G7 to Doral is hardly today's only news about @realDonaldTrump profiting from his presidency:
An evening of prayer for the Kurds is scheduled for Trump Hotel DC.
Trump will profit from people praying for a remedy to a crisis he instigated.
via @1100Penn https://t.co/AoSL97C28O
— Zach Everson (@Z_Everson) October 18, 2019
How bad does @realdonaldtrump’s Doral need this business? Look what’s happened there during his presidency. In ONE YEAR, from ‘16-‘17:
—revenue fell 13.8%
—Net operating income fell 62% pic.twitter.com/RTr9OST3wd— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) October 17, 2019
She makes a good point! We *dont* know if @realdonaldtrump is making a profit or losing $ overall. To me, the bigger Q is: is Trump using his power to force people to pay him money?
Today, the answer was a huge yes. https://t.co/J0tzQyjSwG— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) October 18, 2019
Trump doesn't want to put out any fires. His campaign (and Putin) taught him and his team that ten fires are better than one. Only so many firefighters, only so much water, and they are far easier to start than to put out. https://t.co/VoNs0ESUSm
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) October 17, 2019
It always feels like it’s getting worse, but also it’s getting worse.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 17, 2019
Trump calls Rep. Louie Gohmert "a man who is smart as hell."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 18, 2019
NEW: Things aren't getting better for the Senate's most vulnerable Republicans.
Incumbents in #MESen #NCSen #COSen #AZSen and #IASen saw their net approval slide in the third quarter, with a 9 point drop for Joni Ernst – the biggest fall in the Senate. https://t.co/hSIvK5ez1A pic.twitter.com/KlLZJGPE9r
— Eli Yokley (@eyokley) October 17, 2019
I’ve said since November 2016 that:
A. I don’t think Trump will finish his term
B. Likely that Repubs will turn on Trump, not out of principle or because it’s a good move for them, but because Trump will get so bad that it’ll be their least catastrophic option
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 17, 2019
Joey Maloney
There are 20 or 21 GOP senators running for reelection in 2020. That means that in an impeachment trial Moscow Mitch can let nearly all of them vote for conviction to placate their constituents, and still have the Senate acquit.
I’m just saying.
SRW1
Louie Gohmert: ” Mr President, I appreciate you getting my asparagus!”
JoyceH
@Joey Maloney: Honestly? If the Senate votes to acquit, even by a slim margin, I don’t think a Republican who voted to convict will placate his constituents. They’ll blame him for not dragging another Republican to the conviction side with him, or just for being a Republican. The way the firehose of evidence is spewing, by the time this thing gets to the Senate, an acquittal will make people angry enough to just tear the whole place down stone by stone like the Berlin Wall.
Roger Moore
@Joey Maloney:
The problem is that there’s no right way for Republicans to vote on impeachment. If they vote to acquit, they piss off moderates who think Trump is guilty as sin. If they vote to convict, they piss off conservatives who want to keep him in office. When the opinion of the base is wildly at odds with the rest of the country, you can’t placate everyone you need to placate in order to win.
hilts
The Republicans in the House and Senate are the biggest bunch of bed wetting and nail biting cowards we’ve ever seen so I expect them to stick with Trumpenstein till the bitter end.
NotMax
From this past May (WaPo link):
Keith P.
I’m just conditioned to be cynical, but I still think that when impeachment goes to the Senate, McConnell pulls a switcheroo and calls for an immediate up or down vote and count on the GOP holding before any Senators get to personally see evidence.
cain
Y’all need to watch this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmbttoxUeE it’s basically shows that the character B.P Richfield from show Dinosaurs is Trump. It’s *uncanny*.
Cacti
There is no bottom to the Republican barrel.
jl
To the extent that Trump is operating out of any neuronal activity outside his brain stem, maybe he figures as long as he’s getting impeached, why not commit all the crimes. Trumps wants the biggest, the best, the most terrific, beautiful impeachment ever. No impeachment can be better than the Trump impeachment.
Edit: which would be bad for the GOP, since Trump sees himself as being on a pretty impressive roll.
cain
@Roger Moore:
Thoughts and prayers.
mrmoshpotato
@Keith P.: So then we call him Kangaroo McConnell then?
Seriously, that happening would mean that McConnell should literally wipe his ass with the original copy of the Constitution.
Origuy
@Keith P.: Is that even up to McConnell? The Constitution says that the Chief Justice presides over the Senate in a Presidential impeachment trial. I don’t trust Roberts either, but would he play games with the process?
Millard Filmore
@Joey Maloney:
Trump won’t tolerate that. Democrats can shout about Trump’s evil things all they want but Republicans MUST stay loyal.
NotMax
@Joey Maloney
If/when more can be pried from the materials wrongly put into the double super secret server, that is highly subject to change. McConnell knows full well that stash is a parallel to Nixon’s tapes, thus his call to rush things.
Eljai
@JoyceH: I sure hope you’re right! The republicans deserve to be punished for enabling this dangerous traitor. With this G7-Doral business, it’s like he’s just taunting us now. I want that walking orange carbuncle held to account and I want to watch as every one of his lickspittle toadies swirls down the drain with him.
jl
@Origuy: We have to hope that Roberts considers Trump icky, recalls that Trump has gotten most of what the US oligarchs want already, and it will soil his precious self-conceived historical legacy. I think Roberts legacy is already a very discrete and polite dumpster fire. But I probably have different standards than Roberts, like issuing important rulings that make sense rather than rely almost entirely on motivated reasoning.
mrmoshpotato
@cain: Oddly, that’s the guy who was just fired from Wilmer’s campaign.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Saw an “Anti-Impeachment Rally” today at my local GOP county HQ. A bunch of white people, none younger than age 50, holding dumb Trump signs in a plaza parking lot along a four lane road. The assholes were standing right along the shoulder, almost leaning into the cars that would go by. I flipped them off and that made me feel pretty good : )
These things are totally astroturfed by the national GOP. The event was affiliated with http://www.stopthemadness.com. It’s pretty pitiful, the case for impeachment is so obvious and strong
mrmoshpotato
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
See Tea Party, 2010. Grass roots my ass.
Jager
I was transferred to my company’s corporate office in South Florida, I lived there for three years, South Florida is really shitty in the summer, a round of golf that costs $100 bucks in the winter is damn near free middays in the summer, walking from your car to the office soaks your shirt, not to mention your underwear. It’s miserable. Doral, like most of South Florida, is built on a damn swamp, its a hot, humid, nasty place in the summer. I’ll bet the trump org is going to discount winter room rates for the G7, not summer rates. I’ll bet the chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream will sell for 25 bucks and god knows how fucking much they’ll charge for a well-done steak. Ketchup extra.
NotMax
@jl
Want a real nightmare scenario? (cue The Twilight Zone music)
Suppose Roberts cooks up some arcane reason to announce he’s recusing himself and is temporarily stepping aside. Who’s got the most seniority among the other justices?
Clarence Thomas.
Joey Maloney
Don’t forget those Senators don’t have to actually win their elections. They just have to get the count close enough to steal. And the gap that counts as “close enough” seems to be widening.
Yes, I’m Eeoreing today.
jl
@Jager: But how do the bedbugs fare in the humid summer heat?
Cacti
Aside from removing Trump from office, which may or may not happen, impeachment by the House needs to be timed to kick it over to the Senate when it will do the maximum possible political and electoral damage to the GOP.
jl
@NotMax: No thanks. ((Shudder))
NotMax
@jl
Jeb! summers in Kennebunkport.
Oh, you mean actual bugs.
Never mind.
;)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Joey Maloney:
How sustainable do you think that is?
Jager
@jl:
No idea, but most bugs thrive in South Florida.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@mrmoshpotato:
Exactly like the Tea Party. Many of the Tea Party-types that got elected in the 2010 GOP wave and are currently in Trump’s admin, like Mulvaney and Pompeo and others still in Congress like Meadows have shown themselves to be utter fascist traitors. It’s rich, given the group’s name
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Mnuchin has never been elected to any political office.
Kent
At this point I think the best move for the GOP would be to force Trump to declare he wasn’t running for re-election. He could go out a winner and say he’s achieved what he set out to achieve and any other bullshit he wants to say. I’m willing to bet that McConnell would absolutely cut a deal with Trump to protect him from impeachment if he declares he is not running for re-election. And pretty much ALL the GOP in the Senate would jump at the chance to vote to acquit if the knew he was going to be gone in Jan 2021. That would basically give them their cover for voting to acquit.
It is frankly the least bad alternative for the GOP. The instant that Trump declares he isn’t running for reelection the field is opened wide for the 2020 GOP primaries and all the old time GOP folk are all instantly back in business. And the wind would really get taken out of the Dem sails in terms of pursing impeachment and all the other investigations like the taxes as he would be a premature lame duck. And without Trump on the ticket suddenly the prospect for the GOP looks brighter in 2020. Especially if they can find someone new. I don’t know who that would be. Probably a governor to be honest.
Getting impeached, acquitted, and then losing in 2020 is a worse scenario for the GOP as is getting removed from office or resigning and having Pence in the oval office whom I guessing is no particularly well liked or admired in the GOP.
Their previous best case scenario might have been having Trump defeat impeachment and then go on to win in 2020 but I gotta think there are a growing number of GOPers in power who are coming to dread that scenario the most. A second term Trump who defeated impeachment would be terrifying for the whole planet.
Only way this happens is if the GOP Senate meets with Trump in private and tells him the only way he escapes getting convicted and removed from office is if he declares himself a one term president and spends 2020 doing a victory lap of MAGA rallies while the rest of the country moves on and some younger fresh faced GOP-er tees up against Warren and makes the press all giddy about a “new leaf” for the GOP.
NotMax
@NotMax
For any scratching their heads, Goku has since corrected his original comment.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: You paint a terrifying set of scenarios there, my friend. I don’t know whether to be terrified or thankful, that Don Bedsore is the world’s biggest narcissist, and hence would never quit except under insane duress, and even then pulling the entire house down around him. Don’t know whether to be terrified, or thankful.
Joey Maloney
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Going ok so far. Compromise the electoral machinery enough and it’s infinitely sustainable, up until dissolution of the nation and/or bloody revolution.
eclare
@NotMax: After what Dump pulled in NYC regarding his properties, fudging his numbers lower to pay lower real estate taxes, I’m not sure how truthful this is. Last sentence says as a result the assessment was lowered.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Joey Maloney:
My point is that people will only put up with that shit for so long, particularly if they notice their lives getting progressively worse
cain
@Kent:
he will never go for that. Plus he’s committed crimes, all his people have. They will be in jail. No.. the scenario they need to do is get Trump convicted, and then have Pence pardon all of Trump’s underlings and the Trump folks go to jail. They’ll have to sit out the following elections, but it was going to be a shit show anyways. They can instead try to protect the Senate and then snipe at Democrats for the next two years and not pass anything just like last time.
Unless of course, a lot of those Senate people are flushed with Russian money and this whole thing uncovers them too.
Chetan Murthy
@Joey Maloney:
The federal tax system relies on voluntary compliance — if a nontrivial percentage of taxpayers simply refused to comply, the whole damn thing woudl break down. If these fuckers keep going, the states can and should start making it possible for their residents to pay their state taxes and avoid paying their federal taxes.
That’s another way this can break down. Yeah, it involves lots of straight-up defiance, but if things keep going like this [knock wood hope not] that sort of defiance will be the least of the federal government’s problems.
Wapiti
There’s a clause in the Constitution that says the President cannot accept emoluments from foreign governments without the approval of Congress. I think
NancySpeaker Pelosi should have a vote on this now, stating that Congress does not approve of this emolument and that if Trump holds the G7 at his resort, he cannot collect money from any foreign government or official. They’re already writing in language to spending bills that he can’t spend US money, so build on that.??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
Yeah double checked it. Could’ve sworn Mnuchin was Tea Partier, but I might have confused him with Mulvaney. Similar looking douchy white guys with similar last names
Kent
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t know. Makes the most sense to me. If Trump resigns or is removed from office prior to 2020 they are basically stuck with Pence who is a dud and damaged goods. Zero chance they remove Pence and put Pelosi in the oval office.
If Trump loses the election he brings the rest of the party down around him by sucking all the oxygen out of every other race and the negative coattails.
If Trump wins in 2020 we are are all fucking doomed including the GOP and I think they are starting to realize that with the recent Turkey fiasco.
The most logical way to thread the needle is to unplug impeachment by declaring Trump a one term presidency and then immediately get around to the business of building a post-Trump GOP.
Tell me how I’m wrong. Doesn’t mean they will actually do it. But it makes the most sense to me and would probably be the worst case scenario for the Dems keeping the House and retaking the Senate if the GOP is all full of post-Trump energy in the 2020 elections and the media is hell bent on giving all the new GOP faces a honeymoon.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
There are two probably overlapping but quantifiable slices of the populace who will believe
a) if things are getting worse, it’s because conservatives haven’t gone far enough
b) if things are getting worse, it’s okay so long as ‘those others’ are suffering even more.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Why do you hate Australia?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
But those people aren’t the majority and others will become fed up with them. Americans aren’t any different fundamentally from anyone else on the planet. There’s always a breaking point
Kent
@cain: The Senate could force him to declare himself a one term President if his only other alternative was impeachment and conviction. But it would take 20 GOP Senators to get in his face and tell him that was what was happening. I don’t think they have the cojones. There is no scenario where impeachment and conviction/removal and President Pence is their best play going into 2020.
Is it likely to happen? I doubt it. Amost certainly not for the reason you say and the total craven-ness of today’s GOP. But I do think it would be their best play.
TS (the original)
@NotMax:
He is way too proud of self and position to do this. He wants to be running the show.
Kent
@NotMax:
Frankly I think the bigger slice of the population are those who despite all evidence to the contrary, refuse to believe their lying eyes that things are getting worse becuase all they watch and read is Fox News and Evangelical right wing media like Pat Robertson. I’m related to folk like that.
Kent
@TS (the original): This is a once-in-a-century opportunity to have the eyes of the world upon him. Zero chance he walks away from it and lets another justice run the show.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@TS (the original):
@NotMax:
Also, could he even do this? How would that even work? How would the Surpeme Court decide this when itself is involved? Such a move is completely outside the Constitution as written. When it was written, the Framers never expected such a thing to happen
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
That’s one key thing elections are there to deal with. See: Depression, Great
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
Absolutely. When they’re relatively free and fair. Let me be clear: violence scares the hell out of me and it’s not something I want to see happen. I vastly prefer elections to revolution
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Strictly theoretically, he could claim a sudden health emergency is forcing him to temporarily relinquish the Chief Justice position, in which case the justice with the most seniority essentially serves as Acting Chief Justice. (N.B.: IANAL.)
Put it out there as a thought exercise, primarily.
Redshift
@Kent: The stumbling block for any clever plan involving Trump, such as having him agree not to run for reelection, is that it would only work if they could count on him not to renege for a year, and no one can count on him not reneging in anything after a day.
Also there are the statutes of limitation that won’t run out of he’s not reelected…
NotMax
@Kent
No dispute of that from this quarter. It’s all of a piece.
jl
@Kent: ” The most logical way to thread the needle is to unplug impeachment by declaring Trump a one term presidency”
How would the GOP do that? Especially since the GOP has cancelled almost 40 state primaries. The crooked party organizations, national and state, have already paved the way for a coronation as nominee. What levers do they have? They would have to go into full reverse and cook up a new crooked fix to deny Trump the party nomination. And I say ‘crooked’ not in the sense that it would be a bad thing, I hope it can happen somehow, but in the sense that I think extremely likely that the vast majority of GOP primary voters want Trump, no matter what enormities he’s committed.
Cacti
@NotMax:
Which would be Clarence Thomas.
Wouldn’t that be a hoot.
Redshift
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: In past instances, the Chief Justice didn’t act as a trial judge (since it’s not really a judicial trial), instead essentially just ruling on procedural questions. The Senate makes the rules for the trial; there’s a very limited amount the CJ can just do.
Joey Maloney
@Wapiti: If this is what you say it is, I love it. Especially later in the summer.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Just for the record, unemployment by 1933 (remember that at that time the inauguration still took place in the month of March following a presidential election) had reached ~25%, and was ~24% in 1932, when FDR first won election. (Source)
TS (the original)
@Kent:
.
Given that trump’s approval rarely seems to go below 40% & the impeachment polls show 90%+ of republicans against – I do wonder if the number of republicans is decreasing. Trump was mightily upset about the % GOP in the latest fox news poll – but maybe there are so many more who identify as democrats.
We hear too much about the deplorables and why they will support trump forever, I do believe their numbers are reducing.
Kent
@jl:
It would take 20 GOP Senators to meet with Trump closed doors and tell him to his face that they only way they vote to acquit is if he declares that he isn’t running again in 2020. That they will only have his back if he declares himself a one-term president and then gets out of the way in 2020. Would he go for it? Who the hell knows. I frankly think he is miserable and would jump at the chance to spend 2020 doing a MAGA victory lap and do the whole Bush “Mission Acomplished” thing.
How does he get out of legal jeopardy post-2020? Nothing stops him from pardoning himself and everyone around him on January 19, 2021 as his last act of office. SCOTUS would almost certainly uphold those sorts of blanket pardons. Why wouldn’t they.
As for how all the state parties get back in business for the 2020 GOP open primaries? A shorter time frame actually works to the advantage of the GOP hierarchy as it would be much easier to annoint their chosen successor and it would leave all the outsiders less time to raise money and mount a campaign. Back room deals is what they do. The Kochs and Adlesons and their insiders like McConnell probably already know who they’d want in Trump’s place. Someone like Kasich or Romney who isn’t tainted by Trump and is a mainstream predictable business-friendly GOP-er with some level of national appeal.
Not going to happen. Because Trump is Trump and they are all craven assholes. But I do think it is their best play.
NotMax
@Cacti
Which is why the invocation of the musical signature in #22 above.
;)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Trump would only do that if he could choose his successor, (spoiler alert, his chosen successor would be named Trump).
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: I don’t hate Australia. I hate Captain Kangaroo. Wait! I mean kangaroo courts run by Captain Kangaroo. Wait, no. I really should go to bed. :)
sm*t cl*de
@NotMax:
Things have been getting worse since Reagan screwed the pooch and the popular response is to feel nostalgic for Reagan.
Kent
@TS (the original):
I frankly think the percentage who are hard-core highly political GOP Trump die-hards is pretty low. I expect a whole buch of his MAGA base are just ordinary folk who happen to fall into the MAGA tribe because of class, race, religion, and geography and support him mostly for tribal reasons but don’t really follow politics that closely or even give that much of a shit about politics one way or the other. I’m related to folks like this. They are natural Trump supporters but frankly don’t pay much attention to any of this so are basically soft habitutual GOP voters and potentially open to rejecting Trump if it finally becomes the popular thing to do.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Quasi-obligatory.
;)
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Trump is loosing touch with reality. Promise him that they will clear the GOP field and put Ivanka in line for a Senate Seat in New York to replace Chuck Schumer as the first step in her rise the presidency. With his ego he might even buy it!
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Thanks for the earworm. :P
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato:
What is wrong with you? Who hates the Captain, I can understand Mr. Greenjeans, but the Captian? //
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: ? To hell with you for even jokingly taking that out of context.
Oh, and Matt Gaetz probably hates Captain Kangaroo, since he seems to think a kids show had kangaroo courts.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Seemed to be on the radio every friggin’ time one turned it on at the time. #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., #1 on the MOR rankings for three weeks.
Had completely excised from the mind how absolutely ugly one verse is.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Just felt a jolt here.
ETA: 3.7 centered in Compton.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“Mr. Moose, this courts sentences you to be taken directly to a place of execution….”
;)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes, but he’s a Republican and drunk.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Meant to ask how (or if) blondie liked Maui.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
One might even say Gaetz screwed the pouch on that one.
If one were so inclined.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I’ve not spoken to her.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Execution by…….PING PONG BALLS!
(Sorry not sorry)
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: True and true.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Thanks for the eyeworm.
:)
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: You should be ashamed of yourself. :)
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Mister Moose for President
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Hmm. Newport Inglewood. That’s the fault I worry about. 3.7 is nothing, though.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: That’s the one that cause the 1933 Long Beach quake. It was a pretty sharp jolt up here, maybe because it was pretty deep, ~26km.
Amir Khalid
@Cacti:
I disagree. The impeachment process should focus solely on protecting the republic from this president. Doing it the way you suggest, for the reasons you give, offers free justification to anyone in the future who wants to use impeachment for partisan ends, which will harm the process itself and its usefulness.
BlueDWarrior
Boy one of my Trumper co-workers was telling me about how holding the G7 @ Doral was totally not a problem.
I bypassed the argument about the illegality of it because he believes that if someone he like does it, then it’s fine. And attacked on the fact that it’s a second rate luxury resort that supposed to host negotiations for the seven (of the) richest nations on earth.
His response – basically that Trump would never build a second rate facility because he’s worth so much money. When I pointed out that was a dumb argument because you have dozens of owners of hotel chains worth more than Trump that’d be 2 star at best, his counter was “But the Trump name, though…”
He’s basically one of those people who’ve wrapped up thier self-worth in the image of Trump the Bronze God and will suffer no arguments to the contrary.
Just damn strange…
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
These types of meanderings are the best thing about B-J threads.
NotMax
@BlueDWarrior
Unfortunately, unlikely that person has ever heard the name Helmsley.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: True, but I give no credit to Amir.
Sleepytime here. Good night.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Speaking of moose, Moose and Squirrel will be returning to Sunset Blvd at the former location of Pandora’s Box.
Aleta
I hope relatives of these Rs donate their brains to science so we can study how they lived with themselves.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Fine! (Flounces out in a huff.)
Sloane Ranger
@NotMax: Rolf Harris was convicted in 2014, I think, of several sexual assaults on underage girls which took place during the 1970’s/1980’s. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison. So, not a nice person.
In terms of the GOP doing a deal and getting Trump to stand down at the end of his term, Trump will be telling everyone this is fake news within 24 hours and, if all else fails, running as an independent. He has money already raised plus the Presidential pulpit to make a viable run.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Quelle coinky-dink. Just now switched on the Prime channel on the Roku, and first thing on the “Recently Added” listing is Seconds.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sloane Ranger:
Thereby splitting the Republican/conservative vote and guaranteeing a DEM administration in the White House.
I don’t see the Repubs allowing this. Impeachment and removal would be preferable.
Amir Khalid
@Sloane Ranger:
Running for POTUS as an independent is going to be difficult. If I recall, only George Washington ever won the presidency as an independent; but he did it before either the Democratic party or the Republican party existed. Trump hinted in 2016 that he might do it, but in the end he didn’t need to.
rikyrah
@hilts:
They are all compromised??
rikyrah
@Sloane Ranger:
No. Running as an Independent is expensive. You have to pay for yourself to get on the ballot. He is not going to pay that kind of money. And, the rubes aren’t rich enough to find him..
NotMax
@rikyrah
Yup. Not in a month of Sundays.
Correction: Not in a century of Sundays.
Central Planning
@Kent:
How would they trust trump to keep his word? He says he’s a one-termer, gets acquitted, and then says everyone wants him to run again.
I just can’t wrap my head around why the republicans can’t do what’s right for the country, and the Constitution.
I think a good troll would be to translate the Constitution to Russian and then send copies to all the republicans.
TS (the original)
@Central Planning:
tax reduction and judicial appointments. If there is another death on the SCOTUS & McConnell gets another RWAH on there – he will then give up on trump. Not before.
Matt McIrvin
Trump’s level of public support has still not wavered outside of the same narrow band it’s been in since spring 2018. All that’s happening is that people who didn’t like him in the first place are coming to support his impeachment and conviction. That’s starkly different from the situation with Nixon, for instance– at the corresponding point in Watergate, Nixon’s popular support was plummeting from a broad majority down to the twenties. Now, the tribes are set and we’re all fighting over inches of territory, even with everything that’s happened.
In that situation I don’t see any incentive for Republicans to break with Trump. A few may go down with him, but the primary hit they’d take for turning is bigger.
Trump will be impeached. He will not be convicted and will not resign. They’re all in. They’re going to bet on all of this backfiring on Democrats when the party-line vote goes down and Trump claims total vindication. And it might, judging from the Mueller story.
OzarkHillbilly
@Central Planning:
Doing what’s right for the country and the Constitution would mean the end of their Senate majority, any chance at a House majority, and any chance at the Presidency for some time to come. (reason being, they brought the beast of trumpism into existence long before trump was a candidate, they daren’t turn their backs on it) They would end up wandering the desert for 40 years in search of a Moses that could lead them to political relevancy..
WereBear
@Kent: Except the Trump fanatics want their FIX. They want him Dictator for Life.
How do the Republicans thread that needle?
Matt McIrvin
@Kent:
The only Republicans who even think there’s a problem are a tiny group of elites and insiders. Everyone else is either all in for Trump or doesn’t care. It’s all fake news and irrelevant background chatter to them. They probably can’t be convinced until it affects them directly, most likely through an economic collapse (and of course the true believer core will hang on even through that).
John S.
@BlueDWarrior:
Trump Doral is everything you folks expect it to be. Tacky, obnoxious, overrated. I had a client drag our group there a couple years ago, and it was atrocious.
The entire clubhouse is decked out in overt homages to Trump, including fake “Time Man of the Year” framed images. The disposable hand towels in the restrooms have cheap Trump monograms in them. They charge $20 to park WITH validation. Not valet, just plain old parking. Everything is covered in tacky gold. And their “famous” steakhouse is total rubbish. The mixed drinks were awful, the food was mediocre, and of course everything is WAY overpriced.
There is no way in hell that any world leader, or anyone who isn’t a loyal worshiper in the Cult of Trump, is going to be impressed by Trump Doral.
Chris Johnson
@rikyrah:
He doesn’t HAVE money, at all. It’s all Russian money. Damn right Russia would fund him, unless they have a better operative becoming the Republican nominee.
None of this is about ‘rubes’, never has been. It’s about oligarchs meddling in elections. Rubes are completely useless to these people.
yellowdog
@Joey Maloney: You’re just being realistic.
yellowdog
@Joey Maloney: When you control the voting machines, you can do anything.
Matt McIrvin
Ingraham believes it’s OK to take bribes as long as you’re not turning a net profit.
Ken
I think it’s not so much where is the tipping point, but when. Ten minutes after the primary results are announced, for example.
joel hanes
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Give thanks for small quakes, which relieve stress on the fault without much damage.
SFAW
@TS (the original):
Or, he will, until Dmitri and Andrei show up at his door, to have “a little chat” with him, explain why doing so might lead to certain undesirable outcomes.