Trump 2nd Impeachment News/Talk Megathread

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Nancy Mace (R-SC) just said she’s open to impeachment!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Nancy Mace (R-SC) just said she’s open to impeachment!

Source?

https://mobile.twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1347269980841078784

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/bensiegel/status/1347611132727586816?s=19

We really need primary him. And if he does vote against impeachment, Pelosi must immediately kick him off all committees

I wonder if he’s laying the groundwork to pull a Judas Van Drew if the House flips in 2022. 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/bensiegel/status/1347611132727586816?s=19
We really need primary him. And if he does vote against impeachment, Pelosi must immediately kick him off all committees

Hey remember when AOC couldn’t have her committee assignment because she was mean to Henry ‘I’m going to fundraiser for the Texas GOP’ Cuellar?

But this prick is uncontroversial?

Iirc he was one of, if not the only, Democrat to vote against the $2,000 stimulus checks in the house.

Schrader always kinda sucked, but he seems to have fully gone over to the dark side since November.  He only beat a random some dude-tier whacktivist running as an open QAnon supporter by ~6%, so that could be part of it.  I’m sticking to my theory that he’s gonna be a future party switcher though.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Trump has conceded the election.  This is what we wanted him to do.  We should acknowledge that and hold him to it and move on until Biden is inaugurated.  No need to add fuel to the fire and encourage more controversy and confrontation.  Give Trump's supporters room to accept their loss instead of an occasion to fight for him against attackers.

Much contrarian.  Very edge.  So brave.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Well, now Trump can't send out mean tweets against anyone.  Does that make a difference in anyone's calculations?

Probably makes Senate conviction significantly more likely tbh

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Cheney hates Trump because Trump ripped daddy's Iraq War.  No surprise.

Err...Trump supported the Iraq War and was publicly saying the U.S. should invade as far back as 2002.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Anyone else think Greene might run for Senate or Governor (whichever Collins doesn't go for) in 2022?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I wish I could trust 17 Republicans not to fall for this bare minimum of insincere, generic bulls*** from that video. It doesn't undo the fact that he sicced thousands of ravaging supporters on the Capitol with the intention to intimidate, physically harm,  torture, and do whatever else to members of Congress. What else is it going to take?

Trump's fate isn't going to be deciding by 17 senators, its going to be decided by one Turtle. If he approves, then there will be surplus votes. If he disapproves, its only gonna be Romney and a few friends.

And that’s going to mean some promises for next session to him.

LOL Democrats aren't going to make concessions to McConnell over this

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Why is Lindsay Graham doing what he is doing?  He even without telling his staff, he has been lobbying Senators to vote against conviction. Who here is good at getting inside his brain?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/senate-republicans-impeachment-trump-trial-458934

The rumor has been that Trump will out Graham as gay if Graham doesn't give 100% undying loyalty, but I think it has to be something worse than that.

1) Imagine if a Republican poster claimed - with no evidence - a Democratic Senator was only supporting Obama b/c Obama would out him as gay otherwise.  Half the forum would be foaming at the mouth with outrage.  Just saying

2) I’m pretty sure Graham is just a weather vain who changes positions on a whim to whatever he thinks will benefit him politically.  He’s always been that way even before getting elected to the Senate and right now he clearly has more to fear from a primary challenge than a GE this decade.  It’s like how when folks used to say “what happened to Giuliani,” I’d always tell them “he’s always been like this, his handling of 9/11 just made people forget for a few years.”  Same deal with Graham, he thought moderating on immigration was the winning play in the long run, so some people mistook him for a moderate, but Graham never been one to stand on principle when doing so would mean taking a serious political risk.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Why is Lindsay Graham doing what he is doing?  He even without telling his staff, he has been lobbying Senators to vote against conviction. Who here is good at getting inside his brain?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/13/senate-republicans-impeachment-trump-trial-458934

The rumor has been that Trump will out Graham as gay if Graham doesn't give 100% undying loyalty, but I think it has to be something worse than that.

1) Imagine if a Republican poster claimed - with no evidence - a Democratic Senator was only supporting Obama b/c Obama would out him as gay otherwise.  Half the forum would be foaming at the mouth with outrage.  Just saying

2) I’m pretty sure Graham is just a weather vain who changes positions on a whim to whatever he thinks will benefit him politically.  He’s always been that way even before getting elected to the Senate and right now he clearly has more to fear from a primary challenge than a GE this decade.  It’s like how when folks used to say “what happened to Giuliani,” I’d always tell them “he’s always been like this, his handling of 9/11 just made people forget for a few years.”  Same deal with Graham, he thought moderating on immigration was the winning play in the long run, so some people mistook him for a moderate, but Graham never been one to stand on principle when doing so would mean taking a serious political risk.

If the supposed Democratic senator supporting Obama had been extremely public in his/her utter disdain for Obama directly before worshipping at his feet, there’s like be questions yes.

Yeah, but folks wouldn’t be okay with a blue avatar baselessly claiming it was b/c the Senator was gay and afraid Obama was going to out them.  And why would that be a more likely explanation than political expediency? 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Paul raised a point of Order that the trial is unconstitutional. It was rejected 55-45, with Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse, and Toomey joining Dems.

https://twitter.com/SenatePress/status/1354164503601172489

So are those 17 guaranteed nos, then?

No Surprise with the possible exception of Daines. There was a hope in my mind at least that if McConnell made the momentous step of supporting impeachment that daines would be among those sane enough to follow his lead. However he's apparently thrown his lot in with the full on "Sedition is peachy" wing of the GOP.

Shelby was a much bigger surprise than Daines imo

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Has there been any consideration to admitting DC before the trial to decrease the number of Republicans who would have to go out on a limb and convict?

Not that admitting states just for impeachment votes is a good precedent, but since DC statehood is a 100% lock this year anyway, might as well move it up on the calendar. After all, the Americans living in DC deserve a voice in this matter.

1. Admit DC as 25 states
2. Have quick elections in all 25 new states
3. Remove Trump from office without any Republican votes even though he already left
4. Profit!

So much talk about how “liberals hate socialists more than fascists”, not so much about how the reverse is also true for a certain obnoxious portion of the left.

I do love how there was this catchphrase among socialists and far leftist that goes “scratch a lib and a fascist bleeds”. Yet these past 4 years under the closest to a fascist we have had in office we have seen this segment of leftist like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Chapo Trap House, and posters like Jfern and Big Abraham that spend there time only attacking mainstream democrats just to be a contrarian and in cases outright defend Trump

Some of us remember Obama's neoliberal warmongering.

Okay, but what mystifies people isn't why a hard leftist would be hostile to mainstream Democrats, it's why a hard leftist would be even more hostile to mainstream Democrats than to Trump and Trumpism, a position that only makes sense if you presuppose that 1. foreign policy is so overwhelmingly more important than domestic policy that a President can literally attempt to abolish representative democracy at home and still be preferable to a "normal" President whose foreign policy was worse than the aspiring autocrat's and 2. excessive use of hard power is the only kind of bad foreign policy. Normal people, including normal leftists, reject both of those premises.

When everyone is acting like Trump is worse than Hitler while Democrats aren't much better than Trump, what's the point of piling on with Trump. I'm more scared of Presidents that the media isn't so willing to stand up to.

Silence, neoliberal!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Has there been any consideration to admitting DC before the trial to decrease the number of Republicans who would have to go out on a limb and convict?

Not that admitting states just for impeachment votes is a good precedent, but since DC statehood is a 100% lock this year anyway, might as well move it up on the calendar. After all, the Americans living in DC deserve a voice in this matter.

1. Admit DC as 25 states
2. Have quick elections in all 25 new states
3. Remove Trump from office without any Republican votes even though he already left
4. Profit!

So much talk about how “liberals hate socialists more than fascists”, not so much about how the reverse is also true for a certain obnoxious portion of the left.

I do love how there was this catchphrase among socialists and far leftist that goes “scratch a lib and a fascist bleeds”. Yet these past 4 years under the closest to a fascist we have had in office we have seen this segment of leftist like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Chapo Trap House, and posters like Jfern and Big Abraham that spend there time only attacking mainstream democrats just to be a contrarian and in cases outright defend Trump

Some of us remember Obama's neoliberal warmongering.

Okay, but what mystifies people isn't why a hard leftist would be hostile to mainstream Democrats, it's why a hard leftist would be even more hostile to mainstream Democrats than to Trump and Trumpism, a position that only makes sense if you presuppose that 1. foreign policy is so overwhelmingly more important than domestic policy that a President can literally attempt to abolish representative democracy at home and still be preferable to a "normal" President whose foreign policy was worse than the aspiring autocrat's and 2. excessive use of hard power is the only kind of bad foreign policy. Normal people, including normal leftists, reject both of those premises.

When everyone is acting like Trump is worse than Hitler while Democrats aren't much better than Trump, what's the point of piling on with Trump. I'm more scared of Presidents that the media isn't so willing to stand up to.

Silence, neoliberal!

What is this "Silence, so and so!" thing you do?  It's annoying.

I agree. I think Mr. X is one of the better moderators here, but this habit of his is one that I've never been that comfortable with.

It’s basically a shorthand for either A) “wake me when you’re ready to make a good-faith argument” or B) “LOL, you have no credibility on this and/or aren’t really in a position to comment b/c (insert reason here”).  I generally reserve it for when:

1) When a progressive/leftist/Democrat/whatever whom I think is posting in bad-faith tries to pretend there’s no meaningful difference between the Democratic establishment and folks like Trump/McConnell/etc (an assertion which simply lacks any basis in reality);

2) When a self-declared progressive/leftist/etc said they were voting for Howie Hawkins for President in 2020 b/c of some sort of petty nonsense like being salty about Bernie losing.  Imo if you voted third party *from the left* in the 2020 presidential, then you might as well be voting for Trump and are probably more invested in some dumb progressiver-than-thou schtick than you are in actually implementing progressive policies; and

3) Republicans who offer clearly horrible advice about internal Democratic Party factional disputes or concern troll about how Democrats need to pander more to Republicans on policy.


Jfern isn’t arguing in good-faith and his whole schtick comes off as someone less concerned about implementing progressive legislation than he is with bashing people who are actually trying to get things done so he can enjoy the unearned sense of superiority that comes with ideological puritanism.  I apologize to Jfern if I’m wrong about that, but like, if the minimum wage is raised to $15 over five years, I feel like his reaction will be “why didn’t the neo-LIEbrals make it $20 an hour?  Why is it over five years?  Clearly Joe Biden and Schumer are no better than Trump!”  

It gets annoying after a while and my point was sort of “dude, all you do is complain about people who are actually trying to pass progressive legislation.  When you say there’s no difference between Biden and an authoritarian, right-wing wanna-be dictator like Trump, it kinda sounds like you’re really saying ‘I’m fine with neo-liberal - and far worse - policies wreaking havoc on the folks I claim to be worried about as long as I get to feel superior.’”  I don’t have much patience for that mindset after the past four years.

Moreover, I’m trying to work on not getting sucked into dumb fights on Atlas.  One strategy to avoid getting sucked into the vortex is to have shorthand phrases you can use when you feel the need to comment on something that annoyed you, but also aren’t looking to burn brain cells going around and around with someone you already think is posting in bad-faith.  

And again, I could always be wrong about Jfern, but if so then I’d challenge him to also talk about when folks do things he supports.  It’s not a reasonable position to just say “everything is awful b/c reasons and anyone to the right of Bernie is a corrupt neo-liberal warmonger.”  Like, what am I gonna learn by making an effort-post response to someone with that attitude?

EDIT: Great example: Jfern’s response to Biden’s policy changes re: Yemen was

So we'll just "defensively" drone Shia children?

I mean, are you really gonna tell me that was a good-faith post from someone interested in having a serious discussion? 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Can anyone explain why Raskin is one of the D leaders when he literally objected to the Florida votes in 2016?

Who cares?  He’s doing a great job!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Joe Neguse could definitely be a Senator when Hickenlooper retires (no way Hick is a lifer and he’s already 69 whereas Neguse is only 36).  He’s an excellent speaker if this is anything to go by.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Neguse gives me future president vibes.

I was just thinking that, but didn’t wanna jinx it.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Nah, no witnesses. Let's move on, get COVID relief passed and Biden's cabinet in place. Witnesses aren't going to change a thing.

Yeah, if we don't wrap this up today, we're getting played. They just want to run out the clock on the trifecta.

Next week is a recess week, so it doesn’t really matter if we waste some of it.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What part of "the Senate is otherwise in recess this week so there's literally no reason not to do witnesses this week" do you not understand?

What part of "calling more witnesses could drag this on for longer than just this week" - do you not understand?

What part of “each side gets one witness and we just have to wrap this up 2/21” do you not understand?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What part of "the Senate is otherwise in recess this week so there's literally no reason not to do witnesses this week" do you not understand?

What part of "calling more witnesses could drag this on for longer than just this week" - do you not understand?

What part of “each side gets one witness and we just have to wrap this up 2/21” do you not understand?

Unlikely.

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1360623831770165248

Based on this, Schumer should CANCEL the recess next week and get Biden nominees confirmed while the deposition(s) happen.

Thank you for disproving your own false assertions.

According to Torie, this would require unanimous consent. So my assertion isn't false.

Ugh, now this trial is going to be dragged out. Great - if this makes the Dem base happy in order to "shame" Republican senators and "put them on record" - whatever.  I don't think that witnesses are necessary.

Nah, pretty sure you’re just concern trolling.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/kasie/status/1360627558023331844?s=21

Or they could just do it next week like rational human beings

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Wisconsin is going to come down to who can do a better job turning out their base (as is so often the case).  Candidate quality is - within reason - far less important in WI’s statewide races than it is in most competitive states, much less somewhere like PA, NV, AZ, or ME where it can be a major factor in determining the outcome of a close race.  

While I tend to be skeptical of Atlas-style hyper-confident electoral predictions made over a year out as a general rule, I think it’s pretty safe to say that as long as the Democrats nominate a reasonably competent candidate (I.e. someone who is a generic B-lister or better), this race will probably come down to how excited the Democratic base is come November 2022, as well as the national political environment/Biden’s approvals.  

I maintain that how things go down with the fight over the filibuster will tell the tale re: the national environment and that fight hasn’t even started nor will it for at least a few months.  I think Manchin and Sinema will flip on the filibuster if/when Biden really goes to the mat for nuking or (more likely) neutering it to the point of irrelevance.  I’m old enough to remember when Harry Reid gave McConnell his personal commitment that they wouldn’t nuke the filibuster and then it got nuked for non-SCOTUS nominees less than two years later.