Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Their freedom requires your slavery.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Consistently wrong since 2002

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Flat Rejection Open Thread: There Are *NOT* Two Sides to This Argument

Flat Rejection Open Thread: There Are *NOT* Two Sides to This Argument

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I know, I know — overkill. But this is 2017, and we’re trying to explain to the guy currently squatting in the Oval Office, in this very timeline, that Nazis are wrong. It feels like we have to make some kind of record…


Reader Interactions

108Comments

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    I like Chris Murphy’s moral clarity:

  5. 5.

    Patricia Kayden

    @MattF: Isn’t Rubin still a Republican though? Nicole Wallace was demanding on her MSNBC show that folks working in Trump’s administration drop out immediately after Trump’s awful speechifying yesterday. However, to the best of my knowledge, Ms. Wallace is still a Republican.

  6. 6.

    Big Ole Hound

    As I read all over the web and all news sites, the one thread in common is that Trump has committed no impeachable offense and that we are just stuck with him so far…shit. Maybe there is a vague hope that some GOPers in congress will get on board and somehow force him out.

  7. 7.

    SRW1

    Top lookups right now: fascism, bigot, racism, complicit, neo-Nazi, nationalism.

    Fuck. People have to look that up?

  10. 10.

    Yarrow

    Posted this on the previous thread. Kasich brings The Outrage, but can’t follow through with any sort of denunciation. Moral coward, like most of his fellow Republicans.

    Governor Kasich (on the Today Show) was yelling about how terrible all these Nazis are. He Totally Outraged about how unacceptable it all is, going on and on. Then Savannah Guthrie asks him,”What should Republicans do? What do you do if you work in the Trump White House?” Kasich reminds us he didn’t endorse Trump, but says, “I want him to do well.” When Matt Lauer asks him if he’ll go around to Republicans leaders and say, “tell this President we no longer support him, period.” Kasich completely wimps out, “Well, look. He’s our President, okay, and I’m here speaking out as aggressively as I can.” Uh huh. He did a fine job of Looking Outraged, but denouncing Trump is apparently a bridge too far.

  11. 11.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @MattF: I thought you meant she was leaving the Republican Party. I don’t see any evidence in any of that scolding that she is resolving to change her own registration.

    Though her voice this year has been welcome (she used to sound more like Kayleigh McEneny’s tweet above), it’s still too little, too late.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    @Patricia Kayden: She’s avoided saying specifically, but has crossed a line here, IMO. I’ll note that George Fucking Wills quit the Republican party several months ago, but is exactly the same asshole he always was. Seems different with Rubin.

  14. 14.

    Mike R

    The only thing most republicans are concerned about is that Trump gives them nowhere to hide from the reality of the republican party.

  15. 15.

    kat

    I do disagree with the general populace on one thing, in that I think we absolutely need to commemorate the Civil War. We just need to do it the same way the Brits commemorate the Gunpowder Plot. We can hold the festivities between November 15 and December 21 each year. The party starts with bonfires and fireworks in Atlanta and ends with a patriotic parade through Savannah.

  17. 17.

    germy

    @MattF:

    I’ll note that George Fucking Wills quit the Republican party several months ago

    I can imagine him pulling his bow tie off, hurling it to the floor, stomping on it, then pouring a stiff drink while muttering about “the bastards betraying everything Reagan stood for.”

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @Big Ole Hound: If the GOP wanted him out, there are plenty of grounds for impeachment already. Trump is on video saying he fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation, FFS. That Trump remains unimpeached is all on the GOP.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    I never quote an entire article or blog post, but I think this one is important, so I hope Dave Zirin will forgive me.

    Dave Zirin – Trump’s Message to the Country: #NotAllNazis:

    I should probably be writing about the response by athletes to Donald Trump’s open defense of American Nazis on Tuesday. I could quote LeBron James’ tweet where he said, “Hate has always existed in America. Yes we know that but Donald Trump just made it fashionable again!”

    I could point people to Megan Rapinoe’s entire twitter page, a running commentary on the nexus between the white supremacists in the streets and the ones inside the White House. I could speak about the decision of Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett and the Oakland Raiders’ Marshawn Lynch to not stand for the anthem. But I can’t. I can’t because I’m going to be sick.

    I have no illusions about Presidents and their crimes. Republican or Democrat; Whig or Federalist; there is a great deal of blood at home and abroad that comes with being the CEO of the American empire. But I also—and I feel like a fool—thought that certain things were off the table, like a President of the United States defending torch-wielding, swastika-brandishing Nazis who were chanting “Jews Will Not Replace Us”, and took someone’s life by ramming a car into chanting protestors.

    I thought this was off the table because presidents have always lionized World War II veterans as the Greatest Generation for their sacrifice in fighting the Nazi/Axis powers. I thought the lives lost and the memory of their crimes had created a common reference point. I think of my grandparents and the whispered stories of the Holocaust so we would never forget the 6 million Jews who were killed by adherents of a nihilist ideology. I think of the Warsaw ghetto fighters who took part in a struggle that they knew they would lose but still pressed forward, rather than die like sheep. I think of the over 60 million people—3% of the world’s population—who were killed during World War II. I think about the documentaries, films and books, and the Holocaust museum in DC, all geared toward the simple but binding idea of “never again”: never again would Nazis be tolerated outside of the sewers where they gather to nurse their grievances.

    But we have a President who believes otherwise. He sees defending monuments to Robert E. Lee as an act of patriotism. He thinks “good people” march alongside Klansmen with torches. He got emotional, his face spotted with red blotches, as he retreated from his “eat your vegetables” condemnation of racists the previous day, as he defended the presence of armed and violent white nationalists in the streets of Charlotte. He believes that people who confront Nazis are as bad as Nazis. He used the term “alt-left,” a dreadfully stupid phrase that allows for false equivalency and justifies the violence visited upon the brave resistors in Charlottesville. Unlike Saturday, where he blamed “both sides,” this time he took a side for the world to see. We have a President who could watch Casablanca and root against Rick.

    Yes, we shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve seen the tweets from open white supremacists that he and his sons like to retweet into higher prominence. We know he is advised by a troika of these white nationalists—Bannon, Miller and Gorka—and has resisted calls for their removal. We know that he has pulled funding from agencies that combat white nationalist violence. We know he set up a government agency just to report on the crimes of “immigrants.” We know that Jeff Sessions is in charge of the Justice Department. We know Trump’s legacy with housing discrimination and the Central Park 5. We know that his father was arrested at a Klan rally. We know that the American Nazis wear his hats and shirts, alongside their swastika armbands. So maybe shame on me for my shock and nausea.

    But there is something about hearing Nazis defended just 72 hours after the killing of Heather Heyer that is so unsettling and so evil, no amount of snark, cynicism or jaded ironic distance can inure us from its implications. The comments by Donald Trump on Tuesday, August 15th, have created a new stain on the American flag. The old stains have never quite been washed out: the stains of Native American conquest and the enslavement of African people; the epidemic of lynching and the enduring reality of Jim Crow; the stains of Japanese “internment,” McCarthyism, Vietnam and the Iraq war. But this stain is new. It’s permanent. It’s scarlet red and it’s bloody as hell.

  23. 23.

    Bobby Thomson

    By the way, all three of the Trump favored children unfollowed Marlee Matlin on Twitter after she condemned Nazism.

  24. 24.

    gene108

    Nazis bad is not a hard concept. We’ve been teaching that for 70+ years.

    Trump has to not want to learn this basic lesson taught in every school for decades.

  29. 29.

    Yarrow

    @Bobby Thomson: If it weren’t so serious it would have been fascinating to watch Kasich’s outrage cosplaying. He was good with Outrage but fell apart when asked how to turn the outrage into action. Moral coward.

  30. 30.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Patricia Kayden: I keep commenting on Rubin’s blog that her road to atonement is NOT complete until she disavows the Rs, as well as the Great Orange Shitstain.

    She is still an R.

  32. 32.

    rikyrah

    CBO: High costs if Trump follows through on ACA sabotage threats
    08/15/17 04:18 PM
    By Steve Benen

    For health care advocates, congressional Republicans’ difficulties in passing regressive health care legislation have brought some comfort, but the threats haven’t gone away. Not only are many GOP lawmakers committed to returning to the issue, but systemic sabotage from Donald Trump remains a real possibility.

    Indeed, as we’ve discussed many times, the president has made repeated threats to cut off cost-sharing reductions (or CSRs) – a component of the Affordable Care Act that helps cover working families’ out-of-pocket costs – which Trump has effectively turned into a political weapon. The mere threat has already pushed consumers’ costs higher.

    But what if the president followed through on the threat and decide to use this weapon? NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin noted the latest findings from the Congressional Budget Office.

    Health care premiums will spike, insurers will exit the market, and deficits will increase if President Donald Trump follows through on his threats to cut off government payments to insurance companies, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report.

    The cost of a “silver” insurance plan under Obamacare would be 20 percent higher in 2018 and 25 percent higher by 2020 compared to current law, according to the report. About five percent of the population would not be able to buy insurance through Obamacare at all next year, the CBO predicted, because companies would withdraw plans in response to the “substantial uncertainty” created by the move.

  34. 34.

    Gator90

    My father-in-law, a wonderful man in his personal life who has been far kinder to me than I deserve, is also a hard-right Jew who adores DJT. By happenstance I’ve neither seen nor spoken with him in the past few days, and frankly I am afraid to. Recent events will not put him off Trump, I am sure of it. I am afraid of what I will say to him. We’ve always been able to disagree amicably about politics, but I don’t think calling him a Nazi-lover would go over well. I really don’t know how to handle this.

  36. 36.

    lamh36

    Did ya’ll see this mofo…Micheal Cohen…Trump’s JEWISH lawyer…”He’s not a racist cause he supports Trump” then he posted a collage of his “Black Friends”…smh

    WHITE PEOPLE…DON’T DO THIS PLEASE!

    @JamilSmith
    Jamil Smith Retweeted
    Think of a man showing himself pictured with the women in his life, and then claiming he isn’t sexist. Perhaps Cohen has that collage, too.
    https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/897813365707362304

  37. 37.

    Repatriated

    @SRW1: Fuck. People have to look that up?

    “Well, actually, the dictionary definition doesn’t apply to this because…”
    [/false pedantry]

  38. 38.

    germy

    Yashar Ali‏Verified account
    @yashar

    RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel to white supremacists: ‘We don’t want your vote’

  41. 41.

    BC in Illinois

    @Big Ole Hound:

    As I read all over the web and all news sites, the one thread in common is that Trump has committed no impeachable offense and that we are just stuck with him so far…shit. Maybe there is a vague hope that some GOPers in congress will get on board and somehow force him out.

    The first sentence is not true–Trump has committed continuous impeachable offenses.
    It’s the second sentence that points out the huge rock in the roadway. We need the GOP to act. We NEED them.

    There are reasons to impeach that are undeniable [unimpeachable]:
    (1) using the office of President as a means of enriching his personal fortune (or paying off his personal debt) and (2) a demonstrated disloyalty to our nation – whether because of his emulation of the Russian President or his indebtedness to the Russian President/mob/oligarchy, to which he owes his fortune. (At the very least – – the Donald Trump Junior e-mail about “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” indicates a depth of indebtedness to a hostile foreign power unimaginable in any preceding President.)

    If the political will were there (i.e., if the GOP saw it in there best interests), either of these could be written up as abuse of the office / abuse of power. Add in obstruction of justice and you have perfectly fine Articles of Impeachment.

    We have reached, in the Trump administration, the level of conduct that Professor Charles L. Black, Jr. described in his book Impeachment: A Handbook (1974, 1998) as conduct requiring impeachment and removal:
    —offenses “which so seriously threaten the order of political society as to make pestilent and dangerous the continuation in power of the perpetrator.”
    —misdeeds “so gross and malignant as to warrant an undoing of a national election.”
    Both of these definitions define Donald Trump.

    I have a GOP Rep and a GOP Senator. This is what I wrote them this morning:

    I have no confidence in the Republican Party. I have no idea how far the rot of self-service and disloyalty to our nation extends. But if we are to be a nation “indivisible,” with “liberty and justice for all,” then we must look to you. We must rely on your patriotism, your Pledge of Allegiance, your Oath of Office, your love of this country and of the principles with which it was conceived and dedicated.

    If an appeal to patriotism doesn’t work and if an appeal to their own self-interest doesn’t work, then we have no recourse but consistent, constant resistance until November 2018.

  43. 43.

    randy khan

    @MattF:

    Since Rubin’s basically calling for the dissolution of the Republican Party, I’d say she’s definitely crossed a line.

    There is a pretty clean moral test here, and she is passing it. Others, not so much.

    ETA: In particular, Kayleigh McEnany, not so much. Wow.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    I wrote this earlier and it didn’t post so I apologize if it later did but I feel I must share and I can’t read this entire site at this time :)

    Anyhoo. I listened to a popular local music station this AM and the two (horrible) male disc jockeys started this thing where they don’t so much disagree with Trump’s “both sides” but they are disgusted at his “lack of leadership”. This to me sounds like bullshit to rationalize their former support of Trump but it’s really surprising they’re publicly opposing him because they are Righties.

    Just to give you an example of their assholeness when Kerry ran in 2004 they would run a Kerry radio ad (which Kerry paid for, obviously) and then do nasty comments about Kerry immediately after the ad. For these two to find Trump “lacks leadership” (even if it is bullshit to give them something acceptable to object to that isn’t racism) means something.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    Trump creates a ‘moral reckoning’ for his Republican Party
    08/16/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 08/16/17 08:08 AM
    By Steve Benen

    The lede in the New York Times’ report on Donald Trump’s press conference yesterday reads like a dystopian nightmare.

    President Trump buoyed the white nationalist movement on Tuesday as no president has done in generations – equating activists protesting racism with the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who rampaged in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

    Never has he gone as far in defending their actions as he did during a wild, street-corner shouting match of a news conference in the gilded lobby of Trump Tower, angrily asserting that so-called alt-left activists were just as responsible for the bloody confrontation as marchers brandishing swastikas, Confederate battle flags, anti-Semitic banners and “Trump/Pence” signs.

    This is the world we live in now – one in which a sitting president of the United States publicly praises racist activists as “very fine people” who’ve been treated “unfairly” by journalists.

    It’s a moment of national shame, but it’s also the basis for a challenge to Donald Trump’s partisan allies: what exactly does the Republican Party intend to do with its president in the face of such a scandal?

  49. 49.

    MoxieM

    @germy: umm…. something something Philadelphia, MS … something something Bitburg something St. Ronnie dog whistle visits.

  50. 50.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    @Mike R:

    The only thing most republicans are concerned about is that Trump gives them nowhere to hide from the reality of the republican party.

    More like no way to hide it. They knew and they were fine with it. Just like the guy who smiles and waves to his black neighbors, then refers to them using racial slurs when he’s in his own house. They’re white, they know they’re superior, they just don’t want the hassle of hearing the rest of us argue with them.

  52. 52.

    MCA1

    @randy khan: I generally agree with this, but there’s another line that needs to be crossed for me by people like Rubin before they go from passing a basic moral test to redemption. That’s admitting to the world that they were part of the problem, and contributed to getting us here. Blindly, nihilistically, whatever, she helped drive the boat for quite a while.

  54. 54.

    BC in Illinois

    @germy:

    And as Cheryl Rofer noted, when Marlee Matlin came out against secessionists, anti-Semites, and Nazis, each of the Trumpenkinder–Don Jr, Eric, and Ivanka–immediately unfollowed her.

  56. 56.

    randy khan

    @A Ghost To Most:
    @MCA1:

    Oh, I don’t think she’s made up for years of awfulness, by any means. And I certainly agree she has more work to do (a *lot* more work). But right now there’s a really obvious line for anyone who claims to be decent and she at least is on the right side of it. Many other Republicans have failed that particular test so far, and it’s good that she’s pointing it out.

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    On a slightly related side note: this article was in the print version of the WaPo back on Monday…it seems to not be available online on their website now (but somehow is available on this odd blog)

    “Militiamen Came to City to Protect Free Speech, Chief Says”

    It’s unnerving on multiple levels…

    Of the harrowing images televised nationwide from Saturdays white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, one of the more chilling sights, amid hours of raging hatred and mayhem, was of camo-clad militiamen on the streets, girded for combat in tactical vests and toting military-style semiautomatic rifles.

    Photos and video of the heavily armed cadre a relatively small force commanded by a 45-year-old machinist and long-ago Navy veteran from western Pennsylvania spread rapidly on social media, raising fears the clash of hundreds of neo-Nazis and counterprotesters might end in a bloodbath.

    The show of strength was about allegiance … to the Constitution, particularly the First Amendment, said Christian Yingling, leader of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia. He said he and his troops convoyed in to Charlottesville early Saturday to defend free speech by maintaining civic order so everyone present could voice an opinion, regardless of their views.

    Riiiiiiight…that’s what they train and drill in the woods for, to defend their fellow Americans’ First Amendment rights…

    The fact that no shots were fired, Yingling said, was a testament to the discipline of the 32 brave souls “serving under me during this particular operation”. In a telephone interview Sunday, he sought to dispel the absurd idea in the publics mind that his group of patriots was allied with or sympathetic to the white nationalists.

    Uh huh…

    He said several of his troops were battered and bloodied, having been attacked by people on both sides of the demonstration, yet they did not retaliate.

    Yes…I’m sure that plenty of Nazis and anti-Nazis went up to men dressed in camo and toting automatic weapons and “beat and bloodied” them…

    Authorities also were worried that Yingling who was carrying a Sig Sauer AR-556 semiautomatic weapon and his troops would be mistaken for National Guard members by the public, Moran said.

    Yingling called the weapons one hell of a visual deterrent to would-be attackers from either side. Although the weapons magazines were fully loaded, he said, the days standard procedure was that anyone who was carrying a long gun was not to have a round in the chamber. Now, our sidearms are generally chambered and ready to go.

    Well, that’s certainly reassuring that the ‘First Amendment Peacekeepers’ are able to keep from chambering a round in their long guns…(!)…

    Yingling said he abhors racism and that his company, which usually trains in the woods once or twice a month, is open to prospective members of all races and creeds, although its active roster is entirely white.

    No way!

    …Then, in 2008, President Barack Obama was elected. Yingling said he was drawn then to right-wing, anti-government extremism.

    No way!!

    “I left my old addictive lifestyle behind and traded it for the lifestyle of a patriot”, he wrote. “I had found my calling as a militiaman”…”No, I dont think the government, as a whole, is out to get us, he said in the interview, but a lot of people in society are self-absorbed. They dont get involved with the Constitution and defending the freedoms that it gives us. We need to defend those freedoms for everyone, on all sides of the political debate or eventually well lose them.

    About a month ago, when he learned the Unite the Right event was being planned, Yingling said, “I, like most militia commanders, did not want to touch it with a 10-foot pole for fear of being wrongly perceived as an ally of white supremacists”. But after talking it over with a fellow Light Foot commander, in Upstate New York, he decided he had a duty to defend the right of free speech on the streets of Charlottesville.

    It’s weird, but if he doesn’t want to be seen as someone allying with white supremacists…maybe next time he could leave his guns at home and come march with the students and clergy? Or better yet, just leave the ‘defending the right of free speech’ to the police?

  58. 58.

    trollhattan

    @MattF:
    It’s instructive that her love of Mitt “Corporations are people” Romney was unbridled. Will she now become a third-way fan, because I don’t see Republicans reeling back the crazy wing for at least a generation and she’s not going Dem-curious.

    I welcome her voice of late, regardless.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: I saw that last night and was proud that Schmidt addressed it so clearly, just as anyone with a conscience should – very well done, Steve.

  60. 60.

    rikyrah

    @BC in Illinois:

    And as Cheryl Rofer noted, when Marlee Matlin came out against secessionists, anti-Semites, and Nazis, each of the Trumpenkinder–Don Jr, Eric, and Ivanka–immediately unfollowed her.

    Uh huh
    No shock.

  62. 62.

    A Ghost To Most

    @randy khan: I’m good with that. As I have said before, I quit subscribing to WaPo back in 2009. primarily because of Rubin. I came back this year, again mainly because of Rubin’s transformation. But her work is far from done.

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    @Jeffro:

    @rikyrah: I saw that last night and was proud that Schmidt addressed it so clearly, just as anyone with a conscience should – very well done, Steve.

    He was so blunt. It was excellent.

  64. 64.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Big Ole Hound: With Clinton they used their imagination and kept digging until they found something. Presumably Mueller’s at it as we speak, but if Congress really gave a crap they’d join the fun.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    @randy khan:

    Since Rubin’s basically calling for the dissolution of the Republican Party, I’d say she’s definitely crossed a line.

    It’s been crazy…reading Rubin and actually agreeing with her.

  67. 67.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:
    Is there a list of Donald Trump real estate deals that aren’t “sketchy”? I’m guessing it’s the world’s shortest list, like Inuit marlin fishermen.

  69. 69.

    germy

    @Matt McIrvin:

    He’ll never stop believing that Democrats are hell-bent on tyranny through climate science and Amtrak.

    Public transportation is for the devil.

  71. 71.

    trollhattan

    @Jeffro:
    Missing is the all-important detail of how many hours he invested deciding which AR15 to bring with him.

    “Aww Princess, just because I chose Lightning doesn’t mean I love him more than you!”

    Lord deliver me from these “patriots” so busily protecting my freedumbs.

  72. 72.

    germy

    @trollhattan:

    real estate deals that aren’t “sketchy”?

    That’s what baffles me. If I had a history like dolt45, the last thing I’d want to do is be president. Did he think all the stuff in his past wouldn’t come to light?

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    IMHO part of his pathology is an unrelenting belief that he can “have it all” with virtually no limits. If the Billy Bush tape told us anything it’s that he’s unburdened by self-discipline.

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    @trollhattan:

    Lord deliver me from these “patriots” so busily protecting my freedumbs.

    It’s unbelievable. I’d have had a field day with this guy if I were a reporter:
    – so you were attracted to right-wing, anti-government beliefs…but you’re not a white supremacist? What parts of white supremacist doctrine do you disagree with?
    – you and your ‘company’ attended in camo, with weapons, in order to help keep the peace…when fights broke out, you didn’t get involved…would you say that essentially you had no effect here?
    – what would you have done if a Nazi had opened fire on the antifa members?
    – what would you have done if a ‘company’ of well-armed leftists had also shown up?

    etc etc

    NUTS

  76. 76.

    nonynony

    @Big Ole Hound:

    As I read all over the web and all news sites, the one thread in common is that Trump has committed no impeachable offense and that we are just stuck with him so far…shit. Maybe there is a vague hope that some GOPers in congress will get on board and somehow force him out.

    This is flat out wrong. The standard for impeachment is literally “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Here’s the relevant bit:

    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.

    There is no definition of what constitutes a high Crime or Misdemeanor. If the House brings Articles of Impeachment up on literally anything they could call a high crime or a misdemeanor, and the Senate holds a trial, votes to convict, then he’s impeached and out of office. The House could easily draw up Articles saying that his firing of Comey was Obstruction of Justice which counts as a high Crime, send it to the Senate, the Senate votes and he’s out. They could accuse him of any crime at all and it doesn’t matter if he’s guilty of it or not – if the House votes to impeach and the Senate votes to convict then he’s out of office (though he’s got plenty of shit that he’s guilty of already, so it would be nice to use that).

    I’d prefer that they bring him up on the high Crime of “offering aid and comfort to Nazi terrorists while in the Oval Office” and make a case that that counts as Treason because by damn if we’re going to have a neverending War on Terror we should be able to use it against Nazis. But sadly there probably isn’t enough agreement in the House or Senate that that would be sufficient.

  77. 77.

    WVblueguy

    The picture at the start of this post shows that our country has had a supremacist Nazi infestation for years. It touched my family when a great Judge Edward C. Eicher died while conducting a trial of Nazis at the end of the war. Ed Eicher was my Great Uncle. The Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups were as offensive then as they are now and everybody needs to understand that they aren’t going away especially when they have the tacit approval of the President of the United States. Read about what happened in 1944 to a good man harassed by Nazi vermin.

  80. 80.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jeffro:

    “I left my old addictive lifestyle behind and traded it for the lifestyle of a patriot”, he wrote.

    So a druggie in otherwords.

  81. 81.

    Mom Says I*m Handsome

    @BC in Illinois: Thanks, BC. I lifted that block quote in its entirety and included it in a letter I just faxed (cuz I’m old-skool) to my Senator, the execrable Cory Gardner (R-3:10 from Yuma). I also listed 7 actions he could take, since all of this Twitter disavowal is just more “thoughts and prayers” — let’s see some fucking action. I offered up the firing of the troika of Trump’s Nazis (as well as Gorka’s wife) and the restoration of DHS & FBI funding to counter white nationalist terrist groups.

  82. 82.

    randy khan

    The interesting group of people who are doing something is the members of the American Manufacturing Council convened by Trump – all CEOs and labor bigwigs. It already had lost two members over the withdrawal from the Paris Accords, it’s now lost 8 members since the weekend. It started with the CEO of Merck, but the CEOs of Campbell Soup, IBM, Intel, and UnderArmour also have quit, as have both labor representatives and the president of the Alliance of American Manufacturers.

    Now, they obviously can’t do the things that Congress could do, but at the same time it’s a pretty big signal that the Administration has gone beyond the pale. I seriously wonder how many people will be left on the council by the end of the week, or if it will be disbanded before it has no members left.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    O/T (in this case “Open Thread”)

    I am writing to share an update about my wife (J), son (the Immp) and me.

    To recap for those who have missed my very spotty comments — after some very good news at the end of May (wasn’t that like five years ago?) with J’s first chemo regimen, her cancer adapted and started growing again. A second regimen was tried and that ended up showing little promise. We were looking at a third possible chemo set and perhaps some research trials when, just two weeks ago, she had two major setbacks. The first was some blood clotting (treatable) but the second was a stomach blockage from the tumor. This blocked most of the area which links the stomach to the small intestine as well as the bile drainage tube from the liver/gall bladder/pancreas. That blockage could not be shunted or bypassed, and is obviously a real problem as Julie hasn’t been able to eat much and is also getting bilious. The cancer had also spread, at a minimum, to her liver. Last week, we moved J from therapeutic treatment to palliative-only care. The plan was to get J’s symptoms stabilized and meds fine-tuned so that she could be moved to home hospice care. The plan was to move J home this past Tuesday which was coincidentally her 50th birthday.

    The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
    Gang aft agley

    Instead of being at home, my dear wife died on Tuesday. The Immp and I were with her up to the near-end and her parents and only brother were also in town from Texas. This was a comfort to all involved. All of J’s friends, my friends, and Immp’s friends and their families have been so kind and generous. Also, people here have been so supportive and kind. Thank you.

    I am committed to writing down some of my observations/insights/thoughts/ experiences about this blazingly fast five months from diagnosis to death. But that will happen after the crazy of the next few days slackens.

    When J and I were talking about her coming death, she told me, “I will miss this whole world.”

    Not really anything else to say, except hold those you love close.

  92. 92.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Immanentize: Oh no. I’m so, so sorry for your loss. We’re all grieving with you.

    I know it’s trite and I hated it hearing it when my fiancee died, but: If there’s anything we can do, please let us know.

  93. 93.

    Betty

    @Immanentize: This must have been an awful time for all of you. So sorry for your heartbreaking loss. You have many friends here as well as in “real life” who offer their support.

  94. 94.

    Chris

    @kat:

    I do disagree with the general populace on one thing, in that I think we absolutely need to commemorate the Civil War. We just need to do it the same way the Brits commemorate the Gunpowder Plot. We can hold the festivities between November 15 and December 21 each year. The party starts with bonfires and fireworks in Atlanta and ends with a patriotic parade through Savannah.

    I’m absolutely good with burning a Robert E. Lee figure once a year.

    (Of course, several hundred years later, pop fiction will reinvent Lee as a bomb-throwing symbol of anarchy. So it goes. What can you do?)

  95. 95.

    Chris

    @trollhattan:

    It’s instructive that her love of Mitt “Corporations are people” Romney was unbridled.

    A recurring theme I’ve seen among #NeverTrumpists on the Interwebs has been “God, fuck the media for what they did to our good honorable moderate Great Leader, Mitt Romney. If they’d supported him, we wouldn’t have Trump now.”

  96. 96.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    @kat:

    We can hold the festivities between November 15 and December 21 each year. The party starts with bonfires and fireworks in Atlanta and ends with a patriotic parade through Savannah.

    I like the way you think.

  97. 97.

    spudgun

    @Immanentize: Don’t think you’ll see this (will try to post in a more recent thread), but I have to at least try – I am so very sorry for your loss. My heart goes out to you and your family.

  102. 102.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Immanentize:

    Oh, Imm. I am devastated to read this. All condolences to you and the Immp, J’s parents and brother, and her many many friends. Take time to care for yourself, come back to Balloon Juice when you can, and know that we are thinking of you with love.

  105. 105.

    Yarrow

    @Immanentize: Immanentize, in case you come back to this thread just wanted to let you know that Elizabelle was kind enough to copy your comment into this thread. Many people have offered their condolences there as well.

  106. 106.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    I am so sorry for your loss, your family’s loss.

    I don’t know what else to say. Take care of each other, you are all at a loss.

    This was all so fast… we are all shocked and saddened.

    Best wishes going forward.

  107. 107.

    satby

    @Immanentize: I saw Elizabelle’s repost of your comment and came back to tell you how very sorry I am. So short a time and so young! May Julie now finally rest peacefully without suffering and may you and your son and family find comfort and strength from all of us who hold you in our hearts and thoughts.

  108. 108.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Immanentize: I don’t know if you will see this but I saw a comment from another thread. I am so so sorry about your wife. That is way way too young. Peace to you, your son and the rest of your family.

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