US Politics, December 2019: Profound procedural deficiencies

This really is the dumbest stupidest fucking country.

...and that's how the GOP wins

OMG SHE FUCKING APOLOGIZED?!?!?!?!

Discretion is the better part of valor. This just takes the hammer that the GOP has been using to beat her with out of their hands. It's not as if she is apologizing for some central idea or any part of the substance of what she said, so there's no reason to dig in and vociferously defend such an irrelevant part of her testimony.

yeah, agree

This just takes the hammer that the GOP has been using to beat her with out of their hands.

I can tell this is your first day here on Earth, so let me explain: What will happen now is they will hammer even harder, every hour of every day, until impeachment is over and long afterward, until eventually Trump will just have to mention her name at one of his goon rallies in the same tone he mentions Lisa Page and Peter Strozk to inspire mocking cheers and roars of rage, and long after everyone else on Earth has forgotten who this woman is she will remain a hate-object in Knuckle-Walker Land, because she dared to mock the God-Emperor's child.

yup cause hey, she even admitted she did something wrong!

the only way to "win" vs this or any GOP tactics/policies is to have 40% of the country stop being stupid selfish paranoid xenophobic assholes. Good luck USA>

Exactly, the GOPs entire operating procedure revolves around them constantly being apologized to for perceived slights. Don’t play into it.

Don’t get me wrong it would be understandable if there was any chance someone was actually offended by this but we all know that they don’t really care. Trump probably doesn’t even remember the kid’s name.

miserable timeline indeed

for all we know it's some made up kid

So, if one concludes that there is no difference whatsoever between the result if she apologizes and if she doesn't, then there is no harm at all in her apologizing and it becomes just a personal decision she made for her own purposes; it's none of our business.

Nobody's gonna remember this shit in two weeks.

that's what I think

conservatives are still doing Hanoi Jane joeks. They are the masters (and weirdly effective) at beating a dead horse into paste

and mashing the resultant paste

I wish the entire GOP Congress had been in the car with Vince Neil that fateful night

I know. It’s still fucking infuriating. Don’t forget Melania parading around a newly orphaned baby for a photo op while her dipshit husband (whose rhetoric probably inspired the killer) smiled for the cameras and have a big thumbs up. These people deserve nothing but milkshake hats.

they think they're the popular kids and we're all in seventh grade forever

this apology was unnecessary, but the demand was no more ridiculous than a few "you keep her name out of your filthy mouth" style threats i've heard made that have absolutely NOTHING to do with any actual or accidental insult, so uh, "america."

what are you people reading or watching where this shit is even a big deal? And I read NRO once a week.

seriously - nobody sincerely cares about barron

Nobody Sincerely Cares About Barron by Tiffany Trump (for readers ages 10 to 47)

I wish the entire GOP Congress had been in the car with Vince Neil that fateful night

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Wednesday, December 4, 2019 5:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know. It’s still fucking infuriating.

― frogbs, Wednesday, December 4, 2019 5:51 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same, guys. Same.

This is the lead story on foxnews.com right now and prominently featured on cnn’s site

IOW I would not be even slightly surprised if everything unperson laid out above came to pass

She shouldn’t have apologized.

This is the lead story on foxnews.com right now and prominently featured on cnn’s site

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A

the Speaker of the House is directing the Judiciary to draw up articles of impeachment for the President

oh surprise

anyway, obviously it has to be done, he won't be removed, and now I fear he's going to be re-elected and our next five years are going to be a fucking authoritarian hellscape previously unimagined.

oh fuck off

Everything the asshole does is so beyond the pale I wish people like her stopped being so fucking solemn about it and just repeatedly kicked him in the nuts, literally and rhetorically. As if anxious hand wringing is going to get impeachment any more support.

Impeached or not, the most likely outcome of all of this is that asshole will ... ask another foreign power to interfere in the election for personal gain.

Crikey, our impending authoritarian hellscape is gonna have to swing for some pretty weird extremes to achieve 'previously unimagined' status. Like forcing all registered dems to become furries, shit like that.

“Previously unimagined hellscape” pretty rich for a country built on the enslavement of millions

allegedly

Can I just say what garbage it is for anyone to say "we take no joy in this, this will tear the country apart." The "country" really doesn't give a shit, and those that do get to vote in a year. Is the 2020 election any less likely to "tear the nation apart?" Would Trump winning/losing be any less "divisive" than any candidate winning/losing, or any less divisive than it was in 2016?

I feel like a sizable chunk of people voted Trump in 2016 simply because he was not Hillary, and thought we should "give him a chance." Since then he has vacillated between moronic and evil, and his entire administration is corrupt and venal, so a vote for him in 2020 *is* more divisive, because the voter wants to perpetuate even more of this shit.

butt > her emails

ask another foreign power to interfere in the election for personal gain

lol he'll do it DURING the impeachment trial

When you're president, they let you do it.

spotlight needs to impeachment BRIGHT because this shit will only get worse

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/03/russian-owned-company-caught-trying-to-hack-ohio-voting-systems-on-election-day/

During the hearings I was annoyed that the democrats would verbatim read their wooden, prewritten corny speeches where it sounded like they were all competing in a high school inspirational essay contest. I just kind of feel like in context the speeches being so rigidly tailored contrasting the republican delivery helped the GOP sound more conversational and this arguably would help their dumb premise about how the whole thing being a fabricated means to an end to get Trump out any way possible. Ultimately means nothing just irritated at the optics and how GOP get to use it to strengthen their dumb narrative.

Personally i’m not disappointed that the Democrats aren’t emulating the yahoos in the GOP. Best to stick to the truth and not try to game the optics too much.

I appreciate the dems' adherence to norms and procedure but it would be nice if a greater number of them were better capable of demonstrating to the public-at-large why one would aspire to those aims. Because to the casual observer it increasingly appears that behaving like an unhinged two-year-old is the most effective way to get things done (or bring them to a screeching halt) in government.

I mean, optics aren't everything but they certainly aren't nothing. Particularly in the age of President Reality Show.

Not saying they need to emulate GOP, but it would be nice if they sounded more down to earth. Their righteous speeches one after another just came off like they were all desperately vying to be quoted in future history books.

Fantasizing about one of their quotes making it on a history class chalkboard someday

They didn't sound like they were actually interested in interviewing the scholars; everything was canned. It helps make the whole process look like theater.