Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label impeachment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label impeachment. Show all posts

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Hmmm

It strikes me as interesting.

What I hear Ken Buck saying (at about 7:30) is that Kevin McCarthy is fucking around with this impeachment nonsense in order to placate the MTGs in the Freedom Caucus (and the rabid loons who keep voting for them) instead of facilitating the Old Guard Republicans who really wanna dig in and do their dirt by fucking my kids out of their Medicare and Social Security when it comes time for them bow out and retire.

But ol' Kevin is bound and determined to run the Benghazi play again, hoping he can cast just enough doubt on Biden to move the needle.

Makes me wanna holler.


Friday, February 12, 2021

Impeach-a-Palooza

I don't like making specific predictions about political events. We never have all the information we need ahead of time, and who the fuck knows what some of these idiots are really up to anyway?

That said, here's a prediction: The Senate will acquit Trump.

(wow - really goin' out on a limb there eh, Mikey?)

I think it's possible that 8 or even 10 Republicans will vote to convict, but the rest are just too fecklessly ambitious. They know they're in a shrinking universe, but there's 3 or 4 of them who're very sure they can emerge King Of The Hill, and after all, better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven, right? 

I guess it's possible that they're trying to wrangle themselves into a voting configuration that brings it right to the brink, and then some valiantly stalwart defender of the faith will step forward and cast the one vote that makes the Dems fail at their dastardly attempt to blah blah fucking blah.

Anyway, there's no real doubt about 45*'s guilt, but - you know - politics.


WaPo: (pay wall)

Four takeaways from Day 3 of Trump’s impeachment trial

1. A novel appeal to GOP senators about the consequences of acquittal

If there is one quote that summed up the Democrats’ argument for conviction of Trump, it came Thursday from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).

The fact that Trump is no longer in office renders the biggest punishment of the impeachment process — removal from office — moot. Beyond that, it’s about sanctioning him and preventing Trump from being able to hold high office again.

But Lieu suggested that this wasn’t just about preventing Trump from running (and potentially winning) again; he said it was instead about avoiding another situation such as this.

“You know, I’m not afraid of Donald Trump running again in four years,” Lieu said. “I’m afraid he’s going to run again and lose, because he can do this again.”

The comment was clearly intended for Republican senators who might be on the fence. The party establishment has flirted with a break from Trump in an attempt to phase him out, but that’s no easy process. And of late, Republicans appear to have rallied behind the former president.

It’s also logical that Democrats wouldn’t be terribly concerned about Trump running again, given that he just lost and was one of the most unpopular presidents in history (despite actually coming closer than most recognize to winning reelection). Lieu tried to drive home that this was bigger than just an attempted political disqualification.

Another impeachment manager, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), also got at this idea.

“All of these people who have been arrested and charged, they’re being accountable, held accountable for their actions,” she said. “Their leader, the man who incited them, must be held accountable as well.”

DeGette added later: “Impeachment is not to punish, but to prevent. We are not here to punish Donald Trump. We are here to prevent the seeds of hatred that he planted from bearing any more fruit.”

The concerted message on the final day of the Democrats’ arguments was to warn Republicans about what they might have to account for if they let Trump slide.

But it didn’t sway at least one key Republican who has suggested Trump carries blame, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

“I think that was a very powerful statement on his part,” Rounds said of Lieu’s quote. "And I know I wrote that down. I know a number of my colleagues did. But once again, the issue for most of us is are you asking us to do something that we simply don’t have the capability of doing because the Constitution does not give us that tool with regard to a private citizen.”


2. Driving home Trump’s history of violent rhetoric

A big question going into the trial was how much Democrats would keep focused on Jan. 6 and Trump’s effort to overturn the election, and how much they would address his past rhetoric encouraging or excusing political violence.

Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, briefly made his team’s offering on the latter Thursday.

This is hardly the first time people have tied Trump’s comments to real or potential violence. It happened throughout his presidency. It happened to the point where even many Republicans now allied with Trump — who are playing down the need for his impeachment — warned about a situation similar to this, including former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.).

Raskin referred to many of these instances, including Trump jokingly praising a Montana politician for assaulting a reporter, suggesting that there were good people on “both sides” of the racist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and his repeated suggestions both at his 2016 rallies and since that his supporters might get violent. Trump also endorsed a clip from a supporter saying “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat” — before that supporter was arrested for his part in the Capitol riot.

Perhaps most compellingly, Raskin noted Trump’s tweet to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” in April. It came two weeks before armed protesters flooded the state Capitol there. Trump suggested approval for their show of force and, in response, urged Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) to negotiate with them on the coronavirus restrictions Trump had criticized. Two weeks later, protesters returned with more violent rhetoric. Then an alleged plot to kidnap Whitmer surfaced — a plot in which the alleged perpetrators echoed Trump’s rhetoric.

“This Trump-inspired mob may indeed look familiar to you,” Raskin said of the initial scenes at the state Capitol. “Confederate battle flags, MAGA hats, weapons, camo Army gear — just like the insurrectionists who showed up and invaded this chamber on Jan. 6. The siege of the Michigan Capitol was effectively a state-level dress rehearsal for the siege of the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited on January 6th.”

Trump’s defenders have focused narrowly on his speech Jan. 6, which they argue was unremarkable, and which they note included one line that those marching to the Capitol should “peacefully” protest. They have even argued that revelations about planning by some Capitol rioters suggest that they couldn’t have been incited.

That ignores everything that preceded Jan. 6, and Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The fact is that there had been all kinds of suggestions that Trump’s rhetoric could lead to what we saw. Trump often did far less than his critics said he should to prevent or condemn such scenes.

That might be the most significant evidence Democrats have — even if Raskin’s presentation gave it short shrift, in the grand scheme of things.

3. A prebuttal to Trump’s free-speech defense

Democrats offered a prebuttal to an argument the Trump legal team’s is expected to make Friday, that this is a matter of free speech.

Trump’s team, in its briefs, hasn’t actually delved into the well-established limits on free speech, which include things like incitement and defamation.

Democrats argued that even those limits are beside the point. They said Trump, as president and commander in chief, is held to a higher standard.

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) cited a letter from legal experts on free speech, including many conservatives, who rebuked the idea that such a defense applies in this case.

“That [defense] has no basis in the evidence,” Neguse said. “To hear his lawyers tell it, he was just some guy at a rally, expressing unpopular opinions. They would have you believe that this whole impeachment is because he said things that one may disagree with.”

Raskin said that a president’s speech carries inordinate weight when it comes to things like incitement, by virtue of his oath of office.

“Nobody made Donald Trump run for president and swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution on Jan. 20, 2017,” Raskin said. “But when he did, by virtue of swearing that oath and entering this high office, he took upon himself a duty to affirmatively take care that our laws would be faithfully executed under his leadership.”

Raskin also went further, noting that constitutional experts generally agree that impeachment doesn’t require a statutory crime. “High crimes and misdemeanors,” despite the claims of Trump’s legal team both this week and in his first impeachment, doesn’t actually mean felonies or what the legal code today calls misdemeanors.

“Incitement to violent insurrection is not protected by free speech,” Raskin said. “There is no First Amendment defense to impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. The idea itself is absurd. And the whole First Amendment smokescreen is a completely irrelevant distraction from the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors governing a president who has violated his oath of office.”

4. The participants who cited Trump

The early focus Thursday was on driving home the incitement argument by pointing to rioters who said they had been incited.

Multiple rioters who have been charged with crimes have cited perceived invitations from Trump as part of their defense. That could be convenient for them, legally speaking. But DeGette focused more on people who said these things in real time.

Among them:
“Have you noticed throughout this presentation the uncanny similarity, over and over and over again, of what all these people are saying?” DeGette said. “They said what Donald Trump said and they echoed each other. ‘Stand back and stand by.’ ‘Stop the steal.' 'Fight like hell.’ ‘Trump sent us.’ ‘We are listening to Trump.’ ”

It’s possible to cherry-pick anecdotes in a prosecution. It’s also possible that people perceived a message that Trump didn’t technically send. The combination of these comments and those citing Trump’s invitation as part of their legal defense, though, suggests that this is something many truly believed was done at Trump’s behest — or at least that it would meet with his approval.

I highlighted Mike Rounds's comment because that's what I see as the cover Republicans are fervently seeking.

And that's one of the Catch-22 things that make our little democracy experiment both pretty fuckin' great and really fuckin' scary.

Senators have to swear an oath to be "impartial" during an impeachment trial, but they get to choose any justification or rationalization that strikes their fancy when it comes to what they use as a framework for making their final decision on which way they vote.

So all they have to do is pay a little lip service to the Dems' arguments, but then shrug and say, "Well gee, I just don't believe the constitution says we can do this..."

That's the SmarmSpace game that too many of these assholes play.

A normal, everyday human:
"I think what you're doing is unethical."

Politician (usually a Republican these days):
"Well there's nothing that say's it's illegal - I can do what I want."


And the kicker: 
Just like last time, it's being reported that the Repubs would vote to convict in a big way if they could vote in secret.

These asshats can only adhere to the principles of the constitution - that they're sworn to defend - if they can do it in the dark when no one is looking.

When you can't stand up in public to do what you've sworn in public you would do, then your whole deal is 9 kinds of fucked up.

The GOP is broken. It's both brain-dead and soul-dead now.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Today's Video

In case you missed it - the House managers had a nice little reminder of the extreme shittiness that the Senate Republicans desperately need us to ignore.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Check The Timelines

I think we need to see the COVID-19 timeline compared with the impeachment timeline.

Here are a few highlights, as I've been able to piece some of this shit together:

The first case of what would become known as COVID-19 was recorded in November 2019.

In the December-January timeframe, American intelligence agencies (and other entities, in this and other countries) reported to federal officials about the concerns coming from the pros at CDC and WHO.

Articles of impeachment were presented in the Senate mid-January, and the votes to acquit were take on February 5.


They knew.

  • At the very least, there were loud and urgent warnings of what was coming
  • After 3 years, they knew damned well that 45* was poorly equipped to handle much of anything beyond an ad lib photo op
They knew what was coming and they left that orange blob in place.

A wiser man than I admonishes us never to assume nefarious intent when looking at even the most glaring instances of ineptitude.

But how do I adhere to that when it seems like it just gets more obvious that something's up?




Saturday, February 08, 2020

Nancy Bangs


The Washington Post, Opinion
Speaker of The House, Nancy Pelosi:

For more than 200 years, our republic has endured, not only because of the wisdom of our Founders and the brilliance of our Constitution, but because of the generations of patriotic Americans who have had the courage to risk their lives to defend it.

But, tragically, the American people have watched President Trump and Republicans in Congress dismantle the Constitution that we cherish.

The House impeachment managers, led by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), presented to the Senate and the public an incontrovertible truth that the president himself has admitted: President Trump abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign power to help him cheat in an American election. And when he was caught, the president launched an unprecedented coverup to block Congress from holding him accountable. The president’s actions undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution.

The Democrats in the Senate under the leadership of Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) patriotically voted unanimously to honor the oath to support and defend the Constitution. They, along with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), deserve our gratitude for their moral courage.

The president’s lawyers all but concede his misconduct. Their argument was only that Congress and the American people have no right to stop him from using his power to cheat in our elections. With their vote, Senate Republicans embraced this darkest vision of power: that if the president believes his reelection is good for the country, he can then use any means necessary to win, with no accountability or consequences.

For weeks, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Republican-controlled Senate have made themselves accomplices to the president’s wrongdoing by suppressing additional evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process. In declaring their loyalty to the president over our Constitution, Republicans have made a farce of the old boast that the U.S. Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world. And they have joined the president in normalizing lawlessness and rejecting the checks and balances of our Constitution.

The House of Representatives voted to impeach the president because our institution believes in the sanctity of our oath and the urgency of protecting our republic. One chamber of Congress held the president accountable. President Trump is impeached forever, disgraced in history for his abuse of power and contempt for our Constitution. He will go down in history as the first president to be impeached with the support of a majority of Americans, and the first to ever face a bipartisan vote to convict him in the Senate.

Our Founders put safeguards in the Constitution to protect against a rogue president. They never imagined that they would at the same time have a rogue leader in the Senate who would cowardly abandon his duty to uphold the Constitution.

Sadly, because of the Republican Senate’s betrayal of the Constitution, the president remains an ongoing threat to American democracy. He continues to insist that he is above accountability and that he can corrupt the elections again, if he wants to.

The People’s House will continue to defend democracy for the American people. We will uphold and protect the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution, both in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion to preserve our republic “if we can keep it,” to quote Benjamin Franklin.

And we will always insist on this truth: that, in America, no one is above the law.

Read more:
Dana Milbank: This vulgar man has squandered our decency

Wednesday, February 05, 2020

Thursday, January 30, 2020

What A Revoltin' Development


So Alan (Peewee Underpants) Dershowitz pretty much lost it yesterday.



Je suis l'État, et l'État c'est moi
-- Louis VIV

WaPo:

President Trump’s legal team offered a startling defense Wednesday as senators debated his fate in the impeachment trial, arguing that presidents could do nearly anything so long as they believe their reelection is in the public interest.

The assertion from Alan Dershowitz, one of the attorneys representing the president, seemed to take GOP senators by surprise, and few were willing to embrace his argument. At the same time, Republican lawmakers were sounding increasingly confident about defeating a vote expected Friday over calling new witnesses in the trial, an issue that has consumed the Senate for the past several days.

- and -

“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” asserted Dershowitz.

Then Dershowitz tried to bolster their bullshit assertion that unless the guy openly states that he's committing a crime, he's not just immune from impeachment, but out of reach of investigation altogether.

The law professor went on to say that if a president were to tell a foreign leader he was going to withhold funds unless his foreign counterpart built a hotel with his name on it and gave him a million-dollar kickback, “That’s an easy case. That’s purely corrupt and in the purely private interest.


The President can do no wrong.

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Here's The Thing

An amalgam from the Twitterverse:

Bolton cleverly hid the evidence where 45* would never find it - in a book.

But no, seriously now: his minions were aware of it, because Bolton had to submit his manuscript for review by the national security folks.

So the White House knew about it all along, which is another reason they ignored subpoenas and threatened Exec Privilege to keep Bolton from testifying.

They knew. Which means McConnell knew. Which makes it pretty obvious why Republicans are acting like such dicks - again - still - by refusing to allow witnesses or documentary evidence in the impeachment trial.

Getting Up With Fleas


WaPo Letters to the Editor 

Jan. 27, 2020 at 5:12 p.m. EST

I was braced for Dana Milbank’s usual snark, as he seems to have taken Maureen Dowd’s place in our national conversation, but his Jan. 24 Impeachment Diary column, “Roberts comes face-to-face with the mess he made,” was spot on and not for yuks.

Mr. Milbank is right about the legacy of Citizens United, but I wonder if the chief justice has a more basic problem. Sitting there while the president’s counsel spins lie after lie — and not saying a word about it — may be the death blow to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

The chief justice’s passive acceptance of obvious lies does not show him to be a neutral arbiter. It instead shows to those who might come before him in his day job that bad-faith arguments are acceptable rhetoric. In calling out some of those lies, and Republicans’ abdication of their credibility in accepting them, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was intemperate!

So let’s scold the parties “in equal terms.” Hogwash. The chief justice’s fake neutrality may well neuter the Constitution.

Bill Kalish, Alexandria VA


Here's Milbank's piece:

There is justice in John Roberts being forced to preside silently over the impeachment trial of President Trump, hour after hour, day after tedious day.

The chief justice of the United States, as presiding officer, doesn’t speak often, and when he does, the words are usually scripted and perfunctory:
  • “The Senate will convene as a court of impeachment.”
  • “The chaplain will lead us in prayer."
  • “The sergeant at arms will deliver the proclamation.”
  • “The majority leader is recognized.”
Otherwise, he sits and watches. He rests his chin in his hand. He stares straight ahead. He sits back and interlocks his fingers. He plays with his pen. He takes his reading glasses off and puts them on again. He starts to write something, then puts his pen back down. He roots around in his briefcase for something - anything? - to occupy him.

Roberts’s captivity is entirely fitting: He is forced to witness, with his own eyes, the mess he and his colleagues on the Supreme Court have made of the U.S. political system. As representatives of all three branches of government attend this unhappy family reunion, the living consequences of the Roberts Court’s decisions, and their corrosive effect on democracy, are plain to see.

Ten years to the day before Trump’s impeachment trial began, the Supreme Court released its Citizens United decision, plunging the country into the era of super PACs and unlimited, unregulated, secret campaign money from billionaires and foreign interests. Citizens United, and the resulting rise of the super PAC, led directly to this impeachment. The two Rudy Giuliani associates engaged in key abuses — the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the attempts to force Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents — gained access to Trump by funneling money from a Ukrainian oligarch to the president’s super PAC.

The Roberts Court’s decisions led to this moment in indirect ways, as well. The court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County gutted the Voting Rights Act and spurred a new wave of voter suppression. The decision in 2014′s McCutcheon further surrendered campaign finance to the wealthiest. The 2018 Janus decisionhobbled the ability of labor unions to counter wealthy donors, while the 2019 Rucho ruling blessed partisan gerrymandering, expanding anti-democratic tendencies.

The consequences? Falling confidence in government, and a growing perception that Washington had become a “swamp” corrupted by political money, fueled Trump’s victory. The Republican Party, weakened by the new dominance of outside money, couldn’t stop Trump’s hostile takeover of the party or the takeover of the congressional GOP ranks by far-right candidates. The new dominance of ideologically extreme outside groups and donors led lawmakers on both sides to give their patrons what they wanted: conflict over collaboration and purity at the cost of paralysis. The various decisions also suppress the influence of poorer and non-white Americans and extend the electoral power of Republicans in disproportion to the popular vote.

Certainly, the Supreme Court didn’t create all these problems, but its rulings have worsened the pathologies — uncompromising views, mindless partisanship and vitriol — visible in this impeachment trial. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), no doubt recognizing that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is helping to preserve his party’s Senate majority, has devoted much of his career to extending conservatives’ advantage in the judiciary.

He effectively stole a Supreme Court seat by refusing for nearly a year to consider President Barack Obama’s eminently qualified nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill a vacancy. And, expanding on earlier transgressions by Democrats, he blew up generations of Senate procedures and precedents requiring the body to operate by consensus so that he could confirm more Trump judicial appointees.

It’s a symbiotic relationship. On the day the impeachment trial opened, the Roberts Court rejected a plea by Democrats to expedite its consideration of the latest legal attempt by Republicans to kill Obamacare. The court sided with Republicans who opposed an immediate Supreme Court review because the GOP feared the ruling could hurt it if the decision came before the 2020 election.

Roberts had been warned about this sort of thing. The late Justice John Paul Stevens, in his Citizens United dissent, wrote: “Americans may be forgiven if they do not feel the Court has advanced the cause of self-government today.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, in his McCutcheon dissent, warned that the new campaign finance system would be “incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy.”

Now, we are in a crisis of democratic legitimacy: A president who has plainly abused his office and broken the law, a legislature too paralyzed to do anything about it — and a chief justice coming face to face with the system he broke.

Aside from the slight whiff of Both Sides - which of course is an absolute shibboleth for Press Poodles - I can get next to it.

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

On Ken Starr

Ari Melber on MSNBC: We watched Ken Starr punch himself in the face.

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Today's Quote


The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy — not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits — despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day. It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”


-- Alexander Hamilton, Aug 1792

This is from a "note" to George Washington.

Reading some of it now, I get a very bad feeling that someone is taking Hamilton's warnings and following them like a playbook.

Saturday, January 25, 2020

The Scary Part


Trump could shoot somebody on camera in the Senate and they'd acquit him 53-47.

Unless he shoots a Republican, then they'd acquit him 52-47.

Senate Republicans looking for evidence 
while complaining about the dark

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Continuing A Theme


The impeachment trial is looking like a simple continuation of what we've seen from the GOP for at least 25 years - adapted for this malignant wart they still insist on calling "president".

And watching (a little) yesterday, it was very clear from the beginning that we were going to see the same ol' same ol'.
  • Dems stating facts and trying to engage on the evidence.
  • Repubs making campaign speeches (ie: lying their asses off).
Here's a pretty fair characterization of what little actual "defense" the Repubs are putting up:

Women: 
Feminazis
Liars 

FBI & Intel Professionals: 
Deep-Staters
Never-Trumpers
Liars 

Civil Servants: 
Never-Trumpers
Deep-Staters
Liars 

Documents: 
You're reading it wrong
Totally false
Written by liars 

Established Indisputable Facts: 
Yeah but Hillary
What about Obama

And not to be too repetitive, but notice how they never defend 45* on the basis of his being an honorable standup guy who just wouldn't do such things. They never mention that shit at all. Ever.


Thursday, January 16, 2020

Here It Comes

I don't remember this kind of pomp and circumstance with the Clinton impeachment.



And I don't remember this level of fuckery:


Dana Milbank, WaPo:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his team — the Senate sergeant-at-arms and Rules Committee make the decisions, but McConnell (R-Ky.) is the driving force behind the restrictions, people involved tell me — further decreed that journalists would be confined during the entire trial to roped-off pens, forbidden from approaching senators in Capitol corridors.

They also required journalists to clear a newly installed metal detector before entering the media seats above the chamber. Why? Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) suggested to PBS’s Lisa Desjardins, The Post’s Paul Kane and others that journalists might bug the chamber with surveillance equipment.

The GOP leadership likewise rejected a request from the Standing Committee of Correspondents to allow journalists to bring laptops or silenced phones into the chamber so they could write (the House allows this) or to allow cameras in to capture the history of the moment (the House allowed this during the impeachment process).


- and -

It’s obvious what the restrictions are about, because they mirror McConnell’s general approach to the trial. He had signed on to a proposal to dismiss the House impeachment articles without a trial. He has resisted allowing documentary or testimonial evidence to surface during the trial. And now he’s doing everything in his power to shield senators from reporters — and from the public.

Because still and TV cameras aren’t allowed in the chamber, the only images will be C-SPAN-style footage from fixed TV cameras operated by government employees. The public won’t be able to see which senators are sleeping, talking or missing entirely.

McConnell’s team also decided to claw back seats typically reserved for the general public, to “augment” seating for their own friends and family; they’ll have at least 134 such seats. They offered no such augmentation for the media, which has 107 seats, only about 20 of which provide a full view of the Senate floor.

Nor can the senators be observed outside the chamber. At a private luncheon of Republican senators this week, Blunt showed where the media would be penned in and reportedly “joked” that the senators could now avoid reporters.


- and the kicker:

It’s a curious attempt at fortress-building after House Republicans noisily objected to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) taking depositions in his “basement bunker.” They can’t quash the trial itself, but McConnell’s restrictions will go a long way toward restricting what the American public sees of this historic moment.



Wednesday, January 15, 2020

What A Revoltin' Development

So now, there's just no way for anyone to be unclear as to what 45* meant when he told Zelensky that Marie Yovanovich would be "going through some things".


Business Insider:
  • Newly-released texts show discussions by Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas that talk about stalking former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
  • The texts, one of which refers to Yovanovitch as 'that b---h', were made public by the House Intelligence Committee as part of a cache of evidence linking Parnas to President Donald Trump's efforts to put pressure on Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
  • Yovanovitch, who testified during President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, was abruptly recalled from her position in May after what she described as a smear campaign.
  • Upon the release of the documents, Yovanovitch demanded an investigation to look into the extent of surveillance that was conducted by Parnas and his associates.

Newly-published text exchanges involving Rudy Giuliani's associate Lev Parnas show him discussing efforts to stalk former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and refer to her bluntly as 'that b---h'.

The conversations were made public by the House Intelligence Committee, along with letters and handwritten notes that illustrate Parnas' role in President Donald Trump's pressure campaign in Ukraine.

Yovanovitch, who testified during President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, was abruptly recalled from her position in May after she what she characterized as a smear campaign.

The conversations back up Yovanovitch's testimony, showing Parnas and his associates plotting to "get rid" of her.

Parnas texted his associate Robert Hyde, a Republican running for Congress in Connecticut, in which Hyde called Yovanovitch a "b---h" for being anti-Trump.

- and -

Hyde later sent several texts suggesting he was keeping tabs on Yovanovitch in Ukraine, adding, "They are willing to help if we/you would like a price."

Afterward, Hyde wrote, "Guess you can do anything in the Ukraine with money."

At the end of March, Hyde texted Parnas updating him on Yovanovitch's location and the state of her security.



He followed up saying how they "have a person inside."


Robert F Hyde is just another GOP Rat-Fucker - who, of course, 45* has never met, doesn't remember, is off doing something maybe for Rudy, maybe not, I'm not sure if Rudy is blah blah fucking blah.

Daily Beast:

Before Tuesday, he was best known as a little-known, scandal-scarred Republican congressional candidate who tweeted an obscene joke at Kamala Harris. But new documents from the House Intelligence Committee have put a completely different kind of spotlight on Robert F. Hyde, the Trump donor who appears to have tracked U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s movements in Ukraine.

In WhatsApp messages exchanged in March 2019 with Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who provided the committee with the files, Hyde and Parnas discussed Yovanovitch’s location. Hyde, a retired Marine, appeared to have associates in Ukraine monitoring her.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

On The Congressional Circus

Here's the money quote:

The Republicans, mostly white men, stood staunchly behind the president and repeated many of his statements vilifying the opposition. The Democrats, notably more diverse in race and gender, uniformly attacked the president’s conduct as an affront to American values.


The House of Representatives voted late Wednesday to impeach President Trump on charges that he abused his office and obstructed Congress, with Democrats declaring him a threat to the nation and branding an indelible mark on the most turbulent presidency of modern times.

After 11 hours of fierce argument on the House floor between Democrats and Republicans over Trump’s conduct with Ukraine, lawmakers voted almost entirely along party lines to impeach him. Trump becomes the third president in U.S. history to face trial in the Senate — a proceeding that will determine whether he is removed from office less than one year before he stands for reelection.

On Trump’s 1,062nd day in office, Congress brought a momentous reckoning to an un­or­tho­dox president who has tested America’s institutions with an array of unrestrained actions, including some that a collection of his own appointees and other government witnesses testified were reckless and endangered national security.


Front Page





Today's Quote


I think when the history of this time is written, it will record that when my colleagues found they lacked the courage to stand up to this unethical president, they consoled themselves by attacking those who did.
--Adam Schiff, D-CA28

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Catching Up


45* has been running away from his day in court his whole life.


And we may be about to get a good look at why he never stands up - why he always does his big bluff-n-bluster dance as he slinks away, leaving someone else holding the empty cape.

Question:
What are the Repubs really up to? At this point, they have to know most of the rubes will follow them anywhere - with or without Donald Trump. The Trump voters I talk with just want DumFux News to reinforce their prejudices and to tell them it's OK to die on the job thinking they'll get that new bass boat if they work a little harder and pay no attention to the silliness going on in politics.