I'm certainly not a Boris Johnson fan, but he seems like at least a grade or two higher than Trump. Anyway, I don't have the brain cells left to worry about it.
I haven't been able to watch debates, live testimony, or anything like that for years. I would just get too upset, exasperated, frustrated or bored and turn it off. So, lately I don't even turn it on.
Anyway, in this case, I find it hard to imagine a scenario in which Mueller's testimony will get us anywhere.
It might make some Never Trump people feel bad about themselves when they vote for Trump.
Ok, I'll imagine the scenario.
Mueller: "My remarks of necessity will be brief. IMPEACH THE MOTHERFUCKER. Do I need to repeat that? No? Ok. Have a nice day."
Having him say that Barr egregiously misrepresented the findings in the report might be nice. No one will remember after a news cycle.
I'm always already let down by the Mueller testimony, live or in transcript. At best, he says "as I put in my report" a lot, and says something that could be construed as an anti-Trump personal opinion but makes it clear that he viewed his job as purely investigative and toothless all along. There's a good chance that he spends a lot of time dwelling on things he didn't find evidence of or shoots down a Democratic theory we had thought was reasonable. I think the House should impeach because it's the right thing to do and pragmatically speaking there's some risk of backfire but overall it's more likely to help the good guys than the bad guys, but apparently Pelosi disagrees with me, or she would have started the effort months ago.
Unless a key Republican gets hit with a bus or caught with a dead girl or live boy, and at this point that's a literal thing, the best American leftists can hope for between now and 2020 is less-than-filibuster-proof victories in the House, Senate, and Presidency, waiting for conservatives to die off, collectively pretending this era never happened, and hopefully slowing the erosion of everything we depended on for our quality of life in the late 20th and early 21st century.
Sorry, UK participants, you have every reason to envy us.
But when I hear these prognostications of doom I cannot help thinking of another Prime Minister who entered Downing Street at a moment of national crisis with the odds stacked against him. When Churchill succeeded Chamberlain in 1940, most members of the Establishment thought he'd embarked on a foolhardy course. What hope did Britain have of holding out against the might of the Nazi war machine? Yet he overcame those doubts about his leadership, in part because he succeeded in bending reality to his will. In politics, there are few fixed parameters. Everything is fluid and uncertain, with too many variables for the human brain to compute. What is considered completely impossible one week, becomes possible the next. Through sheer force of personality, Churchill was able to change the narrative and persuade people that military defeat wasn't inevitable. He did this by using the same alchemy that was attributed to Steve Jobs: a reality distortion field. It's a superpower possessed by those rare individuals that come along once in a generation, combining bottomless self-belief, exceptional cognitive ability and spellbinding charisma. Boris is one of those people.
I hope this reassures our UK participants that everything will work out ok. And for Mossy, this is an example of the kind of writing you will find in Quillette.
Rep. Lieu: "The reason again that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting President, correct?"
Mueller: "That is correct."
I guess this makes the charade worthwhile.
There was never a defeat party in GB, FFS. Yet even the British themselves seem to believe it. When did that start? Churchill's history?
Strangely, the idea that Chamberlain was for defeat/acquiescence is kind of a foundational myth for the post-WWII United States. The dovish folly we're always meant to be avoiding.
There certainly wasn't much of a defeat party when Churchill became PM because that was 10 May and France was still very much in the war. Germany had only just attacked France. The Establishment were pretty much united in a belief that Britain (and France) should continue to fight and would defeat Germany; an opinion shared by most of the rest of the world.
The defeat party, in as much as it existed, was the Communist Party of Great Britain, which had been organising strikes, anti-war campaigns and so on, in opposition to what they had been told to call the Second Imperialist War.
I used to follow the twists and turns of the investigations but now the only interesting question is whether we respond, because we know more than enough.
Remember, the core unprompted admission of guilt was right there on network news for all to see 26 months ago.
Edgerton makes the point that appeasers and pacifists were two very different groups in British politics. Appeasers were generally also supporters of rearmament. Pacifists tended to put their faith in the League.
Is this not WTFriday? It feels like it.
Josh Marshall, who thinks impeachment proceedings are folly, still thinks the House is unaccountably slow-walking everything.
"Mueller will save us", which was for most people a brief, semi-whimsical, quickly discredited notion at most, seems to have taken hold of them.
It's too much to ask of Democrats that they push Mueller on his lenient treatment of Flynn and Trump's family, isn't it. You know, offer a counter narrative to the "Mueller is biased against Trump" bullshit.
Will someone please let me know if they ask about the pee tape.
Oh shit, whoever's questioning now is fantastic.
"Which of his efforts to obstruct were successful?" Or something like that. Nice.
I can't listen to politicians for the most part - although here's a funny thing, Trump's delivery doesn't bother me. I can't listen to him because he's a Nazi monster and it makes me want to die, but with other politicians it's the smoothed out ruling-class hypocrite delivery that I can't stand. Whether Democrats or Republicans, I hate to hear rich people bloviating on about society when they will never know a moment of economic hardship, live anywhere that isn't clean, well-kept and comfortable or worry about their retirement. (I can't listen to NPR either.)
If you'd like a Boris Johnson story, this seems to be going the rounds - there's a twist, so read it all. It's not a twist that makes you think better of Johnson, either.
This one's pretty good too. Clever line of questions that nearly get Mueller into saying impeachment.
The Republicans all wear badges?
The take the badge off before accepting a bribe or hiring a prostitute.
Are they too embarrassed to wear armbands or have they just not thought of it yet?
Slatepitch: Pelosi isn't afraid of impeachment, she just wants to maximize the political effect. Start impeachment too soon, and it will be forgotten by the next election. Or --highly unlikely-- possibly Mike Pence becomes president and runs in 2020 as an incumbent.
For maximal political value impeachment hearings should coincide with the 2020 camoaign, after it's too late for a serious primary challenge to Trump. Maybe the actual Senate trial should be around the time of the convernsions next Summer. Pelosi's is dragging things out so the headlines are at the right time for voter impact. Eventually she will give in to her caucus and let the hearings begin. Dragging things out has the added advantages of making Pelosi and others seem less angry and more judicious.
||
NMM to Rutger Hauer.
Like tears in rain.
|>
Pelosi's is dragging things out so the headlines are at the right time for voter impact. Eventually she will give in to her caucus and let the hearings begin. Dragging things out has the added advantages of making Pelosi and others seem less angry and more judicious.
I think dragging things out will make it seem MORE partisan and arbitrary if and when it ever happens. What is going to be the inciting incident that makes Pelosi say "Well, I wanted to take the high road, but now we have to start some hearings"? I think the time for that has come and gone. What was the point of the breathless anticipation of Fitzmas II: Muellermas if they didn't have a plan for doing something in response to it?
25 The one thing we are sure of wrt impeachment is that the President will be acquitted. Or, as he'll describe it, Totally Exonerated. This is as close to a sure thing as anything. (OK, yes, there's still some kind of dead girl/live boy thing that's possible, although neither of those would turn enough senators to remove Trump).
The question is when do you want this exoneration. 2019? March 2020, while our candidates are trying to get attention during the primary race? July 2020? October? Is there ever a good time for it? The other question is what do you want this exoneration to cover. Foreign interference as an in-kind contribution to a campaign? Blatant obstruction? Emoluments? Kids in cages?
I think it's more or less required for the constitutional order. I also think it likely helps Trump more than our nominee. Probably much more. I get the assertion that it might fire up some people -- those for whom kids in cages isn't enough reason to be fired up, I guess. And all the rest. Will it fire up enough people to win Wisconsin? Florida? North Carolina? We can all wish that the process worked differently, but it doesn't. Running up the score in Brooklyn isn't going to save democracy.
19: Whoa. That story did surprise me.
I did nod along as he complained about how polished politicians are, which makes them unable to say anything interesting. I thought that was one of Clinton's campaigning faults, that she had been punished into that delivery style. I do think there is a hunger for politicians who actually say frank things.
When Clinton said frank things, she was denounced. It's easier to be a shithead if you're a white man. Im living proof.
29. You are right about the hunger for this. However, my limited understanding of responsibility is that speaking substantively outside the narrow context of decisionmaking is a bad idea, leads to misunderstandings (but I thought you earlier said X) even with good intent, often to arguments. Further, decisionmaking is usually a conversation between only a few people, with the good ones being reluctant participants in the decision.
So the desires for leaders who look good and for leaders who can get something done are pretty often at cross-purposes.
Mueller contradicts Democrats when they offer statements logically equivalent to his own. He never contradicts Republican's wild mischaracterizations.
8. Mueller walked that one back as soon as someone reminded him of the implications of it. Ah, well.
27.last. The later it's done, the more it distracts from the 2020 campaigns.
I'd love it if the House impeached, and when the Senate votes it down the House passes a new impeachment bill with more charges added. I feel like they could play that out for months.
25: I hope you're right about what she's thinking, and if so, I hope she's right about the strategy. I don't think either part of that is likely, though. Impeaching Trump during the 2020 election mainly about stuff done during the 2016 election would look so nakedly political it would be ridiculous.
I can't claim to be any kind of expert or insider, predicting what would happen and what the Democratic Party leadership is planning, of course, but then, neither can they.
Trump is going to spin non-impeachment as a sign of weakness. And he's going to be right.
I have no idea what the right course of action is on impeachment.
36 Yes, he's going to be right, because it is right: House dems do not have the unilateral power to effectively discipline the President. Total Exoneration is more than just a sign of weakness, though.
It would have been really good if the people of Missouri, Florida, Indiana, and North Dakota had elected Democrats instead of Republicans to the Senate in 2018. Colorado too. Texas! They didn't. That's what makes House Democrats weak, not perfidy. You can wish it wasn't so, but that doesn't change what happened.
Did he kill William Sanderson first?
Forcing Senators to vote to acquit is something you can hang on them later, though.
Interesting discourse on the possible motivations of Pelosi, that doesn't just dismiss her as "centrist" but does not leave one thinking she has much figured out.
To make matters worse, the person uttering "come you back, you English soldier" was not just an ordinary citizen but the Foreign Secretary from the country that annexed Myanmar through three bloody wars and oppressed local resistance. Were it not for UK Ambassador Andrew Patrick's interruption, the Foreign Secretary may have continued with the lines "Bloomin' idol made o' mud / Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd / Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!"Is there a reason they can't just have a no-confidence vote tomorrow?
Just think: we could impeach for treason one week, then add emoluments the next, then tax fraud. With twelve articles we could make a song.
I think Mueller did the very best job he could to complete a credible investigation and report that did as little damage to trump as possible.
41: Either I had a rough day to the point that I'm unable to focus on long-form journalism at this hour, or my attention span and reading comprehension has eroded over the years, or that was a decent message, badly overwritten.
AIUI 44 is very unfair. Under DoJ rules Mueller couldn't prosecute the president. The DoJ thinks the only mechanism for dealing with presidential misconduct is impeachment; Mueller handed Congress enough to impeach several times over. The failure is with Congress. Under the special prosecutor statute he also had to report to the AG, not Congress or the public. The spinning that followed came from the AG, not Mueller; the failure is with Barr.
41 The senators who are going to vote to acquit -- e.g. our Sen Daines -- are already all in for Trump. There are no additional votes to be had from his vote to acquit. Is Sen. Collins at risk? My God how lame are the people of Maine that this is what will finally push them over?
Honestly, I think the kids in cages and Kavanaugh and the attempts to eliminate the ACA have already got us every anti-Trump we're going to get. The difference between those votes and victory is going to turn on the personal qualities of the candidate(s) and the organizational effectiveness of the campaign(s). I don't think there's any material gain to be had, from where we are now, based on any policy positions.
I thought the article in 41 was pretty good, as far as it went, but the hand-waving away of the certainty of acquittal completely undermines everything else. I had heard before an assertion that the House doesn't have to refer the matter to the Senate, but what does this actually mean? Is Pelosi supposed to say, now, ok we're going to have hearings on articles of impeachment, but don't worry, I'm not going to schedule a floor vote? That would be ridiculous, and no one would take any of it seriously. Or is she just going to say, ok, we'll have hearings and see what happens, and then, somehow, just never get around to scheduling a floor vote on articles? The pressure to take the floor vote will be immense. And if she somehow prevents a floor vote, then it's Pelosi, not McConnell, that is giving the Total Exoneration.
I've never heard any credible explanation how the House avoids either voting on, or voting down, articles of impeachment. And if the House votes articles, how do they avoid sending them to the Senate? Even if there is a way to do this, it can't be announced in advance. Instead, Pelosi has to spring it on everyone after a year or whatever of carefully preparing the ground for a real impeachment, only to say, well we totally could, and definitely should, but we're just not going to. Vote to re-elect us!
The other thing I found in that article that struck me wrong is what I would say is an insufficient appreciation of the importance of this election cycle. OK, yes, they are all important, but 2020 is particularly significant. A re-elected Trump is going to seek actual dictatorial powers, and might just get them. The corruption of law enforcement will get way way worse. The courts will be way less effective, not that they're all that effective at present. This is what is actually on the fucking ballot.
42: it would need to be called by the leader of the opposition and it's not altogether clear we have one of those.
42: if Boris can confine himself to going round the world being offensive to horrific genocidal regimes, I wouldn't mind him being prime minister nearly so much.
He can do that now and leave Patel to implement the Trump agenda.
49 is wrong: anyone can call a vote of no confidence and, in fact, the Liberal Democrats have just done so.
I don't have much confidence in them either.
Although, to be fair, they probably haven't even heard of me.
||
What are we supposed to make of this?
|>
56: good point. They've tabled a motion calling for a vote of no confidence.
57: #ClintonBodyCount is trending on Twitter.
Semi-conscious and neck injuries? Clearly vampire.
So Britain will be escorting tankers, with escorts it doesn't have?
61: If you let me out, I'll be happy to provide the escorts.
Under DoJ rules Mueller couldn't prosecute the president. The DoJ thinks the only mechanism for dealing with presidential misconduct is impeachment; Mueller handed Congress enough to impeach several times over. The failure is with Congress. Under the special prosecutor statute he also had to report to the AG, not Congress or the public.
The thing I'm angry at Mueller about is his self-imposed rule of decorum that because he's barred from indicting Trump by DOJ policy, he can't say that there's evidence sufficient to indict him. That's not a rule I'm aware of in any other context (and it's hard to picture what such another context would be), and its sole effect is to muddy the waters.
That's the entire job Barr was hired to do.
63: AIUI (1) stating there is sufficient evidence would amount to an accusation; (2) one accused is entitled to answer the charges in court; (3) and due to the DoJ rule Trump cannot be charged in court. I thought (2) was a pretty well-established principle.
The escorts will probably be the four Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessels at Jufair and the T23 frigate Montrose. One could make an utterly tasteless joke about how they are all from the 80s and early 90s and thus far too old for 62.
65: He could be in court if he wants to.
Spell out what you mean by 2 being a well established principle? That is, can you quote something or point to a situation where it came into play other than with Trump? I think any such situation would be meaningfully distinct from the current situation, but maybe you're thinking of something I'm not.
Also, I would have thought, 67? If Trump says he wants to be indicted so he can get his day in court and clear his name, what happens? Does the DOJ still refuse to do so?
As 68 says: is this really a principle with regard to other people who cannot be prosecuted? Like, for example, those covered by diplomatic immunity?
The Sixth Amendment (1791) provides several protections and rights to an individual accused of a crime. The accused has the right to a fair and speedy trial by a local and impartial jury. Likewise, a person has the right to a public trial.No indictment, no trial. IDK if the DoJ thinks it can prosecute a president who consents to be tried.
If a diplomat commits some serious crime in the US, though, the home country can choose to waive his immunity so that he can be prosecuted by the US. This has happened in the past, and the Maryland AG did not refuse to bring a case simply because the diplomat in question had immunity.
Also, I think one could reasonably claim an impartial jury couldn't be obtained anywhere in the US. Impeachment really is the right remedy, because it's explicitly political, not judicial.
But that's begging the question. You're saying that a statement by Mueller that he has sufficient evidence to indict Trump if there were no policy prohibiting it is an accusation that triggers the Sixth Amendment. By the literal language of the amendment, it doesn't -- it's limited to the context of a criminal prosecution, which this isn't because DOJ says it can't be:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Sure, impeachment is the right remedy. But that shouldn't rule out Mueller being able to say obviously true things.
74: I understand "a statement by Mueller that he has sufficient evidence to indict Trump if there were no policy prohibiting it is an accusation that triggers the Sixth Amendment" to be Mueller's position. I don't know how correct that is. I assume in any case though that there's lots of precedent and OLC rulings accumulated on top of the 6th amendment - I grabbed that because that's the only thing I know enough to grab.
And I am unaware of any precedent at all for Mueller's position -- again, literally, a statement by Mueller that he is not indicting Trump but that there would be evidence sufficient to do so if there were not a policy forbidding it, is not a criminal prosecution.
To bring up the most obvious contrary precedent, check out the Starr Report. If you scroll down you will see section titles including "There is substantial and credible information that President Clinton endeavored to obstruct justice by engaging in a pattern of activity to conceal evidence regarding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky from the judicial process in the Jones case."
I am not bringing this up to say that Clinton was unfairly treated, but to say that Mueller's position does not correspond to what happened in the most recent similar situation.
77last: And the special prosecutor statute was changed precisely in reaction to the Lewinsky clusterfuck. For the rest, I'll wait for other lawyers to weigh in.
What does the special prosecutor statute have to do with whether making an accusation of wrongdoing in the absence of an indictment is a violation of the Sixth Amendment? The Sixth Amendment hasn't changed.
I'm bickering about this, but I get very angry at people (Mueller in this case) who claim to be constrained by obvious, uncontroversial rules that they've invented themselves.
Mueller is really, really not invoking the Sixth Amendment. An accusing statement is not a prosecution; a prosecution is an official action that starts a judicial process. He is explicitly invoking "DOJ policy". It is true that in most cases (cough, Hillary) it is unseemly for investigators to go around shouting about misdeeds they have no intention of backing up in court, so that's an okay policy to have. But it's a rule of thumb, not a Constitutional principle, and it's definitely overridden here.
81: I listened to a podcast the other day which said that OLC opinions pretty routinely get struck down when tested in court. Which still makes it a clusterfuck, but not Mueller's clusterfuck.
The OLC opinion is that Mueller can't indict. I don't believe (maybe I'm wrong? I don't have the text of it in front of me) that there's an opinion saying that he can't say that there was evidence sufficient to indict if he had been permitted to. If I'm correct about that, the mealymouthed refusal to state any clear conclusions in his report or testimony is all his own bullshit.
This goes back to what I said above. Mueller imposed the tightest constraints on himself in order to produce a credible report that does minimal damage. We all know that a similar investigation of a democratic president would have gone wildly out of bounds and nobody would have done anything to stop it.
85: Insofar as I've followed this, the most recent analogue is the FBI Clinton emails investigation, which turned up nothing, and Comey said as much. The political consequences, AFAIK, stemmed not from the investigation but from the spin around it.
(I grew up on the X-Files. I want the FBI to be good.)
Insofar as I've followed this, the most recent analogue is the FBI Clinton emails investigation, which turned up nothing, and Comey said as much.
This is a truly amazing sentence.
I've |||>ed about this before, but it strikes me as a big fucking deal:
the measured depth of the Mekong fell below 1.5 meters this week. The average depth there for the same time of year is 8 meters. [...] with rainfall during the past 60 days more than 40 percent below normal for the time of year. [...] But it is also because dams upstream cut off water just when it was most needed. China's Jinghong hydropower station said in early July it was more than halving the flow rate for "grid maintenance" on what China calls the Lancang River. Then the new Xayaburi dam, being built by a Thai company in Laos to provide power for Thailand, began test runs on July 15. [...] Facing water shortages in cities and fields, Thailand has told farmers to stop planting more rice.
The bureaucracy in question, the RID, has arguably done more to comprehensively destroy the streams, rivers and wetlands of the Northeast than any other state institution, though admittedly it has had to fend off stiff competition in the past from bureaucracies such as the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat), the Department of Energy Development and Promotion (DEDP) and the Department of Water Resources (DWR).
I mean, I could wade across 1.5m. This is the world's #18 river by discharge, 16,000m^3/s. The Mississippi is #15, 16,800 m^3/s.
The Mississippi is really fucking huge.
That 1.5m location is roughly halfway down the river. If you could wade the Mississippi at St. Louis that would be a big fucking deal, right?
Until the catfish got you. The Mekong Giant Catfish apparently will be a casualty of this shitshow. Steven Erikson has prejudiced me against catfish, yet still I am aggrieved.
Honestly, it's not a good idea to wade across a river than is more than thigh high, especially a fast one.
The Mekong is sluggish, they say. Standing in pools, they say. Full of dead fish, they say.
And you know, Moby, if fat Chinese dictators can swim the Yangtze, fat Americans can wade the hypothetical Mississippi.
Women from Asia have been very disproportionately drowning on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Crest. Mountains. Stay on topic.
The mountains have rivers in them.
The big popular question people choose to answer on Bumble is "Mountain or beach?" and so many women put something like "A beach on a mountain" and a wry emoji.
For the purposes of this discussion, only rivers with mature floodplains and/or pre-modern irrigation systems and/or giant catfish are under consideration.
So they're saying, Hawaii or GTFO.
Because of all the catfish there.
I suspect there are a lot more catfish on Bumble than in Hawaii.
87: This is a truly amazing sentence.This is a truly amazing sentence.
Indeed. With this and his invocation of formerly most intellectually corrupt Washington legal dude* Ken Starr** MC is doing a good job of more politely reprising yesterday's roles of shouty fuckface Republican congressmen trolls in this part of the thread.
*I believe William Barr to have now surpassed him. (The whole conservative legal establishment will be the "death" of America. John "the most effective racist in America***" Roberts will probably win "most effective" at that as well in the long run.)
**The Starr-Mueller contrast (and the way it worked out with the law is a prime example of the massive asymmetry in how Washington has worked the past 30+ years. An utterly partisan shithead of Republican does something, laws/rules/"precedents" are then put in place and used to liit Dem/actual neutral folks who follow, and then utterly discarded when it next suits Republicans (see McConnell, Mitch).
***Far and and away not the most racist Justice--Alito certainly wins that with Gorsuch close behind--but as I say, extremely effective.
Imagine only the first sentence in italics. It's easy if you try.
While I'm being grumpy, and before I read the other thread, let me say that I hope anyone pushing their "here's how an Impeachment Inquiry will play out" narrative is willing to admit that in fact they don't really know shit about it. Or else you're playing some sort of minor league Robby Mook spouting his big data-esque bullshit when he fact he didn't know shit.
I'm going to get $700 million from Equifax, then I'll have all the data.
OT: I thought there was a new Paul Simon album, but it turns out that's what Vampire Weekend sounds like.
110: Yeah, their whole sound is as if they woke up one day and heard Graceland and thought they'd written it themselves. But I have to admit they're easy on the ears.
The millennials brought back easy listening?
Or Gen Z? I have no idea how old these people are.
108 No one can guess anything at all about the future, because how Republicans act is just utterly unpredictable. We're all free to suspend disbelief that they could be such total shitheads and yet, over and over, they are.
114: Of course the Republicans are going to be total fucking shitheads; I certainly have no illusions on that front. But I do maintain that certitude that the "TOTAL EXONERATION" shitshow will be necessarily worse than other shitshows is unwarranted. How the broader political world reacts to the shititude of the Rs is to my mind more important and we live in one where a spectacle of unhinged Republican Congressmen spitting out insane conspiracy theories while repeatedly lambasting a formerly respected member of their party who was a military hero and a top law enforcement official is treated by many in the press as an "optics" disaster for Democrats.
At the moment I am terminally pessimistic on any of this, given the brain worms that seem to have infected us all. Generations Lead Fuck the World.
I don't know anyone who wants this guy to be not just removed but repudiated more than I do. Utterly destroyed. I really just can't see any way that given our current Senate, and the incentives operating on the Republican side, that the odds of accomplishing this with an impeachment process even remotely justify the obvious harm that would come from exoneration. Maybe it'll turn out. Maybe you can win at poker with a pair of tens. But if the other guy is showing a Jack and a King, are you putting all the chips you have (and maybe all the chips you're ever going to have) on that pair of tens?
The chances of defeating and repudiating Trump at the ballot box are way higher than of defeating and repudiating him through impeachment. I know this because every scenario where impeachment gets to that depends on hand-waving on an epic scale.
The idea that it might be useful to put Republicans on record is quaint. They're currently jostling to get in front of microphones to put themselves on record as being pro-Trump.
And not just hand waving, but completely ignoring the downside risk. It's 'we'll be greeted as liberators' all the way down.
They're currently jostling to get in front of microphones to put themselves on record as being pro-Trump.
They're making a bet that supporting him in his public criminality is going to be popular. Maybe they're right. But it seems to me that there's a real possibility that they aren't, and it's worth taking a shot that they're wrong.
118 Of course. That's fundamental to every challenge to a Republican incumbent that's currently underway. The question is whether "the shot' is materially more likely to succeed by making them go on record with this one particularly risky vote, when they're already going on record every day.
I read that people worry about demoralization, but does anyone seriously think people are going to decline to vote for Warren, Sanders, or Biden over Trump because Pelosi correctly said she didn't have the votes for removal? No! The people who are strongly motivated by Trump's removal are going to vote to remove Trump!
I bit I heard today which I think matters: while the Mueller hearings didn't do much of anything, what they did do is take the narrative and the news cycle away from Trump. Every day the House hauls some witness in to testify to Trump's corruption is a day his tweets don't own the conversation.
I read that people worry about demoralization, but does anyone seriously think people are going to decline to vote for Warren, Sanders, or Biden over Trump because Pelosi correctly said she didn't have the votes for removal? No! The people who are strongly motivated by Trump's removal are going to vote to remove Trump!
What about the people who are feeling cynical about how everyone in Washington is a bunch of crooks on the same side, and there's no point in voting for a Democrat because they're all the same? I'm closely related to one of those, and she's going to be voting for a third party. You can be idealistic and starry-eyed about how the Democrats shouldn't have to cater to people who want to see Trump held to account, and if people like that won't vote Democratic unless they think Democrats are going to fight aggressively, it's their own fault if Trump gets re-elected. But I don't care whose fault it is, I just don't want him reelected, and I think it's worth having impeachment proceedings to get us those votes.
Oh, yeah, Trump needs to be condemned every day, and in every way. And if Nadler thinks he needs to make a feint towards impeachment to improve his litigation position on oversight, well, there's risk, but that's probably worth doing.
Baying at Pelosi to do more, though, is the stuff of circular firing squads.
What I've believed about her for as long as I've been aware of her political career is that she is unequaled in her ability to whip a vote -- that she has an incredible amount of sway over her caucus. Listening to her say that 'the votes aren't there' is a little unconvincing in that context -- if she wants to convince angry voters that she's trying to hold Trump to account, she's going to need to at least look as if she's working at it.
121: I should know better, but I'm sort of amazed that those people can still exist in the age of Trump. This is like that stupid Sunday sermon story about the guy on the roof of his house during a flood waiting for a sign from god. What more do you need?
Someone who won't vote for someone to replace Trump because they're afraid that the persons' party won't fight Trump can hardly be reasoned with.
How many votes do you think you're talking about, and, more importantly, where are they? Evenly distributed throughout the Upper Midwest? Are they enough to offset the loss because (a) at the end of the day, Democrats failed to remove Trump or (b) independents who think that acquittal resolves the matter in Trump's favor?
Are they enough to offset the loss because (a) at the end of the day, Democrats failed to remove Trump or (b) independents who think that acquittal resolves the matter in Trump's favor?
I think the answers to those questions are not obvious. There are a lot of minority voters who need to fight through obstacles to get to the polls, and they need to believe it makes a difference. On the other hand, your imaginary independent who is going to believe that an impeachment in the House and a party-line acquittal in the Senate is almost as impossibly misguided as my third party voter. I know at least one of my third-party voters exists, because she's my mother. I've never met anyone weird enough to be your independent.
123 The votes aren't there in the Senate. They just aren't. Might they someday be? Without magic of some sort?
who is going to believe that an impeachment in the House and a party-line acquittal in the Senate
s/b "who is going to believe that an impeachment in the House and a party-line acquittal in the Senate resolves the matter in Trump's favor in a way that changes their vote"
128: Just to state your assumption explicitly, you're assuming that an impeachment in the House followed by a party line acquittal in the Senate is going to be politically counterproductive, right? I don't think that's true.
127 Would your mother vote for the Democratic nominee if the House votes articles of impeachment but the Senate acquits? But not if they have oversight hearings, fight Trump in court over subpoenas, and the like? Is that really her red line?
Does your mother live in Wisconsin?
130: I agree. The Dems should be saying all along that removal is extremely unlikely because Trump has so many of his co-conspirators in the Senate. Nonetheless the House Democrats will do their best to perform their constitutional duty to impeach the criminal President.
Predictions are hard, especially when they're about the future. But that's in the category of things that might win her back.
And I really don't believe in a mass of voters who will see Trump getting saved by a party-line vote of only Republican senators as a vindication. Maybe you know those people? But they seem very unlikely to me.
The entire Wurlitzer, to use a term we used to use. We're a people of the book. I think you're misreading a whole lot of voters.
Okay. As long as you understand that this is a disagreement about coldblooded political tactics. We're all trying to win here. You think that spending months on hearings setting forth Trump's crimes, impeaching him in the House, and then having him survive only because Republican senators are personally loyal to him no matter how criminal he is, will be politically ineffective. This seems implausible to me. But neither one of us knows for sure, and talking as if we did is a tiny bit silly.
The other thing about impeachment is that fortune favors the prepared. I think it's a good idea because I think it's good politics -- I really don't see much chance that any substantial number of Senate Republicans will flip. On the other hand, as I said above, predictions are hard. If impeachment proceedings even net out to harmless, politically, then they're a good idea because they make it at least possible that something completely unexpected could happen.
this is a disagreement about coldblooded political tactics
Oh, absolutely.
Tactically, I think we need to scare conservative white women in rust belt states. I mean, make them scared of Trump, not me.
If impeachment proceedings even net out to harmless, politically
As I've said, I think this is basically magical thinking. We'll see, or maybe we won't.
Trust me, I hear loud and clear that you're very very confident in how well your crystal ball works.
By the way, here's the Senate map for 2020. Lot of red seats there, a few colorable opportunities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_Senate_elections#/media/File:United_States_Senate_elections,_2020.svg
141 What you should be hearing is how afraid I am that it might be working.
139. Single-issue voters.
131 and others-- it seems to me that elections are decided by voters who basically do not read in swing states, by turnout among such folks who usually do not vote. Certainly that's why we have Trump now. Impeachment proceedings in the house generate television footage about DJT's lying. There is no alternative television footage concievable to convince them that Bernie or Harris will save Akron or make running a drill press what it was in 1970.
Impeachment proceedings are a good idea for this reason, as well as 137, stirring the pot of incompetent stinking mendacity may well produce a surprise bad for Rs.
I'm definitely thinking about the Senate map when I think about impeachment. If tying individual Senators in the middle of re-election campaigns to support for Trump's crimes doesn't help us, then there's nothing else out there that's going to help much.
HAH! The rest of us don't have that privilege, LB.
And I am totally agreeing with you on all points in this conversation.
I know several 'why even vote for Democrats if they won't fight for us' people.
Fortunately, they do like Warren. We may luck into comity despite everything.
146: I may not actually post on the front page anymore, but I treasure my ability to un-double-post.
I'm definitely thinking about the Senate map when I think about impeachment. If tying individual Senators in the middle of re-election campaigns to support for Trump's crimes doesn't help us, then there's nothing else out there that's going to help much.
I don't want to over-learn the lessons of 2016 (which I think was fluky in various ways) but the conventional wisdom is that Clinton emphasized an anti-trump message over a policy message (in part because anti-trump offered so many opportunities for attacks, and in part because it was the right thing to do) and that didn't help in the senate.
Side note: do people remember this ad? I still think it's a well-done ad (albeit one which made me think, when I saw it, "oh, Clinton's trying to appeal to old people").
Bear in mind that Trump and the Republicans will likely manufacture a crisis or some spectacle before the next election. Impeachment proceedings may help delegitimize their efforts, and will at least tie up some of their resources and attention.
Ultimately my feeling is this. I don't trust my own crystal ball but I'm slightly skeptical about the value of impeachment hearings simply because the people who's job it is to win elections seem skeptical about it.
They may be wrong, but I don't have enough confidence to say that they're clearly wrong.
I linked to the article in 149.1 because I remembered the Palmieri comment, (that she was "more proud of Hillary Clinton's alt-right speech than any other moment on the campaign.") but re-reading it, the quoted comments from Kellyanne Conway are a good example of how Republicans would handle an impeachment in the house and acquittal in the Senate -- they would belittle and present the whole thing as just a fit of pique.
It still might be worth doing -- I'm not saying that we can't do anything which the Republicans might belittle -- but I'd guess that would be the message going to independent voters. Democrats saying "Trump is terrible" and Republicans saying:
"Guys, I can tell you're angry, but wow," Conway responded. "Hashtag 'he's your president,' how's that?" She added, mockingly: "Will you ever accept the election results?"
Decisions about what gets televised, and how it's contextualized, are in the hands of hostile powers.
The conundrum here is that people like us are already convinced that Trump needs to go. It's the people not like us -- not in NYC, Missoula, or Oakland, but in Wisconsin etc -- that need to be brought along.
Anyway, Nadler's filing today is kind of a road map on where they're going: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/documents/FINAL%20PETITION.pdf
Charley: Structured questions I hope will shed light:
If we consider in your state* four groups of voters --
A. Committed Democrats;
B. Committed Republicans;
C. Apathetic Democrats;
D. Apathetic Republicans;
(IIRC research shows there are effectively no actual independents left anywhere.)
-- and three scenarios, in which the House
1. Does nothing;
2. Formally impeaches;
3. Holds muckraking hearings pointing toward impeachment, as Nadler apparently intends;
How do you think each scenario plays with each group, and which do you think offers the best results for Democrats?
(I'm in favor of 3, but not for any well-thought-out reasons.)
*And swing states, and elsewhere, if you want.
153: We aren't convinced that Trump needs to go. If he goes, he will be replaced by Pence. Good for foreign policy but bad for the 2020 election and otherwise not an improvement. We are convinced that Trump needs to be INVESTIGATED for his CRIMES but then the Republicans in the Senate need to let him off the hook. We want a series of hearings about the crimes. And not collusion with Russia again. Misuse of power, bribery, corruption, mob ties, doing favors for Saudi Arabia and whoever else spends money at his hotels, appointing grossly unqualified cronies, anything like that. The public understanding about Trump doesn't include any of those things and he doesn't want people thinking any of those things. The public understanding of the problems people have with Trump are entirely that he's racist, he's politically incorrect, he's sexist. That's not good enough. We knew all that already and the average white person just says "Well what matters is what he does in office, he doesn't have to be a saint". The bad things he's doing in office, not just destroying the EPA etc but the incredibly corruption, are not in the news. And it's especially not good enough for the Dems to focus on "Trump is racist and sexist" all the time, because the media will be covering that no matter what the Dems do. They should be making it clear that he is ALSO corrupt and they should also be sending a message that they are DOING something because passing these doomed message bills isn't getting them any attention.
Now, if we respond to 155 by saying "Do you think the Dems can be focused enough to actually make a coherent case? I see no evidence from any of the recent hearings. Benghazi was in the news all the time but if the Dems try to do that it will flop" that may be true, but it means we're doomed no matter what.
And if we respond by saying "The Dems aren't united enough to actually support hearings in the first place, because they have all those assholes like Josh Gottheimer, and that is why Pelosi isn't doing anything even if she wanted to", again it means we're doomed no matter what.
155 is good. Although I am less worried about the prospect of Pence than you are -- I don't see any indication that Pence is capable of winning an election. He doesn't have Trump's insane flaws, but he doesn't have the qualities that get Trump votes either.
And 156, 157 are also good. That is, if you assume that aggressive action is doomed because the Democrats can't carry it off and the voters won't like it, we're doomed no matter what. Aggressive action isn't a sure thing, but it's the only thing with any hope of working at all.
Sometimes I wonder if Mike Pence's strategy is to be as boring as possible and thereby avoid being memorable for any specific bad thing.
But then other times I think, nah, he's just really that boring.
Yeah, it's not like he used to be interesting and then got strategically forgettable. He's just like that.
Charley: Structured questions I hope will shed light:
Thinking through this clarifies my intuitions a bit. My starting point would be to assume that Impeachment in the House & Acquittal in the Senate wouldn't actually change that much. I think it would be a medium-big story, followed closely by people who are interested in politics, but not a defining moment for public perceptions.
I think it would have various effects on the margin (it would probably help the Democratic nominee for president, a little bit, but it would probably also help Mitch McConnell (who's less popular in KY than Trump is)).
I think that as long as politics are tied to identity and that you have a large number of people living in communities in which the default assumption is that you can't be a good Republican without supporting Trump and you can't be a good person/good Christian without being a Republican those people are going to be _very_ resistant to any argument from Democrats about why they shouldn't support Trump. I think the more effective message would be either (a) something that could give them permission that they could be a good Republican even if they didn't support Trump or (b) massive Trump fatigue such that people stop caring as much (positive or negative).
I'm not sure how to make either of those thing happen.
I also realize there's a tension between two different things I believe: (1) "Trump fatigue" would be politically positive and (2) It's important to make visible the horrible things he's doing.
154. I don't know what the research shows. Steve Bullock was reelected in 2016 at the same time the state went for Trump by a lot. Tester was just reelected at the same time Gianforte and an overwhelmingly Republican legislature were.
159. I don't think impeachment is the only option, since we have an election that could well lead to removal.
I'm totally on board with aggressive action, especially in venues and contexts where Trump is likely to lose.
To CN's comments I would just say that Democrats do not and cannot control their messaging to that degree.. A hostile media willing to slander a guy like Mueller is going to be very receptive to testimony from the likes of Hicks and McGahn that ok yes the President might be interpreted as having not been totally accuratel, but at the end of the day the issues are muddied by context. Compelling media requires stars and a willingness to showcase them. I wish Nadler and Schiff the best of luck in finding stars.
(a) something that could give them permission that they could be a good Republican even if they didn't support Trump
There will also be a Republican primary. Yes, Trump is overwhelmingly dominant. But there will also be some Republican rando on a stage with him saying 'look at that sleazeball, always under investigation.' If, you know, the Dems have the will to hold the investigations.
I sincerely hope there's going to be a Republican primary, but I don't know about it happening. Do you know something I don't?
If, you know, the Dems have the will to hold the investigations.
I don't think a primary challenger will lack for material even without impeachment hearings.
Also, I had been strongly in favor of the idea of "hold hearings but don't actually impeach." I'd still be completely happy with that outcome but this was dispiriting.
It's proving hard to weaken Trump with congressional investigations
This hearing is particularly high stakes for Democrats because so far, their investigations of the president and his administration haven't made a dent in Trump's approval rating. As I wrote earlier this year, political scientists have shown that sustained congressional investigations generally do have the power to weaken the president's approval rating over time -- making them a powerful weapon for the president's opposing party.
[Graphic]
But that was when presidents' approval ratings tended to fluctuate over time and responded to events in the news. Opinions on Trump's job performance, on the other hand, have been remarkably stable so far. (To be fair, so were Obama's.) "It's really hard to change people's minds about Trump," said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at the University of California Berkeley who studies congressional investigations. "So it's very possible we're in a new reality where congressional investigations just don't do that much to weaken the president."
No. I just assumed there was always one. Weld is challenging him, so there's at least one rando.
Damn. It hadn't even occurred to me that they might just not hold one.
Now you're blowing my mind. Did the Dems have one in 2012?
Wikipedia tells me there were pro forma primaries in 2004 and 2012 against the incumbents.
I bet there'll be some this time because Trump loves campaigning and debates.
Now you're blowing my mind. Did the Dems have one in 2012?
I couldn't remember much, so I turned to wikipedia.
The general expectation was that, with President Barack Obama having the advantage of incumbency and being the only viable candidate running, the race would be merely pro forma.
Several of the lesser-known candidates made efforts to raise visibility. Some Occupy movement activists made an attempt to take over the Iowa caucuses,[2] and got about 2% of the vote for Uncommitted. With nine minor candidates on the ballot in New Hampshire, there was a debate at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire on December 19, 2011,[3] in which seven candidates participated. Pro-life activist Randall Terry bought time on television in order to show graphic commercials denouncing abortion.[4]
...
Despite the limited opposition and ultimately receiving 100% of the pledged delegates, Obama's total percentage of the national popular primary vote was the lowest of any incumbent since the contested 1992 election when George H. W. Bush was challenged by Pat Buchanan.
I think for incumbents there often isn't one? I'm not sure -- maybe there is and just it doesn't make the news except in a weird year. Could be the norm for an incumbent is some rando gets on the ballot in one or two states, but not more than that?
Further to 154, I don't think committed on either side are significantly in play over this issue. The stakes in 2020 are serious enough, for both sides (especially if the Dem nominee is not Biden -- I say that not because I support him, but because I think some number of folks on the Republican side would be less scared of him than of Sanders or Warren.) Among partisans, only the fools are going to voluntarily sit this one out.
In terms of the apathetic, it's hard to guess what, after all that has happened, will finally catch their interest. Anyone who wants to know whether Trump is a crook, is failing to deal with climate change, or a million other reasons not to vote for him, has ready access to that information. Nine months of inconclusive talking heads on daytime TV isn't likely to reach these folks, without something really shocking. And even then, the media -- even MSNBC and the NYT -- are so objectively pro-Trump that it may well get lost in the shuffle. Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and the NYT would tut-tut but also say that he'd fulfilled a campaign promise; exactly what the people in the diners were hoping for.
I think that the best course for our 2020 candidates is to talk about what they'll do to improve people's lives. That may well break through to the ordinarily apathetic, in a way that more televised partisan bickering just isn't going to. Obviously, some contrast with the current incumbents is necessary. But the swing voter is, and I think this is pretty well borne out, more alienated than intrigued by DC battles. This is what we see from the candidates right now.
Oh, and crossed with actual answers.
We have a unified primary -- all offices, including President -- on the same ballot on the same day. We adopt a party platform on the same day that we select delegates to the national convention. I know other states do this differently, but here it would be inconceivable not to have a primary. Whether there are serious contenders, of course, has nothing to do with the party or the state.
I think that the best course for our 2020 candidates is to talk about what they'll do to improve people's lives.
This seems to imply that anyone running for office would be likely not to bring that sort of thing up, which seems implausible. The question is whether it's practical to combine that with pointing out that there's a demented criminal destroying to federal government, and we'd all be better off if he was stopped. Seems to me that it should be.
Obviously some of both. With a sharp eye on what messaging is actually getting through to apathetic voters.
On balance, I favor deferring any impeachment hearings until mid-2020. Put the evidence in front of the voters as close as posisble to the eleciton. I see a real possibility that Trump either has committed, or will in the next few months commit, some entirely new criminal act that will work better for impeachment than anything we know about yet.* Don McGahn seems to have stopped several impeachable acts just by not following direct orders, and he's not there any more. Maybe Trump will sign the back of a check from Putin's personal account. Maybe soemthing interesting will come out in the hypothetical divorce proceedings of the Conways. Maybe there will be a dead girl or a live boy.
Fun scenario: an impeachment trial in the Senate occurs in late Summer or early Fall next year. Trump doesn't have to testify, but he decides he wants to. The Democratic nominee is a sitting senator and questions him under oath.
*Both Clinton and Nixon were impeached for acts that occurred well after the appointment of special prosecutors.
OT: If you give a child the middle name "wisdom," it sounds funny when you use their middle name in the usual threatening way.
The 2012 Democratic primaries, contested by Barack Obama, Randall Terry and random no-names, saw Obama get less than 60% of the vote in Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma. All places where 1/3 of the "registered Democrats" haven't voted for a Democrat in 20-30 years and obviously Obama had no campaign infrastructure to motivate the ones who do.
169, 170: I'm glad I wasn't the only one who couldn't remember.
154
C. Apathetic Democrats;
Man, that's the really inscrutable thing. The other three categories I get, but a broad value of "get", but who are these people?jkkgnmmggo[lkiugok0[0
Atossa typed that part when I stepped away from the computer for a few minutes, but it fits the context.
As for peoples' crystal balls, I'd agree we shouldn't be too confident of ours these days. But I'm not too confident of the Democratic leaderships' crystal balls either.
But I'm not too confident of the Democratic leaderships' crystal balls either.
It turns out that Sen. Schumer wants me to share my priorities with him. I'm honestly afraid to share them because what if he fucks up and it's my fault?
Fuck the votes in the Senate. Voters want and need to see that Democrats have some fight in them. Take the fight to Trump. But him on the back foot. The Democrats are looking weak here and this is almost all on Pelosi. Punch the motherfucker in the face and keep hitting him.
Apparently, I get $125 from Equifax, not $700 million. On the other hand, that's $125 dollars more than the Covington kid is going to get.
Unless he had a credit card. Which he probably did.
Hey Barry, what did you make of Long Day's Journey Into Night second time around? It's a kind of a Mulholland Drive of a picture, was one of my thoughts.
I liked it even more, Mulholland Drive is an interesting comparison (and reminds me that despite buying it twice on Blu ray by accident it's been years since I've watched it). The ending is perfect. Some real Tarkovsky like time-stopping magic without at all being derivative. It's amazing that a picture like that could be made in China and be a big hit. But I think I like Kaili Blues better. A bunch of my friends here were at the screening and I'm going to have to have them over to watch Kaili Blues since none of them have ever seen it.
OT: Pittsburgh now has artisan-hand rolled $2 bagels. I think now that so many people are in ketosis, basic bread products can now be a special treat.
The Dan Coats resignation reminds me that there is another reason for Democrats to be aggressive: Republicans will continue their subversion of the organizations tasked with defending our elections.
NNT has been kicking Quillette racist ass on Twitter and it's very entertaining
This is like that stupid Sunday sermon story about the guy on the roof of his house during a flood waiting for a sign from god.
Obligatory reminder that the punchline to the story should be "WHY SHOULD I HAVE RESCUED YOU? WHO DO YOU THINK SENT THE FLOOD, ASSHOLE?"
190: God is tsundere. This is well established in the biblical and historical record.
Nowadays when god sends a flood, even those Kentucky people with an ark sue their insurance company.
