USA Politics (redux)

[71 dB]

Re:  the kitten filter....yes, funny story!  Vandermolen posted it over in one of the cat threads. 

One of the cat threads?? How many do we have here? 
My sister posted the CATastrophal stream video to me yesterday...

[Pohjolas Daughter]

One of the cat threads?? How many do we have here? 
My sister posted the CATastrophal stream video to me yesterday...

Two (as far as I've seen anyway):  1)  That Darn Cat Thread and 2)  The Cat Thread. 

[Herman]

Wow, this Michael van der Veen is really a nasty piece of work.

[Gurn Blanston]

Wow, this Michael van der Veen is really a nasty piece of work.

?

[SimonNZ]

I'm not watching but I assume its the expected "both sides do it" and "they were all really Antifa" and "Democrats shouldn't have been so outraged at Trump's outrageous behavior thereby creating a climate of outrage".

[BasilValentine]

I'm not watching but I assume its the expected "both sides do it" and "they were all really Antifa" and "Democrats shouldn't have been so outraged at Trump's outrageous behavior thereby creating a climate of outrage".

The only viable objective for the defense was to provide a veneer of plausibility so that Republican senators could assuage their guilt for violating their oaths of office. They failed. All of the Republican senators know Trump is guilty and that they are selling out democracy. They don't care. They are craven careerist scum.

[drogulus]

     New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters

The newly revealed details of the call, described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it, provide critical insight into the President's state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol. The existence of the call and some of its details have been previously reported and discussed publicly by McCarthy.

The Republican members of Congress said the exchange showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.

"He is not a blameless observer, he was rooting for them," a Republican member of Congress said. "On January 13, Kevin McCarthy said on the floor of the House that the President bears responsibility and he does."

Speaking to the President from inside the besieged Capitol, McCarthy pressed Trump to call off his supporters and engaged in a heated disagreement about who comprised the crowd. Trump's comment about the would-be insurrectionists caring more about the election results than McCarthy did was first mentioned by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, in a town hall earlier this week, and was confirmed to CNN by Herrera Beutler and other Republicans briefed on the conversation.

[71 dB]

I'm not watching but I assume its the expected "both sides do it" and "they were all really Antifa" and "Democrats shouldn't have been so outraged at Trump's outrageous behavior thereby creating a climate of outrage".

I don't really follow actively US politics anymore (one can't avoid following passively). As far as I have understood there won't be enough votes to convict Trump so all of this is political theatre. The Republicans won't do the right thing - their power and political career are more important for them than the future of the country and the principles of law. So, I guess Trump will return to the White House in January 20, 2025. I am already depressed about that thought. All I can do is to try and "enjoy" these four years of the status quo manager named Biden before the lunacy returns... 

[vandermolen]

Someone on the BBC this morning was saying that although DT is unlikely to be convicted, the Impeachment process has helped to change public opinion further against him (things like the former US Ambassador to the UN saying that DT should 'never have gone down that road' and that 'we should never have followed him'). There was also discussion centring on the danger of DT standing again in 2024 and losing the election. There was also the suggestion that if things had got further out of control on 6th January it would have allowed Trump to declare martial law and presumably set himself up as some kind of dictator.

[Herman]

Wow, this Michael van der Veen is really a nasty piece of work.

This man is yet another "Only for TV" opportunistic republicans, shouting and yelling and acting out (and thus whipping up) anger in the audience.

It's five weeks after January 6th and they are at it full bore again.

[71 dB]

Two (as far as I've seen anyway):  1)  That Darn Cat Thread and 2)  The Cat Thread. 

Time for "Sure, I look like one, but I am NOT a cat!" -thread for those with existential crisis. 

[Karl Henning]

Someone on the BBC this morning was saying that although DT is unlikely to be convicted, the Impeachment process has helped to change public opinion further against him (things like the former US Ambassador to the UN saying that DT should 'never have gone down that road' and that 'we should never have followed him'). There was also discussion centring on the danger of DT standing again in 2024 and losing the election. There was also the suggestion that if things had got further out of control on 6th January it would have allowed Trump to declare martial law and presumably set himself up as some kind of dictator.

Yes, for the public who are paying attention.  Also, Poju can take heart that it is not empty political theatre: although the Rubios & al. are trying to "memory-hole" this, all of Trump's seditious activity is now on the record.

(* typo *)

[Karl Henning]

The Senate will call witnesses.  That is already an advance on Impeachment № 1

[71 dB]

...all of Trump's seditious activity is now on the record.

Does it matter it is now on the record? 

[Karl Henning]

Does it matter it is now on the record? 

I know it's a trying time, try to resist cynicism.

[drogulus]

     This is the witness the impeachment managers want to call.     

     

     There's no real doubt that Trump tried to disrupt the vote certification by telling armed violent extremists to fight like hell. There is no real doubt Trump knew exactly who was in the crowd.

     But what about fake doubt? What about Trump's sacred right to not know very much about who was in the crowd? By confirming that Trump had no intention of helping the people in the Capitol, testimony also confirms that Trump intended the result he got. What other reason could Trump have for refusing to immediately send help?

     

[71 dB]

I know it's a trying time, try to resist cynicism.

I don't think I can resist cynicism as long as the US doesn't have medicare for all. The US has failed so badly as a country it's now literally a battle between dictator wannabes and status quo managers. No chance for a FDR 2.0. 

[Herman]

The Senate will call witnesses.  That is already an advance on Impeachment № 1

The histrionics of this Philly lawyer are really stunning.

Why he thinks this constant display of his short fuse is winning him hearts and minds is baffling.

It's a performance for one viewer, back in Mar a Lago...

[DavidW]

Does it matter it is now on the record? 

Yes because you have to go through the motions so precedent is not set that anything a president does in their last month has zero consequences.  And remember that 140k people have left the Republican party in the last month.  The pro-Trumpers might win today, but forcing them to once again choose sedition , fascism and falsehood in the public eye will eventually do more damage.

[Karl Henning]

Of course, this is in deep-blue Massachusetts:

Time will reverse the probable impeachment verdict

History won't be kind to Trump's Senate supporters.
By Scot Lehigh Globe Columnist,Updated February 11, 2021, 5:17 p.m.

Time is a clear-eyed and unforgiving arbiter of fact and falsehood, integrity and ignominy, honor and dishonor. Thus my prediction: If, as expected, the US Senate acquits Donald Trump, in a few years, what constitutes victory and defeat in this second impeachment trial will look very different.

Republicans will wish they had officially consigned Trump to disgrace and rendered him ineligible to hold office again when they had an opportunity, rather than leaving him to maraud like a vengeful minotaur through their ranks.

Democrats, meanwhile, will watch the war that comes to consume the GOP over the fault line of loyalty to Trump and decide that, politically at least, they won by losing.

That's the dynamic set in motion by the powerful and revealing case the House impeachment managers have built about the scheming and dishonest former president, the web of falsehoods he spun about a stolen election, and the angry mob he helped rally in Washington and sent Congress's way in service of his Big Lie.

For much of the nation, the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol will become a metaphor for Trumpism. One has to be deep in the clutches of conspiratorialism or a democracy-despising authoritarian — or an "alt-right" racist — to look approvingly upon the mob of violent, vicious, police-assaulting hooligans who ransacked the Capitol.

One can, of course, tell him or herself that this isn't what Trumpism is really all about — but only by dint of a determined effort to deny reality. This mob, after all, was part and parcel of the crowd that responded to Trump's call to come to the Capitol for a rally set to coincide with the congressional certification of the Electoral College results. These are the insurrectionists who, in response to his call to "fight like hell," then stormed the Capitol. This is the violent horde whose seditious attack on the Capitol Trump watched for an extended period without condemning, before finally telling them "we love you, you're very special" and asking them to go home.

Whether Trump is convicted or not, that reality won't change.

Even for those who follow the news closely, the presentation by the House impeachment managers was eye-opening. They cast new light on Trump's concerted effort to beckon his supporters to Washington for a rally on the day Congress met to certify the Electoral College results.

The video annotation of the storming of the Capitol illustrated in stark and stunning fashion the assaults on, and heroism of, the Capitol Police, and the very real threat to lawmakers. Thursday's presentation should have given any decent, empathic American a vivid sense of the trauma suffered by scores of patriotic, nonelected public servants, particularly those who are minorities.

What emerged was a clear portrait of a president who moved from one failed attempt to overturn the election to the next, until, as House manager Representative Ted Lieu of California put it, he "ran out of nonviolent options" to do so.

It will be difficult indeed for Trump's impeachment defense team to refute the case the House managers have made against Trump. Beyond the Senate, Trump defenders are trying to appeal to partisan solidarity by portraying impeachment as a Democratic desire for revenge. Yet the fact that Trump was directing his pressure campaign against both Republicans and Democrats undercuts that assertion, as does the fact that this mob broke into the Capitol with malice in mind toward elected officials of both parties. It wasn't just House Speaker Nancy Pelosi they were searching for but also Vice President Mike Pence. Indeed, the videos with chants of "Hang Mike Pence" and "Bring out Pence" are particularly chilling in light of the hurried and narrow escape Pence and his family made.

Again, it's unlikely that the Senate will convict Trump, but not because he isn't guilty as charged. Not because he didn't tell and propagate the Big Lie. Not because he didn't call the mob to Washington. And not because he didn't whip them up and send them to the Capitol.

But because those who vote to acquit are cynics, cowards, and opportunists.

History will not be kind.