Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

“But what about the lurkers?”

In after Baud. Damn.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

People are weird.

Bark louder, little dog.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Monday Morning Open Thread: Everybody’s Talkin’ Bout It

Monday Morning Open Thread: Everybody’s Talkin’ Bout It

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ICYMI:


Sanders-sympathetic reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, at the libertarian-owned Atlantic, “Nobody Talks About Impeachment on the Campaign Trail”:

… It’s not that the candidates are going easy on the president. They appear to hate Trump and everything he stands for. The most cynical view is that candidates are making a brute-force political calculation, allowing others to speak up so that they can avoid risk. But Pete Buttigieg claims at least part of what’s going on is that candidates, like everyone else, can’t quite wrap their head around everything happening. “On some level, you could say that the stakes right now, the level of crisis we’re facing, is so great that it’s almost impossible to speak to it through a traditional political process like a campaign,” Buttigieg told me in South Carolina last weekend. “In many ways, we may yet be underreacting.”

It’s not that the candidates are going easy on the president. They appear to hate Trump and everything he stands for. The most cynical view is that candidates are making a brute-force political calculation, allowing others to speak up so that they can avoid risk. But Pete Buttigieg claims at least part of what’s going on is that candidates, like everyone else, can’t quite wrap their head around everything happening. “On some level, you could say that the stakes right now, the level of crisis we’re facing, is so great that it’s almost impossible to speak to it through a traditional political process like a campaign,” Buttigieg told me in South Carolina last weekend. “In many ways, we may yet be underreacting.”…

Somehow, [Rhode Island’s governor & the chair of the Democratic Governors Association Gina] Raimondo said, Democrats are expected to say that Trump has committed impeachable offenses and that they’re on board with how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving through the process, and also to not say anything about impeachment at all. The hyper-engaged and serious-minded may find this hard to accept, but even with every day’s news out of the White House seeming like a point-by-point rebuttal to The Federalist Papers, most Americans still see the chaos of the moment as another case of politicians in Washington fighting with one another—like when the Tasmanian Devil used to spin off in whirlwinds of fury while the rest of the Looney Tunes characters looked on.

“Lots of people are struggling in America,” Raimondo said. “Don’t tell them Trump’s bad—they know that. What are you going to do about it? If you’re going to tell people what’s good for them and what they should be concerned about, and not what they are concerned about, I don’t think you’re going to do very well.”…

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  2. 2.

    mrmoshpotato

    From RadioFreeTom’s tweet: WATCH: Trump slams impeachment as an “attack on democracy itself” during rally

    Hot. Damn. The bedrock of our democratic republic (the Constitution from which impeachment comes) is an attack on our democratic republic itself. Is that a mindfuck, or is Dump’s mind just fucked?

  3. 3.

    pat

    Does anyone have any idea why suddenly I can’t get BJ on Firefox but it is available on Google Chrome? I have windows 10 and I think Firefox (which I have always used) did some update just before this happened.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @pat: I use firefox and am having no problems. It updated either yesterday or the day before. Also have Windows 10. For whatever that’s worth.

  6. 6.

    Chris T.

    @pat: I had Firefox go a little bit crazy on me on Sunday. I had to disable NoScript, then re-enable it, after which it was happy. No idea why, or whether this relates to your issue.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    Kamala is on the attack and the target is trump. I want to see more of that from the rest of the candidates.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    The hyper-engaged and serious-minded may find this hard to accept, but even with every day’s news out of the White House seeming like a point-by-point rebuttal to The Federalist Papers, most Americans still see the chaos of the moment as another case of politicians in Washington fighting with one another

    I’m so old I remember when the People were demanding impeachment or they wouldn’t be inspired to come out to vote for us.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: Totally ignoring the first half of an amendment is not respect. It’s twisting it into something the lobbyists can make money off of.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: Because once somebody else steps forward, it becomes easier for a 2nd and then a 3rd, and a 4th, 5th, 6th… to step up.

    @WereBear:

    Invitations from the kitten to get up and play should be met with a ploy I call Hug Monster. Oh, they are waking us up for hugs! No? Well, hugs are what they are getting. All other responses will mere encourage the kitten.

    Heh. Miss Kitty does not like me. She doesn’t dislike me, I feed her after all, but she would have nothing to do with me if it was left up to her. Mrs OHB? She utterly adores. Whenever Miss Kitty wants something she will meow until she gets it. If we can’t figure out what she wants, which is about half the damn time, she will keep the complaining until I give up and become the Hug Monster.
    “Oh poor poor little Miss Kitty. Nobody loves you, here I’ll give you some lovin’s…”
    She’ll put up with it for about 15-20 seconds after which she realizes she is NOT getting whatever she wants, that she is in fact going to be suffocated in my arms if she does not exit stage right, post haste.

    And then she’s quiet.

  21. 21.

    Butter Emails

    @Baud:

    I’m so old I remember when the People were demanding impeachment or they wouldn’t be inspired to come out to vote for us.

    And the the White House and its Sycophants would totally start following the law and start showing up for impeachment hearings, providing documents, etc.

  23. 23.

    pat

    @Amir Khalid:

    Thanks. As long as google chrome works, I’ll be fine. When we get home (I’m in Austria now) I’ll take the computer to the computer guys who will probably be able to fix it.

    If Google Chrome stops working for BJ, I will be very very sad!

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    @Amir Khalid:
    Sorry, should have mentioned that No-Script disables Javascript which some sites use for certain functions but can slow your PC down.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Amir Khalid: I have no idea what it is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have it. Hmmmm… that doesn’t sound very good now that I wrote that.

  26. 26.

    Jinchi

    Stock Market up BIG! Record highs for S&P 500 and NASDAQ. Enjoy!

    For all his bragging about the stock market, the one historical event I can clearly pick out on the dow jones average is the day he announced his trade war with China. Stocks went up 7000 points in his first year in office. Then he decided winning trade wars was easy. They’ve moved a total of 400 points since.

  27. 27.

    David ??Booooooo?? Koch

    @Quinerly: I always thought that really weird. in the middle of a campaign the top 2 lieutenants of the campaign fly half way around the world to hang out with Wendi Deng. Made no sense at all. At the time the public wasn’t aware of Putin’s rat fucking. But now it all adds up.

  30. 30.

    Immanentize

    Blech plus Blech times Blech. My cold has entered the stage where my cough sounds like honking geese flying south for the winter.

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    @Jinchi:
    This is the truth about the Trump market. Once the Obama economy finished its cycle, stocks have been in a narrow band of small losses and small gains. I’m glad it is not tanking. I want to retire someday. But it is just a volotile, yet steady, market

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jinchi:

    Stocks went up 7000 points in his first year in office.

    That was the sugar high all the MBAs were feeling now that they finally had a “true, died in the wool man who knows about business gonna give us our long overdue tax cut” in the White House. Then reality set in.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:

    Blech plus Blech times Blech.

    Is that 2 x Blech^2 or Blech^2 + Blech? I can never remember how order of operations is supposed to work.

  36. 36.

    Ramiah Ariya

    I was looking for an open thread to put this. Back in 2012 I wrote a novel named “The Exorcism of Sathish Kumar, MBA” set in Chennai, India. The plot started with an American hedgefund betting on high oil prices; finds that the oil prices are going south; and deciding to launch a computer virus (similar to Stuxnet) on the hardware controllers in Saudi oil refineries. The virus is, of course, developed in Chennai, from which the story spirals into a secret with Wikileaks, Anonymous, and a bunch of sorcerers being engaged to mess with the brain of a CEO. It was great fun writing it and it was published on my first try by Westland Publishers in India. It did not sell many copies and I did not promote it either, but:
    It appears at least part of this is happening right now according to a Vanity Fair article, which says someone is betting on the decisions taken by Donald Trump and making money out of it (vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/the-mystery-of-the-trump-chaos-trades). Therefore, this comment is just to say that my story went there first.
    You can find my book in amazon.com here: amazon.com/EXORCISM-SATHISH-KUMAR-MBA-ebook/dp/B00K5MAQVQ

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Missouri senators expected to hold lengthy hearing Monday about increasing gun violence

    U-S Attorney Tim Garrison has noted that St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield are three of the top 15 most violent cities in the nation, on a per capita basis

    Hmmmm, I wonder what these 3 cities have in common? No, it ain;t black folks.

    Republicans have a 4-3 majority on the committee, and State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, has praised Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, R-Sullivan, for forming the committee. She hopes it will come up with a blueprint to reduce the violence.

    I am not near as hopeful as the right honorable Ms Nasheed because I really doubt Republicans are going to step anywhere near the largest and most glaring commonality these 3 cities share: The fact that anyone, at anytime, and damned near anywhere, carry a firearm either openly or concealed without being subject to any kind of regulation. That I am sure will be found to have nothing to do with it.

  40. 40.

    pat

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The fact that anyone, at anytime, and damned near anywhere, carry a firearm either openly or concealed without being subject to any kind of regulation.

    Well the headline did say they were going to talk about “increasing gun violence.” So that ought to help. ;-)

  42. 42.

    Joey Maloney

    @pat: I’m overseas, and I was having problems with the BJ site last week, where a bunch of the included files from other domains (like script files and ad code) wouldn’t load. On some browsers the site wouldn’t load at all, while on others it would load sort of but be totally broken.

    I fixed it by turning on a VPN with endpoint in the USA. Once I had copies of all those included files in my browser cache, I could turn off the VPN and then the site worked fine.

    For what it’s worth.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @pat:

    I had issues with Chrome over the weekend. They had just updated. Hope it fixes itself soon. It was like I was back on dial-up, waiting, waiting, waiting…

  45. 45.

    oldster

    Why aren’t people booing Drump on Twitter?

    From that NYT article, I got the idea that whatever people tweet to his @-handle shows up on his feed.

    So why isn’t everyone just pounding him with 248-chatacters worth of “boo” and “boo you loser” all day?

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A new report by Georgetown University says an estimated 83,000 Missouri children were uninsured in 2018, an increase of about 17 percent since 2016.

    The report says the factors are efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid; delays in funding the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); elimination of the individual mandate penalty; cuts to enrollment outreach and advertising; inadequate oversight over state Medicaid – fear and confusion for immigrant families that discourages them from enrolling eligible children in Medicaid or CHIP.

    Also too:

    “If you had children and they qualified for Medicaid, when you went to the health exchange online, you were required to put your children on Medicaid and not on your health insurance policy,” he says. “So, we saw an increase of about 120,000 individuals on Medicaid through that time frame from 2014-2016. About 83% to 85% of those were children.”

    In 2017, President Donald Trump repealed the requirement. Wood says starting this year, the penalty went away.

    I wonder which Republican genius put that piece of paper in front of trump to sign?

  54. 54.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Butter Emails:

    And the the White House and its Sycophants would totally start following the law and start showing up for impeachment hearings, providing documents, etc.

    Nah, just that we could have been where we are now six months ago, and then the Ukraine business would have been a “holy shit, this is even bigger” moment on top of that.

  55. 55.

    CliosFanboy

    early in the 2016 campaign that yoyo from “Project Veritas” tried to set up the Clinton campaign by posing as a Canadian trying to buy a Clinton for President t-shirt at a rally. The idea was this would be “foreign aid” to her campaign./. it fizzled because it was idiotic. But now they think foreign aid is fine.

    for the repuks, there is no bottom.

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @Baud:
    Oh Baud, don’t you see that the earliest “Impeach Now” argument was always and will always be the best argument eveh! No denying it! Absolutely right right right!

    And if Pelosi had impeached before she was speaker, the subpoenas would have instantly been honored and we would all get raises.

  62. 62.

    droog

    @mrmoshpotato:
    I haven’t seen any number-crunching or research but from daily reading of news I’m farily certain that Trump using the word democracy is a tell. When he is riding high (or if he thinks he is) then it’s all about him. “Democracy” only comes into his vocabulary when he is losing. He used the word briefly in 2016 at a point when things weren’t going well for him, and then again in 2018 when the blue pickups started to pile on.

  63. 63.

    zzyzx

    I’m with Baud. If we had tried to impeach over the Mueller report, it would have backfired, mainly because it involved reading a really long, really dry 400 page document that even the diehards here were struggling with, and – at best? worst? which way to phrase? – had a vague, “Well I can’t say that we have no evidence he committed a crime as the smoking gun.”

    This Ukraine scandal is easy to explain, happened when he was in office, and the president handed us an admission of guilt. Even still, the country is split here. If this isn’t giving 70/30 majorities, no way the Russian scandal penetrates outside those of us who wanted Trump gone already.

  64. 64.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:

    I’m so old I remember when the People were demanding impeachment or they wouldn’t be inspired to come out to vote for us.

    I’m so old that I remember the poll from this very post showing that Trump’s numbers have dramatically tanked since the start of impeachment. Coincidence? We report, you decide.

  66. 66.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Butter Emails:

    And the the White House and its Sycophants would totally start following the law and start showing up for impeachment hearings, providing documents, etc.

    You mean like the two key witnesses that just testified? Taylor and Morrison? I mean, I know that Morrison’s appearance was all the way back to Oct. 30 or 31, so I can see how it might be forgotten by now.

  67. 67.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:

    Mulvaney allies to try to stonewall Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, officials say

    So you’re banking on the strategy of Mulvaney and crew to prevail. Hm. I guess we’ll see. Of course, it’s just a guess, but I suspect that the chances of stonewalling previous to impeachment were 100%.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Chief Oshkosh: No, like the 4 WH officials who were scheduled to testify today but will now be no shows.

    As far as Taylor and Morrison go, 6 months ago they would have had nothing to say.

  69. 69.

    JAFD

    Good morning, gentle Jackals !

    Tomorrow we NewJerseyites will elect a bunch of state legislators, etc. Supposed to be decent weather, 60 F, cloudy, maybe showers.

    Yours truly is supposed to be there at 5:15 AM, wake up the firemen, set up the machine, and stick up 32 pieces of paper in three languages. My roll of ‘blue tape’ is ready.

    So, you jackals and jackallettes, if you ain’t earlyvoted, get thyselves to the polls tomorrow, and be nice to those working for the Board of Elections (for they may be somebody’s mother ;-) (ok, WQXR just played a waltz (yes, a waltz) by Sousa))

    And have a great week, y’all !

  72. 72.

    zzyzx

    @Chief Oshkosh: the 538 approval ratings have been between 39 and 42% for the last 2 years or so. Right now they’re at 41.2. I don’t see a cratering, just a move to the lower end of his typical range. Don’t cherry pick one poll. Look for a trend.

  74. 74.

    Butter emails!!!

    @Chief Oshkosh:
    I think you’re mistakenly attributing to the existence of an impeachment inquiry, events that actually spring primarily from the breaking of the Ukraine scandal.

  76. 76.

    Quinerly

    @David ??Booooooo?? Koch: Wendi’s got “something,” for sure. Tony Blair is the godfather to at least one of her children with Murdoch. Read that the Murdoch divorce was related to an affair with Blair. In another piece awhile back, read she got her work visa/citizenship??? through a first marriage to the husband of the couple who sponsored her from China. Don’t remember all the “ends and outs” of that. ? Short marriage but by then she was on Murdoch’s radar working for him.

  77. 77.

    Quinerly

    @satby: I know exactly what it is. Usually leans Pro Trump.
    Ever heard of the expression “sometimes a blind squirrel finds a nut.”?
    I posted with a mentioned caveat that I understood exactly what the source was.

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    @JPL: actually worse than mine. But he is sleeping now as I go to the train.

    But yes, he is the one who gave it to me and he blames his friend, “Jake.”. Who lives in Chinatown….

  82. 82.

    Michael Cain

    @Amir Khalid:

    Sorry, should have mentioned that No-Script disables Javascript which some sites use for certain functions but can slow your PC down.

    And some demented sites use JavaScript for everything, including layout. At least they’re getting rarer as more users are getting selective about what JavaScript they let run on their machines.

  83. 83.

    Jinchi

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    No, like the 4 WH officials who were scheduled to testify today but will now be no shows.

    I don’t understand your argument here. Trump officials have been refusing to respond to Congressional subpoenas since Democrats won the House. The floodgates have started to open since hearings began. Without them, we wouldn’t have heard from Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland. George Kent, Marie Yovanovich, Bill Taylor, Alex Vindman and Fiona Hill, all of whom have confirmed the original allegations against Trump and more.

    People seem to be forgetting that Trump would have gotten away entirely with this extortion, except for the fact that a whistleblower went above and beyond to ensure that Congress knew about it, and that the Democrats acted on it.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Trump Defends Embarrassing Breaches At His Border Wall: ‘You Can Cut Through Any Wall’

    “We have a very powerful wall,” Trump told reporters on Saturday. “But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness.”
    He claimed the breaches could be “easily fixed.”
    “One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed,” Trump said. “You put the chunk back in. But we have a very powerful wall.”
    “But you can cut through any wall,” he added.

    Unlike trump, there are times when words fail me. Maybe it’s because I have so many of them and he only has a few that he can repeat ad nauseum, whether they are appropriate to the situation or not.

  85. 85.

    cmorenc

    White House says Trump is attending the Ultimate Fighting Championship with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Peter King.

    I’d pay to see a UFC cage match tournament with the above guys fighting each other – though that would involve the sight of Donald Trump bare-chested wearing MAGA-red trunks.

  86. 86.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zzyzx: This is correct. Basically the intensity of hatred among people who don’t already like Trump is increasing, but his base only ever moves away from him temporarily and furtively. Everything appalling he does, they can find it in themselves eventually to excuse or advocate.

    Trump has a high floor–he’s unpopular, but has never gotten close to Carter, late-period GWB or end-stage Nixon territory. His typical range is just a little worse than Obama’s worst months. Which, given the EC and various types of fuckery, makes it always possible to imagine him winning reelection.

    I think a major economic recession would change that, but that’s about the only thing that would.

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jinchi:

    Trump officials have been refusing to respond to Congressional subpoenas since Democrats won the House.

    Because it continues to be pertinent

    The floodgates have started to open since hearings began. Without them, we wouldn’t have heard from Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland. George Kent, Marie Yovanovich, Bill Taylor, Alex Vindman and Fiona Hill, all of whom have confirmed the original allegations against Trump and more.

    All of whom would have had absolutely nothing to testify to 6 months ago.

    People seem to be forgetting that Trump would have gotten away entirely with this extortion, except for the fact that a whistleblower went above and beyond to ensure that Congress knew about it, and that the Democrats acted on it.

    Nobody, absolutely nobody has forgotten that simple fact. But it does not in any way shape or form change the simple fact that 6 months ago there was no whistleblower.

    Some people are trying to say that impeachment hearings would have changed everything if we had started them a long time ago. That may be true, I doubt it but I can not state with certainty that it is false. But I can say that it is a purely hypothetical assertion with out any facts to back it up. Which is why they keep citing facts that apply only to our current situation in support of their hypothetical.

    All that being said, I am not interested in getting into a pissing match with anybody today (not speaking specifically to you Jinchi. I take your question serious enough to respond to) so all those who want to? The urinal is all yours.

  89. 89.

    James E Powell

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Which, given the EC and various types of fuckery, makes it always possible to imagine him winning reelection.

    There is a number below which it would no longer be possible to imagine him winning reelection. I’m not sure what the number is, but I feel he’s close, say 36-38%. If he slips to that line, panic will set in among all Republicans.

    As you say, a major economic recession might get him there, but I doubt we are headed for that any time soon.

  91. 91.

    Jinchi

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Trump has a high floor

    What I find amazing is that his floor is almost identical to his ceiling. Sure he never falls much below 40% approval, but he never rises much above 42% either. Everyone pretty much knows who Trump is and decided early on whether that was acceptable.

  94. 94.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Another unbelievable headline that I’m seeing tells me Stephen Miller is engaged. Someone needs to stage an intervention stat.

    I’m going to Iowa this morning to talk to the sixth grade. Send thoughts and prayers.

  95. 95.

    Jinchi

    @OzarkHillbilly: Okay, just rewinding back to where this whole discussion started:

    And the the White House and its Sycophants would totally start following the law and start showing up for impeachment hearings, providing documents, etc.

    1. Literally nobody assumed that the White House would stop obstructing investigations. If Trump was the type of person who complied with the law, we wouldn’t be impeaching him..
    2. People have started showing up for impeachment hearings and providing documents since impeachment started.

  96. 96.

    Butter emails!!!

    @James E Powell:
    The number they’re looking at probably isn’t the general population. They’re looking at his support among Republicans. If that gets low enough, then they will dump him. I suspect the number is in the neighborhood of 60%-66%.

  97. 97.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jinchi: I suspect that with the election of Obama, US politics may have entered a hyper-polarized phase in which it’s just not possible for the country to stray too far from party-line support for the President for very long. The only modern President with an approval curve almost this flat for this long was… Obama. It’s just that Obama’s was a bit higher.

  98. 98.

    Citizen_X

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’m going to Iowa this morning to talk to the sixth grade.

    Remember to keep in touch. If your comms go dark for over an hour, we automatically send the rescue team in.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Matt McIrvin: (runner-up for curve flatness is Gerald Ford, counting only the period after he pardoned Nixon. But Trump has already hung on longer than the whole Ford administration.)

  101. 101.

    Gin & Tonic

    Between flights at DUB. I think it’s a legal requirement to have a pint of Guinness, so I am complying. Don’t want to take unnecessary risks.

  103. 103.

    Matt McIrvin

    @James E Powell: In times past, I would agree with you. I’m not sure there is such a number any more, thanks to the geographic Big Sort. Trump could get to 270 electoral votes with a Mondale-sized popular vote loss if it’s just because he lost by 20-80 in all the blue states.

  108. 108.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: You two should get a room. Of course the Ukraine imbroglio is key, but you seem to be pretending that impeachment has no impact.

  109. 109.

    Tenar Arha

    @Quinerly: Good morning!

    I believe it.

    My assumption has always been that Kushner was using the information he’s been getting from his access to highly secret intelligence for personal gain. But one way that he could make that work is by doling out damaging tidbits of information to people he wants to give him business. I suspect he’s probably gotten more than 1 person killed, Khashoggi is just the most famous.

  110. 110.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You win. You get the last nonsensical word.

    Uh, seems like you’re angling for that honorific. We could do this all day. ;) (That’s a winky-smiley face to indicate that that I’m kidding about continuing all day AND that I think this is anything beyond a tempest in a teapot).

  111. 111.

    Baud

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    No one here is anti-impeachment. What people are debating is what’s going on now compared to the alternative history where the House started impeachment right after the Mueller report dropped. I think it’s a worthless debate but I’m not going to remain silent if people want to continue to ding Pelosi over it.

  112. 112.

    laura

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You are going to be a “Big Deal” and may make all the difference in the world to at least one of the young scholars.
    My mom would’ve told you to stand up straight, pull your shoulders back and prepare to get as good as you give.
    You’ve got this! Let us know how it went.

  113. 113.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @cmorenc:

    I’d pay to see a UFC cage match tournament with the above guys fighting each other – though that would involve the sight of Donald Trump bare-chested wearing MAGA-red trunks.

    Maybe the judge in their future conspiracy trial can be persuaded to incorporate this as part of their sentence.

  115. 115.

    Tenar Arha

    @Ramiah Ariya: this is very cool

    You should email the admins to get listed on the “Authors Among Us” page too. (I’m on my phone so I cannot check if you’ve already done this).

  116. 116.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:
    @Immanentize:

    We are a year out from The Election and now might be a good time for everyone to drop the arguments over things like when impeachment inquiries should have started. It’s like a miniature version of the Clinton v Sanders arguments that produced nothing but lingering acrimony. Everybody should go outside, stand in a clear place, shout “I was proved fucking right!” then come back and consider how to elect Democrats.

  119. 119.

    jc

    Trump is like a disease-bearing tick who has been allowed to dig in and access the main aorta, and is now incredibly difficult to dislodge. Meanwhile he’s releasing toxins into the body politic, giving the country a virulent form of lyme disease.

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah:

    The imagery of folks cutting through the wall makes me smile.

    Me too. I would really like to see the video of the grade-school age little girl climbing over the wall in seconds!!! Really funny. Then she should say “Bet you can’t do that Mr President!” because of course he can’t!! He can barely walk…

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