JFLNYC wrote:I knew my post would be a Bat Signal for you!

You successfully bad signaled me in to a thread I had posted in twice already this morning. Wouldn't have known it existed without your post.

jerseyhoya wrote:I'll take Overreactions for $800, Alex

True, but also the more I think about it, the more politics and the SC seems to have transformed from governing at least some of the time to "pure" team politics. I know it was always that way to some degree and people overplay how much more "polarized" it is "now" as opposed to "then," but there's no doubt that the team-oriented cable news coverage of Congress and even the SC has made crossing party lines rarer and more difficult when it is done.

All of this makes me think that we need an entirely separate element to the government, which I call my "Norwegian plan." We need a panel of 5 Norwegians (or any extra-national group) who act as referees for the government: people with no skin in the game WHATSOEVER, who are also independently wealthy and totally anonymous because they never appear in public anywhere, and whose only role is to determine whether the procedural rules are being followed and fairness and common sense control. Things like impeachment trial rules and what to do with hanging chads and what not.

Basically, what the Supreme Court SHOULD do, but no one trusts them to do, when they are allowed.

jerseyhoya wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:I knew my post would be a Bat Signal for you!

You successfully bad signaled me in to a thread I had posted in twice already this morning. Wouldn't have known it existed without your post.

Didn't mean to harsh your seriosity.

PhillieMooDo wrote:Man, these rules for the trial are #$!&@ gross. #$!&@ the entire GOP. Not sure a single one is worth the air he/she breathes.

To be fair they are only representing their constituents.

If public support for Trump dropped into the 20s I'm sure a lot more republicans would stand up to him

Warszawa wrote:

PhillieMooDo wrote:Man, these rules for the trial are #$!&@ gross. #$!&@ the entire GOP. Not sure a single one is worth the air he/she breathes.

To be fair they are only representing their constituents.

If public support for Trump dropped into the 20s I'm sure a lot more republicans would stand up to him

God forbid they just, you know, uphold the Constitution and protect the Republic.

Favorite JH schtick is pretending Mitch is some sort of good faith actor.

so now it is three days and the evidence will be admitted?

mitch didnt have the votes it seems hehe

CalvinBall wrote:mitch didnt have the votes it seems hehe

not sure if this means he doesnt have quite the grip on his caucus as he thought or it was some 3d chess move where he looks like he gave a little but it was what he wanted all along?

It means Senators don't like to work long hours

Warszawa wrote:

PhillieMooDo wrote:Man, these rules for the trial are #$!&@ gross. #$!&@ the entire GOP. Not sure a single one is worth the air he/she breathes.

To be fair they are only representing their constituents.

If public support for Trump dropped into the 20s I'm sure a lot more republicans would stand up to him

1. I can't imagine an America where Trump only has 20% support. He is who we thought he was in 2016. This is what 60 plus million people voted for. This is what they want.

2. This is bucking conventional wisdom, but I doubt that as many Republican senators and establishment-ish types only stick by Trump for political expediency as we think. Obviously, there are some exceptions. However, I think the current strange brew of Trump, social media, woke culture, changing demographics, and the wholesale rejection of their poisonous values by millennials and Gen Zers has just melted these folks' frontal lobes. They're no different than your racist uncle at Thanksgiving in this regard. This is what Republicans are.

Augustus wrote:

Warszawa wrote:

PhillieMooDo wrote:Man, these rules for the trial are #$!&@ gross. #$!&@ the entire GOP. Not sure a single one is worth the air he/she breathes.

To be fair they are only representing their constituents.

If public support for Trump dropped into the 20s I'm sure a lot more republicans would stand up to him

1. I can't imagine an America where Trump only has 20% support. He is who we thought he was in 2016. This is what 60 plus million people voted for. This is what they want.

2. This is bucking conventional wisdom, but I doubt that as many Republican senators and establishment-ish types only stick by Trump for political expediency as we think. Obviously, there are some exceptions. However, I think the current strange brew of Trump, social media, woke culture, changing demographics, and the wholesale rejection of their poisonous values by millennials and Gen Zers has just melted these folks' frontal lobes. They're no different than your racist uncle at Thanksgiving in this regard. This is what Republicans are.

This is going to sound weird but I think that I’ve actually become more conservative over the last 3 years seeing what the dems now are and what the GOP has become. Kind of like - “oh I miss the principled conservative view, where did that go? Maybe it wasn’t so bad” I think that you can make the accusation that the current Republican Party has a lot of bigoted members but not the conservative movement. It would be nice to have a party where normal everyday people with conservative leanings could go but that no longer exists

libertarian is a party

I'd be curious to see your highlights of that principled conservative view. In my lifetime it's become very clear what the GOP (and therefore conservatives) is and stands for. I'm certainly less liberal than I was 30 years ago but with the same surety know I could never support the conservative cause.

I dislike the Democratic party often but I feel it's my only choice in our 2 party system anytime in the near future.

Civil War II: Gun control could push Virginia counties to join West Virginia

- Washington Examiner

I don’t think it work that way

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... e-of-power

Barr had an interesting opinion of impeachment pretty recently

Bucky wrote:libertarian is a party

It's also an idiocy

and the libertarian party is nearly as attached to russia as the GOP. Their leaders are regular contributors to Russia Today.

as for McConnell, what a POS, but nothing unexpected. It's not just a truncated schedule, he also wanted to not have any of the House evidence entered into the trial. And no witnesses. And no documents from the WH. That is completely opposite what happened in the Clinton trial and it's a slap in the face of democracy, not that he's interested in democracy or the Constitution.

They're all cowards. They know what the evidence shows and they don't want everyone else to see it. They want to keep americans in the dark. This type of authoritarianism is very hard to root out once it's established. 2020 is going to be a bareknuckle fight and a win for the GOp literally may mean the end of the republic as we know it. And that is not an exaggeration.

Some jurisdictions in Virginia “are becoming more like California and New York,” Delegate Dave LaRock told a reporter for the Winchester Star last week. The delegate—who represents a district that encompasses parts of Frederick, Loudoun, and Clarke counties—went on to say that “he could get behind a move to have more liberal jurisdictions such as Arlington and Alexandria become part of Washington, D.C.,” per the Winchester Star.

So this idea of swapping out politically different counties is really pretty crazy. To be fair, his plan would need to cut farther out if he is looking for boundaries of political difference, and slice a huge portion of the commonwealth's tax income into the ash heap. Over 3M people live in what is though of as Northern Virginia, and his proposal would/should effect at least 2M of these residents (something between 23% and 35% of the states population). He also is pretty ignorant about where the money comes from in this state supporting the nice, new, and rather empty high ways in the south west of the state. This pol represents the same area that I pulled up as targeting a move to West Virginia.

What's it all about? Gunz.