Don’t Agonize – Organize

Russiagate Open Thread: One Step At A Time…

by Anne Laurieat8:09 pm on June 4, 2019. It has 151 Comments.

Harry Reid now says that the House should open an impeachment inquiry against Trump. https://t.co/4nWkqZ6r2C
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 4, 2019

Note carefully, he’s not disagreeing with Pelosi — this is the next step in the essential choreography to block off every Repub bolthole:

Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who as recently as last month cautioned Democrats about the perils of pursuing President Trump’s impeachment, now says the House should open an impeachment inquiry that might or might not lead to a formal effort to remove him from office.
“It’s not the right thing to do nothing,” Reid said in an interview Monday with USA TODAY. “It’s not the right thing to jump into impeachment without doing an inquiry.”
The most important goal, he said, would be to “give the American people a view of what’s going on.”
The House could establish an impeachment panel to investigate the allegations that some say amount to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” necessary under the Constitution to remove a president from office. But such a panel wouldn’t necessarily vote to impeach Trump — that is, to approve Articles of Impeachment that would send the process to the Senate for a trial….
Reid’s comments are also notable because he had what he called “a front-row seat” at the nation’s last impeachment trial, when Reid was Senate minority leader. Then, the Republican-controlled House voted to impeach Clinton, but the Senate didn’t convict him in the trial that followed.
That impeachment effort rebounded politically against GOP candidates in the 1998 midterm elections.
Reid acknowledged the potential political blowback and the likelihood that the current GOP-controlled Senate would never vote to remove Trump from office…
In the end, he said, “I just think that Republicans are going arm-in-arm with Trump, right over the cliff.” But he said public opinion might be affected by a systematic effort to explore allegations that Trump tried to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation and engaged in other wrongdoing….

Pelosi told members yesterday that a concern of hers, re-impeachment, is lack of understanding by the public. Even the educated voters she meets around the country, she said, assume that once you being proceedings, Trump is immediately ousted from office. https://t.co/Jvu83Aye17
— Sam Stein (@samstein) June 4, 2019

Impeachment would be so easy though. https://t.co/hNsrheWSTE
— Molotov Frappuccino Thrower (@agraybee) June 4, 2019

Courts are more likely to enforce subpoenas like these once the hearings become part of an impeachment inquiry than they are as long as the House refuses to bite that bullet. As matters stand, it’s too easy to depict it as stonewalling v. footdragging.https://t.co/tI9I0eiZCa
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) June 4, 2019

Just think of what he’ll say if he’s exonerated in the Senate.
— Jake Snider (@jakehsnider) June 4, 2019

To illustrate how different politics was back then, this was Jimmy Carter's electoral map. pic.twitter.com/XDkYAsvi8H
— Molotov Frappuccino Thrower (@agraybee) June 4, 2019

This post is in Don't Agonize - Organize, Flash Mob of Hate, Indict the MOFO, NANCY SMASH!, Open Thread, Republican Venality, Russiagate and has 151 Comments.

Ohio Jackals – Contact Info For Your Legislators

by Cheryl Roferat1:51 pm on May 12, 2019. It has 23 Comments.

If you are enraged about Ohio’s vile forced-pregnancy bill (H.B. 182), debbie has compiled a list of the sponsor and co-sponsors the members of the Insurance Committee who began hearings on the bill last week.. I’m going to put them below the fold. Keep in mind that the Insurance Committee is hearing the bill and is not responsible for it. The Sponsor and Co-Sponsors want the bill to become law. Write, call, demonstrate! Let these people know what you think! Read more

This post is in A Woman's Place Is In The House, Domestic Politics, domestic terrorists, Don't Agonize - Organize, Enhanced Protest Techniques, Politics, Protest Is the New Brunch and has 23 Comments.

Registration tables vs. Mortality tables

by David Andersonat7:40 am on May 9, 2019. It has 37 Comments.

American politics right now is basically a race of the registration tables against the mortality tables.

Charles Franklin has a great graph on Twitter looking at mid-term voter participation rates by age for 2010, 2014, and 2018.

There are a few take-aways here. First, the probability of voting by age pretty steadily increases as cohorts age until about age 75 or so and then it drops off. Secondly, the slopes are fairly similar over time; it is a matter of levels for the differences in turn-out. Young voters increased their voting rates faster than almost any one else in 2018.

Age is a strong dividing line. Pew shows this nicely from a poll in January 2019:

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Tell It, Senator Warren!

by Anne Laurieat4:57 am on May 9, 2019. It has 132 Comments.

When Warren arrived at work Tuesday, she had no intention of calling for Trump's impeachment on Senate floor. Mitch McConnell made her do it, she said.
“I felt a responsibility to go to the floor to say: ‘Case not closed, buddy,’” she says in interview https://t.co/wuHOoq7Vnl
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 8, 2019

"I had never intended this to be any part of my presidential campaign. I’m running on how to make this government work," Warren says of impeachment. Dems say it's good for primary, potentially bad for the general
Seems "a popular position with the Democratic base," says Shaheen
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) May 8, 2019

As is her wont, Warren is serving as point-person here. And — as is hers — Speaker Pelosi is proceeding, with all due deliberation, along the same path:

#BREAKING: Pelosi says Barr should be held in contempt of Congress, impeachment isn't "off the table" https://t.co/LuJx0bluK7 pic.twitter.com/chLx4pRvcZ
— The Hill (@thehill) May 8, 2019

This post is in Don't Agonize - Organize, Fuck Yeah!, I'm With Her, Open Thread, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality, Warren for President 2020 and has 132 Comments.

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Lock HIM Up!

by Anne Laurieat11:00 pm on May 1, 2019. It has 77 Comments.

Here is the complete exchange, via CSPAN, between Kamala Harris and Bill Barr — including the part where Barr couldn't say whether Trump or anyone in the White House has ever suggested that he open an investigation into anyone. It's worth a watch. pic.twitter.com/wJOdSFR7JR
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 1, 2019

Nadler stops short of calling on Barr to resign but says: “I think there are great difficulties for the attorney general at this point. Besides the fact that he clearly misled the American people, he seems to have testified non truthfully to the Senate and the House”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 1, 2019

Shorter #Barr: @realDonaldTrump is the real victim here, and he was entitled to stop the investigation.
— Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) May 1, 2019

Shorter Klobuchar: I read the damn report and you know this is obstruction.
Shorter Barr: I know. I don't care.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 1, 2019

Was Barr sworn in on a redacted Bible?
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) May 1, 2019

AG Barr is a disgrace, and his alarming efforts to suppress the Mueller report show that he's not a credible head of federal law enforcement. He should resign—and based on the actual facts in the Mueller report, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the President.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 1, 2019

Politico, “Democrats weigh a ‘Benghazi Trump’ strategy”:

Democrats may not be able to saddle President Donald Trump with impeachment proceedings or pry documents from his administration, but they have another means of bludgeoning him: hearings, hearings and more hearings.
Read more

This post is in #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, Dolt 45, Don't Agonize - Organize, Fuck Yeah!, Impeach the Motherfucker!, Open Thread, Proud to Be A Democrat, Repubs in Disarray! and has 77 Comments.