Everything Is Great and Amazing

Mister Tee
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Mister Tee »

After a one-day absence, Afternoon Bombshell returns to the air, with a special "While the President's Plane is Aloft" episode.
Mister Tee
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Mister Tee »

OK: I could actually consider the possibility that the "Putin pays Trump" thing was meant as a lame joke...if not for the fact that all involved first denied the conversation had ever taken place. Once you're on to your second excuse, your credibility nose-dives.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Greg »

House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... 11d73e8dbb
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

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Trump's commencement speech.
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Greg
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Greg »

First Republican raises impeachment for Trump:

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/33380 ... -for-trump
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Bog »

Holy Chaffetz McCain!

Sadly...how much pressure will be enough pressure on Paul Ryan to draw up the papers knowing damn well he will also be bringing his own career to a grinding halt?
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

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Mister Tee wrote:One hesitates to comment these days, because you never know what new atrocity might come to light in the immediate hours after.
As I was saying...
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
Breaking News

(AP) The Israeli government was the source of the classified intelligence that President Trump shared with a pair of Russian officials in a meeting last week, a new report said Tuesday,

The New York Times, citing a former American official who knew how the US obtained the information, reported that Trump’s disclosure could harm relations between the two longstanding allies.

Russia, the paper reported, could pass the information off to Iran, which has vowed to destroy the Jewish state.
Trump and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster both defended the disclosure Tuesday, saying that nothing inappropriate had been revealed.
For months, I have held the belief that for Donald Trump to be removed from office, House Republicans would have to turn on him. Right now, there's just no reason for them to do this when they're getting so much done.

If Donald Trump is publicly critical of Israel, that could do it. That could open the floodgates. Worse than that, it could result in a purge of his base, the racist alt-right, from the Republican party. Part of me is crossing my fingers that he does it, but the other part is terrified for the possible rise in anti-Semitism to follow.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Greg »

If it is possible for the fear of losing reelection to turn enough Republicans against Trump, something to look for is two upcoming special House elections. On May 25, there is one in the at-large Montana district (Montana only has enough population for one congressional district), which polls show the Democrat might win. Because Trump carried Montana by 20 points, a Democratic win there, especially a substantial one, would indicate that these recent scandals could be pushing the Democrats to a big win in 2018 and likely rattle a lot of Republicans. There is another special House election in June in a district in Georgia that Trump won by only one percent. It is a runoff where the Democratic candidate received the plurality of the vote in the jungle primary, that is a primary where all the candidates, Democrat, Republican, and Independent, were on the ballot.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by OscarGuy »

As we saw with Malheur, the public quickly turned against the men holed up there. I think the same would befall any protestors, violent or otherwise, who advocated armed civil disobedience. Look at what happens with Richard Spencer and his ilk. They protest heavily, but are ultimately reviled for what they represent. They would be akin to Westboro Baptist. A lunatic fringe who polite society rejects. The wealthy largely reject these folk, especially corporations, and would be exceedingly happy if they could control the government without them.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Mister Tee »

One hesitates to comment these days, because you never know what new atrocity might come to light in the immediate hours after. But, to speak of what I see at THIS VERY MOMENT:

Things sure seem to be accelerating. The mainstream press is still ridiculing the Louise Mensch/Claude Taylor Twitter reporting -- calling them delusional/nonsensical -- but meantime things the pair Tweeted about two months ago have now become part of the accepted conversation (extensive FBI investigations, grand juries, involvement extending into the Congress). Again, this doesn't mean everything they're saying now (that Trump is under sealed indictment for impeachment recommendation, that a huge number of warrants have been granted and widespread arrests could come at any time) will come to pass. But people in the know are not acting as if the current controversies are passing fancies; more every day seem convinced we're headed toward massive governmental upheaval.

How that upheaval comes is unknown right now, and will affect many of the details Sabin and Magilla are bandying back and forth. Of course, this GOP Congress, corrupt and self-serving to the bone, is not likely to initiate impeachment just on public demand (anymore than their ancestors steered clear of impeachment of Clinton when the public resoundingly disapproved). But the situation could become untenable for them if there are FBI indictments/arrests for not just Flynn and Manafort, but also Pence, Priebus, Nunes, Sessions, Chafetz, Ryan and McConnell, with Trump -- like Nixon -- named Unindicted Co-Conspirator in a document referred to the House. (I know: that sounds like an opium dream...but there are serious rumors saying that's exactly what's going down.) In that instance, GOPers would have to seriously gamble any futures they might have against what would be huge public outcry. I'm not saying they couldn't possibly still resist -- lemmings are impervious to logic -- but there's a possibility they go along to stave off the likelihood of massive losses in the '18 midterms, where Democrats could make Impeach the Criminal their sole campaign slogan.

Once again: I don't KNOW any of this is going to happen. But it seems less far-fetched by the day.

Three other things:

1) As far as the line of succession -- it all depends on how quickly and efficiently this all would come down. Magilla's correct, that if Pence/Ryan have been removed by indictment/resignation, we could go straight from Trump to Hatch. There is always the possibility of Trump trying to appoint a replacement VP, but it's hard to see Congress going along with letting him pick his successor under such a dark cloud.

2) If Trump leaves and this purge happens within, say, this year, you'll hear many people try to say, well, that was that, and now the new administration can return to business. I think this is wrong for two reasons: Whoever replaces Trump -- say it's Hatch -- will be a lame duck by definition, and will have little influence to get anything through Congress...and Dems can rightly claim the right to obstruct since the election will have been proven hopelessly tainted. (Also, there's a possibility a few GOP Senators could find themselves in enough legal trouble they won't be able to stick around to enforce the 52-48 majority.) And the GOP will have to deal with the fact that their lunatic fringe -- about half of their voters -- are so far in the tank for Trump that they will reject the clearest evidence of his corruption, and spend the remainder of the term claiming he was railroaded/angry at elected GOPers for not fighting to the death.

3) This GOP fringe is going to be an at least near-term issue for the country at large. These people are so far gone into believing the bullshit purviewed by Fox News, Breitbart, and the ilk that they're lost to reality. (They're like Tony Perkins in the last scene of Psycho -- fully into their delusions.) I'm not sure how things will play out, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of significant civic unrest. I said last year that I thought some of these people, by not acknowledging the legitimacy of Democrats' right to run the government, were pushing us toward some version of Civil War. I hadn't really meant the shooting-war sort, but now I'm not so sure. At some point, the Confederacy and its ideological allies have to face the fact the modern age exists and will not be permanently tolerant of rejectionists, especially when they turn violent.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Big Magilla »

Breaking News

(AP) The Israeli government was the source of the classified intelligence that President Trump shared with a pair of Russian officials in a meeting last week, a new report said Tuesday,

The New York Times, citing a former American official who knew how the US obtained the information, reported that Trump’s disclosure could harm relations between the two longstanding allies.

Russia, the paper reported, could pass the information off to Iran, which has vowed to destroy the Jewish state.
Trump and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster both defended the disclosure Tuesday, saying that nothing inappropriate had been revealed.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Big Magilla »

Right now they're still using Trump to get what they want. He has a built-in buffer of diehard supporters that could turn to someone outside of the party if he is impeached. With Pence to sign into law everything they pass, they won't miss him, but without that buffer they may find 2018 tougher than they anticipate to maintain their majorities in both houses.
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
If there is evidence of Pence and Ryan having knowledge of Russian money laundering they could be impeached simultaneously with Trump. If they were smart, Ryan and McConnell, who is subject to impeachment on the money laundering but not in the chain of command, would move to oust Trump now on any number of issues aside from Russian interference in the election it may mean that the furor over that dies down and allowing the investigation to come to a halt before it gets to them.
The only way impeachment could occur is if Republicans turn on their own. I have a difficult time seeing them do that with Trump, but it's almost impossible with Pence or Ryan. They could stop under the banner of "This country's been through enough."
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Re: Everything Is Great Again

Post by Big Magilla »

If there is evidence of Pence and Ryan having knowledge of Russian money laundering they could be impeached simultaneously with Trump. If they were smart, Ryan and McConnell, who is subject to impeachment on the money laundering but not in the chain of command, would move to oust Trump now on any number of issues aside from Russian interference in the election it may mean that the furor over that dies down and allowing the investigation to come to a halt before it gets to them.

If putting an ally in danger by revealing information on ISIS operations in Syria to the Russians last week doesn't mean automatic impeachment, maybe when the source is annihilated by Russia and/or Assad, it will enough to finally remove him from office. Let's hope it doesn't get that far.
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