Trump's Card

[Snake Plissken]

Especially as you can clearly walk around it.

[NHH]

The border, yesterday

[Eggchaser]

Never has the phrase, "What'll that asshole think of next?" been so appropriate.

Not that it makes any difference. Trump will not be impeached and he will get re-elected, and that's what's staring us all in the face.

[Bruno]

I looks like it will take an actual dictator to convince enough people of the root problem, that the office of the president was allowed to become too powerful over the last 50 years. For now people will blame Trump and his voters and direct enablers and not the cult of the presidency itself.

It has been a systemic problem for a long time, it might be the main driver of political polarization (it's easier for the media to coalesce around one person than an entire party), and many of us allowed the Obama years to distract us from the fact. The people who voted against Obama weren't distracted from it. They called him an authoritarian and many were convinced that he was as bad for the republic as we think Trump is.

This impeachment might look in retrospect like the last chance to meaningfully curb the president's powers. It's certainly going to be a terrible precedent and I'd hesitate to put much hope in any Democratic successor righting the ship. I guess the rest of government isn't bothered enough by it because the same political sport is a part of authoritarian regimes, too, which probably make it easier to profiteer.

[ursus arctos]

Alexander says that no witnesses are needed because the allegations are already proven

But do not meet the requisite standard for removal

Formal vote tomorrow, likely followed by the vote to acquit

[Satchmo Distel]

At least then it's done by the end of January and we can move on.

[anton pulisov]

New York Times at it again. Bernie Sanders can't win because America is not a socialist country.

Bloody Germany and it's socialist healthcare and socialist public transport. It's practically Venezuela innit.

edit. Sorry, wrong thread

[ursus arctos]

That's one of those Third Way pieces we mentioned on the other thread

Another day, another atrocity

[URL="https://twitter.com/nytimesatwar/status/1223016633511436291?s=21"]https://twitter.com/nytimesatwar/status/1223016633511436291[/URL]

[Satchmo Distel]

Trump stole some of Sanders' positions in 2016 although of course he never delivered on them.

[San Bernardhinault]

On the subject of the Border Wall falling down, it turns out that during the southwest monsoon it would collapse because of the pressure water flow into the debris that gets caught between the slats. So they had to build massive flood gates that they open and leave open all summer (they're too heavy to lift and shut every time it rains) and people can just slide under.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/nytmike/status/1223290139679567872

I wonder how many more drops Bolton has for his pals Maggie and Mike

[ursus arctos]

Every single one of them should be in jail.

https://twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1223344733294157829

[San Bernardhinault]

It absolutely baffles me that the non-President criminals in the Whitehouse haven't been prosecuted. How is Giuiliani not in a million court cases defending himself?

[ursus arctos]

[San Bernardhinault]

That's why nobody's being done for federal crimes, but surely there are thousands of state-level crimes.

[ursus arctos]

Not as many as you might think

No obvious ones come to mind for Rudy!, for example. He operates almost exclusively in the federal realm.

Sekulow is obviously violating state law on charitable institutions, but those violations are rarely personal and misdemeanors when they are (see the Trump Foundation).

[ursus arctos]

Acquittal vote set for Wednesday (i.e., after the State of the Union and the Iowa caucuses)

[San Bernardhinault]

That was inevitable, after Lisa Murkowski decided that there's no point in determining whether the murderer murdered someone because the prosecution didn't interview a witness who was unavailable at the time; and Alexander decided that there's no point having impeachments even if the President is guilty because... elections exist.

[Nefertiti2]

I remember reading about the Teapot Dome scandal. Those dudes had nothing on Trump

[ursus arctos]

Absolute amateurs by comparison.

Harding didn't even profit personally.

[San Bernardhinault]

Lisa Murkowski claims to have done the honourable thing to protect John Roberts from having to not cast a vote.

What she actually did was protect Susan Collins, as usual. The allows Collins to pretend to be moderate while making sure that her vote also has no impact, which is the kind of big statement that Collins usually likes. She doesn't want to actually make a difference; she just wants to performatively show that she's different.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Absolute amateurs by comparison.

Harding didn't even profit personally.

He was more of a catspaw than an instigator wasn't he?

[ursus arctos]

Yes, he was installed by Mark Hanna and the corrupt GOP machine and taken advantage of by a cadre of grifters

[caja-dglh]

Collins is your early bellweather for 2020.

[ursus arctos]

Yes and no

Because Maine allocates its four electoral votes unusually (one based on the result in each Congressional district and two to the overall winner), it is quite likely that the presidential result will be the same as in 2016 (D-3, R-1) even if she ends up losing her seat badly.