The September 2019 US Politics Thread is great Great GREAT GR8

The meetings were the first of more than a dozen sit-downs Mr. Trump had scheduled with world leaders here — including with Mr. Zelensky of Ukraine, whom he will see Wednesday.

future transcript, meeting between Zelensky and Trump on Wednesday

TRUMP: ...so did you get the biden shit? you won't get the money until you give me the dirt on biden

remember when the mueller investigation ended, and we were provided with very little insight into trump's finances and tax records? and how congress still hasn't been able to make public basic information about his conflicts of interest?

so much fun

set a bad president

I know it’s blindingly obvious, but how do the Trump faithful reconcile “DRAIN THE SWAMP” with this transparent bluster about “precedent” and “what’s appropriate” etc?

They don't. Fake News! Lock Her Up! You're the Puppet! Emails!

or for that matter, how did the priority of the D leadership become “what’s best for us, timing wise” over “is the president criminal”?
I know, I see politics like an 8 year old, just had to vent.

probably occasioned by that hilarious piece at the Giant Comb where 2scoops described “three countries” who have “come to study” the wall but “I’ll have to check with them if I can say their names for security reasons.”

no, you're right. the democrats' obsession with optics is shameful. it's also absurd because they're not even good at it. every time they make decisions based on how it will look, it's always completely transparent and it backfires

remember when the mueller investigation ended, and we were provided with very little insight into trump's finances and tax records?

remember when the Mueller investigation ended, which had little scope to examine his finances and none at all to his tax records, so did not address those issues, but turned over financial matters they had uncovered (including their subpoena of Deutsche Bank) to law enforcement agencies that could investigate those matters?

and how congress still hasn't been able to make public basic information about his conflicts of interest?

how can congress make this information more public than it already is?

If i was a member of congress i’d put some effort into answering that question.

It’s at the very least weird that manafort and cohen went down for financial and tax crimes and the trump organization remains in many ways a black box.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/swamp-chronicles/the-questions-about-trumps-businesses-that-are-still-unanswered

remember when House Intelligence, House Financial Services, House Oversight, the Manhattan DA and the state of New York were all engaged in active investigations into Trump's finances, with multiple subpoenas to multiple financial organisations?

Welcome back, treeship

treesh please stop remembering things, you do not need to make up for your absences

Yes, there are still open investigations. Correct.

xp

It's been years. Years! Investigating things that were issues the day he took office, are no less issues today, were issues during the 2018 midterms that brought the Dems back in, and will continue to be issues as long as he is in office. And that's not taking into account the even bigger things that go above and beyond, like what Mueller investigated or this Ukraine stuff. For God's sake, there are people currently in jail for things that he is being investigated for! If all it takes is for Trump and his cronies to blatantly ignore subpoenas to slow these things down, they will never get completed.

exactly

Dude has nearly 50 (F I F T Y) years' practice of avoiding prosecution for engaging in very very obvious criming, through loopholes or stonewalling or a skill at finding extremely slimy lawyers. It's extremely maddening, but years is the best-case scenario at getting him on anything, not a few months by an under-resourced investigation that is now up against White House lawyers and some of the largest banks in the world.

very very obvious criming

He was barred from opening a casino in Sydney T H I R T Y - T H R E E years ago because he was too obviously involved in organised crime!

exactly

Mother's husband in the soup

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/pence-gave-ukraine-the-message-too

https://doyouremember.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/psycho-movie-facts-1.jpg

House Dems have reportedly called caucus meeting for tomorrow afternoon to discuss impeachment?

Gonna be a raucous caucus

http://i.imgur.com/kj65ZRD.jpg

even as a kid who had barely heard any rap, I was embarrassed for Opus using the same word three times in nine

now don't go riot

not exactly surprising, but still

Wow, these anecdotes from the publisher of the @nytimes https://t.co/iDODZsVPqx pic.twitter.com/rNC3r4r2WQ

— Mark Berman (@markberman) September 24, 2019

Hideous assholes. Did we talk about this stupid whiny bullshit the Cooch said today?

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cucinelli-complain-dc-police-climate-change-protest

actually looking like we may get articles of impeachment now

for one who has been frequently disappointed, that "may" dismays.

betting markets just went over 50% for impeachment

https://i.imgur.com/Q0PerGE.png

(from https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3537/Will-Donald-Trump-be-impeached-in-his-first-term)

So the next big question is can the Democrats run effective hearings that aren't a series of 5 minute grandstands that don't get close to making a convincing case for anything?

It partly depends on the amount of deference the democratic committee chairman pays to his Republican counterpart, who will do whatever is possible to limit hearings to five minutes of grandstanding per committee member. I am not sanguine.

This gives me hope that things are actually coming to a head:

A growing number of House Democrats said on Monday that the new revelations all but demanded the move. They warned that a decision by the Trump administration not to hand over documents about a matter of urgent national security would leave the House with no choice but to initiate full-bore impeachment proceedings. At the same time, they said, any material that corroborated news reports about Mr. Trump’s actions could lead to the same outcome.

They could have made the same argument after all the times the trump administration stonewalled the from day one of the term, but whatever

I’m not really worried about how the Dems look. The Dems have been worrying about that this entire time, which is why we’re still acting as if impeachment is up for decision.

I’m think I’m more concerned about whether:

A) impeachment causes Trump and the GOP to FREAK OUT and look like flailing idiots, alternating between evasive, incomprehensible muttering and shouty grandstanding, even moreso than usual, and administration staff begin fleeing in droves, or

B) impeachment causes Trump to start a war or some other drastic murderous bullshit I am unprepared to deal with

Fuuuuuuuck off

She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see! https://t.co/1tQG6QcVKO

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

The House democrats had no power on day one of Trump's term of office. They have been floundering somewhat since January of this year, when they achieved some power, but have until now attempted to work along lines of accepted protocols for relations between Congress and the executive that used to operate better.

The "give him enough rope to hang himself" strategy has made very little headway in changing the politics of impeachment. He has hung himself so frequently that his zombie status ought to be a done deal. And yet, he lives, breathes, and still has the Republican party and a good chunk of the media in his hip pocket. It's time to stop pussyfooting around.

There is "do" or "don't do"; there is no "try".

He’s just yelling “impeach me” with this shit. It’s not a crime to bully a 14-year-old who is calling you out for going out of your way to fuck over humanity for the conceivable future. But it does provide a reminder to everyone that you’re an irredeemable piece of shit who deserves zero sympathy

Thinking about this tweet rn

“The Brink,” the very good fly on the wall doc about Steve Bannon, ends with him panicking that losing the House means Trump will be impeached. https://t.co/W31HEtBsn0

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 22, 2019

BREAKING: @NBCNews confirms that Speaker Pelosi is reconsidering her resistance to impeachment talks and is discussing next steps with Rep. Nadler.

Learn more: https://t.co/lXhlSkjMn6#11MSNBC #11thHour pic.twitter.com/CDVQSKaU0e

— 11th Hour (@11thHour) September 24, 2019

I believe the next step after reconsidering resistance to impeachment is casual consideration of indifference towards impeachment. Gloves coming off!

BREAKING: Pelosi considering performing the fucking job that she was elected to do

When the redacted and ultimately next-to-useless Mueller report dropped, I was easily convinced that they were just biding their time so as to maximize the impact of impeachment proceedings on the 2020 elections. Now it’s just me and nearly everyone I know thinking THE FUCK and trying to make it through a normal day without snapping. AOC OTM

If they’re actually, finally gonna do this, then thank godp

*god

May the impeachment hearings uncover even more egregious violations that force the senate republicans to cut their losses and convict. (Unlikely, but the dream).

MSNBC reporting that a few more House Democrats this afternoon will join impeachment calls.