I have so many questions about this post and I want none of them answered.

Imagine walking into someone else's house just to announce that you're leaving forever. That's what that guy did.

It is increasingly clear to me that despite the damage Donald Trump inflicted in four years in office, and despite having openly launched a coup to overturn the results of a democratic election, the institutional leadership of the Democratic neoliberal establishment neither wants to hold Mr. Trump to account, nor desires to remove him permanently from the playing field. At this point I have little doubt that they hope to once again use Donald Trump as a means to hold the whole country hostage; as a means of weakening and isolating their own progressive wing; and as a means to check the renewed growth of radical Left organizing.

Keystone also had a lot of already sunk costs involved, so the gamble was less surprising. Pratt and Whitney haven't even completed clearing the site, or begun construction of the bridge across the French Broad River. The land was given to P&W free of charge by Biltmore Farms (the front company for the Cecil family who own the Biltmore Estate). Pratt and Whitney has no sunk costs whatsoever. They wouldn't be plowing ahead with this if they hadn't been assured those contracts will still be filled.

It's just sad to realize to know that justice wasn't served on the 13th. Seriously, if inciting a riot inside a federal building isn't enough to get convicted, then where is the line drawn? Does the president need to go on a brutal killing spree and nuke cities for no reason to be convicted?

Good to know that both Republicans and centrist Democrats have practically guaranteed four more years of bullshit from the Trump family in 2024.

Way to go guys!

Trump is acquitted 57 to 43 because Republicans voted not guilty to absolutely no one's surprise while all the Democrats voted guilty: "Why don't the dems hold Trump to account?".

Every centrist Democrat voted to convict. Even Joe Manchin, every Democrat's least favorite Democrat.


Some folks just like to lob mortars at the Democrats and they'll do it no matter what the Dems actually do. There are some entirely valid criticisms of the party but come on, placing the blame on them for Trump's acquittal is just dumb.

Yeah, I get tired of Centrist Democrats, but they did nothing wrong here and I don't get why they are being blamed. It is all on the Republicans for being spineless wastes of space. The real interesting stuff is gonna start happening now anyway with New York and Georgia (I imagine other states will soon follow) investigating him and a lot of details about Trump that he never wanted to get made public will start to come out. This Senate impeachment trial was always going to be a joke.

I'm not holding centrist Dems accountable for the acquittal, guess I should have been more clear about that. I mean more along the lines of what lead to Trump in the first place and what could lead to him or one of his rotten offspring getting elected.

Trump isn't out of the woods yet though, he still has to deal with the individual states attempting to convict him for various other crimes.

Well, if the impeachment trial isn't going to destroy Trump, then maybe Georgia and New York can give him a taste of his own medicine. The phone call with Raffensperger showed how controlling and even abusive Trump was over some votes that never existed, and Trump's questionable history with taxes may bite him in the ass soon enough.

Another exciting thing is that Lindsey Graham is also being investigated for his involvement with Georgia. I think he is much more expendable to the Republicans than Trump and could go down. After the mock vote, it was really hard to care about what the Senate was going to do. It felt like bullshit pandering and McConnell trying to make himself look "human" by condemning Trump without actually punishing him.

There are still things to be excited about. This is not going to go away and New York, Georgia, probably Washington, and other states will continue to make Trump's life miserable for a long time. There's also the sexual assault allegations and I imagine more of those will be coming as well now that he doesn't have the protection of being president. The whole process is going to be long and it's why I can't really see Trump being healthy enough to run in 2024. He's going to be dealing with this for years.

I'm also not holding Democrats responsible for the failure to convict. That was, as everyone knew, a foregone conclusion. I do hold Democrats responsible for being actively complicit in the construction and maintenance of the nightmare society that produced Donald Trump and the Trump cult. I do hold Democrats responsible for their unwavering support of American imperialism and neoliberal economic policies at home and abroad. I do hold Democrats responsible for their active and leading participation in the construction of the carceral and security states. I do hold Democrats responsible for their tepid defense of marginalized people. I do hold Democrats responsible for their abject failure to check the rise of fascism. I do hold Democrats responsible for their failures to use the power that they have held for the benefit of poor, working, and oppressed Americans. I do hold Democrats responsible for their fecklessness in ignoring the importance of state and local governments and the courts, and essentially ceding these to the increasingly far-right GOP. I do hold Democrats responsible for decades of brutal state repression aimed at minority communities and peaceful protesters in Democrat-controlled cities and municipalities. I do hold Democrats responsible for their continued failure to meet the pandemic crisis. I do hold Democrats responsible for pursuing the empty political theater of impeachment and then going on recess while the people of this country groan under the twin disasters of COVID and economic collapse.

Do I need to go on here?

I'd bet $20 this guy saw the 57-43 vote tally being considered an acquittal and didn't realize you needed 2/3rd instead of a simple majority, and thought it was 57 to acquit and 43 to convict.

Most likely, yeah.

I'm not too surprised by the outcome, and I am glad there are at least 7 half-decent republicans that do put country over party. Even still, the acquittal it shows that the president can essentially act like a crime boss during his presidency and as long as he/she is politically popular, they'll never get convicted because of the 2/3rds rule. McConnell's speech about how Trump "absolutely helped create the events of Jan 6th" (paraphrasing) is emblematic of this. Sure, McConnell may think this, but he's representing his constituency and voting along what will keep him politically alive. It's disgusting, by trying to get votes in a representative republic, they have to sell themselves out to a pseudo-fascist that wants anything but democracy.

Can anyone speak as to the veracity of the claims in this video being spread by all of my chud relatives and acquaintances across the internet? Because it seems like a heartfelt, sincere video, but I'm utterly baffled by the claims that Trump cares more about medical costs for poor people than Biden...

I don't have time to watch the whole video at the moment, but the idea that Trump cared more about healthcare than Biden sounds absurd on so many levels. Wasn't it Biden that cared?

Welp, Rush Limbaugh has just died today.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-BB1dLUji
As I believe in letting some time pass before speaking ill of the dead, I will leave it at that. But y’all feel free to pile on if you like.

The only reason I would choose not to speak poorly of someone who's just passed away would be out of respect for their family... But it's not like Rush Limbaugh's family is ever going to read this thread so I have no compunction against saying that this country would be a better place if this had happened in 1988. He was a venomous, bigoted liar who committed his life's work to division and polarization, and he played no small role in creating the dismal political environment that exists today in America. I sure ain't heartbroken to see him go.

Nah, fuck him. Today's a great day, one less ratfucker. He deserved it 100%.

Jesus.

I'm not all for disrespecting the dead, but considering he believed in stuff like this, I'd say karma struck him pretty hard today.

Post ur fav Rush clipz

Easily this one

Of course they won't do anything. After all, dems and reps are "enemies" just for public appareances. This "conviction" thing was lost from the beginning and the dems knew it, that's why they went for it. If they truly thought there was a real chance to make Trump accountable, they would have do nothing.

USA is a country ruled by a single class, which both parties belong to. They "fight" to each other just to keep the circus going and divide/distract the population from the obvious and painful fact that neither party wants the well being of its citizens if they have to lose any of their privileges. Trump is one of them and they won't throw him under the bus.

Biden will probably be like any other dem, basically a capitalist whore that will do everything the corporations tell him to do and keep the status quo the best as possible. It's up to the American people to allow this farce and treason. If Biden doesn't show any real and dramatic action towards improving American's life standards in a substantial way, people should riot the entire fucking country. The US rulers have no fucking excuse; they and the USA are rich as shit.



As I said, Riot until Biden either do what people expect him to do or he shows his real face and the real riots begin.

You going to go out and fire the first shot?

I've been in several riots already. The status quo is not an option. It's not about overthrowing a government because I'm a bad loser or something, this is regardless the clown put in office. Things must change and if the people in the position of changing them won't do it, they must be persuaded to do so. Politicians are there only due the social contract where people gave them power to represent them in the first place. If they, as a group are determined to not represent anybody but themselves, just voting for one or other option is not enough to guarantee any real change. They're basically all the same and they're united. Class struggle is real.

Totally hear you. People like you are the ones that FDR empathized with in the 1930's that helped create the new deal/social security/etc. Without the intense labor movements pre WWII, FDR wouldn't have gone down in history as one of the more progressive presidents in history (ignoring racial injustice via interment camps, that was clearly a fucked thing). I think the difference between a guy like Biden and a guy like Trump is that Biden will potentially throw stimulus and healthcare in your face because of the voices of dissent while Trump would throw a gun and an attack dog in your face. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic like I always am, but I certainly could never see Biden saying some shit like "when the looting starts the shooting starts" or "LAW AND ORDER".

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/1 ... acSEkwKVE4

Biden sucks, he’s always sucked, and we all knew this presidency of his was gonna be more of the same from the useless party leadership. Can’t wait for 2022 when the Dems get creamed, again, and the party leadership wonders whatever could have caused it. Again.

While I'll admit that Biden isn't flawless, compared to Trump and how things could've went had we reelected Trump, I'm gonna stick with Biden.

...Maybe read beyond the headlines of your own links before embarrassing yourself with knee-jerk reactions?




So, he's pessimistic because of reconciliation rules (that are beyond his control), but he wants to keep pushing because he thinks it's important. Oops.

I have no faith that they’ll actually try in the future. Nothing about the last few decades of Dem leadership leads me to believe they’ll even attempt to go for a minimum wage increase at some point. “Not right now” in Dem speaks tends to mean “Never”.

But it's inclusion in the covid relief package was an attempt... just not a successful one because of reasons beyond Biden's control. Doesn't mean they won't try to push it later as a seperate bill.

Alternative explanation:

1. This is political kabuki theater.

2. Raising the minimum wage is not a significant priority for this administration, but it is immensely popular with the Democratic Party base.

3. Biden is reframing expectations and attempting to preemptively shift blame to the reconciliation process for the failure to attain something that is popular with voters but loathed by the donor class.

Manchin voting no on Tanden for OMB. Mixed emotions. On one hand she's a fucking ghoul who helped kick off the "Bernie Bro" myth as well as frequently praising Modi and fucking the dog on ThinkProgress, the only truly good thing her dreadful think tank ever created. But on the other hand, the runner-up for the position is Bruce Reed, who's roughly 10,000x worse than Tanden.

So it's lose-lose, but when in doubt assume that whenever Manchin breaks with his party he's going with the worse option, so it's #teamneera for me I guess.

Ah, the joys of living in America, where the only options are a ghoul or an even worse ghoul, all of whom fail upwards into greater and greater positions of power and influence.

There is another way.

When Dems pressed to allow witnesses in the second impeachment trial only to ultimately decide not to call any anyway and wrap the whole thing up super quickly because a recess was scheduled and everybody already had plane tickets booked for their vacations, I saw somebody say "If you're going to skimp on the bread, you can't also skimp on the circuses." I have a sneaking hunch that that phrase is going to be circling through my head a lot over the next few years.

We just went through several years of "gee golly we'd love to but the republicans control everything so there's no point", and now we're in the short phase of "gee golly we'd love to but the republicans would never let it pass so we need to do their jobs for them and preemptively negotiate all of our promises down and then allow them to cut them further before we ultimately pass something functionally worthless" before we inevitably go back to the previous phase when dems get shellacked in the next election.

Biden says he wants to do $15 per hour minimum wage eventually, but he said he'd get those stimulus checks out immediately, so forgive me for not having much faith in this administration and time...