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In the midst of all of the ongoing investigations into Trump & Co, at least there is one issue that requires no investigation whatsoever: exactly how low the Republicans were willing to sink in order to protect the Traitor-in-Chief they nominated, supported, and ultimately elected.
They ignored his pussy-grabbing remarks while insisting he is a good, moral Christian. They ignored his inane, incoherent tweets while maintaining he was intellectually brilliant. His never-ending string of lies were dismissed as misspeaks or harmless exaggerations.
His bigotry, racism, misogyny, and the inciting/encouraging of violence all of it was okay with the GOP. His appointment of totally incompetent people to Cabinet positions was cast as his own unique style of governing. His ignorance of the simplest operations of our governments workings was passed-off as political naivete because he was new to the job.
When Trump started charging the taxpayers millions of dollars to fund his weekly golf trips, his childrens business excursions, and protecting his wife and son (who refuse to live with him), the Republicans looked the other way.
When Trump accused Barack Obama AND our British allies of engaging in criminal activity in order to spy on him, the GOP sat silent.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that Trump and his cohorts were colluding with the Russians during his campaign and his presidency, the Republicans dismissed such evidence as being of no consequence.
EVEN WHEN Trump invited the very Russians he was allegedly colluding with to a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office where he admittedly disclosed highly classified information to our sworn enemies, the Republicans defended it as well, he IS the president, so hes allowed to do that the consequences be damned.
And now its over. The mounting evidence against Trump & Co can no longer be ignored, dismissed, denied.
Where does this leave the GOP? In lifeboats frantically rowing away from the sinking ship, hoping against hope that no one will remember how enthusiastically they supported and defended Putins Puppet from day one.
But we, as a nation, WILL remember. As the Traitor-in-Chief and his GOP-cohorts go down, and go down hard, we WILL remember how the Republicans made excuses for and defended his behaviour, no matter how bizarre. We WILL remember how they supported an illiterate, bloviating, mentally-unhinged liar who they knew all along was unfit for office. We WILL remember the party that was more than willing to throw their fellow citizens and their country under the bus for the sake of chalking-up a political win.
The fact is that no matter how fast those GOP-laden lifeboats are propelled away from the sinking ship, we all know without any doubt or uncertainty which party was more than anxious to tell their fellow passengers to stand their ground on deck, because the ship was unsinkable.
Now is the time to watch for Republicans boarding lifeboats claiming they were never really on that sinking ship to begin with. They just happened to be found mid-ocean, feverishly rowing like galley slaves, because they just noticed the iceberg that they insisted was never there.
Hekate
(90,624 posts)CentralMass
(15,265 posts)However, why is Nancy Pelosi premptively taking impeachment off the table again ? Does she like hearing herself say the words ?
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)... hearing people put words in her mouth. Like you just did.
sheshe2
(83,710 posts)CentralMass
(15,265 posts)However i did just look up the actual CNN video from the town hall where she made her statement.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/05/16/nancy-pelosi-town-hall-donald-trump-impeachment-sot.cnn
Listening to her actual words does not nake me feel sny better. She is being conciliatory.
She finished off her stayement with a comment tbat this is "supposed to be a honeymoon period"
I would think that given what she and other members of congress must know about this that she would have given a more agressive statement on the matter.
She is the House Minority Leader and I did not get any sense of the gravity of the situation from her words.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)I WANT the politicians to seek facts, gather evidence, and approach the matters in a legal, non-partisan way. It won't do any good to push for this or that, because then it WILL seem like a witch hunt. At least, for the Democratic Party leaders. They should be above the fray, IMO. A dignified demeanor, calm reasoned responses, but still pointing out "facts" as they are leaked.
It looks like the facts are there, and the behavior of Trump and others certainly is guilty. Esp obstruction of justice.
If it turns out that crimes can't be proven, then it will look like the Democrats were pounding the table for "impeachment! impeachment!" because they lost the election, and not because of facts and protection of the country and the democracy.
If the facts are there, Dems don't NEED to pound the table. Speak about the substance of the leaks, of course. Point out this and that, which indicate guilt, if the leaks gave us that information. If questioned about impeachment, say something noncommital like "Let's see where the facts take us, first." or "IF the facts lead to collusion or other crimes, then that would be grounds for impeachment, but let's wait to see what the Special Counsel's findings are."
I think that places it squarely in the hands of the Special Counsel, and takes away Trump's claims that this is revenge by the Dems because they lost. They don't need to wear halos and be unrealistically unconcerned, but they don't need to become a cheerleading section on the impeachment side....yet.
Now IF the facts lead to a crime or crimes by Trump, and if impeachment papers aren't filed or Trump doesn't resign, THEN it's time to pound the table, IMO.
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)Opportunity to lay some heat on Trump rather then making the argument that impeachment is not warranted. Drop the impeachment topic and get some hard hits in with the air time.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)then go on about how you don't "see that point." Enough. If you dislike Nancy Pelosi, fine. But don't keep insisting you are being conciliatory, when you're clearly not.
George II
(67,782 posts)Here is the full transcript:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/15/se.01.html
Chemisse
(30,807 posts)The system is at work now. It's time to back off a bit and let the collapse proceed. Cheering it on would only further politicize what will someday be an impeachment vote.
GreenEyedLefty
(2,073 posts)... rather than be impeached and removed from office.
emulatorloo
(44,106 posts)The spin from that post seems to be still inadvertently coloring your viewpoint.
Cha
(297,048 posts)sheshe2
(83,710 posts)Did you watch it? I did.
NOT WHAT SHE SAID!
retrowire
(10,345 posts)retrowire
(10,345 posts)I should've expected that. Can I get a summary?
sheshe2
(83,710 posts)if you can't watch the vid....which was awesome, btw...then I don't have time to look for the text. it is late and I gotta go.
What is this????
"I should've expected that."
Why the snark? I do not understand why are doing this to me. I gave you the vid.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)I meant it like, "silly me, of course someone is going to do the courtesy of giving me the video itself without knowing I can't watch them, I should've been more specific"
My bad, not yours, I mean that. I thank you!
Thanks have a good day.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)CUOMO: But what do you say about the practical effect of some of your members -- let's say, mostly recently Al Green, OK -- said this is time for impeachment. That word is getting thrown around.
PELOSI: Yeah.
CUOMO: Do you say to your members of your party, "slow down"? Because that is not a way to bridge any kind of divide with the Republicans.
PELOSI: No. But it's what they -- it's a reflection of what they're hearing in their own constituencies. But it's not -- you know, it -- we've been -- some of that has picked up this past week. We've been out of session. I'll see them tomorrow when I come back, but -- they come back. But they know I don't subscribe to that.
You know, in other words, again, if you're talking about impeachment, you're talking about, what are the facts? Not I don't like him and I don't like his hair and -- you know, I think, what are the facts? I don't like what he said about this. What are the facts that you would make a case on? What are the rules that he may have violated? If you don't have that case, you're just participating in more hearsay.
And that's not the basis of -- and we owe the American people the -- I mean, just some stability in all of this. This is the time where he is supposed to be having his honeymoon. What a marriage. The honeymoon -- the honeymoon of -- so we watch and see what he's going to do, what is his vision, how is he going to implement it, and the rest. And it's been sloppy.
Edit, for some reason the bold function isn't working - here are the sentences I tried to highlight:
if you're talking about impeachment, you're talking about, what are the facts?
I think, what are the facts?
What are the facts that you would make a case on?
What are the rules that he may have violated?
So basically she's saying that we need all the facts in order to build a case, we can't just throw out "impeach him" if you can't fully document the reasons. Otherwise the impeachment would fail.
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)Even here on DU. And make a point of discerning opinion from fact.
Nancy Pelosi is one of the strongest Democrats we have. I hope to see her back as Speaker one day. She knows how to run her house whether minority or majority. You'll never see her call a vote without the numbers. She always knows what she is doing.
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)...if she did, why tell us where/when she did, in context. In other words not just part of what she said in its entirety, not just an incomplete excerpt like others have done.
Thank you.
Lotusflower70
(3,077 posts)As obvious as it may look, it still has to play out. And she certainly doesn't want to say anything to jeopardize the possibility. And I still say possibility because if they fought this hard to get this buffoon into office, they will continue to fight to keep him there.
chillfactor
(7,573 posts)I so enjoy reading your posts....you put things so succinctly.....which I could never do.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)eleny
(46,166 posts)Cha
(297,048 posts)MFM008
(19,803 posts)X1000.
sheshe2
(83,710 posts)WE.
WE are the unsinkable Molly Brown. Don't fuck with us.
Doreen
(11,686 posts)remember their mistake of Hitler. The U.S having helped the Germans with their mistake are shaking their heads that we forgot theirs and did not learn. We had to go out and do it ourselves to actually get it.
triron
(21,994 posts)ProudProgressiveNow
(6,129 posts)MLAA
(17,266 posts)Thanks, an excellent summary of the nightmare that repugs will have to own. Hopefully it will become their collective obituary.
Greybnk48
(10,167 posts)Iggo
(47,546 posts)Jopin Klobe
(779 posts)... Argentina first ...
pink
(497 posts)I've been away from DU for a few years and was so pleased to see your name when I scanned through the posts. You always seem to reflect just what I am thinking. One thing though, you forgot to mention the nepotism.
Living in Australia, we had our own problems when we had to deal with PM Tony Abbott. He couldn't string 2 words together and was totally clueless and an embarrassment to the country. Probably he wasn't quite as bad as the Trumpster, and as you may know, we find it easier to change governments and leaders than you do.
I find I'm glued to the tv screen watching CNN at all times and have a good supply of popcorn. I'm really looking forward to when he steps off the plane for the first leg of his tour.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)to understand they are talking on water and aren't looking for life boats.
When they do start looking they are going to be looking for Josh's Arc.
appleannie1943
(1,303 posts)NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)sheshe2
(83,710 posts)Gothmog
(145,063 posts)sheshe2
(83,710 posts)I do to.
Gothmog
(145,063 posts)sheshe2
(83,710 posts)I hope you are feeling better.
spanone
(135,815 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The Titanic struck the iceberg at around 11:40 PM, and its last radio message was not until after 2 AM.
It was perfectly safe aboard the Titanic for several hours, so the statements were accurate at the time.
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)... the GOP knew their chosen "captain of the ship" was a lying, incompetent SOB when they elected him. And yet they encouraged their fellow passengers to get on-board anyway, knowing that iceberg was out there.
They just figured they could get to the lifeboats before the below-deck riff-raff realized they wouldn't survive.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There are a lot of questions about that.
For one thing, the hull of the ship was made of steel. Icebergs are made of ice. Ice is not hard enough to cut steel. It doesn't matter how cold it is. It is a basic principle of material science that you cannot cut steel with a piece of ice.
In fact, it was not until the wreck was discovered recently that it was found the entire vessel had snapped into two pieces.
So, even if you believe the official "iceberg" theory, and even if you ignore basic material science, there is no way that an iceberg cut the entire ship into pieces.
There had to be hidden explosives aboard the ship.
So we don't really know why the Titanic sank. There's a lot of scientific controversy about that. It could have been some 400 pound guy in his bunk.
Oh, and, Benghazi, emails, Clinton's penis, Anthony's Weiner, Kenya!
yardwork
(61,588 posts)A heavy enough piece of ice colliding with a large ship can result in enough pressure to damage the skin of the ship. It's not a matter of "ice cuts steel."
It's a function of momentum and friction.
Think of a speeding car colliding with a bank of snow and ice. The snow can't "cut steel" but if the car is going fast enough and the pile of snow is big enough, the collision will result in mangled broken steel. Same when a car hits a tree. Wood "can't cut steel" but a car hitting a tree is going to be damaged.
The Titanic probably broke apart when it hit the sea floor.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)No, there is a grainy over-enlarged YouTube video with a creepy soundtrack which clearly shows there was no iceberg. None of the survivors reported seeing an iceberg.
There are always going to be people whose reality is going to reflect what they are disposed to believe.
bucolic_frolic
(43,118 posts)Opponents of the proposed Federal Reserve system were scuttled in the tragedy, say some authors
JP Morgan cancelled his imminent passage hours before the ship sailed, they say
Please enjoy the finest theories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic_alternative_theories
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,118 posts)csziggy
(34,135 posts)Of not only the Titanic hull but also of the bulkheads that were supposed to make it unsinkable. The researchers found firemen from the ship that testified in American inquiries that the coal was on fire before the ship was launched and that the fire was never put out - the British investigation of the time did not hear from the firemen since the White Line claimed that all the firemen had died on the ship.
The heat was great enough to transfer the bulkhead and light the coal in the neighboring bunker. It also buckled the steel and a fireman testified that he saw the bulkhead breach where it had buckled. If an interior bulkhead could breach from the pressure, so could the exterior hull.
They also have a theory that the fire is the reason the Titanic did not slow for the iceberg field - the only way to put out the fire was to remove the coal and the only place to move the coal was into the boilers. By the time they reached the area where ice had been spotted, they did not have enough coal left to slow for the ice field and still make it to port.
I've seen the documentary as shown on Smithsonian Channel and it is persuasive.
A new documentary claims the Titanics hull was weakened before it struck an iceberg
By Danny Lewis
smithsonian.com
January 5, 2017
The sinking of the Titanic has long been a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris. But after more than a century, a new documentary offers evidence that the iceberg wasnt the only reason for the sinking of the unsinkable ship. Instead, the floating mountain of ice may have happened to strike the exact spot where the hull had been weakened by a coal fire blazing in the bowels of the passenger ship.
In "Titanic: The New Evidence," which airs on the Smithsonian Channel on January 21, Irish journalist Senan Molony argues that the hull of the infamous ship was compromised weeks before it set sail. Through researching photos and eyewitness testimony from the time, Molony contends that a fire spontaneously lit inside one of the Titanics enormous coal bunkers and critically weakened a crucial segment of the ships hull.
"The ship is a single-skin ship," Molony tells Smithsonian.com. By that he means that while modern ships contain two hulls, at the time, the Titanic, like most ships of its day, just had the one. Because the bunkers where the crew stored coal for the engines sat right next to the hull, the heat from the fire would have transferred directly to the skin, damaging the Titanic's structure.
For Molony, who has spent decades studying the Titanic, the "smoking gun" came in a recent discovery of a trove of photographs documenting the ships construction and preparations for its maiden voyage. The photos had been taken by the engineering chief of Harland and Wolff, the Belfast-based company that built the doomed vessel. About four years ago, Molony and a collaborator purchased the photographs from a descendant of the companys director, who had found them stored in an attic. As they pored over the images, Molony was shocked to see a 30-foot-long black streak documented on the outside of the Titanics hull, close to where the iceberg struck its starboard side.
We asked some naval architects what this could be, and nobody knew and everybody was intrigued, Molony says. The best suggestion at the time was that this was a reflection." But Monology disagrees because, at the time the photograph was taken, he says, there was no road or dock on the shore which could have been reflected on the hull.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/coal-fire-may-have-helped-sink-titanic-180961699/#owrUZmeiqQtYS3Tu.99
GreenEyedLefty
(2,073 posts)The ASSumed the ship was unsinkable so they provided far fewer lifeboats than needed for the number of passengers... and they ASSumed the ship was unsinkable, even after it was listing badly in the water.
And let's not forget - and this is kind of important - that the majority of the people who died were 2nd and 3rd class passengers.
oldtime dfl_er
(6,930 posts)I think the GOP should be barred from holding any office for the next 50 years. They are ALL complicit, down to and including John McCain.
calimary
(81,189 posts)BigBearJohn
(11,410 posts)dalton99a
(81,426 posts)Ilsa
(61,691 posts)Cha
(297,048 posts)Jon Ossoff!
Chemisse
(30,807 posts)I am daydreaming of all the political ads that can be made, once the 45 regime collapse is complete.
Every public utterance of support for Trump can be coupled with equally public examples of Trump's instability, idiocy and corruption-to-the-core. They can never claim they were fooled by him. It was obvious all along how bad a Trump presidency would be, and there is ample evidence of that every step of the way.
Barack_America
(28,876 posts)Democrats certainly will. But I've yet to see much evidence this will harm the Republican brand long term. It's an opportunity for Dems to pick up some voters, but they still need to make their case, and there's seemingly not even enough oxygen left in the room that they dare speak.
I don't think they've done anything wrong, why detract attention from what Trump is doing to himself? But, if they wish to capitalize on this, they will need to find their opportunity to ensure as much Republican trash as possible is thrown on that fire. The trash still does not dispose of itself, and plenty still manage to find a treasure within it, sadly.
brer cat
(24,544 posts)raccoon
(31,106 posts)gademocrat7
(10,651 posts)The Wizard
(12,541 posts)from my favorite DU contributor. It makes a great case for crucifixion of GOP leadership.
bucolic_frolic
(43,118 posts)Commons, monuments, parks - gone or under assault
Schools, highways, buildings - privatized with taxpayers paying the new owners
Social Security - under attempted reduction or privatization schemes
Medicare - attempts to voucherize
Medicaid - reduced and attempts to voucherize
Annuities, pensions - fiduciary due diligence doesn't matter
Are our banks safe? Insurance?
We must work to reverse all that they do to the extent it can be reversed
We must never forget, and never forgive
His programs are the dumbest in history. Brings the jobs back from China. What
does that mean? move the factories? Why would the owners sell them? It takes
MONEY to move factories, and factories needs workers at $1 an hour. Here?
Drill for oil and gas. The world is awash in cheap energy. Solar and wind are producing
67% of California's electricity! Tesla can't make electric cars fast enough.
Money belongs to investment and government/industry research. Innovation leads to
good jobs. In the past - record players, stereo, video, digital, computer, microchips -
it took investment policy to innovate. What do we do? Drill for natural gas and oil.
There is no growth in that future. None.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,732 posts)And Rec!
emulatorloo
(44,106 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)Funny how this thread devolved into Titanic conspiracy "theories." But well done as usual Nance!
Mountain Mule
(1,002 posts)Thank you!
joet67
(624 posts)under the Make America Great Again mantle- the fully own this, all three branches of government. I suspect some seat in 18 will be up for grabs...And when I say some, I mean quite a few.
Great post!
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)Gothmog
(145,063 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Two sides of the same coin, the both do it...", etc.
I may print this out to use for face slapping.