DL Open Thread: Wed., Dec. 11, 2019

Filed in Featured by on December 11, 2019

The Articles Of Impeachment Annotated.  Perhaps most notable is that the first article sets out that Trump’s actions remain an ongoing threat to the nation:

Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

It’s not just what he did, it’s what he’s doing and will certainly continue to do.

US Spent Over $133 Billion For ‘Nation-Building’ In Afghanistan.  Despite Presidents having pledged not to do just that. $133 billion.

Trump To Declare Judaism A ‘Nationality’.  Our nationality is American, our religion is Judaism.  All this will do is inflame anti-Semitism and, of course, equate support for Judaism with support for Netanyahu.  Is there nothing this guy won’t fuck up on purpose? Someone should ask Chris Coons his position on this.  Hey, how about a call to his office?  I think I’m gonna do that. Anyone with me?

Bill Barr Rejects All Evidence That Doesn’t Support Deep-State Conspiracy.  He and the Rethugs are just gonna tell The Big Lie, and will be abetted by their state media lackeys.  All references to Nazi Germany are intentional.  Which reminds me. See the above article. Which also reminds me: Read this set of tweets about Barr from the former US Ethics Chair. Barr is as much a threat to democracy as Trump.

Biden Would Only Serve One Term?  Let’s take it for what it is: A trial balloon floated to see if there is any political advantage in announcing it. This is a very cynical campaign.  I mean, talk about trying to thread the needle:

While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicate that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.

Can someone please tell me what ‘quietly indicate’ actually means?  I think it means float it out there and hope it lodges in the public’s consciousness.

The Defense Bill: Why Democratic Centrists Suck. Space force? Yes. A prohibition on Trump’s war-making powers? No. Reversing the transgender ban? No. Maybe Schumer and Pelosi should stop putting war hawks on the bleeping Armed Services committees. Just sayin’. Reed, Warren and Hirono are basically the only D’s on the senate committee we can count on.

Trump Jr. Goes To Mongolia To Kill Rare Sheep.  Gets retroactive hunting permit from Mongolian government after slaughtering the defenseless animal.  A sheep.

Prominent Anti-Abortion Zealot Claims That Christianity Is Fading Out Due To ‘Contraception And Abortion’.  To be replaced of course, by ‘immigrant Muslims’. Bet it won’t shock you to learn that Trump is throwing millions of dollars in grants to her company which ‘runs a national network of health centers opposed to abortion and contraception’.

That’s about all I can take for one day.

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. xyz says:

    Absolutely brutal numbers for Dems in latest Q poll:

    “Should Donald Trump be impeached and removed from office?”

    1553 RV: No 51/Yes 45
    435 Independents: No 52/Yes 44
    528 Dems: No 12/Yes 83
    435 Repubs: No 95/Yes 3

    Tough vote for swing state Dems coming up. Pelosi drinking even more heavily than usual seeing those numbers. Serious regret over listening to the idiot wing of her party on this one. I thought she was smarter than this. Why she had any faith in dingbats like Nadler and Schiff is beyond me.

  2. RSE says:

    The Democrats are obligated at this point to impeach Trump less its base has a meltdown. You can’t tell people practically every day for three years that Trump is finished and then do nothing. You definitely don’t want your base to be discouraged and become disheartened to the point that they tune out, especially when the African American support for Trump has risen to around 35%.

  3. RE Vanella says:

    FYI for those who don’t have cow farts in their craniums where their brains are meant to be… Trump’s African American support hovers around 9-10% after surging last year to 11%.

    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/268517/analyzing-black-support-president-trump.aspx

  4. Alby says:

    Lots of trolls = frightened Trumpies.

  5. RE Vanella says:

    “Steely Dan is great. I’m sorry I called it “Dad Music” all through high school. Aja is a masterpiece. Every no-wave indie rock band in Bushwick is just trying to sound like Steely Dan. You were right about Steely Dan.” 🤞

    The Grand Boomer Bargain

    https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/12/the-grand-boomer-bargain

    • He’s right on both Joe Biden AND Steely Dan. Although I’m not as in love with Aja as others. Give me Countdown To Ecstasy and Pretzel Logic instead. And Katie Lied. Plus The Royal Scam.

  6. RE Vanella says:

    This is good.

    https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/on-the-origins-of-the-professional-managerial-class-an-interview-with-barbara-ehrenreich

    Alex Press interviews Barbara Ehrenreich on the term she coined in 1977. Professional Managerial Class. This is from the introduction:

    When the social worker confronts her client, or the manager his worker, they do so in an “objectively antagonistic” relationship. The PMC are “salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations.”

    These contradictory interests are a product not only of social location but of social function. A mediating class, the PMC only exists “by virtue of the expropriation of the skills and culture once indigenous to the working class”—cultural production, social reproduction, and so on. They relate to the working class with a mixture of “contempt and paternalism,” while workers interact with them with “hostility and deference.” As such, even as the working conditions and pay of members of the PMC deteriorate, it’s not a certainty that they will line up on the side of the working class, much less that such a coalition would be without tension.