Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalI agree
This feels different somehow. And I think that we can get Impeachment through the House easier than how things were looking before. Everything else, however, will hinge on how the GOP-controlled Senate reacts. If they mostly hold fast and support Trump, there will be no conviction in the Senate, nor Republican calls for Trump's resignation. If Republicans start to turn on Trump in large enough numbers in the Senate, there will likely be attempts to get him to resign first or, if all else fails, we may get the very first conviction of a sitting US President in the history of the country. However, I am less certain that Republicans will abandon Trump. There's no way out of this for Trump without taking on some severe damage though IMHO.
I'm fine with this
I honestly think that we need to ditch the private insurance companies, but, realistically, that's not going to happen, at least not right away. I think that we need to open up Medicare/Medicaid for everybody and let people choose what they want. Given a fair chance to prove itself, I think that, over time, people will start to move away from private insurance and sign up for Medicare/Medicaid and private insurance companies will either go away or be absorbed, creating a national health care M4A system. I don't think that, absent a sea change of opinion, people will consent to the complete removal of the private insurance system in one fell swoop.
Is it reasonable to speculate
that the (unconfirmed) whistleblower report has something to do with the Ukraine scandal? The timing seems to fit.........
It's like
Democrats are trying to act like responsible parents and Republicans are acting like bratty children. But the media (and all the other pundits) just want to sit on the sidelines and tut-tut the Democrats for not being able to easily or effectively control the Republicans' misbehavior. Some of our pundits do basically the same thing- but argue instead that Democrats should act like bratty kids too in order to get something done.
Can we stop hitting the panic button over everything right now?
Seems like no matter what Democrats are talking about, it seems like there are always a group of people who are flipping out that we shouldn't talk about x, y, z or "we'll just be walking into the Republicans' trap and will probably lose bad in 2020!" Some people are trying to advise candidates against talking about guns at all. Others want candidates to stop talking about Impeachment of Trump (or Kavanaugh). Some think that Democrats are talking too much about Trump and not about "policies". Others think we are not hitting Trump hard enough. Some are freaking out and thinking that if we nominate Biden, it's game over in 2020 because the progressives won't turn out for him. Others argue that if we nominate Bernie or Liz, we'll lose white, blue collar "Middle America" voters. It's just getting really frustrating and anxiety-provoking. I'm just as much up in the air about how things will go for us in 2020 and afraid enough that something will happen that will mess things up but we have to maintain some kind of perspective. I obviously don't have all of the answers and can't be more reassuring about things turning out ok in the end, but I think that the "hair on fire" approach is likely not going to help us either and is probably only going to make us all more anxious and more fearful than we all already are living under the Trump Presidency. I really miss it when, every time we got worried about McCain/Palin winning in 2008, we used to put up a pic of Obama telling us to "Chill the f**k out, I got this!"
Republicans/Right-Wingers put women in a terrible bind in this country because of their policies
They're against promoting birth control......but
They're against abortion........but
They're against public assistance, including expanded help for childcare.....but
They think women should stay at home and raise their young children and shouldn't leave them in daycare
All this with the end result that young, unmarried women can't work to support themselves and their children and any women with young children who DO work are sinful/neglectful of their children.
And, of course, Republicans/Right-Wingers don't want to raise the minimum wage/provide a living wage to anybody.
It's all weaves together to basically trap people whom aren't inherently wealthy/well-off.
But if the House doesn't do something
then he still gets to claim that he was vindicated. If our Democratic nominee goes after Trump on virtually anything related to the Mueller report or any one of a number of instances of wrongdoing, criminal or otherwise, Trump could easily just rebut it with: "If what I did was so bad, why didn't the House impeach me?" Then, how does the Democratic nominee respond? If he/she has to explain all of the nuance and calculations that went into that decision, then the argument will likely fall on deaf ears. We are going to need to have a good way to argue that Trump has abused his powers as POTUS that doesn't also make us look like we've abdicated our role of holding him accountable. A lack of a conviction by a Republican Trump-loyalist enabling Senate doesn't really look that good for Trump by comparison IMHO- and makes the Republicans in the Senate look corrupt.
I'm seeing polls out there saying that there's no appetite for impeaching Trump
but I literally can't figure it out. Even if you (somehow) think that the Mueller report is more or less a "nothing burger"- just because Mueller didn't find prosecution-worthy evidence of collusion with the Russians (GOVERNMENT)- there's very few people out there I know whom don't think that Trump is walking dumpster fire who has been an unequivocal failure as POTUS and almost everybody I know is just freakin' exhausted by him and want him gone. I wonder what the reasoning behind the lack of appetite out there for impeaching Trump? Nobody is- or should be- under the illusion that he will actually wind up being removed from office (though we won't know for sure until there is an actual inquiry), but that smacks me as a cowardly reason for the House not trying to do *something*. And if we don't do something, the next "Trump" knows that they can basically do all the same things (and probably worse) and escape consequences as long as they have loyal "foot soldiers" in Congress and in other posts to help protect them.
Also:
McConnell: Invents non-existent rule to prevent President Obama from filling the seat of a far-right Republican-appointed justice after his sudden and unexpected death in an election year.
(once there is a Republican President)
McConnell: Pledges to violate previous self-created rule to ensure that Trump can fill the seat of a Democratic-appointed Justice even in an election year.
I wonder
how can we break this cycle? We seem to go through it every few years. Republicans abuse power, run the country into the ground, the public gets tired of them, votes a Democrat into the WH and sometimes elects/keeps a majority of Democrats in Congress, Democrats start the hard work of repairing the Republicans' messes and things start to improve until...........Republicans begin massively obstructing and distracting every which way until the federal government basically gets paralyzed, which helps Republicans get back into power, usually in Congress (1994, 2010), which gives them the ability to harass the Democratic President with endless and fruitless investigations until the Democratic President's term is up and then...........Republican wins the WH, in most cases keeping their Republican Congressional Majority intact and they return to abusing power and running the country into the ground. I would say that this has been going on since the late 1980's, 1990's and it hasn't really changed since.
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,412