And Frum KNOWS the dark corners and crooked crannies of the conservative heart and soul. That statement is chilling.
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Someone remind Kellyanne Conway the reflexive hate is being directed at Congressman Schiff.
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This is a foreseeable consequence of the partisan efforts by Nunes and Gowdy to distract and divert attention from the Russian investigation of Hair Furor. As a direct consequence, the Russian bots , and the "fine ā followers of Trump come out of the woodwork spewing hate and anger.
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Schiff did hold a press conference yesterday and said the rethugs refused to let the Democrats release the rebuttal memo that they wrote in response to Nunesā wet dream.
Since the info is classified, thatās it.
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Perhaps it is so clear that the answer would be, " No, I donāt . But it doesnāt matter anymore."
Pitchforks, torches, ropes, hammers, and scythes.
When politics becomes tribalism, and our institutions become thoroughly compromised, we are not that far from civil war. American democracy is a LOT more fragile than anyone thought. Like the man said, interesting times. Been watching politics closely since 1967 and have never been so concerned about the state of our country and the inability of our leaders to deal with something so evil and rotten in their midst. Trump may look, act and sound like a clown, but this shit is not funny and our inability to stop him from dismantling democracy through sheer ego driven narcissistic stupidity has been mind boggling to behold. The enablers are the real evil here.
I would like to recommend The Ezra Klein Show podcast from this week, which has an extensive interview with the authors of How Democracies Die. Definitely worth a listen.
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Thatās it until the Democratic rebuttal memo is leaked, anyway.
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Itās odd that Trump made it through the election without the mandatory gun-toting photo op that Rās seem to love so much. I would bet that heās afraid to actually touch a gun himself. Such a phony wuss.
Yes, How Democracies Die is a great and timely bookāI heard the authors discussing it on Terry Grossās program.
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I think weāve hit the constitutional crisisāwhich is not to say that it wonāt get worse.
The question for me is what Democratic leaders intend to do about it. The grassroots is ready to hit the streets when Mueller is fired. But it may be too late by then, since Rosenstein will presumably already be gone.
There is in fact a straightforward course of emergency action for Congressional Ds to take, today. It would go something like this.
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Declare a constitutional crisis and for that reason boycott of SOTU en masse.
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While Trump is lying and boasting to a half-empty room, hold a press conference on the steps of the Capitol explaining very simply and very directly that it has become clear over the last 24 hours that the Trump GOP and Russia are now allies and acting in concert. Cite
(1) Trumpās failure to implement congressional sanctions on Russia over its attack on the 2016 elections;
(2) confirmation yesterday from CIA that Russia will attack the midterm elections;
(3) ongoing refusal of GOP to take steps to counter this imminent attack;
(4) ongoing refusal of Trump to admit that Russia attacked in 2016;
(5) escalating and outrageous obstruction of justice that occurred yesterday with dismissal of McCabe and GOP decision to release a false memo designed to undermine the FBI and DOJ. -
Declare that GOP and Russia are without doubt in a de facto electoral alliance to undermine our democracy and promote the interests of the GOP over the interests of the American people.
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Declare that there will be no government funding votes from Democrats until the GOP has self-corrected on these matters.
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Urge all Americans of conscience to rally in Washington.
That all seems highly proportionate and effective to me. People would drop everything and descend on Washington in their millions. Matters would finally be brought to a headāas they will be in any case. And the issue of the day will be whether or not we still have a democracy and the rule of law, and whether the GOP is fit for government or a treasonous operation. Of course there isnāt a chance in a million that our electeds would do this. Would require strategy and a spine.
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And donāt forget their inbred racism and sexism. Those are permanent features.
But there were rallies were he mimed shoot a rifle. Aargh
Death threats to the ranking Democrat on the committee for the icky Republican propaganda memo? Not even Nadarites were that stupid in their heyday. Sounds like a bunch of teabaggers had too much sāmores schnapps.
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We now know how Trumpās ābaseā spends their days.
So youāre suggesting Democrats should boycott the SOTU, hold a presser calling the President and the majority party traitors, and threaten not to vote on funding the government again until the GOP purges their own ranks (leadership, Congresscritters, President, Cabinet Secretaries, etc.) of the traitors? And if they donāt theyāre a bunch of spineless idiots? Really?
I donāt think the Tea Party could have wished for any more.
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Hereās hoping someone manages to āleakā the Democratic rebuttal, with appropriate redactions for classified stuff. The Republicans are, I believe, looking like desperate monkeys.
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Fear of what the Tea Party thinks is one reason weāre in this mess.
I do think we have a constitutional crisis on our hands and, yes, I do think that the Democrats should recognize that fact and act accordingly. If you think that Trump/GOP will quietly submit to electoral defeat and let Mueller round up the Trump money-laundering clan, youāre almost certainly mistaken.
Edit: And I do think itās practical. Thereās nothing to stop Trump implementing sanctions. Nothing to stop the GOP from taking steps to safeguard the midterm elections. Nothing to stop them from passing a law to protect Mueller. Do those things and weāre back on track, more or less.
I donāt think we are quite at the constitutional crisis stage (yet), but I also believe we are heading towards one. The GOP in Congress are enabling (maybe aggravating is the better word) the problem.
Remember all the calls for stepping up Iran sanctions and hollering about President Obama doing nothing to enact the sanctions Congress had passed? I do. Why all the silence on the Russia sanctions? Note too, that Uncle Vlad is warning Donnie Two-scoops not to release the list of meddling Russian oligarchs. I guess we will see how much starch Cadet Bonespurs has in his shirt.
O/T: How many fake news call-outs will Two-scoops make in the SotU tonight?
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I agree that, if youāre going to declare a constitutional crisis, timing is all. What alarms me that is that Democratic electeds have given no signānot even to their supportersāthat they have a plan for the crisis that, if it isnāt already upon us, soon will be. We should be reading stories, today, that Democrats are privately convincedāas they damn well should beāthat the GOP is no longer fit to loyally govern the USA and that contingency plans are being made to deal with the problem.