DO hold Congress in contempt."


At least half of Congress: so do we! That was, in fact, our campaign platform, arguably the only coherent part of it. Also, run government like a business

Half of America: what’s wrong with this country?! We don’t understaaaaand, we just want everyone to follow the laaaaaw

Can't wait until our society evolves to the point where a majority of adults no longer behave like toddlers who desperately need a nap. Or until we all just die, which is probably more likely.

(TBF, I kind of would like a nap.)

I'm guessing your need for a nap doesn't spur you to insist that everything must be exactly the way you want it to be all the time or else you will hold your breath until your face turns blue.

Preemptive stfu sic

luv 2 support journalism by paying lawyers a few hours’ profit as a fine for deliberately destroying thousands of journalist’s careers and shuttering dozens if not hundreds of outlets altogether

They’re all going to get away with this. The Democrats are useless.

oh good, everyone can stop then

It's funny how we always come back to this same pointless defeatism itt.

Like idk do you get an erection every time you say "it's all pointless, Dems are useless, hail dictator Trump", or does the boner precede the statement

People like brotherslovedub want reassuring hugs more than message boards.

sic, was that intentionally supposed to be an AMP link?

brotherloveshugs

xps god if only there were ever an erection, before, after, or during posting

but especially before

but ESPECIALLY during!!!

I don't know if it's so much that Dems are useless as it is the fact that our political system has a huge "prisoner's dilemma" component to it and if one side is brazenly willing to say "we will screw you over every chance we get" there really ain't that much recourse for the other side. Our government isn't really equipped to handle the "what if the President and every Republican Congressman was a bad faith actor" scenario

vc - lol dammit, I’m on phone and they tricked me by hiding it in the middle

YA BURNT SIC

this is all moving in the right direction. And the less strategic/coordinated the WH response is with congressional GOP, the more likely this is going to get worse for Trump.

The Washington Post–Schar School poll released early Tuesday found that 58 percent say the House was correct to launch the inquiry, compared to 38 percent who disagreed.

Almost half — 49 percent — said lawmakers in the lower chamber should impeach Trump and call for his removal from office.

Just 6 percent support the inquiry, but not Trump’s removal from office.

Pollsters found a partisan divide on the issue, with more than 8 in 10 Democrats endorsing the inquiry and about 7 in 10 Republicans saying they do not support the inquiry.

Nearly 8 in 10 Democrats favor a vote to recommend that Trump be removed from office, while almost one-fifth of Republicans agreed.

More than half of independent voters — 57 percent — said they support the impeachment inquiry, and 49 percent said the House should vote to remove Trump from office.

Support for an impeachment inquiry has risen among all three partisan groups since a July poll, with Democratic support rising 25 points from July, Republican support rising 21 points and independent support rising 20 points, based on the poll.

I do worry that the inquiry wraps up fairly soon, the House votes to impeach, it goes to the Senate and they don't vote for removal, and now it's like November or December or whatever and we still have almost a year until the election and this whole scandal just becomes Another Thing That Happened and has little bearing on 2020.

Wait do none of yall type with your penis

I do worry that the inquiry wraps up fairly soon, the House votes to impeach, it goes to the Senate and they don't vote for removal, and now it's like November or December or whatever and we still have almost a year until the election and this whole scandal just becomes Another Thing That Happened and has little bearing on 2020.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j),

Now recite this without a breath in front of a mirror.

can we do these threads with less erection talk please? ymmv but to me it makes this place feel like a gross dudebro space.

xpost -- idk, if i'm making a prediction that's just what I think happens, I think it's the most likely way this thing plays out based on past results and the parties involved.

co-sign

xp

President Baby doesn’t understand that one can do anything with a mobile phone other than tweet, because he doesn’t

....to see. Importantly, Ambassador Sondland’s tweet, which few report, stated, “I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind.” That says it ALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2019

Whoa wait: he's almost mastered comma placement!

there are like 5 separate committees looking into impeachment. I don't think this'll be over anytime soon.

how trump thinks trials work

DEFENDANT: i didn't do it
PROSECUTOR: good try team, but i think that settles it. where should we go for lunch?

this is not going to be over any time soon because Trump is going to block all attempts to gather evidence/testimony. Which means subpoenas, court battles, etc.

xp

The impression I got is that the Dems are just adding this stuff to the list under the "obstruction" header. That is to say, they want this testimony, but they're not going to be drawn into a trap of waiting months and months for it. I mean, impeachment really is a foregone conclusion, isn't it? I don't see how it isn't. So the more evidence they have ... the more evidence they have, but it doesn't change the inevitable result we're careening toward.

trump did not do it, and he's a victim of a spy, potentially many spies, all treasonous
but if trump did do it, it was a good thing, and he'll do more of it
if the president does it, it's not illegal
he is still doing it
you are convicted of treason

I do worry that the inquiry wraps up fairly soon, the House votes to impeach, it goes to the Senate and they don't vote for removal, and now it's like November or December or whatever and we still have almost a year until the election and this whole scandal just becomes Another Thing That Happened and has little bearing on 2020.

Yeah, I don't see how impeaching the President, causing him to erupt in wild spasms of insanely guilty-looking behavior every single day since it started and likely long after it ends, could possibly have any impact on voters' thinking going into the 2020 election. Certainly watching the Senate brazenly flout the impeachment verdict won't do a damn thing to motivate Democratic voters in 2020, because why would it, right? Only Republicans vote based on anger and a sense of injustice/vengeance. Democrats vote so they can wear an "I voted" sticker. Right?

Repeat after me: Donald Trump is not popular. He has never been popular. His approval rating has never crossed the 45% mark for more than a day since he was elected. He is President because of an Electoral College fluke which he is extremely unlikely to repeat, considering that he is already underwater in at least one and possibly all three of the states that handed him victory last time.

If you think this is somehow making him more popular, or is causing people to be less excited about voting against him (which, make no mistake, is going to be a vast swath of the electorate's motivation when they enter the booth next November), you should slide your resume under the door at Fox News; they'd love to have you.

first and foremost, this motherfucker needs to be impeached for misuse of apostrophes; that drives me nuts
also corroding America from within

his popularity rises back to mid-40s every time he manages to shut the fuck up for a few days.

Josh otm. Given that we know Trump will block every attempt to compel participation, the House needs to make that a pillar of the case against him, which I gather they plan to.

BUT he should also be roundly mocked for this in the public sphere, and it should be presented in such a way as to push his buttons. Not a legalistic concept like obstruction, or a lofty appeal to the concepts of rule of law or checks and balances. That shit is for op-ed writers and professors. Instead, call him a coward, a wuss, and a scaredy-pants. Ask him point-blank: "if you're totally innocent why are you acting like he's hiding something?" Ask him why is he so afraid of Nancy Pelosi. Get under his famously thin skin. Trump on the defensive will do and say yet more stupid shit.

I am starting to wonder if our nation's popcorn producers are up to the task.

this same pointless defeatism itt

with history to back it up

Well cool let's just wait for the meteors

I don't see how impeaching the President, causing him to erupt in wild spasms of insanely guilty-looking behavior every single day since it started and likely long after it ends, could possibly have any impact on voters' thinking going into the 2020 election.

I even feel like some of the Democrats don't realize the degree to which the investigation of Donald Trump is a necessary and inevitable part of the 2020 campaign. There's no doubt (IMO) that BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI hurt Clinton and that was bullshit. If anything I wish I felt like more Democrats grasped that impeachment is a case that needs to be made, not just facts that will speak for themselves.(Maybe more of them do grasp that. I wish I felt that.)

If you think this is somehow making him more popular, or is causing people to be less excited about voting against him (which, make no mistake, is going to be a vast swath of the electorate's motivation when they enter the booth next November), you should slide your resume under the door at Fox News; they'd love to have you.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:48 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't know how you got ANY of that from what I wrote but I think it's touching that you have sufficient faith in mainstream media that come November 2020 they won't have already chased after 9,000 newer shinier things, very much including whatever smears the right-wing apparatus cooks up on Trump's opponent.

predicting anything in this day and age is a fool's game

take this whole Ukraine thing - total unforced error on the part of Trump, no one would have guessed this was going to happen a couple of months ago.

I'm really not trying to be a fatalist and honestly I do think there's a better than 50/50 chance that Trump loses in 2020, I just think there's a depressingly good chance that when people actually go out to vote in 2020, the general middle of the road consensus on impeachment is going to be that it was a partisan fishing expedition.

never a bad time for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDoncJckows

I wish it was 50/50, but red state governments have been in overdrive with voter purges and other forms of voter suppression. The amount of corporate anti-Warren or anti-Sanders advertising will be enormous. And Russian military strategy is to always reinforce success, and presumably this will apply to active measures on social media and electoral hacking.

the general middle of the road consensus on impeachment is going to be that it was a partisan fishing expedition.

if anything "Democratic overreach" will be the cautious, Brooksian take. but even if that's true, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't still hurt the GOP electorially. Cf. BENGHAZI!!! Which is why I'm definitely on Team Who the Fuck Knows? when it comes to making any predictions about any of this ...

And Russian military strategy is to always reinforce success, and presumably this will apply to active measures on social media and electoral hacking.

four days ago Facebook announced an official policy that you can lie in election ads

People like brotherslovedub want reassuring hugs more than message boards.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think most of us from time to time indulge in this here, with good reason. Nothing wrong with an ilxor e-hug.

I also think the occasional experssion of defeatism is totally understandable, if only as a psych device for preempting greater disappointment. So long as it doesn't mean giving up the real-world fight.