"He may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars that I gave him to pay a guy to rig polls"

We are so far into this and I still stare in baffled amazement at something one of these douchenozzles says nearly every single day.

Ivanka throwing Dad and Jr under the bus?

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/iva...-tower-moscow/

“Will Trump be impeached” market on Predictit jumped up 10 points today to .44.

I know it's kind of conventional wisdom that impeaching Trump is not a great plan for the Dems, and I know I used to believe that too, but I'm struggling to remember why exactly. There's no point to passing legislation, so there's not an opportunity cost. I guess you could worry that winning the removal vote has a tendency to clear Trump's name (lol!), but that seems a little far-fetched, and it seems likely that Trump will lose anyways. In addition, there's a benefit to forcing GOP members to taint themselves by voting to keep Trump in office even with smoking-gun evidence of crimes (which I assume exists).

If the trumps start turning on each other grab the popcorn. And pray for poor eric.

I think the big fear is that if Dems impeach Trump the next time the GOP controls the House and there's a Dem President it's going to be the ACA repeal votes all over again only this time with impeachment. It's a dumb fear because something has to be done when the President is a blatant criminal but the Dems are overly cautious.

It's also dumb because it implies that the GOP would forbear from impeaching a Dem president if they thought it was a politically winning strategy just because the Dems gave Trump a pass. It's a bad deal to offer in the first place (you can elect criminals from your party if you don't harass our non-criminal presidents), but the GOP can't even be trusted to honor it.

**** that noise. dems should at the very least start investigating and stop kicking the can to the mueller report.

Republicans can’t turn on him because Pence is complicit and they’re never handing the presidency to Nancy. But boy is it going to be all the popcorn if and when Ivanka and Don Jr get indicted (both have committed endless felonies we already know about).

Not that I buy there being some plan for Pelosi to be president, but new VP requires confirmation from both Houses. Pretty sure the outcome of Trump resigning would be no VP, as I don't see any way there is a candidate that both parties would approve.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...nt-chosen.html

Assuming that is the case, if Pence then resigns, isn't Pelosi automatically President.

Trump should be impeached if his crimes merit it and they do. I don't think any of the Rusher business is anywhere near as important as stuff like kidnapping 15000 children, but obstruction, suborning perjury, immoluments etc are such obviously impeachable offenses it just makes the Dems look like political operators rather than public servants to debate the electoral impact of impeachment or even what will happen in the Senate.

What's crazy to me is that I still have the capacity to believe that *this time* the allegations are serious enough to actually matter.

I honestly believe that this most recent series of events/disclosures will take him down.

(I fully expect that Lucy will, once again, pull the football away.)

The obvious counter-argument is that the Republicans have already set the prescedent of impeaching the President for bull**** and holding endless investigations over Benghazi or emailghazi and they’re 100% going to keep doing that regardless of how West Wingy the Dems play their hand.

It’s pretty terrible for our democracy, but we’ve long since crossed the Rubicon where impeachment is a political football the same way gift shutdowns are political football now.

I kind of assume there will be some kind of backroom deal where Dems agree to approve of Chris Christie or whoever as VP in exchange for Republicans voting for impeachment. I cannot possibly imagine a situation where even a singe Republican votes to kick out Trump/Pence and make Pelosi president. That would be suicidal.

Republican support is cracking. Congress would definitely reopen the government if Mitch weren't blocking it. "The Wall" is going to go from 100% positive with Republicans to being divisive and Trump along with it. Hopefully. And that's a prerequisite for Trump going down.

I think some of the fear is that impeaching over "soft" crimes like the quasi-nebulous charge of "collusion" or manifestations thereof that are contained in campaign finance law are not the sort of thing the public would find scandalous enough to merit impeachment, and therefore the Dems are impeaching as a power grab rather than as a check on presidential power. There is even some risk if the charge is obstruction of justice, but based on something that isn't terribly easy for the average voter to understand. The risk is that less interested voters see the Dems saying one thing, the GOP saying the other, and since they don't really understand, they think the truth must be in the middle somewhere and therefore the Dems are wrong to try to seize power. "The president directed a witness to commit perjury" couldn't be more clear, however, and given the recent precedent with Nixon, impeaching over that is reasonable.

Yeah same. Everything depends on how Republican Senators feel that Trump helps/hurts their re-election chances, not whether he’s a felon or committed traitorous actions. Someone like Flake was “savvy” enough to realize this, tried to play both sides, and ended up having to basically give away his Senate seat (to a Dem no less, thanks for doing one good thing Jeff!) Hard proof of Trump committing crimes plus the unpopular shutdown which he is rightly being blamed for might move the needle a little, but it very well might not. It’s clear that the Republican House was playing endless coverups so who knows what we might see now.

This is true, and as such, I think it places a burden on the Dems that the case for impeachment has to be clear, compelling, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order for the public to take it seriously and for the GOP senators to take it seriously.

I feel like a better strategy for Dems would be to pass legislation outlawing the Republican party. I know it might be hard to reach across the aisle for support for a bill, but it would be worth showing a spotlight on the opposition and making them publicly defend their positions. You might be able to force a few hands.

George needs to withhold the D Until Kellyanne cracks. Meanwhile he dunks hard: