Mega-Thread: Impeachment Proceedings & Inquiry of Trump

[Shalcker]

So it's okay when the trumpsters use that tactic? Hypocrite much?

Trumpsters have nothing to do with me.

Haven't seen "trumpsters" saying "Clinton didn't deny she is Russian asset" either.

[cubby]

I have friends who I tried to debate on that because they are firm Trump supporters, but they are also avid cult members of the Fox tribe and anything that they say MUST be true and anything they don't believe can't be true regardless of evidence.

They understand the national debt went up during Obama, their knowledge ends at that, they don't understand what the deficit is or how it relates or what it was under Obama, Bush, or even Trump.

Obama was the warmonger who also was their Muslim brother like some Schrodinger's president when they neglect the fact that Bush started those wars and Obama didn't pull out willingly and was forced to due to an international agreement Bush Jr. signed before leaving office with a set withdraw date that Obama tried to get extended and failed.

They believe that jobs and the economy free fell during Obama and had little to nothing to do with Bush and that it all magically reversed as soon as Trump took office.

To be a Trump supporter at this point, you either have to be an uninformed useful idiot to traitors or, if you are actually informed, you are a traitor to the United States yourself. There is no real other option shorting being Doctor Who and causing massive damage now to teach conservatives a lesson so they don't repeat it later with an actual intelligent dictator wannabe but no one has that level of knowledge and most Republicans I have met lack that level of critical thinking and generally try to make excuses.

Literally have debates with one of the kids of a Republican congressman, I actually had them trying to tell me the Mueller report didn't say what it actually came out and said where it said Mueller wasn't allowed to indict or even say he was guilty and them claiming they read it themselves and tried to use the logic that it was lawyer legalese and hard for most people to understand. I linked them the entire section showing them where it blatantly came out and said it and they basically tried to pull a Trump of "It doesn't say what it says" and they actually believed that.

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if we'll actually find a way through. Because I agree with all the frustrations and discombobulations you illustrate here, and I don't see how we can ever find common ground with people who genuinely refuse to recognize reality.

[Endus]

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if we'll actually find a way through. Because I agree with all the frustrations and discombobulations you illustrate here, and I don't see how we can ever find common ground with people who genuinely refuse to recognize reality.

The problem is that there needs to be an agreed-upon common ground of reality. We can disagree about the best path forward, and have useful debates and arguments about which to tread. We can't be disagreeing about the basic facts, the statistical data. Once you're engaging in that, you're abandoning reality to push an argument based on imagination and fantasy. Something that is, pretty much definitively, delusional.

There's no discussion to be had with that kind of viewpoint. It's flatly wrong. And there's no way to prove it's wrong to people who believe it, because they don't care about the truth, or the facts. They've deliberately abandoned those in favor of their delusion. There is not one piece of evidence you can present that they will accept as true, if it contradicts their delusion. There is no argument you can present that contradicts their irrationality, that they will pay attention to. If they would, they couldn't be believing what they're arguing to begin with.

The only thing you can do is to deny them consideration, and refuse to play ball until they give up the delusion and get back to discussing the same reality we all actually live in.

That "common ground" is reality. And we can't make them come to that table. We have to wait for them to choose to, and do everything we can to block everything they push based on their delusions.

[cubby]

Fox News grills Mulvaney on his quid pro quo remarks - pointing out time and again that Mulvaney claims of being misunderstood are lies.

What's really frightening is that Mulvaney still has a job, and he's lying - literally lying to everyone's face - about what he said. We're starting to see how the Trump administration is going to get very scary as it all crumbles around them.

[Milchshake]

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if we'll actually find a way through. Because I agree with all the frustrations and discombobulations you illustrate here, and I don't see how we can ever find common ground with people who genuinely refuse to recognize reality.

It's waay deeper than disagreements on reality.
Right-wing pundits have joked about murdering people on the left for years. In the 1990s, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh quipped, "I tell people: 'Don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for.'" His words were echoed recently by the neo-Nazi Chris Cantwell, who ranted in a Gab post that leftists should face "complete and total destruction." Memes and jokes about "free helicopter rides" for leftists like Bernie Sanders have become common on the right as well. This is a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who murdered some of his left-wing opponents by throwing them from helicopters.

In 2015, another far-right figure echoed this animus even more crudely. "Had Dylann Roof reached political maturity he would have seen the word is not nigger, but liberal," wrote John Russell Houser. Shortly after he wrote those words in his journal, he opened fire in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, that was screening Amy Schumer's Trainwreck. Conservative media had criticized the film for pushing immoral liberal values. That day, Houser killed two people and injured nine.

It's obviously impossible to draw a direct line between words like Limbaugh's and actions like Houser's. But we know that violent language and violent fantasies are often used to create a climate in which beatings and even murder are permissible. In his 2017 book, Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, David Neiwert discusses Limbaugh and Howser, and notes that rhetoric like theirs reflects a politics of "eliminationism ... whose goal is to excise whole segments of the population in the name of making it 'healthy.'" When Nazis compared Jews to rats, they were dehumanizing a targeted population in order to prepare the country to accept the need to exterminate them.

The Right doesn't really want to debate the Left. It wants to exterminate the Left.

[Thepersona]

Fox News grills Mulvaney on his quid pro quo remarks - pointing out time and again that Mulvaney claims of being misunderstood are lies.

What's really frightening is that Mulvaney still has a job, and he's lying - literally lying to everyone's face - about what he said. We're starting to see how the Trump administration is going to get very scary as it all crumbles around them.

I'm happy that this happened. But i suspect that Barr will go again to Fox News, in order to force them to bow to their god king.

BTW I'm Still alive. Piñera (our president) just said this is an internal war, so no biggie.

[Azadina]

The only ones continuing to talk about civil war are those on the right.

And even then it's right wing militants and the like indiscriminately killing liberals and such. That's not a civil war, it's just domestic terrorism.

It's all they have. Fantasies about establishing glorious Gilead, but back in reality they only have small bands of thugs willing to do anything at all about it. While the random terrorist acts are tragic, in the bigger picture the Trumpkins are a breed facing a natural extinction in the coming decades. Old age gets us all, and they're looking at it in the mirror.

[cubby]

The problem is that there needs to be an agreed-upon common ground of reality. We can disagree about the best path forward, and have useful debates and arguments about which to tread. We can't be disagreeing about the basic facts, the statistical data. Once you're engaging in that, you're abandoning reality to push an argument based on imagination and fantasy. Something that is, pretty much definitively, delusional.

There's no discussion to be had with that kind of viewpoint. It's flatly wrong. And there's no way to prove it's wrong to people who believe it, because they don't care about the truth, or the facts. They've deliberately abandoned those in favor of their delusion. There is not one piece of evidence you can present that they will accept as true, if it contradicts their delusion. There is no argument you can present that contradicts their irrationality, that they will pay attention to. If they would, they couldn't be believing what they're arguing to begin with.

The only thing you can do is to deny them consideration, and refuse to play ball until they give up the delusion and get back to discussing the same reality we all actually live in.

That "common ground" is reality. And we can't make them come to that table. We have to wait for them to choose to, and do everything we can to block everything they push based on their delusions.

So we're stuck with basically waiting for people to possibly recognize they're delusional and somehow coming out of it? That fucking sucks.

I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, in fact I think it's one of the better synopsis' of the current rift (see also Grand Canyon) between the left/middle and alt-right. I hope that the middle (those that some how waffle between supporting Trump and not) is coming around with all the recent revelations of Trump's illegal activity and Trump's idiot cult brigade trying to defend it.

Otherwise...I don't know.

- - - Updated - - -

It's waay deeper than disagreements on reality.
Right-wing pundits have joked about murdering people on the left for years. In the 1990s, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh quipped, "I tell people: 'Don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for.'" His words were echoed recently by the neo-Nazi Chris Cantwell, who ranted in a Gab post that leftists should face "complete and total destruction." Memes and jokes about "free helicopter rides" for leftists like Bernie Sanders have become common on the right as well. This is a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who murdered some of his left-wing opponents by throwing them from helicopters.

In 2015, another far-right figure echoed this animus even more crudely. "Had Dylann Roof reached political maturity he would have seen the word is not nigger, but liberal," wrote John Russell Houser. Shortly after he wrote those words in his journal, he opened fire in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, that was screening Amy Schumer's Trainwreck. Conservative media had criticized the film for pushing immoral liberal values. That day, Houser killed two people and injured nine.

It's obviously impossible to draw a direct line between words like Limbaugh's and actions like Houser's. But we know that violent language and violent fantasies are often used to create a climate in which beatings and even murder are permissible. In his 2017 book, Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, David Neiwert discusses Limbaugh and Howser, and notes that rhetoric like theirs reflects a politics of "eliminationism ... whose goal is to excise whole segments of the population in the name of making it 'healthy.'" When Nazis compared Jews to rats, they were dehumanizing a targeted population in order to prepare the country to accept the need to exterminate them.

The Right doesn't really want to debate the Left. It wants to exterminate the Left.

It has always felt like the alt-rights answer to disagreements with the left/middle was elimination. I hate to draw on something as sophomoric as a movie line, but when Anican said "you're either with me, or against me" - I felt like it was the crying rally for the alt-right.

[Orbitus]

What the fuck was infraction worthy about this post?

Too much truth apparently.

[Shalcker]

The most recent poll I see, posted yesterday, still shows Gabbard with a whopping 1% support.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...ent-primary-d/

Unless you've got more-recent data to work from, you're literally imagining any such "boost".

This is why people accuse you of carrying water.

Even in link you're given she had 2% on Ipsos poll at October 18.

And "boosting" argument has articles up already:
The Atlantic: How Hillary Clinton Boosted Tulsi Gabbard
What was Hillary Clinton thinking? The 2016 Democratic nominee, for some reason, felt the need to insert herself into the 2020 race with an attack on Tulsi Gabbard, an oddball Democratic presidential contender who barely registered in polls. The congresswoman from Hawaii is a completely discreditable candidate—more on that in a moment—but Clinton’s accusation that Gabbard is a tool of the Russians was so blunt and clumsy that it has added new life to a primary bid that should never have existed in the first place. Within a day, Gabbard was already fundraising off of it, a development as predictable as a sunrise.
...
At this point, three years after the 2016 election, dwelling on Stein’s relationship with Russia is just crying over spilled vodka. Clinton’s mistake was to raise Gabbard’s profile, and then to throw around the term Russian asset.

To call someone a Russian asset implies willful coordination and awareness. It is not the same thing as being friendly to the Russian point of view. Nor is it akin to being compromised by knowing that the Russians have damaging material—as so many have speculated is the case with President Trump. Think of being a Russian asset as something in between cluelessness and conspiracy. But without further evidence, all Clinton managed to do was prepare the ground for Gabbard to dismiss all future accusations or revelations as just more grandstanding from a defeated and bitter 2016 nominee.
...
Clinton’s defenders claim that it was good to expose Gabbard and to prevent a third-party run. This is wishful thinking. Hillary Clinton is not the arbiter of Democratic Party politics.
...
Gabbard herself has already ruled out such a challenge, but that is beside the point. Gabbard has now vowed to take her fight to the convention, where she might argue that the nominee, whom Clinton will applaud and support, is just another tool of the Democratic, neoconservative, neoliberal, warmongering, globalist establishment.

This is where Gabbard’s efforts, Trump’s strategy, and Russian hopes will coincide. The goal will not be to turn Democratic voters into Gabbard voters or Trump voters. It will be to confuse them, dispirit them, and alienate them from their own party—and then persuade them to stay home. This will strike at the Democratic Party’s two most exposed weaknesses: turnout, and the inefficient distribution of Democratic voters in the Electoral College. If Gabbard can convince enough voters that “Russia” is just something cranky losers chant whenever things don’t go their way, she can strike directly at these weaknesses and do material damage to the nominee.

...and "Russia" is, indeed, what cranky Democrat losers chant whenever things don't go their way.

[Thestrawman]

Trumpsters have nothing to do with me.

Haven't seen "trumpsters" saying "Clinton didn't deny she is Russian asset" either.

Wooooosh!

I guess you're right, your not a trumpster just a turnip earning Russian. Do turnips cause short term memory loss or are you acting retarded on purpose?

[Cthulhu 2020]

...and "Russia" is, indeed, what cranky Democrat losers chant whenever things don't go their way.

...and "Buses of illegal mexicans voting" is, indeed, what cranky Replican losers chant whenever things don't go their way.

But of course, it was proven that Russia interfered in our election with a sweeping propaganda campaign. That part was never up for discussion in the Mueller report. It happened.

Buses of Mexicans voting at 20 different polling stations has never been substantiated, ever. Trump's own election fraud commission was shut down by Trump himself, and no word of their findings ever made it into the public sphere, assuredly because they never found any evidence to back their claims. And less likely, but still possible, is that the election fraud commission found info to the contrary, that Trump got some illegal votes. After all, several people were arrested trying to vote for Trump at multiple polling stations because "They knew Hillary was going to cheat so they had to double vote for Trump to even the playing field".

Let's also not forget that Trump openly stated he would not accept the outcome of the election if he did not win. The man child in chief himself declared that he was going to throw a tantrum if things didn't go his way.

I look forward to when Democrats take the government in 2020 though. Republicans won't have the "buses of illegal voters" to fall back on because they're all in concentration camps right now. We'll get to see what new whine salty Republicans come up with, or if they just stick with the old "buses of illegal immigrants".

[Shalcker]

...and "Buses of illegal mexicans voting" is, indeed, what cranky Replican losers chant whenever things don't go their way.

Yes, those are two popular American tropes.

But of course, it was proven that Russia interfered in our election with a sweeping propaganda campaign. That part was never up for discussion in the Mueller report. It happened.

It is also, like "buses of illegals", haven't been shown to matter in final outcome - and it is irrelevant to 2020 elections as well (or impeachment).

Let's also not forget that Trump openly stated he would not accept the outcome of the election if he did not win. The man child in chief himself declared that he was going to throw a tantrum if things didn't go his way.

So, both sides are acting like children who cannot accept defeat - and that somehow excuses both sides simultaneously (but just for their side to respond in kind).

How fascinating.

As they are part of same society going through same cultural transformation, of course they use common methods to undermine their opponents.

I look forward to when Democrats take the government in 2020 though. Republicans won't have the "buses of illegal voters" to fall back on because they're all in concentration camps right now. We'll get to see what new whine salty Republicans come up with, or if they just stick with the old "buses of illegal immigrants".

While Democrat win is far from being certain - and, for various reasons, even unlikely - what you can be certain of is that no party will admit to being at fault for their defeat.

The only way US politics will change is by people retiring - or going McCain way.

[Endus]

Even in link you're given she had 2% on Ipsos poll at October 18.

And the HarrisX poll on the 19th was the most recent poll at the time, and the one I was citing.

If she'd dropped from 2% to 1%, that sure doesn't seem like any "boost".

The new one, posted today, only has Gabbard at 3%. While that's arguably a "boost", it's still functionally irrelevant at the national level.

To paraphrase Mean Girls; stop trying to make Gabbard happen. It's not gonna happen.

[Thestrawman]

And the HarrisX poll on the 19th was the most recent poll at the time, and the one I was citing.

If she'd dropped from 2% to 1%, that sure doesn't seem like any "boost".

The new one, posted today, only has Gabbard at 3%. While that's arguably a "boost", it's still functionally irrelevant at the national level.

To paraphrase Mean Girls; stop trying to make Gabbard happen. It's not gonna happen.

But it's literally Shalcker's job to try and make Gabbard happen. Have to earn the turnips somehow.

[Shalcker]

And the HarrisX poll on the 19th was the most recent poll at the time, and the one I was citing.

If she'd dropped from 2% to 1%, that sure doesn't seem like any "boost".

You simply don't have enough granularity on that page to judge. Another poll on same 18 had her on 1% as well.

So it's useless to a) directly compare different polls and b) to expect visible changes at scales where something insane like 50% improvement would be lost as noise.

The new one, posted today, only has Gabbard at 3%. While that's arguably a "boost", it's still functionally irrelevant at the national level.

Wait, essentially tripling her support from that event alone?

My, i certainly didn't expect that.

To paraphrase Mean Girls; stop trying to make Gabbard happen. It's not gonna happen.

The fact that she is unlikely to be final candidate doesn't mean she doesn't have her merits (like Yang).

[Endus]

You simply don't have enough granularity on that page to judge. Another poll on same 18 had her on 1% as well.

So it's useless to a) directly compare different polls and b) to expect visible changes at scales where something insane like 50% improvement would be lost as noise.

Wait, essentially tripling her support from that event alone?

My, i certainly didn't expect that.

The fact that she is unlikely to be final candidate doesn't mean she doesn't have her merits (like Yang).

It means nobody should be paying her much attention. The race is Biden, Warren, Sanders, and "everyone else". No one beyond the big three are showing numbers that have any real chance. Those numbers aren't growing to challenge the three frontrunners. At 3% in that poll, Gabbard's on-par with Harris, Klobuchar, and Steyer. Buttigieg is way in front of even those 4 (ahead of Sanders, even, there). She's functionally irrelevant at the national level. The idea that she's going to rise to be a frontrunner has no basis in reality. She has more support from Republicans and Russia than she's getting from Democrats.

[Breccia]

So more developments.

Multiple House committees have asked the head of OMB to testify (ding), because the OMB has openly admitted (ding) to withholding the Ukraine aid approved by Congress (ding).

Naturally, the head of OMB responded with "I don't exist" (ding)

So they asked the acting (ding) head of OMB to testify. He announced on Twitter (ding) that his testimony was Fake News (ding) and neither he nor his employees would testify (ding), but it was not clear to which news report he was responding to (ding).

This seems closer to White House policy of calling the impeachment inquiry illegitimate (ding) a partisan witch hunt (ding) and seeking to overturn the election (ding) despite Trump withholding the aid far after the election.

That's twelve Team Trump actions in one headline. I could make it a baker's dozen by saying "this is the most perfect Team Trump post I have ever written in my great and unmatched wisdom" (ding)

[kaelleria]

It means nobody should be paying her much attention. The race is Biden, Warren, Sanders, and "everyone else". No one beyond the big three are showing numbers that have any real chance. Those numbers aren't growing to challenge the three frontrunners. At 3% in that poll, Gabbard's on-par with Harris, Klobuchar, and Steyer. Buttigieg is way in front of even those 4 (ahead of Sanders, even, there). She's functionally irrelevant at the national level. The idea that she's going to rise to be a frontrunner has no basis in reality. She has more support from Republicans and Russia than she's getting from Democrats.

It's more like Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg as he's surpassed Sanders in Iowa at this point and is within 5-7% of Warren and Biden in most recent polls.

Realistically the field needs to be winnowed down to 4-5 so people actually start paying attention to the debates.

[Fugus]

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if we'll actually find a way through. Because I agree with all the frustrations and discombobulations you illustrate here, and I don't see how we can ever find common ground with people who genuinely refuse to recognize reality.

We do have a potential way through, but it requires those at the top actually doing their jobs which they have sold out for their party to begin with.

We need to actually require that anything that is qualified as news, news commentary or even pretends to be such much be honest in what they say and must require them to give equal time to all sides of an issue and must have actual punishments for those that don't so bad that they refuse to break those rules.

We must deny these delusional people their safe spaces where they only get told what they want to hear and nothing about reality that contradicts their fantasies.


When Fox News is required to be honest when the other shows pretending to be news must also actually be honest and give access to all sides of the issues, when we have places like Breitbart and the such basically shut down for lying to their people or required to put huge banners on their pages flat out stating they are satire and not to be taken seriously, then we will have a way through.


But so long as you allow these snowflakes the ability to live in their fantasy world and consume false information from sources that only say what they want to hear instead of the truth, this will continue.

We can't force them to accept reality directly, but we can cut off venues which allows them to stick their heads in the sand so easily and even cons many others brought up in it to do the same. That alone would kill virtually all of this.

Or actually having it required for children to take classes that help to teach actual critical thinking skills and teach them how actual taxes at both the individual and the corporate levels work so they can't be lied to so easily before they stick their heads in the sand.

But so long as we allow them to keep their people uneducated and informed so easily, we allow this to continue. We have literally allowed a TV station to create an actual cult at this point with Fox.

- - - Updated - - -

-snip-

[Infraction]