Means “hat tip,” i.e. a source acknowledgement.
I had no idea either for what it’s worth.
Yeah. I just kinda wish folks wouldn’t do that. It happens here on the Dope a lot more than I would think it would. It’s not exactly an Ignorance Fighting move.
My apologies. As @Cervaise said, it means ‘hat tip,’ an acknowledgment of one’s source.
I’ve routinely seen it used for 15-20 years around the Web, but YMMV. 
I like this idea.
Anyway, it looks like there was a change in the weather, so to speak, late yesterday afternoon. Three GOP Representatives, most notably Liz Cheney, said they were voting to impeach. (Later in the evening, two more joined them, bringing the total to five.) And Mitch said he was OK with impeachment.
The House vote is today, and now it’s got some momentum to it. And it looks like the Senate trial and vote may happen before the inauguration - not a certainty, but a serious possibility now. We may be about to have the shortest U.S. Presidency ever.
To quote Schwarzenegger on the run-up to Kristallnacht and ultimately the Holocaust, “It all started with lies, and lies, and lies, and intolerance.”
It’s that mix of demonization of the Other, and the routine spouting of blatant untruths to support it, that makes Fox News etc. so toxic. And what’s more, a good chunk of elected Republicans have joined in. And if you think the ones in Congress are bad, a lot of the state parties are far worse.
And it’s done. At the moment 228 votes in favor, including 218 Democrats and 10 Republicans, a majority.
Final 232-197, with 10 Republicans voting in favor, and 4 not voting.
McConnell has said that the Senate isn’t going to finish a trial prior to inauguration, which shouldn’t be a surprise.
To be fair, I don’t think this is just him being a weasel. While he does include excuses about being too busy with ensuring the inauguration is done safely, and the transition of power going smoothly, I suspect that even if they made this the #1 priority to the exclusion of everything else it would take more than a week.
I think it is significant the Mitch said that he feels impeachment would purge Trump from the Republican party, though he hasn’t said whether he’d vote to convict. That at least gives some credence to the idea that the Republicans see it as being in their best interest now to try to distance themselves from him for their political future. Hopefully that will drive Trumpists deeper underground, and maybe their next candidate will be the regular kind of bad and not Trump bad or worse.
(Yeah I know, rose-tinted glasses.)
Mcconnell has reportedly privately said he thinks the president probably committed an impeachable offense, but he is not sure how he will vote until the trial. He has also said he will not whip the Republican vote. (This means he won’t use pressure to have a party-line vote, and will leave senators free to vote as they choose.). I keep seeing articles that say Mcconnell is furious at Trump, and has been refusing to take his calls since mid-December.
10 Republican House members is both remarkable, and also sad. I mean, it’s remarkable to have any, given the current GOP, but it should have been all but a couple of lunatics.
Technically, it’s the most bipartisan impeachment vote ever. When Clinton was impeached, four Dems crossed over to vote Aye. The other votes were strict party-line. So to have ten Republicans voting in favor is actually a historic benchmark.
This is true, but in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, 10 Republicans voted nay (not guilty), crossing over the political aisle to not convict him. Now, only 2 Republicans voted nay to have him impeached in the first place so you are correct about it being unprecedented at this stage. We’ll see what happens during the trial in this impeachment.
I’ll also note that none of those 10 Republicans who voted to acquit Johnson served another term in elected office, so at least back then there were consequences for going against the party.
Yeah, I think Nixon is the example of what happens (or should happen) if large numbers of your own party agree with impeachment. I’m not sure Trump would resign vs just outright launching a civil war if the Republicans said he should resign or they will go along with impeachment. There’s no arguing it’s for the good of the party or the country with him.
A good, concise impeachment FAQ:
So assuming that a Senate trial is after Biden’s inauguration how does that now play? Not asking if Trump deserves the removal of perks, just political impacts for getting Biden agenda done and impact on keeping the majorities in the Senate and the House?
For Senate Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are all expected to be very close. Four currently D, three R. Maybe Colorado, Florida, and Ohio too. Those being two R one D. (This all per Sabato).
I’m guessing it activates the Trump supporters more than it does Ds or swings the swingables D-ward. It certainly delays the National focus moving off Trump.
Regardless of whether Trump is convicted by the Senate, the result is going to produce deep rifts in the Republican Party. IMO, I think it’s more likely to result in splinter candidates or parties (or refusal to participate in the election) that in some cases divide the right-wing vote enough to elect the Democrat.
Depends on how the Dems play it. Pelosi hasn’t officially done whatever the House needs to do to move things over to the Senate, so that can be done this week, next month, this summer, whenever.
Also, as I noted earlier, the trial could be shunted off to a committee, so that the Senate didn’t have to work around it to get its urgent business done.
Without knowing the Dems’ choices with respect to these two variables, who knows how it will play? How would one even start to conjecture?
Remember how the December 2018-January 2019 government shutdown was supposed to be an issue in the 2020 election?
Or how the previous impeachment was supposed to be an enormous issue that would define the election for both parties? One of the amazing things about politics is how short peoples’ memories are. Issues and controversies that generate heated outrage are completely forgotten within months. People move on.
I would be surprised if the second impeachment is any kind of major issue in the 2022 elections. It may cause some Republicans discomfort in their primaries, but they have two years to turn things around. Remember how when the Tea Party emerged as a dominant force they were going to primary every Republican who voted for TARP. They claimed a couple scalps, but most incumbents survived.
Republicans in Congress will spend the next two years hysterically denouncing every policy move by Biden as implementing radical socialism, and inflating any misstep or minor controversy into Watergate-level malfeasance. The outrage they stoke in their voters against Biden will displace any lingering outrage they may feel over impeachment.
Memories are very short to be sure, but that depends on people not being continually reminded of it. However impeachment plays out and whether Trump is barred from office, he will be reminding everyone of how a particular Republican either betrayed him or supported him on impeachment, on whatever media he manages to find to replace Twitter.
The first impeachment was less of an issue because it was almost entirely partisan. Except for Romney, there weren’t any Republicans who supported it, unlike this time.