Comments

1

I've come around to her point of view. It's a distraction from voting him out, and also, we should be more worried about stopping the Russians in 2020.

2

Too bad the House Speaker lacks the moral clarity to do what is overwhelmingly the obvious thing to do.

3

Continuous hearings on the subject of Trump's corruption and incompetence is the best move for the Democrats. Taking a vote to impeach (assuming it passes the House) and failing to convict in the Senate would put an end to the matter. I think that must be the reasoning of Pelosi et. al. She can't say it quite that way because it sounds so cynical.

I don't know if its what I would do if I was in Nancy Pelosi's position. But I'm not in her position.

5

@1 DJSauvage: Agreed and seconded. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows that Mike Pence's taking over the White House that Trumpty Dumpty trashed is even more horrifically dangerous. Pence isn't an easily distracted idiot, and already has his own carefully mapped evil agenda just waiting in the wings of catastrophe.

6

Just do the god damned right thing for once and impeach. You know, standing up for the rule of law and all. Is there any amount of obstruction of justice that would get them to you know, do the right thing? Democratic political maneuvering always backfires. They'll just look like stooges again as usual.

7

If they don’t vote to impeach an openly incompetent, criminally insane president, then it means the next Republican president will be even worse, since each has been more cruel, degenerate, destructive, and downright stupid than the last. They’ve removed the threat of moral hazard from the government, just as they have from corporate America.

It also means that our much propagandized values and system of checks and balances are worthless frauds.

8

“Try, if you can, to recall all the unease among Republicans that greeted Trump’s capture of their party’s presidential nomination in 2016. Could they tolerate being led by such a noxious character, someone who ran scams conning struggling people out of their life savings, who abuses small businesspeople, who bragged about his ability to sexually assault women with impunity, who is an obvious bigot, who lies so often that you wouldn’t trust him to tell you that Thursday follows Wednesday? What price will we pay for being led by such a man, they asked themselves.

But they quickly got over it. Perhaps nowhere was the rapid transformation more evident than among white conservative evangelicals, who at one time persuaded everyone to refer to them as “values voters,” as though they were the only ones in possession of “values” while everyone else just has opinions. Their enthusiastic embrace of the most amoral president in modern history has proved how laughable that appellation always was, which is why no one uses it anymore. Three years after rushing to his side, they have shown that if you can convince yourself that God’s will is being worked through Trump, no sin is too repulsive to excuse and no abuse of power too blatant to justify.

This is the logical and perhaps inevitable endpoint of the decision they made in 2016. Republicans chose as their leader the single most loathsome figure in American public life, a man possessed of not a single human virtue. He would inevitably call them to descend to the moral void where he resides. And when they did — enthusiastically — they showed us not just who he is, but who they are as well.“

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/22/no-bottom-republicans-show-theyll-defend-just-about-everything-trump-does/?utm_term=.e9c6e3af4d62

9

Speaker Pelosi, true to form, is playing the long-game here. She knows that the longer this process drags out, the greater the chance it will hang over Cadet Shit-Gibbon like a stinking dead albatross come 2020. And she does have a point: moving slowly and deliberately - not hastily - towards impeachment provides cover for the Democratic Party against the inevitable charges of partisanship from the Right. At the same time, she's not openly squashing the firebrands on the Far/Progressive Left from fanning the flames; she's just going for a slow, incremental increase in the temperature for the next several months.

In short: She's letting the GOP and their figurehead stew in their own boiling pudding.

10

Liberals are dangerous compromisers. They collapse like a folding chair at the slightest bit of pressure.

Impeachment will not result in removal so long as the GOP controls the Senate. What it will do is bring new evidence to light that may sway voters in 2020.

However, Pelosi has declined to impeach Bush once, and Trump twice. In each case, she has worried about becoming the Democratic version of Newt Gingrich.

However, the shutdown this year showed there is little danger of that. Trump is not seen by the voters today the same way Clinton was in the late 1990’s. Both men are crooks, but Clinton was the Pink Panther where Trump is Whitey Bulger. Impeaching the former was met with “aww, let him go, he’s a lovable guy!”, whereas Trump’s impeachment will bring a sigh of relief.

When you have concern for your public image rather than moral principles, it’s easy to scare you into not putting up a fight. This is why liberals have to be dragged into a fight kicking and screaming, while socialists are always the first on the front line.

11

7: “If they don’t vote to impeach an openly incompetent, criminally insane president, then it means the next Republican president will be even worse...”

That may be true, but I can guarantee it will be true if you proceed with impeachment without a conviction.

12

The idea that an attempt at impeachment will in anyway curtail the further corruption of the GOP is laughable. They do not care. Don't you get it? Do you people not pay attention to what is happening?

The far right has all the power. They not building anything. They d not need the machinery or institutions of government. They SHIT on those institutions. They hate them. And they want to destroy them. They are not even attempting to build anything. All they need to do is destroy shit to win their agenda. Which is way easier then building shit. And impeachment proceedings in the house will not stop that or deter that in anyway. It will not convince a single red voter to vote blue and it will not remove anyone from office. The best it will do is burn up some time.

You can't impeach or move policy without the power of the senate.

That said I'm ALL FOR proceeding with impeachment. But ONLY to motivate the leftist base. And out of spite. Ultimately on the ground it will not achieve a god damned thing in terms of power or getting a single democrat elected in red states. So I do not hold Pelosi in contempt. She's smart. And she's mostly right. She is playing good cop to the progressive caucus's bad cop.

Hashtags squealing about impeachment or anything else doesn't do shit. Not without power with a capital "P." And Pelosi know this. And that's all the left does. They play culture wars and preach to the choir. And nobody but the left cares.

There are only so many hours in the day and only so much each senator can do. What Pelosi is doing is salvaging what bandwidth of power she has left in the House.

And I guarantee you Pelosi will win more battles for actual on-the-ground policy than anyone in the progressive caucus will.

Is impeachment the "right" thing to do? Yes. But it is also the stupid thing to do.

13

@12: Americans want leadership in their elected leaders. If something is the right thing to do, they expect that to be done. Deeming it "stupid" for political reasons just erodes our democracy and pees on our constitution and is just like what Trump is doing.

14

8

"Could they tolerate being led by such a noxious character, someone who ran scams conning struggling people out of their life savings, who abuses small businesspeople, who bragged about his ability to sexually assault women with impunity, who is an obvious bigot, who lies so often that you wouldn’t trust him to tell you that Thursday follows Wednesday?"

Could they be led by a guy like that? Hell, yes. They know Trumpfy's
just the guy who can bring Armageddon (Iran v. Israel, eg) Home.
(With BiBi and Boulton on our side, how could we go Wrong)?

Great comment.

15

The shutdown debacle was a close-run contest of wills and Pelosi prevailed.
To my way of thinking this gives her political capital.
She deserves the benefit of the doubt on strategy, she has earned that.
She is now a true political leader and she is acting like one in this instance by not rushing into an impeachment process YET.
She knows she will get grief from those of us on the left if failure to challenge Trump now results in his consolidating support for 2020.
Still, I for one have confidence in her long game.

16

They're gonna Investigte the fuck outta Trumpfy. Mueller told them to.

But they're gonna get Stonewalled by Trumpfy Inc.

However; when Impeachment hearings happen, the House of Reps transfoms from a legislative branch to a judical branch; with vastly-further Reach tihan any little Congressional Committees the Prez can fuck with, for ever and ever and etc.

If they want to know whattf Happened, they gotta get Real.

Trumpfy will hand them Nothing.
And get away with it.

Unless.

17

The irony here is that Trump, the psychotic bully-in-chief, spends all his time playing the victim.
For obvious reasons, Pelosi doesn't want to give Trump more fuel to add to the victim fire.
Dems have already failed with the 'we are not Trump' refrain. Why do it again?

18

And believe me, I sympathize with the let's impeach feelings.
I think he is far more corrosive than people realize.
But if the focus of every news cycle is 'Trump, Trump, and more Trump' he wins hands down.

19

y'all don't get the necessity of feigning reluctance. this is how it's going to go down - the oversight investigations will lead to impeachment, she'll reluctantly accede to the demands.

patience. impeachment season is in the fall.

20

Right, Pelosi is playing 4-D chess and not presiding over another big loss as dems get whipped like a dog towards some mythical victory lap where they all end up looking like the right of yesterday.

21

@20- well, that's the risk, isn't it?
Wait on Nadler, ONeal et al, or go in with guns blazing now and try to spark some passion for launching impeachment in the House.
And if Nadler & Oneal dawdle and get tied up in court while Trump presides over an expanding economy, avoids crises, further scandal and indictment...then I will fault Pelosi for not raising a ruckus now over the evidence we have and screaming for his scalp (figuratively).
But I think she knows what she is doing and I think she has a strong hand to play here.
We'll see...

22

@9 COMTE for the WIN!! Everybody listen to COMTE if not to me.
@18 pat L: Agreed, spot on, and seconded. This is largely why I avoid Twitter and have stopped reading RepubliKKKan owned rags like the Seattle Times (the Blethens officially lost me after announcing their support for grinning Dino Mafia Don Rossi and ditching Wiley's Non Sequitur in the funnies) and The GOP-lovin' Bellingham Herald.
@19: I'd just love to see Trumpty Dumpty tried and fried already. May the Evil Empire go down in such a quagmire of bottomless muck there will be no return for the GOP of 1% ever again.

23

@19 -- Yes, Max. Bingo.
It's not a race. It's a
goddam Slog.*

*I looked it up:

work hard over a period of time.
"they were slogging away to meet a deadline"
synonyms: work hard, toil, labor, work one's fingers to the bone, work like a Trojan / the smell of burning rubber...

It's a Process.

24

Indictments and Investigations
Then impeachments.
(plural)

25

(originally slog was used to refer to Slow Going or Slo. G.... ) and then was formalized later) it was a mining term (source: Rossland Mining Museum)

26

If you don't have the votes to convict, don't do it. Period. It's a complete waste of time.

Focus on voting him out and destroying the GOP.


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