"We are witnessing a full-blown Saturday Night Massacre"

[swag]

Link to tweet

[DURHAM D]

1. The spooks will eventually get even. nt

[rurallib]

12. I so hope you are right - I so hope

I am more scared tonight than I have ever been.

they are really stacking the deck; they own the media; they own the judiciary; congressional districts are terribly gerrymandered; voting is suppressed and voting machines very possibly rigged.

Jesus Christ they have done it.

I fully expect Mueller to be fired and the fall election stolen.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

17. consolidation of power

State of the Union: bleak.

[JustAnotherGen]

18. Agree n/t

[DonViejo]

2. I agree with Aravosis; we've crossed a line. eom

[NightWatcher]

3. At any time during Watergate did citizens ponder descending on DC in massive protest?

I don't mean carrying witty signs and marching and leaving, but I mean angry crowds demanding removal of Nixon?

I'm afraid things are getting real.

[Mr. Ected]

4. Honestly, do you think the American people have the mettle to take to the streets for this?

When, where, how, for how long?

Frankly, if these abominations aid and abet in creating a constitutional crisis, will we the people, for the first time in our history, be called upon to form a "well regulated militia (as) necessary to the security of a free state"?

[NightWatcher]

6. We won't launch a militia, but we might have to storm DC and not leave.

[hurple]

7. Which will last a weekend...

And then people will need to return to their jobs, because they've rigged the system so we all have to live paychck to paycheck now.

Edit to add: The real enemy of democracy is apathy, and this country is the most apathetic it's ever been.

[NightWatcher]

9. If they leave, they lose America. A time for sacrifice is coming.

[hurple]

34. Then we lose America

Hate to say it, but people around here would rather the country go up in flames than miss an episode of Survivor

[writerJT]

15. Explain how that would work.

Specifically in financial terms for people.

[BobTheSubgenius]

31. Or, sadly, even in logistical terms.

Would like-minded citizens open their hearts, doors and refrigerators to them? For how many people, and for how long? That's not meant to be facetious, or hyperbolic.

[dewsgirl]

5. +1

[bluestarone]

8. not disagreeing at all but

Do we as a nation care enough? I gotta say i have my doubts. it's gonna take a lot of us, plus i feel they're just looking foe an excuse to cause riots!!!! gotta be careful here

[BoneyardDem]

11. Women could oranize this type of rally and pull it off.

[bettyellen]

28. But then they have to go back to their jobs/ men are in a better position financially to make such

sacrifices, but they haven’t even been marching in nearly equal numbers. Men are not supporting the movement as they should. What would get them off their asses?

[BoneyardDem]

38. Women

[bettyellen]

39. LOL, well we are out there, dammit. Wish that was the answer.

[RandomAccess]

10. No because

that wasn't necessary. The Watergate hearings took care of things.

One of the things that's SO different now is the tremendous shortening of the timeline. Watergate, a much simpler crime and cover up, took a couple of YEARS to unwind.

[xxqqqzme]

21. No and I followed the hearings.

It was my religion during '73/'74.

The enormous difference is the rethuglican party wasn't comprised of a bunch of toads.
Republicans like Howard Baker in the Senate and a number in the House who understood Nixon was guilty and there was no way to hide the mess under the carpet without tripping over it. The rethugs, on the whole, considered country before party was a given.
Nixon was not popular, either, even though he had won an election in '72 in a landslide.

[BobTheSubgenius]

32. Not merely a bunch of toads, as you say...

..but a bunch of toads with literally almost everything to lose. Not just their prestige or Q score, or even their seat, but their very liberty and the chance to not go through the rest of life as a convicted felon. Perhaps coming out of jail to nothing, because it's almost impossible to manage a life outside from inside.

"Cornered rat" comes to mind. They will be capable of almost anything.

[JI7]

30. The Congress and Media were doing their Job back then

[elmac]

13. Remember that the fascists have their brown shirt thugs to counter any demonstrations

in the form of Bundy types and nazis.

[brooklynite]

24. Right, the DC Police are going to let skinheads beat up peaceful protesters.

Let's not over-hype this.

[elmac]

35. I'm glad we have the option to block nt

[elmac]

36. and for those who think this can't happen

you don't understand the state of the Union.

[iluvtennis]

14. And the rethugs won't do a damn thing about it. I think we win House in November and can

start impeachment process. But with the vote tallies required, don't think we can pull it off. Maybe Mueller has a way to indict a sitting president - hope so...it's our only chance to rid ourselves of this monster.

[UTUSN]

16. "enabled"

[Initech]

19. These fuckers are fueled by hatred and want nothing less than complete totalitarian rule.

Fuck them.

[mucifer]

29. I think it's greed for money and power not bigotry. But, those two often go hand and hand.

[mchill]

20. McCabe - one theory

This is what I want to read into McCabe leaving today. March 18th was the last day of the pay period he was to work. Counting backwards (I was a federal employee) he would have 6 weeks of annual leave (max carryover from 2017). Most feds about to retire try to carry as much as they can as they will get paid a lump sum for all unused annual leave. This money gets them to their first retirement check, which doesn't come fast. He would also have 2 days annual leave earned in January, 2018. Backing this up to now we are left with 3 days this week that are not paid, except for federal employees can carry up to 24 hours of credit hours, over and above the normal annual leave. If McCabe had 20 of those 24 hours, he could leave at lunch time today.

There was an old saying in my agency, once someone had their paperwork in for retirement, "Piss me off 3 days in a row and I'm outta here."

[brooklynite]

22. Obscure bloggers are entitled to their opinion; I lived through Watergate and we're not there

[Blue_true]

26. I was young then, but what I read after, you are 100% right.

This situation is more like keystone cops shooting themselves in the foot. If republicans are seen as trying to obstruct legal investigations, they pretty much insure that November will be a bloodbath for them.

[regnaD kciN]

27. So have I, and I think we're a lot further...

The backlash to the Saturday Night Massacre demonstrated that even congressional Republicans weren't willing to go along with Nixon's subversion of the law. What I'm seeing today, by contrast, is 2018 Republicans enthusiastically embracing the subversion at which their predecessors balked.

I disagree that we are now in "Watergate territory" -- today, we crossed that line into something much worse.

[DURHAM D]

33. Agree. We are past Watergate territory.

All elected Republicans are complicit.

[VOX]

37. I lived through Watergate as well; this is much worse.

At its center, Watergate was about a sitting Republican President and his lieutenants engaging in illegal behavior trying to “get something” on the Democrats. While there was rampant lawlessness, it was still limited to homegrown American political power.

The current Russia business, however, is far more serious in scope: the probability that a hostile foreign power acted (with assistance of some key American enablers) to throw an American general election to a specific Republican candidate, who in all likelihood has economic ties (and more) to Russia.

And unlike Watergate, most of the Republican Party wants the various investigating committees to cease their inquiry. WHY? If there’s nothing to worry about, why do they want the investigations stopped? Why do nearly all congressional Republicans publicly genuflect at the feet of their emotionally disturbed leader, and appear wholly uninterested in any potential illegalities with Russia? It’s telescoped into a false framework in which Democrats are perceived as the usual bad guys.

[Cosmocat]

41. Agreed

We have never in our history had a situation where another country had effective control of even one branch of our government. Nixon was a nasty piece of business, a low-grade fascist. 45 is a full-on authoritarian dictator. And we've never had anything even remotely like what's occurring in the House of Representatives right now. I guess the McCarthy communism thing probably had some similar undertones, but again he didn't have Russia telling him what to do.

[VOX]

42. Precisely. Call it a coup or new form of warfare...

Or both. However it’s named, the U.S. has been attacked and taken over by some genuinely bad people. Russia is so enmeshed in the narrative that clearly they play a big role in how we’ve gotten here. And there are no signs of them going away.

Trump doesn’t know right from wrong (nor does he care). All those Republicans publicly bowing and scraping in his presence, praising him to the skies as he looks on with arms folded— what the hell? Is this actually America?

All that confusion sown, the sudden crossover into deep weirdness, the disregard for law, the assault on long-standing institutions, the internal divisions, citizens at each other’s throats— coincidence or not, this is all stuff from the KGB playbook.
(As is the Brexit mess in the UK, where Russians also are involved. And a big player in Brexit is Robert Mercer, American billionaire nutcase who’s given at least $10 million to bankroll Breitbart. These creeps are killing international democracy.)

[GusBob]

40. this is so much worse than watergate

not even close

[spanone]

23. K&R...

[Sunsky]

25. I agree nt