While it's likely not going anywhere in the Senate because the Republican Party is as hopelessly corrupt/compromised as Trump is, the House still has the obligation to hold hearings and let the chips fall where they may irregardless of what anybody else does. And IMHO just sitting around and waiting for 2020 to vote him out without any repercussions doesn't do us any favor in terms of making the case for getting rid of him 2020 and Trump will just tout inaction as "vindication" and weakness.

The Trump campaign was approached by/collaborated with prominent Russians with established connections to their government to get "dirt" on HRC and Democrats, but since it wasn't directly with Russian GOVERNMENT officials, then ergo, Trump didn't collude with the Russians to get assistance with getting elected (even though the Russian government clearly wanted Trump to win and Hillary to lose).

Also, the obstruction piece is important here too. Even if the Russian collusion angle fails, there are numerous instances of Trump and his minions at least attempting to obstruct the investigation. And Mueller didn't exonerate Trump of that. That alone should be enough to impeach IMHO. If Perjury over an affair was good enough to get Clinton, there's plenty more to get Trump with. And that's not even counting the alleged corruption and gross incompetence.

Everybody will also get to hear Republicans twist themselves into all kinds of shapes and sizes on the public record to defend Trump in the House and Senate- and we might manage to at least get a couple to vote with us, bolstering the credibility of the charges.

I feel like people legislating these restrictions/bans are essentially trying to practice medicine and few, if any of them, have absolutely no idea about how female reproductive systems work (most have likely been poorly educated about sexuality and reproduction in general) because if they did, what they're doing wouldn't make any sense.

The counter example I keep hearing is that Republicans stuck by Nixon until impeachment hearings were underway in the House and those eventually encouraged most Republicans to abandon him and press for his resignation. Of course, this was back in the 1970's when Republicans weren't quite so ideological and monolithic as they are today but it's possible that enough Republicans might abandon ship as hearings go on. But I don't think we should launch impeachment proceedings based on what we *think* might happen with the Senate. If the House conducts Impeachment Hearings and votes to impeach Trump, they've done their job and then the Senate will have to do it's job and the chips will just fall where they may.

"The Howard Bealeization, or Glenn Beckifaction of Rachel Maddow is a reminder that partisan paranoia has bipartisan appeal. Maddow is right to question the summarizing of a 300ish-page report into four measly pages, to insist on transparency, to challenge the motives of the Trump-friendly AG—and she’s not alone in doing so. But for Maddow, every piece of information remains a clue that might take down the Trump empire. There is no adjustment for how the report has been widely received, no skepticism about what the report might actually contain, just cockamamie connections, the feverish belief that every single thing we don’t know is the all-important fact, that the smoking gun of collusion is out there, and that, yes, Robert Mueller is still going to swoop in and save us."


https://slate.com/culture/2019/03/rachel-maddow-mueller-report-trump-barr.html?via=homepage_taps_top

As expected, Trump is claiming total exoneration even when HIS OWN AG'S SUMMARY- as carefully slanted as it probably was- STATED PLAINLY that it didn't totally exonerate Trump but how the hell do news organizations get away with calling this as not only some kind of "win" for Trump but also an endorsement of his re-election in 2020? Being "vindicated" doesn't mean all of the other awful crazy stuff Trump has done just goes away now. Independent of anything that he might have done criminally, he is clearly unfit for the office. This is just absolutely batsh*t insane crazy talk from people whom aren't Trump and should know better.

The "glow" from Barr's summary will probably fade in a few days and may even go the opposite direction as some people sober up, especially if we get to see the actual Mueller report. I guess that it is better that this happening now, as opposed to giving him a "shot in the arm" during next year's election season.

Slightly OT but does anybody think that Mueller was ultimately ordered to wrap things up fairly soon after Barr was installed?

They are circulating an "enemies list" of people to media companies to try to get them blacklisted from future appearances, demanding that media companies kneel before Zod....er...Trump and apologize for daring to spend the last two years reporting on the Trump Russia story (oh the horrors!), and, most absurdly, trying to get Rep. Adam Schiff kicked off the House Intelligence Committee of which he is the chairman.

All this and the Mueller report hasn't even been released, just a "summary" quickly cooked up by Trump's AG within 48 (or less) hours of Mueller's submission of his report last Friday. A summary which, by the way, clearly states that Mueller's report does NOT actually totally exonerate Trump.

Meanwhile, the corporate MSM isn't holding much back either, wildly proclaiming that Trump has "won" and Democrats have "lost" and that, regardless of the last wild two years in office with behavior so offensive and unfitting of the office of the Presidency of the United States, Trump's path to re-election has just been cleared.

This is truly the weirdest timeline.

Not talking about the Republican hate for AOC (that's pretty much a given at this point) but what I'm seeing of some fellow Democrats towards AOC is bothering me. And it's not really garden variety minor criticisms and nitpicks about her that disturb me, but it's like wild, outlandish slurs that I've heard from DEMOCRATIC Facebook friends against her like her being "our version" of Donald Trump and feeding into/promoting the right-wing distortions and outright lies about the Green New Deal.

”hobbyhorse conservawhackos”


We all need to start using this!