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You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Impeachment Eve Open Thread

Impeachment Eve Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  December 17, 201910:57 pm| 52 Comments

This post is in: Impeachment Inquiry, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republicans in Disarray!, Trumpery, All Too Normal

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And 10 hours later, the articles of impeachment (and the rule on their consideration) are officially teed up for Wednesday House floor consideration.

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) December 18, 2019

.@SpeakerPelosi sends letter to Democratic Caucus on eve of impeachment vote: pic.twitter.com/ZBkK35yDys

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) December 17, 2019

And the contrast between Pelosi & Trump as people https://t.co/Ws78hZ4zCe

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 18, 2019

It’s not the letter. It’s not that the letter is appalling.

It’s that people support the letter, and him.

— TwoArticleHat (@Popehat) December 18, 2019


The most emotionally out-of-control time for a narcissist isn’t when they’re being publicly shamed or just after.

It’s when they know the public shaming is coming and they can’t do anything to stop it.

It feels like the last walk toward a firing squad to them. Excruciating.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 17, 2019

There is no particular danger to us in this meltdown. It’s entirely egocentric. It is akin to an overtired toddler utterly unable to regulate themselves.

While Trump has the power to do great damage, this particular moment is just a toddler breaking their own toys.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 17, 2019

One final thing:

While people are naturally made anxious by all this, I actually take comfort in it.

It signals that Trump knows his public standing is being damaged.

A calm narcissist is a narcissist who thinks he’s winning.

A raging narc is one who knows he’s not.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 17, 2019

One angle that hasn’t been explored as far as I know: Mitch McConnell will vote (and try to force others to vote) for the proposition that the next Democratic president can try to bribe China to investigate his wife and her family.

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) December 17, 2019

But he's going to be a key obstacle to governing under a Dem administration. Under the standard he's about to set, a president who's ambitions he's frustrating will have every right to bribe China to announce an investigation of him, his wife, her family, and their company.

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) December 17, 2019

No doubt McConnell's whole thing is maximally constraining Democratic power and maximally expanding Republican power, and there are no neutral principles in his game. But this seems like a straightforward way to illustrate the bad faith at work.

— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) December 17, 2019

Impeach Pence next. https://t.co/aCN04FPOaY

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 17, 2019

Sad-trombone coda:

On #ImpeachmentEve A close Trump advisor has been sentenced to jail for his role in a massive money laundering and influence scheme involving Trump, Ukraine, Russia and the 2016 election and it's mostly being treated as a minor epilogue to a bygone scandal https://t.co/HVI7wTNhy7

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) December 17, 2019

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Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 17, 2019 at 11:10 pm

    This is an incorrect assessment of the situation:

    There is no particular danger to us in this meltdown. It’s entirely egocentric. It is akin to an overtired toddler utterly unable to regulate themselves.

    While Trump has the power to do great damage, this particular moment is just a toddler breaking their own toys.

    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 17, 2019

    Right now the entire US in general and the executive branch in specific are the President’s toys. The actual votes on impeachment are scheduled for 4 and 6 PM EST. The next 17 to 19 hours are, perhaps, the most dangerous hours that our self governing democratic-republic have ever faced!

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    December 17, 2019 at 11:10 pm

    We have someone running a criminal enterprise from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

    OF COURSE, he should be impeached??

  3. 3.

    The Dangerman

    December 17, 2019 at 11:12 pm

    Leave Britney Donald alonnnnnnnnne.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    December 17, 2019 at 11:13 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: 
    True, Silverman??

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    December 17, 2019 at 11:13 pm

    Time to listen to Carly Simon singing “Anticipation”.

    Pence is absolutely up to his eyeballs in the Ukraine caper.

  6. 6.

    The Dangerman

    December 17, 2019 at 11:15 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The next 17 to 19 hours are, perhaps, the most dangerous hours that our self governing democratic-republic have ever faced!

    I agree. One couldn’t possibly have an impeachment vote if we were getting it on with (insert usual suspect country here).

  7. 7.

    Colleeniem

    December 17, 2019 at 11:18 pm

    Go back.
    Read the speech he gave to The CIA the first week of his presidency.
    I’ll wait.
    He wasn’t well then, and people laughed it off, or ignored it completely.
    So…did things get better, or worse?
    It’s a rhetorical question.
    This is why the democrats and worthless republicans have to stand and be counted.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    December 17, 2019 at 11:21 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: 

    Have to disagree…trumpov won’t be calling directly for violence against his domestic political enemies until at least Day 2, maybe even Day 3 of the actual Senate trial.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    December 17, 2019 at 11:23 pm

    Zeddy is right, btw. I was talking with my daughter, just home from her first semester at college, explaining exactly who Rick Gates is and what he’s going to jail for.

    She was like, “WHAT?!???”

    And then we talked a bit about Wikileaks, Roger Stone, Manafort, the pro-Russia plank in the 2016 RNC platform, etc etc. But it is a lot to take in at once, I guess.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 17, 2019 at 11:23 pm

    @Colleeniem: Hell, go back to June 2015 when the POS called Mexicans criminals, drug dealers and rapists.

    Glad we’re finally impeaching the Trump trash.

  11. 11.

    Colleeniem

    December 17, 2019 at 11:25 pm

    I wish there was an emoji that conveyed “that goes without saying”@mrmoshpotato:

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    December 17, 2019 at 11:25 pm

    @Colleeniem: 

    He’s been trying to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes since forever…so from that perspective, nothing new here. Just gradually increasing degrees of insanity ever since he went under the microscope as POTUS, since the Mueller investigation started, and most especially since the impeachment hearings/ investigations started…

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    December 17, 2019 at 11:26 pm

    How many bomb scare phone calls will be received at the Capitol building on Wednesday?

  14. 14.

    debbie

    December 17, 2019 at 11:27 pm

    If he were a smart narcissist, he would have released that letter months ago. But he’s not, and I hope this stupid narcissist is choking on what is coming for him.

  15. 15.

    Anne Laurie

    December 17, 2019 at 11:36 pm

    @The Dangerman:

    Leave Britney Donald alonnnnnnnnne.

    You remember the original much-mocked video turned out to be a deliberate hoax, right?

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 17, 2019 at 11:37 pm

    @rikyrah: What’s interesting is that part of what was disclosed at Rick Gates’ sentencing today, aside from Manafort trying to bribe Gates not to cooperate, is that Gates has agreed to continue to assist the government in ongoing criminal investigations that are currently being conducted. So who, exactly, is still under investigation? Who are the targets and subjects of these investigations?

  17. 17.

    MoCA Ace

    December 17, 2019 at 11:38 pm

    How many bomb scare phone calls will be received at the Capitol building on Wednesday?

    How many will come from inside the White house?

  18. 18.

    chopper

    December 17, 2019 at 11:38 pm

    @Jeffro: 

    narcissists like trump are, deep down, huge weaklings on account of a massive inferiority complex. he’s not going to explode and destroy everything, if anything he’s going to pick on someone small to assuage his hurt feelings. someone he has easy power over.

    this isn’t ‘the most dangerous time in american history’.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 17, 2019 at 11:39 pm

    @Jeffro: There’s a lot of damage he can do without explicitly calling for violence against those he perceives as opposing him.

  20. 20.

    Jeffro

    December 17, 2019 at 11:46 pm

    @chopper: Agreed.  We’ve been in vastly bigger danger before, many times.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    December 17, 2019 at 11:52 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Ok.  This is a guy who’s already calling his opponents guilty of treason…I think he suggested that Schiff get treated “the way they do in Guatemala” today (what’s that, trumpov: imprisonment, torture, execution?)…he’s about a degree shy of explicitly calling for violent and certainly is already implicitly calling for it.

    The most dangerous thing he could do right now is to call on his supporters to march, armed, straight to the nearest Democratic representatives’ offices and demand they stop the impeachment OR ELSE.  He could also tell his fundie and gun nut bases to rise up and…do the same.  But it’s likely that almost nothing will happen there, except that America as a whole will be appalled/horrified/ready to expedite his impeachment, and his GOP allies will quickly desert him.  It’s not, after all, the kind of thing an innocent guy does.

    And yes, there is the ever-present threat of folks like the FL pipe bomber, or a shooter somewhere.  I’m talking about large-scale stuff.

    trumpov throwing off the mask and telling his supporters to save him by any means necessary means…if the Dems have the stones to stand firm and call it what it is…that almost everyone outside the FoxBubble (and maybe a few in it) see that this is not what an innocent/well person does.

  22. 22.

    Sab

    December 17, 2019 at 11:55 pm

    @debbie: Are there “smart narcissists?” In my own limited experience that is an oxymoron. Narcissists are not capable of being smart. They can be good manipulators, but they can’t be smart long term. Their vision is much too limited. It’s all about today’s pain.

  23. 23.

    AJ

    December 18, 2019 at 12:01 am

    OT re: depression and John’s recent post – –

    For him or anyone else going through that these days, I feel for you. I’ve had a rough time since Labor day as work has been slow, I’m self employed and I live alone.

    lack of structure is brutal for me so not a good Fall and early Winter. Luckily this week I have client work so that’s good, but it helped me feel less alone seeing John’s post even as I’m sorry to imagine him going through that.

    Sending strength and warmth to anyone else who wrestles with the Black Dog.

  24. 24.

    sab

    December 18, 2019 at 12:03 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Right now he just wants to stop impeachment. That is his whole world. Once they don’t remove him from office, then he will decide to nuke Iran.

    Hoarse whisperer has this guy pegged. As he says, easy peasy : they are scary but not at all complicated. The problem is that most people haven’t encountered these beasts in real life.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 18, 2019 at 12:06 am

    @Jeffro: No, the most dangerous thing he could do, because he’s got a Supreme Court approved National Emergency declaration active, is to actually use the powers that a National Emergency declaration gives him. Those powers are vast. They are not subject to judicial review now that the Supreme Court has blessed off that the declaration they’d be made under is constitutional, and they give him almost limitless power if he chose to use it.

    I’m not sure he’s aware of this given who he’s surrounded himself with as staff. Other than AG Barr. I’m pretty sure he understands what the President could do under that declaration. We can only hope that Barr has decided not to explain it to him.

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 18, 2019 at 12:10 am

    @sab: Any idea who Hoarse Whisperer actually is? Male? Female? Ambisexual walnut? American? Canadian? Highly educated? Never finished high school? White? African American? Asian? LatinX?

    I find Hoarse Whisperer’s and similar other’s tweets interesting. But neither you nor I know anything about who he or she is. We don’t know what they do for a living. We don’t know where they live. We don’t actually know what they want. All we know is that he or she is a nym that tickles a lot of our priors and assumptions about what is going on right now.

  27. 27.

    Yarrow

    December 18, 2019 at 12:14 am

    @Adam L Silverman: His identity was outed several months ago. I can’t remember his name but he posted a photo of himself and several high profile accounts know him. He lives in New Jersey, which he has talked about for several years. I think he works, or worked, in advertising or consulting of some sort. I can’t remember the particulars.

    Here’s his picture. He has it in a pinned tweet that’s a collection of his Twitter threads. https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1164310330174005248

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    December 18, 2019 at 12:14 am

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Exactly why I pay as little attention as possible to the curtain of tweets which has become so fashionable.

  29. 29.

    Mike in NC

    December 18, 2019 at 12:16 am

    All bullies are cowards, and our Russian stooge Fat Bastard lacks the spine to launch the Doomsday Project.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 18, 2019 at 12:16 am

    @Yarrow: Nice picture. Doesn’t really answer most of the more important questions though.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 18, 2019 at 12:16 am

    @NotMax: Says the man hiding behind a nym…//

  32. 32.

    Yarrow

    December 18, 2019 at 12:17 am

    @Adam L Silverman:  Sorry, what were the more important questions?

  33. 33.

    Sebastian

    December 18, 2019 at 12:19 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

     

    we know who he is. He got doxxed a while ago.

  34. 34.

    Anne Laurie

    December 18, 2019 at 12:20 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    All we know is that he or she is a nym that tickles a lot of our priors and assumptions about what is going on right now.

    On the internet, nobody knows if you’re a dog. But Hoarse Whisperer was recently doxxed by angry BernieBros; I chose not to follow their wormtrails, but the guy who posts the tweets admitted he was a marketing advisor living in northern NJ, which is just what he sounds like, IMO.
    I never believe more than 90% of anything, but I enjoy reading his stuff (enough to contribute a small amount to his Patreon).
    TBF, I’ve never actually met you, or you me. Maybe I’m a very sophisticated bot my own self, y’know!

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 18, 2019 at 12:21 am

    @Yarrow: Does he actually have any expertise to support what he’s asserting? Educational? Experiential? Has he provided any actual evidence?

    I understand the need to use nyms. I’m not arguing that everyone needs to out themselves. But I’m making a domestic national security argument based on significant experience as an appointed mobilized civilian supervising senior civil servant with my name on it. He’s making assertions from behind a nym. I’m telling you what you may not want to hear, but what I know to be accurate. He’s telling you what you want to hear whether it is or is not accurate at all.

  36. 36.

    Sebastian

    December 18, 2019 at 12:21 am

    @Yarrow: 

    Here is the story
    https://www.salon.com/2019/08/26/twitter-sleuths-uncover-an-anti-bernie-conspiracy-infuriating-the-pundit-class/

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 18, 2019 at 12:22 am

    @Anne Laurie: I’m done for the night, possibly the rest of the week, before I say something that hurts someone’s feelings.

  38. 38.

    Jay

    December 18, 2019 at 12:23 am

    There are so many levels to Peter Thiel’s involvement in this. He’s the dark overlord of Silicon Valley whose greatest hits include plotting for months to covertly destroy a news organisation (Gawker). And then there’s this:https://t.co/lWkGNwyKVA https://t.co/TkwxzhTt6t— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) December 17, 2019

  39. 39.

    Sebastian

    December 18, 2019 at 12:23 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

     

    i’ve been following him for quite a while and he spent a lot of time talking about his experiences with narcissists. For him it was an abusive relationship if I am not mistaken.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    December 18, 2019 at 12:25 am

    @Adam L. Silverman
    The difference being a track record and history accompanying that nym here, along with the comments made here, for here, under that nym not being intended (or offered) for dissemination to the universe at large.

    ;)

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    December 18, 2019 at 12:28 am

    @Sebastian:

    Ex-wife.

  42. 42.

    Jay

    December 18, 2019 at 12:29 am

    Cambridge Analytica & Arron Banks who have absolutely nothing to do with one another toast Boris Johnson’s glorious victory with champagne in Mayfair bar, according to @MrHarryCole pic.twitter.com/4358vQz994— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) December 17, 2019

  43. 43.

    Yarrow

    December 18, 2019 at 12:29 am

    @Adam L Silverman:  Well, the twitter stuff isn’t his full time job so people can take it for what it’s worth. If someone has read his feed long enough it’s pretty clear he was married to a narcissist and it took him a long time to figure out what the issue was and extricate himself from the relationship.

    From what I can tell, people who have done that often have a pretty clear understanding of what narcissists are and how they operate. He seems to fall in that category, as do several people who post here who pretty much agree with his assessments. It seems to be a hard won understanding and leaves people fairly clear-eyed about how narcissists operate and how to deal with them.

    His take is his take. It seems unlikely that any actual national security people are making national security decisions based on his Twitter feed. For the rest of us his insights have been interesting and his predictions of Trump’s behavior in various situations has been quite accurate.

  44. 44.

    Anne Laurie

    December 18, 2019 at 12:30 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Understood.  I’ll admit that I ‘trust’ HW, to a degree, because the dysfunctional personal background he describes is familiar to me.  So the instincts that make you go Who *is* this personage?  make me go Yep, been there done that.

    And it’s pretty hard to hurt my feelings.  But the collateral damage to other readers, well — yeah, you’ve got a good point.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    December 18, 2019 at 12:32 am

    @Steeplejack
    Sensing the makings of a Marvel spin-off series, The X-wives.

    ;)

  46. 46.

    Anne Laurie

    December 18, 2019 at 12:35 am

    @Sebastian: That story is an exemplar of why I gave up reading Salon during the 2008 primaries.  Its front-pagers can’t all be crazy people with unworkable agendas, but the signal-to-noise ratio…

  47. 47.

    joel hanes

    December 18, 2019 at 12:37 am

    popehat is correct that the true horror of the moment is that, as horrible and corrupt as Trump is, the Republicans fervently, enthusiastically defend and support him.

    But Trump’s letter to Pelosi is appalling. Beyond appalling, beyond unsuitable, beyond unhinged.

  48. 48.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 18, 2019 at 12:38 am

    @Colleeniem: Hehe

  49. 49.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 18, 2019 at 12:39 am

    @NotMax: And how many of them will come from the White House?

  50. 50.

    Mike in NC

    December 18, 2019 at 12:51 am

    @joel hanes:  Someday to be framed and displayed in the National Archives as a cautionary tale about fascism on our shores.

  51. 51.

    Ben Cisco

    December 18, 2019 at 3:23 am

    Impeachment rally, Birmingham:

    https://www.facebook.com/CBS42News/videos/495647507725010/

  52. 52.

    Gvg

    December 18, 2019 at 6:53 am

    @Adam L Silverman:  he posts based on personal experience with narcissistic personalities. He and others like him just had the bad luck to encounter one. It doesn’t leave a job record usually nor a degree so it can’t be evaluated the same way your national security experience can be. There could be someone posting who actually has a degree in this field, but I don’t know of any, and they would also have to be good at explaining to the rest of us to get heard. All I have to judge is confirmation from other people who have lived the experience.
    He is interesting, but only a small part of what I listen to. I am actually currently more angry that others are getting away with breaking laws while we focus on the Presidency. I think there are members of Congress behaving so suspiciously that they should be investigated and nobody is. I think there must be a money trail to explain the behavior of certain powerful republicans and it predates Trump. If we don’t clean it all up, we will be repeating crisis over and over.

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