The Likelihood of Impeachment

We all KNEW that the Senate "trial" would be a farce, but today it's really happening.

Okay, so McConnell absolves Trump of any wrong-doing. Trump uses this as a cudgel in the election and wins re-election.

Meanwhile, the Senate changes hands in 2021 and Chuck Schumer becomes the new majority leader. Will the House introduce new articles of impeachment based on the new evidence that comes out? Will the Senate re-try the existing articles?

Time will tell. Better fasten your selts, we're in for a bumpy ride ahead.

I'm really unhappy with this Senate trial.  I've turned it off three times.

The Democratic managers are simply repeating the same claims and evidence brought out in the House inquiry.

The Republicans are simply repeating the talking points they've been making on Trump TV for two months.

ENOUGH.  The Dems need to pull their fucking heads out of their collective asses and explain to the Senate -- and the American people -- what this trial is really about.  It's not about Donald John Trump.  It's about the future of this country.

The PRECEDENT that DJT has set -- inviting, nay coercing foreign governments to interfere in our elections, obstructing Congressional oversight, publicly lambasting the checks and balances of government -- this precedent will stand long after DJT is out of office if corrective measures aren't taken.  That's why we can't wait until the 2020 election.  It's not about the man; it's about the precedent.

Fucking Adam Schiff needs to stand up on his hind legs and say, "This is about SETTING RULES for the president."  Yes, the House has oversight power over the president.  The House is charged, by the Constitution, with preventing presidents from abusing their power.  DJT and all future presidents need to be told, in no uncertain terms, that Congress dictates their behavior.

The Executive is not supreme.  The power of the vote is not the only limiter on presidential power.

This trial is as much about restoring the power of Congress, as it is limiting the power of the president.

NoCoPilot wrote:

This defense they've put together wants to fall apart like wet toilet paper.

Alan Dershowitz, talking twenty years ago about the Clinton impeachment on CNN, wrote:

“It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime,” he said on CNN at the time. “If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime.”

So here's the question.  How did Bill Clinton "corrupt the office of president" and "pose a great danger to our liberty" by lying to Congress... about a blow job?

NoCoPilot wrote:

he may well end up getting removed from office afterall.  

Not a chance in hell.

Unsurprising really, but still disappointing, History will judge harshly.

And "history" begins November 3rd.

Heh-heh-heh. The Democrats are playing old clips of Lindsey Graham and comments by William Barr and Alan Dershowitz that highlight their hypocrisy.

Not that it'll make any difference.

President Pence, heh-heh-heh.

Quote :

Defending Democracy Together said removing Trump won’t undo the 2016 presidential election, as the president’s supporters have claimed.

“It won’t put Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi in the White House. Instead it will give us President Mike Pence,” spokesperson Tim Miller said in a statement. “And while Pence isn’t the president of anyone’s dreams, he isn’t Donald Trump either. So there’s that.”

The liberal press is giving Schiff high marks for presenting a compelling case against Trump.

This presupposes two things.

1. The Senators were somehow unaware of the same arguments made, over and over and over again, during the House inquiry.

2. The Senators, being forced by the rules (but apparently breaking them anyway?)* to sit still and listen to all the testimony, will actually use their free will to vote their consciences.

Neither supposition is worth a dangly bit.



* - I wonder if the bit in the oath about "under pain of imprisonment" will be enforced?

GOP Senators will be subpoenaing Hunter Biden and Joe Biden tomorrow morning, according to news reports.

There is of course nothing there.

Although the Russian troll farm IRA hacked into Burisma a couple weeks ago, and there’s no control to fact-check what Russia will claim to have found. They can spin whatever conspiracy the GOP wants and it’ll be nearly impossible to refute it.

So here is the answer. Joe should WITHDRAW from the race for the good of the country. It’ll take all the wind out of the Trump/GOP sails, and leave them spluttering on the sidewalk.

Gawd I hope he does.

I wonder if the Senate can vote to censure the president, instead of removing him from office?

Nobody should be surprised. The Republicans have been signalling for months that they'll be holding a perfunctory sham defense in the perfunctory sham trial, after which they'll vote along party lines to acquit.

To do otherwise would be to risk losing RNC re-election funding, which would be fatal to most of the Senators who rely on the government teat for their existence. It's a lifetime job with free healthcare, 4-hour days, 3-day weeks and 6-month years. Where else are you going to get that much golf?

After the "Bolton Bombshell" CNN and Huffington Post are screaming apoplectic, but this sombshell is more like unexploded ordinance.  Everyone has known the same facts since at least the Sondland testimony, and Bolton even indicated last month that he WANTED to testify about it.  

Yet the Republicans are having none of it.  Deny deny deny and acquit acquit acquit.

Nothing will change.

Trump News is predictably focused on the leaks.

Heh-heh, another view of the Dershowitz defense starting today:

Mike Purpura, White House counsel, is on the floor making a long speech. He's actually doing an excellent job of making the White House case.

There are a few KEY elements Democrats could contend -- "no actual laws were broken" -- but he's destroying a lot of their circumstantial evidence and making the case that impeachments should be so clear and egregious that they're bipartisan.

MSNBC is dissecting the first day of the Republicans' defense, and saying that everything was thrown out there -- impeaching Obama, indicting Biden, no crime, no collusion, perfect call, overturning the election, etc. -- but the GOP made no effort to rebut the House managers' case for impeachment.

Fair enough.

But this is all window dressing. It's a sham, it's all for show, nobody really wants a trial or the truth to come out. They're just treading water until they feel it's safe to acquit.

Let's all acknowledge that and move on.

Here's my bottom line: There's no law against preparing new articles of impeachment. As new evidence comes out, let's impeach the motherfucker again. And again. As many times as it takes.

Democrats and Democrat-leaning media are all insanely hopeful that four GOP senators will vote to allow witnesses. Although unlikely, I guess it could happen.

Even if it did, however, it'd be just more window-dressing. They'll still vote to acquit afterward.

In this topsy-turvy world we’re living in, the Democrats are talking about “subpoenaing” John Bolton’s book, with all the revelations in it.

Trump is saying the revelations in the book are not true, they’re made up.

Yet the WH is still blocking Bolton from testifying under oath. What kind of sense does THAT make? If they wanted the truth out they should DEMAND he testify under oath.

I just don’t get it.

The GOP is describing Bolton's book as an "unsourced manuscript" which is RICH, considering it's a first-person account by one of the White House principals at the center of the White House scandals.

Norman Ornstein, of the far-right American Enterprise Institute, wrote:

It is a fool’s errand to stick with a guilty president when the guilt is clear. And the election loss is accompanied by a stain on one’s character that is indelible.

Removal from office, though exceedingly unlikely, would gain serious plausibility if the ballots were cast in secret. Without guaranteed retribution, Senators would be much more likely to vote their consciences.

If they have any.

LOL, now Trump is trying to block Bolton’s book. Good luck with that, Donny.

Quote :

Republican senators argue that calling Bolton or virtually any other witnesses would be a waste of time — because their vote won’t change. That argument is an accidental admission of the essential truth of this trial: Republicans are prepared to acquit Trump no matter what.

Trump's acquittal will be a Pyrrhic victory for the GOP, as they'll pay the price in November.

Rand Paul tries to out the whistleblower. Chief Justice Roberts is having none of it.

It's just a distraction anyway -- the identity of the whistleblower is entirely irrelevant; everything he or she alleged has been proven under oath by other witnesses. But Trump wants to intimidate him or her to prevent any future breaks from his ranks of single-minded Stormtroopers.

If the Senate ties on the witness vote, would John Roberts vote to break the tie?

Uncharted territory here.  It's never happened before.  Because Roberts has a job-for-life he's not susceptible to the winds of the next election, and could conceivably come down on the side of a "real trial" in the Senate.  But the move would be unpopular, and Roberts hates publicity.  He might rather just let the Senate Republicans hang themselves in the next election.

No skin off his nose.

What's REALLY IRONIC here is the Senate Republicans are accusing the House Democrats of rushing through the House inquiry and delivering incomplete Articles of Impeachment to the Senate.  But now they want to rush through the Senate trial, based solely on what the House was able to uncover without any cooperation from the White House, and deliver a verdict without any evidence, without any witnesses and without any documents.  Talk about a rush to "justice"!

The last three days of Q&A have been disappointing, because the Senators are asking questions of the counsel on their own side, exclusively.

I know it's considered a principle of law, in a court, to never ask a question of a witness unless you already know the answer.  

So the Q&A session is just reinforcing what we've already heard -- over and over and over again.

It would've been much more illuminating -- news making even -- for the Senators to grill the opposing counsel.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Mike Pence, one of the principals in the Ukraine affair and himself likely to face impeachment over it

Damn.

The Democrats are too scared of their own shadows to bring all the tools they possess to bear.