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More (and ongoing) developments on the Whistleblower/Ukraine thing:
House Speaker Pelosi has begun an inquiry into impeachment of the president:
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/24/763700264/trumps-ukraine-call-may-be-game-changer-on-impeachment
The (live at the time of this submission: 2019-09-26 14:30 UTC) House Intelligence interview of the Acting Director of National Security:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-49841920
The unclassified-version of the whistleblower complaint was released:
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190812_-_whistleblower_complaint_unclass.pdf
As was the memo/pseudo-transcript (not 100% guaranteed as they are hand-typed, no recordings of calls are made any more in the US in the aftermath of Watergate) on the call between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy[*]:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
[*] Yes, Zelenskyy, see: Zelensky, Zelenskiy, Zelenskyy: spelling confusion doesn't help Ukraine.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28 2019, @10:56AM (10 children)
This is the end of the Republican Party. Analogous to the demise of the Whigs, and the Tories in England. Always happens that the conservative party screws themselves up into such a cornswaggle of ideological contradictions that they cannot persist. Started with Reagan. The Bush family of idiots (Jeb is the "smart" one) led them further down the path of lunacy. And now, the Republicans are supporting a New York Democrat Real Estate Developer Reality TV Show person, as the Executive Branch. Problem is, he cannot spell "Executive Branch", and when he says "us", he means himself, not the American people. Corruption, Collusion, Colloidialism, Contemperanius Coaxialism, it's all there. And it is so embarrassing that some clueless Republicans attempt to hold on to the husk of idiocy that the Trump Presidency has become. The man is an idiot. A rapist. A squelcher on playments to his sub-contractors (I think he ran for President to avoid being wacked, if you know what I mean.) And illiterate, cannot even read his goddamned teleprompter as fast as George Bush did! Epic fail! Stupid President. Idiotic President. Stupid, idiotic, economically illiterate tariff imposing really not too bright president. Loser. Small hands, tiny dick, sub-par intellect. That is Donald H. Trump.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28 2019, @11:05AM (3 children)
Such a stupid, stupid, bad loser! He lost so hard in 2016, but the Russians stole the election from Her! I can't wait for him to lose again in 2020!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28 2019, @05:15PM (2 children)
I don't recall GP mentioning anything about the 2016 election.
Yo no entiende.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28 2019, @08:07PM (1 child)
Imagine being a loser by becoming the most powerful human on the planet. As decided in the year 2016.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 28 2019, @09:19PM
I read that as a jab at Trump's stupidity, narcissism and general assholishness, rather than a reference to any specific event/contest/competition.
I suppose I could have misunderstood, but the context was pretty clear to me. Perhaps OP could chime in and clarify.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 28 2019, @05:16PM (5 children)
Started with Reagan
Guess you weren't around for Nixon...
But the truth? It started with the big bang.
So, yeah, the prez is all those nasty things.. Nothing will done about it. He will remain, and might even gain support while the feeble "opposition" shows real incompetence
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday September 28 2019, @11:14PM (4 children)
The 1972 election exposed how corrupt the leaders of both parties were. The Democrats had a typical inept, power and control hungry corruption, the Republicans perhaps an even more sinister corruption.
The leadership of the Democrats was essentially pushed aside by McGovern and his victorious machine in 1972, he could have and should have completely excluded them from the 1972 convention, which possibly would have ended their political influence. Instead, he tried to compromise with the "old hierarchy" at the convention, the likes of George Meany and Hubert Humphrey, thinking he needed them for the general election. The result was a disaster for McGovern and the Democrats. Their compromise choice for VP essentially sunk their chances in the election, during the campaign the "old hierarchy" either flat out opposed McGovern or at best refused to support him, with the goal of sacrificing the '72 election in order to regain control of the party in 1976. Governance? That was never the point, it was always power.
The Republicans dreamed of eight years of Nixon, then the election of Agnew in 1976. Personally, had their corruption not brought them down, I believe that Reagan, with his already far better grasp of of how to manipulate the media, would have knocked off an old turd like Agnew anyway.
Perhaps it is all coincidence and conspiracy theory, but it seems that anyone posing a threat to Nixon and his faction in the Republican Party came to a bad end. JFK was of course assassinated, or he would have had eight years in office and likely a hand picked successor. Robert Kennedy would almost certainly have won in 1968, and probably had an eight year run. Martin Luther King would have delivered a large block of votes from minorities and the poor of all stripes for the Democrats. Malcolm X threatened to radicalize and politicize the black vote. George Wallace, the Donald Trump of his day, threatened to draw off a large block of voters from Nixon if he ran as he planned as an independent. The assassination attempt on him failed, but he was crippled and his political aspirations ended.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 29 2019, @01:00AM (3 children)
Humphrey's nomination in '68 was the bigger fraud. Killed any reason to vote for them. By '72 any real liberalism in the party was a long dead corpse. Since then, nothing. I don't know why people cling.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday October 10 2019, @10:27PM (2 children)
Johnson announced a surprise decision not to run for reelection fairly late in the process. Robert Kennedy was assassinated and Eugene McCarthy self destructed. There were not really any other viable candidates ready to run a full national campaign.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday October 11 2019, @12:22AM (1 child)
Turn's out Humphrey wasn't viable either. He cost a lot of votes in the general. But that's how they roll. They're perfectly comfortable "losing" to republicans. They swim in the same sewage.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday October 12 2019, @11:58PM
Nixon didn't win by much. Had Humphrey somehow not blown it in California, Illinois and New Jersey, generally Democratic strongholds, he would have won the election*. Had Kennedy not been killed, he would almost certainly have defeated both Humphrey in the primaries and Nixon in the general election. Had another Democrat been ready with a viable campaign ready to run in 1968 they could quite likely have surpassed either candidate as well.
*You can bet Nixon noted how Wallace carried the South, taking away electoral votes that he had heavily courted. The Wallace "problem" was taken care of before the 1972 election.