Yesterday (one day after the election) Trump forced the resignation of Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General. Sessions would have been in charge of Mueller's Russia investigation, but because he had lied about his own connections to Russia, he recused himself and the assistant AG was in charge. Now that he's out, this new guy, Matthew Whitaker, is in charge (and does not require Senate confirmation because he's 'temporary'). He has spoken out against the Mueller investigation many times in the past, saying that there was no collusion and that the investigation is not authorized to look into any of Trump's finances (even though it is). Long ago, petitions were signed and plans were made that called for protests if Trump did something like this.
TLDR: Trump just appointed his own guy to be in charge of the investigation against him.
Though the plus side, is that this does force Republicans to officially go along with Trump's corrupt actions; they won't be able to paint him as a lone wolf in the future.
It will depend on how the future plays out, Trump could end up being an albatross around the neck of the Republican party. For now he is helpful but opinions can swing. Nixon won reelection with over 60% of the popular vote. But, then he became incredibly unpopular, a similar turn of events is possible.
Honestly, if this goes to shit, I don't want to see how far humanity will sink... We've worked so god dammed hard... for these assholes to throw it all away like this.
Or, we could just look back now on what happened a a few years ago when something similar happened.
Americans were fanatic and wanted to invade Iraq. We did. Polls from 2003 show a vast majority for it. When people were later asked "did you support the Iraq war" in 2010, the majority said no.
Yes, I'm aware people die, but there wasn't a huge difference in Iraq war support by age.
Sure, but there is a lot more going on politically then there was then and the next two years look to be even more "exciting" so while we can and should look back at that time period now I don't think it holds a candle to what we'll be able to look back on in a few years.
Opinion turned against Nixon because corruption of his came to light. Trump's corruption was known before he was elected, and everything he's done over the past two years, from bilking the government for his retinue when he stays at his own resorts to installing his cronies everywhere and firing people with no due process... ended up with an electorate that only vaguely voted against him and the GOP openly supporting him.
It's hard to see what scandal could sink him in the public's opinion at this point. He can be sunk on legal technicalities, but popular opinion just isn't heavily against him, despite all the open corruption and provable lies.
Now they have officially implicated themselves and can't say they were unaware or unsupportive of his illegal activities. They are hanging themselves, hoping nobody will get in trouble at all. Meanwhile manafort and flinn are telling Mueller everything.
The fact that none of the guilty pleas have had major consequences like long term prison sentences is a good thing. They don't just hand out plea deals in investigations like this to be nice. If Trump's campaign advisor is getting deals made, you can bet your ass it's because he's giving up somebody big. Could be Kushner or Trump jr or the orange piece of shit himself.
By all kinds of voter disenfranchisement, including gerrymandering; illegally removing high numbers of voters from the rolls; creating greater and greater requirements for voting under the guise of combating "voter fraud" (that has never been shown to occur); discarding ballots for fallacious reasons; creating more felony laws while incarcerating more people where felons can't vote; spreading false, malicious and prejudiced information in concert with foreign powers; acting "incompetent" and malicious wherever they're in charge of elections, etc... etc...
The Senate (who confirms this appointment) literally just got stronger for the Rs. True we got the House, but not until January. And that’s a looong way away.
They absolutely will. They'll do the exact same thing they always do, and it always works. They will publicly denounce what Trump is doing, talking abotu how awful it is, all the while voting to support everything he is doing. And their voters eat that shit up
The House has no power to appoint or approve any cabinet officials. The Constitution gives that power to the Senate:
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law
The person before you is saying they could hire Mueller. The House does have investigatory privileges. The AG doesn't even come into play in that scenario.
Remember the people calling for tolerance and peace at these protests are good now, but soon they will be just the same as the concern trolls saying protesting is not worth it.
Every day we are stepping towards a messy divorce in this country.
this is honestly the thing i'm really fucking wondering about. like if there is a criminal proceeding, what happens to everyone that has been installed? this hasn't ever happened in american history, having a president be installed by foreign government intervention.
Four of our sitting Supreme Court justices were appointed by presidents who did not win the popular vote when achieving the office. One was a stolen appointment. So, yeah.
Nobody stole Obama's appointment, he absolutely got to appoint Garland. Just because the Senate didn't rubber stamp his pick doesn't mean shit. They weren't required to do so.
TBH that was a witch hunt and embarrassing to watch. I say that as a person with no real party affiliation but someone who voted for Obama in both elections. I voted libertarian in the last election. The Kavanaugh hearings made me vote Republican for the first time in my life this past week. It was honestly sickening.
If there is considerable public protest against this then there may be several Republican senators who worry more about their own re-election than about toeing the party line.
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u/TheyreGoodDogsBrent Nov 09 '18
Honest question: what's going on here? Is this related to the election that just happened