Impeachment 3: The MF Has Been Impeached! The Trial Has Begun!

[Cleopatra7]

I’m not sure why any of this comes as a surprise. I don’t think a sitting president of either party could ever be removed from office, even if they nuked half the planet. No one wants to break ranks with their party (especially if they feel like their party is benefitting from said president). Furthermore, I think there is a sense that because removing a sitting president has never happened before that it shouldn’t be done, especially since your guy might be next.

Most importantly, punishment and consequences are for the plebs. The idea that no one is above the law is one of the biggest lies ever told. The FBI doesn’t exist to investigate rich, white men like Donald Trump, it’s here to investigate civil rights leaders and environmentalists. Expecting anything else is just being naïveté. Waiting for that Russiagate or impeachment would decapitate the Trump administration has taken away attention and resources from grassroots actions that would actually do something proactive. As it is, impeachment has just been another farcical reality show to distract us from the fact that the world is on fire.

[fraurosena]

It doesn't matter if the trumplicans go for the worst case scenario. From the very beginning, everyone, the dems most of all, knew Trump would not be removed from office because of this impeachment. That was never what the impeachment was really about, and no one should be upset about the inevitable results. This was about showing the public what the trumplicans really stand for. This was about getting them to show how far they are willing to go in order to stay in power; to show that no matter how egregious, dangerous and traitorous Trump's conduct may be, they are always going to vote for their own self-interest. This was about getting them to show their hand, getting them to state their -- terribly weak -- defences. 

This was about energising the public, and getting them to go out and vote, vote, vote them all out. 

 

 

[fraurosena]

Jennifer Rubin's open letter to John Bolton.

John Bolton, it’s now or never

Quote

Dear John Bolton:

Before you were national security adviser, before you represented the United States at the United Nations, you were a lawyer — a pretty good one, as I understand. As a member of the bar, you must have been pained and shaken to hear President Trump’s attorney Alan Dershowitz argue for the proposition that anything a president thinks he needs to do to get reelected — bribe or extort a foreign country, even — cannot be impeachable. This defies and defiles our constitutional system, one in which even the president is not above the law. It’s a proposition that would have boiled your blood had President Bill Clinton or President Barack Obama advanced it.

And yet here we are. The president asserts that he is king, and the spineless Republicans (who smear and insult you and mouth Russian propaganda) are too cowardly to oppose him. Meanwhile, your First Amendment rights to publish your account are being trampled on by a vague, overly broad and baseless assertion that your manuscript contains “Top Secret” materials. (And yet the president, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others have spoken to the contents of the same conversations you apparently will describe, thereby declassifying whatever they tried to classify.)

We have the perfect formula for tyranny: The executive claims unlimited power; his critics are muzzled. I do not think you spent decades in public life to allow this to play out before your eyes. What’s more, as you have surely realized in serving in this administration filled with toadies and careerists, you will, by acquiescing to White House demands, ensconce in power a president emotionally, temperamentally and intellectually unfit to serve, one who will now be convinced that he operates above and beyond any restraint on his power.

The moral and constitutional instincts that drove you to condemn the “drug deal” being cooked by Trump’s aides and to repeatedly tell your former employees to report their concerns to White House attorneys should now compel you to throw sand in the gears of a totalitarian-minded president. Your attorney certainly has run through some options for you, but let’s review them.

First, you could hold a news conference Thursday or agree to an interview, perhaps with Chris Wallace so that his Fox News audience would have a front-row seat. (A disclosure: I am a contributor to MSNBC.) You can explain without revealing anything remotely classified that Trump tied aid to opening bogus investigations into the Bidens; that Trump never pursued burden-sharing or anti-corruption efforts more generally before the scandal broke; and that Trump knew that the conspiracy theories justifying such bogus investigations were being advanced by Russian-connected stooges. Let the public know; do not allow the Senate to ignore damning evidence.

Second, you could call up the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees and ask to appear immediately in an open hearing. You can then, under oath, lay out what you know.

Third, you can do nothing, meekly accepting prior restraint on your free speech and remaining silent so that the Senate can escape confronting what it knows would be damning evidence of the president’s impeachable conduct. You can watch the party to which you belonged your entire adult life incinerate the constitutional system of checks and balances, separation of powers and limited government. You can become a silent accomplice in this assault on democracy.

Finally, you have gotten a taste of the heavy-handed intimidation techniques the president and his sycophantic enablers use to beat down critics. If someone as financially and professional secure as you capitulates, imagine how easy it will be for the Trumpists to crush dissent from ordinary Americans. Whether intended or not, you’ve burned your bridges with the Trumpian right and to the right-wing media that has on cue demonized you. Welcome to the “other side.” Whatever sense of disappointment and alienation you must feel from your former friends and colleagues, I can assure you it is temporary.

You can now relish in the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to display true courage and patriotism, to go down in history with others who interposed themselves between wanna-be dictators and absolute power. But first, you have to do the right thing.

 

[fraurosena]

 

This is what he's talking about.

 

[Flossie]

If you're on the wrong side of a paywall on the above story:

Trump Told Bolton to Help His Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Book Says

Jan. 31, 2020Updated 1:02 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, who is now leading the president’s impeachment defense.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Bolton to call Volodymyr Zelensky, who had recently won election as president of Ukraine, to ensure Mr. Zelensky would meet with Mr. Giuliani, who was planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the investigations that the president sought, in Mr. Bolton’s account. Mr. Bolton never made the call, he wrote.

The previously undisclosed directive that Mr. Bolton describes would be the earliest known instance of Mr. Trump seeking to harness the power of the United States government to advance his pressure campaign against Ukraine, as he later did on the July call with Mr. Zelensky that triggered a whistle-blower complaint and impeachment proceedings. House Democrats have accused him of abusing his authority and are arguing their case before senators in the impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, whose lawyers have said he did nothing wrong.

The account in Mr. Bolton’s manuscript portrays the most senior White House advisers as early witnesses in the effort that they have sought to distance the president from. And disclosure of the meeting underscores the kind of information Democrats were looking for in seeking testimony from his top advisers in their impeachment investigation, including Mr. Bolton and Mr. Mulvaney, only to be blocked by the White House.

In a statement after this article was published, Mr. Trump denied the discussion that Mr. Bolton described.

“I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky,” Mr. Trump said. “That meeting never happened.”

In a brief interview, Mr. Giuliani denied that the conversation took place and said those discussions with the president were always kept separate. He was adamant that Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Mulvaney were never involved in meetings related to Ukraine.

“It is absolutely, categorically untrue,” he said.

Neither Mr. Bolton nor a representative for Mr. Mulvaney responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Bolton described the roughly 10-minute conversation in drafts of his book, a memoir of his time as national security adviser that is to go on sale in March. Over several pages, Mr. Bolton laid out Mr. Trump’s fixation on Ukraine and the president’s belief, based on a mix of scattershot events, assertions and outright conspiracy theories, that Ukraine tried to undermine his chances of winning the presidency in 2016.

As he began to realize the extent and aims of the pressure campaign, Mr. Bolton began to object, he wrote in the book, affirming the testimony of a former National Security Council aide, Fiona Hill, who had said that Mr. Bolton warned that Mr. Giuliani was “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

Mr. Trump also repeatedly made national security decisions contrary to American interests, Mr. Bolton wrote, describing a pervasive sense of alarm among top advisers about the president’s choices. Mr. Bolton expressed concern to others in the administration that the president was effectively granting favors to autocratic leaders like Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Xi Jinping of China.

The New York Times reported this week on another revelation from Mr. Bolton’s book draft: that Mr. Trump told him in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter. That account undercuts a key element of the White House impeachment defense — that the aid holdup was separate from his requests for inquiries. Mr. Trump has denied the conversation took place.

Since that Times article, people who have reviewed the draft have further described its contents, including details of the May meeting. Mr. Bolton’s manuscript was sent to the White House for a standard review process in late December.

Its revelations galvanized the debate over whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial, but late on Thursday, Republicans appeared to have secured enough votes to keep any new testimony out of Mr. Trump’s trial and to move toward a quick acquittal in the third presidential impeachment trial in American history.

The White House has sought to block the release of the book, contending that it contains classified information. The government reviews books by former officials who had access to secrets so they can excise the manuscripts of any classified information. Officials including Mr. Trump have described Mr. Bolton, who was often at odds with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney, as a disgruntled former official with an ax to grind.

Mr. Bolton has angered Democrats — and some Republicans — for remaining quiet during the House investigation, then announcing that he would comply with any subpoena to testify in the Senate and signaling that he is eager to share his story. Administration officials should “feel they’re able to speak their minds without retribution,” he said at a closed-door lunch in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, the NBC affiliate KXAN reported, citing unnamed sources.

“The idea that somehow testifying to what you think is true is destructive to the system of government we have — I think, is very nearly the reverse, the exact reverse of the truth,” Mr. Bolton added.

The Oval Office conversation that Mr. Bolton described came as the president and Mr. Giuliani were increasingly focusing on pushing the Ukrainian government to commit to investigations that could help Mr. Trump politically. At various points, Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani and their associates pressed Ukrainian officials under Mr. Zelensky and his predecessor to provide potentially damaging information on the president’s rivals, including Mr. Biden and Ukrainians who Mr. Trump’s allies believed tried to help Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Mr. Giuliani had just successfully campaigned to have the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, recalled, convinced that she was part of an effort to protect Mr. Trump’s political rivals from scrutiny. Mr. Giuliani had argued she was impeding the investigations.

At the time of the Oval Office conversation Mr. Bolton wrote about, Mr. Giuliani was planning a trip to Kyiv to push the incoming government to commit to the investigations. Mr. Giuliani asserted that the president had been wronged by the Justice Department’s Russia investigation and told associates that the inquiry could be partly discredited by proving that parts of it originated with suspect documents produced and disseminated in Ukraine to undermine his onetime campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose work in Ukraine became a central focus of the Russia inquiry.

Mr. Giuliani, a private consultant with a range of international clients, had said none were involved in the Ukraine effort, Mr. Bolton wrote, adding that he was skeptical and wanted to avoid involvement. At the time, Mr. Giuliani was working closely with two Soviet-born businessmen from Florida, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, to carry out the shadow Ukraine effort.

After pushing out Ms. Yovanovitch, Mr. Giuliani turned his attention to other American diplomats responsible for Ukraine policy. During the Oval Office conversation, he also mentioned a State Department official with the last name of Kent, whom Mr. Bolton wrote he did not know. Mr. Giuliani said he was hostile to Mr. Trump and sympathetic to George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who has long been a target of the far right.

George P. Kent, a top State Department official who oversees Ukraine policy, went on to be a key witness in House Democrats’ impeachment investigation, testifying that claims by Mr. Giuliani’s allies of Mr. Soros’ wide influence in Ukraine were used to smear Ms. Yovanovitch.

Mr. Bolton left the Oval Office after 10 minutes and returned to his office, he wrote. Shortly after, two aides came into his office, saying Mr. Trump had sent them out of a separate meeting on trade to ask about Mr. Kent, Mr. Bolton wrote.

The conversation that Mr. Bolton describes was separate from another one that Mr. Bolton wrote about, where he observed Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Trump talking on the phone with Mr. Giuliani about Ukraine matters. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would leave the room when Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani were talking to preserve their attorney-client privilege, and his lawyer said earlier this week that Mr. Mulvaney was never in meetings with Mr. Giuliani and has “no recollection” of the first discussion.

Around the time of the May discussion, The Times revealed Mr. Giuliani’s efforts and his planned trip to Ukraine. Mr. Giuliani said at the time that Mr. Trump was aware of his efforts in Ukraine, but said nothing else about any involvement of Mr. Trump or other members of the administration. The disclosure created consternation in the White House and Mr. Giuliani canceled his trip.

A day after the Times article was published, Mr. Giuliani wrote a letter to Mr. Zelensky, saying he was representing Mr. Trump as a “private citizen” and, with Mr. Trump’s “knowledge and consent,” hoped to arrange a meeting with Mr. Zelensky in the ensuing days. That letter was among the evidence admitted during the House impeachment inquiry.

Peter Baker and Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Flossie

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[SassyPants]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

It doesn't matter if the trumplicans go for the worst case scenario. From the very beginning, everyone, the dems most of all, knew Trump would not be removed from office because of this impeachment. That was never what the impeachment was really about, and no one should be upset about the inevitable results. This was about showing the public what the trumplicans really stand for. This was about getting them to show how far they are willing to go in order to stay in power; to show that no matter how egregious, dangerous and traitorous Trump's conduct may be, they are always going to vote for their own self-interest. This was about getting them to show their hand, getting them to state their -- terribly weak -- defences. 

This was about energising the public, and getting them to go out and vote, vote, vote them all out. 

 

 

Unfortunately, the fact that there will be no further witnesses, in the Trumpians minds will mean full vindication, and worse, Trump will use this to feed the base during his election campaign. And, if the Dems choose Biden, which is verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry likely to happen, Trumps’ numbers will rise. I am beginning to think that the only way Trump will get ousted in Nov is if Biden is NOT the candidate. And of course, I hope Bolton’s book provides much more dirt on our current jack -ass -in -chief.

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

17 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Unfortunately, the fact that there will be no further witnesses, in the Trumpians minds will mean full vindication, and worse, Trump will use this to feed the base during his election campaign. And, if the Dems choose Biden, which is verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry likely to happen, Trumps’ numbers will rise. I am beginning to think that the only way Trump will get ousted in Nov is if Biden is NOT the candidate. And of course, I hope Bolton’s book provides much more dirt on our current jack -ass -in -chief.

I can't say this often enough: the trumplicans are the minority of the American public. They are by far and away the minority. They are loud, vociferous and in your face, which makes them seem bigger than they are. They're like a puffer fish. They blow themselves up to seem bigly big, but in reality they don't amount to much. 

The majority of the people voted for Hillary in the last election. And that was when a large chunk of the voting public was disenfranchised and stayed home. If 2018 was anything to go by (and I do believe it very much is), then voters will come out in force come November. They'll vote blue no matter who. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

So very true. 

 

[fraurosena]

 

[Smash!]

Well this is more of a nightmare than I thought. I somehow still had faith in a handful of GOP senators or that the democrats could convince them. Guess I was wrong and the so called alarmists right.
This here is a thread from a lady who studies genocide and wrote her dissertation about the topic. She studies the signs that lead up to genocide. Guess where the US is now? It’s frightening to read but very important

[fraurosena]

9 minutes ago, Smash! said:

Well this is more of a nightmare than I thought. I somehow still had faith in a handful of GOP senators or that the democrats could convince them. Guess I was wrong and the so called alarmists right.
This here is a thread from a lady who studies genocide and wrote her dissertation about the topic. She studies the signs that lead up to genocide. Guess where the US is now? It’s frightening to read but very important

This is really weird. I went to her website (linked in her twitter bio), and nowhere does she say about herself that she studies genocide or that she's written a dissertation about it. She says she has studied computer science:

Quote

Brynn Tannehill is originally from Phoenix, Ariz. She graduated from the Naval Academy with a B.S. in computer science in 1997. She earned her Naval Aviator wings in 1999 and flew SH-60B helicopters and P-3C maritime patrol aircraft during three deployments between 2000 and 2004. She served as a campaign analyst while deployed overseas to 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain from 2005 to 2006. In 2008 Brynn earned a M.S. in Operations Research from the Air Force Institute of Technology and transferred from active duty to the Naval Reserves. In 2008 Brynn began working as a senior defense research scientist in private industry. She left the drilling reserves and began transition in 2010. Since then she has written for OutServe magazine, The New Civil Rights Movement, and Queer Mental Health as a blogger and featured columnist.

Brynn and her wife Janis currently live in Xenia, Ohio, with their three children.

I don't know if she really has studied genocide or not, or if she's amplifying something she's merely used some google foo on. But no matter where or how she got her information, I do think that it is an incredibly alarmist thing to say that this is where America is heading. Is Trump dangerous? Is the Senate compromised? Sadly the answer to both is yes. But that doesn't mean it'll automatically lead to mass killings or genocide. It's pretty clear that the majority of the people are not behind either Trump or the Senate trumplicans. Their reckoning will come in November. They will be stopped in their tracks. And there will be no repeat of Nazi Germany.

Suffice to say I'm not a fan of fear mongering. It's what got America into the shit she's in, in the first place. No need to add fuel to those flames.

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with your sentiments, @Smash!, but I am attempting to temper your fear about what's happening. Nobody should shut their eyes to reality, but there's no need to be frightened just yet. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is terribly sad, but true:

We've said it many times, the Rs will do anything to stay in power.

[JMarie]

I hate to say it, but I don't think any additional witnesses will change anything. I think all the senators have made their decision long ago, and not even Trump standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shooting someone would change that.

[GreyhoundFan]

This truly chaps my hide:

Quote

Trump signs off on new resolution for acquittal vote, official says

McConnell telephoned the president before formally introducing a fresh resolution that lays out a timetable for his acquittal vote, according to an official familiar with the conversation.

The two men discussed the details of the resolution, and the president approved, according to the official, who requested anonymity to disclose a private conversation. The resolution calls for a 4 p.m. acquittal vote next Wednesday.

So, Twitler got to dictate the details of his acquittal with the supposed foreman of the jury?

[AmericanRose]

They are so brazen.

ETA: My mom tells me Trumpers are the majority, but everyone I've spoken to in my home state is either 1.) liberal or 2.) doesn't 'bother' voting.

Edited February 1, 2020 by AmericanRose

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, AmericanRose said:

They are so brazen.

ETA: My mom tells me Trumpers are the majority, but everyone I've spoken to in my home state is either 1.) liberal or 2.) doesn't 'bother' voting.

Have you asked her who won the popular vote in 2016? And which party won the elections in 2018 with the biggest turnout in decades?

 

[fraurosena]

The article linked in the tweet:

Quote

Speaking to reporters after Donald Trump’s lawyers completed their opening arguments in his impeachment trial on Tuesday, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, could barely conceal a smile. “I hope we have just four Republicans. All we need is four,” he said. At another press conference, Adam Schiff, the leader of the House managers, said it was clear that the President’s lawyers were “still reeling from the revelations of John Bolton’s book.” John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said on Monday that he believed Bolton’s claim, first reported in the Times, that Trump told his former national-security adviser that he wouldn’t release military aid to Ukraine unless the Ukrainian government pursued an investigation of the Bidens. Schiff called this “extraordinary.”

That term also describes the pickle in which Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and the rest of Trump’s Republican enablers now find themselves. “Mortifying” is another word that could be used. Rarely, if ever, has a political blood oath—in this case, a pledge to acquit a crooked President regardless of the evidence against him, and without even bothering to call any witnesses—rebounded so horribly, publicly, and spectacularly. Like Trump, when the whistle-blower’s complaint originally emerged, McConnell and his colleagues have been caught in the act. And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch.

Schiff’s description was off in one respect. Trump’s lawyers aren’t the only ones who are reeling from the news about Bolton’s book; the entire G.O.P. ecosystem is frazzled. On his show on Monday night, the Fox Business channel’s Lou Dobbs, whose on-air encomiums to Trump have earned him special treatment from the White House, was reduced to putting up a picture of Bolton, a veteran Republican hawk who has served in the Administrations of four G.O.P. Presidents, with the label “A TOOL FOR THE LEFT.” Next, Dobbs will be telling us that John Kelly is a member of the Fourth International and Mitt Romney, who has called on Bolton to testify, is a closet Bernie Sanders supporter.

Even Sean Hannity, the primus inter pares of Trump’s media outriders, seemed a bit discombobulated by the Bolton news. On his radio show on Monday, the best Hannity could manage was to fire at the messenger. “The problem is it’s a Times story,” he told his listeners. “How often did this New York Times get things wrong?” In this case, it seems, the Times got it exactly right. When Bolton, his literary agency, and his publisher released a joint statement on Monday denying that they had anything to do with leaking the contents of the book, they didn’t deny a word of the newspaper’s original report.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Pat Cipollone, the lead member of Trump’s legal team, learned about the Times scoop. Rather than arguing that their client’s misdeeds didn’t rise to the level of impeachable offenses, he and his colleagues have, with straight faces, echoed the President’s claim that he didn’t demand a quid pro quo from Ukraine and, indeed, did nothing wrong at all. They’ve also argued that there is no firsthand evidence to show that he did. On Monday night, in closing the defense’s arguments for the day, Cipollone seemed to hint at a shift in strategy when he said, “This choice belongs to the people. They will make it months from now.” 

But it was Trump’s loyalists in the Senate who were left most exposed. (Trump lawyers and Fox News anchors are paid to twist the truth, after all.) The initial reaction, typified by John Cornyn, the second-ranking G.O.P. senator, was to say that there was nothing new in the Bolton story. Late Tuesday afternoon, Senate Republicans emerged from a meeting at which McConnell had reportedly told them that he no longer had enough votes to block witnesses, including Bolton. Once again, they tried to stonewall. “I don’t know what we could learn” from witnesses, Rand Paul said to CNN. “We’ve heard all we could possibly hear.”

To be sure, there isn’t much more to be said about Trump’s perfidy, and, in the grand scheme of things, even the spectacle of Bolton providing a firsthand account of the President’s lying and venality may not do him much further damage. We all recall his quote about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. Many of his supporters revel in his status as a Washington pariah. But the former national-security adviser showing up on Capitol Hill and telling his damaging tale (evidently, the Ukraine material isn’t the only revelation in Bolton’s book) would certainly reflect badly on the Republicans who tried to prevent him from appearing. These senators already look like patsies and enablers. If Bolton repeated what is reportedly in the book for all the world to see and hear, it would make them look like blithering idiots as well. Who else would have agreed to countenance Trump’s preposterous defense—that his real concern was corruption inside Ukraine?

Regardless of what happens next, the Republicans are still likely to acquit the President—there has never been much doubt about that. But if McConnell somehow succeeds in preventing Bolton from testifying after all this, there can no longer be even any pretense that the trial is on the level, or that an acquittal along party lines is anything other than an abject display of political cowardice and self-abasement by the current generation of Republican senators. For the timely clarification, we are in debt to whoever told the Times about what’s in Bolton’s book.

 

[Xan]

17 hours ago, fraurosena said:

This is really weird. I went to her website (linked in her twitter bio), and nowhere does she say about herself that she studies genocide or that she's written a dissertation about it. She says she has studied computer science:

I don't know if she really has studied genocide or not, or if she's amplifying something she's merely used some google foo on. But no matter where or how she got her information, I do think that it is an incredibly alarmist thing to say that this is where America is heading. Is Trump dangerous? Is the Senate compromised? Sadly the answer to both is yes. But that doesn't mean it'll automatically lead to mass killings or genocide. It's pretty clear that the majority of the people are not behind either Trump or the Senate trumplicans. Their reckoning will come in November. They will be stopped in their tracks. And there will be no repeat of Nazi Germany.

Suffice to say I'm not a fan of fear mongering. It's what got America into the shit she's in, in the first place. No need to add fuel to those flames.

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with your sentiments, @Smash!, but I am attempting to temper your fear about what's happening. Nobody should shut their eyes to reality, but there's no need to be frightened just yet. 

My fear FWIW is that there will be vote hacking and these fools will still be in charge in November.  Nobody has secured our voting systems and the Repubs have mostly dismissed any attempts to fix it.  They want a permanent majority.  IF they stay in power long enough, I fear for our country.

[SassyPants]

58 minutes ago, Xan said:

My fear FWIW is that there will be vote hacking and these fools will still be in charge in November.  Nobody has secured our voting systems and the Repubs have mostly dismissed any attempts to fix it.  They want a permanent majority.  IF they stay in power long enough, I fear for our country.

Yep. When Trump is acquitted next week, he will have been rewarded twice for the same nefarious deed, first in the 2016 election and again for what he attempted to do to Joe Biden . He and his minions will find a way to  do it again because it works. In 2016 Trump won every state that he had to win, despite no one forecasting all those stars aligning, and later we learned that there was tampering, DUH! Anyone who thinks that this won’t happen again is a fool. 
 

51 Republican senators clearly don’t care if a criminal is in the WH as long as it doesn’t affect their power and position. It makes me hurt for this country.

I keep hearing reports that when polled, 75% of all Americans thought witnesses should have been called. Anyone here polled? Me neither. So going with this stated number for a moment, will that translate to people in red states who may have voted for Trump in 2016, changing their vote to D in 2020? Will any diehard Rs in red states other than Utah, AS or Maine change their senatorial vote in the next election?

Where are all these purported “God Fearing” people?

[Xan]

This is what's bothering me right now...

It used to be that senators and representatives cared about the polls and the opinions of the voters.  If they sensed that their voters were against something, they'd change their stance.  They wanted to be reelected.  They knew if they went against the wishes of the voters, there would be hell to pay in the next election.

Now?  They don't care.  75% of people polled wanted witnesses.  More than half want Trump out.  A significant majority think he's bad for the country.  What did they do?  They voted against witnesses.

Why don't they care?  It doesn't depend on the real vote counts anymore.  If you get enough money for ads full of lies, you can slide on through.  They're gerrymandered trouble areas.  They've made it harder to vote.  They've culled people off the voting rolls.  And they've enjoyed the ability to not really count all the votes.  The real reason that they don't secure our voting system is that it works to their benefit if it remains the same.

 

I know.  I know.  I'm paranoid.  But I'm old and have voted for a long time.  It is starting to feel different.

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, Xan said:

This is what's bothering me right now...

It used to be that senators and representatives cared about the polls and the opinions of the voters.  If they sensed that their voters were against something, they'd change their stance.  They wanted to be reelected.  They knew if they went against the wishes of the voters, there would be hell to pay in the next election.

Now?  They don't care.  75% of people polled wanted witnesses.  More than half want Trump out.  A significant majority think he's bad for the country.  What did they do?  They voted against witnesses.

Why don't they care?  It doesn't depend on the real vote counts anymore.  If you get enough money for ads full of lies, you can slide on through.  They're gerrymandered trouble areas.  They've made it harder to vote.  They've culled people off the voting rolls.  And they've enjoyed the ability to not really count all the votes.  The real reason that they don't secure our voting system is that it works to their benefit if it remains the same.

 

I know.  I know.  I'm paranoid.  But I'm old and have voted for a long time.  It is starting to feel different.

I agree, and it is different. Comparisons keep being made to the Clinton impeachment and how congressional members conducted themselves during that process, and it WAS different. It seems as if ethics and morals have gone out of the window, and I wonder if there had been 5 Republicans who indicated that they might cross over, if it actually would have happened? I tend to doubt it. 
 

Bolton came forward and was willing to testify, and the senate just voted by the slimmest of margins to exclude him. Why didn’t Bolton call up Pelosi months ago, and tell her that he had this information and was willing to sit before the House committee? I think Bolton might just be game playing too.

I absolutely hate that these powerful assholes think that we are all stupid. We are being held hostage by these folks and it really angers me.

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Xan said:

This is what's bothering me right now...

It used to be that senators and representatives cared about the polls and the opinions of the voters.  If they sensed that their voters were against something, they'd change their stance.  They wanted to be reelected.  They knew if they went against the wishes of the voters, there would be hell to pay in the next election.

Now?  They don't care.  75% of people polled wanted witnesses.  More than half want Trump out.  A significant majority think he's bad for the country.  What did they do?  They voted against witnesses.

Why don't they care?  It doesn't depend on the real vote counts anymore.  If you get enough money for ads full of lies, you can slide on through.  They're gerrymandered trouble areas.  They've made it harder to vote.  They've culled people off the voting rolls.  And they've enjoyed the ability to not really count all the votes.  The real reason that they don't secure our voting system is that it works to their benefit if it remains the same.

 

I know.  I know.  I'm paranoid.  But I'm old and have voted for a long time.  It is starting to feel different.

I get it. This is a very real and very dangerous problem. And something that needs to be reckoned with!

But... this problem existed in 2018 too, and look what happened then.

I know that the trumplicans will redouble their efforts, that the propaganda tv will push the narrative in force. But, like you said, the vast majority of people want them out. And no matter how they gerrymander, no matter how they try to suppress the votes, the tidal wave of blue voters will prevail. It's precisely the thought that it won't matter anyway because the elections are rigged that the trumplican party is counting on. Because then people will stay at home, thinking 'what's the use', and then the trumplicans will win.

So, no matter what, no matter who, get out and vote, and vote blue, blue, blue.