I've got national security reporters in my twitter timeline saying that Pence will be POTUS within the next 3 to 4 months. And Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort will go to prison for money laundering for the Russians. Possibly Donald too. The Obamacare thing plus Nunez's bizarre behavior the last 48 hours plus the most recent polling has finally started the Goppers abandoning ship. It's gonna keep getting more and more "interesting", that's for sure. The only question now is, how far will the Trump-danistas go to obstruct the investigations?
The thing is, we need an independent prosecutor. And if the current administration refuses to appoint one what do we do? Who else has the power to compel this to happen? I'd like to think that the FBI could eventually do something, but it seems that the R's are going to try to squash any findings from that quarter too. Trump seems to think if he ignores this all, then everyone will forget and move on. And it almost seems like that's what is happening.
"I've got national security reporters in my twitter timeline saying that Pence will be POTUS within the next 3 to 4 months. And Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort will go to prison for money laundering for the Russians. Possibly Donald too." No realistic way that Pence is president in 3 or 4 months. This is crazy talk and left wishful thinking. But the left better be careful as to what it wishes for. Pence policies will be even more contrary to the left's cause. Not even Bush and Cheney came anywhere close to removal and ultimately prison so how in the world would a far more moderate Trump be prosecuted.
I have noticed some very vocal left leaning groups talk this "impeachment" nonsense, and ultimate removal and jail time. They really don't understand the idea of the frying pan vs fire. Anyway better if they just calm down and wait out the 3 years 9 months and come to the table with an electable candidate, one without ugly baggage or legacies.
It's got nothing to do with being moderate. You can be extreme right (or left) and clean. Or you can be straight down the middle in terms of politics, and dirty. Nixon was not as far right as some of his successors. But he was dirty. Bill Clinton was a centrist, but hated by Republicans and when they found an opening they pounced, even if ultimately all they had was Monica. Trump has the Russia problem in which he (and/or his people) may or may not have colluded with a hostile foreign government to subvert the very basis of our democracy. And may or may not have left his/their fingerprints on it - yet another consideration. (You can't just BE dirty; someone has to be able to prove it.) He also has potential conflicts of interests all over the world, and it's possible he could be brought down by a far more prosaic money grab, a la kleptocracies all over the world with fewer safeguards than we luckily have to prevent such corruption. I don't know who mawnck is referring to by "national security reporters in my twitter timeline," and Trump being gone in 3-4 months - though I'd never say it was impossible - seems awfully fast to me, considering how slowly Washington usually works, and how many people would try to gum things up (and would be less clumsy and obvious about it than Devin Nunes). But it wouldn't surprise me at all if Trump was gone before his first term was over. I'm not saying it's a done deal, but I still put the odds of him lasting the full 4 years at less than 50/50. Pence to me is a double-edged sword. His policies, with certain exceptions, would probably be worse than Trump's. But he also is not the petulant-child narcissist that Trump is, and therefore less likely to do something catastrophically stupid that could get untold people killed. And I would hope that his association with a disgraced Trump (in the "he's removed or resigned before 2020" scenario) would stick to him also, especially if he were to pardon Trump. Interesting times.
My reference to Bush and Trump using "moderate" was not about the left, right, centrist positions but about being moderate in scandal and contraversy. As far as we know Trump has not caused the deaths of countless or got us into war under false pretenses like Bush and Cheney.That is what I meant by moderate. Even after false reasons leading to so much death and injury Bush and Cheney were never anywhere near indictment. As for Clinton, well, he lied about sex. And the lie on record was enough to start impeachment. We had more or less 2 smoking guns and neither head administrator was removed from office.
This is why I find it very unlikely Trump will be removed. Better chance he no longer administrates due to some circulatory disease.
<As far as we know Trump has not caused the deaths of countless or got us into war under false pretenses like Bush and Cheney.> Colluding with a foreign power to undermine the basis of our democracy may not be countless deaths, but it's clearly impeachable if it can be proven. Your own post acknowledges the concept of fingerprints/smoking gun/proof, and how that can make all the difference. Yes, Bush and Cheney and co. lied (or, charitably, willfully misled) us into a disastrous war. But the "smoking gun" for flat-out lies arguably wasn't there. The lies weren't under oath (as Clinton's was), and they could always fall back on obfuscation and "we just got bad intelligence." Also, Pelosi made it clear that "impeachment is off the table," as she memorably put it just after becoming Speaker. And that's another necessary ingredient - the House must want to pursue it. I think they might have had a case with a proper investigation, even with all the obfuscation, but for whatever reason, they chose not to. Gerald Ford once memorably said that the grounds for impeachment were whatever a majority of House members said they were. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the severity of the crimes, which is why your "moderate crime" thing doesn't hold water either. For the 90's House GOP, all it took was lying about sex, which to most people wasn't a severe crime at all. Most Americans didn't think that was a good enough reason to impeach in the first place, and the House GOP hurt themselves more than they hurt Clinton. But impeachment happened. You basically need several things for impeachment - or clear enough movement towards it to force resignation, a la Nixon - to happen. 1). Something illegal; 2). Proof of something illegal; 3). A House that wants to pursue it. With Nixon all three were there and Nixon resigned before the inevitable. With Clinton, all three were there, even though the crime was pretty trivial. With Bush, the first was (IMO) there, the second might have been there with some digging, but the third was not. So... back to Trump. I'm pretty damn sure the first one is there. The second may or may not be, but certainly COULD be, especially if the FBI gets someone like Manafort to flip. The third isn't there right now, and probably wouldn't be unless the Democrats take over after 2018, but could even be there before that if the smoking guns are disclosed AND are too painfully obvious and thus GOP House members decide that supporting Trump is more risky for themselves personally than opposing him. Even GOP House members will desert Trump if they think it's in their own interests. Rats and a sinking ship, and all that. I think it's foolish for anyone to say that impeachment will definitely OR will definitely not happen at this point. None of us knows what the FBI has on Trump and his people that they're not yet disclosing, for starters.
@20committee (John Schindler) @LouiseMensch @MaxBoot Bonus follows in the intelligent anti-Trump conservative department (just don't get them going on abortion): @RadioFreeTom (Tom Nichols) @TheRickWilson @davidfrum @BenSasse (he's rather oblique about it, but everybody knows where he stands) And ... @DarthPutinKGB @RealRBHJr (Roland B. Hedley Jr. from Doonesbury)
I still think Trump has a higher chance of succumbing to fouled up blood circulation/blockage rather than a Senate vote. The threshold is fairy tough to secure enough votes(assumes of course this thing even gets before a senate jury). Not even a highly "radical Republican" Congress back in the 1860's could muster enough votes to get rid of Johnson. Anyway, let's first get the smoking gun and from there we can make more safe predictions.
Thanks for the list. I'm not on twitter, but I looked up some recent tweets. I liked this one from Wilson: "Nunes is a clumsy liar, and DC only rewards talented liars."
Remember, Ethan, impeachment is not removal. The House impeached Clinton, but the Senate refused to remove. (You need a 2/3 vote). So that's a separate question from impeachment. If we get a smoking gun or guns (my guess is that if there's one, there will be at least several), we could get an impeachment. Either from a Democratic House in 2019, or from the current GOP House if the smoking guns are hot enough. Removal would be tougher, due to the 2/3 rule. Again, it would depend on how hot/obvious/"oh no he didn't!" the smoking guns are. If bad enough, it's possible you'd get enough GOP senators making a similar calculation to House GOP members (in this scenario) and making the very cynical (and self-preserving) calculation that removing him is safer FOR THEM, and they wouldn't mind Pence anyway. And then they'll act all "It's for the good of America! And I never liked him anyway! And wasn't he a Democrat for years? And Mike Pence is clean, clean, totally clean... nothing else to see here, let's move on..."
Definitely true. I wrote a term paper on Andrew Johnson. He had a hostile congress and they still did not get a conviction. I have posted this quote before but it keeps coming to mind. Especially when I think of "impeachment is a political act, not a legal one." It is from the diaries of Gideon Wells, who was present at the time. "Indeed, the longer the debate lasted the more manifest it became that the majority, while painting the President as the blackest criminal of the age, were proposing to impeach him for a harmless peccadillo." I felt the same was true with Clinton. If they go for impeachment I do hope they wait until they have solid evidence of criminal activity. Of course it will be academic after Pence pardons him.
It amazes me an administration perhaps best known for the wholesale torture of human beings (something even Trump was advised to back away from) could ever be considered "moderately" controversial. What a shame.
This is actually one of the reasons why what WDW management does or does not do in HoP during the Trump Administration doesn't affect me personally: it is because of Trump that I'm finally getting around to visiting Canada (from Vancouver to Toronto by rail, with a stop in Winnipeg) on my fall vacation, and will probably do the same (most likely from Toronto to Halifax by rail) in the fall of 2018. But as it is, I don't get to WDW all that often, because there are so many other places to spend a fall vacation. Personally, I don't expect the mamzer to last his full term. But I sincerely hope he holds on through 2018, and here's why: Mike Pence and Paul Ryan. With the current House and Senate, in the event that Trump is impeached and convicted, or resigns, or dies in office, then Pence becomes President. And in the very unlikely event that Trump and Pence are both impeached and convicted, then Paul Ryan becomes President. Trump is a self-defeating, self-discrediting buffoon, who is dragging himself AND the Tea Party down. The longer he remains in office, the more House and Senate seats the Republican Party in general, and the Tea Party in particular, will lose, and the more likely it is that saner Republican heads will wrest control from the Tea Partiers. Pence and Ryan are many things, but they are not self-defeating, self-discrediting buffoons. If the 2018 election sweeps out the Tea Party, then it is likely that a new Democratic majority will impeach and convict both Trump and Pence, which would give the Tea Partiers their worst nightmare: Nancy Pelosi in the White House.
