So the House has voted to impeach Donald Trump, for a second time. His trial in the Senate, alas, won’t be happening until after Biden is sworn in. Here’s hoping Trump won’t do too much more damage to our country in the last six days of his term.
Open thread!
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@ Lainy
Hooray! I’m very glad for you. I hope you have a lovely reunion.
It’s weird to think that there are currently three times more soldiers in Washington now than Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria combined.
@alan
yeah it is, I keep sending him stuff about it like everyday because it just a big heep of wow.
@Vic:
Or, you could just note that northern Georgia is the part of the state where “Deliverance” was set.
@Alan Robertshaw:
This would be even funnier if Giuliani had ever been Trump’s defender on one of the many occasions when he was sued for refusing to pay contractors.
@Moon Custafer:
Who is Agent Cooper? Part of Trump’s security detail? Or Biden’s?
Character from the telly series Twin Peaks. Likes pie.
Oh please let Giuliani turn on Trump! That will be so hilarious!
I feel like everything is on the path to like blowing up.
@Moggie
This is also probably made more likely by the fact that the NY Bar Association is moving to disbar Giuliani.
More fallout.
Forbes magazine has stated that, if any corporation or other business entity hires anyone from the former Trump administration, then the following criterion will apply.
“Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2021/01/07/a-truth-reckoning-why-were-holding-those-who-lied-for-trump-accountable/
@Alan Robertshaw:
Of course, that’s nothing new for Forbes, either. From what I’ve heard, years before Trump became President, Forbes already had an internal rule of ‘if you want to know how much Trump is worth, ask him, and then divide it by three and you’ll be a lot closer’.
And Forbes is not exactly an outlet you can accuse of hating the rich.
All these companies suddenly having spines. Might have been nice if they had done this a few years earlier.
@Jenora Feuer:
Wrong. The correct divisor is minus three, as the leaked tax returns proved conclusively. 🙂
@Moggie:
Same explanation as a smattering of Republican politicians suddenly having them. As soon as the ink was dry on the 2020 election results, there were no longer any juicy pro-rich tax cuts or pro-rich judicial appointments at stake. Just the risk of being primaried, and that just for the politicians. So for businesses now there’s nothing at stake but optics, and the optics clearly favor being publicly pro-Biden and anti-coup. It’s a bit of a closer call for the politicians, who must decide which is the bigger risk, bad optics with the moderates or pissing off the base (and also how likely a future coup attempt is to succeed — for a Republican politician, at least, having come out against Trump could mean being tortured to death or similarly nasty consequences in that event, versus a shot at a position in the dictatorship’s bureaucracy).
@Surplus to Requirements:
As for the ‘minus three’, well, at the time I heard that about Forbes, the fact that he was that badly in debt wasn’t as well known. I mean, a lot of people suspected, and it’s been known for years that nobody with any credibility was going to lend him money anymore (hence why he had to go to Deutsche Bank, which isn’t extending him credit anymore either) but the full extent of the debt was hidden by much of the same processes the super-rich like to use to hide their own excesses.
As for politicians and death threats, somebody else pointed out a tweet from AOC that death threats for political positions have been happening to people like her for years, and “it’s a privilege if this is their first time.”
Why don’t the Demmocrats (or anyone else) have the spine to force him out of office once and for all? Then again some Democrats actually benefit from the shitty system America operates.
I dislike the Republicans and the Democrats are giving leftists a bad name.
I have to seriously wonder whether this will lead anywhere. Rachel Maddow went on air indicating that they are even bringing anti-corruption prosecutors to look at possible involvement by republican congressmen and house members in the attempted coup. Nevertheless, we know that Trump has already drafted a massive pardon list, which will be made public in the coming days.
I’m not too hopeful this SC, with 3 judges directly appointed by Trump and another who went on a rant against democrats on a recent political event, will uphold the principle that presidents cannot self-pardon.
And before anyone indicates that state crimes might serve as a consolation price to put Trump in jail: they won’t be. Because even in the unlikely scenario that he does go to jail for tax fraud or related charges, the truth will be that a precedent will have been created at the federal level that a president can commit crimes against humanity, engage in genocide (mass hysterectomies for Latinas in ICE camps), attempt a coup and still walk away without so much as a slap on the wrist.
Is this of any relevance to the topic at hand?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/15/8kun-8chan-capitol-breach-violence-isp