Mega-Thread: Impeachment Proceedings & Inquiry of Trump

[beanman12345]

They are still saying that the acquittal vote won't come until Wednesday. I find that highly suspicious.

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Is there a viable candidate to run against her in Maine?

Yeah the speaker of the house of rep's in maine is running seems to be the most likely to run against her but there is a large democratic primary field.

[cubby]

Yeah the speaker of the house of rep's in maine is running seems to be the most likely to run against her but there is a large democratic primary field.

Good deal. I hope a solid contender emerges. I understand that Collins is a very good campaigner with a solid election machine under her.

[beanman12345]

Good deal. I hope a solid contender emerges. I understand that Collins is a very good campaigner with a solid election machine under her.

She has a lot of out of state money being tunnelled to her, but only 1% of her contributions came from in state. But she has a lot of cash on hand.

[cubby]

She has a lot of out of state money being tunnelled to her, but only 1% of her contributions came from in state. But she has a lot of cash on hand.

Holy shit. Seriously? 1% of her campaign donations come from in state? I seriously did not know that. However, upon immediately reflection, I do not know what the percentages of any Senatorial campaign contributions are.

[Wyrt]

She has a lot of out of state money being tunnelled to her, but only 1% of her contributions came from in state. But she has a lot of cash on hand.

We badly need campaign finance reform. It's ridiculous that politicians can get money outside of the area they are going to represent.

[Draco-Onis]

Holy shit. Seriously? 1% of her campaign donations come from in state? I seriously did not know that. However, upon immediately reflection, I do not know what the percentages of any Senatorial campaign contributions are.

The reason people like Collins has fallen in line besides not having any morals or principles is that Trump and his packs are bribing I mean funneling money into their campaign. I knew she was going to vote against witnesses Trump endorsed her pretty early, the whole moderate republicans the media keeps pushing is complete bull.

[cubby]

We badly need campaign finance reform. It's ridiculous that politicians can get money outside of the area they are going to represent.

Could not agree more. I would really like us to almost immediately and universally model Canada's electoral process. Little money, short election cycle, national holiday (or time off I think), mail in ballots, etc.

[Shadowferal]

Holy shit. Seriously? 1% of her campaign donations come from in state? I seriously did not know that. However, upon immediately reflection, I do not know what the percentages of any Senatorial campaign contributions are.

According to this, it a bit more at 4.77%. Over 95% is out of state. (For this current election cycle at this point in time)

[beanman12345]

We badly need campaign finance reform. It's ridiculous that politicians can get money outside of the area they are going to represent.

Yeah but it goes both ways. there is a 4 million dollar slush fund for whoever wins the democratic primary just laying in waiting, that was all raised because collins voted for Kavanaugh. It's probably gonna be one of the most expensive campaigns in 2020.

[D Luniz]

The GOP must have a short memory. All during the Obama administration years they couldn't go a month without some racial email or comment. Now what happens to them if some Democrat says "hey China, get us those emails, and we'll remember it in the phase 2 negotiations"

[Breccia]

“I think it would be inappropriate for me, an unelected official from a different branch of government, to change that result so that the motion would succeed,” Chief Justice Roberts said."

The irony, considering Trump not only used unelected people like Giuliani and Parnas, but was himself not elected.

[Elegiac]

The irony, considering Trump not only used unelected people like Giuliani and Parnas, but was himself not elected.

For some reason I just can't help but think of this:



This is why I voted for Kodos.

[Inuyaki]

Yeah but it goes both ways. there is a 4 million dollar slush fund for whoever wins the democratic primary just laying in waiting, that was all raised because collins voted for Kavanaugh. It's probably gonna be one of the most expensive campaigns in 2020.

Also Stephen King seems highly committed to get her out of office.

[Endus]

Makes sense, because conservatism will always push for brutal authoritarianism. The political compass should reflect that fact. Conservatism only has one trajectory, a destination in which hundreds of millions of human beings have already been murdered, exterminated, maimed, traumatized, and every time it gets repackaged and re-disseminated into the public sphere after the atrocities itself created to restart the cycle.

A more useful interpretation is that in the West, the left-right axis is more correctly the left-liberal/right-authoritarian axis. On the traditional graph, representatives fall on a line from bottom-left to top-right, more or less.

The communist regimes argued a left-authoritarian perspective against what they saw as right-liberalism. And that's the root of the conflict; not left vs right at all, but the conflict between different axes that those societies internalized. It's why people of either often talk past each other; they can't even agree on the end points of the axis they're discussing, so it's unsurprising that their arguments about each other make no sense.

And in particular with conservative views in the West, it was about two opposing authoritarian views; their right-wing authoritarianism as opposed to the Russian's left-wing authoritarianism. And, ironically, both preached against authoritarianism, while pushing it themselves, by framing the other as the "enemy" based on left/right economics.

Right-wing views don't have to be authoritarian, though the alternative is anarcho-capitalism, which just lets corporations run roughshod without much/any control, which means the corporations themselves often step up the authoritarian nature of society, since they have no interest in defending freedoms.

[Gestopft]

Holy crap, one of his defense attorneys was IN one of the meetings where he talked about Aid for Investigations? The lack of ethics over there is just contagious.

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Right-wing views don't have to be authoritarian, though the alternative is anarcho-capitalism, which just lets corporations run roughshod without much/any control, which means the corporations themselves often step up the authoritarian nature of society, since they have no interest in defending freedoms.

You mean the "free market" won't fix everything?

/s

[Mormolyce]

The graph is essentially an idealised version of what people say their politics are.

Furthermore, the left/right axis is so dependent on time and place and political context it's almost meaningless. The original definition of "left" vs "right" was in the French Revolution - if you supported the king you were right wing and if you called for a republic you were left wing. Try applying that axis today. Although I suppose if you unpick all the lies modern conservatism is arguably just a front for returning us to a conservative monarchy...

The left/right spectrum was generalised from this monarchist/republican split to a more general status quo vs. progressivism split. Basically, if you want things to stay the same you're right wing, if you want them to improve you're left wing. Although that doesn't really account for regressives and reactionaries, who not only want the status quo but actually want society to regress to a previous state, which realistically have always been the most energetic component of conservatism.

But again, what exactly the status quo is and what progressives want to progress to varies a lot from place to place and time to time. Once upon a time Prohibition was considered progressive.

The other major flaw in the two axis system is assuming that the two attitudes are truly separable, which history indicates they are not.

[Endus]

You mean the "free market" won't fix everything?

/s

I mean, yeah. I just wanted to be clear that me saying "there is such a thing as right-wing liberalism" didn't come across as me thinking that such is an attractive and interesting option.

The more important point I was making is that, if you look at the standard political compass chart, the Western spectrum is bottom-left to top-right. The Soviet-style rhetoric argued for top-left against bottom-right. Contrast the two rhetorical axes, and they form an X; they aren't actually antipodes.

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The graph is essentially an idealised version of what people say their politics are.

Furthermore, the left/right axis is so dependent on time and place and political context it's almost meaningless. The original definition of "left" vs "right" was in the French Revolution - if you supported the king you were right wing and if you called for a republic you were left wing. Try applying that axis today. Although I suppose if you unpick all the lies modern conservatism is arguably just a front for returning us to a conservative monarchy...

I can't really agree with this, to be honest. It has to do with fundamental principles. Left-wing stances think that equity and fair treatment of all is important. If you'd asked me in the early '90s when I was in high school, I would've been a left-winger, but transgender issues weren't on my radar, at all. Not because I was against it, it just wasn't something that had come up in a way that demanded I figure out my position.

When it did, my position was based on the same principles as everything else; treat people fairly and equitably and don't be a dick about stuff when they're not hurting anyone.

The idea that this means I went "further left" really isn't true; my position didn't change, it was simply introduced to a new concept to be applied to. My position remained the same, in terms of base principles (if better-informed and more consciously aware).

That contextuality is just an expression of someone's internalized and often subconscious prejudice. I work to combat mine if I run up against my own discomfort, I think a lot of others do as well. If we're discussing which group you desire to see marginalized and abused for their variance from an arbitrary standard, then I'm gonna struggle to see that as a left-wing view at all; "I'm not a misogynist and I don't hate black people, just LGBT deviants" is a bigoted viewpoint, and leans right. You don't get "points" for prejudices you don't have.

[akris15]

Also Stephen King seems highly committed to get her out of office.

All I hope is this story ends better than most of his books

Sorry I needed to take that low hanging fruit and I'll gladly take an infraction because that burn was worth it.

[Mormolyce]

Of course this all hangs on Democrats running a brutal cut throat campaign, I cannot say this enough democrats need to stop taking the high road. This election everything is on the line so take off the kid gloves the only thing that matters is winning no matter what it takes.

Under their kid gloves they're wearing more kid gloves.

I mean if you look back over the US's entire history, as much as its right wing has been utterly despicable pretty much the entire time, I have to say a lot of the blame should be laid at the door of the left that seems completely spineless and unwilling to take the necessary steps to stop them.

The early US smiled and nodded and allowed the South to protect the institution of slavery for a century, afraid to rock the boat. Finally when that became unsustainable they were forced into a war which they reluctantly fought. After the war, Lincoln was killed and a Confederate sympathiser took office - he sabotaged the Reconstruction and his opponents failed to impeach him. That spinelessness sold out the black people of the South and condemned them to the KKK, lynchings and Jim Crow while the North grew weary of fighting and became once again submissive to white Southern power. That continued through the early 20th Century where the North failed to do anything to stop the rise of neo-Confederate propaganda whitewashing the ante-bellum South to mainstream audiences. Finally that too became unsustainable and through blood, sweat and tears the Civil Rights Era happened. And now we're back to square one as the left limply opposes the reactionary forces that seek to overturn that as well.

Honestly, not to absolve the American right of its repulsive behaviour, but it's partly down to the cowardly left that consistently fails to oppose them.

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I can't really agree with this, to be honest. It has to do with fundamental principles. Left-wing stances think that equity and fair treatment of all is important. If you'd asked me in the early '90s when I was in high school, I would've been a left-winger, but transgender issues weren't on my radar, at all. Not because I was against it, it just wasn't something that had come up in a way that demanded I figure out my position.

When it did, my position was based on the same principles as everything else; treat people fairly and equitably and don't be a dick about stuff when they're not hurting anyone.

The idea that this means I went "further left" really isn't true; my position didn't change, it was simply introduced to a new concept to be applied to. My position remained the same, in terms of base principles (if better-informed and more consciously aware).

That contextuality is just an expression of someone's internalized and often subconscious prejudice. I work to combat mine if I run up against my own discomfort, I think a lot of others do as well. If we're discussing which group you desire to see marginalized and abused for their variance from an arbitrary standard, then I'm gonna struggle to see that as a left-wing view at all; "I'm not a misogynist and I don't hate black people, just LGBT deviants" is a bigoted viewpoint, and leans right. You don't get "points" for prejudices you don't have.

While that's true, that's a fairly narrow range of time in a single country which hasn't really changed its political spectrum a lot since the 90s.

Take a longer view, even just in the US - for example, in the early 20th Century eugenics was a progressive cause. I mean, they definitely wanted to improve the lot of the human race, just by means which would be abhorrent to modern liberals.

We think of acceptance and equality as being fundamental left wing attributes, and to some extent this has always been true (eg, the original left/right split was between people concerned with the common folk vs. the nobility), but the specific frame of reference we have for this in our lifetimes is a result of the Civil Rights Era. If you go way back, many of the early opponents of slavery believed that the institution was cruel and demeaning, but still did not believe black people were suitable for life in "civilisation" and thus envisioned that after slavery was ended they'd be shipped back to Africa (this actually happened to an extent in the pre-Civil War era - see Liberia).

Here in Australia, gun control has never been a political issue and it was our arch-Conservative government that implemented heavy gun control legislation in the wake of Port Arthur (the laws American pundits love to despise and/or misrepresent). In the US, being pro-gun is considered firmly a right wing thing. Although our politics have been slowly shifting under the influence of exported US politics so we might end up in the same position.

Left and right make sense within the context of our individual countries, within certain time periods, but they aren't really an objective axis. Just a representation of the two dominant sides of politics at the moment.

[cubby]

(numbered your points for simpler reference)

Under their kid gloves they're wearing more kid gloves.

I mean if you look back over the US's entire history, as much as its right wing has been utterly despicable pretty much the entire time, I have to say a lot of the blame should be laid at the door of the left that seems completely spineless and unwilling to take the necessary steps to stop them.

1. The early US smiled and nodded and allowed the South to protect the institution of slavery for a century, afraid to rock the boat. 2. Finally when that became unsustainable they were forced into a war which they reluctantly fought. After the war, Lincoln was killed and a Confederate sympathiser took office - he sabotaged the Reconstruction and his opponents failed to impeach him. 3. That spinelessness sold out the black people of the South and condemned them to the KKK, lynchings and Jim Crow while the North grew weary of fighting and became once again submissive to white Southern power. That continued through the early 20th Century where the North failed to do anything to stop the rise of neo-Confederate propaganda whitewashing the ante-bellum South to mainstream audiences. 4. Finally that too became unsustainable and through blood, sweat and tears the Civil Rights Era happened. 5. And now we're back to square one as the left limply opposes the reactionary forces that seek to overturn that as well.

Honestly, not to absolve the American right of its repulsive behaviour, but it's partly down to the cowardly left that consistently fails to oppose them.

1. You mean compromises to form a nation? That kind of "spinelessness"? Is your knowledge of history that myopic?
2. The left was spineless when they started a war to fix the wrong that almost tore the country apart? You gotta make up you mind.
3. You mean like the Voting Rights Act?
4. Oh, so the timing wasn't convenient for you? Social change has to happen on some kind of specific time line?
5. You mean like voting to Impeach?

Your version of reality borders on [I don't know the right word]. You seem to think that because bad people did bad things and weren't immediately stopped it falls on the people who were still doing good to carry the blame. What would we have had at all if not for the left making good and decent changes all throughout this country's history?

It's like you know what happened, but are telling yourself some vulgar version in which the bad people don't get the full blame for their bad deeds. And don't give me the "first they took the _____, and we did nothing".

And did you forget WWII - where we stopped facism in it's track?