Impeachment redux

[rubato]

Ah, the American political system, I've always been a fan...

Boris Johnson is funnier but in a smaller and less important kind of way, as is fitting.

yrs
rubato

[Scooter]

[Crackpot]

I was going to see in in a Who’s Line... live event before covid interfered. Hopefully the show will go on once it gets under control.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Those pinko libtards over at the Wall Street Journal saw fit to publish this, yesterday as an editorial:

Whether a former President ought to be subject to an impeachment trial is a matter of constitutional debate. Whether it’s prudent, if acquittal appears likely, is a related question. But wherever you come down on those issues, the House impeachment managers this week are laying out a visceral case that the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 was a disgrace for which President Trump bears responsibility.

Long before November, Mr. Trump was saying that the only way he could lose the election was if it were rigged. On the night of the vote, he tweeted, “they are trying to STEAL the election.” In his speech that night, he called it “a fraud on the American public,” and said, “frankly we did win.” Is it a surprise that some of his fans took his words to heart?

Instead of bowing to dozens of court defeats, Mr. Trump escalated. He falsely claimed that Vice President Mike Pence, if only he had the courage, could reject electoral votes and stop Democrats from hijacking democracy. He called his supporters to attend a rally on Jan. 6, when Congress would do the counting. “Be there, will be wild!” Mr. Trump tweeted. His speech that day was timed to coincide with the action in the Capitol, and then he directed the crowd down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mr. Trump’s defenders point out that he also told the audience to make their voices heard “peacefully.” And contra Rep. Eric Swalwell, who argued the incitement to attack the Capitol was “premeditated,” it’s difficult to think Mr. Trump ever envisioned what followed: that instead of merely making a boisterous display, the crowd would riot, assault the police, invade the building, send lawmakers fleeing with gas masks, trash legislative offices, and leave in its wake a dead Capitol officer.

But talk about playing with fire. Mr. Trump told an apocalyptic fable in which American democracy might end on Jan. 6, and some people who believed him acted like it. Once the riot began, Mr. Trump took hours to say anything, a delay his defenders have not satisfactorily explained. Even then he equivocated. Imagine, Rep. Joe Neguse said, if Mr. Trump “had simply gone onto TV, just logged on to Twitter and said ‘Stop the Attack,’ if he had done so with even half as much force as he said ‘Stop the Steal.’”

There's more, but it's behind their firewall.

Nearly 30 years ago now, I had a job where the WSJ was delivered daily to my desk. I suppose my boss wanted me to think more like a businessman than as a technician - didn't work. Anyway I did read the thing on my lunch break every day, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed its reporting which was then excellent.

[BoSoxGal]

Excused and acquitted by the GOP, again.

I’m *almost* glad Jim isn’t here to see it all.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I was listening on the car radio. I heard the 'sum up' speech from Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat. His name meant nothing to me but he is an excellent speaker and I hope we hear more from him in future.

I know they needed 67 votes; but 57 - 43 in favor of conviction is something he and his supporters cannot dismiss. They will try, of course.

[Bicycle Bill]

Excused and acquitted by the GOP, again.

I’m *almost* glad Jim isn’t here to see it all.

And this comes as a surprise to absolutely no one.  They could have found Pelosi hanging from the gallows with Trump holding the rope, and those spineless motherfuckers STILL wouldn't have convicted him.

-"BB"-

[TPFKA@W]

Sensible individuals understood this to be a big fat fucking waste of time and resources. Meanwhile important things, such as helping those who have been ruined this past year, have been left to cool on the back burner. Fuck Democrats and Republicans.

[Scooter]

McConnell actually thinks he can have it both ways, the spineless worm.

[liberty]

Cheer up liberals, there is still hope perhaps some well-known liberal Democrat will assassinate Trump on camera. That way, you would get your revenge, and the Republicans would gain a martyr and lose a poor-presidential candidate and poor politician. If Trump runs again, he will lose. The problem of playing the “Claudius the fool” trick is that you only do it once, and then they are on to you.

If the Democrats had convicted Clinton, their chances of convicting Trump would have been better. They say what goes around comes around.

[Bicycle Bill]

If the Democrats had convicted Clinton, their chances of convicting Trump would have been better. They say what goes around comes around.

Never thought I'd type this, but Slick Willie's "impeachable offenses" of getting some in the Oval Office and then trying to cover it up is utterly insignificant to the actions Trump is accused of inciting on 6 January 2021, let along the litany of lies and bullshit about "rigged elections" that he had been spraying like cowshit from a manure spreader even before the ballots had been cast.

Just because he wasn't front and center, urging on the rioters in their onslaught like the flag-bearing female in Delacroix's famous painting of "Liberty Leading the People", doesn't mean he isn't as culpable as the people who smashed windows and broke down doors, entered the Capitol, stole and damaged property, and beat a cop to death.

-"BB"-

[Gob]

Ah, American politics, a never ending source of mirth...

[Econoline]

[Econoline]

Sensible individuals understood this to be a big fat fucking waste of time and resources. Meanwhile important things, such as helping those who have been ruined this past year, have been left to cool on the back burner. Fuck Democrats and Republicans.

Yeah, the clearly constitutional impeachment of the chief executive for a clearly constitutionally impeachable offense is definitely a waste of time and resources, whenever there is something else the Senate could be doing instead.

We should probably just amend the U.S. Constitution so as to repeal Article I, Section 3, Clause 6, and Article II, Section 4. If what Trump did isn't a "High Crime" and/or "Misdemeanor", there is probably no such thing as "High Crimes and Misdemeanors."

[TPFKA@W]

Sensible individuals understood this to be a big fat fucking waste of time and resources. Meanwhile important things, such as helping those who have been ruined this past year, have been left to cool on the back burner. Fuck Democrats and Republicans.

Yeah, the clearly constitutional impeachment of the chief executive for a clearly constitutionally impeachable offense is definitely a waste of time and resources, whenever there is something else the Senate could be doing instead.

We should probably just amend the U.S. Constitution so as to repeal Article I, Section 3, Clause 6, and Article II, Section 4. If what Trump did isn't a "High Crime" and/or "Misdemeanor", there is probably no such thing as "High Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Not where I was going with that at all, that is saying he is not guilty of multiple issues and crimes. Simply that I knew they were farting in the wind with the effort and that there would not be a consensus. I would rather see efforts concentrating on the vulnerable citizens who need immediate relief. So back at you.

[Big RR]

Well @W, the only thing the country got (and we went in knowing this)) is that the full extent of the crap Trump pulled was made public. People can make their own minds up, but they can't say they don't know, and I think this will erode his base, as it apprently did with the have it both ways republicans like McConnell (I might have bought it a bit more if they didn't vote to acquit and just abstained, but they didn't want the vote to look that close.

And what idiot lawyers Trump had--they sounded just like him dismissing legal arguments and just blustering(and bitching about "doctored" tapes when they put together that asinine "fight" tape, that even featured nonpoliticians. And then the bullsihit about noticing 100 or more witnesses to appear at "his office"--by what power? Even in federal litigation (which this was not, it was a Congressional hearing) one cannot demand a nonparty witness to appear out side of their domicile (and one would think he knows that, pretty much every first year associate does), and all Congress can subpoena is to command people to appear before them or their committees (not sure if they can force someone to travel to appear, but it could be easily checked). Even the senate and managers laughed when he threatened that; not to mention how he demonstrated no knowledge of Consitutional law).

Sue, being in the area, did you ever come across this guy? He kind of reminds me of a bottom feeder (and I've come across a lot of them), but there are idiots at all levels of the profession (and usually being the person who had to settle discovery disputes with the other side (the most thankless job there is), I have come across a lot of them. Usually, you'd just let them bluster and then the grownups would get to work and resolve the dispute. But this guy is in a league of his own.

[Econoline]

McConnell actually thinks he can have it both ways, the spineless worm.

And of course the House did impeach Trump while he was still POTUS, and McConnell made the decision not to hold the trial until after he left office.

Well @W, the only thing the country got (and we went in knowing this)) is that the full extent of the crap Trump pulled was made public. People can make their own minds up, but they can't say they don't know

I guess another thing the country got was a list of the senators who think that it's okay for the POTUS to incite an insurrection against Congress—and against his own Vice President!!!—and then face absolutely *NO* consequences for his actions.

• SENATORS VOTING "NOT GUILTY":
  Barrasso (R-WY)
  Blackburn (R-TN)
  Blunt (R-MO)
  Boozman (R-AR)
  Braun (R-IN)
  Capito (R-WV)
  Cornyn (R-TX)
  Cotton (R-AR)
  Cramer (R-ND)
  Crapo (R-ID)
  Cruz (R-TX)
  Daines (R-MT)
  Ernst (R-IA)
  Fischer (R-NE)
  Graham (R-SC)
  Grassley (R-IA)
  Hagerty (R-TN)
  Hawley (R-MO)
  Hoeven (R-ND)
  Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
  Inhofe (R-OK)
  Johnson (R-WI)
  Kennedy (R-LA)
  Lankford (R-OK)
  Lee (R-UT)
  Lummis (R-WY)
  Marshall (R-KS)
  McConnell (R-KY)
  Moran (R-KS)
  Paul (R-KY)
  Portman (R-OH)
  Risch (R-ID)
  Rounds (R-SD)
  Rubio (R-FL)
  Scott (R-FL)
  Scott (R-SC)
  Shelby (R-AL)
  Sullivan (R-AK)
  Thune (R-SD)
  Tillis (R-NC)
  Tuberville (R-AL)
  Wicker (R-MS)
  Young (R-IN)

ETA: Thank you, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, for putting the nation and the Constitution ahead of the Republican Party.

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

Bwahahaha!!

[Econoline]

ETA: Thank you, Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, for putting the nation and the Constitution ahead of the Republican Party.

Oops, sorry, my mistake: they actually might not have put the nation and the Constitution ahead of the Republican Party after all.

As Chuck Schumer pointed out, after the vote, "This trial wasn't about choosing country over party, even not that. This was about choosing country over Donald Trump. And 43 Republican members chose Trump."