Impeachment Megathread Part 3

[Progressive Pessimist]

It makes sense for Alexander to vote that way. He is retiring and has nothing to lose. That's the only time Republicans grow even a quarter of a backbone. What are Enzi's and Roberts' excuses?

[Progressive Pessimist]

I was actually hoping Justin Amash would be named an impeachment manager. The guy has been in favor of impeachment early on and is an attorney. Would have been nice to have the sole right-winger voting for impeachment on the team.

I was hoping for that too. This trial isn't going to actually be a trial, but more of an appeal to get the non-brainwashed American public to realize that the GOP are bad faith, biased jurors who have already made up their minds, or simply don't care about the President's litany of wrongdoing. Amash would be a great help with that, especially as a principled conservative who exists contrary to the rhetoric of this impeachment being a partisan "witch hunt" by Democrats. But at the same time I really ought to just trust Pelosi at this point. I always regret doubting her, or being skeptical of her.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1217941591211626496

It's still too wishy-washy of a statement for me to have confidence in her...as usual.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Fact check: 65 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment

President Donald Trump is dishonest about a whole lot of things. But he is rarely as comprehensively dishonest as he has been about his dealings with Ukraine and the impeachment process.

From the eruption of the Ukraine controversy in September to the Senate trial that officially began on Thursday, relentless deceit has seemed to be Trump's primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. He has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to the whistleblower who complained about the call, to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's own relations with Ukraine.

The President has been dissembling about so many different things at once that it can be difficult to keep track of what is true and what isn't. To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness as the trial gets underway, we've tallied his dishonesty on the subject of Ukraine and impeachment. Our original list from mid-November included 45 false claims he has made and a brief fact check of each one.

We have since added 20 more for a total of 65.

ONLY 65 ways!?

[Progressive Pessimist]

I am totally onboard what WH Counsel Pat Cippolone just said on the Senate Floor. MAN, that guy is good.

The House Inquiry is a complete HOAX orchestrated by Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler.

Cipollone continued: “If I showed up in any court in this country and I said, ‘Judge, my case is overwhelming, but I’m not ready to go yet. I need more evidence’ … I would get thrown out in two seconds and that’s exactly what should happen here.”

So, we should just ignore the overwhelming amount of incriminating, corroborated evidence that has already been gathered?

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1219365796096479233?s=21

What a joke Poll from Liberal Hack Manu Raju.

Thus far in the States that matter in the Electoral College come November. "Removing Trump from Office" is either tied or below.

How many people did SSrS have to poll from CA, NY, IL to get that 51 % Number. CNN AGAIN fabricating Polls like they did for Gillum and Nelson in FL during 2018 Midterms.

You are a nut.

A MAGAdamia nut.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Here we go... https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1219779490311802882?s=21

He isn't up for re-election until 2024. He'll be fine. I hope he keeps that in mind and continues doing the right thing.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1220078337000906754

I really wish he was part of the trial...

[Progressive Pessimist]

So if Trump can't be removed because it's overturning the American people, who ever could be impeached? Why haven't Republicans tried to amend the Constitution to remove the section about impeachment? 🤔🤔🤔

Why do they keep forgetting that removing Trump installs Pence who was also elected alongside him?

[Progressive Pessimist]

GOP Senators will note that there’s been no enlarging public sentiment on this. Don’t see any hope of witnesses or removal.

There never was. But not for the reason you laid out.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Adam Schiff (D-CA) made a BIG, BIG collossal Unforced Error with his "Head on a Pike Thing" Remarks.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrat-schiffs-head-pike-comment-draws-outrage-gop/story?id=68527054&cid=social_twitter_abcnp

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Key Swing GOP Vote said quote:"This is where he lost me".

Without Murkowskis Vote it's Game Over to call witnesses by Democrats.

Suppose it is true that Murkowski decided to change her vote based just on Schiff saying "head on a pike."

Whether or not Schiff said "head on a pike" is entirely immaterial to the facts of the case and to the law.

So if Murkowski (or anyone else) would have changed their votes based on that, that simply means that they were not deciding how to vote based on the facts of the case and on the law.

This means that Murkowski (and any other such Senator) is violating their oaths by their own admission and is operating in bad faith - it means that she has no interest in upholding her duty under the Constitution.

You're totally right, but this doesn't matter to Republicans. All they are doing is looking for excuses to acquit Trump. That's basically what the defense's arguments boil down to after all: "here are a bunch of bulls*** excuses, pick whichever poison you need to in order to rationalize acquitting Trump."

[Progressive Pessimist]

You know from a political standpoint having the GOP votedown witnesses and acquiting Trump is more likely to rally the public against them than calling witnesses and still acquitting

I'm not so optimistic. I don't think the American public will care about or even remember any of this by election day, even if it does upset a plurality or majority of them in the near-future.

It's still a better outcome than the acquittal somehow guaranteeing Trump's re-election, which I don't see happening under any circumstance for the same reasons.

[Progressive Pessimist]

You know from a political standpoint having the GOP votedown witnesses and acquiting Trump is more likely to rally the public against them than calling witnesses and still acquitting

I'm not so optimistic. I don't think the American public will care about or even remember any of this by election day, even if it does upset a plurality or majority of them in the near-future.

It's still a better outcome than the acquittal somehow guaranteeing Trump's re-election, which I don't see happening under any circumstance for the same reasons.

They cared enough about Hillary's email server to not elect her president.

Yeah, but simultaneously they didn't care, or stopped caring about the nearly countless number of immeasurably worse things Trump did before and during that campaign.

Trump constantly gets by on apathy, double standards, and low expectations in ways no other politicians can or ever will.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Winesses. No Witnesses.

It does not change the result. All it does is drag Hunter Biden through the mud and lower Joe Biden's chances in the Democratic Primary.

What I don't get is why these witnesses did not get heard in the House inquiry phase of the impeachment?

That makes no sense. Why didn't the House get the facts, questions and answers sorted during their Impeachment investigation?

Then it was sent to the Senate with an incomplete case. It's like watching a kid who didn;t do their homework. 

You're kind of right about a witness compromise muddying the waters with Hunter Biden, should he be called as a condition.

But your homework metaphor is completely off-base. The Democrats, or the student in this case, did all the homework they could manage to get their hands on because the teacher (Trump and the GOP) intentionally wanted to make sure the student failed and deprived them of a portion of the assigned work.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I'm usually not short on words, but I don't know what else to say at this point.

This "trial" has gone almost exactly as I expected. The only real suspense now is how the acquittal vote goes. Does Manchin vote to acquit? Does a single Republican defect? Ultimately, neither of those questions really matter though because we should just assume the worst since that's we always get in this timeline. It's going to be a 44-56 vote to acquit isn't it? With Jones and Sinema joining Manchin and a united Branch Trumpidian caucus. This is at least what I'm going to convince myself of so that I can be slightly pleasantly surprised when only Manchin joins the other side.

The only real consolation is that the vote will take place after Trump's State of the Union (spoilers: he'll say the state is strong when in reality it's about as weak and flimsy as rice paper). I don't know if I could tolerate an hour-and-a-half of Trump gloating about his acquittal. His acquittal doesn't equal innocence though, and I hope enough Americans are smart enough to see through that. I might be giving them too much credit though. I still think that the American public forgetting that this weak defense mechanism of our nation ever happening is the most likely. This isn't going to somehow assure Trump's re-election or negative consequences for the GOP though. Really, it's going to become a footnote in history. The gloating before we get to that point by Trump and his mind-slaves is going to be agonizing though. Expect many blue avatars who never entered this megathread and all its iterations before to show up here to do what they love the most: "lib triggering" on Wednesday. That is going to be a dark day in our nation's history and I am dreading it about as much as I am dreading every day before we know the results of November's election. And depending how that goes there is a chance that I will end up dreading every day after that too, because our country is truly in an unsustainable place, and it can somehow get worse still.

Also I must say that the Democrats did nothing wrong and have nothing to be ashamed of. They did all they could, but this was always how an impeachment of Donald trump was going to go. The Kavanaugh hearings were another early indicator of that.

I guess I wasn't so short on words after all. I'm going to go watch the final new episodes of 'Bojack Horseman' now. That is somehow going to be an upper compared to today's events and the events that will invariably follow it.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Collins, Tillis, Gardner and McSally will lose their seats over this and Dems can net the Senate

I'm not that optimistic. Gardner is the only surefire loser of these four.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Collins, Tillis, Gardner and McSally will lose their seats over this and Dems can net the Senate

I'm not that optimistic. Gardner is the only surefire loser of these four.

Gardner will, but he was going to go no matter what so now it is 52-48
Collins is tossup to tilt R but let's just give it to the Dem for the scenario 51-49
Tillis will win, NC will go for Trump again, (why would people support Trump and vote against Tillis) still 51-49
McSally is pure tossup for now, but let's just give it to the Dem for this scenario 50-50
You forgot about Jones though which will flip R, so at the end it is 51R-49D

I actually mostly agree. I am very bearish on Democratic chances in the Senate this year. Even if they win the White House, the Democrats probably won't be able to take the chamber back until 2028 at the earliest.

Someone please put this country out of its misery!

[Progressive Pessimist]

I would love for Iowa to castrate Ernst's political future, but it won't happen. Of course, if the Republicans want to try and impeach Biden, should he become President, it will probably be an even bigger failure than this impeachment of Trump. The rules aren't going to change. McConnell and the Senate GOP have f***ed with a lot of our institutional traditions but even he can't overcome this. They'll still need 67 votes, which will remain a near-impossible goal. Also any evidence of wrongdoing is tenuous and trite. Only the most zombified of the right wing base will buy it. I'm always wary of giving the American public, and even our own political system, that much credit but I really almost welcome the GOP to try this if Biden becomes the 46th President. At that point we'll get the backfire and vindication result for the GOP that they are hoping for an acquittal of Trump will achieve for them right now.

The outcome in the Senate may be is preordained, but that shouldn't stop House Democrats from subpoenaing John Bolton and other Trump administration figures.  I don't want Bolton to come out with the information in his upcoming book that should have been heard first in a House Intelligence Committee hearing. 

Agreed, though there will probably a desire by many in the party to want to move on Ukraine-Contra, much like with the Mueller probe.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1224448028351713288

Those are some astonishingly insightful words from Manchin. Maybe we don't have to worry about voting to acquit.

It is also worth painting Trump that way on the campaign trail, though his very obvious pompous elitism really should be more obvious. Him thinking of himself before anyone else is definitive of his character, and always has been as long as he has been a public figure. The problem is that aspect of his personality fits all too neatly into the Republican Party and made that an appealing part of his persona.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I was bed-ridden yesterday with a debilitating stomach virus, so I never got to comment on yesterday's vote. Perhaps it's appropriate though, because the mere thought of Trump being acquitted made me nauseous; and yesterday, literally as it happened, I was vomiting in the toilet.

Truly the Republican Party, once again being hypocrites, now proved that they love abortions after all: abortions of justice.

So, as expectedly depressing as the whole thing was, the best-case scenario did actually manage to happen where a Republican crossed over and joined a completely united Democratic Caucus in doing the right thing. Mitt Romney truly deserves praise fro actually having a conscience and standing by it. He makes Collins and Murkowski look all the worse, and disrupts the narrative of Trump's removal being a partisan witch-hunt. Sure, he kind of had his cake while eating it, by voting against the other Article, but when it comes to a Republican Party member, I will take what I can get. And this was not nothing. It was a surprising silver-lining to what was otherwise the darkest of many already dark days in the Trump era.

All that's left now is for this country to regain its sanity and reject Trump and his cronies from the White House and Senate. Other than that, the Death Star officially has more guardrails than our republic does.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Jerry Falwell, Jr. says Romney should keep his religion to himself.  Not The Onion:
https://twitter.com/twmentality1/status/1226328709742899201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

Every time a Republican blindly says something without realizing the irony, another of my brain cells kills itself in the most painful way possible.