As I understand it, it’s Ambassador Sondland who is the guy who made it CLEAR in the released text messages that Trump did not want a quid pro quo. He’s testifying against the direction of State, so there are some on Twitter who are oohing and ahhing that this some sort of crack in the case.
Sadly, no.
Datapoints:
He’s not releasing any documents. He’s already had a tet-a-tet with Sec. Pompeo. He’s on the record saying no quid pro quo.
All he has to do is show up, make it clear there was — at least in his mind — no quid pro quo and it’s a win for House Trump. Or at least the optics will be. We won’t know what he said to Trump in the time leading up to the “No quid quo pro!” text.
Thus, theoretically, Ambassador Sondland could lie, or bob and weave, and give Chris Wallace all the bad-optics-for-impeachment he wants and the air will leave the impeachment proceedings as quickly as they arrived. The only reason why I still have any hope is that the House Democrats are interviewing other people involved in quick succession, so…I dunno?
On a surface level, VP Mike Pence is sitting pretty. He’s a Constitutional officer and all he has to do is not get fired from the ticket in 2020. That’s it. That’s all he has to do. As long he can swat Ivanka and Jared away long enough to be on the ticket again, he’s got a straight shot to the presidency in 2024.
And, yet.
There’s a problem. A big problem — Trump.
So, this makes things more complicated. If Trump gets both impeached and convicted, then Pence, in a sense, is the ultimate winner. But this “winning” brings with it some serious, complex problems. Pence if he wants to win as a conventional pol will have to at least attempt to reach out to the 60 odd percent of the electorate who are likely to hate his guts by the time Trump is finally removed from office by the Senate. At the same time, he has to worry about alienating the MAGA base of whom he really only has a solid claim to a subset of, the Evangelical vote. Compared to the always entertaining in a bonkers way Trump, Pence is actually just a very conservative traditional Republican.
A President Pence going into the 2020 election cycle would have half a dozen challengers coming at him from the MAGA right. All of them willing to be just a nuts as Trump, but also younger and more passionate in their hatred of brown people.
And, then, there’s the existential issue of giving Trump a Nixon-level pardon post presidency. That’s a question I simply can’t answer knowing what I know superficially. Logically, Pence would given Trump a full pardon and then simply try to tell it in a more articulate manner than Ford did. Or he could try to dodge the question until after the election and turn around and do just that. His thinking would be people would be luzling his pardon by the time he ran again in 2024. If he doesn’t pardon Trump and he is convicted by, say, the SDNY or New York State then, wow. That would be a pretty out-of-character and, relative to the base, dick move.
Pence wants it both ways. He wants to show absolute fealty to The Dear Leader while at the same time having the option of using his traditional pol skillset to hoodwink more moderate independants. The only problem for him there is, well, he’s so astonishingly conservative relative to the practical center of modern American politics that him trying to pull a fast one on enough middle aged center-Left women to get re-elected is debatable.
What’s more, there are some serious landmines lurking out there in the near future. Roe could be overturned. ObamaCare could be overturned. Or both of them could be overturned. If anything like that happened, it would roll the American political system in some unprecedented ways.
But, in general, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I have some hunches, but we’ll know more when Trump’s political fate is ultimately decided.
You’re supposed to put your stick where the puck is going to be, not where it is, then I have a suggestion for Hollywood — buy up empty shopping malls now.
I say this because despite what is proposed in Ready Player: One, young human people still need the entertainment industry to facilitate dating rituals. So, even if we all have an economic VR – treadmill setup in our homes, 13 year old boys will still need to go through the rite of passage of asking his cute crush in homeroom out on a date.
Right now, “Netflix and chill” is not very practical for that kid. But going to a movie is definitely doable. As such, even in the age of “immersive media” little boys are still going to need an excuse to leave the house and hang out with their crush (reasonably) unsupervised for a few hours. So, it would make a lot of sense for them to not use a home VR – treadmill setup, but instead go to a revamped mall where there’s a massive immersive movie being played.
No one listens to me, but lulz. I had to get that off my chest.
Just after the election of Abraham Lincoln in the fall of 1860, the bolts began to pop off of the Constitution when states such as South Carolina began to hold conventions to approve their leaving of the Union. These dramatic events were lulzed by sitting president James Buchanan who cemented his rank as America’s worst president.
Now, here were are. Trump, in real terms, is only one tweet away from being worse than Buchanan. All he has to do is suggest to the AR-15 welding MAGA base to take up arms against the “traitors” in the House and, well, there you go. I don’t know how likely that scenario is, but Trump is already mentally unstable and impeachment itself may be enough to finally cause him to snap.
Any civil disturbance that might happen because of such a tweet, Trump can turn around and use as an excuse to dissolve Blue State governments. I guess the point of this is — we really, really need to take current events seriously. Like, really seriously.
These are the highest political stakes to take place in living memory. Trump is prepared to push the Constitution to its breaking point simply to save his sorry ass on a personal level. If we don’t stand up for the Constitutional now, then, well, what was ever the point in the first place. Congress needs to start arresting any and everyone it needs as part of Trump’s due process.
Of course, there is a danger this would significantly ratched up the stakes of an already unprecedented crisis. I say let’s rock. The sooner we embrace the risks of this crisis, the sooner we can address it more effectively. The days of asymmetrical radicalization have to end. Trump has declared war on the Republic and maybe we need to declare war back.
This is a moment of grave risk and potential opportunity. If we’re able to topple the Trump regime completely, there’s a chance that a President Pelosi can serve as a caretaker president who will simply ensure a free and fair election in 2020. I just don’t trust Pence to do that.
And, sadly, we can’t allow a Nixon endgame for Trump. Former President Trump must be indicted, tried and convicted. He’s proven he’s untrustworthy. If he’s a free man, he’s going to meddle in the 2020 election to get Don Jr. or Ivanka elected one way or another.
It’s a horrific precedent to set — “lock her up” and all that — but I honestly don’t know what else to do.
I was watching MSNBC tonight and noticed something. They were going through the metrics that the Trump Administration was using to gauge its impeachment strategy.
While someone of them were demonstrably delusional, there was one that stuck out as extremely dangerous for House Trump. The Trump 2020 campaign is making an obscene amount of money fundraising off of the threat of impeachment.
Now, relative to them, that’s an example of how impeachment is a lulz and a win-win for them. They feel that no matter what, they’re going to endup with more money for the 2020 campaign and, by the way, fuck you, you globalist cuck.
This is all well and good, but if one of the primary metrics you use is how much money the base is willing shell out for the 2020 campaign, you’re setting yourself up for a potential political catastrophe. If you are so busy counting your cash like Scrooge McDuck and not weighing political factors, you are bound to make some pretty enormous mistakes.
If you add to this how unstable Trump is from day one and, well, there are no assurances. I have every reason to believe that Moscow Mitch will save the day and that once the Constitution’s back is broken that Trump’s authoritarian wet dreams will come true. But, absolute greed has a hell of a drug. There’s a chance House Trump will be oblivious to the gravity of this situation until it’s far, far, far too late.
But we’re way too early in the process to know one way or another. I guess if nothing else they can just live off their grift money for decades to come. They were going to do that, anyway.
The thing many men don’t realize is a huge swath of the female population see abortion as an absolute fail-safe. It’s easy for Republicans to demagogue the issue of abortion because it’s a complex situation and all they want is a simple solution so they can declare victory and win votes.
This comes out most notably when Republicans — speaking to their base — say some pretty bonkers things about abortion and rape. The reason why they keep doing this is they are trying to lay the groundwork politically for an absolute ban on abortion. They say completely deranged things about “justifiable rape” because they want to invalidate the argument that there should at least be an exception for rape. In their fucked up worldview, they think women will lie about being raped so they can get an abortion.
As for the “incest” and “life of the mother” exceptions, they either lulz it or pivot to something else should the issue come up. Republicans really do want women to be charged with manslaughter if they have an involuntary miscarriage.
With that in mind, the whole point of Republicans appointing judges for the last 30 or so years has been ending Roe V. Wade. And, at last, it seems as though they may very well get their wish pretty soon. The conditions are there, at least, for Roe to be overturned sometime between now and, say, Thanksgiving. (It may be later in the session, but we live in insane times, so, lulz.)
Should Roe be overturned in the middle of Trump’s impeachment process, this would not bode well for The Dear Leader. I’m not saying he will face any consequences — he never does — but women who already hate his guts are going to become apoplectic. There’s at least a small chance that women who feel powerless to do anything about the end of Roe will channel that rage into trying to bring down Trump.
But, I dunno. Trump’s a tyrant. I got nothing as to how we would ever get past Moscow Mitch.
By now, many of us have seen the video of the Kurdish Women’ Protection Force sniper barely avoiding having her head blown off by a stray bullet. She laughs it off. Literally laughing in the face of death.
Our president is currently a deranged racist misogynistic traitor, so he’s hung the the Kurds out to dry. This is similar to what Nixon did to the Kurds with the Shah. But we did managed to do the right thing with a different group of American allies — the Hmong. They were fierce fighters during the Vietnam War and, as I understand it, we allowed them to come the States en masse.
There are obviously a shit ton more Kurds than Hmong, but we as a nation ever want to find some absolution for electing a tyrant president I suggest we might look into giving the Kurds in Syria a similar gimme. If they can prove they were forced out of Syria because of Trump’s treason, we let them into the country, few questions asked.
For any number of reasons, I doubt this will happen. Trump’s likely — with the aid of Moscow Mitch — escape defeat and we’ll careening towards full blown tyranny. But in the unlikely event we do manage to save ourselves from ourselves, letting the Kurds we betrayed into the country is the least we can do.
Are you ready for your close up, Mr. Rather?Shelton Bumgarner
by Shelton Bumgarner @bumgarls
I always find it amusing when I notice people from the Deep South checking out this blog. I can only assume they get off on my worst-case-scenario hot takes for the Republic. If you are, in fact, such a person, please fuck off.
The real tragedy of all of this is we’ve done it to ourselves. Hollywood loves alien invasions (V) or alien-robot-invasions (The Live,) but it turns out we have seen the enemy and they are us, as Pogo would say. It’s not aliens that have done this to us, it’s the systemic rot found in the Republican Party itself. As I’ve said before, the stakes could not be higher in this crisis.
The long touted Constitutional Crisis is finally here. The battle is joined. And a lot of fuckwits on the Right are spooging at the idea that MAGA is finally throwing down the gauntlet. They like the idea that Trump would go on the offensive, damn the consequences.
That is all well and good, but by doing so, Trump has opened up a Pandora’s Box. The thing about a crisis is things move so fast that “normal” people who have a vested interest in the slow and steady often have no idea how to handle the events going on around them. It’s the freaks and weirdos who live in a constant state of crisis who thrive. (That would be me. I’m talking about myself.)
But, the point is, there’s a chance that now that House Trump has crossed the Rubicon, that there will be an equal and opposite reaction on the part of House Democrats. They may find they have no recourse than to use their inherent contempt powers. Of course, putting Bill Barr or Mike Pompeo in the House jail is likely to make things even worse for everyone involved.
Then there’s the chance that Trump will dox the whistleblower on Twitter and “joke” that MAGA with their AR-15s should “teach him a lesson.” Republicans will of course be cool with this — they have no shame, after all — but the rest of the body politic might not take “he was just joking” defense as legitimate.
Really, there’s even a chance that Trump will finally get to be the best at being worse — he might tell his MAGA supporters to take up arms against Congress as events progress. He can tell them he’ll pardon them if they do it. Again, Republicans will lulz this even as it actually begins to happen.
I’d like to think the military might sit on its hands, no matter what, but who knows. Again, that’s why this is a crisis. I just can’t fathom any kind of endgame right now. Whatever happens, we’re in a new political era — maybe even epoch –in the nation’s history. The worse part of all of this is it’s likely to be just a brief respite. At best, we escape another MAGA president in 2020 should we manage to banish Trump politically. If it’s not Tom Cotton, it will be Kris Kobach…and the list goes on.
And, sure, I know there might be MAGA people who read all of this and don’t see as a reason to fight back, but as a reason to embrace the warm waters of tyranny. If you’re that person — please, for the love of God, fuck the fuck off.
Anyway. Now what. If we can’t banish Trump politically pretty soon all is, in fact, lost. The guy is a menace to the Republic. He needs to be removed from office, given due process in a court of law and, if convicted, put in prison for the rest of his life. If he’s a free man, he’s going to meddle in election after election until Don. Jr. or Ivanka becomes president.
So, apparently, Donald Trump political genius is beginning to settle on the idea that all of this is just a Deep State conspiracy to bring him down. Now, in a sense this is effective messaging, I also think it’s something of a stopgap.
I say this because Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge weren’t exactly pillars of objectivity when they concocted their plot to bring down Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton did, in fact, do something wrong and Donald Trump, too, has in fact done something wrong. He has done several Big Boy Crimes, in fact.
But when you’re desperate and involved in a total war against your political opponents, you try to spin anything that might help you with the base. Apparently there is some sort of connection between the whistleblower and a major Democratic candidate. If Trump did, in fact, do Big Boy Crimes, I don’t see how that is really of any concern. I guess they can say that what Trump released doesn’t prove anything and, lulz, fuck you.
Trump knows he has Moscow Mitch as his firewall, no matter what. So, I guess he really is going to get away with this and go full Mad King on us. I see no reason to think that this is the end of American democracy as we know it. Trump, in an effort to save himself, will break the back of the Constitution and that will be that. I will find myself in a re-education camp soon enough, never to be seen again.
As of right now, my only hope is Trump will do what he always does, which is self-own. In this case, his self-own is likely to be in the guise of going completely bonkers after he is formally impeached. But that’s debatable. The stakes could not be higher and the good guys don’t always win.
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