Closing arguments today. Ken Starr is speaking of Martin Luther King.
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Closing arguments today. Ken Starr is speaking of Martin Luther King.
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zhena gogolia
They’re fighting to the last. I wish they could prevail.
schrodingers_cat
This will not be forgotten
In the words of the poet Amir Aziz
Everything will be remembered
Each and everything will be remembered
germy
Disney Releasing Hamilton Movie With Original Broadway Cast Next Fall
Probably Not an Asshole mistermix
“Letter from the par 4 7th green at Mar-A-Lago” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”, but I’m sure Starr is making a great argument.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat:
Everything will be remembered
Each and everything will be remembered
I hope so. I really cannot bear to watch the trial, and certainly not the SOTU. I always hoped a few Republicans would find their spines.
But no. It’s Democrats “failing” again. (Thanks, BBC. That’s exactly how they framed it.)
We live in interesting times, headed for fascinating times. Proud to be a Democrat, though.
WaterGirl
I am apparently out of sync with what’s happening in the hearings today. Have we already done the amendments thing that was talked about at the end of last week? Or do those come after the closing arguments?
@germy: I can’t wait to see that.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Just in time for the end of the republic.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Read this.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Ah. Jennifer Rubin. Will do.
I think we should send her flowers. She will no doubt aggravate us in the future. But she’s been solid on a lot of this. I heart her, and ombudsman Margaret Sullivan, and treasure Alexandra Petri …
Reading it now.
germy
@WaterGirl:
Lin-Manuel Miranda
@Lin_Manuel
Disney presents: Hamilton. With The Original Broadway Cast. Filmed onstage at The Richard Rodgers Theatre. In A Theater Near You. October 15, 2021. #Hamilfilm
NotMax
@germy
Rewritten to feature a princess?
Ohio Mom
I’m not watching, this caught my eye:
“Kenneth Starr is speaking of Martin Luther King.”
This boggles my mind and nauseates me.
I don’t have a morbid enough imagination to begin to fathom what nonsense Starr is spinning.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Do we have to start quoting this in every thread? :-)
I think it would probably help me if we did!
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom:
I can’t watch one second of the passel of liars the Republicans are putting forward. But I try to catch our people when I can. They are magnificent.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: It’s short, so I am putting Jennifer Rubin’s whole article up, for those facing a WaPost paywall. Which is hardly fair use (my bad), but wanted more jackals to see it. And thank you for spotlighting it.
Also, may history judge these courageous Democrats (and spineless GOP) way more quickly than we expect. Maybe the conventional wisdom will turn rapidly (as for the tax cut benefitting the wealthy, passed without a single Democratic vote).
Jennifer Rubin: Distinguished Pols of the week: It Depends on the meaning of “winning”
We always knew that two-thirds of the Senate was not going to vote to remove President Trump. However, if at the onset of the president’s impeachment trial, you had told me that the House managers would methodically prove to the satisfaction of any rational human being that Trump extorted a foreign government to announce baseless allegations against a political rival; would be able to tease out that the Trumpian Republican Party is now devoted to the notion that the president can do no wrong (at least no impeachable wrong) in pursuit of reelection; would reveal the utter spinelessness of Republican senators as accomplices to a coverup; and even manage to prove the proceedings not only illegitimate but not even a “trial” in everyday parlance, I would have said that was asking too much.
Had you told me the House managers would reveal that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was, according to former national security adviser John Bolton, physically present when Trump issued his corrupt orders and, therefore, perpetrated a fraud on the Senate and committed a grievous professional breach of ethics, I would have doubted it.
Had you told me the House managers could present damning evidence of the involvement of acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, thoroughly debunked the Crowdstrike conspiracy, removed any doubt that former vice president Joe Biden had acted in the national interest in pressuring Ukraine to fire a corrupt prosecutor and made perfectly clear that Biden was the 2020 candidate Trump fears the most, I (and likely, Biden) wouldn’t have believed it.
Along the way, House managers stripped the bark off phony Republican hawks who could find nothing wrong with extorting an ally in a hot war with Russia, decapitated “constitutional conservatives” who have become defenders of autocracy and showed off some of their brightest stars including Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), Jason Crow (Colo.), Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Val Demings (Fla.).
History will treat them all well and take note that when truth and constitutional government were on the line they did their jobs in exemplary fashion. That is “winning” by any legitimate measure. And for that we can say, well done.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom:
The earth should have opened up and swallowed him.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I’m astounded at how little attention people are paying to this. Why aren’t people out in the streets? (I say as I sit at my desk.)
MattF
Susan Collins got a bunch of dollars from a PAC in Hawaii. And a month before her (I presume) vote to acquit…
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Jeez, it seems the Ruben conversion may actually stick. She’s been very good at rightly pointing out Republican morality and leadership collapse, but I’ve not seen her spotlight virtuous and patriotic Democrats before.
Welcome to this side, Jen, we have cookies too so help yourself.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan:
She wrote beautiful pieces all through the trial, sometimes several a day.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: My hairdresser and I do not discuss politics, but I asked her last week if people are talking about the impeachment, because I was curious about whether regular people are paying attention.
She said she (personally) never talks politics with her clients, but she did say that it was clear to her – maybe other people there do talk with their clients? – that regular people are paying attention.
I hope she’s right.
MattF
@trollhattan: She’s praised individual Democrats (including Pelosi) for standing up to Trump in an effective way. Rarely, if ever, has much to say about policy any more– but that’s OK with me.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
My trainer said some of her clients are “losing it” (in the same way we are), but she has a pretty liberal clientele for the most part.
Elizabelle
@MattF: WRT Susan Collins: I think her furrowed brow vote for witnesses (once it was sure there were not enough votes to assure passage) was because she’s got a powerful challenger.
Ms. Furrowed Brow has a real fight ahead.
Also, WRT people from Maine: I am informed that horror author Stephen King completely deleted his Facebook profile. Off Zuckerfuck’s platform for good.
He decries Facebook’s allowing lies and propaganda.
He will stick with Twitter, which has taken a stand against the lying and trolling and disinformation (that Zuckerfuck apparently finds too profitable to forbid).
zhena gogolia
Just as I have come to adore Schiff, Jeffries, Lofgren, Crow, and Demings, I have come to LOATHE Cipollone, Philbin and Sekulow with the fire of a thousand suns.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
She really has been stellar. I truly hope the scales have fallen from her eyes permanently. I don’t want to hate her now!
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT but active shooter in a Texas A&M dorm. At least 2 dead, say preliminary reports
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And. It’s Monday.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I agree about all of them but Lofgren. I don’t have the patience to watch/listen to her. Apparently she doesn’t make her points quickly enough for me? I don’t know exactly why I react that way, but i don’t have infinite time, so I fast forward through hers and the Rs so I have more time for the rest.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
Same idea as with that Trump commercial last night. It’s a thing they do.
A Ghost To Most
Suppose McConnell has driven everything towards the vote, with the intention of keeping Mushmelon off the scent, then tells his folks to cut the GOP’s boat anchor to save his tribe?
Yea, I don’t believe it either.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And there was a shooting in a California Greyhound bus.
zhena gogolia
@A Ghost To Most:
Sorry, but no.
zhena gogolia
Of course during the 20 minutes when I could watch some of it, it’s been all evil Republicans the whole time.
John Revolta
Grrrrr. Fucking Ken Starr needs to keep Dr King’s name out of his lying pig mouth.
WaterGirl
I have the teeniest, tiniest hope that somewhere in the senate is one Republican who will not be able to ignore all the evidence and sell our democracy down the river, and is smart enough to keep totally mum about the decision until it’s time to vote, at which point it will be a fate accompli.
Is there any reason that a whole bunch of Rs (who may have the tiniest bit of a conscience) cannot abstain from voting or vote PRESENT or however that works, so that Trump is found guilty, but they do not have to be on the record as voting against the president?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
The reason is, they support Trump over the Constitution.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
One of my coworkers came to my desk to alert me. ??
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
If there were any ANY Republicans of integrity, we’d be hearing witnesses this week.
The only one who might possibly vote to convict is Romney, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, and it wouldn’t matter anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m assuming as good internet political junkies you’ve all seen the bombshell poll revealing that (hold on to your wigs and keys) twitter Democrats are to left of the Democrats as a party. But this tidbit I think does say so much about the extremely on-line:
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Clearly, we need to start voting by tweet, like they do on The Voice.
Mnemosyne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Isn’t Texas one of the states that allows students to keep their guns in their dorm room?
And I’m going to call it now: I will bet that it was a guy who went to kill his ex-girlfriend and decided to shoot anyone who tried to get in his way.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Raise your hand if you find this surprising in any way.
Yeah, me neither. ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: link to the poll at the link
schrodingers_cat
OT For over month women of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi have held an outdoor sit-in protest. BJP has tried to disrupt the protests, in many way including sending two gunmen to fire rounds to create panic. BJP is getting more and desperate as polling day for the Delhi assembly elections approaches (this Saturday). So today a Sikh farmers group from Punjab decided to join the sit-in.
ETA: According to opinion polls, AAP is favored to retain the majority in Delhi.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Another week in America.
Chyron HR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Anyone else remember when Bernie’s
deranged assthoroughly reasonable and well-informed supporters claimed that the New York primary was rigged because they didn’t bother registering to vote in it?Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The percentage of moderates in the party gives me heartburn.
The numbers aren’t as skewed as the tweets make them seem, though.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Democratic Party has to accommodate every non-cray constituency these days, from the self-described “conservatives” who somehow didn’t get roped into the Trump cult to unabashed Marxists. It’s just not sustainable.
The other day a commenter said we either have to render the Republican Party irrelevant or become irrelevant ourselves (paraphrasing). Maybe that’s true.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Where is Nadler? Was it my imagination or did he usurp Schiff’s closing statement on Friday?
zhena gogolia
@HalfAssedHomesteader:
His wife just got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, so he hasn’t been as prominent as we expected. I think Schiff let him come in at the end as a kind of honor or something.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@zhena gogolia: I see. Thank you. Hoping she pulls through.
Elizabelle
@JPL: It was hard to even find the article about the 2 gun deaths at Texas A&M. (Incidentally, in Commerce, TX — not the main campus.)
Had to specifically google for it. Not breaking news. Same old, same old. (Of course, today does have a lot going on. Impeachment, coronavirus, Super Bowl, Shakira …)
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
You don’t think neoliberal Marxism can work?
How about Marxist neoliberalism?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I look at what is happening in India and curiously enough it gives me hope. If they can stand up to a government that throw peaceful protesters into custody, encourages people to shoot at protestors, has killed more than 30 people in the last month. We can stand up to the Rs.
Those religious Sikh men in their blue turbans and flowing beards standing with their Muslim sisters protesting the Hindu fascists gives me hope.
Jo Bole so nihaal
Sat Sri Akal
(If I were Buttigieg I would claim to know Punjabi)
bemused senior
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I lived in Commerce as a young teenager, when the college was East Texas State College. My dad was stationed there running the Air Force ROTC detachment. Still segregated at the time, and RWNJ prolific. Many stories about my liberal FDR Dem dad. I now have to go find out what motivated the shooter.
MazeDancer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not on my feed, thank heavens. Where Bernie is loathed at a Trumpian level.
Lots of women on my feed. All ages, all nationalities, races, and religions. All despise Bernie.
As do the men. That is the men who are real people, not journalists.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
For your mental health, you don’t want to know.
But it brings up a valid question.
Is every fucking republican, up to the top of their pointy little heads, just 100% full of shit? They spew it in every direction every time their mouths are open the slightest bit. It’s like they have diarrhea and their mouths are directly connected to their asses. Of course they may be connected to someone’s ass. Remora politicians – ass sucking morons….
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think Dems have the party (or media) machinery to purge and discipline wayward members. I guess we could look to Republicans in order to see how it’s done… but that just doesn’t seem to me to be such a great idea.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes. It’s stressful but people have overcome much greater obstacles.
zhena gogolia
Crow just gave an incredible speech.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@zhena gogolia:
Oh how sad
opiejeanne
@HalfAssedHomesteader: Nadler’s wife has pancreatic cancer and I see someone else posted first.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@bemused senior:
I only saw the A&M story because one of their faculty members is on my twitter feed. They’d been ordered to shelter in place. I see that order has now been lifted.
Betty
Schiff putting it all out there. Taking no prisoners . Wow!
FelonyGovt
@germy: In a bus going over the Grapevine. One dead, five wounded.
delk
Limbaugh just announced he has advanced lung cancer.
Jamie
@delk: Man, I’ve tried to make a habit of not wishing ill on bad people or celebrating when bad things happen to them, but the Trump Administration has broken my resolve…
Elizabelle
@delk: No tears.
I hope he gets excellent palliative care.
Mo MacArbie
@Chyron HR: I remember that, and I was of two minds about it. First, of course, it was horseshit. Failing to give his supporters crucial information to be able to vote for him was a failure of his campaign. Then cynically pulling out a number of people denied the vote and sliding 100% of them into his column to declare victory if not for Hillary rigging it was utter Berniemath crap.
On the other hand, everything about voting in New York is fucked, and any argument against it is a good one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I would’ve bet money Bolton would’ve dropped another bomb today
schrodingers_cat
OT respite
It is Waheeda Rahman’s 82 birthday.
From Pyaasa
Great actor and an incredible dancer. Gurudutt’s muse, she is in Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam (Boss, Wife and Slave), Pyaasa (Parched), and Kagaz ke phool (Paper flowers). Also Gurudutt’s film noir for Navketan, CID.
laura
@delk: Delk, thank you for this update. Best news I’ve heard all dreary day. I hope that he gets the kind of care and attention he has deserved/earned. Also, Professional panty sniffer Ken Starr needs to keep Dr. King’s name out of his vile filty mouth.
CaseyL
@delk: Best news I’ve heard today. Hope it’s untreatable and he dies horribly.
A Ghost To Most
@delk: thoughts and prayers.
opiejeanne
@CaseyL: I think that’s what happens with lung cancer, but he’ll probably be so full of hillbilly heroin that he won’t feel much.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I agree with you that it’s not a good idea to purge and discipline party members like Republicans do. But on the other hand, that poll found that nearly 10% of Democrats/Dem leaners describe themselves as “conservative” or “very conservative,” and I suspect the party is home to a lot more people who don’t think of themselves as conservatives despite being “conservatives” in the classical sense.
The poll doesn’t say, but I’d be gobsmacked if there were a similar number of Republicans who call themselves “liberal” or “very liberal.” There used to be, but they’ve been extinct for ages.
It’s not the Democratic Party’s fault that the Republican Party has collapsed as an institution that wants to win a majority of voters rather than relying on gerrymandering, voter suppression, cheating and structural advantages and is also uninterested in civic virtue once in office. But here we are.
This collapse changed BOTH parties, shrinking one tent and expanding the other, which sounds great in theory, but not when it expands to an unsustainable degree that creates the kind of schisms that put the whole project in mortal peril. But again, here we are. Something’s gotta give.
sdhays
@laura: He’s a professional rapist protector. Just the other day I heard the jowls of wisdom (Mark Shields) refer to Starr’s rape coverup and rapist protection scandal as an “athletic controversy” (or some other absurd euphemism). I almost gagged.
bjacques
@A Ghost To Most: May he be remembered with all due honor
Llelldorin
@zhena gogolia:
Because you have to want to pay attention to this. This isn’t like Vietnam, which would haul you or your sons off to war even if you preferred to ignore it—for the moment, if you don’t pay attention, nothing appears to be very wrong.
Eventually, if we stay on this path, that won’t be true—eventually misrule comes home to roost. For now, the best we can do is keep pushing and pointing out the insanity of this path.
A Ghost To Most
@zhena gogolia: Agreed, as stated. Also as stated previously, the mutton busting portion of this rodeo is over.
This ant worries about all the grasshoppers.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
The split is basically white supremacy vs inclusion. Until/unless that gets resolved, we’re going to be having a whole lot of fights about other policies.
I think it’s healthy to have a business party and a workers’ party figuring out policies that work for both groups, but we can’t have that as long as open white supremacy is the dividing line.
mrmoshpotato
@A Ghost To Most: Good prayers, bad prayers?
(No, I couldn’t help myself.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The disparity between these numbers and the Iowa numbers is… not encouraging to me.
TomatoQueen
@delk: My full-throated cheer is checked by somebody with a prim mouth who says things like “Never say hate,”. May he receive what he deserves.
TriassicSands
@trollhattan:
Careful. Jen supported the GOP long after it became thoroughly corrupt. She was still a Republican when Mitch McConnell was destroying the Senate.
She hates Trump (hell, his wife probably hates Trump) but that does not make her a Democrat or even a friend. At best, she’s a temporary ally. Watch your back.
kabiddle
@zhena gogolia:
Mnemosyne
@delk:
Ugh. That is a very unpleasant way to go. That’s what my older brother had.
kabiddle
The giant orange turnip has had his say. A progressive voice today is most helpful. Go out and vote!
mrmoshpotato
@TriassicSands: Amen TS.
NotMax
@CaseyL
That is a disgusting sentiment.
WaterGirl
OT, but checking in on the active threads to ask for confirmation that (hopefully) the evil ads are gone.
tam1MI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Re: the Morning Consult poll, I’m struck by how quickly Bloomberg has vaulted to the front ranks.
MJS
I wonder if all of Limbaugh’s NDAs survive his death.
CaseyL
@NotMax: I’m not apologizing. If anyone deserves a miserable death, it’s Limbaugh.
Bruce K
Gods above forgive me, but I cannot summon one iota of sympathy for Rush Limbaugh. He helped deliver America to the neo-fascists ruling it now, and in doing so, condemned innocents to death. He exulted in the pain and misery of others, and for that, I cannot forgive him.
joel hanes
@schrodingers_cat:
Never to forget
Never to forgive
Geminid
Rachel Bittecofer’s polling outfit,(Wason Center) at Christopher Newport University), polled Virginians on a number of issues after last November’s election. A couple of you cited the high numbers favoring gun safety measures. Something that struck me was that when they asked respondents to describe their own ideology, 7% said very liberal, 13% said liberal, and 23% said moderate, leaning liberal.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Manchin is speaking on the floor. Sounds to me like Manchin will vote to acquit “to heal the nation”. Fvcker.
joel hanes
@Chyron HR:
I remember that at the 2016 Nevada Democratic caucus, some of the Sanders delegates never showed up at all, and over sixty of the ones who did show up had never bothered to register as Democrats. Yet they were aggrieved when they did not prevail.
zhena gogolia
Wow, I just managed to watch Schiff’s speech. In tears.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s what I was muttering to myself while listening to those bastards! Starr and Sekulow especially.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I thought she was great. Her approach was calm and Warren-like: a good mother patiently explaining to small, recalcitrant children that they are very huge assholes.
debbie
@Betty:
“You know he will do it again!” BOOM!
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
Congressman Schiff is a great speaker, perhaps the best since Obama. Up there with John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Because he speaks from his heart. And for the nation!
J R in WV
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