Yesterday’s assault on the Capitol didn’t have to happen. Politicians who spread the lies that incited this violence bear responsibility. Politicians who continue to lie in order to shift blame and falsely claim this was Antifa or BLM, are contemptible. More thoughts: pic.twitter.com/ZbMPfPXEi5
— Rep. Peter Meijer (@RepMeijer) January 7, 2021
It ain’t all kakistocrats, even in Betsy deVos’s back yard. Peter Meijer (grandson of the man who founded the deservedly beloved Meijers chain) brings the truth:
We can’t paper over the assault on the Capitol with empty calls for ‘unity.’ Unless my party faces the truth of what happened and holds those responsible to account, we will never regain the public’s trust and earn the honor of leading the nation forward. https://t.co/QudmjFEZ8o
— Rep. Peter Meijer (@RepMeijer) January 10, 2021
On Wednesday afternoon in the House Chamber, I assured a colleague we were in the most secure possible place as we unpacked gas masks.
Tear gas had been deployed after violent protestors stormed the rotunda, but as we took cover under bulletproof chairs I assured my colleague we would be fine. After all, there had been incidents in the past, but Capitol Police had maintained control over the seat of our democracy since 1814.
The mob then rushed the barricaded doors to the chamber, trying to break them down. The illusion of security, of the sanctity of our constitutional order, collapsed. With guns drawn, police ordered us to evacuate, leading to chaos as we fled down corridors and into the tunnels beneath Capitol Hill. Several times our group of lawmakers found ourselves alone, with no police escort, fearful of what threats might lie around the next corner…
My colleague told me that efforts to overturn the election were wrong, and that voting to certify was a constitutional duty. But my colleague feared for family members, and the danger the vote would put them in. Profoundly shaken, my colleague voted to overturn.
An angry mob succeeded in threatening at least one member of Congress from performing what that member understood was a constitutional responsibility…
Worse yet, while a dead woman’s blood dried mere feet from our chamber, other Republican colleagues doubled down, repeating lies of a stolen election, baselessly deflecting blame for the Capitol assault from Trump loyalists to Antifa, doing whatever they could to justify, equivocate, rationalize or otherwise avoid taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Blood has been spilled, and those who encouraged this insurrection are in too deep.
Those of us who refused to cower, who have told the truth, have suffered the consequences. Republican colleagues who have spoken out have been accosted on the street, received death threats, and even assigned armed security…
It didn’t have to end like this, with five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer. This should be a moment of reckoning for the country as a whole, and the conservative movement in particular.
If the Republican party ever hopes to regain the public’s trust and lead the country forward after this heinous assault, it must first be honest with itself.
I personally think Rep. Meijer is too optimistic about his comrades’ ability to face the truth, but I give him points for speaking up.
While I don’t doubt they said this to Meijer, I think they just felt more comfortable saying that instead of saying they were simply lying for political advantage. https://t.co/cKxN3HpxKB
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) January 10, 2021
(It’s actually a pretty good interview, even if it is Reason magazine.)
Baud
I’m so glad I became a Democrat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Has John James, who’s so far gone in trumpism (2,000% with trump, he said), and damn near became a Senator, he supported the suppression of the votes of millions (?) of voters in Detroit said anything about all this?
Calouste
Rep. Meijer will get the opportunity tomorrow to put his opinions in the Congressional record via the vote on impeachment. Until then, this is just an interview.
sab
So Grand Rapids GOP runs Justin Amash off, and then elect somebody just like him. Too law abiding.
Cheryl Rofer
We need to know who made this threat.
Inventor
Roseann Boyland of Kennesaw, Georgia was at the riot and was carrying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. She was tramples to death by her fellow insurrectionists.
On the one hand, this is a tragic and needless death. Her involvement in the Trump cult led directly to her demise. Her family is grieving and blame Trump. Many people are susceptible to falling for cults and the Trump cult has more recruiters, more enablers, more apologist, and more adherents that perhaps any other cult in history. There is ample reason for compassion, particularly for her family.
On the other hand, she was a traitor participating in a violent insurrection. She was an accessory to Officer Sicknick’s murder. If she wasn’t a Nazi herself, she made common cause with Nazis.
So I find the fact that she died that way, in that place, holding that flag to be somewhere between wryly ironic and fucking hysterical.
debbie
Seconded, Anne Laurie. He must be new to think his colleagues would ever change.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m glad you remembered. I hope MI does when he runs again.
SFAW
Would Special Counsel Preet Bharara be able to indict Cruz, Hawley, and Trump for Sedition? Or can he only determine that they should be indicted? I can’t remember the limits of a Special Counsel’s powers.
Asking for a
countryfriend.PS: No, I have no idea whether AG Garland (or whoever) would appoint a Special Counsel for this, nor if it would be Bharara, but a kid can dream
ETA: I also have no idea if Bharara would be the best person for the job, of course. Were Elliot Spitzer not persona non grata (never mind the baggage), I’d be OK with him, too.
debbie
@SFAW:
I’ll never be able to find his tweet now, but he did sort of reference that.
Baud
@SFAW:
I don’t see a need for a special counsel here.
Jay C
Well, “credit where credit is due” certainly covers it: kudos to Rep. Meijer for confronting the issue with a lot more honesty than (too) many of his (R) colleagues.
Minor point, though: the US Capitol Police were founded in 1828 (after an incident where an angry journalist assaulted John Quincy Adams’ son in the Rotunda). Older than a lot of City forces.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen this footage, I didn’t know what Officer Goodman was doing
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Damn.
chopper
@Inventor:
I’m sure the ME’s report listed the cause of death as “irony”
Matt
First step: Rep Meijer – it needs to stop being your party. Anyone who’s still admitting to being a Republican is legitimizing a party that’s years along in discarding any pretense of supporting democracy.
Next step: resign. No Republican should be anywhere near a public office for at least a decade; whether you did the criming or just stood on lookout, there’s plenty of guilt to go around.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
just goes to show how much damage these choads could have done if they had a plan and knew what they were doing.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I couldn’t figure why he would turn around and square himself for only a couple of seconds, then turn and start running again. Now that makes sense. He surely deserves a Medal of Honor.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chopper: there were people there with a plan– looking for Jim Clyburn in his unmarked office, looking for the Parliamentarian’s office, zip-ties– we’re lucky they weren’t better organized
SFAW
@Baud:
Hey man, you’re harshing my mellow.
There may not be an actual need, but it would certainly send a message.
Frank Wilhoit
Yeah, let’s talk about the deservedly beloved Meijer stores. I haven’t been in one in a year, but the pandemic is the only reason. As retail goes (spit), they are pretty good on the whole. But the picture has its dark places.
Back some time in the 1990s, our home-town “newspaper”, which was then purely a vehicle for the personal grudges of its owner, did a little digging and found that the local Meijer stores were calling the police at least three times more often than any other big-box retailer. The taxpayer cost of this corporate policy was estimated, etc. etc.
After that, the Meijer stores started hiring private security guards. A few years later — I think it was right about 1997 — someone needed a replacement battery: not one of the usual kinds, but probably a 123, or an N, or a coin cell, or who knows what. In order to make sure that he got the right thing, he brought his old dead battery with him to Meijer, to compare with the ones on the pegs. They didn’t have what he needed.
The security guard saw him putting his old dead battery back in his pocket, and took him down, and broke his neck. He wound up quadriplegic, in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
He sued and won something in the very low eight figures.
So far, so bad. But then the Meijer lawyer went out on the stoop of the courthouse and talked to the press, to the effect of, we did the right thing and we’d do it again.
Individual boycotts are the nearest thing to accountability that any American business will ever face. We boycotted Meijer for several years after that, but eventually it simply became too burdensome; we were cutting off our proverbial nose.
“Deservedly beloved”, was that the phrase?
SandyZ
Gvg
@Matt: he should NOT resign unless he is complicit. His district might send someone worse.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
has Susan Collins even announced her concerns? I’m assuming I would have seen the twitter mockery if she had.
Gvg
@Frank Wilhoit: yeah, they aren’t in my area, but have an online presence so when they came up as a source for things I wanted I checked on their reputation. I did not find glowing reviews and the ownership is said to be very “conservative”.
JeanneT
As a resident of Meijer’s district, I have to say he has far exceeded my admittedly low expectations. He’s taking a lot of heat from the local Trumpistas on social media. I would guess he and his family have received death threats of their own by now.
Kelly
I’ve always been a Democrat because my maternal grandfather was a Democrat. My earliest memories of him are that he must be the wisest person in the world.
moonbat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jesus wept. This very brave and clever man knew that the chance to beat up a black man was like catnip to these freaks and he used that to lure them away from their stated objective which in this case was killing the vice president of the United States.
Who, by the way, probably has never intentionally lifted a finger to help a person of color in his entire life.
taumaturgo
Credit is definitely due to the thousands of regular Americans who volunteer to run the elections in a professional and legal manner. An honorable mention to the Republican volunteers that under pressure from the party cook and liars, they held steadfast by placing country over ideology and protected the system to delivered a fair and honest election.
Racer X
@Cheryl Rofer:
Trump did. It’s called stochastic terrorism.
ellie
God, I love Meijers. I miss it.
Gvg
I have a question. There have been a lot of calls for certain Congressmen who look complicit to resign or be expelled from Congress. We haven’t expelled anyone in my lifetime so I am not sure how this works but I think they are still the elected Congress person until they resign, right? So that district would be without representation if they refused to resign too? Or does it vacate the seat? Is it the same if Congress refuses to seat someone elected?
This could matter in numbers needed to impeach.
i know there was some politician who ran for office in jail.
I guess it might also matter for arrests, as I think congressmen in session cannot be arrested.
i wish this was theoretical speculation, but right now, it might be real.
Baud
@taumaturgo:
Wow. You said something I agree with.
I’m a little scared now.
trollhattan
We need to Benghazi Hearing the everloving fuck out of this, only with 100% less Trey Gowdy III. Do not let it slide into history, do not let it be rewritten into some “patriotic act” committed by “patriots” who had “run out of options.”
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Collins’ Furrow Alert Level dialed back to Country Ditch.
Jay C
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Mme. Senator Concern-Ass has indeed condemned the Capitol violence (as she has signed on to a bipartisan statement affirming such), but that was back on 1/6. Her Twitter feed has (apparently) been silent since.
Maybe she’s been at the Concern Clinic getting her brow-furrows lined up…..
Nicole
I just can’t give a fuck about anything a Republican says if it ends with them staying in the Republican party. And I’m so tired of them getting stroked and petted and praised for saying the bare minimum of words that don’t, in the end, mean shit, because they’re still voting GOP.
lamh36
Wow. There was an embedded photojournalist footage of a lone Black Capitol Police officer being confronted by the mob of rioters. Apparently there was more too it upon closer inspection.
His name is Officer Eugene Goodman and apparently he led the riots away from the Senate floor where officials were still sheltering in place. He engaged the rioters and led them away from the area right into the arms of waiting backup. I can only imagine how that could have gone if he hadn’t.
Give we give this man a medal!
EmanG
I hope this is “topic adjacent” enough for this thread. It’s an amazing breakdown of tRump’s speech/screed on the day of:
threader.app/thread/1347908845281095680
a longish but fairly scary read.
SFAW
@Nicole:
Even those noted Pillars of Strengthiness and Integritude Jeff Flake and Lamar Alexander?
Nicole
(Insert all the laughing emojis here. All of them.)
PPCLI
@trollhattan: Yes. One reason why there should be another impeachment trial is that with the Democrats in charge witnesses can be called and subpoenas enforced. Time for Roger Stone to go under oath about his go-between communications with Wikileaks and with Trump. Also Don Jr. Kushner, Mark Meadows, Eric Prince, …
Let them lie under oath if they dare, without the prospect of a corrupt pardon
ETA: Oh, and especially Giuliani. How could I forget him.
H.E.Wolf
Bless your heart, she knows.
moonbat
@lamh36: Give him ALL the medals, a huge raise, and a tropical island to retire on, say I. He probably saved this nation from a full on coup.
Immanentize
@Baud: a special prosecutor may not be needed, but I suspect a central organizing office (maybe DC or Maryland?) Or a task force group will be organized to coordinate and direct all prosecutions and offers of amnesty and grand jury proceedings. That is going to be a big nationwide task.
Just Chuck
@Gvg: Expulsion is immediate. Censure is the strong hint to resign (a censured congresscritter usually gets expelled from all committees).
And unless you’re a young ‘un, the last Senator ejected was in your lifetime, namely Jim Traficant back in 2002.
SFAW
@Just Chuck:
House, not Senate
Just Chuck
@PPCLI: Stone was already pardoned. Which means he can be compelled to testify.
John S.
As I sit here listening to my 60s station on Pandora, I can’t help by wonder — WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?
I’m only 43 so I wasn’t around to witness the zeitgeist, but so many things changed and it seemed like there was a lot of hope and desire by the majority to improve life for all human beings. I realize there was a violent minority adverse to change then like there is now, but is this what it felt like back then?
I know we have a lot of jackals who were around back then, so I’m curious for the firsthand perspective.
Just Chuck
@SFAW: Wikipedia says 1980 for Rep Michael Myers, for
going on a killing rampage on Halloweenbribery. Average age of jackals would still make you a spring chicken if that was before your time ;)gene108
I think Republican cowardice to face down Trump is for two reasons:
(1) It seems to me after Watergate the Nixon-ites still in good standing – Nixon, Cheney, etc. – decided part of the reason their beloved boss got ruined was the Party broke with him. No future Republican President has ever had significant defections of Republican support. Reagan’s support didn’t crumble after Iran-Contra, and Bush, Jr.’s did not crumble because of Iraq or failures leading to 9/11. His support crumbled after Republicans lost in 2006, but not for anything else.
(2) Protecting Trump was this mindset on steroids, plus the fact the Republican Party has become Trump’s personality cult. Elected Republicans saw that defying Trump was the fastest way to end their careers.
sdhays
@lamh36: Make him the Chief of the Capitol Police.
SFAW
@Just Chuck:
I meant that Traficant was expelled from the House, not the Senate.
Immanentize
@EmanG: I think Abramson makes some silly textual arguments in that thread, and misses other more damning possibilities, but generally on point.
ETA he is often wrong, but never uncertain.
Martin
@debbie: I don’t see any expression of expectation that he thinks they’ll change – merely what they must do.
Just Chuck
@SFAW: Ah, whoops. Too much blood in my caffeine stream this morning.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
So he’d fit in here pretty well?
Immanentize
@gene108: Your number 1 even had a name, it was Reagan’s “eleventh commandment.”
SFAW
@Just Chuck:
Deepest sympathies. I sometimes suffer from that condition; it can be debilitating.
gene108
@ellie:
When I was a kid living in Ann Arbor, in the late 70’s), I got my haircut at the barbershop at the local Meijers. And if me and my brother successfully nagged our mom, she’d let us have donuts at the donut shop next to the barbershop.
I kind of miss it, too.
Immanentize
@SFAW: pretty much!
Ksmiami
@Baud: me too – I’ve been thinking that unless the GOP cleans its own house, then the party needs to be deleted from civil life. Taking a cue from Amazon, the Coalition of Democratic voters, moderates etc need to turn our vast buying abilities into massive boycotts of all Republican businesses. I’m starting with Schwab.
trollhattan
CA Republicans take time off from treasoning to argue more people need to die from COVID.
Cheryl Rofer
@John S.: One of my fave things to think about. I’ve thought many times about writing a post.
Having been there, I divide the sixties into two halves, approximately at 1965.
The first was the hopeful part, with the civil rights marches and actual progress being made. Being able to talk about what Betty Friedan called “the problem with no name” and recognition that women were being shortchanged too. The Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The second half, everything collapsed. The draft for the Vietnam War and the protests. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy’s assassinations. Riots in the cities. The Weathermen pursuing violent uprising. People withdrawing into drugs rather than social action.
The right has pulled many of its grievances from that second half, although their fear is of what the first half accomplished. The failures of Eugene McCarthy as a candidate and Jimmy Carter as a president set a fearful tone for the Democratic Party.
And here we are.
PPCLI
@Just Chuck: I know, but my point was that the pardon won’t cover anything Stone does after Jan. 20.
hueyplong
We’ve read a bunch of “what would have happened if the Dems/POC/etc. did this?”
What I haven’t seen is a “What would Cruz/Hawley/etc. have said if the coup had actually worked?”
Is anyone in any doubt? They would have demanded credit.
PPCLI
@gene108: Following up on this point: I think people underestimate just how crucial the loss of the Senate thanks to losing two seats in Georgia factors into the Republicans sudden efforts to put space between themselves and Trump. As with Bush II, the one thing Republicans won’t forgive is costing them elections.
Ksmiami
@gene108: ditto I ran a catering business in Oakland county and Meijer was open 24/7 so if we needed last minute ingredients they saved us
Ken
First we have to create a new one. Trump touched the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but instead of dying cleanly it mutated into a horrible twisted version of itself that lies there whispering “kill me… kill me….”
Martin
@Gvg: Here’s what I wrote to my senators and congresswoman.
I don’t think anyone will get expelled. The GOP is not yet sufficiently at war with itself for members to turn on each other for expulsion. Maybe 1-2 here and there, but not 1/6th of the caucus.
But they can be arrested. For what it’s worth, so can the president, aside from an unchallenged OLC memo written 50 years ago. Give it a shot, I say.
The other advantage of a charge of seditious conspiracy is that the penalty is you are forbidden from holding public office. It meshes nicely with the 14th amendment.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: I would happily read that post!
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
The rebelliousness that began with the Beatles should be factored in there somewhere.
Steeplejack (phone)
@trollhattan:
Source?
narya
Part of what happened, IMHO, is that Reagan committed treason (w/ the hostage situation and again w/ Iran/Contra) and no one was held accountable. Add to that that his party started trying to intentionally break the government, and then sell it off to their friends. Every R president since then has a done a variation of this, and the current Traitor in Chief just turned it up to eleven. That is: the whole ethos has been one of (1) breaking the government, (2) complaining it doesn’t work, (3) using the broken-ness to sell off the parts to private hands, and (4) privatizing things that should be public goods (education, criminal justice, health care). And, of course, the racism that makes it all work: Those People Only Want Free Stuff. Finally, as members of the media became middle/upper class themselves, they both-sides everything; they are benefiting from the current structure.
JanieM
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m so glad to see someone say this. I think I’m a few years younger than you — don’t remember why I have that impression — but anyhow, I was born in 1950. For years, when my kids and my nieces have asked me about those years, I’ve called the earlier part of the sixties “the hopeful years” — in my memory, it’s as if people thought they could march and sing their way to a better world. (Pete Seeger, PPM, others.) Then JFK was killed. Then Kent State happened (when I had friends). Then MLK was killed. Bobby Kennedy was shot on the night of my high school graduation. (Leaving out a lot, of course.)
I’ve always wondered whether my view of the early 60s as “the hopeful years” was just an illusion born of how old I was at various phases.
I find it hard to say anything very clear about the difference between then and now, because I was so young, even in 1968 when I thought I knew everything. Was the country as close to falling apart then as now? I would say no, but again, I was wildly innocent and staggeringly uninformed.
hueyplong
@Ken: Immediately conjured a scene from The Fly (1958 version).
Geo Wilcox
So is the PGA going to move their tournaments away from Trump courses yet or are they still thinking about it?
sab
@Cheryl Rofer: Godd summary of that decade. I think the Trump love is reacting to fear that Obama was going to succeed in getting us back to the spirit of mod 1960s.
My household has been watching old TV rerums this last year, and the innocent hopefulness in their plotlines is touching.
JanieM
@Martin: Thanks for sharing that. Lucid as usual, and very useful to someone like me while I struggle with the task of responding to this situation with any clarity.
Delk
Jim Traficant may be gone but his hair style lives on in Trey Gowdy and countless republican women.
dnfree
@Cheryl Rofer: agreed. But the first part of the 60s was really still the 1950s in many ways, too. I was in college starting in 1963, and the female students still had “hours”, had to be physically present in our rooms at 10:30 for bed check, could be punished for not making our beds daily (ask me how I know this), and couldn’t have male guests. We had to wear skirts for every meal. Meanwhile, there were maids in the men’s dorms.
One of my later roommates was threatened with expulsion for staying overnight with her boyfriend and faking a girlfriend’s signature. In 1968, as I recall, some girl out East was expelled from college for living with her boyfriend. Suddenly around that time, all those rules that we had protested ineffectually about just…evaporated. It’s hard to explain looking back.
lamh36
@sdhays: The acting chief is a Black woman.
As is usually the case when them folks mess up, they put a Black person in charge to clean their mess and get NONE of the credit and all of the backlash if/when they do so.
So nah…unless dude had aspirations for higher…a commendation would be great.
Geo Wilcox
@JanieM: My take is corporations saw something and moved in to devour it. Music back then was just one part of their gobbling up everything cool and mainstreaming it to make money. Then we had the greed is good decade(s). Those same hippie types traded their beads for suits and the dream died. It was all about how rich you could get, how fast you could get there, and how much coke you could do.
Mike in NC
My wife used to get together with 8-10 of her friends one or two nights a week to play Mah Jong and other games and sip a glass of wine or two. That all crashed to a halt with the pandemic, and since the election the Republican-leaners among them have gone batshit crazy both in person and on social media.
Trump is their Orange God and they would rather ingest ground glass than offer up even the mildest criticism of him. Same thing has happened to me and guys I thought should know better. Nope, they maintain Trump did everything he could possibly do to fight COVID-19, along with his loyal right-hand man Jared Kushner. It’s just surreal. The late Mr. Goldman’s words are appropriate.
Martin
@SFAW: I think there’s going to have to be a commission looking at the security failure, and a special counsel looking at the role of the WH and Congress in the attack. I suspect there’s going to be a bit of overlap there as well.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Just Chuck:
Shoulda stuck with the murder rampage on Halloween – that at least would be unusual….
Martin
@JanieM: Thank you. Feel free to copy.
Baud
@Geo Wilcox:
JanieM
@dnfree: I was five years behind you. We had “parietal hours” my freshman year. The following year (1969-70 school year), not only did parietal hours disappear, but some dorms and living groups “went co-ed.” As you say — just like that. Two (of 60) women in my entering class left after freshman year to be among the first female undergraduates at Yale.
Ken
@hueyplong: I was thinking of Alien 4, where Ripley finds a room with various Ripley-Alien hybrid horrors, one still alive.
JanieM
@Martin: Thanks. One of my senators is Susan Collins, who already isn’t interested in a single word I say. It’s worth going on the record, even so.
Ken
I had to look that up. I knew about the anatomical meaning (the wall of the body cavity), had no idea about the dorm rules meaning. I wonder what the etymology was?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Martin:
Methinks that the famously opaque wunderkind Ezra Cohen-Watnick is going to get a lengthy colonoscopy without the benefit of anesthesia about a decade and a half before doctors customarily recommend.
SFAW
@JanieM:
Ask Collins whether she’s learned her lesson.
Cheryl Rofer
1969 was the year of the riots and the Weathermen. They didn’t have a political party and a mediasphere supporting them. But I was pretty insulated, so it’s hard to say.
Indeed. Just as I spent time in Greenwich Village being a rebel and reading Simone deBeauvoir during the late 1950s. No decade is just one thing or another, and you can always find the roots if you go back a bit. As you say, those restrictions just stopped at some point in the second half of the sixties. Nothing happens all at once, something to keep in mind as we go through this turning point.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I didn’t realize doctors recommended colonoscopies without anesthesia at any age.
Haroldo
@Martin:
Thanks. Exquisite, succinct.
I believe you gave permission to copy up above. I will.
JanieM
@Ken: From here:
I have no idea, really, and a quick search doesn’t yield a clear connection. But I’d guess it’s related to being inside safe (well-regulated) walls…?
JanieM
@SFAW: She learned the wrong lesson when she got reelected. And I am as baffled about that as about anything I’ve seen in my life. My little rural town went for Democrats top to bottom by margins ranging from 7 to 13 points. And — for Collins by a not insignificant amount (I forget the exact %).
different-church-lady
Some people see an angry mob and are horrified. Others see an angry mob and think, “How can I gain some advantage from this?”
Baud
@JanieM:
Her opponent was not a native Mainer IIRC.
Frank Wilhoit
@Ken: It is now the Presidential Medal of Unaccountability. The distinction is as subtle as it is crucial.
sab
@Ken: They used to lock girls out at night if they got back to the dorm too late. My older sister dealt with that.I don’t know how that was supposed to protect anyone’s virtue, safety or reputation, but that’s what they did.
I went to a formerly men’s college four years after it went coed. It drove the administrators insane that they had to manage us under new rules, not the draconian old ones.
JanieM
@Baud: That is correct. And there is a very big chip on some people’s shoulders in Maine about whether you were born here or not. But I believe at least a third of the state’s residents weren’t born here, and I suspect it’s a much higher percentage in my town. My town baffles me more than the state at large; Collins played on this particular bit of divisiveness very very heavily toward the end of the campaign.
Frank Wilhoit
@Baud: A friend who was born in the UK and subsequently lived in Germany says that it was routine practice until recently. He speaks from direct experience.
JanieM
@JanieM: Still, in fairness, Angus King isn’t originally from Maine either. But he was a very popular two-term ex-governor, while Gideon didn’t have that kind of basis for her run.
Citizen Alan
@sab: I imagine this guy will be primaried from the right in 2022 and lose to someone Q Freak who insists that all Democrats drink baby’s blood for the glory of Satan.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I thought this was about Ezra when I went looking for it, but I think these two are the trumpy, overgrown Beavis and Butthead of the trump Pentagon, so I’m comfortable throwing it in
(per the replies, it is not, which I was pretty sure of)
so much of trumpism is about the quest for a mostly vicarious ideal of a maladjusted thirteen year-old boys idea of machismo. “Defense is so wimpy! I would’ve totally taken out a bunch of Nazis if I’d been there!”
Ksmiami
@sab: Dartmouth?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JanieM: there was a Slate article saying there was a kind of soft-birther campaign because Gideon’s father was an immigrant from India. Did you hear any of that on the ground?
ETA: that said, the O’Bros were saying that this is an example of the strength of incumbency. She’s been a Senator forever, learned the importance of constituent services from Olympia Snowe, whose office was legendary in that regard, and most people don’t dig into politics like we do. Her expressions of concern and disappointment that we mock seem to normies like a real distance and independence. Upside-down shrug emoji
rikyrah
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Special rule that only applies to Ezra.
pat
@EmanG:
Shades of Hitler. There are several times he talks about trump reading from a teleprompter, so of course the whole thing must have been written with help from ….. Miller? Gouliani?
Utterly terrifying. HE MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE..NOW.
sab
@Citizen Alan: I agree with you. Maybe the Meijer name will save him.
Around here ( NE Ohio) the Republicans run same judicial candidates over and over again. We are a blue county, so they often lose at first. By the third election, low info voters see the familiar name on the ballot and elect them as the incumbent although they aren’t. They have party affiliation in the primary but not in the general for judges.
Uncle Cosmo
@JanieM: Just FTR, your timeline’s a bit out of whack. MLK was assassinated on April 4, 1968, RFK on June 6, 1968. The Kent State shootings occurred roughly two years later: May 4, 1970.
sab
@Ksmiami: Kenyon.
JanieM
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t hear that, but I’m not the most social person to begin with, and the pandemic has made it much more extreme. I wonder if Momsense or any of the other BJ commenters from Maine was aware of it.
Part of me would believe anything at this point. But part of me wants to be skeptical: I love Maine and consider it my home, no matter what the nativists say, and I’d like to think better of people. (Better of people who voted for Collins? Well, maybe I still need to wise up a bit.)
But perhaps relevant: there’s a common Maine outlook that basically sees the world as composed of Maine and everywhere else. I’ve never heard a single person say they went “out of town,” it’s always “out of state.” When I first moved here, someone told me he had just gotten back from vacation, and I asked him where he’d gone, and he said, “Out of state.” Boston? New Delhi? What difference does it make?
So about Gideon, I just don’t know.
JanieM
@Uncle Cosmo: Thanks. I need to slow down……
Calouste
@Ken: It would be more appropriate to give him the Congressional Gold Medal, considering his actions were defending Congress.
Ken
Drinking baby’s blood is so 2020. In two years, the Q beliefs will have mutated into something quite unrecognizable, except for the gibbering insanity.
raven
@JanieM: I think it was an illusion. All this hopefulness occurred simultaneously with the slow building of the racist war. I was born at the end of 49, went in the Army in 66 and saw close up the racism both within the military and in our relationship with the “indigenous” people. When I went in the war was basically an afterthought, most people weren’t even aware it was happening. I sat in the barracks in Ft Lewis waiting to ship out and watched the 68 convention on the tube. People became more militant because the other way wasn’t working
eta Fuck LBJ and Nixon
raven
@Uncle Cosmo: And there was some convention in there somewhere.
Benw
This dude sounds like the kind of upstanding young man who should have his ass handed to him by a Democrat in the next election
John S.
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks for that perspective, Cheryl. My mom is/was an unabashed hippie, so she really only focuses on the first half. She’s aware of the second half, but I don’t think she really understands it.
Fair Economist
@Ksmiami:
The Open Secrets site allows you to look up political donations by individual. It is very useful for identifying committed Republicans, although of course you have to be careful about shared names. I’ve used it on a couple of occasions like screening contractors to fix my garage door.
JanieM
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@JanieM:
Jim — I just saw your ETA. To clarify my own “shrug” speculation: having a parent who immigrated from India might have been leveraged in a certain way that made it sufficient to damage Gideon’s chances. But I think having been born in Ohio could be leveraged almost as effectively — being from “out of state” is enough.
raven
Sir! No Sir!
Sir No Sir! tells for the first time on film the story of the 1960s GI movement against the war in Vietnam. The film explores the profound impact that the movement had on the war, and investigates the way in which the GI Movement has been erased from public memory.
Chief Oshkosh
@John S.: ALEC, The Federalist Society, many other groups. But really, the “what happened” is just the norm. Movement towards a more just society was the aberration.
Ksmiami
@Fair Economist: we have been w Schwab for decades but the old man Charles gave something like half a billion to Trump so we are exploring options to transfer and to make it clear why.
Miss Bianca
@Martin: I am swiping a whole lot of this and fashioning my own open letter to my Senators and Congresswoman. I will cc Nancy Pelosi, because my Congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, is actually one of the seditionist MOC contingent.
JPL
@raven: I was able to schedule my vaccine today through Fulton County. It was suppose to be up tomorrow, but I assumed they would put it up earlier. .
wahoo
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@hueyplong: I think they would have been dead along with the rest of them. I mean, if you’re Trump, and you have an angry mob murdering people, why not get rid of the whole pesky other branch of the government, and especially those two guys that obviously aspire to your throne?
Orange is the New Red
@sab: I went there also, a bit after you.
raven
@JPL: Tuesday for me!
JPL
@raven: The site to schedule was suppose to be up tomorrow, but I assumed they would put it up early. Mine is actually Tuesday too. What about your wife?
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT but I just saw my new book cover. It has a dog on it. :-)
raven
@JPL: She’s only 63 so, even though she worked at the health department for 25 years, she has to wait. I had a funny conversation with a school teacher buddy. I told him I’d give up my shot to a teacher if I could and he said “I’d give mine up to and old person if I could”!
Another Scott
@Martin: Hearings about the security failures are already underway.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Orange is the New Red: Did you like it?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Does the story have a dog in it, or is that just marketing?
JPL
@raven: Fulton County said you could bring a caretaker also. just sayin
raven
@JPL: Hmm, bring or get the vac?
cain
The cops abandoned their posts, their superiors abandoned them – complete radio silence. This was a coup and the capitol police superiors were in on it. I’m certain of it.
A black police officer lead the mob away from the senate chambers potentially saving lives. Black police officers suffered racial slurs while their white colleagues were doing suffers. How many of those injured were black officers? Blue lives matter my ass. Blue lives if you’re white.
What’s clear is this: Black women saved our republic once, and black men saved it a second time.
JPL
@raven: COVID-19 Vaccine Information Landing Page (jotform.com)
If you already have your appt. it’s probably too late .
raven
@cain: Tell that to the dead white cop.
Ken
O’Henry did a story about that once. Then every anthology series in the history of TV programming did it again.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Are we free to steal that and write to our elected officials?
raven
@Ken: The gift of the Maji
trollhattan
@Steeplejack (phone):
Sacramento Bee
M31
@Baud:
I remember years ago reading the obituary in a Maine newspaper of a women who died aged 98, who’d moved to Maine when she was 2 years old, starting “Although not a native, . . . “
dmsilev
In the LA Times just now:
Ted Lieu: Why we will impeach Trump a second time
Ken
Magi. “The Gift of the MAGA” is left as an exercise for the readers.
My attempt: He sells his blood at the donation center to buy her a Trump coffee mug; she sells her hair to a wig-maker to buy him a Trump belt buckle; they both place their orders with the online Trump store, which double-charges their credit cards and never ships anything.
Ken
Lying about a blowjob.
taumaturgo
Here the conservative Democrats go again making evident their taking from both sides of the mouth. Impunity by any other name or justice delay is justice denied, pick one.
talkingpointsmemo.com/news/clyburn-potential-impeachment-trial-delay-after-biden-100-days
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ken: Think of the children. //
Baud
@Ken:
Haha. Almost perfect. The only thing you left out is that they blame antifa’s war on Christmas for the whole thing.
Jinchi
I wonder if the editorial was written in advance of that. Lay the groundwork, see how much blowback he gets and encourage other Republicans to get on board. Politicians are notorious for having their fingers in the wind on issues like this.
The Thin Black Duke
@taumaturgo: You’re kidding, right?
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
Don’t let Trump’s insurrection distract you from the greater battle against Democrats who aren’t in the club.
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke:
I just left my church this morning after arguing with somebody like this. I just can’t.
NotMax
For Dolt 45, the walls of the garbage masher are in motion and R2D2 is in the shop, stripped down for maintenance.
Geoduck
@Inventor: I Specifically Requested The Opposite Of This.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The whole War on Christmas started when Hillary put condoms on the White House Christmas Tree.
cain
An abject failure by the leadership – who literally abandoned them. Radio silence during that whole time. Abandoned.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Does anyone else cringe as each one of these people telling their stories adds one more piece of information about where they sheltered, and therefore how to better find them next time?
First, the person who said the woman was shot just a few feet from where they were sheltering. Someone else explained about corridors in the basement, now this one tells about the tunnels to a different location.
Hoppie
@Cheryl Rofer: Regarding Carter.
Hamilton Jordan was interviewed in Playboy, I believe September 1986. He was asked how we would be able to tell if (a then prospective) Carter presidency was a success.
Jordan said if Cyrus Vance was Secretary of State, and Zbigniew Brzezinski foreign policy advisor, you would know they had failed.
The Carter Presidency began as a failure. In their own words. American tragedy.
Chyron HR
@taumaturgo:
Oh, I’m sorry, we thought Bernie’s decree that impeachment is a distraction from the concerns of the proletariat was still in effect. Our bad.
Brachiator
@Ken:
If the impeachment provision of the Constitution is not invoked for this situation, then what the hell is it for?
Very good!
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
TBF it was Banksy and Hillary just took credit, as per usual.
There should have been hearings.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: I don’t think so. Every single one of the security plans Congress had for itself is going to be examined, revised, revamped, etc. Any security information in those stories is going to be obsolete quickly, so the emotional impact of hearing the first-person details is more important.
(clearly I am not an expert on such things, so take with appropriate grains of salt)
Kelly
@WaterGirl: A worthy concern. However as has been remarked here maps of the Capitol Building have been public for decades. I read about the tunnels long ago. The pics of the door the woman was shot trying to storm went out while the riot was in progress. In other words the horse left the barn long ago, if it ever was in the barn.
The Thin Black Duke
@WaterGirl: No. There’s gonna be competent folks in charge soon, and they’ll learn the proper lessons from this debacle. Nothing like this is going to happen during the Biden administration.
mrmoshpotato
@Chyron HR: Silly Chyron.
Everyone knows a bunch of fascist Trump trash (sorry for the redundancy) stormed the Capitol building looking to overthrow the government and murder elected officials because of INCOME INEQUALITY!
mrmoshpotato
@Ken:
You mean Consensual Cocksuckinggate?
jonas
If I were a politician and my career had reached a point where if I didn’t embrace a loonbat conspiracy theory and lie about reality, my constituents would assassinate me or harm my family, I would pretty quickly seek another line of work, possibly in another, more stable country.
Immanentize
@raven: Don’t you think by now it was a mixed bag? Some stalwart defenders of their duty and the Constitution, some just doing their job but overwhelmed and for what ever reason not backed up, and some — some– complicit?
It doesn’t strike me that it has to be all one or another. It’s not binary. I suspect the vast majority were types one and two. I also think some were type three. These things can be true at the same time.
I suppose we either will find out, or we won’t. It would be better if we can because if we don’t they will all be losers in one way or another to each side.
SFAW
@Ken:
I was going to correct you, noting that it was lying under oath about a blowjob. But considering who the leading Inquisitors were (Graham, for example), the “under oath” was not required.
And, remember: a “process crime” is the worstest thing evah, if a Dem did it. A Rethug does it? “You’re persecuting me!!!”
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Visiting some of the tunnels was one of the stops of public tours of the Capitol, at least back when.
p.a.
I assume there are not a lot of defense attorneys with experience in sedition/treason charges, as tRump and his tRumpturds insist on strengthening the employment stats of lawyers, if not anyone else.
Slacktivist posted today, but not on the subject he’s my go-to on: talibangelical reaction/interaction with the treason party. Hopefully post(s) soon. He follows them so we don’t have to.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: The tunnels between the House and Senate Office Buildings and the Capitol is common knowledge, there’s even a subway on the Senate side(I’ve ridden it).
cain
You know the right spent a shit ton of time on benghazi and I think this is just like how benghazi was perceived to be. In this case, capitol police have reported that there was no presence by leadership while dealing with a mob. Worse, it’s on our soil and in the seat of govt – not Libya.
The more shit comes out – and we all know it – we will use it to beat the GOP into a forever minority party that stands for insurrection, sedition, and fascism.
I feel like we need a scene similar to “Tombstone” :-) “You call down the thunder, you got it..” :-)
Jinchi
Trump is a huge anomaly, though. Everyone in the country had pretty much made their minds up on Trump on day one. Look at his approval numbers over time and they are virtually flat. Completely unlike anything seen with any other president. After the first few months of his term, nothing moved his numbers significantly. Not the economy, not impeachment, not even his disasterous handling of the pandemic which has cost nearly 400,000 lives.
This is why I disagree with those who think he would have won, but for the pandemic, or that Joe Biden was the only candidate capable of defeating him.
Immanentize
Once again, on how divisive impeachment is and how unity and peace require that nothing be done
We shall have peace!
For all good people, especially LOTR fans (first minute is enough).
Just Chuck
@p.a.: Sedition nothing, it’s unclear that the attorneys that will even touch T’s cases have any understanding of law
jonas
@mrmoshpotato: I know. Their personal financial situations were so precarious that they no doubt scraped together what little they could to 1. buy hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of weapons, military tactical gear, and MAGA paraphernalia with which to festoon themselves. 2. purchase plane tickets to fly hundreds or thousands of miles to DC., and 3. spend hundreds of dollars more on a downtown hotel room in order to petition their government for a more just economy.
Or they were just your run-of-the-mill middle and upper middle-class fascists who came to enthusiastically fap to Trump’s calls to launch a violent coup against the US Congress.
Faithful Lurker
@Frank Wilhoit: When I lived in southwest Michigan, 30 years, we called Meijers Thrifty Acres Meijers Shitty Acres with good reason. The old man Meijers was known for being a remarkable miser.
Immanentize
@p.a.: There are some attorneys who specialize in such cases — but those usually are selling State secret cases. They feds almost always charge treason or sedition, but almost always also drop those charges because of legal “grey mail.” That’s when the defendant requests secret information and witnesses that they are entitled to in such cases and the government refuses to give up methods and sources and so reduces the really serious charges.
jonas
At the height of the insurrections in Iraq, when it was clear his administration had no clue how to stabilize the country and dozens of US troops were dying every day, Bush’s poll numbers were completely in the shitter (25% or thereabouts, iirc).
cain
@The Thin Black Duke:
You know – this president has probably done as many illegal things that they can go and do another impeachment. I’m sure more news will come out – I have no idea why Clyburn wants to wait or if what was reported even true.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW:
Immanentize
@cain: I’m happy with the simple:
“Fuck around and find out.”
topclimber
@Chyron HR: BOOOORRRINGGG!
Kent
Exactly. They did the “surge” which was supposed to win the war and did nothing of the sort. It just lead to more bleeding and death. But also the economy collapsed and Katrina happened, so his record-setting low approval rating towards the end of his presidency was probably a combination of those three factors.
Jinchi
He now claims it was “rhetorical hyperbole” and is disgusted that the press doesn’t understand that concept, despite posting it on Thursday, after the mobs attacked the Capitol.
Shouldn’t this get him immediately disbarred and arrested?
sdhays
@taumaturgo: If the Senate under Moscow Mitch is going to sit around with their thumbs stuck up their butts until Biden is sworn in, I don’t see the point in the House jamming the newly Democratic Senate with an impeachment trial right out of the gate.
For it to be useful, the trial needs to start this week, and if the Republican Senate will do nothing, as Moscow Mitch has indicated, then waiting awhile for the Democratic Senate to unclog its bowels seems a reasonable thing to consider. As I said yesterday, I’m on the “the sooner the better” team, but if we have to wait for Dump to be gone before having a trial, then the calculation changes somewhat, for me.
jonas
@Jinchi: Yep. 55% of the country thought he was a crook from day one, and 45% loved the fact that he was a crook from day one.
Just Chuck
@Jinchi: If they took it down quickly enough, they’re immunized by … wait for it … Section 230
Brachiator
@debbie:
I have been watching some YouTube videos of Beatles interviews. Even though I grew up during that era, I don’t recall that a lot of their interviews were actually shown widely on television.
It is amazing to see how witty they were. Not just funny or disarming, but sharp intelligence.
One reporter’s question is a hoot. And also speaks to fear and conservative values.
Elsewhere John casually states that he is a religious agnostic. In 1964 or 1965, for a celebrity not to gush about loving Baby Jesus had to be revolutionary.
jonas
I’ve been asking this for weeks now. How the hell to Sidney Powell and Lin Wood still have their law licenses? Don’t bar associations have *any* standards?
Mallard Filmore
@?BillinGlendaleCA: There is a “subway” on both sides. The “subway” (as of 40 years ago) is really a vehicle similar to an airport scooter that takes disabled, or tired, or old people to the gate.
thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/electric-car-airport-transport-people-mobility-handicap-transport-taxi-disab…
Kent
McConnell is nothing if not a master of Senate process. He knew this was coming. Which is why, if you watched the live coverage of the electoral college certification vote, that, while the vote was still happening, he moved to adjourn the Senate until the 19th effectively immediately upon conclusion of the business at hand. He saw this coming and decided to run out the clock and dump it on Schumer’s lap.
Scout211
I don’t know if this has been posted yet, but another Capitol police officer has died over the weekend, this time by suicide.
forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/01/10/another-capitol-police-death-officer-dies-by-suicide-after-…
NotMax
@BilinGlendaleCA
Subway might give some the wrong impression; a more accurate description might be underground open-carriage tram line. Not all that dissimilar from the types used to transport miners underground or (albeit in shorter configuration and trackless) the thingies you see shuttling people from here to there along the corridors of large airports.
Just Chuck
@sdhays: Yep, it’ll be a time sink, but the new Senate letting him skate would be worse, even if it’s largely (but not entirely) just a scathing rebuke. After all, what better way to kick off the start of a post-Trump commission?
Kathleen
@debbie: I think the defining border line between early and mid to late is 11-22-63. That was traumatic. I’m not sure those of us that era have totally recovered. For me it left psychic scar in my soul.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Not if your bigger than Jesus.
Jinchi
Right. Bush’s numbers declined pretty steadily from his peak after 9/11 to the end of his presidency. I think he has the highest positive (87%) and the lowest negative rating (24%) of any president on record.
sdhays
@Jinchi: I’m with you on this. I do think Biden turned out to be the best candidate for the time and probably won George and Arizona where another candidate might not have. But I think it was remarkable how little impact COVID had at all.
Kent
I think someone on the relevant state bar has to file a complaint and they have to investigate. And then decide on the appropriate response, which could be permanent expulsion, but might be something short of that.
I would assume that sort of thing is in the works by attorneys who are horrified with what they are seeing. But I also assume those sorts of internal bar association proceedings would not necessarily be public. So we wouldn’t necessarily know how many complaints they have filed against them and how fast the relevant state bars are going to proceed with addressing them.
sdhays
@Jinchi: His numbers were sliding all summer in 2001, as I recall. Without 9/11, I doubt he would have won reelection (or, as I like to put it, election, since he didn’t really win the 2000 election). He was a bad President who got “lucky” that he didn’t get blamed for his first colossal fuck up and the rest didn’t happen or become clear enough until after his reelection campaign.
mrmoshpotato
@Jinchi:
I’d call this guy an idiot, but he knows what he says is bullshit.
Calling a studio apartment your mansion – that’s rhetorical hyperbole!
Kathleen
@narya: Actually Richard Nixon undermined LBJ Paris Peace Talks in 1968 campaign which I didn’t know until about 20 years ago. In the early 30’s Marine General Smedley Butler testified he’d been asked to act as front man for a coup which also included Republicans
Just Chuck
@Kent: I’d imagine federal court officials would also have standing to file for sanctions, not just members of the state bar.
Jinchi
I’m curious what the first post-January 6th numbers will look like.
If that didn’t shake them, nothing will.
taumaturgo
It came out of his mouth in an interview, but of course, he could be lying. The “let’s wait” gambit is a politician double speak signaling that nothing will be done. The most horrific attack on our Democracy and the party leadership is floating the idea they are unable to do more than one thing. “Hey we refused to go after Trump, but we got the guy with the shaft and horns headgear.”
Mary G
I was very impressed with Rep. Meijer’s words, but his votes will be worse than Amash’s. He wants to end the endless wars, but not too fast like the terrible way Obama did it, he wants to pay off the national debt yesterday, yada yada yada. So in the long term he’ll be awful, but if his stance on Trump and the election lies could shame a few of his colleagues…wait, what am I talking about? Republicans have no shame.
Mallard Filmore
@NotMax:
Capitol subway:
untappedcities.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/US-Capitol-Hill-Subway-System-Underground-Senate-Russe…
Just Chuck
@Jinchi: I’m going with “nothing will”. It’s still a pretty strong cult. Of course within 2 years his Fox News chyron will read “Loser Stink (D)”
(Edit: occurs to me the thread was probably referring to shaking Dem leadership out of complacency.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mallard Filmore: It’s not a set of carts, it’s a monorail, similar to what you’d find at an airport between terminals. I’ve only ridden on the one of the Senate side(we had to try the navy bean soup in the Senate cafeteria).
Wikipedia on the subways.
Mary G
@Kathleen: And Roger Stone was working for Nixon by then in the colleges, ratfucking then and ratfucking now.
Raven
@Immanentize: did you see what I was responding to?
sdhays
@Kent: “Moscow Mitch” isn’t just an epithet. The man quite literally despises our country and wants to dismantle it. Just not quite the way Dump and Co. want to do it.
Zelma
I think the most telling number I have seen is that 56% of Americans want Trump removed ASAP. I have seen this portrayed as “LOOK, 56% of Americans…” What is probably more significant is that 44% of Americans don’t want Trump removed ASAP. Now probably a percentage of them are saying, “Why bother? It’s only 10 more days.” But I am willing to bet that at least one-third of Americans don’t want Trump removed ASAP or even on January 20.
An anecdote: my fairly red county has a League of Women Voters which is “non-partisan” and does the usual stuff – holding candidate forums, doing voter registration, etc. Most of the women are Republicans because Democrats are pretty few and far between around here. Apparently quite a few members are threatening to resign because the national LWV issued a condemnation of the coup and reiterated that Biden had legitimately won the election. These are old, white middle class women and they literally (and seriously) believe that the election was stolen. I have no idea how we counteract this.
Just Chuck
It’s a train of some kind. It’s underground. Let’s call it a subway and move on.
Kathleen
@JanieM: The radical right hated JFK. Remember when they posted “Wanted For Treason” posters in the Dallas paper? Generals hated him for not supporting Bay of Pigs or nuking Russia during Cuban Missile Crisis. I still think the right wing murdered him.
Kent
@sdhays:@Jinchi: I’m with you on this. I do think Biden turned out to be the best candidate for the time and probably won George and Arizona where another candidate might not have. But I think it was remarkable how little impact COVID had at all.
I disagree. I think Covid had everything to do with Trump’s loss. I am actually terrified at how close he came to winning the electoral college. The margin was a few hundred thousand votes in a few swing states and those were not votes of hardened partisans. And I truly believe that a half-way mediocre Covid response that was uniting and not dividing, combined with a laser focused attempt to roll Mitch McConnell and push more stimulus and relief money out to the public would have won him the election.
In pretty much every single other country where the leaders made unifying and bipartisan efforts to combat Covid their approval ratings went up. Trump did not have to be in the top echelon of countries like Taiwan or New Zealand in his Covid response. He could have just done as well as an ordinary median country like Canada or Germany and we would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and done things like kept most of the schools open.
Likewise, Americans love them some stimulus. Last fall he could have whipsawed the Senate into approving large portions of the original House measures on Covid including the $2000 checks and a lot more forms of state and local aid. Which would have one out with his name on them in October, right before the election. Instead McConnell whipsawed him into focusing that time period on the Amy Coney Barrett nomination instead. Strategically they did it exactly backwards. They should have done the Covid relief BEFORE the election because that was what casual swing voters wanted, and saved the Barrett nomination until afterwards. But they did it exactly backward and it cost him the election.
cain
@Baud:
The klan really loved that one. They practically rioted and they had to apologize.
Baud
For those of you who didn’t click the link, here’s the Clyburn quote
sdhays
@Just Chuck: Like I said, I don’t want to wait either. But it’s absolutely critical for millions of people that Biden’s Cabinet gets confirmed ASAP, and there’s critical legislation that needs to be passed for COVID relief and response that also needs to happen ASAP.
Someone mentioned that under the Democrats, the Senate could have rules to walk and chew gum at the same time, and that would be ideal. But I don’t know enough about Senate procedure to know how practical that really is, especially considering the Republicans will not be cooperative. I’m just not going to be overly critical if the House decides to give the Senate space to get the Biden Administration off the ground – I’m going to assume that that’s what Schumer and his caucus have gamed out is the most effective way to use their time.
I will say that waiting a year, as was suggested last night, is definitely not a good idea. The trial needs to happen when the wounds are still fresh.
Fair Economist
A lynch squad went to Clyburn’s secret personal office, and he’s old enough to remember public lynchings without consequences. I guar-an-tee you nobody wants Trump impeached more or faster than Clyburn. If he’s saying wait 100 days, there is a very good reason, most likely IMO that the Senate whip count shows it will fail and so the only benefit is hearing during the process and revealing all the horrors Biden’s administration can find only after it exists.
Kent
@Just Chuck: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m not an attorney. All I’m saying is just because WE aren’t seeing public action by bar associations, doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I’m a teacher, not a lawyer. But I know, for example, that investigations against teachers after complaints of misconduct are not public and are kept confidential until some final decision to strip a teacher of his/her license is issued. Then it is finally on the public record so that they can’t get hired elsewhere. And I am pretty sure it is the same in the medical profession with respect to medical licenses.
Another Scott
@cain: Twitter dick_nixon says that Clyburn may be giving Biden space to do what needs to be done in the first 100 days with that comment. True? Dunno. But Clyburn isn’t stupid.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: So basically, if the Senate isn’t going to make it priority before Trump’s term expires; why should we rush it over and step on everything else on the Senate’s schedule, Trump will be out of office anyway.
Brachiator
@Zelma:
I would throw them in jail. But that’s just me.
ETA. Obviously I am joking. Your point is well taken. It is amazing how many people who you think should know better believe in such foolishness.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Yes
RaflW
Probably said already upthread but “It didn’t have to end like this” is too optimistic. This whipped up mob, and more importantly, the militarized extremist cells that swirl in their midsts, are not done. We can hope they’re in a more exposed position now, but I have no illusions that they’re done.
topclimber
@taumaturgo: Investigations will go on immediately under Biden, but I don’t get the rush to a trial. Justice will be done on our timetable, not one dictated by MM’s refusal to allow a Senate trial now.
An immediate trial is important when the key priority is to neuter Trump during the dangerous next 10 days. If it can’t be done, ask yourself: What is the priority then? I say, getting our country back on track ASAP and keeping Trump out of the news for a while. Then, when people have room to breathe (without masks?), have a trial that might just result in pain for Trump, more exposure for his minions, and the chance to bar him from future office.
Most Americans are not going to forget the attack on the Capitol in their lifetimes, much less in the space of 100 days.
sdhays
@Kent: I was meaning that if COVID hadn’t happened, I don’t think Dump would have won. It’s impossible to know, just that the polls remained amazingly steady throughout all of this. It’s true that if Dump’s COVID response had been half-way competent, he might have been able to hang on to some Republican votes that would have at least made the election closer.
But that was really never going to happen. Dump is simply incapable of thinking that clearly and he surrounds himself with incompetents.
raven
@Kathleen: A murder most foul.
Twas a dark day in Dallas, November ’63
A day that will live on in infamy
President Kennedy was a-ridin’ high
Good day to be livin’ and a good day to die
Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb
He said, “Wait a minute, boys, you know who I am?”
“Of course we do. We know who you are”
Then they blew off his head while he was still in the car
Fair Economist
@Zelma: You’re not showing that COVID hurt Trump. You’re showing that it actually gave him an opportunity to win. He’s just such a monster he blew it.
Mallard Filmore
@Just Chuck:
How many rail-fans do you know?
Jinchi
I actually agree with you. If Covid had never happened, I think we would have ended up exactly where we are today.
But he could have won support if he had done even a mediocre job at handling the pandemic. Just as 9/11 boosted W’s numbers, this catastrophe could’ve boosted Trump’s long enough for him to get across the finish line.
But he wouldn’t be Donald Trump if he could manage a mediocre job. He was always going to be awful, just as he always has been.
Baud
@Zelma:
Let the door hit them on the ass on the way out?
Kent
I think there are a shitload of trials that need to happen. Not just of Trump, but all his lackeys, enablers and adult family. I’m just not sure that a Senate trial is the one that is most important to happen once he is out of office. The most that they can do once he is out of office through impeachment is bar him from seeking further office. It is the other ordinary criminal trials that are going to lock him up, not a Senate impeachment trial.
I also think that if they swing and miss via an impeachment trial, that is likely to take the wind out of any criminal trials and investigations. The media narrative will be that the Dems “swung and missed” and that they should just let it go now. And I truly believe that they will miss because I don’t see a post 1/20/2021 trial gaining 17 Republican votes. They will get a few but not 17. Folks like Rand Paul will give long speeches about how they aren’t excusing what he did, but an impeachment trial now that he is out of office is not the correct place to address it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Immanentize:
Dude! Spoiler alert!
RaflW
@Jinchi: The same guy who would skip putting sprinklers in a towering residential “luxury” highrise was never going to want to do even a half-arsed job of dealing with Covid. His achilles heel, while horribly costly in human terms, has probably spared us from a second term and incalculably more corruption and incompetence.
(Even just thinking about the terrible third-string ‘team’ around him now, imagine how much worse year seven coulda been).
*Is burning to death a deLuxe or a super-premium experience?
Another Scott
@Jinchi: Papi Bush was at 91% (IIRC) after winning the Gulf War and quickly bringing the troops home. I don’t know his minimum. W probably had the greatest total range.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
Impeachment is a political act to (a) remove him from the levers of power (b) make sure he never gets his hands on them again and (c) warn off any future leaders tempted to do the same thing.
It’s distinct from legal prosecution. The right-wing is going to whine about something anyway. If Congress doesn’t impeach him they’ll simply flip the script and claim “if he was so bad you should’ve impeached him.” (Probably quoting Comey’s book while they’re at it.)
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks much for the correction. I had forgotten their go-to bullshit excuse.
Kent
If Covid hadn’t happened the economy would likely have been going like gangbusters this past summer and Trump would have been doing everything possible to prime the pump further, from brow-beating the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low, to pushing through more spending on infrastructure, military, etc. to keep the economy cooking. I don’t think it is any sort of sure thing that an incumbent running in an environment of record low unemployment and record high stock markets would have lost. I don’t think Trump necessarily loses the white suburban vote in places like Atlanta and Phoenix if the economy is cooking and the markets are up.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Problem is, Trump may still be a danger once he is out of office.
I don’t know what Congress should do. But Trump is weird. Once he gets an idea into his head, he rarely lets it go. It festers and feeds his rage and keeps coming back.
And we have never had a president openly urge a coup against his own government and go to war against another branch of the government.
Trump is quiet, but is he really chastened? Could he rally supporters again to attempt another malicious act?
taumaturgo
This quote should be unacceptable
Just Chuck
@topclimber: Good point: if anything, the Putz Putsch will become even more odious over the next few months, especially after the steady drip of information coming to light. I wouldn’t give it longer than that though.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ken: Well crafted, except for the title, which should be The Grift Of The MAGA…
Just Chuck
@Mallard Filmore: It all sounds like “clips” vs “magazines” to me. Or “baud” vs “bps”. Or … know any other good ones?
taumaturgo
@topclimber: Yes and most vividly they will remember Trump walking away w/o being held accountable, emboldening the right to continue pushing the envelope since the loyal opposition is proving for the thousand times is all talk and no action.
Just Chuck
@Brachiator: T won’t have the power to hurt millions of people anymore, which will substantially diminish the enthusiasm of his base.
Another Scott
@Mary G:
FWIW.
(Note there’s a follow-up with an image about Stone getting a payoff in 1973, though.)
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Just Chuck
“Starbucks” vs. “coffee?”
:)
Kent
@Jinchi: I’m not arguing with you. I understand the distinction between impeachment and a criminal trial.
I’m just characterizing what I expect the MEDIA narrative to be. Remember, the FNYT is not our friend and much of the dominant broadcast media is worse. If they do a Senate Impeachment trial this spring and fail to convict, every damn talking head in the country that is right of center will be talking about how it is time to move on for the good of the country. That the Dems had their day in court and didn’t seal the deal. And that pursuing further criminal investigations and such against Trump and his family is just sour grapes.
It doesn’t matter whether it is actually true. I 100% expect that is what will actually happen
Rather than an impeachment trial that the GOP can sabotage and control. I’d rather see various Senate and House committees putting Trump and every damn Trump lackey until the microscope by Katie Porter and others. Dredge every last bit of Trump wrongdoing out into public view. And spend years doing it if necessary. How many damn Benghazi hearing did we have and how long did they go? That is actually what brought down Hillary Clinton, not the Russians or Comey. They whole email thing came out of the Benghazi hearings. The past week of insurrection and sedition merits at least 100x the coverage and investigation that Benghazi did
If you want to torpedo Trump’s future political career, keep his wrongdoing and sedition on the front pages for months and months of investigations and hearings, not a 1 or 2 day long impeachment trial.
JanieM
@Brachiator:
No snark — is that a rhetorical question? He is incapable of being chastened.
Without a doubt. But based on everything I have read here (links galore) and elsewhere, I’m pretty sure there’s a large contingent of malicious actors who don’t need him to focus their malevolence.
dnfree
@Geo Wilcox: I don’t think “most” hippie types turned to “greed is good”. The ones I know didn’t. There were plenty of non-hippies to handle the greed and love of capitalism.
Another Scott
@Kent: The recession started in February – before the March lockdowns.
Cheers,
Scott.
dnfree
@Ken: We were told it was “in loco parentis”—the university was to be in place of our parents, but only for the female students. Guys studying late could order a pizza. We could buy a snack from the basement vending machines.
cain
@Kent:
I think this is a good point – but in terms of actual harm, we know that Trump is in a very dangerous state right now and anything can happen in his desperation.
I think we are looking at this from a purely political view, but I think it isn’t the same situation.
We had rebellion and insurrection and occupation – and very clearly leading to the White House. There will be more and more details coming out that the media will greedily consume.
But yes, the right wing media is going to try to play it up, but I think there will be continual bombshells coming that will shut them up.
SFAW
@NotMax:
What does Moby Dick have to do with coffee? I’m confused. Or, at sea, maybe.
taumaturgo
@Kent: Wait, Hillary won the popular 3 million-plus. Imagine if she had run a decent campaign. The Democrats can have hearings all they want, but the end product will most likely be a 1,000-page meaningless report with zero accountability. BTW, whatever happened during the last four years and the Democrat’s lackadaisical efforts to obtain Trump’s tax returns. IMO the effort was a total failure.
SFAW
@Another Scott:
February, 2009, according to the Party of Traitors, and ended on 1/20/2017 at 12:30 PM. What’s happening now is The Second Obama Recession.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Has a single rightwing Democrat of the Pelosi-Clyburn Corporate Consensus Caucus had the ballz to tell Mitch to look out the window? Why not? What are they waiting for? Marching orders from Obomber?
NotMax
@SFAW
Don’t order the Ahabaccino.
Kent
@Another Scott: Either way, I think anyone who thinks Trump was ever going to be easy to beat is incredibly naive. I think we got lucky politically speaking, both with Trump’s mishandling off Covid, and also with the nomination of Biden and not some more potentially divisive candidate like Sanders or Warren.
The electorate actually tilted more GOP in 2020 in all other races except the top of the ticket. Especially a lot of Senate and Houe races. That, for me, is cause for great concern.
I have no answers. But I also think that for once, the dice came up in the Dem’s favor this election. And that wasn’t pre-ordained in any manner.
SFAW
@taumaturgo:
I thought “imagine” was used to conceive of things that hadn’t occurred?
Yes, why didn’t Speaker Pelosi have Richie Neal or Jerry Nadler do something about that during the 2017-2019 period? And why didn’t they use mind control to make the executive branch turn over those files? And why didn’t they force the courts to give them decisions they wanted?
taumaturgo
Here go with our new version of POS Lie-berman. Machin might as well be caucusing with his Republican conservative pals. Machin will be consuming his time opposing the conservative Democrats’ agenda by siding with the conservative traitors in the GOP.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Maybe if you call it “Ishmael,” that flows better.
Kent
@taumaturgo: All I am saying is that in a post-presidency impeachment trial, the Dems are handing the initiative over to the GOP because the 17th GOP Senator needed for conviction is going to be…[checks notes] Probably John Thune of South Dakota or Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and I am not remotely convinced that their votes will be “gettable.” And if they aren’t gettable, then Trump and the entire center to right media landscape will paint the whole exercise as an overreach or swing and a miss by the Dems. It will totally take the wind out of the sails of any other investigations.
govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2019/senate/ideolog
I’m entirely in favor of the House impeaching on Monday. But I’m not necessarily in favor of holding an impeachment trial post 1/20/2021 after Trump is out of office and stewing away in Mar a Lago. Can they legally NOT hold a trial? I don’t know. We are off the map here. But I think the Senate could claim that the issue is moot since he is no longer in office.
Brachiator
@Just Chuck:
We don’t know how desperate Trump might be or how he will attempt to abuse the respect afforded to former presidents. We also do not know how desperate or stupid his core supporters might be.
cain
@Brachiator:
Also, impeachment will also stop him from getting the daily briefs. There is no way any intelligence agency should be giving him anything past Inauguration day.
taumaturgo
@SFAW: Trump got the wall and monies to pay for it, yet the Democrats told us it was raining while they were pissing on us. All fire and brimstone talk, pretending to make an effort, no tax returns, and Trump walks once again.
cain
@taumaturgo:
Whats wrong with that? – the 25A is the fastest way to get rid of him than a Senate hearing which clearly won’t happen till after the 19th.
Comparing him to Lieberman is just preposterous. Lieberman single-handedly killed the public option – and tried to kill the ACA in general. Let’s not make unfair comparisons here.
Kent
I agree with him. A post inauguration impeachment trial hands the initiative over to the GOP which I think is an insanely stupid strategic error. I’d rather see them spend the next Congress investigating every misdeed and pulling on every string with the Dems in control of the process, not the GOP as would be the case with an impeachment trial.
cain
@Kent:
and in actuality – if Trump does something after impeachment and the Inauguration day – the blame will completely fall on the GOP in the Senate. They will be forced to convict him – and anybody who doesn’t vote yea will be fucked in the next election.
The GOP should have no confidence in thinking Trump will stay quiet between now and then. He is not controllable, he is a dangerous, reckless man. I hope there is a wire tap on his phone and other staffers because you can bet they are talking to the proud boys right now.
Jinchi
This is where I’m coming from too. Trump is a dangerous threat and everyone who has authority to move against him should be acting right now, and simultaneously. Pence should be calling the cabinet together. They should be voting to suspend Trump’s powers. Pelosi should be moving forwards in the House. Senators should have stayed in DC ready to take action the moment the House has voted. The point is to get his removal as far along as possible in case he tries another stunt. It also sends a strong signal for the everyone else in the federal government to be on guard against illegal orders from the top. There’s no reason to believe we’ve seen the final Trump scandal.
It’s fine for Manchin to think this would be better served by the judiciary and for Clyburn to think the Senate trial can be pushed back a few months, but we aren’t at that point yet.
Citizen Alan
@Ksmiami: I would be astonished if there were any retirement fund management concerns in the nation whose owners/CEOs weren’t committed Republicans. IIRC, JFK noted 60 years ago that every person above a certain income level would most likely be a Republican. In 1960 dollars, I think he put it at $76,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $668,000 a year in 2020, which sounds about right.
Kent
What is Trump going to to AFTER inauguration day? He just becomes another Lin Wood or Glenn Beck, ranting away about conspiracy theories, except that he’ll be more de-platformed than them in that the big tech is all playing whack-a-mole to keep him off twitter, facebook parler, etc. He’s going to be forced to call into OAN News or Newsmax and whining about how unfair it all is. Which frankly isn’t really a good look.
After the inauguration the equation completely flips. Instead of bringing down the COUNTRY as president, he will be destroying the Republican party with his insanity and preventing them from moving on into any sort of post-Trump world. He won’t be ranting about Democrats and dividing the Country. He’ll be ranting about the GOP who betrayed him and dividing the party.
Honestly, if the Democrats were going to create a secret weapon to destroy the Republican party in 2022 and beyond, they couldn’t do a better job than create Trump if he didn’t already exist.
Trump isn’t some singular evil like Hitler who, if we vanquish then we get back to the GOP of Lincoln and Eisenhower. They are ALL just as fucking bad as him. And maybe worse to the extent that the next one is likely to be more competent in their treason.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: It really is funny that in every situation the Democrats do exactly the wrong thing every time. It’s almost as though they want to spite you personally. The bastards.
Ruckus
@gene108:
I believe that the events of the last week show that for all intents, the republican party is a cult, no longer a political party and has been for some years. They elected a guy who has no political capital, no political concepts, no political ideals, no political abilities and no political knowledge and many of them backed him up in his attempt at a coup. That’s Jonestown but looking outwards, ie 180 deg opposite and on a significantly larger scale.
Kent
I believe this 100% too. Which is why I think a post-inauguration impeachment trial THAT THEY WILL CONTROL THE OUTCOME OF is a strategic mistake.
Hoppie
@jonas: The magic 27% is my memory.
Kent
You would be wrong about that. A majority, sure. But there is plenty of Wall Street finance money that flows into Democrats as well. And it isn’t just Republicans hedging their bets.
JFK and his entire extended family clan are most certainly “above a certain income level” which makes the whole argument self-refuting.
Chelsea Clinton’s husband manages a Hedge Fund for fuck’s sake.
catclub
Mao and the Red Brigades may like a word.
Omnes Omnibus
I think the words I bolded were put there for a reason. Don’t you?
Uncle Cosmo
@SFAW: Call yourself Fishmeal. Then call it a day.
Citizen Alan
@Another Scott: The most sickening thing about Dubya’s administration is that he and his people learned the “right” lesson from Papi’s defeat: If you start a war, keep it going until after the next election at least so voters don’t have a chance to look around and notice how you trashed the whole country and so you can deride the opposition as “not supporting the troops.”
Citizen Alan
@taumaturgo: Oh will you shut your fucking mouth, you sniveling muppet!
UPDATE: Never mind! You’re pie’d. Rant your bullshit to your heart’s content knowing that I won’t give a fuck.
Ruckus
@JanieM:
I think that a lot of people vote for the person they think they know, and probably do, superficially, over the unknown or the known with that one thing they don’t want to support. Collins is the known, she gets the press, she often is the, what i call offside vote, the one that clinches something that often people care only somewhat about. IOW if they sent someone new to congress, they’d get no notice at all. Maine gets noticed because of Collins. It doesn’t even need to be the notice they’d like, it just has to be notice. And she’s been a senator for a while, sort of like Diane Feinstein here in CA. DF has not been bad, nor particularly great and many have run against her, but she’s the known, not the unknown. Someone is going to have to replace her next go round. That applies to both of them. They have to start now or they will never spin up momentum.
Just Chuck
@Kent: They may control the verdict, but the outcome to the public is either going to be another sham non-trial or them actually trying to defend T’s actions. Romney may find some more to join him this time: I suspect some of the non-Cruz’s and Mitch’s of the Senate would love to stick their knives in T’s back.
Kent
In the sentence above it you said you would be astonished if there were ANY fund managers who were not Republicans. I was pushing back against that statement.
Kathleen
@dnfree: Same rules for me when I was a freshman at University of Portland in 1967. UP was a very conservative Catholic school. Boys staged panty raid freshman year. 5 girls retaliated. Girls either grounded or suspended. Boys nothing. Good times. We couldn’t wear pants until the weekends. Curfew 7:00 for Girls. Not the guys. Rules started changing when I was a junior (1969-1970). Back my gruel and METV.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: I didn’t say anything of the kind.
Kent
I think you are underestimating how easy it will be for them to control the media narrative. An impeachment trial puts the initiative and decision in the hands of GOP Senators from states like South Dakota, Wyoming, and Louisiana. I don’t think it is a safe bet that some wave of public outrage will force them to vote your way in what will ultimately be treated as a symbolic political trial by all sides since Trump will already be out of office.
I’d rather see them put Trump and every one of his enablers under the microscope and proctoscope in a Committee hearing forum that the Dem’s COMPLETELY control by virtue of majority vote, rather than an impeachment trial that they do NOT control by virtue of the 2/3 supermajority requirement.
It’s not about whether or not to hold Trump accountable. It’s picking the forum or forums where we will have the greatest ability to control the process and succeed.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry, I was responding to this post which wasn’t you and I apparently the attributions got crossed
Brachiator
@Kent:
Trump will be a former president, not just another ordinary citizen. And no one can predict what he might try to do.
Trump is singularly evil in that he is the only US president who tried to stage a coup against his own country or who tacitly approved an assault on Congress in order to try to steal an election.
He has for the rest of eternity become the first president to openly offer the seduction and false promise of “democratic autocracy” to his fellow Americans. He may have opened the door to many autocrats to come.
But who knows. I recall a lot of people here and elsewhere emphatically insisting that the first impeachment was a waste of time. Maybe it was.
Trump has tweeted his Twitter fingers while thousands died from the pandemic, approved a coup, and appeared to take it in stride that a mob chanted their desire to execute his vice president.
I am not sure how you handle someone like this, but letting him ride off into the sunset doesn’t seem to be prudent.
topclimber
@Kent: I don’t follow your logic. GOP has the initiative now because they can prevent any impeachment trial until after Trump leaves office. Dems have the initiative then because they can gather their ammo and blast Trump in an impeachment trial at a time of their choosing. I prefer a time after Biden has convinced even more Americans that he is a President for all by focusing from the start on Covid and the economy. YMMV.
By all means have the Congress investigate all the GOP transgressions of the past four years. Remember, though, that the both-sider media will allow Republicans to respond (most often with misinformation) and most folks in America won’t pay attention before long.
Bring what you find of relevance into an impeachment trial guaranteed to get and educate a bigger audience. Worst case is you just tarnish the GOP image; likely case is you force chickenshit Republican Senators to defend the leader of the Capitol Hill insurrection; best case (for them, too) is that enough GOP Senators vote for conviction–perhaps in a secret ballot–that Trump becomes the biggest pariah in American history.
Kent
Republicans don’t control the PROCESS but they control the OUTCOME. And if you don’t think that the outcome is important and will drive the narrative then I think you are wrong.
By contrast, the Dems will control both the PROCESS and the OUTCOME of any committee inquiries that are governed by majority vote.
We aren’t talking about actually removing Trump. He will already be gone. We are only talking about spanking him politically. And an impeachment trial that results in an ACQUITTAL will treated as an over-reach and failure. Trust me.
Kathleen
@raven: Sir No Sir is one of the most powerful films I’ve ever seen. I was a college student during that time so seeing that film helped me realize what people my age who were not college students were enduring. A college friend became an Army nurse and served in Vietnam. I never talked to her about it.
Just Chuck
@Kent: I have to admit I’m really on the fence about this. Ultimately it’s going to come down to our Village Idiots who write the narrative :-/
Kathleen
@cain: Amen.
Kathleen
@raven: Thank you. I never heard of this song.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
Well they often have them somewhere they don’t belong……
J R in WV
@PPCLI:
The pardon doesn’t cover anything that happens after the DATE OF THE PARDON ITSELF!!!! So if Stone had anything to do with the coup attempt since his pardon he’s guilty of felonies aplenty!!
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
trump is about racism. period. end of discussion.
He isn’t smart enough or engaged enough about any other issue.
He doesn’t care about anything except racism and how can he get hold of a shit ton of money.
MisterForkbeard
@taumaturgo: Jesus you’re fucking tiresome.
There’s very little chance that McConnell will take this up before Trump leaves office. He may not even be able to – he’d have to break his own rules for the Senate.
This idea of waiting a little while until the initial priorities of the Biden presidency are underway, cabinet appointees have been confirmed, and until investigations have taken place is something that’s been raised quite a few places.
Not to mention your execrable use of the word “conservative”. You’re like a caricature of a progressive. As always, the REAL enemies are democrats.
Kent
Agreed. I could be absolutely wrong. I’m just a random science teacher commenting on an obscure blog on a Sunday afternoon. If I was an expert in this stuff I’d be making a living at it.
But I’m frankly nervous about undertaking any immensely political act (and impeachment of a former president is an entirely political act) when the other party controls the outcome. It feels very much like a huge strategic error.
J R in WV
@Uncle Cosmo:
I was in boot camp, enlisted March 1, and most of my fellow recruits in the company wanted to be armed (not qualified, of course!) and turned loose on the commies who attacked the National Guard in Kent.
Not what happened in Kent, of course. I kept my mouth shut, in order to not get beat up at 2 am, but OMG I was pissed.
ETA:
@raven:
This also too !!!
Ruckus
@jonas:
Seemingly often enough that one might assume no.
Also, aren’t they regulated by the state they hold a license in, meaning that they might not be the same in all states?
Ruckus
@Kathleen:
I would tend to agree.
I remember being stunned down to my socks that day.
J R in WV
@Jinchi:
@Just Chuck:
I don’t much care about Parler, which is going away pretty quickly. We’re talking about Lin Wood, the “lawyer” who said Pence should be hung. “Hyperbole” is one thing, and calling for the murder of Mike Pence is quite something else. Mr Wood, esq, should be disbarred, and arrested… with long interviews with hostile LEOs in his face.
Arresting the Parler CEO would also be good, but not much compared to arresting and disbarring Mr. Wood.
WaterGirl
@taumaturgo:
You are either the most pessimistic person on earth, or you are here to seed discouragement. Which one is it?
J R in WV
@Mallard Filmore:
We got to ride on a very narrow gauge “train” in a cave in France with 30,000 year old paintings in it just a few years ago. Not really a subway, though, didn’t go anywhere, we rode into the cave, saw the ancient art, listened to the PhD guy tell us about what we were seeing, rode back out.
Was pretty cool!
ETA: Not a expert, but have ridden on a lot of different kinds of trains, including regularly scheduled steam trains…
J R in WV
taurmaturgo is here to seed discontent and disappointment, period. He’s in te pie safe, has been for a long time now. I mostly see him/her when I toggle other folks replying to them.
HEY!! YOU GUYS!!! As of January 20th at noon, Trump becomes eligible for indictment by any grand jury which has seen evidence of his wrong doing!!
You all appear to be missing that important detail. After Biden takes office, Trump is no longer protected against criminal prosecution, whatsoever…
I think we’ll see indictments every few weeks for the next several years, and many trials, eventually. Unless he manages to get declared incompetent to stand trial, which should prevent him from winning any more high elective offices.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Don’t forget Door Number Three: “Or are you just an asshole?”
Krakengonewild
@SFAW: Glenn kirschner.
No One You Know
@jonas:
In my state, the bar association is s tiny group of people well-insulated from reality. They’re The Gatekeepers to People Who Matter.