Now that the Impeachment Trial is over, can we stop talking about the former President?

For the love of christ, I hope so.

I doubt it. This site might crumble.

I already have.

Sounds good to me.

I think most people want to stop.

He’ll still come up when Republicans hate on Biden for doing something they were ok with Trump doing. Hypocrisy always brings up past presidents.

Also, if his daughter actually runs for office we’ll start hearing about her father again.

I figure it’s like labor—try to rest between the contractions. Hopefully, cable news and talk radio let it rest for a while.

Waiting Georgia to charge him for find me 11.780 votes ! US Senate GOP can’t help him now.

No—the news media will keep the hate alive with besmirchment and smears and lies as long as they can. They will want to establish a narrative / memory that Trump was worse than Woodrow Wilson—a racist / white supremacist / Nazi—and all of the problems that come from the Biden administration will be blamed on him.

This country was extremely prosperous before Covid, and everyone was well off. We have a dark, dark future of out-of-sight oil and gas prices, unemployment, high taxation, etc. and the spin will be that this is because of Donald Trump—a murderer, dictator, and racist pig.

Probably not. Repubs still talk about Obama after 4 years.

@Yellowdog The deficit was growing while we were prosperous. Is that what you would do if you started making lots of money and had big debt? Keep spending and let your debt grow more? Where are the Republicans who give a damn about fiscal responsibility?

@Yellowdog: “This country was extremely prosperous before Covid, and everyone was well off”

Ummm…what the actual fuck?

@Yellowdog Yes, the rich were richer. Everyone else not so much.

Trump will not disappear and Right-wing media will not let him go. He was and still is ratings gold for them. Also, there are a lot of court cases waiting for him so I don’t think it is just going to be one and done. I would’ve quit talking about him long ago if he had just accepted defeat like a normal person and moved on. But it’s hard to move on from a person who not only tried to overthrow our government but continues with his lies.

Hell, I still read comments from republicans who compare Bill Clinton blowjob to Trumps insurrection. Really not anywhere close to being the same.
As for fluther, I had already let it go until someone comments or ask about Trump. I have wanted to ask if anyone watched the trial but I knew it didn’t matter. The fix was in. Everyone around the world knew republicans were going to fold to Trump voters. I was pleased to see some of them found their backbone.

Actually, Trump’s attorneys totally eviscerated the house impeachment committee.

Many in the Senate were angry that the House had manipulated footage, evidence, etc etc. when the Trump attorneys showed what actually happened, without editing and doctoring the footage.

Perhaps you should actually watch the Senate trial, or the Trump rally, to see what really happened. You seem to have a lot of searing hatred of Trump that has been brewing for a long time. Perhaps you should look also at all the illegal polling and vote fixing that went on, and why so many people believe the way they do,

I’ve been tired of hearing about our former, loser President.

Count me in. Here is an article suggesting that Trump will go the way of Sarah Palin. Remember her?

You may not find this as funny as I did.

I doubt it. His perfidy, although he is off the federal hook, continues. And given the enormity of the various lawsuits that he will be enjoying over the next couple of years, he will be constantly in the news.

Let’s not forget some Republicans are still whining about Hillary Clinton’s email six years later.

People will stop talking about Trump when he is dead.

Let me paraphase Moscow Mitch I voted acquittal but he’s not innocent

Do ya think the GOP Senators that voted acquittal but thought Trump was guilt were afraid of being firebombed by the Trump followers like the Proud Boys HELL YA!

No, unfortunately. He himself has made it clear that, as far as he is concerned, we have definitely NOT heard the last of him!

@LostInParadise: I think the difference between Trump and Palin is that Palin was never President, so never had the press, media and influence that Trump did. Plus before she was a candidate, nobody ever heard of her and she’s from the far corner of the country, whereas Trump was known prior to being Pres and is and has been all over the place.

She did manage to attain a certain celebrity status. People were taking seriously the possibility that she might run for president. It is not particularly relevant that she was previously not well known.

Seven Republicans voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges, and McConnell made disparaging remarks about Trump, voting against conviction only on technical grounds. It is going to be difficult for Trump to retain his standing in the party.

No, we’re going to keep hearing about Trump, because soon the criminal and civil trials will start.

Trump will be in legal jeopardy of some kind for the foreseeable future. He’ll probably be facing indictments and lawsuits until he is convicted or dies. If his estate is not bankrupt (what’s one more bankruptcy to the Trumps?), it will probably continue to face lawsuits even after he dies.

I’d like to see election workers get a piece of that action. Trump’s lies about the election slandered them, in effect. Some faced death threats because of Trump & co.‘s disinformation. I’d like to see a class action suit by election workers against Trump, the Trump campaign, Trump’s PAC, and all the sycophants who enabled him. Trump is still fundraising, so those funds should go to people he harmed before he can spend it on further assaults upon our institutions.

@JLeslie I like the analogy to labor pains, although I’ll never have the pleasure (pains)!

Interesting you bring up Hypocrisy.

On your response to @Yellowdog: Please note that 2017 was the eighth year of our economic expansion. Only two expansions in the post-war era had gone on longer, so you might be justified in worrying about a recession. As it turned out, the expansion continued until Feb 2020 (a total of a record 128 months) before the economy was flattened by covid.

@Pandora Actually, I have been seeing more stories about the ex-President on CNN and MSNBC than on Fox.

@Zissou I think there is a lot of wishful thinking on your part.

Most crimes are extremely hard to prove, and civil cases drag out for years, if not decades. That is why it is becoming harder to hire attorneys own a contingency basis.

@crazyguy Is this graph accurate? We know under Trump it went up and up and up even though it is not on this graph, and also keep in mind the first year of any presidency is really inheriting the budget of the previous president. http://mybiasedopinion.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Deficit-By-President.jpg

@JLeslie I cannot vouch for the actual numbers but the graph seems correct. Clinton was the last President to run a surplus in any year. Obama because of the subprime crisis did run up massive deficits.

The President who came after Obama inherited the eighth year of an expansion, and proceeded to keep it going by passing a rather large tax cut. Because of the age of the expansion, the odds were that a recession would have followed.

@crazyguy Obama was bringing the debt down. He inherited a very difficult situation. I wish he had been able to reduce the debt even more.

Trump let it escalate as people were making tons of money in America. Irresponsible.

@JLeslie Yes, Obama was bringing the debt down; after he ran it up big time. Unfortunately, Biden is trying to emulate Obama. So be prepared for a multi-trillion dollar deficit as far as the eye can see…

@crazyguy Ran it up when Americans were foreclosing and losing jobs. Trump ran it up when people were making hand over fist and business was growing. They could have afforded to pay into the tax system like when Clinton was president, but Trump chose to line his friend’s pockets instead of doing what would be for the greater good.

Let’s stop arguing about presidents. Do you agree that while the economy was doing well we should have taxed the top earners more and reduced the deficit?

@JLeslie I believe I have explained the finer points of business cycles. Invariably in the past, the government and the Federal Reserve have waited until a recession becomes visible before they take the action that may have averted the recession. When they do finally act, it is generally too late to pull the economy out of a dive. I am glad that we did not repeat the same mistake in 2017.

The billionaires are even richer https://inequality.org/great-divide/updates-billionaire-pandemic/

@crazyguy What are you talking about? I am talking about our deficit and taxing the rich several more percentage points instead of reducing their taxes several percentage points. It would not have changed investments or business start-ups to tax income over $450,000 AGI a little more. Or, make it income over $1 million if you want.

@JLeslie The largest portion of the tax cut went to corporations, not individuals. Corporations did buy back their shares, but they did also hire additional people. Why do you think unemployment went down so much and why incomes at the lowest levels saw bigger increases than at the upper levels?

@crazyguy Then we should have hiked up taxes on the rich. Do we care about balancing the budget or not?

What’s your plan to balance the budget? Cut spending? Sure, I’m all for looking at spending, but we can’t cut enough to pay down the debt we have, we have to look at both sides of the equation.

Do you think corporations should be paying some tax? Some are getting away with paying no tax. I know it’s a complex question, because I realize the way to attract business is to have an attractive tax environment, but also businesses could care about America. How big does profit need to be to be willing to sacrifice ones own country and countrymen?

@JLeslie The tremendous beauty of this country is the fact that every four years we can vote to change the Captain of the ship. The new Captain has some limits on what s/he can do, but, by and large, can change the emphasis and direction of the country. The previous President p[laced a great deal of importance on making the recovery reach the lower levels and extending the recovery beyond historic norms. I think he did an admirable job; however, I was obviously in the minority. So now we have a different captain and the jury is still out on him.

Enough philosophy. Returning to the subject at hand, raising taxes on the rich would have almost certainly triggered the end of the recovery.

@crazyguy Trickle down didn’t work for Reagan or Trump.

Debt increased higher and faster with Trump than any other President !

@crazyguy If you had been taxed $10,000 more would it have changed your spending?

@JLeslie If you are asking me personally, I do not think I created any ‘jobs’ except additional hours for our cleaning lady (because I felt ‘flush’), and our gardener. Perhaps if my taxes went up, I wouldn’t have done that.

However, I think most jobs were created not by individuals but corporations. Please note my taxes actually went up under the tax cut because my SALT deductions were limited.

@crazyguy Spending creates jobs. More goods purchased creates jobs to make and move goods. Give a $30k guy $40k and he’s sure to spend more money. Give a $400k guy $410k and his spending doesn’t change. Reduce his income to $390k his spending doesn’t change. Not likely anyway. I’m not saying you are a $400k guy, it’s just an example I know you’re retired now, I wouldn’t try to guess your income.

@JLeslie I would suggest that you look at overall country incomes by income category rather than focus on one individual.

I tried to do just that. According to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

3.7 million households made an average income of just over $400K each. Thus, the total income of this group, categorized as those making $250K+ per year, was just under $1.5 trillion. Raising taxes on this group by 10 percentage points produces about $150 billion. That is a big number, but, compared to our annual GDP of about $21 trillion (2019 figure was $21.4 trillion), it is but a drop in the bucket. That sort of tax increase will not finance even one of the following: Free College, Medicare for All, Infrastructure Package. Yet Biden wants to do some form of all three.

@crazyguy Every bit counts. Just because it is a “drop in the bucket” doesn’t mean don’t do it. Borrowed money costs a lot of money. Reducing debt reduces more than the amount owed because of the interest that is being paid.

I think your math is lacking the people who make much more money, but I might be misunderstanding. The top 400 incomes in the US earn over $200 million a year. Is that $20billion? Or, am I missing a zero? That’s just 400 households.

The process needs to be multifaceted obviously. Not just higher taxes, but also reduced spending.

@JLeslie I provided my source, which had fairly old data – 2014. If you can find newer data more power to you. Please do share.

The table I used showed that there was a total of 3.7 million households that had mean income of just over $402K.

$2,000 million is $2 billion. So you are missing two zeros. A billion is a thousand million.

As far as your argument that we should do it even if it is a drop in the bucket, you have to add up all the revenue sources and all the expenses. Then you have to figure that the calculation is not static; in other words, tinkering with the tax code may trigger a change in behavior, which changes the basis of the calc. For instance, if you increase my taxes by $10K per year, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will examine different ways of producing and reporting income. Unlike a W-2 employee, I have income from many different sources.

The courts did not refuse to listen to evidence. When they asked the lawyers if they had any evidence, the answer was no, therefore the cases were dismissed.

Can I give you more GA’s ? ? @YARNLADY