I think it's just Congressional pretext and nicety, just like the no Supreme Court Justice in an election year ( that morphed into the 8 seats is fine) was simply, "We want this seat". Everyone in the know, knows.

Agreed, Elizabeth Warren continues to be one of the only dems with a brain. She has been calling for this

There are a lot of good reasons to oppose Garland. Voting Rights is probably the most important. Merrick Garland is another good one. All good reasons. No way he should be confirmed under these conditions in particular though.

Since there's no coherent theory of what the quid pro quo is, it's going to be hard for anyone to find a smoking gun short of a $100,000,000 check to Trump and a card wishing him well in the elections directly from Putin, and Trump responding with IOU: One Country.

I'm not relitating all of my posts but Democrats are going to be excited and then ultimately disappointed and forlorn nothing is happening with each of these dramatic breaking news developments partly of course because the GOP controls all the power. But also because the smoking gun allusion assumes a dead body and Democrats aren't really arguing a murder took place yet.

From July 2016:
Why Donald Trump Picked Mike Pence as Running Mate
http://time.com/4406477/donald-trump...ice-president/

And this works? IMO this investigation **** is designed to further their overall narrative that Trump is like, compromised. But the Garland thing makes way more sense, and it's weird that they'd abandon it.

Like, what is the argument again? Maybe Trump committed treason so his nominee is invalid? What if he's ****ing impeached and Pence nominates someone? It's just a strange approach.

I'm wondering just how long Spicer is going to stay on the job. It has to be more impossible for him to manage every day.

The Smoking Gun hasn't been found. In this theory of everything fitting together, the smoking gun is that Trump (or Trump Organization) has massive debts to Russian Banks/Private Financiers, and wants them to be on more stable financial footing so he can finance debt for the Trump Organization. Reducing the Economic Sanctions does wonders for this.

This is going to be very tough to find, but I think that's the "missing link" that leads to actual consequences.

Being paid millions of dollars apparently "incoherent" as a motivation for people.

I've obviously beaten this horse to death that the Democrats' strategy on this makes no sense. But whatever.

It reminds me though of something I wanted to say but haven't yet. And that is: if Comey arrested Trump tomorrow for treason and Pence was sworn in, I would bet every available dollar I could find that the Democrats would SNAP confirm Gorsuch, unanimously, and likely approve the GOP alternative to Obamacare to sew up their bipartisan bonafides and prove that with Trump gone, we really all need to come together and heal and show America how we all can reach across the aisle and compromise and we really respect the democratic norms of doing whatever the GOP wants. It could be no other way.

There's not much difference between the interest of the government and capital in the US and less difference in Russia.

It could also simply be proof that he advised the Putin government 12 years ago and nothing more.

But that's sort of the point. Patriotism, and to some extent countries in general, are for the rest of us. The capitalist elite don't have to abide by borders or pay much mind to the geopolitics of nation states.

@goofy..sure, but that would be an ultra simplistic way of looking at the crime scene.

This should be clarified that they pay very close attention to it and are all deeply aware of its existence. Trump's whole Make America Great Again schtick is proof of that of course. They just don't feel any of it sincerely. That's for rubes. The Miller Lite marketing executive who came up with Tastes Great Less Filling almost surely went home that night and had a glass of red wine and would probably rather drink his own piss than Miller Lite but that doesn't mean he doesn't pay attention to branding and taglines.

Posted this several weeks back. Skip to 2:00 and tell me this is a man who has something to hide!

But more importantly, it's a plausible way, which means this is not yet the "proof" or "smoking gun" you're looking for.

Broadly speaking, I agreed with many of the points you made in your previous posts, but on this one question I have a nit to pick. I think it might be easier, in the cases you've mentioned where conservatives push a narrative, for them to construct that narrative then it is for liberals here. Basically my argument would be that in the cases you're using in comparison the narrative was the entire point from the beginning, there never was much there. Liberals don't have a coherent narrative in part because they aren't trying to construct one from some theory a priori, the story is just developing drip by drip from actual news.

So, I kind of agree that we should be thoughtful about what we do with the news and what we focus on politically, but it's not surprising that people react to news, and given the way the news is coming out in bits and pieces and minor developments, it's not surprising it's not as coherent as narratives invented purely for political purposes to begin with.

me either, wtf is this kangaroo court ****

Agree with Dvaut.

As a politics messaging strategy, "GOP is cruel and incompetent" >>> "Russia something." Even if the Russia **** is true, the entire GOP congress gets off the hook!

Speaking of cruel and incompentent, the House is voting on AHCA tomorrow. Today would be a great day to call your Rep and tell them to vote NO on AHCA.

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

http://www.vox.com/2017/3/6/14829526...op-replacement

Filibustering with evil motives, especially a good candidate that has bipartisan support until Trump got elected and the left went crazy, is like the boy who cried the wolf too many times.

This is probable something we can agree on, but with different motives.

Replacing one bad entitlement program with a lite version just doesn't cut it.

This made me laugh. Trump calls her Pocahontas and goofy. If she is the last hope of democrats then I think it's just over.

It just tells you what kind of people might be supporting her.

I agree, they should confirm Garland