McConnell Got His Rules – He Now Owns It
Very early this morning, Mitch McConnell rammed through his rules avoiding a vote on witnesses and documents until AFTER the House and Trump’s goons present their cases. The only small victory for the House was him caving to “moderate” Senators who forced him to extend the time for case presentations and allowing evidence already presented. This vote tactic has become a standard fare for McConnell, dragging proceedings out into the wee hours of the morning and holding votes when most Americans are in bed. Remember he did the same thing when he tried to kill the ACA; McCain’s midnight thumbs down was the only thing that stopped him.
Yesterday was a circus. Schiff and his team presented clear, detailed evidence of Trump’s criminal activity, alternating with Trump’s lawyers acting like chimpanzees hurling their own feces at zoo visitors. Their behavior was shocking to the senses with the WH counsel and Jay Sekulow actually shouting at the senators; their case strategy is primarily yelling “Nuh Uh!” to every bit of evidence presented by the House team. Knowing that the fix is in, they’re not even trying to present a defense, preferring to play full time to their audience of one.
This is a very high risk strategy for McConnell and the Republicans, including Susan Lucy Collins, who is voting in lockstep with her party. As Schiff said in his arguments, the truth WILL come out. The suppressed evidence will become public, and every single witness will eventually tell the truth, either in books or television interviews. The tragedy will be that it will then be too late to remove Trump by impeachment. If (when) he’s voted out of office, he won’t go quietly, and it’s a virtual guarantee that he won’t go quietly knowing that he’ll then be facing a lifetime of trying to stay out of, or get out of jail.
This is now all on McConnell and the rest of the Republicans enabling this lunatic. Hopefully millions of Americans who are glued to Dancing with the Stars and America’s Got Talent, will be able to pry themselves away from their television pablum long enough to go vote. I’m not hopeful.
This is November gold for Democrats. As Rick Wilson tweeted Republicons will look particularly st00pid ‘justifying’ themselves with: “I voted against witnesses and evidence and covered up Trump’s crimes of obstruction, lying, and abuse of power so he wouldn’t tweet mean things about me.” is a shit political obituary. So is, “I didn’t want a primary.”
Two articles of impeachment or two hundred, the news cycle grinds on with more witnesses coming forward, more documents coming to light, and more Twitter confessions by IQ4.5.
Donnie already has the impeached* note for history. So will his next asterisk be convicted, or vindicated* by a sham trial? Whichever, Donnie knows he has stepped in it. He’s already tossing out an updated travel ban. A little red meat for his base, but also a not too subtle acknowledgement that his assassination of Qassem Suleimani has left us open to retaliation.
His base is too st00pid to leave him, but he cannot win with a motivated electorate of those who do see him as too corrupt to breath.
1His re-election will depend on how many of the “low-information” voters will believe the Senate cleared him on all charges and who his opponent is.
If it’s Biden, Trump’s lying will put him back in office.
2Notes: Groucho Marx -: “Love flies out the door when suspicion comes innuendo.”
Edit: If the score was kept for the first day of the impeachment trial, it would show hefty losses for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
* McConnell and President Donald Trump’s legal team was slapped in the face with the obviousness of their lack of preparation for the first day. While the White House lawyers were prepared to try the case for Trump and come out swinging to attack Democrats, first, there was a series of votes on the rules for the trial. Either they weren’t told or they didn’t take it seriously. Democrats had prepared their case for the reason that every ounce of information should be allowed to be included in the Senate.
* It became painfully obvious that Trump’s legal team was willing and eager to lie to the U.S. Senate and the American people about the facts of the case.
* Before Chief Justice John Roberts, the White House lawyers said that Republicans were barred from participating in the classified depositions. Republicans are actually quoted asking questions in those depositions, so it’s clear they were in attendance. A full 100 members of Congress were able to attend, even if they chose not to.
Ryan Goodman ✔
@rgoodlaw
#ImpeachmentTrial Day 1 1
– Cracks in McConnell’s control with changes to rules
– Schiff performs masterclass for lawyers
– GOP expert witness—Turley—pens article saying White House’s claim that impeachment requires a crime is bogus
- Trump lawyers caught in “blizzard of lies”
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-impeachment-trial-4-stories-from-first-day-spell-doom-for-mitch-mcconnell-and-gop-senators/
3‘Hobnobbing (read: Goosestepping) With Billionaires in Davos,’ Trump Admits—If Reelected—He Will Seek to Cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare
“It’ll be toward the end of the year,” Trump said from Davos, Switzerland. “And at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things, if you look, cause it’s such a big percentage.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/22/hobnobbing-billionaires-davos-trump-admits-if-reelected-he-will-seek-cut-social
4“GrayOut Bernie” CNN coughs up some phlegm.
CNN Poll Shows Sanders Surging Into First as Biden Continues to Drop—But Network Emphasizes Statistical Tie in Headline
“CNN still cannot fathom stating the obvious here: Sanders is leading in their own national poll.”
Pollingtics, some big buts showing in MSM:
Edit: The polling revealed other interesting data points, including that Sanders leads fellow progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) over liberal Democrats by 33% to 19% and leads Biden over voters of color by 30% to 27%.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/22/cnn-poll-shows-sanders-surging-first-biden-continues-drop-network-emphasizes
5Combover Crime Lord once referred to Adam Schiff as Adam Schitt. When he realized that sounded kinda bad, even to confirmed imbibers of MAGA Kool-Aid, he switched to calling him Shifty Schiff. He did that in a speech in Davos, adding, “Honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material,” essentially admitting that he withheld documents.
I have no doubt that Adam Schiff is smart enough to play this more or less on a loop during forthcoming proceedings in CCL’s removal trial. I also strongly suspect that more incriminating info is forthcoming from Lev Parnas, so CCL just might get impeached by the House again.
CCL has gone even farther around the bend than usual by being the third president in history to be impeached. Just imagine what will happen when he becomes the first president to be impeached twice.
6Can’t wait for defense attorneys to start using the Senate as a guideline when they say..”We do not think the prosecution should be allowed to bring any witnesses against our client (the accused), because the US Senate thinks that is fair.
7We all realize the fix is in. What I hope is that enough news leaks out that it gets voters – Democrats that is – out to vote. The Chronicle said yesterday that Texas is up to 16M registered voters, surely enough of those lean Democratic and could change the course we are on.
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