“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

i don't know, he almost got that 40% stake in parler a couple days before it got hacked, he seems like a very good businessman with many lucrative opportunities

the US needs a new constitution

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Tuesday, February 9, 2021 11:51 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The US needed more than one goddamn constitutional convention. But that ship has definitively sailed because can you even imagine what kind of nightmare revised constitution would result from having one now, can you even imagine.

first ten amendments are now variations on the second amendment

Amend My Heart

New US Constitution (sponsored by Hardees) substitutea The Ten Commandments for the Bill of Rights.

substitutes

if it's sponsored by Hardees, wouldn't it substitute ten roast beef sandwiches for the Bill of Rights

I'm excited to hear Trump's Three Amigos legal team.. I'll bet they provide some novel interpretation of the law.

if it's sponsored by Hardees, wouldn't it substitute ten roast beef sandwiches for the Bill of Rights

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Tuesday, February 9, 2021 1:33 PM bookmarkflaglink

one hot Big Carl

"President Trump may not know much about the Framers; but they know a lot about him." - quote of the day

7 Founders
Down in Hell
In the land
Where Donald fell

Amend My Heart, My Ass (I Won't Amend My Heart)

this guy seems pretty good

In the impeachment trial:

Trump's brief cites my 2001 article on late impeachment a lot: https://t.co/ozArTm1aVe

The article favored late impeachability, but it set out all the evidence I found on both sides--lots for them to use.

But in several places, they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly.

1/4

— Brian Kalt (@ProfBrianKalt) February 8, 2021

In the White House: announced yesterday, The President, the Vice Prs and the Treasury Secretary meet with business leaders about the critical need for the American Rescue Plan to save our economy. Announced today, those biz leaders:

•Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase
•Tom Donohue, CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
•Doug McMillon, President and CEO, Walmart
•Sonia Syngal, President and CEO, Gap, Inc.
•Marvin Ellison, President and CEO, Lowe’s Companies, Inc.

as long as there are rubes about just salivating at the thought of being able to wave their flags at his rallies and toss him money

At some point Trump is going to realize that he can formally launch a campaign, take people's money, have rallies, and just not actually ever become a candidate. He'll say he wasn't on the ballot because the Deep State censored his name and his people will believe him.

maybe we can convince them the deep state has turned him into a chicken sandwich and eat it on live TV and put an end to this mess

At some point Trump is going to realize that he can formally launch a campaign, take people's money, have rallies, and just not actually ever become a candidate. He'll say he wasn't on the ballot because the Deep State censored his name and his people will believe him.

I would be fine with this, assuming I didn't have to encounter his rallies. However I have almost zero faith in the media not giving this guy air and attention.

Almost every senatorial eye in the chamber was glued to the screens as lead House manager Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) played a 13-minute video depicting the events of Jan. 6 to introduce the impeachment case against Trump — with a few notable exceptions.

While the screen showed demonstrators marching on the Capitol, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) looked down at the pad of lined paper in his lap, where he had already begun doodling with a pencil. Behind him, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) studied papers in his lap, taking only the tiniest glimpses at the screen to his right. A few seats over, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also focused most of his attention on papers in front of him instead of on the images depicting the insurrection at the Capitol, and a few seats from him, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) did the same.

The senators on the floor all lived through the events of Jan. 6, and it is impossible to know why certain individuals chose to look away. The facial expressions of those who did watch were varied: Some were focused intently, others stared blankly, some frowned, and at least one Republican senator’s face appeared to redden the longer the video went on.

But the video — its pieces collected by the managers and their support team, and compiled by the firm Debevoise & Plimpton — was the first taste of the audiovisual evidence that form a central part of the managers’ case. To them, it undoubtedly matters whether senators are watching.

As Raskin spoke — and stood, for the duration of the video — the other managers were not visible on the House floor or in the upper gallery. Barry Berke, a white-collar crime lawyer who also assisted with Trump’s first impeachment, sat next to Raskin at the manager’s table, where the seats were placed far apart to accommodate social distancing.

Senators also have the option of sitting in the gallery to create more space between lawmakers, but all chose to stay at their desks. Of those on the floor, two elected not to wear masks: Paul didn’t put on one at all, while Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.) sat with hers pulled down below her chin.

xpost idk, I mean nobody's gonna outright ignore him, but while they courted him in the 2016 election cos he was a headline generator, and had to cover him between then and 2020 cos he was the President, many of the press are just fucking tired of him, esp after he put their lives in danger on 1/6 as well as politicians.

they'll 'cover' him, but they don't have to do it in the same 'round the clock' bullshit way they did before.

they can write all of his copy in 5 words or less.

forgot about the "remember this day forever" tweet. jesus christ.

over under on how many votes they'll get

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7054/How-many-Senators-will-vote-to-convict-Donald-Trump-on-incitement-by-Apr-29

55ish votes is easy.

anything around 60 seems very unlikely (who are the extra 4ish people who will vote against mcconell that we don't know about?)

67+ seems very unlikely but more likely than 60ish tbh.

people might actually change their minds over the course of this. the defense that he can't be impeached as a former president is weak--making that defense is like admission he did something wrong.

will probably just be the 55 who voted that impeachment was constitutional, right?

good thing republican senators would never resort to a weak defense

people might actually change their minds over the course of this.

citation needed

I hope Rick Scott and Marco Rubio's heads accidently tumble into their pens and they bleed from their throats to death.

will probably just be the 55 who voted that impeachment was constitutional, right?

what could they possibly learn that's not already public information?

I really doubt there will be a true conviction, too many feckless invertebrates; but a straight majority vote will still be a stinging rebuke, and I understand they also have a censure in the oven should the conviction fail.

This piece from, believe it or not, Time is excellent.

The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election

A weird thing happened right after the Nov. 3 election: nothing.

The nation was braced for chaos. Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for battle. In a poll before Election Day, 75% of Americans voiced concern about violence.

Instead, an eerie quiet descended. As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race for Joe Biden on Nov. 7, jubilation broke out instead, as people thronged cities across the U.S. to celebrate the democratic process that resulted in Trump’s ouster.

A second odd thing happened amid Trump’s attempts to reverse the result: corporate America turned on him. Hundreds of major business leaders, many of whom had backed Trump’s candidacy and supported his policies, called on him to concede. To the President, something felt amiss. “It was all very, very strange,” Trump said on Dec. 2. “Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.”

In a way, Trump was right.

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.

Yep, it is. My Sunday morning read.

I don't know that I've ever seen a person, let alone a public one, willingly wear a free cap from a radio station.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) February 9, 2021

Watching Raskin speak, it occurred to me--no a great revelation, I suppose--that you can't really have a Joseph Welch moment anymore. There's literally nothing anyone can say that will elicit a vote to impeach from those 45 Republicans. I don't know how far you have to go back for at least the possibility of a Joseph Welch moment.

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes...

Conspiracy is a loaded and irresponsible word in this context, especially given the prevalence of political conspiracy theories and the danger they represent. Definitions of the word all fall along the lines of this one:

"A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons for an unlawful or harmful purpose"

Conflating an agreement to protect the legitimate outcome of a fair election with 'an unlawful or harmful purpose' was horrifically bad judgment on the part of Time's editors, who probably thought it was just a catchy lede.

While the screen showed demonstrators marching on the Capitol, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) looked down at the pad of lined paper in his lap while Marco Rubio pared his toenails. Rick Scott was seen on his iPad looking for Epicurious recipes for spotted dick.

There's literally nothing anyone can say that will elicit a vote to impeach from those 45 Republicans.

If having experienced an actual threat to their lives and physical well-being didn't do the trick (as I assume it did not and will not) then, no, there's literally nothing that will sway them.

I agree aimless

I don't know that I've ever seen a person, let alone a public one, willingly wear a free cap from a radio station.
— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) February 9, 2021

Come to bushwick, buddy (where i don’t live anymore—youth and credibility fade fast)

ha - is anyone watching castor right now?

i suppose at some point he will try to make some sort of argument defending trump. but right now he is in full-on "grandpa is 30 minutes into the story and can't remember what it was about" mode. it's obviously intentional. he has 2 hours to kill, and the argument that trump can't be tried is just stupid and dumb and pathetic, just like so much of the trump admin was. he can't spend 2 hours talking about why trump can't be tried. so instead he's talking about how when he was a kid he wanted to be a senator

he just said "you know, it's funny - this is an aside, but it's funny when you talk to people and they say...."

I tend to assume anything connected to Trump is a lie, but this Everett Dirksen album his lawyer is going on about does exist.

https://res.cloudinary.com/pippa/image/fetch/h_750,w_750,f_auto/https://assets.pippa.io/shows/5bb26c9287ef87811438a58b/1549551093214-cff53946e94305e3e2869603caf7594e.jpeg

There's literally nothing anyone can say that will elicit a vote to impeach from those 45 Republicans. I don't know how far you have to go back for at least the possibility of a Joseph Welch moment.

Never. This moment never existed. There has never been a time when individuals seeking to hold and maintain power were more concerned with fair play and the letter of the law than taking and holding power.

Yeah WTF is Castor rambling on about anyway?

i fucking HATE his paternalistic, patronizing, folksy, down home tone - he's gradually trying to bring us around to the idea that...U.S. Senators are known as cool-headed, even when emotions run high....and of course emotions ran high, and that was an awful day...and U.S. senators are to be respected for their cool-headedness. We all know what happened that day...

sorry, what was I talking about? the heroin poppies in wizard of oz just knocked me out. but i think something that drives me absolutely CRAZY is hearing that patronizing tone employed in the defense of COMPLETE BULLSHIT

that was a large part of the psychological damage the trump era inflicted on millions of people

(xpost) But didn't Joseph Welch's "Have you no sense of shame..." help hasten McCarthy's downfall? Or is that just a narrative that developed later?

Wasn’t a man beaten to death? Why do they expect “cool heads?”

like, i don't care much for football so who cares that the chiefs lost last night (although tom brady sucks), but if i were a big KC Chiefs fan, i think the lesson of the last 4 years is you can just be like "The Chiefs didn't lose. the Chiefs won. and the Buccaneers cheated. Tom Brady cheated and the Chiefs won by many points", and then just keep going like that, and nothing happens

I genuinely have no fucking idea where this dude's ambling stroll through the English language is taking us. Like no idea whatsoever. It sounds like pure filibustering.

and not only that, but i'm a hero for knowing the truth with all of these liars in the media