Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Now this is what I've been waiting for! Roast 'em, John!

IN private speech, Bolton bashes Jared & Ivanka. Says Trump's Turkey policy appears to be guided by personal business interests rather than what's good for America.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/private-speech-bolton-suggests-some-trump-s-foreign-policy-decisions-n1080651

[froot loops]

A face turn for Bolton!

[Ghengis Jon]

..... Says Trump's Turkey policy appears to be guided by personal business interests rather than what's good for America.

Why would a self centered, narcissistic, anti-American, grifter act any differently? I'm fairly certain Trump cleared all of that with Putin beforehand anyway.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump has been talking about firing the IG who reported the whistleblower complaint to Congress for "disloyalty"

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/politics/trump-michael-atkinson-inspector-general.html

[froot loops]

Seems legit

[Dr. Strangelove]

Tomorrow: Amb. Bill Taylor, George Kent
Friday: Amb, Yovanovich
Tuesday:Jennifer Williams, Alex Vindman, Kurt Volker, Tim Morrison
Wednesday: Gordon Sondland, Laura Cooper, David Hale
Thursday: Fiona Hill

Dems gave the R's three of the witnesses they requested

[lineygoblue]

They still need 67 votes in the Senate.

Not happening.

[Whitley]

A face turn for Bolton!

Could see it coming when Bolton was let go by the Trump administration. He will not go quietly into the night. Can't wait until he does a public testimony before Congress. That axe will be very sharp.

[Whitley]

They still need 67 votes in the Senate.

Not happening.

Even if they don't get the conviction all those senators will be on record.

[lineygoblue]

Even if they don't get the conviction all those senators will be on record.

Yep. Just as they were in the Clinton impeachment proceedings.

[Dr. Strangelove]

They still need 67 votes in the Senate.

Not happening.

Probably not but it doesn't make it not worth pursuing. And there's a slight chance Bolton would have court permission in time to testify at the Senate trial. In the end it's worth exposing what Trump attempted to do here.

[Dr. Strangelove]

What were the repercussions of impeaching Clinton for the Republican Party in 2000?

They went from having 222 seats in the House to 221

They went from having 54 Senate seats to 50

They took back the White House

And in the 2002 election they went right back to the same sort of majorities they had in 1996-1998.

Impeaching Clinton hurt a few individual congressional Republican leaders and maybe a few Republicans in the Senate lost reelection but that's it. There really weren't long-term consequences for the Party as a whole. While they didn't want him impeached for having sex and lying about it, lots of people still came away feeling Clinton was a sleazebag afterwards.

And that was with the public being far more against impeachment than currently.

[froot loops]

They still need 67 votes in the Senate.

Not happening.

Then they should just let him commit crimes without any questions then.

[lineygoblue]

Then they should just let him commit crimes without any questions then.

Well, come to think of it, that was the loudest message I took away from the Clinton impeachment.

Even Strangelove agrees that Clinton should not have been impeached, because when he lied under oath and obstructed justice, it was 'only about sex'.

So, committing those crimes was excusable, and he should not have been tried, or even questioned, about them.

Political numbers, in my opinion will not change a lot, no matter what the Senate does.

The Dems will still hold the House in 2020, and the Repubs are going to maintain control of the Senate.

Biggest problem for the Dems in the impeachment is the American people are not stupid. We are actually fairly smart people out here in flyover America. And we know a weak case when we hear and see it.

If they don't bring a rock-solid case against Trump, he's going to be swept right back into office. And I'm not saying that's a good thing.

I have other reasons for tempering my support for him nowadays.

[Ghengis Jon]

The problem with the Clinton impeachment was not with the fact that he lied under oath and was rightfully impeached for it. It was that investigation was an impeachment looking for a crime. How many years were spent by Starr, not finding anything, until stumbling on an adulterous affair that the GOP knew Bill would lie about to keep from Dragon Hillary. It was a blindingly obvious entrapment that Clinton was too stupid to avoid. Fast forward to today. Trump is a pathological liar. Has he spent a day in office without lying multiple times EACH day? Oh, but its not under oath! Why do you think he refuses to take an oath? This aversion to truth is a mental illness with Trump, he can't help himself. And won't get the mental help he needs.

Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff and several senior advisors willingly and truthfully testified at his impeachment. There was no illegal order to defy the law and ignore a lawful subpoena from a lawful investigation. Unless you're guilty as original sin and truly need to be removed from office, why would you do that? Even in Clinton's darkest days, he did not wipe his ass with the Constitution as Trump regularly does.

And speaking of sin, lets talk about Trump's morality for the benefit of his evangelical base. Both you and I have been married for many, many years. We've both been blessed with a wife who is a life partner for the long haul. Think about your wedding vow as I think about mine. I would expect that Trump took essentially the same vow. You know, in a church, swearing to an oath to your spouse and Almighty God to love, honor, respect and give eternal faithfulness. A sworn oath before God. Trump is a serial adulterer, lies about it, has children not with his wife, tries to buy silence with NDAs, and lies about it some more. How can the evangelical base tolerate someone who tells God to "fuck off, you don't matter, I don't care about my oath" on a regular and reoccurring basis?

The biggest problem of Trump is for America, not the Dems. We have an amoral, narcissistic pathological liar in the White House who puts everything including national interest beneath his own personal financial interests. He has no problem with extorting foreign nations who are under invasion by America's enemies for PERSONAL political gain. His actions are anti-American, anti-rule of law, and anti-God.

Americans aren't stupid? I used to think that (in general) but not since Trump. How can roughly 40% of the electorate support such an anti-American individual? Blind tribalism certainly accounts for some of it, but I don't see much more than willing stupidity accounting for the rest.

The Dems have no one to blame but themselves. The two presidential candidates they had to decide between for their candidate in 2016 were Bernie and Hillary. A shit sandwich should have beaten Trump. Now America suffers for that lack of choice. But it doesn't mean that America has to tolerate the criminal activities of the President. Trump needs to be removed from office and no amount of rationalizing by his minions will change that. He simply needs to go away. Trade a pardon for a resignation. He needs to go.