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The House Oversight Committee 2019


Hugo Stiglitz

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4 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

If by "not peaceful" you mean "tanks in the streets", then I'm with Anastasis.

If by "not peaceful" you mean "howling at the media, rancorous nonsense, burning everything on the way out, casting accusations and demanding investigations", then I'm not.

I see zero possibility that Trump leaves office in a way that befits the normal, publicly amicable, transition of power in the US. And that's not for nothing. I'm not a huge ~decorum~ guy in politics, but in the elite halls of power those little niceties are what keep people from dying later on.

Gonna be real awkward when President Harris strolls in at noon on January 20, 2021 and the place has been ransacked by the Grifter Gang - silverware and china gone, flatscreens ripped off the walls, half the furniture missing. "Now I coulda sworn there was a resolute desk in here, but maybe I'm just in the wrong Oval Office." 

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one thing i thought interesting was one of the republican reps said to him "you are a criminal and a pathological liar. no one would hire you."  well, our president did.  then he said "you are a disgraced lawyer.  no client would call you at 3 am for legal advice."  well, our president did.   so basically he was saying you are such a shitty lawyer anyone would have to be a complete idiot to hire you.  well, our president did.

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41 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Gonna be real awkward when President Harris strolls in at noon on January 20, 2021 and the place has been ransacked by the Grifter Gang - silverware and china gone, flatscreens ripped off the walls, half the furniture missing. "Now I coulda sworn there was a resolute desk in here, but maybe I'm just in the wrong Oval Office." 

The letter to his successor will be a national treasure.  

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40 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Gonna be real awkward when President Harris strolls in at noon on January 20, 2021 and the place has been ransacked by the Grifter Gang - silverware and china gone, flatscreens ripped off the walls, half the furniture missing. "Now I coulda sworn there was a resolute desk in here, but maybe I'm just in the wrong Oval Office." 

They will be so desperate to pay their legal bills they will steal all the wiring and plumbing out of the walls. The White House will look like an abandoned McMansion in suburban Phoenix after the real estate bust. 

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Just now, Pescado_Rojo said:

They will be so desperate to pay their legal bills they will steal all the wiring and plumbing out of the walls. The White House will look like an abandoned McMansion in suburban Phoenix after the real estate bust. 

Whatever it takes to get the stink out of our hallowed house. 

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4 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

They will be so desperate to pay their legal bills they will steal all the wiring and plumbing out of the walls. The White House will look like an abandoned McMansion in suburban Phoenix after the real estate bust. 

The artwork alone is worth $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  Remember that a lot of furniture and art in the White House rotates in and out of a 40,000 sq foot warehouse in Maryland.  Wouldn't be surprised if that warehouse ends up emptied between Election Day and Inauguration Day when no one is paying attention during Christmas/New Years

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1 minute ago, Js1 said:

The artwork alone is worth $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  Remember that a lot of stuff in the White House rotates in and out of a 40,000 sq foot warehouse in Maryland.  Wouldn't be surprised if that warehouse ends up emptied between Election Day and Inauguration Day when no one is paying attention during Christmas/New Years

Don't worry - he'll replace the art with his personal collection:

Spoiler

donald-portrait-1551281194.jpg?resize=76

LX7QLPX7QVBSFNII2B6TELEI4I.jpg

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Let Trump stay in the White House and build a wall around it. 

Build a new Presidential residency with the money Trump is going to have to cough up in asset forfeiture.

Well he did say the White House is a dump.

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10 hours ago, Rimbo said:

To be fair, I was one of those guys who thought Clinton should've been impeached and convicted for perjury.

And I'm one of those guys who thinks Trump should finish his term from the inside of a very dark prison cell.

Call me weird, but I expect the president to not commit crimes, before OR during his time in office.

Whether there's an R or a D next to his name is irrelevant. And it shouldn't be relevant.

That's kind of the point.  Fraud and criminal activity undermine the rule of law.  Which is like, the OPPOSITE of the job of POTUS.  It's perhaps the only truly disqualifying event.  And the GOP argued just that, for years.....and I agreed with them.  Now, all they do is whistle, pretend it didn't happen, or say "well, but he didn't personally actually enter into a signed agreement with Putin to interfere in our elections, so HE DID NOTHING WRONG."

Seriously.  The GOP is looking upon someone who has been on a decades-long spree of financial and election law crimes, and saying "but he didn't MURDER anyone, so leave him alone!"*

 

*And of course, we all know that even if he HAD murdered someone, they would move the goalposts to "but he didn't commit MASS-MURDER, so leave him alone!"

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Cohen really reinforced the idea that Trump micromanaged everything.

It's stunning to think about the breadth of criminality over the years. You just listen to reporters/commentators try to keep track of the details, and it's mind numbing.

As it directly relates to Trump, I guess the depth of criminality will eventually come out. He had his tiny fingers in all of it to a greater or lesser degree.

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5 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

I told an old friend of mine a few months back that if she'd ever told me I'd be a single-party voter, I'd never have believed it, and if she'd told me that it'd be for the Democrats, I'd have laughed at it. And yet, here we are.

I did so, so that Congress would do what they are supposed to do in this situation, and what they are doing now: Act as a check on presidential authority.

In the long run, I don't blame Trump for being Trump. I don't even blame the voters for Trump. I absolutely blame Mitch McConnell and the GOP members who are enabling him and refusing to assert the authority they have.

And if you're a Republican right now, you need to be as terrified of what's going on as the Democrats are: When a Democrat is elected president, do you want that person wielding, unchecked, the power that Trump is attempting to wield right now? Trump's efforts must fail, because if they do not, there is nothing preventing a Democrat president from, say, taking away all of your guns, locking up churches, doing whatever he wants because of made-up "Emergency Powers."

Like Cohen said: Trump's not in this for you, he's in it 100% for himself. He doesn't care what he destroys along the way. Congress opposing him successfully is ultimately going to protect your interests as well as mine.

I didn't stop being Conservative. The GOP did.

Bottom line, the GOP is doing more to destroy the institution that is the Office of President of the United States than they ever imagined/accused Obama of doing -- and many, they imagined a LOT back then.

Trump is a deranged narcissist shitbag.  Okay.  But he is an isolated, limited shitbag if Congress will do its job.  Mitch McConnel and the GOP are not only NOT doing their job as a representative body....they are doing everything they can to run INTERFERENCE for Trump.  Their complicity will go down as one of the more shameful episodes in our political history.

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9 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

I told an old friend of mine a few months back that if she'd ever told me I'd be a single-party voter, I'd never have believed it, and if she'd told me that it'd be for the Democrats, I'd have laughed at it. And yet, here we are.

I did so, so that Congress would do what they are supposed to do in this situation, and what they are doing now: Act as a check on presidential authority.

In the long run, I don't blame Trump for being Trump. I don't even blame the voters for Trump. I absolutely blame Mitch McConnell and the GOP members who are enabling him and refusing to assert the authority they have.

And if you're a Republican right now, you need to be as terrified of what's going on as the Democrats are: When a Democrat is elected president, do you want that person wielding, unchecked, the power that Trump is attempting to wield right now? Trump's efforts must fail, because if they do not, there is nothing preventing a Democrat president from, say, taking away all of your guns, locking up churches, doing whatever he wants because of made-up "Emergency Powers."

Like Cohen said: Trump's not in this for you, he's in it 100% for himself. He doesn't care what he destroys along the way. Congress opposing him successfully is ultimately going to protect your interests as well as mine.

I didn't stop being Conservative. The GOP did.

Since I only have about 3 reps a day to give...posrep 

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Just now, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You have to kinda admit now the Clinton impeachment was ridiculous.

The investigation was the Whitewater land deal that ended up as a lie over a blow job.  

Let’s say they pulled it off and removed Clinton over it, would it have change anything about the GOP of today? 

He lied under oath. He also suborned perjury and obstructed justice.

He didn't have to do any of those things.

 

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3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Bottom line, the GOP is doing more to destroy the institution that is the Office of President of the United States than they ever imagined/accused Obama of doing -- and many, they imagined a LOT back then.

Trump is a deranged narcissist shitbag.  Okay.  But he is an isolated, limited shitbag if Congress will do its job.  Mitch McConnel and the GOP are not only NOT doing their job as a representative body....they are doing everything they can to run INTERFERENCE for Trump.  Their complicity will go down as one of the more shameful episodes in our political history.

The thing is that the number 1 job of any elected official is to get re-elected. The GOP today represents the absolute lowest common denominator in the electorate, and as such, the party cannot afford to piss them off lest they lose their seat. In this situation, they cannot afford to go after Trump or to get out of the Democrats' way in pursuit of Trump. They have to defend him...or else. They have to do it because Trump is a demagogue and his supporters bought every line of his bullshit hook, line and fucking sinker, and there's nothing that can separate them from that, which is why Trump's approval rating will never get close to 0. Sure, it may dip beneath 33% or so, but the point is there's a floor for it no matter how rotten he is.

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3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

He lied under oath. He also suborned perjury and obstructed justice.

He didn't have to do any of those things.

 

exactly. he could have told the truth.

what could they have done then? they would have rent their garments and gnashed their teeth, but they did that anyway.

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5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

He lied under oath. He also suborned perjury and obstructed justice.

He didn't have to do any of those things.

 

What he lied about was completely frivolous as it relates to what his job description was, and the GOP wasn't required to pursue impeachment in the slightest. They set a trap, he took the bait, and they followed the script of what they'd been wanting to do since Jan. 20, 1993. That whole thing was a circus.

Edited by hpslugga
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I have very mixed feelings about the Clinton impeachment.  But I lost quite a bit of respect for him.

Suffice it to say, I do think if Clinton got impeached, Trump at least deserves the same, on the record as it exists today.  I assume the Mueller Report will add additional fuel to the fire.

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Just now, hpslugga said:

What he lied about was completely frivolous as it relates to what his job description is, and the GOP wasn't required to pursue impeachment in the slightest. They set a trap, he took the bait, and they followed the script of what they'd been wanting to do since Jan. 20, 1993. That whole thing was a circus.

But he's the one who broke the law. He did that. He knew what he was doing.

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So is Cohen going to be in any hot water over statements he made yesterday? I couldn't help but cringe watching him testify under oath voluntarily. I still can't believe there is any attorney in the world that would allow him to do this (if they are looking out for his best interests). I mean, I'm not an attorney or anything so maybe I'm wrong, but I'm still just dumbfounded. 

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1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

He lied under oath. He also suborned perjury and obstructed justice.

He didn't have to do any of those things.

Hey, I get it. He should have been held accountable for those things but removal from office seemed like a stretch considering the crime had nothing to do with national security or his ability to faithfully execute his duties as president.

I didn’t have much of an opinion on it at the time but looking back it’s pretty clear they worked really hard to catch him in a lie, about a blowjob. 

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Just now, David Dennison said:

But he's the one who broke the law. He did that. He knew what he was doing.

I don't dispute that. I'm just saying that Congress has discretion over whether or not to do it, and they chose to based on completely ridiculous grounds. Bill Clinton isn't the first President who broke the law while in office, but he's only the second to be impeached. Let's not kid ourselves into believing that the GOP did it out of some undying loyalty to the law. They're faithful to the law when it suits their purposes.

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Just now, hpslugga said:

I don't dispute that. I'm just saying that Congress has discretion over whether or not to do it, and they chose to based on completely ridiculous grounds. Bill Clinton isn't the first President who broke the law while in office, but he's only the second to be impeached. Let's not kid ourselves into believing that the GOP did it out of some undying loyalty to the law. They're faithful to the law when it suits their purposes.

I agree with all of that.

He still deserved to be impeached for what he did.

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2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I agree with all of that.

He still deserved to be impeached for what he did.

So let me ask you this:

Did any President other than Clinton (and obviously other than Andrew Johnson) deserve impeachment?

Please note, if you do say yes, you're basically proving my point: that whole thing was nothing more than romanticized political theater in its absolute worst form.

Edited by hpslugga
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1 minute ago, hpslugga said:

So let me ask you this:

Did any President other than Clinton (and obviously other than Andrew Johnson) deserve impeachment?

Please note, if you do say yes, you're basically proving my point: that whole thing was nothing more than romanticized political theater in its absolute worst form.

Nixon

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11 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

The thing is that the number 1 job of any elected official is to get re-elected. The GOP today represents the absolute lowest common denominator in the electorate, and as such, the party cannot afford to piss them off lest they lose their seat. In this situation, they cannot afford to go after Trump or to get out of the Democrats' way in pursuit of Trump. They have to defend him...or else. They have to do it because Trump is a demagogue and his supporters bought every line of his bullshit hook, line and fucking sinker, and there's nothing that can separate them from that, which is why Trump's approval rating will never get close to 0. Sure, it may dip beneath 33% or so, but the point is there's a floor for it no matter how rotten he is.

And....you get it.  The dreams of 'the GOP will abandon Trump when the facts get bad enough" are less attainable and realistic than my dream of a weekend of exotic delights on a private island with Sela Ward and Scarlett Johansson.  They are never leaving him.  They are all-in on Trumpism, which now makes their continued support necessary for their ongoing survival.  They have sailed out to sea in the shittacular boat that is the SS Trump.  Staying in the boat is likely death when it sinks.  Abandoning ship in the middle of the sea is certain death.  They put themselves in a position where they only have shitty choices.  They are choosing the least-shitty path....presuming that their priority is solely to win elections (and, of course, it is).  They are never deviating from that path.

Again, wishing and hoping for the GOP to become a decent and sane political party is a complete waste of time.

Edited by Brisketexan
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7 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

So let me ask you this:

Did any President other than Clinton (and obviously other than Andrew Johnson) deserve impeachment?

Please note, if you do say yes, you're basically proving my point: that whole thing was nothing more than romanticized political theater in its absolute worst form.

Absolutely. 

You would think they would cut the shit out, but they are rewarded politically for breaking the law.

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4 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Also funny Clinton was subpoenaed and testified while Trump hasn’t been subpoenaed and refuses to testify.

Some of that may have been driven by the existence of an actual Independent Counsel Act.  The existence of an actual statute can be interpreted to change the separation of powers balance just enough to take the edge off Presidential subpoenas and even indictments.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/22/us/document-Savage-NYT-FOIA-Starr-memo-presidential.html

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Also, people often forget that Nixon's downfall wasn't instantaneous. The Watergate break-in occurred in June 1972 and Nixon didn't resign until August 1974. Despite the fact that information travels faster these days, I think we've still got some time. 

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Just now, Eggo said:

Nixon

Among others, yes. 

I'll offer some others

Reagan: Circumvented the Boland Amendment to aid a terrorist group with money they acquired from dealing weapons to a country against which we had an arms embargo.
Bush Jr: Violated the Leahy Law numerous times
Obama: see Bush Jr.
Trump: see Obama and Bush Jr., plus whatever else he's guilty of regarding all these shenanigans that were discussed yesterday w/Cohen.

And I'd even put Clinton in that group of Leahy Law violators since that was enacted during his second term, but lying about a blowjob in a deposition is hardly something an intelligent person gets upset about.

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