Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

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

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Open Thread: So Where’s Your Tipping Point, Repubs?

Late Night Open Thread: So Where’s Your Tipping Point, Repubs?

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115Comments

  1. 1.

    Joey Maloney

    There are 20 or 21 GOP senators running for reelection in 2020. That means that in an impeachment trial Moscow Mitch can let nearly all of them vote for conviction to placate their constituents, and still have the Senate acquit.

    I’m just saying.

  2. 2.

    SRW1

    Trump calls Rep. Louie Gohmert “a man who is smart as hell.”

    Louie Gohmert: ” Mr President, I appreciate you getting my asparagus!”

  3. 3.

    JoyceH

    @Joey Maloney: Honestly? If the Senate votes to acquit, even by a slim margin, I don’t think a Republican who voted to convict will placate his constituents. They’ll blame him for not dragging another Republican to the conviction side with him, or just for being a Republican. The way the firehose of evidence is spewing, by the time this thing gets to the Senate, an acquittal will make people angry enough to just tear the whole place down stone by stone like the Berlin Wall.

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    @Joey Maloney:
    The problem is that there’s no right way for Republicans to vote on impeachment. If they vote to acquit, they piss off moderates who think Trump is guilty as sin. If they vote to convict, they piss off conservatives who want to keep him in office. When the opinion of the base is wildly at odds with the rest of the country, you can’t placate everyone you need to placate in order to win.

  5. 5.

    hilts

    So Where’s Your Tipping Point, Repubs?

    The Republicans in the House and Senate are the biggest bunch of bed wetting and nail biting cowards we’ve ever seen so I expect them to stick with Trumpenstein till the bitter end.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    From this past May (WaPo link):

    At Doral, which Trump has listed in federal disclosures as his biggest moneymaker hotel, room rates, banquets, golf and overall revenue were all down since 2015. In two years, the resort’s net operating income — a key figure, representing the amount left over after expenses are paid — had fallen by 69 percent.
    [snip]
    …This is also the first known case in which a Trump Organization representative has publicly acknowledged the president’s name has hurt business.

    The decline at Doral is especially significant because the resort had seemed better insulated from political backlash than other Trump properties, protected by its place in golf’s history, by its recent renovations, and by its location in a booming state that Trump won in 2016.

    It wasn’t.
    [snip]
    To explain the declines at Doral, the Trump Organization issued a statement to The Washington Post that implicitly contradicted its own tax consultant and blamed factors that had nothing to do with Trump’s name. The company cited fears of the Zika virus in 2016, and hurricanes in 2016 and 2017, for driving tourists away from South Florida.

    But the statistics provided by the company’s consultants to Miami-Dade County — which are legally required to be accurate — showed competing resorts in the same region of Florida still outperformed the Trump resort in the key metrics of room occupancy and average room rate.
    [snip]
    In 2016, Cadillac — the main sponsor of Doral’s big tournament — pulled out.

    “The problem that the tour had was that we couldn’t find a replacement for Cadillac. So we had to move the tournament,” Butch Buchholz, who served as chairman of the golf tournament, called the World Golf Championships, said in an interview this year. “If they could have found a sponsor, they would — I believe — still be playing there.”

    They didn’t find another sponsor. The tournament moved to Mexico.
    [snip]
    …the Trump Organization representative, showed the magistrate how the resort’s occupancy rate was 53 percent in 2017, compared with 77 percent for competing resorts in the area, even though the company had reduced rates dramatically to encourage guests to book rooms.…
    [snip]
    Though the resort is still profitable, its net operating income shrank from $13.8 million to $4.3 million during that period, the documents show.

    The effort worked: After [the Trump Organization] presentation, the magistrate lowered the assessed value from $110.3 million to $105.6 million. The change lowered Trump’s annual tax bills by about $80,000. Source

  7. 7.

    Keith P.

    I’m just conditioned to be cynical, but I still think that when impeachment goes to the Senate, McConnell pulls a switcheroo and calls for an immediate up or down vote and count on the GOP holding before any Senators get to personally see evidence.

  10. 10.

    jl

    To the extent that Trump is operating out of any neuronal activity outside his brain stem, maybe he figures as long as he’s getting impeached, why not commit all the crimes. Trumps wants the biggest, the best, the most terrific, beautiful impeachment ever. No impeachment can be better than the Trump impeachment.

    Edit: which would be bad for the GOP, since Trump sees himself as being on a pretty impressive roll.

  11. 11.

    cain

    @Roger Moore:

    The problem is that there’s no right way for Republicans to vote on impeachment. If they vote to acquit, they piss off moderates who think Trump is guilty as sin. If they vote to convict, they piss off conservatives who want to keep him in office. When the opinion of the base is wildly at odds with the rest of the country, you can’t placate everyone you need to placate in order to win.

    Thoughts and prayers.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Keith P.: So then we call him Kangaroo McConnell then?

    Seriously, that happening would mean that McConnell should literally wipe his ass with the original copy of the Constitution.

  13. 13.

    Origuy

    @Keith P.: Is that even up to McConnell? The Constitution says that the Chief Justice presides over the Senate in a Presidential impeachment trial. I don’t trust Roberts either, but would he play games with the process?

  14. 14.

    Millard Filmore

    @Joey Maloney:

    Moscow Mitch can let nearly all of them vote for conviction to placate their constituents, and still have the Senate acquit.

    Trump won’t tolerate that. Democrats can shout about Trump’s evil things all they want but Republicans MUST stay loyal.

  15. 15.

    NotMax

    @Joey Maloney

    If/when more can be pried from the materials wrongly put into the double super secret server, that is highly subject to change. McConnell knows full well that stash is a parallel to Nixon’s tapes, thus his call to rush things.

  16. 16.

    Eljai

    @JoyceH: I sure hope you’re right! The republicans deserve to be punished for enabling this dangerous traitor. With this G7-Doral business, it’s like he’s just taunting us now. I want that walking orange carbuncle held to account and I want to watch as every one of his lickspittle toadies swirls down the drain with him.

  17. 17.

    jl

    @Origuy: We have to hope that Roberts considers Trump icky, recalls that Trump has gotten most of what the US oligarchs want already, and it will soil his precious self-conceived historical legacy. I think Roberts legacy is already a very discrete and polite dumpster fire. But I probably have different standards than Roberts, like issuing important rulings that make sense rather than rely almost entirely on motivated reasoning.

  19. 19.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    Saw an “Anti-Impeachment Rally” today at my local GOP county HQ. A bunch of white people, none younger than age 50, holding dumb Trump signs in a plaza parking lot along a four lane road. The assholes were standing right along the shoulder, almost leaning into the cars that would go by. I flipped them off and that made me feel pretty good : )

    These things are totally astroturfed by the national GOP. The event was affiliated with http://www.stopthemadness.com. It’s pretty pitiful, the case for impeachment is so obvious and strong

  21. 21.

    Jager

    I was transferred to my company’s corporate office in South Florida, I lived there for three years, South Florida is really shitty in the summer, a round of golf that costs $100 bucks in the winter is damn near free middays in the summer, walking from your car to the office soaks your shirt, not to mention your underwear. It’s miserable. Doral, like most of South Florida, is built on a damn swamp, its a hot, humid, nasty place in the summer. I’ll bet the trump org is going to discount winter room rates for the G7, not summer rates. I’ll bet the chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream will sell for 25 bucks and god knows how fucking much they’ll charge for a well-done steak. Ketchup extra.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    @jl

    Want a real nightmare scenario? (cue The Twilight Zone music)

    Suppose Roberts cooks up some arcane reason to announce he’s recusing himself and is temporarily stepping aside. Who’s got the most seniority among the other justices?

    Clarence Thomas.

  23. 23.

    Joey Maloney

    Don’t forget those Senators don’t have to actually win their elections. They just have to get the count close enough to steal. And the gap that counts as “close enough” seems to be widening.

    Yes, I’m Eeoreing today.

  25. 25.

    Cacti

    Aside from removing Trump from office, which may or may not happen, impeachment by the House needs to be timed to kick it over to the Senate when it will do the maximum possible political and electoral damage to the GOP.

  28. 28.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Joey Maloney:

    They just have to get the count close enough to steal. And the gap that counts as “close enough” seems to be widening.

    How sustainable do you think that is?

  30. 30.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @mrmoshpotato:
    Exactly like the Tea Party. Many of the Tea Party-types that got elected in the 2010 GOP wave and are currently in Trump’s admin, like Mulvaney and Pompeo and others still in Congress like Meadows have shown themselves to be utter fascist traitors. It’s rich, given the group’s name

  32. 32.

    Kent

    At this point I think the best move for the GOP would be to force Trump to declare he wasn’t running for re-election. He could go out a winner and say he’s achieved what he set out to achieve and any other bullshit he wants to say. I’m willing to bet that McConnell would absolutely cut a deal with Trump to protect him from impeachment if he declares he is not running for re-election. And pretty much ALL the GOP in the Senate would jump at the chance to vote to acquit if the knew he was going to be gone in Jan 2021. That would basically give them their cover for voting to acquit.

    It is frankly the least bad alternative for the GOP. The instant that Trump declares he isn’t running for reelection the field is opened wide for the 2020 GOP primaries and all the old time GOP folk are all instantly back in business. And the wind would really get taken out of the Dem sails in terms of pursing impeachment and all the other investigations like the taxes as he would be a premature lame duck. And without Trump on the ticket suddenly the prospect for the GOP looks brighter in 2020. Especially if they can find someone new. I don’t know who that would be. Probably a governor to be honest.

    Getting impeached, acquitted, and then losing in 2020 is a worse scenario for the GOP as is getting removed from office or resigning and having Pence in the oval office whom I guessing is no particularly well liked or admired in the GOP.

    Their previous best case scenario might have been having Trump defeat impeachment and then go on to win in 2020 but I gotta think there are a growing number of GOPers in power who are coming to dread that scenario the most. A second term Trump who defeated impeachment would be terrifying for the whole planet.

    Only way this happens is if the GOP Senate meets with Trump in private and tells him the only way he escapes getting convicted and removed from office is if he declares himself a one term president and spends 2020 doing a victory lap of MAGA rallies while the rest of the country moves on and some younger fresh faced GOP-er tees up against Warren and makes the press all giddy about a “new leaf” for the GOP.

  34. 34.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Kent: You paint a terrifying set of scenarios there, my friend. I don’t know whether to be terrified or thankful, that Don Bedsore is the world’s biggest narcissist, and hence would never quit except under insane duress, and even then pulling the entire house down around him. Don’t know whether to be terrified, or thankful.

  36. 36.

    eclare

    @NotMax: After what Dump pulled in NYC regarding his properties, fudging his numbers lower to pay lower real estate taxes, I’m not sure how truthful this is. Last sentence says as a result the assessment was lowered.

  37. 37.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Joey Maloney:
    My point is that people will only put up with that shit for so long, particularly if they notice their lives getting progressively worse

  38. 38.

    cain

    @Kent:
    he will never go for that. Plus he’s committed crimes, all his people have. They will be in jail. No.. the scenario they need to do is get Trump convicted, and then have Pence pardon all of Trump’s underlings and the Trump folks go to jail. They’ll have to sit out the following elections, but it was going to be a shit show anyways. They can instead try to protect the Senate and then snipe at Democrats for the next two years and not pass anything just like last time.
    Unless of course, a lot of those Senate people are flushed with Russian money and this whole thing uncovers them too.

  39. 39.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Joey Maloney:

    up until dissolution of the nation and/or bloody revolution

    The federal tax system relies on voluntary compliance — if a nontrivial percentage of taxpayers simply refused to comply, the whole damn thing woudl break down. If these fuckers keep going, the states can and should start making it possible for their residents to pay their state taxes and avoid paying their federal taxes.

    That’s another way this can break down. Yeah, it involves lots of straight-up defiance, but if things keep going like this [knock wood hope not] that sort of defiance will be the least of the federal government’s problems.

  40. 40.

    Wapiti

    There’s a clause in the Constitution that says the President cannot accept emoluments from foreign governments without the approval of Congress. I think Nancy Speaker Pelosi should have a vote on this now, stating that Congress does not approve of this emolument and that if Trump holds the G7 at his resort, he cannot collect money from any foreign government or official. They’re already writing in language to spending bills that he can’t spend US money, so build on that.

  41. 41.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @NotMax:
    Yeah double checked it. Could’ve sworn Mnuchin was Tea Partier, but I might have confused him with Mulvaney. Similar looking douchy white guys with similar last names

  42. 42.

    Kent

    @Chetan Murthy: I don’t know. Makes the most sense to me. If Trump resigns or is removed from office prior to 2020 they are basically stuck with Pence who is a dud and damaged goods. Zero chance they remove Pence and put Pelosi in the oval office.

    If Trump loses the election he brings the rest of the party down around him by sucking all the oxygen out of every other race and the negative coattails.

    If Trump wins in 2020 we are are all fucking doomed including the GOP and I think they are starting to realize that with the recent Turkey fiasco.

    The most logical way to thread the needle is to unplug impeachment by declaring Trump a one term presidency and then immediately get around to the business of building a post-Trump GOP.

    Tell me how I’m wrong. Doesn’t mean they will actually do it. But it makes the most sense to me and would probably be the worst case scenario for the Dems keeping the House and retaking the Senate if the GOP is all full of post-Trump energy in the 2020 elections and the media is hell bent on giving all the new GOP faces a honeymoon.

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    There are two probably overlapping but quantifiable slices of the populace who will believe

    a) if things are getting worse, it’s because conservatives haven’t gone far enough
    b) if things are getting worse, it’s okay so long as ‘those others’ are suffering even more.

  45. 45.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @NotMax:
    But those people aren’t the majority and others will become fed up with them. Americans aren’t any different fundamentally from anyone else on the planet. There’s always a breaking point

  46. 46.

    Kent

    @cain: The Senate could force him to declare himself a one term President if his only other alternative was impeachment and conviction. But it would take 20 GOP Senators to get in his face and tell him that was what was happening. I don’t think they have the cojones. There is no scenario where impeachment and conviction/removal and President Pence is their best play going into 2020.

    Is it likely to happen? I doubt it. Amost certainly not for the reason you say and the total craven-ness of today’s GOP. But I do think it would be their best play.

  47. 47.

    TS (the original)

    @NotMax:

    Suppose Roberts cooks up some arcane reason to announce he’s recusing himself

    He is way too proud of self and position to do this. He wants to be running the show.

  48. 48.

    Kent

    @NotMax:

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    There are two probably overlapping but quantifiable slices of the populace who will believe

    a) if things are getting worse, it’s because conservatives haven’t gone far enough
    b) if things are getting worse, it’s okay so long as ‘those others’ are suffering even more.

    Frankly I think the bigger slice of the population are those who despite all evidence to the contrary, refuse to believe their lying eyes that things are getting worse becuase all they watch and read is Fox News and Evangelical right wing media like Pat Robertson. I’m related to folk like that.

  50. 50.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @TS (the original):
    @NotMax:

    Suppose Roberts cooks up some arcane reason to announce he’s recusing himself and is temporarily stepping aside. Who’s got the most seniority among the other justices?

    Also, could he even do this? How would that even work? How would the Surpeme Court decide this when itself is involved? Such a move is completely outside the Constitution as written. When it was written, the Framers never expected such a thing to happen

  52. 52.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @NotMax:
    Absolutely. When they’re relatively free and fair. Let me be clear: violence scares the hell out of me and it’s not something I want to see happen. I vastly prefer elections to revolution

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Strictly theoretically, he could claim a sudden health emergency is forcing him to temporarily relinquish the Chief Justice position, in which case the justice with the most seniority essentially serves as Acting Chief Justice. (N.B.: IANAL.)

    Put it out there as a thought exercise, primarily.

  54. 54.

    Redshift

    @Kent: The stumbling block for any clever plan involving Trump, such as having him agree not to run for reelection, is that it would only work if they could count on him not to renege for a year, and no one can count on him not reneging in anything after a day.

    Also there are the statutes of limitation that won’t run out of he’s not reelected…

  56. 56.

    jl

    @Kent: ” The most logical way to thread the needle is to unplug impeachment by declaring Trump a one term presidency”

    How would the GOP do that? Especially since the GOP has cancelled almost 40 state primaries. The crooked party organizations, national and state, have already paved the way for a coronation as nominee. What levers do they have? They would have to go into full reverse and cook up a new crooked fix to deny Trump the party nomination. And I say ‘crooked’ not in the sense that it would be a bad thing, I hope it can happen somehow, but in the sense that I think extremely likely that the vast majority of GOP primary voters want Trump, no matter what enormities he’s committed.

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    @NotMax:

    Strictly theoretically, he could claim a sudden health emergency is forcing him to temporarily relinquish the Chief Justice position, in which case the justice with the most seniority essentially serves as Acting Chief Justice. (N.B.: IANAL.)

    Which would be Clarence Thomas.

    Wouldn’t that be a hoot.

  58. 58.

    Redshift

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: In past instances, the Chief Justice didn’t act as a trial judge (since it’s not really a judicial trial), instead essentially just ruling on procedural questions. The Senate makes the rules for the trial; there’s a very limited amount the CJ can just do.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Just for the record, unemployment by 1933 (remember that at that time the inauguration still took place in the month of March following a presidential election) had reached ~25%, and was ~24% in 1932, when FDR first won election. (Source)

  61. 61.

    TS (the original)

    @Kent:

    Frankly I think the bigger slice of the population are those who despite all evidence to the contrary, refuse to believe their lying eyes that things are getting worse becuase all they watch and read is Fox News and Evangelical right wing media like Pat Robertson. I’m related to folk like that

    .

    Given that trump’s approval rarely seems to go below 40% & the impeachment polls show 90%+ of republicans against – I do wonder if the number of republicans is decreasing. Trump was mightily upset about the % GOP in the latest fox news poll – but maybe there are so many more who identify as democrats.

    We hear too much about the deplorables and why they will support trump forever, I do believe their numbers are reducing.

  62. 62.

    Kent

    @jl:

    @Kent: ” The most logical way to thread the needle is to unplug impeachment by declaring Trump a one term presidency”

    How would the GOP do that? Especially since the GOP has cancelled almost 40 state primaries. The crooked party organizations, national and state, have already paved the way for a coronation as nominee. What levers do they have? They would have to go into full reverse and cook up a new crooked fix to deny Trump the party nomination. And I say ‘crooked’ not in the sense that it would be a bad thing, I hope it can happen somehow, but in the sense that I think extremely likely that the vast majority of GOP primary voters want Trump, no matter what enormities he’s committed.

    It would take 20 GOP Senators to meet with Trump closed doors and tell him to his face that they only way they vote to acquit is if he declares that he isn’t running again in 2020. That they will only have his back if he declares himself a one-term president and then gets out of the way in 2020. Would he go for it? Who the hell knows. I frankly think he is miserable and would jump at the chance to spend 2020 doing a MAGA victory lap and do the whole Bush “Mission Acomplished” thing.

    How does he get out of legal jeopardy post-2020? Nothing stops him from pardoning himself and everyone around him on January 19, 2021 as his last act of office. SCOTUS would almost certainly uphold those sorts of blanket pardons. Why wouldn’t they.

    As for how all the state parties get back in business for the 2020 GOP open primaries? A shorter time frame actually works to the advantage of the GOP hierarchy as it would be much easier to annoint their chosen successor and it would leave all the outsiders less time to raise money and mount a campaign. Back room deals is what they do. The Kochs and Adlesons and their insiders like McConnell probably already know who they’d want in Trump’s place. Someone like Kasich or Romney who isn’t tainted by Trump and is a mainstream predictable business-friendly GOP-er with some level of national appeal.

    Not going to happen. Because Trump is Trump and they are all craven assholes. But I do think it is their best play.

  65. 65.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t hate Australia. I hate Captain Kangaroo. Wait! I mean kangaroo courts run by Captain Kangaroo. Wait, no. I really should go to bed. :)

  66. 66.

    sm*t cl*de

    @NotMax:

    a) if things are getting worse, it’s because conservatives haven’t gone far enough
    b) if things are getting worse, it’s okay so long as ‘those others’ are suffering even more.

    Things have been getting worse since Reagan screwed the pooch and the popular response is to feel nostalgic for Reagan.

  67. 67.

    Kent

    @TS (the original):

    Given that trump’s approval rarely seems to go below 40% & the impeachment polls show 90%+ of republicans against – I do wonder if the number of republicans is decreasing. Trump was mightily upset about the % GOP in the latest fox news poll – but maybe there are so many more who identify as democrats.

    We hear too much about the deplorables and why they will support trump forever, I do believe their numbers are reducing.

    I frankly think the percentage who are hard-core highly political GOP Trump die-hards is pretty low. I expect a whole buch of his MAGA base are just ordinary folk who happen to fall into the MAGA tribe because of class, race, religion, and geography and support him mostly for tribal reasons but don’t really follow politics that closely or even give that much of a shit about politics one way or the other. I’m related to folks like this. They are natural Trump supporters but frankly don’t pay much attention to any of this so are basically soft habitutual GOP voters and potentially open to rejecting Trump if it finally becomes the popular thing to do.

  69. 69.

    Kent

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Trump is loosing touch with reality. Promise him that they will clear the GOP field and put Ivanka in line for a Senate Seat in New York to replace Chuck Schumer as the first step in her rise the presidency. With his ego he might even buy it!

  72. 72.

    mrmoshpotato

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: ? To hell with you for even jokingly taking that out of context.

    Oh, and Matt Gaetz probably hates Captain Kangaroo, since he seems to think a kids show had kangaroo courts.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Seemed to be on the radio every friggin’ time one turned it on at the time. #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., #1 on the MOR rankings for three weeks.

    Had completely excised from the mind how absolutely ugly one verse is.

    The fourth verse caused some controversy in 1964 because of its use of the word “Abo”, an offensive slang term for Aboriginal Australians. The lyrics of this verse (not found on Rolf Harris’s official website) were as follows:

    Let me Abos go loose, Lou
    Let me Abos go loose:
    They’re of no further use, Lou
    So let me Abos go loose.

    The stockman thus emancipates his indigenous offsiders at his death, when they are “of no further use” to him. This verse does not feature in 21st-century versions of the song and, in a 2006 interview, Harris expressed regret about the racist nature of the original lyrics. Source

  87. 87.

    Amir Khalid

    @Cacti:
    I disagree. The impeachment process should focus solely on protecting the republic from this president. Doing it the way you suggest, for the reasons you give, offers free justification to anyone in the future who wants to use impeachment for partisan ends, which will harm the process itself and its usefulness.

  88. 88.

    BlueDWarrior

    Boy one of my Trumper co-workers was telling me about how holding the G7 @ Doral was totally not a problem.

    I bypassed the argument about the illegality of it because he believes that if someone he like does it, then it’s fine. And attacked on the fact that it’s a second rate luxury resort that supposed to host negotiations for the seven (of the) richest nations on earth.

    His response – basically that Trump would never build a second rate facility because he’s worth so much money. When I pointed out that was a dumb argument because you have dozens of owners of hotel chains worth more than Trump that’d be 2 star at best, his counter was “But the Trump name, though…”

    He’s basically one of those people who’ve wrapped up thier self-worth in the image of Trump the Bronze God and will suffer no arguments to the contrary.

    Just damn strange…

  93. 93.

    Aleta

    I hope relatives of these Rs donate their brains to science so we can study how they lived with themselves.

  95. 95.

    Sloane Ranger

    @NotMax: Rolf Harris was convicted in 2014, I think, of several sexual assaults on underage girls which took place during the 1970’s/1980’s. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison. So, not a nice person.

    In terms of the GOP doing a deal and getting Trump to stand down at the end of his term, Trump will be telling everyone this is fake news within 24 hours and, if all else fails, running as an independent. He has money already raised plus the Presidential pulpit to make a viable run.

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sloane Ranger:

    In terms of the GOP doing a deal and getting Trump to stand down at the end of his term, Trump will be telling everyone this is fake news within 24 hours and, if all else fails, running as an independent. He has money already raised plus the Presidential pulpit to make a viable run.

    Thereby splitting the Republican/conservative vote and guaranteeing a DEM administration in the White House.

    I don’t see the Repubs allowing this. Impeachment and removal would be preferable.

  98. 98.

    Amir Khalid

    @Sloane Ranger:
    Running for POTUS as an independent is going to be difficult. If I recall, only George Washington ever won the presidency as an independent; but he did it before either the Democratic party or the Republican party existed. Trump hinted in 2016 that he might do it, but in the end he didn’t need to.

  100. 100.

    rikyrah

    @Sloane Ranger:
    No. Running as an Independent is expensive. You have to pay for yourself to get on the ballot. He is not going to pay that kind of money. And, the rubes aren’t rich enough to find him..

  102. 102.

    Central Planning

    @Kent:

    … vote to acquit is if he declares that he isn’t running again in 2020. That they will only have his back if he declares himself a one-term president

    How would they trust trump to keep his word? He says he’s a one-termer, gets acquitted, and then says everyone wants him to run again.

    I just can’t wrap my head around why the republicans can’t do what’s right for the country, and the Constitution.

    I think a good troll would be to translate the Constitution to Russian and then send copies to all the republicans.

  103. 103.

    TS (the original)

    @Central Planning:

    I just can’t wrap my head around why the republicans can’t do what’s right for the country, and the Constitution

    tax reduction and judicial appointments. If there is another death on the SCOTUS & McConnell gets another RWAH on there – he will then give up on trump. Not before.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    Trump’s level of public support has still not wavered outside of the same narrow band it’s been in since spring 2018. All that’s happening is that people who didn’t like him in the first place are coming to support his impeachment and conviction. That’s starkly different from the situation with Nixon, for instance– at the corresponding point in Watergate, Nixon’s popular support was plummeting from a broad majority down to the twenties. Now, the tribes are set and we’re all fighting over inches of territory, even with everything that’s happened.

    In that situation I don’t see any incentive for Republicans to break with Trump. A few may go down with him, but the primary hit they’d take for turning is bigger.

    Trump will be impeached. He will not be convicted and will not resign. They’re all in. They’re going to bet on all of this backfiring on Democrats when the party-line vote goes down and Trump claims total vindication. And it might, judging from the Mueller story.

  105. 105.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Central Planning:

    I just can’t wrap my head around why the republicans can’t do what’s right for the country, and the Constitution.

    Doing what’s right for the country and the Constitution would mean the end of their Senate majority, any chance at a House majority, and any chance at the Presidency for some time to come. (reason being, they brought the beast of trumpism into existence long before trump was a candidate, they daren’t turn their backs on it) They would end up wandering the desert for 40 years in search of a Moses that could lead them to political relevancy..

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kent:

    If Trump wins in 2020 we are are all fucking doomed including the GOP and I think they are starting to realize that with the recent Turkey fiasco.

    The only Republicans who even think there’s a problem are a tiny group of elites and insiders. Everyone else is either all in for Trump or doesn’t care. It’s all fake news and irrelevant background chatter to them. They probably can’t be convinced until it affects them directly, most likely through an economic collapse (and of course the true believer core will hang on even through that).

  108. 108.

    John S.

    @BlueDWarrior:

    Trump Doral is everything you folks expect it to be. Tacky, obnoxious, overrated. I had a client drag our group there a couple years ago, and it was atrocious.

    The entire clubhouse is decked out in overt homages to Trump, including fake “Time Man of the Year” framed images. The disposable hand towels in the restrooms have cheap Trump monograms in them. They charge $20 to park WITH validation. Not valet, just plain old parking. Everything is covered in tacky gold. And their “famous” steakhouse is total rubbish. The mixed drinks were awful, the food was mediocre, and of course everything is WAY overpriced.

    There is no way in hell that any world leader, or anyone who isn’t a loyal worshiper in the Cult of Trump, is going to be impressed by Trump Doral.

  109. 109.

    Chris Johnson

    @rikyrah:

    No. Running as an Independent is expensive. You have to pay for yourself to get on the ballot. He is not going to pay that kind of money. And, the rubes aren’t rich enough to find him..

    He doesn’t HAVE money, at all. It’s all Russian money. Damn right Russia would fund him, unless they have a better operative becoming the Republican nominee.

    None of this is about ‘rubes’, never has been. It’s about oligarchs meddling in elections. Rubes are completely useless to these people.

  112. 112.

    Matt McIrvin

    Ingraham believes it’s OK to take bribes as long as you’re not turning a net profit.

  113. 113.

    Ken

    I think it’s not so much where is the tipping point, but when. Ten minutes after the primary results are announced, for example.

  115. 115.

    SFAW

    @TS (the original):

    He is way too proud of self and position to do this. He wants to be running the show.

    Or, he will, until Dmitri and Andrei show up at his door, to have “a little chat” with him, explain why doing so might lead to certain undesirable outcomes.

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