(no subject)

[conuly]

Giuliani: If Trump were impeached 'the American people would revolt'

"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. -- Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do."

Jane Austen, as usual, provides the correct rebuttal - and it all sounds more elegant than anything Giuliani ever said.

I don't know, though. President Pence sounds revolting all on its own. Maybe we should just give up now and storm the castle regardless.

Comments

[dewline]

Pence was Manafort's suggestion. Therefore Pence has to be under investigation.

May you find informed hope in this fact.

[conuly]

!!!!!

I'll definitely hope on that front.

[brokenallbroken]

President Pence would be even more awful because he has a coherent agenda and an attention span longer than 5 seconds, and manages to sound like a reasonable person most of the time.

[conuly]

The fact that he's capable of sounding like a grown-up is both a good and a bad thing, imo.

[jessie_c]

Pence is complicit in this whole mess and has been so all along. The solution is to hang them both side by side, along with Ryan and McConnell.

Then get started with the rest of the traitors in the Repugnant Party.

[conuly]

Not sure that'll ever happen, though.

[archangelbeth]

It's so true that I would like them paraded in front of a firing squad. Not necessarily shot, but to be paraded out there and stare down those guns while someone reads out the charges of betrayal of their nation...

[hannah]

I saw a list of the Presidential line of succession - VP, Speaker of the House, etc. - listing the number of people until it reached a Democrat.

The list was titled "US Government Speed Run."

[conuly]

Hah!

[archangelbeth]

If we flip the seats enough, then Speaker of the House becomes a (D), and the speed run gets MUCH faster. >_>

[gominokouhai]

You've revolted before and it seemed to work out pretty well for you guys for 250 years or so. Bring on the torches and pitchforks, I say.

[conuly]

But not tiki torches, because that's both tainted and ridiculous.

[tielan]

Definitely storm the castle. Trump is ridiculous, but Pence is far more toxic long-term. In fact, most of the people down the line of succession are toxic assholes...

[conuly]

Le sigh.

[adafrog]

I agree with storming the castle.

[conuly]

Have fun!

[shadowkat]

I don't know, though. President Pence sounds revolting all on its own.

I'm holding out hope that they'll go down together sort of similar to the Nixon Administration.

[conuly]

Fingers crossed.

[randomdreams]

Robert Reich is suggesting that if we can show the election was tainted, we should annul it and remove everyone associated with the trump administration.

I don't think that's practical or even slightly likely, but it would solve a lot of problems.

[hudebnik]

Problem is, there's nothing in the Constitution about annulling an election, only removing and replacing individual office-holders. Remember, when the Constitution was written, and until the 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804, the Vice Presidency went to the second-place candidate for President rather than to the winning candidate's running-mate; if it were shown that the President had won fraudulently, simply handing the office to the VP (who was presumably of the other major party) would seem like a fitting punishment.

I really don't like the idea of making up Constitutional law from whole cloth as we go along. I could see writing a Constitutional amendment to support election annulment when "at peace", with none of the involved parties expecting to use the procedure any time soon; the 25th Amendment may be a good example of this. And one can reasonably argue about the original intent and motivations of the authors of the Constitution, and the closest analogue to their intent in today's society. But making up a whole annulment process from nothing, in order to use it right now, is a step too far away from the rule of law.

[marahmarie]

"If he's not impeached the American people will revolt" - there, fixed it for him.

And since you're into English, grammar, lexicon, slang, maybe you'll get something out of this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/politics/trump-vocabulary-mob.html

Joe Pesci's character from Goodfellas, more precisely (I grew up hearing Trump - it's been almost 30 years of hearing him on TV) and yeah, it's not just the slang, it's his actual voice/inflections/accent/spaghetti tangle way of talking that I can mostly decipher only because a) 30 years of it and b) in my part of LI we had a similar slang where you drop words all day and use some weird stands-in at other times but because everyone does it it's a local dialect, not a spaghetti tangle (except to maybe outsiders. I'd never expect anyone not from that corner of LI, much less the rest of the island/state/country, to even know what we were saying, much less why we'd say it like that. Nor can I remember most of the dropped words/idioms involved, but I do recall that back in the day I used to talk about it because I could not get over how horrendous the overall grammar was).

[conuly]

Not that I mind insulting Trump early and often, but you do know I am descriptivist leaning, yes?

[gwydion]

I'll fight Pence when we get there.

[conuly]

Rather take them both out.

[silveradept]

I think his statement is wrong. If an impeachment happened, the base might revolt, and they tend to be the touchy reactionaries that think shooting is a good first solution to whatever's in their way. So if there's an impeachment series, it needs to be thorough and complete enough to get everyone who might condone such an action out, so they can do what's needed to stop what happens when the base goes off.

[conuly]

Ugh, how far does the cancer even go, though?

[zesty_pinto]

I always felt like the holdouts to Trump's decisions are this point are doing it mostly because it's their identity at this point, not unlike how some of us are still obsessed with thinking about things with respect to Bernie or Hillary (both moot points imo).

Jonestown isn't that far off a metaphor for me, and if Trump's diet starts to hurt his organ meats, I'm sure there are a few of them willing to lay down and beg to have their bodies opened to give a kidney or half a liver if it means their beloved God Emperor lives a year longer.

I've stopped taking them seriously as you can see, because this year has been one giant tower of Babel, and I'm still standing back, watching the pieces fall.

I agree that Pence is its own version of hell, and the most I am hoping for are midterms. A shame the obstinate turtle man isn't up for running for this year, but I'd be happy enough if Walker is finally kicked out too.

[conuly]

Hell, I'm still pissed about the 2000 election. Forget moot, we wuz robbed.

[zhelana]

Pence would be like Bush - we'd survive it. I'm not sure that's true of Trump. Also, Im not worried about Pence 2020. I am worried about Trump 2020

[conuly]

Some of us would survive it.

[stardreamer]

America does not negotiate with terrorists.

[conuly]

Historically, I think we do.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

This could be a baroque plot to bring Pence to power.

[conuly]

Shh!