4298

Oh man, I want to see that. I’d pay money.

4299

Pence/Romney 2020?

4300

Not weasel enough. Romney Rubio, we are very concerned ticket incoming.

4301
4302

Unbelievable. But then, we’re dealing with an unbelievably arrogant, unbelievably stupid man. So, believable.

4303

Here’s the transcript:

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4304

McCarthy needs to go slither under a rock somewhere. His political career should be over after DJT. Fucking hypocrite and asshole.

4306

Eh, it wasn’t necessary. Here’s the point your response I don’t think fully grasps.

  1. This is an unprecedented heavy lift, politically.

  2. The two previous impeachment cases that come into play – Nixon '73-74, and Clinton '98-99 – involved 2nd term presidents who could not stand for re-election. (Let’s maybe not get too deep into using political history from 150-160 years ago here. That is irrelevant to the extreme. There were 38 states.)

  3. In addition, this is all beginning much closer to an election, which it can be argued (not by me) gives the electorate a chance to remove the person in office of their own volition.

The point is not that the president doesn’t deserve to be impeached, nor that his behavior doesn’t warrant it. Rather, the point is that even despite that and in an extremely small sample size of 2, this is probably a very difficult and certainly uncharted task to take on in the postwar election landscape: impeaching a first-term president 12-14 months before election day. It is one that is greatly historically significant, however it turns out.

I hope Pelosi has the skills for this, or if she doesn’t, she recognizes and hands off the hardest parts of this task to someone who can make this work.

4307

It occurs to me that the Democrats would be wise not to go after Pence. If Trump goes down, Pence is a charismaless lame duck tarnished by the scandal. If Pence goes down, Bill Weld has already declared his candidacy for President. He could win. And if Pence were actually impeached, Pelosi would be President and Republicans would be livid at the stolen presidency.

4308

Um, why would anyone care if Republicans are livid?

4309

The awesome news is that Ukraine almost certainly has a transcript of the proceedings. So I hope like hell that Trump released a doctored version and we get the actual version from Ukraine.

4310

I think getting this person to testify will be very important.

4311

Interesting point. It’s likely they probably do. Whether they’d want to get anywhere near this mess though isn’t clear, and I’m not sure there’s any way to get their version of things. Maybe!

4312

Wonkette’s summary:

4313

Think they’ll have staff in the room when they meet Thursday?

4314

People need to make them care. By brutalizing them next election.

4315

I heard a report that Ukraine will cooperate with official request aka an impeachment proceedings.

It seems like the safest course for Ukraine at this point is for them to follow official requests.

Now what happens when the House Judiciary requests a transcript, and State Dept says no you can’t release it, is going to be a tough call for them. You just have to hope that President Volodymyr Zelensky is honest.
i

4316

And holding them in contempt immediately for non-cooperation. None of this “considering” contempt, just do it. Delay, Deny, Deflect cannot be allowed.

4317

Hope ol’ Rudy is prepared for prison. What a way to end a career, being DJT’s pathetic lapdog.

4318

In a sane world Congress would impeach for that alone.