At this point, I’m expecting something so close to the election that he wouldn’t be on the ticket. It would take so long to go through the process, and who knows what slap on the wrist he’d ultimately be given. Pols express concerns about what he’s done to the office and how much legislation would be needed to close the loopholes he’s exploited. He’s not concerned about anything except walking away with more money in his pocket and blaming everyone else for his “mistakes.”
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Let me be very clear: I am suggesting that the House impeach Trump for two reasons: 1. He has committed high crimes and misdemeanors; and 2. Impeachment will distract Trump from further harming the national interest.
This is not a perfect strategy. It will sap the energy of the executive branch, something Alexander Hamilton would dislike. There are some small risks to Democrats in 2020, although an impeachment trial would also highlight Trump’s egregious abuses of power. It is possible that if impeachment happens and then the Senate fails to convict, Trump will feel emboldened.
Still, Trump is not going to stop doing what he is doing, unless he gets distracted by something else. In a zero-sum world, it is far better to have him obsess about his political survival rather than, say, nuking a hurricane. In the zero-sum political world that Trump has made, impeaching him is the best possible response strategy to his abuses of power.
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And fuck you…I’m the president.
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Because of what happened with the Mueller probe, or rather, what didn’t happen, Trump has discovered he’s untouchable. He’s only going to step up his illegal activity as a result, and fire anyone who gets in his way.
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As always: Democrats cannot remove Trump from power without the cooperation of Senate Republicans. Which they are not going to get at this time; that much should be obvious to anyone who pays attention.
Thus, any impeachment process by the House is purely a political move, even though impeachment has judicial trappings, and must be seen as such. It will not be primarily an attempt to remove Trump, but to inflict a sucking chest wound to his re-election chances. So, the question becomes: if the Dems are going to impeach, then when should they do it? Ideally, so that the investigations and reporting on the impeachment hearings will hurt the Republicans in the 2020 elections as much as possible. And the election is still a year away! Doing a failed impeachment now is not a good idea, no matter how satisfying it would (briefly) be.
There is no code or statute saying impeachment is a one-shot deal.
At some point this is no longer about an election, it’s about controlling the damage to our republic. Given Trump’s escalating behaviors, what’s your breaking point?
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Moscow will just layout some more business/cash for The Real President Mitch and there will be no breaking point.
The republican party is gone.
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I’m unsure how to parse your response in relation to my post.
Are you also implying impeachment is pointless? That forcing Congress to go on the record with their support/complicity for Trump’s behavior serves no purpose apart from election polling?
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It serves to fulfill their function as lawmakers under oath to serve and to protect the US Constitution. Beyond that it’s pointless with the current Senate.
Nobody gives a f’k about politicians “on record” anymore.
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It only failed because it wasn’t egregious enough, and he had people smarter than him who refused his orders that would have made it egregious.
If he keeps making fuck ups like this, there will be a tipping point.
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If Ukraine investigates and finds nothing amiss then what?
From everything I’ve read there’s no evidence that either Biden or his son did anything wrong. It has the appearance of a conflict of interest, but it’s not illegal for his son to work for a company in Ukraine or Canada or Mozambique.
And the right-wing nutso-sphere is continually implying that Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who was “investigating his son’s company”-- except it’s exactly the opposite: that prosecutor was known to be ignoring lots corruption cases, which is why the US and most of the EU was pushing for him to be removed.
Trump keeps hearing Hannity (et al) go off about Biden’s son in Ukraine, so naturally he pushes for an investigation, except Hannity (et al) are being willfully dishonest about the entire story.
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I just cannot give that a “like.” I think you are quite possibly correct, but God damn it! How can we be in a shit show like this?
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Jeez I wish Liberals wouldn’t keep focusing on Trump himself and look into why folks vote for him. Because they’re going to again.
Focusing on Trump’s outrageous BS is the exact response the Bannons & Rudolph Hess type of folks want from you : they want(ed) you to complain and scream into the streets so they can eventually claim you’re just violent protesters and wouldn’t the electorate ‘prefer law and order’ instead? They’re baiting you is all.
If you react, you either waste effort on today’s hot button Trumpian issue, or get so angry and demonstrable, they can claim umbrage and change laws to stop your menace (as they see it, not you).
This form of outrageous baiting worked in Germany in the 1930s, it worked in Italy and Hungary too. Why not elsewhere as well? Many liberals from 1932 Germany blame the left not the right for enabling Hitler. Why do you think far right-wing groups cause so much violence? They’re looking for Liberals to fall into a trap so “both sides” can be construed as being violent. IT IS A TRAP.
So far Liberals have jumped into all of the alt-right’s traps. Every time. Like lemming idiots. Boing Boing seems to love jumping into their traps too alas. I mean, they really seem like to dance to Trumps tune. Everyday alas. Cha cha cha.
Hopefully Bannon/Trump/Farage et al have jumped into this behavior too early. Charlottesville is the ultimate goal for fascists and neo-nazis - right wing clan rallies with violent clashes against ‘the left’. It hasn’t been repeated so badly thank goodness. This form of liberal baiting worked in Germany/Italy/Hungary in the 1930s. It worked in Russia in the 1910s. It’s been perfected in South America thanks to the School of The Americas. It failed in London in the same period (Oswald Mosley’s black shirts and The Battle of Cable Street was its end). This trick can work anywhere that vast regions of blue collar workers have been abandoned. [Aside : Oswald Mosley is the villain in Season 5 of Peaky Blinders]
Liberals have bungled peoples lives into ruin over the last 40 years. Republicans and conservatives have actively plotted it at the same time. Both groups are responsible. There’s the obvious fact that Reagan’s deregulated “free market” dream has failed and center-liberals have done nothing about it (the exact opposite in fact). Sell sell sell those families and their futures. Reagan’s dream has only, as predicted before it started, moved money towards the already wealthy at the expense of the poorest among us. It has privatized profits and socialized losses. That is irrefutable. Like a horrific reverse Robin Hood.
Free-market zealots seem to think that their ideology is the only form of capitalism, everything else is ‘socialism as the boogeyman’ (which is obvious junk). Liberals ‘didn’t make it worse’ at best. At worst they’ve abandoned the structures that gave their voters power (government backed unionized workforces) and allowed off-shoring of too much of the backbone of the employment sector.
Subsequent Republican governments have made it worse (and worse) than before, since 1980. Subsequent Liberal ones haven’t done enough to re-regulate. Look at freaking Detroit. That’s what happens when you deregulate and out source without giving a damn for families. A major city dies on its ass, along with all the people in the economic area and chain depending on it, except for the minority of investors who had riches already.
Liberals had two long chances to swing Reagan’s swingeing cuts back but didn’t [Clinton/Obama]. This has allowed the gutting of blue collar heartlands into utter damnation. Liberals don’t listen to their core audience at their peril. Heck, Liberals have accused poor families of being racists because that family doesn’t like competing with pre-prepared immigrants for less money and security than they had before. Along comes an unscrupulous politician who’s only too happy to divert reality into blaming those poor immigrants [they’re a symptom, not a cause].
Liberals are missing the point. Their only salvation is to swing to the left and restore communities to functioning order. Begging Wall St to do this is only folly [Clinton/Obama].
Imagine : After 30 years of watching every generation in your family lose their securities in life and complaining to Liberals who only claim you’re being racist when you point out there’s no affirmative action for poor white folks (“where’s our grant? we’re just as poor”), who do you think those people are going to vote for? That’s right : The one person who seems to upset both liberals and republicans equally. Trump may have stood under the republican umbrella, but he’s annoying them as much as liberals. He’s perfect for the forgotten to angrily and justifiably reach out to Molotov society as much as their own dreams have been shattered. In the UK we call that same reaction : Brexit.
Imagine you’re poor. You have a manual labor job. You watch liberals following suite from Republicans who have passed laws that deregulated various markets (jobs, banking, farming etc). The net effect of this is that you find yourself without any guaranteed work. Worse still, you’re now having to compete with hungry immigrants who are prepared more than you to work terrible hours and conditions for low pay. The new conditions are a total surprise to you and yours and now you’re below the poverty line but still have a vote. You will be just as happy throwing rocks as seeing any improvements because it cannot get any worse.
They listened to liberals for 20+ years. They sound like they care. In practice they do not care at all. Your job has still gone. Your children’s future looks worse than your teenage dreams did back in the day. It’s grim, with no discernibly clear future. You’re fully aware one or two people got very very rich as your whole county was stripped of its future.
Liberals have drifted from socialism to sociology and become undone as a potent force for positive social changes in the process. Protests are as much about Instagram as they are about politics. Liberals are more concerned about how people think and behave than how they live. They squawk about what you can and cannot say [endlessly], whilst watching whole communities wither and die. They seem to have forgotten that strong unions are important for stitching the fabric of sociability together. They are simply BS.
Boing Boing writers are guilty of confusing sociology with socialism too, but they do try harder than most too. They give fair voice to the whole gamut of left : from Communist (crap) to Socialist (yay) to center-right Liberals (normally fine, but what have yee done recently?). Liberals for the last 40 years? Meh.
Liberals : please stop jumping into Trumps’ Trap. Follow what what he does, not what he says.
(I’m left of Sanders in case you’re wondering)
Who gives a hoot whether Trump claims another country should investigate anything. He’s pressing your buttons left over from the election he barely won. Boom!, you’re triggered. Now you spend wasted efforts decrying the button press. This is a waste of time. This story about Biden and the Ukraine will amount to nothing at all. If it does succeed, then what? You’re going to give far right politicians a mega boost. “Trump tried to drain the swamp, but those evil Liberals cheated him”
Right, back to pointless liberal squawking about whatever nonsense Trump farts next.
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President: [openly commits crimes to subvert democracy]
Liberal: Hey, the President is openly committing crimes to subvert democracy!
“Centrist”: Look at you stupid libtards, falling directly into the Republicans’ traps by pointing out their terrible flaws. I can’t believe you fell for that! No wonder no one votes for you losers. [shakes head]
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I agree with your overall point, but…
So @nerdic, you say
And if you don’t react, they give up, stop self-dealing, start following laws, let the kids out of concentration camps, strengthen Obamacare…?
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Quite a few of the Repoublican primaries have been canceled. New releases could be timed to make life very uncomfortable for voters denied a choice.
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Federal election law.
Specifically, 52 USC 30121
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“And if you don’t react, they give up, stop self-dealing, start following laws, let the kids out of concentration camps, strengthen Obamacare…?”
I’m not saying don’t react. I’m saying don’t react to words. Just actions. This Biden/Ukraine thing seems like more of the Russian Collusion with extra baiting from Trump.
It will come to nothing is my belief.
Things to fight IMO : Internment Camps, diverting military budgets to make the wall happen, tax breaks for the rich and swampy. etc
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