Page 1 of 3

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 9:51 pm
by Sonic Youth
I could see Gov. Baker of Massachusetts appoint a Democrat, or at least someone unaffiliated, to appease the state, without thinking twice about it. Hell, I could even see him switch parties.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 9:32 pm
by FilmFan720
Both Mass and Vermont hold special elections to replace Senators. Any governor appointment would only be for three months.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 8:18 pm
by Sabin
The Atlantic just put an article out called "Trump's Best Week."

"The Democratic Party is deeply divided, the president’s approval rating is climbing, and he’s putting the impeachment process behind him."

Has there ever been a President who could emerge from impeachment, have a personal best approval rating south of 50%, in an election year that could claim anything resemble a win from these things? Whoever wrote this needs to have their head examined but the perception is out there. Oh, but the Democratic Party is a mess, they say. Our contenders aren't remotely as dire a crop as the one's Obama faced in 2012, or the ones Bush faced in 2004, or the ones Clinton fadein 1996. Would anyone dream write the same slug in similar circumstances?

I don't know what it is. Trump isn't teflon. But he's rubber and you're glue.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 7:52 pm
by Sonic Youth
The system worked, said no one.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:40 pm
by OscarGuy
Yeah. I did mean Cory Gardner. I saw Bennet in the news recently, which is probably why I stuck on that name.

If the Republican governor of Massachusetts wants to win re-election, he's going to appoint a Dem. Nothing will rile up Dems in a very lefty state than a Republican governor who does something stupid.

Collins has a ton of money going against her and her votes have been unpopular in her home state, so I wouldn't count on her securing the win. After all, the last time a Republican seat was up in Maine, an Independent who caucuses with the Dems won, so don't count out Maine just yet.

The real pipe dream and the one I wish hardest to come to pass is McGrath taking out McConnell in Kentucky. An ignominious tenure in the senate deserves an ignominius defeat.

Let's also consider that Kansas may be in play if they pick the too-right wing-for-Kansas Kris Kobach. He lost to a Dem for governor and it's looking like he could possibly lose to a Dem in the Senate. We have a lot of places we are in play...a lot more than we thought we had 4 years ago.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:02 pm
by Greg
Sabin wrote:Even if we do, if Warren or Sanders becomes President we have to hope that their Republican governors replace them with a Democrat which seems unlikely.
Vermont has a gubernatorial election in 2020.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2020 8:57 pm
by Sabin
OscarGuy wrote
Michael Bennet is probably a dead man walking, as is Martha McSally. Susan Collins could still win and I wouldn't be surprised if she did and we might end up losing Alabama and Michigan (though, the former still has the chance of a child molester winning the primary). Collins has to go down, so does Tom Tillis along with Bennet and McSally. Without those four seats and the presidency, we're doomed. We can get three of those seats if we can keep Alabama, but we still have to win the presidency. We need to pick up 3 seats and the presidency to have control of the two branches and 4 seats we don't even need the presidency, though it would be helpful to have the whole shebang.
Michael Bennet isn't up for reelection this year. Do you mean Cory Gardner? He's probably gone.

I could see Tillis losing. That seat goes back and forth. I also think McSally is gone. I'm from Arizona and people hate that she lost and then got that seat in the first place.

Doug Jones barely managed to beat the alleged child molester in 2018. Now he's going to be going up against Jeff Sessions in all likelihood. That's not going to happen. Part of me wonders if we wouldn't have been in better shape had Roy Moore won in 2018 and then we had to defeat him after years of his bullshit.

Susan Collins' seat hasn't gone Democratic since 1972. They're probably fine with her vote.

We have to defeat Susan Collins.

Even if we do, if Warren or Sanders becomes President we have to hope that their Republican governors replace them with a Democrat which seems unlikely.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2020 8:37 pm
by OscarGuy
Michael Bennet is probably a dead man walking, as is Martha McSally. Susan Collins could still win and I wouldn't be surprised if she did and we might end up losing Alabama and Michigan (though, the former still has the chance of a child molester winning the primary). Collins has to go down, so does Tom Tillis along with Bennet and McSally. Without those four seats and the presidency, we're doomed. We can get three of those seats if we can keep Alabama, but we still have to win the presidency. We need to pick up 3 seats and the presidency to have control of the two branches and 4 seats we don't even need the presidency, though it would be helpful to have the whole shebang.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2020 3:21 pm
by Sabin
Mister Tee wrote
Sabin, I really don't know why you're so obsessed with this Hunter Biden thing, which as far as I can see appeals only to the rubes at Fox News (aka, wouldn't vote for a Dem anyway). As Claire McCaskill said yesterday: if GOPers wanted to hear from Hunter Biden, they could do it at any time with their 53 votes; it doesn't need to be part of any trade. No Democrat I know "fears" Biden testimony; they know the whole thing is bullshit. They're waving it off because they know that, eventually, there's after-Trump, and there'll be enough to reconstruct without having adulterated an impeachment trial with irrelevant nonsense.
I wouldn't call myself obsessed. Concerned isn't the same as obsession. And after five years of false equivalencies, can you blame me? I hope you're right that this a target on the backs of most of their reelection chances. My fear remains that ten months is a long time. I have no idea if the American people even remember the government shutdown that ended one year ago today (save of course for those who were immediately affected).

I hadn't heard of Rachel Bitecofer before but I follow her now so thanks for that.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2020 1:58 am
by Sonic Youth
I've heard this song so many times before. "Trump is going to pay dearly for this", and then he never pays. "Well this time it will be different" and it's not. Nothing has dampened his colleague's resolve, not the Comey firing, not the Muller report, not the Kavanaugh hearings, not the Kurd backslide, not "I don't see any reason why it would be". Now, the GOP have effectively enervated the force of impeachment down to a mild "time out", the mofo's gonna skate again, and I don't see this should be the turning point. All those other things were supposed to be turning points too.

As for polls, I'm reminded of Oscar Guy's distinction between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. It's all well and good for a movie to have a high number on the (I never thought I'd seriously use this word) "tomatometer". But what is the level of enthusiasm? That's the true measure. These impeachment hearings didn't exactly galvanize the country, not nearly as much as the Kavanaugh hearings did, or the Clinton impeachment hearings, or the build-up to the Iraq war, or the 2000 election ballot count, or the Clarence Thomas hearings or even the Robert Bork hearings. McConnell's strategy was apparently to make the senate impeachment hearings as boring as possible and I'm afraid it worked. So yes, it's nice that a substantial number of people think he should be removed, but how deep does the outrage really go? It would have to be deep enough so that the Republican's own constituents would force them to vote for more witnesses. If it's not, then I'm not sure how things are expected to change in each R's district between now and November.

That said... I had marshalled these arguments before I learned about the 75% statistic, which I first heard from Magilla. So, I'll give this a fair chance. After the vote to deny additional witnesses are held and Trump is acquitted or whatever, I want to see a massive general strike and multiple disruptions at Town Hall meetings, just like we had in Year one. Is that really too much to ask??

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 8:53 pm
by Mister Tee
And Rick Wilson, who knows something about Republican campaigns, puts it better than me.

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/statu ... 2632686592

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 4:42 pm
by Mister Tee
Sonic Youth wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:
This doesn't necessarily mean enough Republicans are ever going to vote to remove Trump from office. But it does mean that the only way they can do it is to look at incontrovertible evidence and say, We don't care. Which will be punished severely at the ballot box.
I think I can say, two months later, that I highly doubt this, and whatever happens at the ballot box will happen despite all of this. Like every other scandal and outrage, it'll have its peak and then it will break and retreat like an ocean wave. The impeachment, apparently, will end up far less consequential than we were hoping and if Trump is defeated, it won't be because of this (let's be honest) limp and unexciting procedure.
I couldn't disagree more completely with this. The trial has established firmly that Trump is guilty as sin -- majorities think he should be removed from office, numbers never (thanks to Bill Barr) approached from the Mueller report (or for any previous president, except Nixon at the very end) . And, as Magilla notes, there are simply outlandish numbers favoring witnesses -- numbers you can barely get for belief in gravity. Every Republican Senator up for re-election this Fall is going to be hammered on "You did everything you could to prevent the truth from being learned." If you don't think Cory Gardner, Thom Tillis, Joni Ernst, Martha McSally at minimum are going to suffer for that, we have different theories of elections. (To back up my take: Rachel Bitecofer -- who early on predicted Dems would pick up 40+ House seats in 2018 -- says this will be devastating to GOP hopes up and down the ballot.) I realize Democrats have suffered a lot of disappointment over the years -- I've been there for more of it than most of you -- but sometimes people buy into pessimism pre-emptively.

Sabin, I really don't know why you're so obsessed with this Hunter Biden thing, which as far as I can see appeals only to the rubes at Fox News (aka, wouldn't vote for a Dem anyway). As Claire McCaskill said yesterday: if GOPers wanted to hear from Hunter Biden, they could do it at any time with their 53 votes; it doesn't need to be part of any trade. No Democrat I know "fears" Biden testimony; they know the whole thing is bullshit. They're waving it off because they know that, eventually, there's after-Trump, and there'll be enough to reconstruct without having adulterated an impeachment trial with irrelevant nonsense.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 3:07 pm
by Big Magilla
Sabin wrote:The Democrats care more about preserving Joe Biden's integrity than they do about getting Trump because even they now recognize that an election is the strongest way to defeating Trump than impeachment and removal. And it's on them for not seeing this moment coming a mile away when they centered the impeachment around that phone call.
It wasn't the phone call. It's what was learned from the investigation into what was said on the call.

I stopped watching the so-called trial. It's not a trial, it's a sham. The Republicans aka the Trump Party have gone past "there's no evidence" to "it happened but it's not impeachable, get over it" back to "the Bidens should be investigated." Bringing in witnesses at this point would probably be an exercise in futility. It would just drag things out longer with the same insane outcome in which Orange Hitler is acquitted despite the evidence.

I was hoping they would go past Tuesday, though, depriving him of gloating in a half-time Fox News interview during the Super Bowl and strutting into the House to make his State of the Union remarks. But 75% or more of the American public smells a rat now, so maybe it will get enough people riled up enough to throw the majority of the Trump party out of office in November.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:01 pm
by Sabin
Sonic Youth wrote
I think I can say, two months later, that I highly doubt this, and whatever happens at the ballot box will happen despite all of this. Like every other scandal and outrage, it'll have its peak and then it will break and retreat like an ocean wave. The impeachment, apparently, will end up far less consequential than we were hoping and if Trump is defeated, it won't be because of this (let's be honest) limp and unexciting procedure.
I wasn't alive during Watergate but I am convinced that the reason why Nixon was forced to resign was because of the salacious revelations. That it sucked all the air out of the room. And that it confirmed what everyone had been suspecting for so many years: that Nixon was a loathsome crook. We already know that about Trump. This isn't new. In fact, this impeachment might go down as the most lifeless, uneventful moment of Trump's Presidency.

Last November, I wrote:
"I'm dubious that twenty (?) Republicans are going to turn on him, but my real reservation is: how much do the American people care about protocol of international relationships with countries they haven't heard of and the intelligence community? And how much do they care to parse the difference between Trump's abuse of power and The Biden Family's "sanctioned" privilege?"
Well, the Senate Democrats are certainly scared of the latter point otherwise they'd happily trade John Bolton for Hunter Biden.

I know, I know. "That's a Republican talking point!" If there's one phrase I'd happily see gone for the rest of my life, it's the overuse of "talking point." Talking points should be called out but they can't be ignored. The Democrats care more about preserving Joe Biden's integrity than they do about getting Trump because even they now recognize that an election is the strongest way to defeating Trump than impeachment and removal. And it's on them for not seeing this moment coming a mile away when they centered the impeachment around that phone call.

Re: Impeachment and Removal from Office

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2020 1:32 pm
by Sonic Youth
Mister Tee wrote:
This doesn't necessarily mean enough Republicans are ever going to vote to remove Trump from office. But it does mean that the only way they can do it is to look at incontrovertible evidence and say, We don't care. Which will be punished severely at the ballot box.
I think I can say, two months later, that I highly doubt this, and whatever happens at the ballot box will happen despite all of this. Like every other scandal and outrage, it'll have its peak and then it will break and retreat like an ocean wave. The impeachment, apparently, will end up far less consequential than we were hoping and if Trump is defeated, it won't be because of this (let's be honest) limp and unexciting procedure.