US Politics, February 2020. They want to kill your cows.

Barr to testify before House Judiciary on March 31, Nadler says. https://t.co/JxAPDCu1GM

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 12, 2020

He won’t show up for that

Just curious, how will they transcribe said testimony when Barr just sits in a chair doing this for sixty minutes

https://ak7.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4224037/thumb/11.jpg

Chairman Nadler: First, the chair would like to thank the distinguished Attorney General and welcome him to this hearing. Before we proceed, do you have you any statement you would like to read into the record?

Barr: (The witness remained silent, extending the middle fingers of both hands aloft in the direction of the Chairman.)

mar 31 seems...remote

The Founders conceived of a President running amok and legislated for that. They did not conceive of people below him and to either side not giving a damn.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) February 11, 2020

they also conceived that we would have used our mechanism for removal successfully at least one by now.

*once

but they wrote the provisions shittily so

Then for the rest of eternity they will try to prosecute any Dem prez as soon as they're out of office on some er trumped up charges.

a) big fucking whoop

b) if the expectation of later scrutiny keeps future presidents from criming relentlessly in office, yay

c) it's impossible to predict what the GOP will even be or stand for once they're not in inexplicable self-created thrall to a crazed void of narcissism and outwardly-directed self-hatred. can they return to a fake image of being moderate or sensible after this? they're certainly unlikely to find a replacement figurehead of such reprehensibility that he or she can hit the pavlovian stimulus for Trump's base. especially one who's had the advantage of the television advertising a completely bullshit version of them for 30 years. the two-party system is a tumour, and hollowing themselves out for Trump might lead to a collapse afterward. (if youth support for the likes of Bernie Sanders and AOC leads to the evisceration of the existing DNC, double bonus.)

but they wrote the provisions shittily so

the provisions didn't anticipate mass political parties, so

The Founders conceived of a President running amok and legislated for that. They did not conceive of people below him and to either side not giving a damn.
— Richard M. Nixon

Anyone else notice that this tweet from this source seems a bit cockeyed?

they wrote the provisions shittily

governance eventually comes down to people making decisions. when the governing people are shitty, so is the governance. I'm not sure what system they could have devised that would have worked any better, given the people currently operating the system.

let's review what the constitution says.

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Unless, that is, a majority of the most powerful 100 people in the country want to keep getting elected. In that case, no Impeachment shall be possible, and you may proceed directly to Article III."

Aimless, presumably RMN did not consider his actions "amok"

the two-party system is a tumour, and hollowing themselves out for Trump might lead to a collapse afterward.

GOP been changing from Buckley type dweebs to Deplorable meatheads over last few decades. There will be a party that caters to that ~44% of the country that's ruled by fear and paranoia, the Dunning-Kruger types, the simpletons who want simple solutions to complex problems, etc.

will be a party that caters to that in foreseeable future

feel like a broken record but the problem doesn't stem from Trump or from GOP, but from the millions of fuckers who vote them into office

One side has decided to win by breaking the game, and will use any illegal or irregular method (propaganda, abuse of power, stacking courts, destroying the administrative state, voter caging and purging) to get that done.

The other side wants to both play the game and win the game, by election. I’m not sure it’s possible.

As Bitecofer says, Republicans know they are playing “for keeps.” This is correct.

Who here thinks the house should impeach the MF again? I mean, he clearly didn't learn any lessons and is back to committing crimes. I get that it's basically pointless (the Senate seems hell-bent on endless Trump fellatio), but the alternative ("wait until November") seems irresponsible.

Yeah, impeach him every time he crimes imo. It's not like any other major governing can get done by Congress this year.

that ~44% of the country that's ruled by fear and paranoia, the Dunning-Kruger types, the simpletons who want simple solutions to complex problems, etc

Like I kinda said in that post, Trump has been a case not just of handing the bell to the dogs, but effectively transforming the broadcast news media into a PA system for the bell, and playing MAX/MSP loops of the bell all day.

No other individual is going to be able to replace that blast of hate/fear as effectively. It's very likely that micro-Trumps will do well in deep Republican constituencies, but it's also likely that this will decrease party unity. Even a fraction of Trump's self-interest, let alone his narcissism, will make it very hard for these types to effectively caucus. I'd expect to see a lot of these types succeeding as independents after Trump: his rally-attending-type base want the reckless buffoon figure, they don't want the nonentities subsuming themselves to him.

i don't think re-impeaching is politically a great idea. doing it once was necessary, and showed that republicans will countenance anything at all; more attempts seem likely to gain nothing but further firing up magans

if they wanna go after barr, or actually get bolton under oath, tho . . .

I hope you're right, and you're analysis and predictions are as good as any. But I'm v skeptical of all predictions about US politics. Trump becoming prez was a punchline until it happened.

I got burned in 2016 and trying not to get hopes up too much but I do think Donnie gets beat in Nov. Grinning just thinking about it.

Did anyone even notice that this happened? lol

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/12/798296505/deval-patrick-ends-his-presidential-bid

if they wanna go after barr, or actually get bolton under oath, tho . . .

Yeah / hell yeah

the alternative ("wait until November") seems irresponsible.

Pelosi only trusted the people to object to "national security" crimes. She doesn't care enough about the other kinds, or trust that the people will be absorbed by her inept messaging.

Seemed more like she was concerned about election security... because it affected Biden.

One reason I don’t think the GOP will be able to replicate Trump is simply because it’s got to be impossible to find someone with that much fucking baggage, who draws that much criticism every time he opens his mouth, therefore validating their message of “the mainstream media hates us and that’s why they have to lie all the time”, while the actual media decides they also have to go equally negative on the other side to appear balanced, leading to a situation where stories about their guy defrauding old people, sexually assaulting dozens of women, and stealing from charity are all one day stories that are quickly forgotten while a relatively minor story about say, improper email use suddenly becomes a giant scandal that eats up thousands of hours of airtime. No one else on the planet is dirty and shameless enough to pull that off.

maybe Steven Forbes will run again

gotta admit, i'm intrigued by his flat tax. imagine billionaires paying a 17% tax instead of using loopholes to pay 0%, wow!

Remember when Steven Forbes hosted SNL?

not making it up: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/season-21/episode/17-steve-forbes-with-rage-against-the-machine-63781

You kinda buried the 'with musical guests Rage Against the Machine' lede there.

Good morning!

during their performance of "Bulls On Parade", the band hung an upside-down American flag on one of their amplifiers, in protest of Forbes hosting.

Afterwards, a very angry Lorne Michaels chased the band out of the studio, resulting in them being banned from the show.

lol I saw that episode live, I think I was 12 years old and obviously had no clue who Steve Forbes was

iirc he brings up the "flat tax" during his monologue and even at 12 I thought that was the dumbest idea on the planet

that reminds me wasn't one of Trump's big talking points that you'd be able to file your taxes on a postcard or something? whatever happened to that

Liberals shut down the postcard industry

the skit about the Teeve Torbes novel was pretty good

I think we can forgive President Trump his one declaration that didn't pan out.

On page 142, he writes: “I don’t think Grenator Dole is handling the pressure very well.” [ confused ] “Grenator”? I don’t know why the author felt he had to disguise the word “Senator”.. Anyway, he goes on to say: “Today, Dob Bole leaned over to me, and said, ‘If family values means stealing the taxpayers’ money and sniffing model glue, I’m way into family values!'”

John Kelly has Thoughts

Misgivings! Goodness me.

what's his excuse for not garroting Trump when he had the chance

Hope Hicks coming back to help change trump’s diapers

Reminds me of the time the garbage disposal obliterated my hand and then after the stump had healed I jammed that fucker right back in.

Spicer and Priebus back too

The self-loathing is strong with these ones.

How many times do you have to get a fistful of fishhooks removed from your stomach before you learn that swallowing a fistful of fishhooks is oh wait, you're doing that because you wish you were dead and don't know how to make that happen, you poor thing.