Set up hearings. Read passages from the Mueller report, and ask experts if this is how a normal presidency functions. Just having live hearings and having people talk about the Mueller report’s findings is important enough – mainly because most reporters in the mainstream press probably haven’t even read the report themselves, which is why we don’t hear reporters really talking about its contents. We need to talk about the report so that more of the general public knows what’s in the report.
The general public doesn’t care. They trust their elected politicians to know what’s an actual crime and what’s just politicized nonsense. And, on the side of the politicians, they just care that the people keep giving them a job, and won’t move unless the general public moves first.
On the side of the general public, half of the people aren’t even aware of the involvement of the GRU in the 2016 election - Russia just put up some crap ads on Facebook that got fewer views than 0.01% of all of the other political ads of the time. 99% of the people aren’t even aware that the Trump Organization admitted in court that he stole money from a charity for US veterans, and 99.999% of the people aren’t aware that the FTC cracked down on charities that were using veterans as a lure to get money to steal as a result of that.
The media has had years to explain why we should or shouldn’t have a wall, and I’ve yet to see a cogent article that lays it all out. They’ve had years to investigate things other than Russia. As it is, they only ever seemed to have leaked stuff that was given to them by Schiff and Trump’s own people. The NYT actually did a little bit of extra work and looked through his public financials, but botched the message by surrounding everything that he did which was criminal with a bunch of stuff that was simply slimy but completely legal.
In the world of the media, the gatekeepers no longer have any power. All of the money flows to the people who are entertaining, and there are a lot of them so the money is spread thin. There isn’t enough money nor interest in the people who practice real journalism for them to hire the people smart enough to have original hypotheses, nor to give them the resources to investigate those topics. The Washington Post and the New York Times may have once been amazing, but they are not today. It may be that they are still honest and have rigorous standards for publication, but that’s not the same thing as having smart employees nor employees with the budget to roam the Earth, hiring translators and paying bribes, for months and years, before they need to write their article.
And in the world of politics, we were so afraid of backroom deals, that we forced Congress to make everything public. Now the politicians are all the whipping boys of everyone with an agenda who ever cut them a check, because the check-cutters know whether or not their orders were obeyed. We have deprived our representatives of the ability to do their job, and the people who actually want to do the job simply don’t last.
There is no reason, looking at what we have seen, to expect any of that to change. It’s a catch-22 situation. Just fixing those flaws in the systems that we have today is something that can’t be done today, for essentially that same catch-22.
Trump is only liable to be impeached if a state prosecutes him, and that only if he is clearly too distracted by the trial or is going to be sent to jail. If New York State isn’t investigating him for crimes, we’re just as likely looking at 6 more years of Trump.
But, at the same time, the inability for our systems to be able to deal with Trump is a pretty good indication that the problem isn’t Trump, it’s that we need reform by people who are honest, intelligent, inventive, know their history, and willing to compromise. I don’t see that on the horizon and I don’t see any path to get things moving in that direction. That’s a greater issue than Trump.
Trying to convert the people to hating Trump isn’t going to happen - and particularly not via Russia. Kicking that dead horse is a waste of time and the sheer amount of kicking probably has turned Trump into someone who can no longer ever be blamed for any crime unless a literal, provable pee tape from Russia comes to light. As noted, he stole from veterans and it’s not even news. His popularity in the military is probably higher than among the general public. That’s f’ed up and should be an obvious thing to be shouting out from the tops of the roofs, and yet nobody is.
If we’re still arguing abortion, 40 years later, and Russia six months after Manafort didn’t flip, and no one has pointed out that the President stole from veterans and that he pulled out of Syria the day after Iran, Turkey, and Russia cut a deal on how to split the country, hoping that drama in the Congressional Committees is going to change something, I’m pretty damn doubtful on that front.
The politics of the day should be discussions of the problem of foreign criminals acting under the protection of national sovereignty, how to compete with the success of countries under single-party rule, how to compete when vastly overshadowed in population count, the likely dangers of 3D printing and computer vision as related to terrorism, how to contend with the expanding rift between rural and urban America, etc. As said, instead we’re still rehashing battles fought 40 years ago - when we started to make the politicians’ individual votes public. Our wounds have been festering for a long time. Trump is just the ooze leaking out. Tamping off the ooze doesn’t heal the issue and no one’s even bothering to note that more of what failed to tamp off the ooze is not the wisest course of action.
I don’t love the idea of Judiciary calling John Dean, it just smells like nostalgia.
They need to keep matriculating the legal ball down the field - 3 yards and a cloud of dust - have the contempt vote(s), get into court, start an impeachment inquiry if that gives them more legal leverage and what it takes to get bodies in front of mics. Get all that shit well into the pipeline. Mueller should go first, but not until they have the others (McGahn, et al) already scheduled behind him. If it takes all summer to get the ducks in a row, that’s fine.
It was used by the coach of the Chiefs in the 1970 Super Bowl, who clearly didn’t know what it meant. He was wired for sound in the game (maybe the first time that was done?) and it has since become a common joke phrase in football.
I think, more importantly, most people just think he’s the guy who sells frozen sausages.
I might be wrong, but I feel like even names like Newt Gingrich or Colin Powell would either be a total blank or just a vague senses that “Oh yeah, that was that guy. He was a governor or Presidential candidate or something?”
Honestly, I’d be hesitant to expect that most Republicans even remember Mitt Romney with any clarity, outside of Utah. Nor that most Democrats would remember All Gore.
Obviously, hard to know without a survey. I might be being overly cynical.
The thing about the hearings is that no one that could be called is going to be electrifying to the mass audience. Sure, Mueller’s name is at least vaguely known to most, but even if the House can induce him to testify, he’s going to be dry as dust, and many viewers will be reaching for the remote.
The only way these hearings can do the job of bringing home to the mostly-checked-out American public, the magnitude of Trump’s wrongdoing, is if the questioning is super-charged with the staples of high-ratings TV: conflict, drama, tension, and flashes of wit.
But since we don’t have a Franken-level talent in the House, the other Reps will have to step up their games. Nadler has genuine rancor towards Trump; people might tune in just to see if he can remain upright. And even Adam Schiff is capable of coming through, as he did on March 28th (link below).
It’s doable. But it will take some passionate performances by House members who are smart, well-informed, and articulate. Otherwise the mass of mostly-indifferent-to-politics Americans will assume that calls for impeachment are just what Fox et al are saying: partisan hackery by butt-hurt losers.
Begrudgingly I’m on board with this. I think it’s Pelosi’s strategy as well. Keep the process moving. Maybe the long-overdue recession hits and makes the calculations easier.
It’s funny, but I’m pretty sure I remember that Russian citizens are not free to express their views on the Russian government online; why can’t they extend the ban to talking about developments in the U.S.? :dubious:
Putin is, like other scum throughout history, counting on not needing to be logically consistent.
“The difference between the US and Russia is that I can go to the White House and protest US involvement in Vietnam!”
“So? Any Soviet Citizen is also free to march on the Kremlin, protesting US involvement in Vietnam.”
Well, they might start caring if the findings on Administration corruption are juicy enough. They did like the ‘Interior Secretary’s personal flag’ and ‘Health and Human Services Secretary racks up over a million dollars in private jet travel’ and ‘Treasury Secretary flies at taxpayer expense to get good viewing spot for eclipse’ stories.
Cummings is smart as hell. You may be right about him being the one who will come through with paydirt.
Thanks! That’s hilarious!
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