George Takei tweeted that which we all fear and dread...

[Pluvious]

Link to tweet

[Neema]

1. Thats why I would prefer this get dragged out until after the next election when

Hopefully we’ll have a Dem speaker at that point. A girl can dream.

[Stryst]

5. After the trouncing the Reps will take

in the 2018 house elections, they may want to pick a new speaker.

[aeromanKC]

7. They will

Her name will be Speaker Pelosi.

[Chemisse]

17. Yes, indeed!!

And just in time to take the helm after the impeachments.

[onetexan]

48. +1

[warmfeet]

22. Yep!

I like the sound of that.

[AllaN01Bear]

23. howdi. that has a nice ring to it . ms. speaker pelosi.

would love to see rs heads explode .

[Pluvious]

26. Wow. This is really a thing.

We'd need to invent a new word to supplement the word apoplectic to describe the RW nuts.

But could we survive that many more months of the careening Orange Menace ??

[Neema]

33. Well, that is the question isn't it?

We have only slogged through ten months and it feels like an eternity. Plus I would think the new members of the house would need to be sworn in before a new speaker could be named and then be third in line.

[Amimnoch]

37. I've incorporated the use of "Piss drips".

They call us snowflakes, and I'm "cool" with that (pardon the pun).

Snowflakes are beautiful, individual, and each unique. Sure, individually they are fragile, but when they get together they can shut down entire regions, bring down homes and structures, and completely clear the sides of entire mountains. When they work together they are beautiful, and powerful.

tRumpublicons, on the other hands are piss drips. Convenient reference to the Rumpus pass-time with Russian prostitutes.

There is nothing unique, special, or beautiful about them. They are foul, undesired, and no matter how much you try to shake them out, they still end up dripping down the side of your leg unwanted.

When a snowflake mixes into water, they bring life. When the piss drips get into water, they pollute and befoul it.

I am a proud snowflake.

They are foul piss drips.

[DAMANgoldberg]

46. Hope you like these simple creations of your post...

[Amimnoch]

47. Beautiful and creative! Thank you.

It also so proves the point of what I was saying

[DAMANgoldberg]

53. I would like to take credit...

but there is a Chrome Extension named Pablo that allows selected text to be overlaid onto an image, theirs or yours. Then it can be socially shared (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), or you can Buffer (scheduled posts) plus download to a local machine or OneDrive/Google Drive/Dropbox.

[populistdriven]

61. always pee on your tomatoes, they love the nitrogen & water and your neighbors won't steal them

[citizen blues]

43. Honestly, I think a different choice might be in order.

As the current party leadership ages, they need to think about passing the baton. I would like to see someone up and coming take the speakership while Pelosi is still there to guide and mentor as an elder stateswoman.

[PJMcK]

9. Can this boy share that dream? (n/t)

[Neema]

20. Abso-freaking-lutely.

Something's got to get us through this.

[Obvious85]

31. We need a democratic House and Senate at the very least

[Snotcicles]

41. Or at least Randy Bryce takes his seat away from him. nt

[azureblue]

54. the GOP is using this

as a cover to ram through all the giveaways to the rich they can create. I believe that the sooner this gets resolved, the sooner we can expose and stop the GOP from stealing America blind. Which is their single purpose...

[Angry Dragon]

2. I have been saying that on DU for a long time

[Alice11111]

3. I still hope it happens. In an unlikely twist,Nancy Pelosi

could become President. Half of the RWers might die from high BP or heart failure.

[maddiemom]

29. Considering his habits, Trump, in fairness, should go first.

[Alice11111]

49. I was thinking simultaneously, and if the timing fell right,

maybe Nancy Pelosi could become Pres. I know it is about 3 pc chance, but that's what Dotard had.

Anyway, get rid of ad many of the diseased rat Repubs as possible ASAP. I'm not concerned with degrees of evil.
Smash them down.

[Guilded Lilly]

4. Ive recently posted that Paul Ryan has a permanent drool dripping from his

Lips at the thought of the line of succession.

Don’t put it past the party of Inhumanity to help get the Cretin impeached once and if the tax reform gets though

[Chemisse]

18. Very possible. The next stupid Trump tweet will suddenly be horribly offensive to the GOP

Then they start the proceedings, and get Ryan in place before the midterms.

[Alice11111]

50. I've assumed that was the plan, but I think the 25th A more

likely, as their own connections and dirty laundry would come out in impeachment hearings or Senate Trial. There is a spider web🕸 of crime, cover ups and treason🦂🦂.

[Guilded Lilly]

51. Quite possibly. This is like a college course audit in advanced government.

[Alice11111]

59. Funny, I used to teach government in college, before

and after I was a lawyer. I hope I don't sound didactic.
Unfortunately, we, lawyers or lay folks, have all just had this thrown in our laps to figure out. I like to watch the good legal scholars on CNN.

[Vinca]

6. That's been crossing my mind, too.

Isn't there one woman on this earth who can accuse him of sexual impropriety? A blind woman perhaps.

[sunonmars]

8. Paul Ryan may have some difficulties of his own.......

[MelissaB]

34. Yup!

[peggysue2]

58. Double Yup

Ryan has a bunch of rubles to explain away because the Republican Party was awash in Russian handouts.

Gee, I wonder why?????

Never to be forgotten or forgiven!

[PSPS]

10. Ryan's campaign was another awash in kremlin money.

[FakeNoose]

19. Also the Wisconsim voting machines were almost assuredly hacked/compromised in 2016

Ryan's another weasel we have to go to work on. The only lucky thing for him, he's so far down the list.
But we'll get to him, don't worry.

[MelissaB]

35. Hey! He washed that $$ from Russia. It was clean!!

[Fla Dem]

11. Unless both Trump and Pence are removed at the same time, Ryan won't be president.

If Trump is impeached and Pence is sworn in as president, Pence will get to appoint a VP. So even if Pence resigns or is impeached later, that new VP would then be next in line. Pretty sure that's how it would work.

[Johnyawl]

14. Right Fla Dem...

...That's sort of how it worked with Watergate. Agnew resigned, Nixon appointed Ford, then Nixon resigned.

[tomp]

16. Is it a straight appointment...

...or does it require congressional approval? I would think the latter.

[FakeNoose]

24. Gerald R. Ford, an interesting bit of history

In 1973 Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew began their 2nd term as POTUS and VP, and the Watergate hearings had not yet begun. By the summer of '73 Agnew was forced to resign as Vice President because he was accused (later found guilty) of corruption charges when he was governor of Maryland (or maybe it was Delaware.) Nixon had to select someone to replace Agnew but he wanted it to somebody who didn't look so good that Congress would go ahead and start impeaching him (Nixon.) He chose Gerald Ford who was already Speaker of the House and rather popular as a Michigan representative but not seen as a possible replacement for Nixon.

As the Watergate hearings came into full swing and Nixon's guilt became more apparent, the appointment of Ford took on a great meaning. In 1974 we had Watergate hearings, Saturday night massacre, secret tapes, smoking gun, etc. etc. and Nixon resigns. Gerald Ford who was never elected Vice President, becomes President on August 9th 1974. A few weeks later he appoints Nelson Rockefeller former governor of New York as his Vice President. Rockefeller was approved by the Senate, and we had 2 men in the top positions neither of whom had been elected. It could have been a coup but it wasn't, only because the Republican Party was very different in 1974 than it is today. Other than finally ending the Vietnam conflict Ford can't really say he did much as President, but he was a nice guy and didn't break any laws while in the White House.

If the same thing were to happen in 2018, probably we'd dispense with the Constitutional formalities and Vladmiir Putin would just fly into Washington and be sworn in as our next President.

Just sayin'

[tclambert]

39. Ford did one really big thing: he pardoned Nixon

and ended the idea that "In America, no one is above the law." They used to teach that to kids in elementary school. I mentioned this to a current teacher and he said, "No, we never tell students that anymore."

[Johnyawl]

55. Ford did not end the Vietnam conflict.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973 by Nixon. The US suspended all offensive operations, and began the withdrawal of all non-Vietnamese military from Vietnam. By August of 1973 95% of US forces had left the country.

Nixon resigned and Ford became President in August of 1974.

The North Vietnamese launched their final offensive in early 1975. This was a battle between the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese. There were no US forces involved in the fighting. The Democratic controlled Congress blocked any increase in assistance to the South, including the use of US airpower that Nixon had promised the Saigon government. Saigon fell.

The US combat participation in the Vietnam conflict ended under Nixon. The conflict between Hanoi and Saigon ended while Ford was president, but Ford played no role in it.

Ford only did two things that are worth noting. He pardoned Nixon. And he offered conditional amnesty to Vietnam era draft dodgers. (Carter would later remove all the conditions, although some individuals were still excluded from the blanket pardon).

You're right, he was a nice guy and didn't do much other than have a very decent wife that the country pretty much adored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Accords

[GreenEyedLefty]

32. It needs congressional approval.

I was set right on this by another DUer.

[FakeNoose]

57. Yes of course

I never said that the appointments weren't subject to Congressional approval. They always are.

[rainin]

12. Do we know Paul Ryan isn't dirty?

I hope Mueller's team is looking at every financial transaction of his and McConnell's!

[Amaryllis]

25. We already know he is dirty.

[MelissaB]

36. He laundered Russian money. He's dirty AF.

[dflprincess]

42. So then we wind up with Orrin Hatch

He's an asshole but he probably wouldn't run in 2020 and, if he had to worry about his "presidential legacy" he might decide to be slightly less of an asshole.

[George II]

13. Regardless of who goes first or if both of them go, there will be a huge backlash next year....

....and they'll be out of office in 2020.

[ProudLib72]

15. Niet comradsky

Ryan knew all along. Remember Kevin McCarthy's comment about Rohrabacher and Dotard being in Putin's pocket, and Ryan swore everyone to secrecy? No leaking!

The only way this would happen is if Mueller only goes halfway or decides to prosecute the big fish first. I just don't see this happening at all.

[Oneironaut]

21. Hes Eddie Munster and Eddie Haskell

Even a cracked bulb like Drumpf must know that Ryan is itching to leap out of the bushes bite him in the ass.

[DangerousUrNot]

27. Farron Cousins from ring of Fire mentioned this months ago.

I wouldn’t put it pass Paul Ryan.

[Shoonra]

28. God help whoever comes after Trump (and Pence) ...

Whoever has to pick up the pieces after Trump is done in the White House will need extraordinary talent and a few miracles to get America healthy again. It may take more than four years to repair the damage that Trump has done in less than one year.

[Roland99]

30. What if Ryan was gone by the time impeachment was over?

[Amimnoch]

38. President Pelosi. nt.

[oasis]

40. Pelosi, si.

[Juliusseizure]

44. Trump is easily the greatest danger

I think we assume his expected attempts to fire Mueller and/or not do something else that endangers democracy and the lives of millions will be quickly addressed.

The attempt itself will bring about a constitutional crisis dramatically more dangerous than during Nixon - because the partisan atmosphere and GOP corruption is much more toxic.

Trump also has millions of rabid dog supporters who would follow his calls for action, whatever they are. He's also commander in chief.

Pence, Ryan follow political norms. They wil leave if voted out. Democracy will be sustained. As long as we have democracy, wrongs can be fixed. Trump is a direct threat to democracy. I don't understand why or how people could want to keep Trump. Its going to be hell to get him out.

[still_one]

45. Most important thing is taking back the House and Senate in 2018

[7962]

52. Hilarious to see, but I still doubt trump is going anywhere from this investigation.

and if he did, I bet there would be time for Pence to take office with Haley as HIS VP.

[malthaussen]

56. Nah. Not enough time to impeach Mr Trump before 2018 elections...

... Mr Ryan may not be Speaker then. In any event, his first personal priority must be to try to keep the House in 2018. Then impeachment may be a more attractive proposition.

Somehow, the expression "By hook or by crook" occurs to me in re Mr Ryan's Presidential ambitions.

-- Mal

[niyad]

60. exactly!! the problem is, there is not one person in the line of succession worth a damn.

they are all complicit, corrupt, contemptible, catastrophic.