I am now convinced that McConnell held up Merrick Garland because he knew Trump

[Ninga]

would win.

No one will ever convince me other wise........

[StevieM]

1. I certainly think he knew that there would be pressure on Comey to do something like

the July press conference. And I think he knew that they were going to arrange some type of re-opening of the email case right before the election.

And, of course, all the Republicans knew that there was never anything to indict Clinton for and, in fact, the entire investigation, and having the FBI involved, was ridiculous to begin with.

[brush]

2. You're leaving out the elephant in the room. The Russians. The repugs...

were all in on it.

[dchill]

19. Ding...

Ding..
Ding.

[Hortensis]

30. IMO, the director and assistant director of the FBI

Last edited Thu Sep 20, 2018, 08:26 AM - Edit history (1)

were the elephants in this room. Scalia is not off that list of suspicious characters, and would be one hell of a bull elephant also, but the dead-to-rights evidence of illicit public behaviors is not there the way it is with Comey and McCabe.

We should know what our intelligence services do about Scalia's various secret meetings in highly private settings, but don't. We do know he associated to a very unseemly degree with Koch-type centi/billionaires who've been actively conspiring and working for decades to reform our government of, by and for the people to be controlled by and serve them.

Imo, Brush, Russia as a foreign enemy doesn't begin to be in the same class as our domestic conspirators. We'd stomp Putin like the kleptocrat dictator of a backwards, underdeveloped nation that he is if we were united, but conquer through division has been one of their biggest victories.

[brush]

36. The Russians were a definite part of the perfect storm of bad actors who manipulated...

the election. You can't leave them out. They hacked into election systems of several states before the election, including the three states were 77m votes combined decided the electoral college outcome.

No one can convince me those 77k votes were just a coincidence and weren't calculated down to the last vote. Somebody made that happen and there could very well have been foreign hackers working with domestic targeters directing them.

I'm betting Mueller has paid close attention to that.

[Hortensis]

37. You're leaving the biggest, most dangerous enemies out.

I'm not cluelessly blind to any identified threat. You might ask why you are so focused on a distant, relatively minor enemy you can't do anything about and are ignoring huge, immediate enemies you can destroy, and really, really need to.

Our own right-wing conspirators have kept the nation drenched with their Kool-Aid for decades while operating from behind false fronts, and, yes, I'm guessing that's the answer. The rare hints talking heads dare make of their involvement in events suggest their power more than if they chatted freely.

[brush]

39. I know the repugs have been cheating for decades and I'm not minimizing their...

complicity but I don't think the Russian participation in trump getting elected should be minimized either, considering all of his Russian financial obligations and the many, many Russian connections/contacts with his presidential campaign.

[Hortensis]

42. I'm with you on Russia. But..."cheating?"

that is incredibly minimizing.

Is this what you mean by cheating? We used to have the right to join dozens of fellow employees, who were systematically cheated and abused, in lawsuits against employers, but that's now illegal for large numbers of Americans.. We must individually sue the employer and agree to arbitration, a process heavily weighted against employees. A huge basic right to redress of grievance and means of protection against victimization of employees taken away by their manipulations of congress and the courts.

It's just one of hundreds of these "cheats," and they haven't had half the power they're within reach of now. Say goodbye to Social Security, Medicare, etc., if they do. Dismantling all such programs and changing the constitution to make it impossible to recreate them has been a top priority for decades. Civil rights as well as labor protections are on the line, hundreds of cheats right there. Voter protections. Consumer rights another big group that will be cheated out of existence.

Right to privacy? HUGE and ALL in danger. The right to abortion is one that directly affects a minority, but there are many others that affect everyone.

The rest of over 200 years of interpretations of the bill of rights? ALL on the block.

[brush]

43. Looks like we were talking about different things. I was thinking of a narrower scope of repug...

election cheating—decades of gerrymandering, vote suppression, poll closures in Dem precincts, caging, minority voter intimidation, those kinds of things.

You're speaking of a much broader problem which I acknowledge and agree with.

[Hortensis]

49. Didn't seem like you, Brush, though

common enough among others.

November 6 coming up fast now, and incredibly slowly.

[brush]

51. We seem to be on the same side of this issue. I don't quite know what to make of...

you thinking my responses don't seem like me. I've been consistently against repug election cheating.

I think we were just talking about different areas. I have no arguments with the broader area of concern you were referring to.

[blueinredohio]

44. Agreed 1000 percent!!!

[Hortensis]

50. More are coming to realize, that's the

reassuring thing. We have 200,000,000 registered voters after all.

[BSdetect]

47. Was it not 77000 such votes?

[brush]

48. You are correct. Good catch. It should be 77k not 77m. I edited it. Thanks.

[Quemado]

31. BINGO!

nt

[phylny]

3. I agree.

I cannot imagine how twisted you have to be to be Mitch McConnell.

[blm]

4. Putin promised and he came through.

Putin owns the GOP.

[dalton99a]

5. And his wife would be given a Cabinet department

[atreides1]

29. Transportation Secretary

Which is convenient, since her father owns a shipping company, that may or may not be transporting drugs from overseas to the United States!

[unc70]

6. Remember Barbara Ledeen is Grassley staffer

She was running private investigation of Clinton emails 2016. She and husband Michael are up to their eyeballs in decades of shenanigans mixed up with all the slime balls like Flynn.

[Initech]

7. Oh he definitely knew something was up.

The question is what?

[mountain grammy]

8. I'll believe it until the day I die.

He knew it before the nomination.

[Hoyt]

9. He held it up so that Obama wouldn't get credit. GOPers including trump were way too down

and resigned to losing for any of them to seriously think Clinton would not win.

Like most political parties nowadays, you don’t give up because anything can happen, like Comey 11 days before the election or a lady coming forward just as it looks like a Supreme Court nominee has it made.

[Hassler]

10. The entire GOP is complicit. They were in Russia on July 4!. Lock. Them. All. Up.

[Orangepeel]

11. It's possible. But I don't think it is necessary.

It wasn’t much of a risk for him, politically. He didn’t suffer any negative consequences for doing it, unfortunately. And if they were afraid Hillary would appoint someone more liberal, they could have rushed Garland through by December.

And anyway, he probably would have held up all of Hillary’s picks as well, with some bullshit excuse. For example, the Senate would have appointed a special prosecutor on Benghazi, and then say they wouldn’t have a hearing until the investigation was done, which it never would be.

But you could be right. The person occupying the position of the President of the United States is Kremlin stooge. It’s no great leap to think that the Senate Majority Leader is, too. He hasn’t been as obvious about it, but maybe it’s more recent than with Trump or Mitch is just more subtle.

[brush]

38. I think your last graph gets to what happened. But while trump is a Russian stooge...

and easily used, McConnell isn't. He's a calculating, evil bastard who held up O's nominee because something was in the works to get a repug on the Court and he was part of it.

And IMO the Russians were too and he was complicit with them.

[shanny]

12. I'm not.

He held up Merrick Garland because he could, and because it was a thumb in the eye of a Democratic president, and because it would fire up their misbegotten base.

Nobody knew Rump would win; not even Rump.*



*although, to be fair, the polls were never clear of the margin of error.

[brooklynite]

13. Then there's really not a point in having a discussion, is there?

[onenote]

14. +1

[Upthevibe]

15. I also have those suspensions.....

I think he knows a lot and is immersed in a lot of foul play himself..

[Horse with no Name]

16. I believe that too

I think we will ultimately find all these fucking raping Russian republicans are in the kremlins pocket.

[world wide wally]

17. He knew the fix was in anyway

[aeromanKC]

18. #MAGA

(The Mueller one) He knows too.

[KelleyKramer]

20. Quote from the man who was President longer than anyone in history...

I first heard this decades ago, so I am paraphrasing, but this is the gist of it ....


"Nothing happens by accident. If it happens in politics, you better believe it was planned that way" - FDR



.

[Ninga]

22. I turned yesterday.

The GOP are good soldiers and folllowed McConnell onto the plank.

Everything. The Russians. The rRump crime family. The actors from central casting, Manafort, Flynn etc etc etc...

All happen while McConnell watched from the wings, knowing how this would turn out?

[ProfessorPlum]

21. well . . . . of course

was there some new piece of evidence that convinced you? It's kind of been obvious for a while now. He's a huge douchebag for doing it, too.

[Ninga]

23. Well Professor, I moved from thinking it, to believing it.

[ProfessorPlum]

25. gotcha

It would be so nice if there were any doubt about it.

[FM123]

34. "I moved from thinking it, to believing it"

Best words!

[Stellar]

24. I've thought that all along...

What if Dems had won and picked up more seats, his holding an open seat for a whole year, would look crazy.

[malaise]

26. And if you need more proof

Check his wife's appointment.
They were and are all in. They want power and wealth not democracy

[Pachamama]

27. [phone]

I completely agree....

McConnell knew

[democratisphere]

28. One gigantic conspiracy to elect drumpf.

Yup.

[PoliticAverse]

32. You don't think McConnell was prepared to block any Clinton Supreme Court nominees...

for 4 or 8 years if he had to? I think you are wrong.

[shanny]

33. Bingo.

It was said out loud iirc.

[Ninga]

35. I now believe that McConnell never believed Clinton would be elected, because he knew the

fix was in.

[NewJeffCT]

40. correct

he had said that if Clinton won, he would continue to block any of her nominees.

[aikoaiko]

41. Or it was just a win-win gambit.

If Trump won, he would get someone like Kavanaugh.

If HRC won, he would get to make trouble for Garland or an actual HRC pick.

There was no downside to the play and even had a little bit of cover with the 1992 Biden Rule.

[Reader Rabbit]

45. I've believed this all along.

No one holds up a Supreme Court nomination for 293 days if he doesn't know the fix is in for the next election. Sure, McConnell could have just been being a dick, trying to prevent the black guy from establishing his legacy. But, 293 frickin' days, people! And the media colluded by not blasting 24/7 how it defied every precedent in U.S. frickin' history!

[Ninga]

46. Sadly agree........we were had....big time....nt

[Amaryllis]

52. I've thought that for a long time. McC was complicit in the theft of the election. He knew it was

going to happen. Also Ryan.