I posted this on twitter, but it is worth repeating. Imagine if, in 2018, President Hillary Clinton had withheld military aid from Israel because she thought Donald Trump was going to run against her in 2020, and she wanted them to announce an investigation into Ivanka and Eric’s business dealings to smear their dad. Whether they do an investigation or not is no matter. On top of that, she fired the ambassador and worked against American foreign policy to achieve that personal goal. And then when caught, refused to comply with any congressional subpoenas and refused to allow anyone to testify. How many Republicans would be saying “No big deal?”
Because that is just scratching the surface of what Trump did.
HinTN
You are exactly right, not that it matters to that shameless crowd.
Chauncy Baker
John, I love you buddy but get your head out of your ass. This post is so 2016.
debbie
Doug Collins’s head would explode.
sukabi
Hillary sneezing as President would have the repubs looking to impeach her or trying to declare her too unwell to continue as president.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: How could you tell?
James E Powell
My response to your tweet was:
From the very beginning of this nightmare, I’ve read that the press/media are at Trump’s mercy because they just don’t know how to handle him. I always say, pretend it’s a Clinton and do what you always do.
NotMax
While ultimately such alternate history scenario spinning is pointless, the real question is how many Democrats would willingly, slavishly carry the polluted water?
Ohio Mom
Hillary didn’t have to do anything to make ‘em go berserk. They are still frothing at the mouth over the dozens of people they are convinced she killed. And you can’t convince them Trump did anything untoward, let alone criminal. They can’t be reasoned with.
Though it is interesting to see Trump’s crimes described as being committed by Clinton. It makes it starker for me because I’m not hung up on being repulsed by the image of Trump in my mind.
Butter Emails
@NotMax:
I would guess less than half.
Citizen Alan
@NotMax:
None. We can’t get Dems in Congress to “slavishly” support a Dem president when hes doing good things!
Jinchi
They were planning to start impeachment hearings against Clinton the day she took office.
Probably over Benghazi, but really, whatever stuck would do.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: It will be interesting in the next election to see if the hysterical ranting whining was a good look for Republicans.
The Dangerman
@sukabi:
Hillary would have been impeached the first time she flushed more than once.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Hillary wouldn’t have to do anything like that, they were planning on impeaching her before she took the oath if she’d won.
John Revolta
@NotMax: Here’s the thing. From the day she was sworn in, a good 30% of the Democrats would be calling for Clinton to resign.
Melusine
They’re christianists. Of course their hypocrisy knows no end. A big part of me wishes Jesus would come back, just to see their faces when they diacover that all the migrant children and Puerto Ricans and black men and Ukrainians and Kurds they murdered are going to heaven while they rot in Hell. God, they deserve it.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Bloody bits all over the ceiling.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: My favorite is saying to one of those nutters, that if Hillary Clinton has had that many people killed and been able to have it covered up so well that virtually no one believes it, why didn’t she just have the President and/or Senator McConnell and/or Congressman Chafetz and/or Congressman Gowdy and/or Bannon and/or the Murdochs and/or all 5 conservative justices on the Supreme Court and/or Ailes and/or Hannity and/or O’Reilly, etc, etc, etc killed? If she’s the worlds most prolific serial killer and if she’s that good at getting away with it, why are any of these people still around and still being mean to her? If she was that much of a master of assassins, wouldn’t these people be smart about it and not say anything negative about her or do anything mean to her?
At that point they usually get a funny look like the hamster wheel is stuck…
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: In places where the House districts are gerrymandered and in states where the demographics are very favorable to Republicans running for reelection in the Senate, it won’t be a problem. The base of the party is convinced that it is the world’s biggest victims and are the only actual real victims in existence today.
Melusine
@debbie:
Obligatory
Jim, Foolish Literalist
all counterfactuals is bunk….
….that said, I firmly believe that if Comey (among other malefactors and blunderers) had not waded into the election, House republicans would have created a free-ranging impeachment committee by June of 2017, investigating everything from the State Dept to her legal career in Arkansas, and it would still be conducing inquiries and holding hearings and running up staffers’ legal bills and Mitch McConnelll would be saying they shouldn’t send their findings to the Senate until… whatever would have let him finish that sentence in a given moment.
Mike in NC
All I want for Christmas is the impeachment of Fat Bastard! Better than one of those Red Ryder BB guns that could put your eye out.
NotMax
It’s also a moot question, Mr. Cole, because what with Ryan and McConnell calling the shots in Congress for the first two years, by 2018 it would have been President Kaine.
;)
Ohio Mom
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve had occasion to see that “stuck hamster wheel” face. It doesn’t last long , their minds snap shut quickly. Still enjoyable for the moments it lasts.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: Ugh. There’d be shit everywhere!
Ohio Mom
That’s weird,where did those boxes in my comment @ 24 come from? I don’t ever have a comment that posts easily anymore. There’s always something screwy happening. Even so, I’ll continue to preserve.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: That was an interesting use of the quote function to create an artistic sense of positive and negative space.
Melusine
@Adam L Silverman:
I have often raised the point that if she actually committed all of the crimes she’s accused of, and the GOP have spent 30 years and MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars investigating her (with most of law enforcement on their side) and have yet to achieve anything, it means one of three things:
1) She’s the most powerful supervillain EVER and no mortal could hope to defeat her, so they’d better shut their holes
2) The GOP is the most incompetent bunch of fucktards to ever existent – which says even less for the morons who keep voting the same impotent losers back into office decade after decade to fail yet again.
3) They’re all in on it, they’re obviously covering for her, and it’s all just a giant show to gin up and distract the rubes.
So is she superhuman, are you a goddamned moron for choosing to vote for idiots, or are they just playing you for a jackass while they all laugh at you in private?
They never answer. I have no patience with their willful stupidity and refusal to apply logic when it doesn’t suit them. Not after the damage they caused, and continue to wreak. Fuck ’em.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: Email me what your problems are with commenting. As much detail as possible including browser, security preference set up, things like that. I have intermittent issues myself and have been having an ongoing conversation with Cole and Watergirl to try to get them fixed.
NotMax
@Ohio Mom
FYWP non carborundum.
:)
You’re not alone.
lumpkin
Yeah, and the NYT would be running hysterical front page stories daily about Hillary’s perfidy instead of the “views differ” stories they are running about trump.
The Dangerman
It would have been interesting to see how they prevented her from filling Scalia’s seat.
sab
@Ohio Mom: I still think of Hillary as a methodist ( eventual grandmother) who went to law school. She was really typical except she was so very bright.
My RWNJ brother absolutely hates her. It really interferes with my relationship with him. If he hates her that much, what must he think of me ( working professional woman.)
He justs wants to be filthy rich. Having strived his whole life, he is just kinda rich. He hates the oligarchs, but he also hates taxes that prevented him from geting more.
He never got married. He only justs works to accumulate.
He has no idea how people like me who are working to feed and house family think. And I will never tell him, because he would just see that as failure on my part.
I am the one who stepped up to look after our parents when they got old and failing. He is the one who turned up at my Mom’s fumeral to preside as the oldest male, then flew off on his airplane to leave me to preside over my demented dad picking up the pieces of his life after his wife died.
I try to hold it in, but I am often unspeakably angry at my siblings. Not the youngest, who is being a good girl in her own family drama.
jonas
Fox and Friends and Hannity would have set up a permanent broadcasting stage in Lafayette Park across from the White House with round-the-clock coverage, vowing not to leave until the “hostage crisis,” namely the Constitution being held captive by President Hillary, was over. Cole’s right: we can’t even wrap our minds around the Category 5 shitstorms Republicans would have ginned up 26 hours a day, 8 days a week, over even 1/10the the crap Trump has pulled. And the most riled up Dems have gotten is Adam Schiff’s “I thank the gentleman” after Devin Nunes has read 20 minutes of 8chan threads into the record during HSCI hearings.
mrmoshpotato
@Ohio Mom: What’s in the box?!
mrmoshpotato
@The Dangerman: Moscow Mitch: Well, ummm, we’ve never had a President with lady parts before. We’re not sure she has the right to nominate judges. We’ll have to investigate this until January 20, 2021 or 2025.
Jay
@Jinchi:
???????
Never forget.
jonas
Just keeping up with the ongoing crimeing is starting to become exhausting. So it appears now that corrupt Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Furtash, in an attempt to bribe his way out of being extradited to the US on — wait for it…bribery charges! — slipped Lev Parnash $1million to spread around Trumpworld and the Republican Party in order to make his legal problems go away. When that didn’t work, he apparently turned to Giuliani with an offer to manufacture allegations against Biden.
This is totally normal.
Jay
@jonas:
Jay
mrmoshpotato
@jonas: “Good morning! Here are the crimes the Soviet shitpile traitorous Trump trash crime family committed over night! Caught up? No you’re not! Why? More crimes!”
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Get off my lawn! No, I don’t have to give you figgy pudding.
Jay
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes you do have to give me my figgy pudding or I’ll tell Mrs. Claus that you have been a bad boy,
And you know how that ends,…….
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Getting spanked with a lump of coal? How weird.
Also, how was coal a threat back when it was burned for warmth? No toys but a bunch of free fuel to keep warm during winter! Well thought out Kringle!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Impeachment is the reason for the season
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
My Advent Calendar says that this year its the Gimp in the Trunk but, not coal. Coal’s been banned by the ecoconsious Claus’s. clause?
Any way, carbon taxes in the North.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Open source drawing software in the trunk!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Speaking of what if. I’d like to visit Wake Atoll or Midway Atoll. Unfortunately, both are closed to the public. Midway was essentially closed in 2013 due to budget cuts.
They say public access is not allowed, but I can’t find any penalties for unauthorized access specifically spelled out.
What are the odds of Midway being opened up to tours again?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Test
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Carrier battle with the Japanese navy.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Also, who wants to tour an airport? :)
Mike in NC
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The recent movie “Midway” was very good compared to the 1976 dud with the big budget stars.
Mary G
I feel bad I didn’t contrive a way to protest tonight. I binged Watchmen yesterday and today and tonight I am going through Chernobyl. They pronounce Kiev as Kee-ev, two syllables. From the hearings and the news I thought it was Keeve, rhymes with peeve as in pet peeve.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Chicken keeve!
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Mike in NC: From watching the trailers it looked like a pedestrian Michael Bay action movie (“The Rock”). You’re saying it was better than that?
Yarrow
@Mary G: I have read that the difference in pronunciation is the difference between Russian pronunciation and Ukrainian pronunciation. Russians pronounce it Kee-ev, which is probably why they’re pronouncing it that way in Chernobyl. Ukrainians pronounce it more “Keev,” which is why the various people who testified during the hearings were pronouncing it that way. It’s a sign of respect to the Ukrainians to pronounce it the preferred Ukrainian way.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Not all that much to see.
Yarrow
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Unlikely it’ll be reopened under this administration. It looks like you can volunteer with the Fish and Wildlife service and maybe get to visit.
So you’re asking what the penalties might be to violate a no-visitation order from the US Government and enforced by the US Military? Not sure it’s the best idea to do something that will cause you to find out.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mike in NC:
Yeah, but it was directed by the history illiterate Roland Emmerich, the same guy who sincerely thinks that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays
He’s apparently had difficulty funding this film:
Not a black mark against him or the film. Studios and audiences prefer franchise films these days, especially superhero films. Ask Martin Scorsese, for example, for his opinion on such films, as much as he comes across as snob in my opinion
piratedan
as a budding teenager, I watched the Nixon impeachment. Understood that even in my fledgling mind that bugging and sabotaging the campaigns of political opponents was essentially a line that shouldn’t be crossed. You should make your pitch to the voters, convince them that your ideas and stands on the issues were ones that mattered to you but also being willing to listen to the other side and be open to new information….
Then the Clinton impeachment came along and I understood how fraught this was… on one hand, we have a man, being unfaithful to his wife, and then lying about it when confronted with it because he happened to succumb or seduce (depending upon your POV and perhaps there were elements of both) a naive woman who was attracted to him and yet was not exactly wise in the ways of politics to know who she was disclosing her secrets to. Which then fueled the ambition of a political party to score points against a popular President. Did I like that he lied, no… did I understand why he did so… yes, yes I did. Did the investigation about possible land fraud from a decade before wander too far afield… arguably…
and now we have the same bad faith actors back on the stage again, this time with a cast of characters without any seemingly beneficial qualities, engaged in voter fraud, treason, campaign finance violations, extortion, bribery, perjury, obstruction, emoluments violations, sexual assault and violation of international laws in regards to asylum and refugee status. In thrall to a foreign dictator who feeds them money by which they turn to control all aspects of legislative and judicial power. This time the issue isn’t just the administration but an entire political party that aids and abets his behavior, when its not committing its own illegalities and “self-serving” interpretations of the laws and the Constitution itself.
I look at what has changed in these last 45 years and I keep cycling back to two things…
The GOP apparently believes that when they are in charge, they are justified in anything that they do while in charge and that anything that they do to be in charge is also justifiable…
The New York Times, and media as a whole, apparently never got over being scooped by a couple of dudes who really had been incredibly lucky, tenacious and fortunate to work where they did to both follow the story (and the mistakes made along the way) and in getting it published and a media that when reporting on their coverage were forced to realize what had been uncovered and did so in such a fashion as to let the facts unfold for those that could watch and summarize accurately what took place for those that could not.
Since that time, the GOP has decided that the best way to cope with the events that brought it down during the Nixon years were to make a mockery of the impeachment process itself via the Clinton Impeachment and to control their own media outlets and destroy the fairness doctrine that allowed dispassionate accurate reporting to be made available to anyone who cared to watch and listen.
IMHO, this can’t be repeated and restated enough… the GOP is no longer an American political entity, it is a fascist political movement, and the sooner we come to grips with this fact, the sooner we can remove this tumor from the body politic.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Yarrow:
Emphasis on maybe. And don’t you have to be a trained scientist to volunteer? Pretty sure they’re not going to let some rando with no relevant experience join.
I was more curious than anything. I guess I’m pissed that I probably won’t be able to visit these scenic places in my lifetime (climate change will destroy them this century), mostly because of Republican BS in 2013 (the sequester, I think). On top of that, I’m annoyed with it because I don’t see why public access should be restricted in the first place. Let private, accredited tours take place if budget cuts are the reason for closure
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Yarrow:
Emphasis on maybe. And don’t you have to be a trained scientist to volunteer? Pretty sure they’re not going to let some rando with no relevant experience join.
I was more curious than anything. I guess I’m pissed that I probably won’t be able to visit these scenic places in my lifetime (climate change will destroy them this century), mostly because of Republican BS in 2013 (the sequester, I think). On top of that, I’m annoyed with it because I don’t see why public access should be restricted in the first place. Let private, accredited tours take place if budget cuts are the reason for closure
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Test
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I was told there would be no test on this blog
smike
@piratedan:
‘Like’ button clicked.
smike
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Just curious. What is it with the mike checks? Is you comment delayed in showing up?
ETA: This comment ended up throwing me to the top and then, after navigating down back to the end, I had to refresh to see the above.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
LOL
@smike:
I do them so I can edit previous comments. The edit box disappears a lot. If I make a new comment sometimes it will reappear
Melusine
@mrmoshpotato: ?????