Quote of the Day -- Quote of this Impeachment Trial

                                                                                       

“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”

--Republican Senator Mitch McConnell 

Even he recognized this. He makes the case, right here for the trial this week.

#Impeach45

Link:

McConnell: Trump ‘provoked’ Capitol siege, mob was fed lies

A Question for All Republican US Senators Just Now

 

How could you, as a US Senator, Democrat or Republican, sit in the Senate chambers--that were just attacked January 6--and listen to the evidence on both sides of this impeachment trial, knowing you yourself had to take cover and hide from the insurrectionist attackers, and then vote that Donald J Trump didn't incite them, invite them to do so, time and again, even that very morning of January 6, right there in Washington, on video?

Political power for your political party and for yourself is that much more important? 

More important even than your own safety, which was threatened that day? 

More important than your nation's safety? 

And election?

Really?

Links:

Trump Incited Real Harm on January 6. His Impeachment Trial Must Reflect This.

US Capitol riot mob wanted to kill Mike Pence

Guardsman is arrested for threatening to kill VP Pence

National Guardsman who threatened to kill Mike Pence

Pro-Trump extremists sought to kill the vice president 

The Impeachment Trial, Simply

The facts. The simple, straightforward facts.

--Trump denied our vote, our votes and our election. Repeatedly. For weeks.

--He called his supporters to come to our nation's capitol and attack.

--He asked and invited his supporters to interrupt and stop the counting of our votes that day, January 6, in Congress.

--Then, finally, he had our nation's Capitol be there unprotected.

Trump Reportedly Rebuffed Repeated Requests to Call In National Guard to Quell Capitol Riots

Oh, yeah. #Impeach 

Informative, Helpful, Hopeful Signs and Information About Tomorrow's 2nd Impeachment

And from--who else?

Heather Cox Richardson

February 7, 2021 (Sunday)

Pundits are saying that the Senate will vote to acquit former president Donald Trump at the end of his second impeachment trial, set to start on Tuesday. 

I’m not so sure.

After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the House of Representatives passed an article of impeachment against Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” The article accuses the former president of engaging in high crimes and misdemeanors “by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.” It charges him with lying about voter fraud, trying to get the Georgia secretary of state to falsify election results, and encouraging his supporters to attack the Capitol to stop the process that would certify Biden’s victory.

The article charges that the former president “has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution… and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law…. [He] warrants… disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.”

The House passed this article of impeachment with 232 representatives voting yes and 197 voting no. Ten Republicans joined 222 Democrats to impeach Trump in his last days in office. The Senate will hold a trial to determine whether to convict the former president of this charge. If all 100 senators are present, the number needed to convict is seventeen. But there is no requirement that all senators be present.

Pundits are basing their belief that senators will vote to acquit on the fact that 45 Republican senators voted against a motion proposed by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), calling for a debate over the constitutionality of trying a former president. Paul insisted that vote was a proxy for conviction, but a vote immediately after that one, on the structure for the trial, drew only 17 no votes from Republicans. Thirty-three voted yes. My guess is that neither vote is a definitive sign of what is to come.

There are a number of things going on.

This trial brings into public view the fight for control of the Republican Party. Business Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have run the Republican Party since the 1980s. They cultivated the populists for their votes, but business Republicans never intended to give them power.

The two wings jockeyed along together because both like tax cuts and originalist judges, who reject the idea of business regulation and government protection of civil rights. But that uneasy alliance is wrenching apart. Trump gave his populist supporters a taste of power, and they do not want to give it up. The Trump wing has become a personality cult, embracing violence and an attack on the rule of law in order to keep the former president in office.

Business Republicans cozied up to the Trumpers because they need the votes Trump turned out and the money he raised. But it is no longer clear that he can keep commanding votes or raising big money.

Since the January 6 coup attempt, social media giants Twitter and Facebook, as well as others, have banned the former president, taking away his ability to marshal his troops. Lawsuits from voting machine companies that Trump surrogates attacked have shut up media personalities, hampering the Trump team’s ability to spread their narrative.

Trump and his inner circle have also lost their access to major publishing venues: the last major publisher willing to buy books from Trump’s people turned away from them after January 6, handing them back to smaller publishers.

At the same time, Trump supporters increasingly look unhinged. Their face is the new Georgia representative who has, in the past, embraced political violence and QAnon. Since January 6, Republican voters have been leaving the party. Their timing is a red flag: voters usually only change parties before an election.

Voters are not the only ones disgusted by the riot. Major Republican donors have announced that they will not donate to anyone who voted to challenge the counting of the electoral votes on January 6 and 7. Others have announced at least a temporary hold on political donations.

So for a Republican senator, what’s the political calculation on impeachment?

The course for Trump Republicans is easy: they will defend their man. Today, in what appeared to be a coordinated publicity maneuver, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tried to argue that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is to blame for the January 6 attack on the Capitol. (Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani blamed “Antifa” and “BLM.”)

But the calculation for the business Republicans is not so clear. They don’t want to alienate either Trump voters or anti-Trump voters, and they need to raise money.

Trump and his supporters have tried to lock up the party apparatus. The former president controls money and email lists, and is trying to put his people into positions of power at the state level. They are publicly challenging the ten Republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) actually traveled to Wyoming to urge voters to turn Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the third-ranking member of the Republican House leadership, out of office. It is likely the Trump wing will launch primary challengers against anyone who votes to convict the former president.

At the same time, Trump’s support is falling. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released today shows that 56% of Americans believe that Trump should be convicted and barred from ever holding office again. By a 17-point margin, Americans say that the Republican Party has more radical extremists than the Democrats.

There is another problem: it is likely that the more we learn about what happened on January 6, the worse the participants are going to look. And, if indeed the Department of Justice decides to use RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, against those who participated in the insurrection, it might well sweep in Republican lawmakers or operatives who spoke at, raised money for, or planned the January 6 rally. In that case, a vote to acquit the president would tie a senator who is not associated with the rally to those that are.

Republican senators have tried to stay quiet about the upcoming trial. When forced to comment, some leading business Republicans have pushed back against the Trump wing. McConnell has called the right-wing fringe a cancer that must be cut out, and today Cheney—who won Gaetz’s challenge to remove her from leadership by a 2-1 vote-- went for Trump himself, saying he “does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.” On “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney told host Chris Wallace that Trump lied when he said the election had been rigged. She warned that Republicans had to face reality or face defeat in the future.

In contrast, Democrats are operating from a position of strength. It seems likely they will use the impeachment trial to explain to the American people what happened on January 6. Using videos and the words of those who were in the Capitol when the mob stormed in, they will paint a picture of an attempted coup, incited by a former President of the United States.

Think happy, hopeful thoughts, campers!!  IMPEACH!

To Anyone Who Doesn't Think We Should Impeach

Let's' do this, America.  We need accountability. We also, God knows, need to make sure nothing, nothing even remotely close to President Donald J Trump ever, ever takes place again in our nation.

Quote of the Day -- Justice/Impeachment Edition

Let's be clear on this impeachment of now former President Trump. This is from historian Michael Beschloss:

“This is the only president in American history who incited an insurrection against Congress that could have resulted in assassinations and hostage-taking and, conceivably, the cancellation of a free presidential election and the fracturing of a democracy, That’s a fact, and it won’t change in 50 years. It’s very hard to think of a scenario under which someone might imagine some wonderful thing that Donald Trump did that will outshine that. He did, literally, the worst thing that an American president could ever do.”

Oh, yeah. For the country. For the nation. For the people. For what's right. For our laws. For accountability. And so it's clear that this nor nothing like it ever, ever happens again.

Impeach.

Quote of the Day -- When Things Aren't Right

“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, ‘What did you do? What did you say?’ For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”

–-Representative John Lewis, December 2019 remarks in the House on impeachment of President Donald Trump

The Three Phases of Donald J Trump

Thanks, Republicans!

An Unfortunate, Sad But Ultimately Necessary and Even Proud Day

Yes sir and ma'am, I think today is all that--an unfortunate, necessary, sad but ultimately proud day for our nation, for us all. We are voting to impeach the President of our United States today, on two counts--one for abuse of power and the 2nd for obstruction of Congress.

Herein, simplified, are the reasons and evidence:

• This President, Donald J Trump, asked the leader of a foreign nation to investigate a private American citizen and a citizen who just happened to be the son of his foremost political rival in the current campaign for the election for his very office.
• The President took it further, however, and people from his own administration testified it was clear he and understood that he, President Trump, proposed to and was, in fact, withholding approximately 400 million dollars in Congressionally approved aid to Ukraine in their effort to wrest away from the Soviet Union.
• Once this was all brought to light and the House of Representatives wanted to investigate these widespread and assumed allegations, the President blocked his own staff from his administration from responding to and answering subpoenas the House sent down.

Mr. Trump has insisted all along that the call of July 25 this year, wherein he and the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky spoke was a "perfect call" and that he is completely innocent. In spite of that innocence, he blocked all from his administration from responding to those Congressional subpoenas.

If he is, in fact, so very innocent, why, then block these people's testimonies?

And when it comes to these current proceedings, the heck of it is, the impeachment hearings today on these two issues don't even begin to touch on the also-impeachable offence of this President virtually shattering the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, the Emoluments Clause, in his taking not just money but large amounts of it from foreign nations, no less, from his hotels in Washington, DC, Florida and elsewhere.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the right and true and just and correct thing is happening today.

Our own House of Representatives is voting to impeach Republican Party President Donald J Trump. And for only the third time in our nation's history.

As it ought.

God help and save the United States of America.

May justice be done.

I'm personally proud our nation includes a process wherein even the highest in the land are held accountable. That people in his own political party supporting him, because they don't want to lose political power in Washington and the nation, will go down in history as having been on the wrong side of justice and right and good and that very history.

This isn't about Democrats trying to undo the election of November 2016, not in any way.

None of us can be above the law.

"'Twas the Eve of Impeachment..."

With kudos and many, many heartfelt thanks to Frank Bruni at our own New York Times.

’Twas the Eve of Impeachment

Finding verse in this curse.

’Twas the eve of impeachment, when all through the House

No Republicans wavered, each last one a louse.

The articles were drafted by Democrats with care

In hopes that a conscience would soon bloom there.

We pundits were tossing all steamed in our beds,

While Trump’s certain acquittal danced in our heads.

And I in frustration, feeling all solemn,

Wished I could capture my woe in a column,

When out on the web there arose such a clatter,

I signed in to Twitter to see what was the matter.

And there I beheld him, the master of lies,

Weaving fresh falsehoods, to no one’s surprise.

He savaged the Bidens, he smeared Adam Schiff,

And cycled through villains in a furious jiff,

Not to mention distractions, like the teeth of the Speaker.

Could a “leader” be cruder, could his morals be weaker?

So now he’s a dentist, in his all-knowing ways?

I prayed for deliverance one of these days.

When what to my cynical eyes did appear

But a raft of excuses pulled by mangy reindeer,

With a weasel-eyed driver, so meek and so zany,

I knew in a moment he must be Mulvaney.

More shameless than con men, the sycophants came,

And Trump gloated, so bloated, and called them by name:

“Now, Rudy! Now, Jared! Now, Lindsey and Mitch!

Please fly this democracy into a ditch!

It is how you will save me. It is how I prevail.

Or else I will join poor Paul in the jail.

That’s the toll of a presidency ended too soon,

So you must sing along to my favorite tune:

‘It’s a witch hunt! A hoax!’ Those are lyrics for me.

That’s the verse, that’s the chorus, for eternity.”

He was dressed in a necktie, from his jowls to his soles.

He had tanned beyond tanning. Imagine the moles.

His hair, how it swirled! His legs, how they splayed!

On such fishy foundations was his confidence laid.

And we couldn’t stop looking — not his fans, not his foes.

That was what he was after: the show of all shows.

Its plot strained belief. Its appeal tested reason.

Still it was soaring toward a second season.

The economy roared. The Democrats whimpered.

Vladimir chortled. Emmanuel simpered.

In the bag that Trump carried, he had goodies galore:

Lower taxes, the Dow, right-wing judges and more.

They weren’t for the many, they favored the few,

But that was obscured by the smoke that he blew.

All was fog, all was mist, all was boast, all was fiction,

As he hid his true airs with bad diet and diction.

He could do as he wanted and never know fear,

For an elf — and a savior! — named Barr hovered near.

And then there was Tucker and of course Hannity

To put an extra-fine gloss on insanity.

What great luck to discover a country so riven

You could smash it and rule it if suitably driven.

You could summon the Russians, you could bully Ukraine,

Just as long as you made “It’s fake news!” your refrain.

I cringed as I watched him and cried for us all,

Our values, our futures hijacked by his gall.

A last bid to preserve them was cause to impeach

But his party’s corruption put him beyond reach.

So then why all his thrashing? His howls of dejection?

It was just a performance for the next election.

It brought more donations. It rallied the base.

You could see, if you looked, a clear smirk on his face.

If you listened, you heard it: a lilt in his voice.

In drama like this, he would always rejoice.

So as history scarred him, he could nonetheless yell,

“Merry TrumpMas to all! I’m the king of this hell.”

Quote of the Day -- Presidential Edition

"This president will be in power for only a short time, but excusing his misbehavior will forever tarnish your name. To my Republican colleagues: step outside your media and social bubble. History will not look kindly on disingenuous, frivolous, and false defenses of this man."

--Justin Amash