Politics

Come here to talk about topics that are not related to development, or even Kansas City.
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

You are super overthinking this if you've talked yourself into thinking there's a scenario in which impeachment is on the table and Dems don't vote for it. Whatever political advantage they have going into 2018 they owe to the fact that they are the opposition to Trump. If impeachment comes to the floor for a vote and they vote against it, that goes up in smoke. And calling that a lost advantage is assuming they even made it to the general election. Do you want to be the Dem rep who has to explain to Dem primary voters why you voted to keep Trump? But even in races where the Dems who voted against impeachment get primaried, the Dems' role as opposition party is permanently tarnished. Nobody is going to vote for them as an anti-Trump vote if they already declined to remove Trump when they had the chance.

But the GOP is still not going to impeach their own president if for no other reason than because they're too afraid of getting primaried by Trump's base. His approval rating among Republicans is still in the high-70s, many of whom would not abandon Trump just because the GOP establishment turned on him. The idea that the "alt-right" Nazis will support "ideological GOP" like Pence after Trump is out seems pretty baseless to me. These guys will continue to push Trumpian candidates to challenge establishment Republicans in primaries and if their guy loses the primaries a lot of them will not just turn out and reflexively pull the lever for whoever's got the R next to their name. And the current Republicans in Congress, who have either survived similar challenges from the Tea Party or were the victorious Tea Party challenger, understand all of this very well.

What's much more likely is that they just push on independently, try to pass stuff without his help or leadership, and send it to him for a signature. Most of the statements Republicans in Congress issued after last weekend were just boilerplate "racism is bad, there is no place in our society for this kind of behavior" -- few of them actually called out Trump himself. I have no idea what combination of events would need to transpire before impeachment was realistically on the table, but they have not transpired yet. I don't think Trump is out six months from now and if he is, it's much more likely due to resignation, 25th Amendment, or death (not necessarily assassination, I mean we're talking about an obese 71 year old who moves as little as possible because he believes exercise reduces some finite well of energy that will never replenish, who is now stuck with the most stressful job in the world) than impeachment. I suppose it's possible that some Congressional GOP might work behind the scenes to push the 25th Amendment option but that would be very risky for them since there would be hell to pay if it ever got out, and this administration is leakier than a sieve. For the same reason, you're not likely to see anybody put overt pressure on Trump to resign either.

As for Pence -- the close race between Ford and Carter, followed by Reagan's win in 1980, shows us that the GOP can recover shockingly quickly from catastrophic scandal, so I can't just out of hand count out the GOP in 2020. But I've got to think that Pence personally has been seriously tainted. If the GOP turns on Trump, hard to believe the wing of it that goes will still be behind Pence (more than they have to be, at least, since he would become the president for the remainder of the term). On the other hand, to Trump's white supremacist base, Pence was never their guy in the first place and isn't going to become that guy when the GOP establishment makes him president. The Dems are in disarray themselves so I guess it's foolish to make predictions about anything but as I write this in August 2017 it is currently very hard for me to see Pence winning a presidential election. There's still three years for someone else to arise but I've got to think that in 2020 if the GOP's guy isn't Trump, it's probably Kasich.
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Politics

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

The GOP will do nothing to get rid of Trump until he becomes a liability. That is in 2018 there becomes a time when the GOP's hold on the Senate and/or House is in jeopardy. And they won't get rid of him, as of now no impeachable offense and Amendment 25 has never been utilized. The current GOP officeholders will either ignore him or choose to run as an anti-Trump candidate.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Inequality and Opportunity in America

Fran works six days a week in fast food, and yet she's homeless: 'It's economic slavery'

Fran Marion and Bridget Hughes are leading voices in Stand Up Kansas City, part of the Fight for $15 movement that aims raise the minimum wage across the US

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ?CMP=fb_us
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

A Republican Kansas legislator warns Congress in the Washington Post not to make the same mistakes Kansas did with tax cuts.

http://tinyurl.com/yd4qlp6g
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

I'm sure they will heed that advice
mean
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Re: Politics

Post by mean »

I hope you don't think I was ever making that argument.
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

I didn't actually go back to look at the old posts so I don't really recall what the specific argument was, just that my side of it was that it was a false equivalency
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

Looking back at it now, this is actually the post that stuck in my memory more than anything you said, mean
flyingember wrote:
I just think the specific comparison of "Obama is a Muslim" to "Trump was installed by the Russians" is a false equivalency.
The topics are different, the goal is to use an item of moral or ethical importance for a group of people to get them against a political opponent.

and in that sense, they are the same thing.

Obama probably did spend time learning Muslim beliefs. Trump probably did get helped by the Russians and knows it can be linked to him.
Is either thing really that important in the big picture?
flyingember
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Re: Politics

Post by flyingember »

phuqueue wrote:Looking back at it now, this is actually the post that stuck in my memory more than anything you said, mean
flyingember wrote:
I just think the specific comparison of "Obama is a Muslim" to "Trump was installed by the Russians" is a false equivalency.
The topics are different, the goal is to use an item of moral or ethical importance for a group of people to get them against a political opponent.

and in that sense, they are the same thing.

Obama probably did spend time learning Muslim beliefs. Trump probably did get helped by the Russians and knows it can be linked to him.
Is either thing really that important in the big picture?
Looking back, what I said was stupid. One was a little important, the other is ending up being very important.
mykn

Re: Politics

Post by mykn »

flyingember wrote:
phuqueue wrote:Looking back at it now, this is actually the post that stuck in my memory more than anything you said, mean
flyingember wrote: The topics are different, the goal is to use an item of moral or ethical importance for a group of people to get them against a political opponent.

and in that sense, they are the same thing.

Obama probably did spend time learning Muslim beliefs. Trump probably did get helped by the Russians and knows it can be linked to him.
Is either thing really that important in the big picture?
Looking back, what I said was stupid. One was a little important, the other is ending up being very important.
Also, one is important in a very good way and the other in a very bad way.
mean
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Re: Politics

Post by mean »

How long before Trump inevitably fires Mueller for not pivoting to Hillary's "collusion"?
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

Mueller will get fired as soon as Trump realizes he can do it with impunity. For now he probably still has too many people whispering in his ear that if he fires Mueller it'll trigger impeachment but lol no it won't and sooner or later, he'll realize that.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

If Trump fires Mueller, it's very likely that the New York State Attorney General will hire Mueller & team to join his state investigation. That might be the better route, since state prosecutions would be out of reach of any Trump pardons.

A state investigation's findings, if shocking enough, could also produce impeachment proceedings, or resignation.

There has been reporting that Mueller has been working with the NY State Attorney's General's office, so this might be his back-up plan.

Some Republican senators have indicated in the past that a Mueller firing could trigger impeachment. It seems to me that Lindsay Graham/John McCain signaled this.
Any attempt by the Trump administration to cut off funding for Special Counsel Robert Mueller or otherwise hobble the investigation would be met by a public uproar and resistance from Congress, Republican Senator John McCain said.

McCain was among several Republican lawmakers who said they don’t want to see Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the President Donald Trump’s campaign short-circuited.

“The American people want a complete and thorough investigation,” McCain of Arizona said Tuesday at the Capitol.

Georgia Republican Senator David Perdue, one of Trump’s closest allies in the chamber, said Mueller’s investigation should be funded “until the job is done.”
http://tinyurl.com/yd36kqhz
Last edited by FangKC on Wed Nov 01, 2017 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Politics

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

Before he resigned Nixon still had enough GOP support to dodge impeachment. Even when he resigned he still had significant GOP support, although not the leaders of the GOP. And for now the GOP members of Congress will not bail on Trump until he becomes a political liability. Which probably will not be evident, if it happens, until next summer when GOP members of Congress see their election chances and GOP majority in the Houses in jeopardy
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grovester
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Re: Politics

Post by grovester »

Impunity seems a bit much, there would be a price to pay for doing it. And as Fang noted, Meuller wouldn't really go away, he'd get hired by a state or congress more likely.
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:Before he resigned Nixon still had enough GOP support to dodge impeachment. Even when he resigned he still had significant GOP support, although not the leaders of the GOP. And for now the GOP members of Congress will not bail on Trump until he becomes a political liability. Which probably will not be evident, if it happens, until next summer when GOP members of Congress see their election chances and GOP majority in the Houses in jeopardy
It may not matter how much GOP support there is for Trump. If it's proven that he broke the law, then that's a different kettle of fish entirely--especially if there is evidence that he conspired with a hostile foreign power to be elected to the highest office of the land.
phuqueue
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

The level of GOP support does matter because it's not even settled law that a sitting president could be indicted for committing a crime. Ken Starr wrote a memo in the 90s arguing that the president could be indicted, but there is also a school of thought that impeachment is the sole constitutional remedy against a president who has broken the law. If Mueller felt he could indict a sitting president and tried to do so, it'd have to be litigated all the way to the Supreme Court before we actually had an answer. Until we have a Supreme Court ruling that says a sitting president can be indicted, and until evidence is presented that Trump has broken the law, nothing will happen as long as the GOP has no appetite for impeachment. And I don't believe for one second, just because Republicans said in the past that firing Mueller would trigger impeachment, that enough of them will still stand by that when push comes to shove -- at least not unless Trump becomes unpopular among Republican voters, which, good luck with that.

And that's what I mean by impunity. Mueller or Schneiderman or whoever else might continue to bring charges against campaign staff, maybe even against Trump family members, but Trump himself is not likely to be forced out of office or anything. Republicans in Congress have already done a complete 180 on tons of other Trump things that they originally said were non-starters, and while it's tempting to think the Russia thing is a whole different beast, it's also a beast that Republican voters by and large don't care about, if polls are any indication. Trump has reportedly had to be talked out of firing Mueller on several occasions, and it's only a matter of time before he stops listening. And when he does, nothing is going to happen to him.
bobbyhawks
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Re: Politics

Post by bobbyhawks »

That's probably why Trump has ginned up this story about Mueller and the Uranium One deal, and that the former head of the FBI was (gasp) friends with the next head of the FBI (Comey). The way Trump operates, you don't even need for those stories to make any sense, so long as they plant a seed of doubt in a few minds. If he were to fire Mueller, he's already created enough neo-birtherism to probably escape impeachment.
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grovester
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Re: Politics

Post by grovester »

While it is unlikely Trump would ever be impeached no matter what Meuller may find, I think he would pay a price for firing him. Trump and congress can barely get anything passed now, I would imagine any legislative goals would be DOA. I also think the 2018 elections would be greatly impacted.
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