Red Mosquito

Pence or Ryan can handle that

in fact - since the Dems will likely take the Senate after November - wouldn't the right wing owners of this country want to have the house cleaning done before there is a Democrat in place as President pro tempore of the Senate ?

odds that Pence could have fully insulated himself from all this seems low

Speak of the devil

Cohen responds to Trump’s efforts to lessen his value to Mueller by suggesting...

Friends of Michael Cohen have noticed that since Trump's Helsinki press conference with Vladimir Putin he's been more openly questioning Trump's fitness to be president. "It's one thing for him [Cohen] to be concerned about his suitability to be president," a knowledgeable source told me. "It's quite another thing to be concerned about his [Trump's] loyalty to his country."

Last week the Republicans were saying give peace a chance. Wonder what they'll be saying this week.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

BurtReynolds wrote:Last week the Republicans were saying give peace a chance. Wonder what they'll be saying this week.

The pitter-patter of feet you're hearing is McCain getting ready to sing his one musical number. Looks like we won't be fighting Estonia.

Some asshole told Trump that the Republicans did better than expected in 2001 after 9/11. He's got a month or two to start a fucking war.

McParadigm wrote:Supreme Court uber alles, meine freunde.

The Republican Party is reaching a point where their ability to drive their agenda legislatively is shrinking with their base. They won’t allow a scandal that puts the court grab at risk.

In two months they're likely to have that on lockdown for at least a decade.

I still feel like there's a scenario in which if they get Kananaugh in, then get creamed by the Dems in November, who throw a ton of credible investigations of Trump in his direction, that sinks their ratings even further throughout 2019, that the Republicans could still dump Trump--if not via impeachment then perhaps by a primary challenge in 2020.

A Trump primary challenge is a near certainty because, like most successful middle-aged men, they are driven by their egos and hubris. There'd be no challenger if POTUS was widely loved and supported, but the back room dissent within his own party is common knowledge by now.

tragabigzanda wrote:A Trump primary challenge is a near certainty because, like most successful middle-aged men, they are driven by their egos and hubris. There'd be no challenger if POTUS was widely loved and supported, but the back room dissent within his own party is common knowledge by now.

A recession in Q3-Q4 2019 would help that cause.

Though for Dems the best timing for one would be Q2-Q3 2020.

I'm not sure we'll see a primary challenge. Pretty much every poll indicates he's one of the most popular presidents within his own party ever recorded (he's far more popular with Republicans than Obama was with Democrats for example, according to the newest NBC polling).

Wasn't it an NBC poll that also predicted Hillary would win in a landslide?

digster wrote:I'm not sure we'll see a primary challenge. Pretty much every poll indicates he's one of the most popular presidents within his own party ever recorded (he's far more popular with Republicans than Obama was with Democrats for example, according to the newest NBC polling).

It's too early to call. If the markets flatten or continue trending negative, or if the tax cuts are threatened, the money part of the base will start to get wandering eyes as those are political issues they are actually effected by.

tree_ wrote:Wasn't it an NBC poll that also predicted Hillary would win in a landslide?

Their polling was only on voting intentions by likely voters, not on “who will win the electoral college.” It indicated that she had a reduced but measurable lead, within a reasonable statistical margin of the 3 million votes she did best him by.

BurtReynolds wrote:

Excellent

(CNN)A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, has granted the request for five witnesses to testify with immunity in the criminal trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

US District Judge T.S. Ellis is also ordering the government to tell Manafort's team the nearly 30 witnesses they are going to use in the trial.
In addition, Ellis is expected to rule Monday on Manafort's request to delay the trial, slated to start this week.
A large portion of Monday's hearing, which will reconvene at 2 p.m. ET, has been dedicated to discussing a "data dump" of tens of thousands of pages of documents over the past month by the government.
Manafort appeared in person at Monday's hearing, wearing a green jumpsuit with a rumpled collar.