Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

Consider the following hypothetical: a country has a process in place to remove a leader from power when he has demonstrated unfitness for office. Should the predicted outcome of that process dictate whether to initiate it? I think most people would say no. In the abstract I would say if you believe he's done something impeachable then one should initiate impeachment hearings even though the result is that the senate almost definitely would not remove him from power by 2/3 vote.

But the way this entire investigation has unfolded has made it an extremely unpopular political fight. The corrupt way Trump has conducted himself doesn't trouble his supporters and Democrats probably would be less popular as a result.

I don't know the right answer. You both have good points. Maybe if this country's founders did not want the process to be political it should not take place in a political branch! It's like we've had a nationwide referendum on corruption and the result is that it's okay if you knew your guy was corrupt when you voted for him.

[broncofan]

I don't know the right answer. You both have good points.

Although I have to say I'm leaning towards impeach; think they would impeach in the House, not convict in the Senate and would have a negative political outcome for Democrats.

[filghy2]

Views about the political implications of impeachment seem to be based largely on the public response to the Clinton impeachment. I think there are some key differences between that episode and this one.

First, Clinton was a much more popular president than Trump is. Second, it was more clearly an abuse of the process because it was based on an isolated incident (lying about an embarrassing sexual affair) rather than a systematic pattern of abuse of power. Third, the Starr investigation was more clearly politically-motivated than Mueller's investigation. Fourth, Clinton's response to impeachment was relatively measured, whereas Trump's response is likely to be over the top. Is another year and a half of increasingly unhinged ranting really going to work in Trump's favour?

Also, Bush still won the 2000 election despite the advantages that Gore inherited, so it's not clear the Republicans paid a big price.

Even if the Dems don't proceed with impeachment they will still have to pursue Trump on abuse of power. The political challenge for them will be to highlight both the conduct of the Trump administration and the ways it has damaged the interests of most Americans, while drawing the links between the two.

[broncofan]

You make all fair points. I was basing it on the fact that while obstruction really should be the quintessential impeachable offense along with abuse of power, it doesn't resonate with the average person the way disloyalty does. The media kept looking at the sequence of Mueller's indictments and predicting that he was setting everyone up for a big reveal. But Mueller is a professional and was not paying attention to optics.

What happened is that expectations were ratcheted up, rhetoric about Trump being a traitor and there being a quid pro quo and backchannels generated excitement. What we have in the Mueller report is more detail about Trump's corruption but it should have already been priced in to expectations. That's just one observation, but there is the fact that the investigation was substantive and did reveal a lot of wrongdoing and that the obstruction of it impeded something that was essential to protect our electoral process.

[buttslinger]

You could impeach Trump for any behavior unbecoming of a President of the United States, but good luck getting any Republicans to sign on, Trump signs their paychecks now. Which in itself should be enough for impeachment, but that's my opinion.
Somewhere in a locked drawer, or a safe, or on a shelf is a document, a tax form, or a recording that could take down the entire Trump Organization, I'd stake my reputation as a world class asshole on it. Before he had the military protecting him, and the Republican Party protecting him, when nobody was looking, Trump fucked up and Mueller found it, and Barr's hiding it. Or the Southern District of New York is investigating it.
I'd prop Trump up long enough to find it, even if it takes a year. If Trump keeps blocking Oversight, and looks like he'll pull it off, you'll have all those Democrats on the Mueller Report singing like a heavenly choir.
Keep those subpoenas coming, I heard Trump on Hannity last night, he sounds like a nervous wreck. Let's speak plainly, the Republican Party is to blame for everything, not partisanship. If you get the chance to cripple them, take it.

[buttslinger]

If you're an American, you probably can't name Trump's Cabinet or all the Democratic Presidential Hopefuls, but you do know Flo, Gecko, Mayhem, and based on their jokes you're supposed to decide which Insurance is best for you and your family. For three weeks we heard the Mueller Report proved no collusion, no obstruction, then we got the report and the headline was again President not guilty, finally Barr bored us to death with his 5 minute filibusters. Lindsey Graham announced he hasn't even read the report, because it's over, time to move on. I didn't grasp until a couple of days ago that Barr oversees the 14 counts referred to New York. Oh, shit.
Looks like it's up to Mueller to decide the future of the Country, will he talk??? Maybe the one mistake Barr made was to call him "snitty"......I hope Mueller spills his guts on National TV and declares Trump a Danger to the Country. Because "The People" seem like the only thing they know is what they're told.

[buttslinger]

Two Cents:
Now that Trump has been vindicated, if the Russians offer him dirt on Joe Biden, is that Kosher now? Like you can't charge him twice because of double jeopardy? No crime to charge? What's the verdict, Fatboy?
On a completely different topic, there is not a list that grades everyone who has ever lived from best to worst. Some lives are better than others, and while we're all in this together, every life is different, and every life's existence is separate from the mass and reasonably could be rated by it's own existence, so while the list doesn't exist, all the people who aren't on it do exist or have existed. Sadly, and perhaps unfairly, the bottom five people probably aren't there because they were slackers, they probably all died at childbirth. The top five people would be even harder to imagine.

[buttslinger]

I just read some internet blurb that said "Angela Merkel fears dark forces in Europe"...hmmm, me too. I wonder how much of that fear is the threat to the Caucasians as the leaders of the Western World. In the 1950s an American GI could get a job as a milkman, get married, buy a house and have five kids. Now that same guy drives two hours a day to get to a job that pays well, his wife works, and he's lucky if he can afford two kids. Would the World be a better place if the White Man lost his mojo??? Is the USA the best badguy the world has ever bowed to, or the worst?

[broncofan]

When someone says that Theresa May has a Zionist slave master agenda it is not criticism of Israel. It is not even coherent unless you consider what they must really mean, and you can figure it out by reading early 20th century anti-Semitic tracts. If the same person liked facebook posts where people are saying this or that Mossad created Isis it is not an accident.

That you find this in the same feeble-minded political movement where people who openly say they do not like Jews are given a slap on the wrist and Jews who object to the culture of anti-Semitism are run out of the party it is hard to believe it's a coincidence.

There have literally been dozens of cases like this, many of which I posted, where the excuses for the anti-Semitism are so pathetic and unbelievable that one has to have forsaken all attempts at good faith to even make the excuses.

This comes not long after Peter Willsman on the NEC said that 68 British Rabbis who complained about anti-semitism were working for the Israeli Embassy. There is no evidence of this at all, unless your standard for evidence is that of a conspiracy theorist. The Labour rank and file by the thousands defended this with the same expose from 2016 where an Israeli bragged about his influence. Apparently because Israel does lobby the government it means anyone can be accused of being in the lobby so long as they're Jewish and you want to discredit them. This represents the total deindividuation of Jewish people among pretty significant proportion of the public there.

Can someone explain to me what it means to say Theresa May has a Zionist slave master agenda? I don't see it as containing content. Is this actually defensible? I'm looking at this stuff and the responses to it and it is something out of a nightmare.

[broncofan]

BTW, I've heard the excuse is that Lisa Forbes only liked the post. It is an obvious anti-Semitic dog-whistle, and has become part of mainstream Labour discourse to engage in conspiratorial anti-Semitism. Someone running for office has no business signaling support for hatred like that.

From soft to hard Holocaust denial, pseudo-scientific racism about the genetic origins of Jews, financial conspiracy theories usually invoking the Rothschild family, and just wanton abusive language to anyone Jewish who will not provide cover for them. Take a look at some of Lisa Forbes' fellow signatories for a letter she signed opposing the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism if you think this is an accident.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour-s-peterborough-candidate-signed-letter-opposing-ihra-antisemitism-definition-1.485060