The Trial

[danielravennest]

Discovery happens when you're calling witnesses and producing evidence. It's part of the normal civil and criminal process, and I quite see why they'd want to leave that to Merrick Garland, the Justice Department and the FBI, who will doubtless have all sorts of interesting material to put into discovery as the federal criminal cases develop.

The Justice Department & FBI are in the middle of gathering evidence & indicting the insurrectionists. Some of that info may lead to members of Congress who aided & abetted. You don't want to tip them off or taint the investigation. That's why prosecutors generally keep their mouth shut until an indictment is issued.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

You saw what we all saw. It's an open and shut case against Trump, with publicly available information. They didn't seem to have done any discovery beyond that, though, because they didn't want to win this case. What was Trump's role in the withholding of national guard? How about the planning? Nothing new came out about that. The case they made could have been made by any of us with a few hours research on YouTube. They didn't even call witnesses. Why?

Why don't I see anybody in the media calling out Republicans for being soft on terrorism? The democratic party can manage to get the media to circle the wagons against Bernie, and Booker, because somehow they thought McGrath would defeat McConnell, but they can't do it to force a clear message that Trump is a terrorist?

If those terrorists were brown, Biden would be declaring them enemy combatants, and sending the rangers after them. Can't do that to white people, apparently.

The 14th amendment has clear provisions for removing senators who take part in terrorism against the united states. I see no movement in that direction. If they did, they could at least take a clear majority in the senate.

I'm not buying their lame excuses, and you shouldn't, either. They are losing because they want to lose.

The party establishment needs McConnell, and Greene, and Cruz, and the rest of the boogeymen, to fund raise off of. It's all about bribes and patronage and keeping their positions so they can enrich themselves by insider trading on the stock market. They don't give a shit about you and me. Trump and his people are going to continue doing this, because the democratic party refuses to take domestic terrorism seriously.

Honestly, you're not stupid, you have just overthought this into the point of insanity. You need to apply Occam's razor to your analysis. The reason there are so many republican senators is because there are a lot of republican voters in key areas. Those voters didn't want to see Trump convicted so most Republican senators weren't going to accept any feasible deals to convict Trump.

Trump wasn't convicted because Dem's didn't have the votes, not because they didn't utilize some totally imaginary way to cast charm spells on more Republican senators.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Honestly, you're not stupid, you have just overthought this into the point of insanity. You need to apply Occam's razor to your analysis. The reason there are so many republican senators is because there are a lot of republican voters in key areas. Those voters didn't want to see Trump convicted so most Republican senators weren't going to accept any feasible deals to convict Trump.

Trump wasn't convicted because Dem's didn't have the votes, not because they didn't utilize some totally imaginary way to cast charm spells on more Republican senators.

Still think that those senators who did vote to acquit are going to learn that it did them no good at all. In fact, it might, if enough democrat leaning voters can resist purity tests and other bs, mobilize the base that believes in Democracy over fascism.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Seems to me, looking at it from the outside, that the Republican coalition is in the process of collapsing into feuding factions, pulled down in the vortex of Trump's defeat.

It also seems to me that they're in the unfortunate position of being unable to win elections without the non-traditional Republican voters of Trump's loyal MAGA followers, but also being unable to win with those supporters, either, since the closer the Republicans are to the Trump supporters, the more toxic they become to everyone else.

Among the politicians, there are Trump and those positioning themselves to inherit his MAGA followers, and then of the remainder, whose motives range from the the purely cynical, who are focussed on holding onto power for its own sake, at all costs, to a genuine belief in constitutional government and the rule of law, in varying combinations.

They've all got to fight it out between themselves, and meanwhile Trump already has plenty of civil and criminal legal problems in New York to deal with, plus the investigation into his attempt to rig the Georgia count, plus whatever else comes out, whether about Jan 6 or his other activities.

And then there's his business problems ....

No, the more I think about it, the Trumposphere is going to implode over the next couple of years, very messily, leaving the MAGA mob confused and breaking apart, some giving up on politics again, some vanishing down the QAnon rabbit hole, some coming to their senses, and some just angry and lost.

There's no way of knowing how anything will look in a couple of years' time other than that Trump and a lot of other players will be far more visibly in deep trouble than they are now, and the others will be at each others' throats.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Seems to me, looking at it from the outside, that the Republican coalition is in the process of collapsing into feuding factions, pulled down in the vortex of Trump's defeat.

It also seems to me that they're in the unfortunate position of being unable to win elections without the non-traditional Republican voters of Trump's loyal MAGA followers, but also being unable to win with those supporters, either, since the closer the Republicans are to the Trump supporters, the more toxic they become to everyone else.

Among the politicians, there are Trump and those positioning themselves to inherit his MAGA followers, and then of the remainder, whose motives range from the the purely cynical, who are focussed on holding onto power for its own sake, at all costs, to a genuinely belief in constitutional government and the rule of law, in varying combinations.

They've all got to fight it out between themselves, and meanwhile Trump already has plenty of civil and criminal legal problems in New York to deal with, plus the investigation into his attempt to rig the Georgia count, plus whatever else comes out, whether about Jan 6 or his other activities.

And then there's his business problems ....

No, the more I think about it, the Trumposphere is going to implode over the next couple of years, very messily, leaving the MAGA mob confused and breaking apart, some giving up on politics again, some vanishing down the QAnon rabbit hole, some coming to their senses, and some just angry and lost.

There's no way of knowing how anything will look in a couple of years' time other than that Trump and a lot of other players will be far more visibly in deep trouble than they are now, and the others will be at each others' throats.

Pretty much.

It goes a bit further. So, I'll start with, I fully expected W Bush was going to be our last elected President.

The Republican party has been growing more and more Authoritarian since at -least- Reagan [I lived here for Carter, but my dad was stationed in Frankfurt and Munich while Nixon was in Office, and well, before 10 I can't comment on -much- anyway]. Every time a Dem gets into the WH or the party gets control of Senate/House, its all unity and forgiveness and lets work together. Its BS.

And every time the GOP gains control, they push the envelope even further.

All Trump did was waltz in and steal their fanatics away from them. And they are bloody damn fools if they actually think they can get them back.

Either the mobs will wake up and abandon the facist/authoritarian BS completely, or they will remain loyal to Trump; not Hawley, Not Cruz, Not Green, and not Gaetz.

And I expect there will be members of his own family pushed into politics, before he'll back anyone else. Or else it will be Bannon, Flynn, Miller.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Crush MAGA first, split the Democratic party into its comparatively sane left and right halves after. FPTP makes this so.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Crush MAGA first, split the Democratic party into its comparatively sane left and right halves after. FPTP makes this so.

We need for other states to adopt Maine's ranked system

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

We need for other states to adopt Maine's ranked system

Loud agree. Immediate problem remains.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

What was Trump's role in the withholding of national guard? How about the planning? Nothing new came out about that.


The 14th amendment has clear provisions for removing senators who take part in terrorism against the united states. I see no movement in that direction. If they did, they could at least take a clear majority in the senate.

I'm not buying their lame excuses, and you shouldn't, either. They are losing because they want to lose.

The party establishment needs McConnell, and Greene, and Cruz, and the rest of the boogeymen, to fund raise off of. It's all about bribes and patronage and keeping their positions so they can enrich themselves by insider trading on the stock market. They don't give a shit about you and me. Trump and his people are going to continue doing this, because the democratic party refuses to take domestic terrorism seriously.

You're all over the place in your reply. I removed everything but the parts I'm responding to.

First: Keeping the charge simple and to the point makes it harder to refute. If you want to start including conspiracy to enable the rioters by withholding enforcement officials... that's a separate and harder to prove charge. And one that the defense can use to distract from the absolutely evident charge of 'incitement'. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that trump DID incite it. The problem is simply that he has enough support to get away with it.

Second: You can't remove senators with a simple majority vote. They didn't have the votes to convict trump, so obviously they won't have the votes to remove any of his supporters either. Maybe they will later, (unlikely) but if they attempt it now and fail they can't try again.

Third: The democratic party takes domestic terrorism seriously. The problem is that q-anon (which seem so obviously the result of foreign/private psy-ops) has radicalized and conscripted -so-many-, most of whom are law abiding regular citizens who are sympathetic and supportive of the insurrectionists. So dems should do what? Suspend the 1st and 2nd amendment and go round them up too? You can vanish all the bad ones, and more will rise from the ranks to replace them, justifiably angry about their predecessors being 'taken down by a hostile government'.

There's too much money wrapped up in destabilizing the U.S., a grass roots democratic movement doesn't have pockets deep enough to compete. If we did, we'd have our own FOX news, 'heritage foundation', 'cato institute', 'nra', and massive lobbyists like those that serve big pharma and oil. But we don't. The robber baron profit incentive is better served by conservatives and so their $UPPORT goes over there and tips the playing field so far in their favor that there's not enough leverage left to tip it back.


Also, slightly off topic, but I really worry about doing away with the filibuster rule given how small/red-state dominated that chamber is. The filibuster is one of the few things that gives the minority voice any leverage (typically dems because of the gerrymandering put into the Senate by our founding fathers). If we do away with that, it gives the republicans more power to abuse the senate after they inevitably re-take control of it.

 

[detrius]

You saw what we all saw. It's an open and shut case against Trump, with publicly available information. They didn't seem to have done any discovery beyond that, though, because they didn't want to win this case. What was Trump's role in the withholding of national guard? How about the planning? Nothing new came out about that. The case they made could have been made by any of us with a few hours research on YouTube. They didn't even call witnesses. Why?

Why don't I see anybody in the media calling out Republicans for being soft on terrorism? The democratic party can manage to get the media to circle the wagons against Bernie, and Booker, because somehow they thought McGrath would defeat McConnell, but they can't do it to force a clear message that Trump is a terrorist?

If those terrorists were brown, Biden would be declaring them enemy combatants, and sending the rangers after them. Can't do that to white people, apparently.

The 14th amendment has clear provisions for removing senators who take part in terrorism against the united states. I see no movement in that direction. If they did, they could at least take a clear majority in the senate.

I'm not buying their lame excuses, and you shouldn't, either. They are losing because they want to lose.

The party establishment needs McConnell, and Greene, and Cruz, and the rest of the boogeymen, to fund raise off of. It's all about bribes and patronage and keeping their positions so they can enrich themselves by insider trading on the stock market. They don't give a shit about you and me. Trump and his people are going to continue doing this, because the democratic party refuses to take domestic terrorism seriously.

Bellytalk.

 

[Free]

Maglink

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Pretty much.

It goes a bit further. So, I'll start with, I fully expected W Bush was going to be our last elected President.

The Republican party has been growing more and more Authoritarian since at -least- Reagan [I lived here for Carter, but my dad was stationed in Frankfurt and Munich while Nixon was in Office, and well, before 10 I can't comment on -much- anyway]. Every time a Dem gets into the WH or the party gets control of Senate/House, its all unity and forgiveness and lets work together. Its BS.

And every time the GOP gains control, they push the envelope even further.

All Trump did was waltz in and steal their fanatics away from them. And they are bloody damn fools if they actually think they can get them back.

Either the mobs will wake up and abandon the facist/authoritarian BS completely, or they will remain loyal to Trump; not Hawley, Not Cruz, Not Green, and not Gaetz.

And I expect there will be members of his own family pushed into politics, before he'll back anyone else. Or else it will be Bannon, Flynn, Miller.

Or it could be like the Golden Horde splintering after the death of Genghis Khan (or the former Yugoslavia after the death of Marshal Tito) and the various component groups factions splitting off under different (and mutually hostile and suspicious) groups without a single leader to hold them together.

So much could happen that I don't think anyone knows how things will look for the Republicans in a year's time, other than different from how they are today, and by the end of next year they'll doubtless seem very different from how they will appear 12 months hence.

 

[Free]

I guess this is a good thing to come out of all this.



And of course the investigative commission that Pelosi plans to set up. If we can't make Trump pay for his political crimes directly, maybe we can indirectly do so.

 

[Free]

PA GOP Lashes Out At Toomey Conviction Vote: He Was Not Elected To 'Do The Right Thing'

Pennsylvania Republicans are lashing out at Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) after he became one of the Republicans who voted to...

talkingpointsmemo.com

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

PA GOP Lashes Out At Toomey Conviction Vote: He Was Not Elected To 'Do The Right Thing'

Pennsylvania Republicans are lashing out at Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) after he became one of the Republicans who voted to...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Wow, just hand the Dems perfect campaign fodder for next year.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

PA GOP Lashes Out At Toomey Conviction Vote: He Was Not Elected To 'Do The Right Thing'

Pennsylvania Republicans are lashing out at Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) after he became one of the Republicans who voted to...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Edmund Burke, often considered one of the forefathers of conservative political thought, at least in the English-speaking world, had an answer to this

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,–these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

That was true of England then, and I hope it's true of the US today (though Burke would have said this is republican revolutions invariably end with mobs storming the legislature and trying to lynch people or guillotine them, but he was a Tory).

Historical Miscellany #26: Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol [1774]

I’ve just finished Jesse Norman’s biography of the eighteenth century politician and philosopher Edmund Burke, so that’s where I’ll turn for this week’s dose of historical miscellany.

peter-moore.co.uk

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Wot, "conservatives" arguing for direct democracy? The John Birch Society would be appalled!

 

[Free]

Edmund Burke, often considered one of the forefathers of conservative political thought

Surely you can provide an example from at least AFTER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

Or maybe someone from the past few decades. These people only look past Reagan when it suits them.

 

[Free]