Sure, I think this is impeachable or 25th worthy... but as we note downthread, I'm not sure congress is capable of procedurally carrying out an impeachment in 14-days.

I'm curious if the constitution specifies whether the an impeachment process that is started must terminate if the person is no longer in office? Like if they resign? Or whether the impeachment could continue and skip (or affirm) removal and continue to the disqualification for future office stage?

I agree with Oscar. It's fine to call it a coup... but its not a coup. Or, another way, it's exactly the quality of coup one would expect from DJT.

The legal ramifications for some of those folks? Ouch, the law doesn't distinguish between stupid and smart coups.

Sure... I'm in favor of de-lawyerfying the process anyway. But realistically even the most simple gears of congress don't turn anywhere near fast enough.

My 16-yo daughter surprised me after I pointed her to the news... she said, "Now Pence should invoke the 25th... I wonder if he has the cabinet support" I can't say that we've discussed the 25th ever? Certainly not in the past couple of years since it wasn't topical.

I have to agree... if he has the support, he should do it... if he doesn't, he should publicly propose it and make it the Cabinet's problem.

Agreed... I think there are post-industrial ways to do it, and have written a bit on it... but I kinda think Unions 2.0 is a bad tactical and strategic approach.

Which likely means that absent Govt. support or some sort of Global Solidarity (and unicorns)... there's really only room for worker's movements at the tippy-tippy-irreplaceable-top and the un-exportable bottom.

The former usually have no need, and the latter usually have no means to do it. Plus... we the people don't really like unions/solidarity... it's a tax on our goods and services.

It would be funny if your fiance and I work for the same SV company...

This year would have been my 20-somethingth Sales kick-off (usually held in Vegas as we've gotten to be that big)... but we're going to do it over the same 4-day period as a virtual event; which strikes me as a disaster in the making. As your fiance notes, we're mostly going to seminars (product/solution updates) and key-notes (execs telling their plans for 2021) interspersed with team events and dinners. Plus its in Vegas, so downtime has lots of options. But 4-days in my home office? You've got to be kidding me. Glued to a screen for the ultimate - this could have been an email - update... without the benefits of facetime and networking?

I suppose it is worthwhile to note that Sales orgs were early adopters of Remote work... why have everyone at HQ in SF flying to Atlanta? Why not a satellite in Atlanta where people fly to DC? Why not just hire people in DC that go to Atlanta once a Quarter? And meet with the WW team once a year... in Vegas? Remember, we almost never see our Managers, team members and anyone who's "sales adjacent" but with whom we interact daily/weekly. It's pretty valuable to reinforce those connections, and I often used the time to connect with the sales adjacent folks to thank them, and, let's be honest, get to know them so when I needed my stuff worked on before the other jerk's stuff? They worked on the jerk they knew.

So as much as I treated Kick-off as an annual chore... the absence of it seems like a loss. Especially for a group that has loose ties, looser affiliations, and a me-first job.

I expect an additional dose of friction in an org that is fractious by nature. We'll see.

Obama was a Blairite par excellence.

Yes! I've been playing it again since Path of Exile punted on their quarterly release out of an abundance of caution regarding Cyberpunk 2077. I like it ok, but I burn out after about 2-3 days vs 3-4 weeks for PoE. If Diablo could get their heads out of their asses, I could probably sustain a solid rotation.

I mostly agree with your notion of a right-side realignment.

I quibble with the contraception part, which is already universal; and I suppose "Safe, Legal, and Rare" where Rare is a real part of the triad would be how I would see such a 'compromise' falling out.

But if that isn't too much of a quibble, I think the rest is on the mark.

I think I have a bigger quibble, very nearly a quobble with the Left realignment... to me Blairism *is* the current Left alignment and it will likely grow as long as there's no actual realignment.

Left led realignment would look similar to a right-led one, but with a different inflection plus a detente on Racism which moves away from CRT and back to MLK paths... plus abandoning the 70's Managerial Socialism and moving towards a Stakeholder-Capitalism model.

So... unhappiness on all fronts. :-)

Data driven Hegelianism.

Yeah, I'm thinking 3-day work week should become a thing.

Heh, Not enough pew pew for me... I'm allergic to stories and narrative... the only good narrative is the narrative of pavlovian loot reinforcement.

I'm not preaching symmetry... you're the odd one who keeps thinking that since there are two parties there must be some symmetry.

There's no symmetry.

The Democratic party is doing what the powers in the Democratic party want... are they playing their best hand? Or are they delivering exactly what they want to deliver.

I can't be more clear than what I've said... I think Pelosi and Schumer are *happy* with the NDAA and Relief Act. Period.

You're just selling to yourself the fact that Schumer and Pelosi are happy with it.

Sure, those are all plausible reasons why things go along as they go. Until they don't.

I'll admit that I'm perplexed by the unreconstructed 1970's socialism that seems to dominate a lot of the Left 'radicals' ... but that's part of my point too. Once they ditch the 1970's (and Bernie) a whole lot of options and vectors open up. The things you mention as cracks that aren't exploitable are exactly the cracks that one would exploit...

I guess from my outsider's perspective it looks like the 90's holding off the 70's which was very successful in the 90's and 00's. But at some point it looks like the 80's holding off the 60's realizing it ain't the 80's any more and the 60's aren't coming back.

I think the failed realignment of Trump may keep the establishment in power... whether we get an actual realignment, I'm not sure... I think the conditions are ripe for one... but the institutional impediments are very large.

My Boss's, Boss's, Boss's, Boss's, Boss (i.e. the head of WW Field Ops) gave us next Mon-Weds off as thanks for a tough year... so, I guess that makes it a 7-day weekend! That was a nice gift.

Then she resigned.

Generally C-Level resignations haven't meant much to me over the years, and likely this one won't either... but we've seen a few in the past year... and usually the C-Level's that actually do things don't flip that much. I mean, Marketing and HR C-Levels flip all the time, but let's be honest... those are purely courtesy C's. But you never know... we're still recovering from one particularly bad C-Level Field Ops hire... so there's always a chance. Once my [work-]life got marginally better by an almost C... but they fired him before he captured the C... to hire the really bad guy directly at the C level.

My favorite C-story is the guy who parachuted in to our lowly regional QBR (everyone was in NYC office... so why not). He gave us some wildly outdated fire and brimstone 1980s Sales bullshit then concluded with an incredibly labored analogy about evaluating all of us by whether we 'over-committed' our numbers (i.e. lied on our forecast) to show we were 'in-the-boat' with him... and that he only kept people who proved they were in the boat and would do anything for people in the boat.

I kid you not, he jumped ship less than two weeks later for a company that IPO'd three months later giving him a sh*t-ton of (unearned) IPO cash. Which means, of course, that as he was giving us his bullshit 1980's sales talk and belaboring his Boat analogy... he was in active negotiations to leave.

Strangely, he was not *the* bad C-Level Exec... just *a* bad C-Level Exec - the kind that has no idea what we do at the field level and just rakes in compensation he doesn't really earn.

But, what to do with a 7-day weekend? I kinda have no idea. Like having no curfew on Prom Night, but taking your sister as a date.

"Look again at the behavior of the Republicans."

Nope... I have gazed fully and completely at them... don't try to change the gaze.

My subversive thought for the day is that North (and Chip below) are echoing the 'Base' talk of Movement Conservatives in 2015.

Bookmarking for the Non-Bernie person who steps up to the mic and says that the leadership is out of step with the Base, prioritizing their own Pelozian/Schumerian interests ahead of the interests of the Base... using Social Causes to their advantage without delivering anything of substance... selling out the Base to deliver goods to the elite establishment.

"Remember when they prioritized overriding a Defense act and delivering a massive wealth transfer to corporations instead of fighting for funding to the Base in the midst of a Pandemic?" That'll be the Trump moment of turning on the Establishment and realizing that the 'Base' that wasn't at war wasn't the base... and now is at war.

And that's ok... I'm all for it... I'm just giving you fair warning so when it happens and I'm doing my "I told you so dance" I can do so in good conscience.

Or I'm wrong, and this is all about 'good governance' [snicker].

This is just strange to my ears:

"If the defense bill was blocked, the Democratic base would be furious, but the Republican base would be delighted."

A few thoughts on how this seems so confusing (at least to me):

1. This is what happens when 'base' no longer means base. It's just weird to hear about the Democratic base demanding a big Defense Bill.
2. Trump vetoed the bill... Trump owns the issue.
3. Prioritizing overriding a Veto of a Defense Bill rather than the Bernie strategy of banging the drums for relief for the 'Base' begs the question of #1 above... who's the Base?

In the end, one can only conclude that the National Defense Act plus the existing Relief Act is what the Base wants... whomever that is.

Claiming "good governance" continues to beg the question, for whom? Delaying the NDAA doesn't put anything at risk:

"Ultimately, the NDAA is a policy bill, not a funding bill," said Harrison, who pointed out the actual funding for the Pentagon was included in the government spending bill the president recently signed. The NDAA sets the budget and policies for the Defense Department but does not appropriate funds.

In short, "If the NDAA is delayed, it will not harm our national security in any irreparable way," Harrison said.

Honestly, I'm just surprised that the D's rolled-over on this... they have a stick to beat Trump, McConnel and R's with. I guess they just like the stick more than their 'base' - or so it seems.

I'd suggest that knowing that the Dems would never block the Defense bill is the point of McConnel's maneuvers.

I might redirect to ask (in a different fashion than Stillwater) why won't the Dems block the defense bill?

Your heart is where you treasure lies.

Generation

No, of course it wasn't at the time... it will only be obvious to Generation [Prince Symbol?]

I disagree with your disagreement.

Our social/interaction data is too important for twitter and facebook... it won't end there. To be clear I'm not saying that 230 should be repealed simpliciter... but that we need to re-examine all the laws pertaining to platforms/publishers/privacy etc. A little like WW2, the internet has unleashed powers and interests that are much more potent than mere engineering advances.

Whatever the Generation after Z is... they are going to look back on our failure to grapple with 230 as we look back on the Eisenhower Military Industrial Complex speech. It was all so obvious.

Fair enough... a recission that requires Congressional approval within 45-days or becomes moot in this case is a lot like a line-item veto: wishful thinking misleadingly packaged-up for purely internal consumption.

Or do you see Congress turning some of the recissions into law? Now that would be interesting indeed.