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Mueller investigation

Do you think Pence is as easily controlled by Putin and Co? I'm also not convinced that Pence has the chutzpah that Trump has.
southernhybrid said:
Keith&Co. said:
southernhybrid said:
If the Dems take back the house in November, they might impeach Trump, but to remove him from office takes 67 Senators. There is no way that the Dems can take the Senate by more than a couple of seats, if at all. That means, that about 15 Republican Senators would have to do the right thing, which I don't see happening.
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Well, that's going to depend on the impeachment, won't it?
Depending on what charges are brought to bear, how well it's documented TO THE PUBLIC, and who testifies.

If Trumpf's approval rating drops to 20 or below during the impeachment, the 'right thing' may become more obvious to the GOP. They have no real loyalty to him, and if/when he turns into a millstone, they'll be fighting each other for camera time to say 'I never trusted' and 'I never supported,' and 'you'll remember in 2016 when I described him as...'
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I was optimistic until a few weeks ago because I don't see Trump's support dropping regardless of what he does. Sure, it could happen. I'm just not optimistic at this point and for that matter, I'm not convinced that things would be better with Pence as president. He's a Trump sycophant, or he pretends to be one. He's even more beloved by the evangelicals than Trump. This is just a very dark time in the US. Hopefully, things will eventually get better.
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Playball40 said:
Do you think Pence is as easily controlled by Putin and Co? I'm also not convinced that Pence has the chutzpah that Trump has.
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Many studies show that the Truly Faithful are very vulnerable to religion-based cons. He'd resist Putin directly, but if Putin can blackmail a televangelist, that might be a way to Pence.

And while lacking chutzpah, he does have a triple-dose of righteousness. If he sees standing up to Putin as something God wants him to do...
 
southernhybrid said:
Keith&Co. said:
southernhybrid said:
If the Dems take back the house in November, they might impeach Trump, but to remove him from office takes 67 Senators. There is no way that the Dems can take the Senate by more than a couple of seats, if at all. That means, that about 15 Republican Senators would have to do the right thing, which I don't see happening.
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Well, that's going to depend on the impeachment, won't it?
Depending on what charges are brought to bear, how well it's documented TO THE PUBLIC, and who testifies.

If Trumpf's approval rating drops to 20 or below during the impeachment, the 'right thing' may become more obvious to the GOP. They have no real loyalty to him, and if/when he turns into a millstone, they'll be fighting each other for camera time to say 'I never trusted' and 'I never supported,' and 'you'll remember in 2016 when I described him as...'
Click to expand...

I was optimistic until a few weeks ago because I don't see Trump's support dropping regardless of what he does. Sure, it could happen. I'm just not optimistic at this point and for that matter, I'm not convinced that things would be better with Pence as president. He's a Trump sycophant, or he pretends to be one. He's even more beloved by the evangelicals than Trump. This is just a very dark time in the US. Hopefully, things will eventually get better.
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Remember - polls are usually done by phone, and they call land lines. People who land lines and the time to answer survey calls would, IMHO be more likely to be trumpsuckers.
 
Elixir said:
Underseer said:
Koyaanisqatsi said:
That’s what the Trump supporters are saying. Again, his supporters are irrelevant. Every candidate has their core supporters. What matters are the majority, not the minority. And among the majority, what matters is the swing. So we’re talking about a potential ten percent in the middle and/or on the fence, not the ten percent on the extreme right end of the Trump spectrum.

Remember, he lost. The only reason he’s POTUS is because of an outdated technicality, not because he convinced a majority of Americans that he’s the better person for the job. There never was a “red wave.” When you cheat, it isn’t a “wave.”
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Trump voters matter.

Republicans have a majority in both houses.

Yes, they used anti-democratic methods to get that power, but they have it and they're not going to give it up. Long after Trump is gone, Trump voters are still going to be voting. I expect the next one to be even worse.
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I think many of them will fade back into the holes from which they emerged, once they lose power. A lot of them will probably stay home for the midterms, having turned out for the 2016 event only because there was a rabid racist "one of them" on the ticket. So they might lose power sooner than later.
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Fade back into holes?

The Republican party has always been a strong feature of American politics for many decades now.

What makes you think they're suddenly going to stop participating in the election process?
 
Underseer said:
Elixir said:
I think many of them will fade back into the holes from which they emerged, once they lose power. A lot of them will probably stay home for the midterms, having turned out for the 2016 event only because there was a rabid racist "one of them" on the ticket. So they might lose power sooner than later.
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Fade back into holes?

The Republican party has always been a strong feature of American politics for many decades now.

What makes you think they're suddenly going to stop participating in the election process?
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It would help considerably if people would keep in mind that every party has a spectrum of voters that go from “always participate to never vote” (and everything in between, such as “occasionally vote” and “vote only in the general” and “didn’t bother this time or that time” and, most importantly, “sometimes vote democrat/sometimes vote Republican” etc).

And each stop along the way has a certain action threshhold that must be triggered. While the raw numbers may change, usually the spectrum—and the percentages of each action threshold “stop” along the way—remain more or less the same, with over/under of course.

This is why it’s particularly disingenuous for pundits (on both sides of the aisle) to have constantly compared 2016 to 2008 (or 2012 for that matter) and then proclaimed 2016 a “failure” because HRC did not beat the all time record holder—Obama—when in fact she beat every single white male in US history in raw votes.

Elections are first and foremost popularity contests. Who can motivate the largest numbers of voters on that spectrum to vote for them, which usually translates into who can motivate the center/swing.

Iow, it’s not about the entire Republican Party not participating; it’s about the percentages in the center/swing that will either not vote or cross party lines. That’s typically all that matters.
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
Underseer said:
Elixir said:
I think many of them will fade back into the holes from which they emerged, once they lose power. A lot of them will probably stay home for the midterms, having turned out for the 2016 event only because there was a rabid racist "one of them" on the ticket. So they might lose power sooner than later.
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Fade back into holes?

The Republican party has always been a strong feature of American politics for many decades now.

What makes you think they're suddenly going to stop participating in the election process?
Click to expand...

It would help considerably if people would keep in mind that every party has a spectrum of voters that go from “always participate to never vote” (and everything in between, such as “occasionally vote” and “vote only in the general” and “didn’t bother this time or that time” and, most importantly, “sometimes vote democrat/sometimes vote Republican” etc).

And each stop along the way has a certain action threshhold that must be triggered. While the raw numbers may change, usually the spectrum—and the percentages of each action threshold “stop” along the way—remain more or less the same, with over/under of course.

This is why it’s particularly disingenuous for pundits (on both sides of the aisle) to have constantly compared 2016 to 2008 (or 2012 for that matter) and then proclaimed 2016 a “failure” because HRC did not beat the all time record holder—Obama—when in fact she beat every single white male in US history in raw votes.

Elections are first and foremost popularity contests. Who can motivate the largest numbers of voters on that spectrum to vote for them, which usually translates into who can motivate the center/swing.

Iow, it’s not about the entire Republican Party not participating; it’s about the percentages in the center/swing that will either not vote or cross party lines. That’s typically all that matters.
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There are no moderates left in the Republican party. They were all driven out during the Darth Jar-Jar administration. At this point, the "center" has moved so far to the right that a Republican president can openly defend actual, flag-waving Nazis in public and face no fallout from fellow Republicans for having done so.

At this point the "moderate" Republicans are the ones who still deny that Trump is a racist instead of admiring him for being racist. Any Republicans who stayed home in 2016 are moderate only in comparison to the other Republicans, which isn't saying much.
 
Collusion - The Smoking Gun

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/he...like-really-freaking-big-deal-no-one-talking/

Because Wood was the first to report all of that, it makes his latest report even that much more important. According to his recent reporting, Michael Cohen scored a secret payment of $400,000 by the government of Ukraine to get a meeting in the Oval Office with Trump. Up until that point, Ukraine had been speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators and turning over information to them. They stopped handing over information and in the days that followed, Ukraine, indeed, was visiting the White House.
Cohen was brought in, according to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, “because Ukraine’s registered lobbyists and embassy in Washington, D.C. could get Mr. Poroshenko little more than a brief photo-op with Mr Trump. Mr Poroshenko needed something that could be portrayed as ‘talks.'”
After the meeting was set up, suddenly Ukraine stopped cooperating with Mueller and Cohen got his money.

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Ukraine needed help from Trump in their war with Russia and Putin. They pay $400,000 to Cohen to get a meeting with Trump. They get their meeting. And have been getting help from the US. Next day after that meeting the Ukraine no longer cooperates with Mueller in the case of Manafort et al.

Yes. It is collusion. Quid pro quo. Cover up. Conspiracy. This is why they raided Cohen's office.
 
I don't think that is collusion, it could be tampering with a witness and/or obstruction of justice.

If they can link a transition of money from Cohen to Trump... though, one could argue Cohen pockets the money and Trump pockets Ukrainian silence.
 
There are no moderates left in the Republican Party.
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There are always moderates. The spectrum does not change, just the people on it.

At this point, the "center" has moved so far to the right that a Republican president can openly defend actual, flag-waving Nazis in public and face no fallout from fellow Republicans for having done so.
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That is, of course, an over generalization and while it may appear to be accurate, it is not as we are seeing in numerous state special elections (in regard to small “r” republicans, aka, voters) and in numerous condemnations (from big “R” Republicans, aka, Congresspeople).

Does it take more for Republicans to act out in the manner we do? Absolutely. Always has been the case and always will be the case. But don’t mistake media coverage—or social media covereage—to be at all indicative of what is (or is not) going on in the Republican Party.

At this point the "moderate" Republicans are the ones who still deny that Trump is a racist instead of admiring him for being racist.
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That’s simply not true. It’s not an avalanche, but any Republican backlash against on of (supposedly) their own in the Oval is rare just as a matter of course.

Any Republicans who stayed home in 2016 are moderate only in comparison to the other Republicans, which isn't saying much.
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I strongly disagree. For a Republican voter (i.e., those who normally actually get off their asses to vote) to stay home—particularly in a contest where Hillary Clinton was favored to win—is practically them saying they’re Democrats now. That is a huge shift—in Republican terms—for any of them to make. According to at least one exit poll featured on FiveThirtyEight, 32% of registered republican voters didn’t vote.

Again, that is in an election where Hillary Clinton was favored to win. Republicans were breastfed hatred of Hillary Clinton for thirty years. The usual argument from the left is “How could Trump have won, it must have been Hillary’s fault because Trump is so...fill in the blank.” But that, of course, is our worldview, not Republican worldview. Their worldview would have been, “How could Clinton have won, it must have been Trump’s fault because Hillary is so....fill in the blank.”

But among Republicans, we did see a very large number of them—proportionate to who Republicans are in general that is—saying, “That guy’s a monster, he’s not my guy” and they either voted for Hillary, third party or didn’t vote, which is just as good.

You take that 32% and you add at least 10% onto it after this past year and we’re up to 42%, or nearly half who are dead set against Trump. Then there’s the current fringe percentage who are waffling, which may be another 10%, but let’s be conservative (pardon the pun) and say it’s more like 5% and we’re up to 47%. That’s not counting the swing, which could be another 2-3% and we’re at about 50% that have a more than likely position set against Trump and most of what he’s doing.

And the core group—aka, white guys—is shrinking.

Is it all cherries and wine? No, but it’s also not 100% doom and gloom.
 
Side note: Have you guys heard the recording of Cohen threatening a reporter? I don't know how that reporter did not have giggle fits. Cohen sounded like an infant getting more frustrated and abusive that the reporter stayed calm and in fact sounded like he wasn't at all fazed.
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
There are always moderates. The spectrum does not change, just the people on it.



That is, of course, an over generalization and while it may appear to be accurate, it is not as we are seeing in numerous state special elections (in regard to small “r” republicans, aka, voters) and in numerous condemnations (from big “R” Republicans, aka, Congresspeople).

Does it take more for Republicans to act out in the manner we do? Absolutely. Always has been the case and always will be the case. But don’t mistake media coverage—or social media covereage—to be at all indicative of what is (or is not) going on in the Republican Party.

At this point the "moderate" Republicans are the ones who still deny that Trump is a racist instead of admiring him for being racist.
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That’s simply not true. It’s not an avalanche, but any Republican backlash against on of (supposedly) their own in the Oval is rare just as a matter of course.

Any Republicans who stayed home in 2016 are moderate only in comparison to the other Republicans, which isn't saying much.
Click to expand...

I strongly disagree. For a Republican voter (i.e., those who normally actually get off their asses to vote) to stay home—particularly in a contest where Hillary Clinton was favored to win—is practically them saying they’re Democrats now. That is a huge shift—in Republican terms—for any of them to make. According to at least one exit poll featured on FiveThirtyEight, 32% of registered republican voters didn’t vote.

Again, that is in an election where Hillary Clinton was favored to win. Republicans were breastfed hatred of Hillary Clinton for thirty years. The usual argument from the left is “How could Trump have won, it must have been Hillary’s fault because Trump is so...fill in the blank.” But that, of course, is our worldview, not Republican worldview. Their worldview would have been, “How could Clinton have won, it must have been Trump’s fault because Hillary is so....fill in the blank.”

But among Republicans, we did see a very large number of them—proportionate to who Republicans are in general that is—saying, “That guy’s a monster, he’s not my guy” and they either voted for Hillary, third party or didn’t vote, which is just as good.

You take that 32% and you add at least 10% onto it after this past year and we’re up to 42%, or nearly half who are dead set against Trump. Then there’s the current fringe percentage who are waffling, which may be another 10%, but let’s be conservative (pardon the pun) and say it’s more like 5% and we’re up to 47%. That’s not counting the swing, which could be another 2-3% and we’re at about 50% that have a more than likely position set against Trump and most of what he’s doing.

And the core group—aka, white guys—is shrinking.

Is it all cherries and wine? No, but it’s also not 100% doom and gloom.
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I'm sorry, but we're talking about what appears to be a really tiny sliver of the Republican party. In any other generation, a Nazi-defending Republican politician would have been quickly driven out of office by the rest of the Republicans.
 
I'm sorry, but we're talking about what appears to be a really tiny sliver of the Republican party.
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I wouldn’t call roughly 50% a “tiny” sliver, unless you mean the core Trump supporters, who are comparatively smaller (around 20%). Remember that only about 27% of all eligible voters voted for Trump.

In any other generation, a Nazi-defending Republican politician would have been quickly driven out of office by the rest of the Republicans.
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I’m not sure what country you live in, but how do you justify such an assertion? Aside from the fact that there are Republicans who are, in fact, attempting to do just that, it’s not like it’s a simple act.
 
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ZiprHead said:
Charges of witness tampering and suborning perjury have been sent to the court.
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Man, it IS a witchhunt.

All through the Unpleasantness of Salem, all those poor women accused of witchcraft spent the hours of darkness sending their familiars to threaten and bribe the witnesses against them...
 
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