US Politics, December 2019: Profound procedural deficiencies

this is what i was worrying about before:

And Mr. McConnell was entirely unmoved by Ms. Pelosi’s tactics, delivering a speech on Thursday evening in which he appeared barely able to contain his amusement at what he regarded as the speaker’s missteps.

“I admit, I am not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want,” Mr. McConnell said with a wry smile from the Senate floor. “But alas, if they can figure that out, they can explain it. Meanwhile, other House Democrats say they would prefer never to transmit the articles. Fine with me!”

i'm sure he's overstating his advantage just to be a dick, but this is what i meant by a strong possibility that democrats would never get any sort of concession from the GOP/trump on this. their strategy depends on either 1) more damning evidence coming to light in the following days/weeks, and/or 2) trump freaking out and digging himself into a bigger hole somehow.

and sure, both of those things could happen, i hope they do! but there's also a good chance that this will end with pelosi weakly submitting the articles without any significant concessions. either way, trump/GOP are going to crow about how they won and are exonerated and all of that, but they'll be more convincing if this ploy doesn't work out

Someone will need to compile a multi-volume compendium of these moments so that when we recount them for future generations they won't just assume it's the dementia talking.

if i ever get rich i'll pay some sad person to update doonaldtrump.com

Hamberders

xxp but McConnell has choice except to play "amused."

In addition to these 2 potential benefits, delaying the senate exoneration is going to infuriate Dummy and w/ any luck he'll bully McConell into making concessions

argh NO choice

Trump could be giving his State of the Union during his Senate trial, while awaiting trial or right after he’s acquitted https://t.co/5dMnjWAwUW

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 20, 2019

hmmm

In addition to these 2 potential benefits, delaying the senate exoneration is going to infuriate Dummy and w/ any luck he'll bully McConell into making concessions

yep, that's what i was trying to say with "2) trump freaking out and digging himself into a bigger hole somehow."

i'm just saying, there's also a good chance that trump will freak out but it won't substantively change something. and yeah, mcconnell has to say that, both because of his political position and because he's a dick, but he's also the guy who blatantly stole a supreme court seat in the most machiavellian political move i've seen in my lifetime. unless trump somehow forces him to change the rules for the senate trial, i don't think he's going to budge an inch.

i will be very happy to be wrong on this, and i understand the advantages of waiting for now. i'm just not sure how this is going to work, say, by mid-january.

ah, gotcha. I thought you meant by freaking/digging holes you meant new crimes

I wish I could still make sentences

sentences are just a bunch of words, maaaaaan

i did mean potential new crimes too, haha! or blurting out more details of crimes in the past, etc

xp: She's not even the worst Steph in Simi Valley.

tough day on twitter for stephs for sure

I'm starting to think Pelosi should hold off passing the articles to the senate indefinitely. He's been impeached, that part is done and in the books. If the senate is just going to blow it off, gifting Trump a campaign claim of total exoneration, why bother? Hell, I'd be OK with her waiting until after the election. It's what the GOP would do. Piss off Trump, piss off the entire GOP, hold it over them like the Sword of Damocles. Play dirty.

Seems likely tbh - would make it an open question for GOP Senators running for reelection

When I try to game out the political implications of that it seems very bad for democrats. A ton of people, from both parties, would interpret that as “democrats don’t think they have a case”. That’s certainly what republicans would be crowing non-stop, and the democratic response would inevitably be some procedural jargon that wouldn’t be as effective. Over the course of months things would get very ugly.

Note that apparently I am alone on this in the entire world

But the success of that tactic would depend on democrats maintaining an aggressive, relentless “the republicans are demanding a sham trial, we refuse to participate” kind of posture. Don’t see them maintaining that for long, not to the extent that republicans will keep up the “they know they don’t have a case” lie

either scenario - letting Trump get exonerated or withholding the articles - leaves the GOP with obvious options that they will hammer non-stop.

the argument that Democrats are weaker at messaging is true in both scenarios.

So why would you think one is preferable to the other?

the dem's answer to senate acquital - "they all voted to protect their guy, they don't care about the truth or the law, throw the bums out" - might be easier to get across and understand than the case for procedural stalling. idk.

It's not stalling when Mitch and Linds outright abandon even the appearance of impartiality. All Pelosi has to say is "we did our job, we're waiting for them to show they're serious about doing theirs." Or better, as she said yesterday, "who cares what they say." He's impeached whether or not he gets removed from office, that part is done. So why give them any cover? She did her job. And yeah, Asshole will do more bad shit, and more bad shit will come out about Asshole. She even implied, iirc, that further charges could still be brought up and added.

I don’t know if it’s that Democrats are bad at messaging, or more that Democrats are less likely to believe in/get behind messaging. Republicans seem to be able to get in line and follow anything, and repeat ad nauseum anything. Democrats are all over the place and easily fractured. Something to do with being willingly blindfolded vs. actively seeking out truth/trying to determine what is actually good. One path is easy and one is hard! One path leads to one answer (the one that comes from the leader) and the other leads in many directions. Is it a problem with Democratic leadership? Or is it that Democrats as a party are less likely to coalesce behind leadership no matter what?

xxp

I swear it’s gone from being two opposing political ideologies, both of which have their own validity but are in disagreement, to a situation where it’s literally bad people and their easily led supporters on one side, versus everyone else. And it’s the “everyone else” that can’t function as a cohesive party.

Actually, it was never as simple as that, was it? That’s just how it was sold to those of us who weren’t paying attention. It’s always been this way- Trump has just accelerated the hellward spiral of the GOP.

Sorry, that’s enough. This is why I just read and don’t post.

no way, i agree with a lot of what you wrote! fridays are always slow :) it does seem like democrats are intrinsically less likely to coalesce behind a strong consistent message than republicans would be, since conservatism gives big bear hugs to authoritarianism. at the same time, just about every house democrat voted for impeachment, including many that are in tough swing districts. that's a pretty impressive show of unity that pelosi managed to put together.

either scenario - letting Trump get exonerated or withholding the articles - leaves the GOP with obvious options that they will hammer non-stop.

the argument that Democrats are weaker at messaging is true in both scenarios.

So why would you think one is preferable to the other?

― Οὖτις, Friday, December 20, 2019 5:56 PM (one hour ago)

the fact that republicans are gonna go ballistic in any scenario and that democrats suck at messaging doesn't mean that everything they do is pointless and there's no sense in preferring one strategy over the other.

between those two scenarios, i think pushing the articles to the senate and then letting trump get "exonerated" is more politically advantageous for democrats than withholding the articles. pushing the articles would mean the message would be centered on the president's wrongdoing and the republicans' culpability and abdication of responsibility and integrity. withholding the articles indefinitely (i'm talking for months) means democrats trying to bring attention to the republican's culpability and unethical governance, but spending much more time talking about procedures and rebutting republican accusations that they know they don't have a case. it just puts them in a worse position, that's all.

of course, the third scenario is the one everyone is hoping for, the trump meltdown/further crimes/long-trial outcome. that could happen! i hope it happens!

When the sides are reduced to 'build' and 'destroy' there are bound to be complications wrt the former (what do we build? where? how? how much?) while the latter can just relax into a stance of 'fuckit, just smash shit' that any right-thinking nihilist can get onboard with.

Thanks KM, I appreciate you having some positivity at a time when I’m feeling so down about things! It helps.

xp yes. that is a great distillation of what I was trying to figure out how to express.

When the sides are reduced to 'build' and 'destroy' there are bound to be complications wrt the former (what do we build? where? how? how much?) while the latter can just relax into a stance of 'fuckit, just smash shit' that any right-thinking nihilist can get onboard with.

this has been my shtick here forever, but you white people never listen -- you must always be hugged.

3 years of this indicates there are no minds that can be changed. This is all theater for the benefit of historians.

I suppose historians could write that the Fox News demographic were committed to nursing homes, and younger, more diverse, and less religious demographics started voting in higher proportions as they entered their 30s and 40s; and that will probably be closer to the real story. But ideological debate makes for a better narrative, and the textbook sidebar will note the moral bankruptcy of the "drown it in the bathtub" partisans hit an apex in their defense of Trump.

gonna be hard to write all that on a slab of stone with a makeshift chisel while the mutants pursue you over the fallout stunted landscape but maybe that's just a skill future historians are gonna have to pick up.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-majority-approve-trumps-impeachment-201802352.html

just one poll, so could be an outlier, and shouldn't overreact to it. but shows that public opinion is still gravitating towards supporting impeachment AND removal. curious to see what other follow-up polls say. this is the first post-impeachment poll that has surfaced

a new poll from Politico and Morning Consult shows a majority of respondents supporting the articles of impeachment, Trump's impeachment and his removal from office.

Which is why forcing the Senate Republicans to publically vote on articles of impeachment has always been a good idea, even if we know in advance the bastards will all vote to acquit him. Make those shitheels stand up and say that Trump's egregious misconduct in office doesn't faze them a bit and let the public decide what that means about their own ethical standards and conduct in office.

good morning!!

and a good morning to you, too!

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

(The more I watch this ad, the more disturbing it seems. Those kids could've absolutely destroyed that house and these two would've had no idea until that coffee-maker timer kicked in. Anyway, good morning!)

as long as we're having this conversation
https://www.gq.com/story/folgers-incest-ad-oral-history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOQk_pWmisA
https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Folgers%20%22Home%20for%20the%20Holidays%22%20Commercial/works

Timothy Simons (cameraman for auditions and callbacks): This was a very long time ago and if you asked me if I would end up being interviewed about this commercial that I worked on, 10 years later, I would not have believed you, because it was altogether pretty unremarkable. It’s not something I have a lot of memories about, outside of the fact that ultimately the commercial kind of seems like the brother and sister are going to have sex. That’s why we’re talking, right?

wow, that was.... something

Actually all of the Folgers ads are something

Also, do we have any theories on what Peter brought her? Or maybe it doesn't matter because ... Peter is the present after all, etc.

the comedy central "extended version" has it as an engagement ring

Lads! There's already another whole thread for this ad.

lol, we independently pulled the same quote

WASHINGTON — About 90 minutes after President Trump held a controversial telephone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in July, the White House budget office ordered the Pentagon to suspend all military aid that Congress had allocated to Ukraine, according to emails released by the Pentagon late Friday.

A budget official, Michael Duffey, also told the Pentagon to keep quiet about the aid freeze because of the “sensitive nature of the request,” according to a message dated July 25.

wow, what an enormous coincidence! OH WELL, gotta hold out for solid proof of wrongdoing!!!

oh great there's a new wave of liberal McCain love in my FB feed today

not even death can kill it

unfollowing is the only way