McConnell: Invents non-existent rule to prevent President Obama from filling the seat of a far-right Republican-appointed justice after his sudden and unexpected death in an election year.

(once there is a Republican President)

McConnell: Pledges to violate previous self-created rule to ensure that Trump can fill the seat of a Democratic-appointed Justice even in an election year.

how can we break this cycle? We seem to go through it every few years. Republicans abuse power, run the country into the ground, the public gets tired of them, votes a Democrat into the WH and sometimes elects/keeps a majority of Democrats in Congress, Democrats start the hard work of repairing the Republicans' messes and things start to improve until...........Republicans begin massively obstructing and distracting every which way until the federal government basically gets paralyzed, which helps Republicans get back into power, usually in Congress (1994, 2010), which gives them the ability to harass the Democratic President with endless and fruitless investigations until the Democratic President's term is up and then...........Republican wins the WH, in most cases keeping their Republican Congressional Majority intact and they return to abusing power and running the country into the ground. I would say that this has been going on since the late 1980's, 1990's and it hasn't really changed since.

We can hold hearings, we can vote to impeach him, we can file lawsuits to challenge his policies and actions but, at this point, it seems like Trump is going to run out the clock on his first (and hopefully only term) and harm mitigation/reduction is probably the best we can hope for.

Republicans can be as spun out right-wing as they want, but Democrats are repeatedly cautioned to ignore or sideline progressives like AOC lest they become unelectable to "middle-of-the-road Americans (whom I'm not sure care as much as pundits claim they do). Republicans, however, can be as anti-immigrant, anti-POC, anti-poor, etc. and they are repeatedly elected and re-elected without consequences but the instant we have Democrats argue for universal health care, argue for sensible gun restrictions, argue for measures to help combat climate change, argue for reproductive choice and against draconian anti-choice measures, suddenly, they're getting "too extreme" and won't be elected. Although what we've seen in practice often suggests that, in their rush to avoid a HL label, many Democrats, especially in more Red States, openly denounce progressives and veer too far to the right to compensate, often with disastrous results (i.e. Claire McCaskill being my favorite example).

but we have been burned too many times over the years to leave anything to chance. I think that unity and turnout will be keys to victory in 2020. If we all agree to immediately unite around whoever wins the primary no matter who and push back on obvious propaganda against them and work hard for him/her, as well as Democrats in downballot races, I think that we'll be fine. Trump is only getting worse, not better, and there doesn't seem to be anything that he can do between now and next November that could possibly make the case that he deserves a second term- even if the economy doesn't tank or fall into a recession on his watch. The only things that I can see that would potentially sink us is if are disunited and disorganized like in 2016, which, hopefully, we've moved beyond. There will be no Hillary Clinton on the ballot (who, unfortunately, so many people seem to hate.....for reasons), the DNC appears to be stable, Assange is in no position to help hack and disrupt things for the GOP/Russians, Manafort and Stone are currently out of commission, Bannon and Trump are estranged, we are all (hopefully) a bit wiser as to Russian cyberops than we were in 2016, and there are no major 3rd or 4th party candidates whom might potentially split the vote, at least none that I'm aware of yet. The odds seem better for us in general.

This NEEDS to be an OP!


This- to me- started when GWB/Cheney basically came in and s**t all over what Clinton had been working on while he was President and now Trump has repeatedly upended stuff Obama had worked on. Like with regulations and rules, we can't keep everybody in a constant state of uncertainty and confusion. Once we make these treaties, we need to honor them unless there are some extraordinary circumstances that require us to reassess a situation.

and hear little but griping and complaining about Obama and it's hella depressing. And they refuse to believe that anything good would come from Biden. And some don't even think Warren would be good enough for them (she is a huge Bernie booster). They hate Trump but basically either believe that Obama is guilty of much of the same stuff as Trump is doing (usually regarding immigration) and/or caved too much to Republicans, paving the way for Trump. Most of them really hate(d) Hillary too. Most of them don't talk about Republican obstructionism and the role it played, stifling progress. Despite some of Obama's flaws, I certainly would rather he were still President or Hillary got elected in 2016 than what we ended up with, but most of them just see them all as equally bad. Maybe I need some new friends? I think that I have a harder time debating with my left-wing friends than I ever had with Republicans.

then we have a pretty big problem on our hands, amirite?!

Fake pictures
Fake DNA
Fake Drugs

How many people exactly are going to prison, losing kids, being MURDERED because of the police?! WTF IS GOING ON?!

I know that it's too early for anybody to say definitively and we won't obviously know until they are actually filed, but what do people think that the actual impeachment charges against Trump might end up being, officially? In this case, we appear to have so much to choose from in terms of Trumpian malfeasance from 2017 to present, but what do you think that Democrats have the stronger case on? What do you think they would most effectively be able to communicate to the public- to the person on the street- as to why Trump should be removed from office? What seems most indisputable? Thoughts?

I grew up and was heavily aware of politics in the 1990's and I remember the huge publicity around and influence of the "Militias" around that time and was wondering what happened to them post-1990's. I don't hear about them at all like I used to. I sort of figured they became less relevant once a staunchly anti-gun control Republican (GWB) was back in the WH in the early 2000's. Are they still a thing or have they basically faded and/or folded into other political factions (i.e. Tea Party, Trumpers)?