Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Infrastructure week. at last.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

“woke” is the new caravan.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

The willow is too close to the house.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Let’s finish the job.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The revolution will be supervised.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Impeachment Hearings / Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: The Process Continues

Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: The Process Continues

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Great photo choice, IMO — reminiscent of the evacuation of Saigon. Per the Washington Post:

Top Senate Republicans on Monday rejected President Trump’s call for outright dismissal of the impeachment charges against him, but continued to grapple with the shape of the Senate trial that could begin as soon as this week.

Most Senate Republicans are eager to stage a trial that ends with Trump’s acquittal and vindication on charges that he abused the power of his office in his dealings with Ukraine and obstructed a subsequent investigation in the House. But over the weekend, Trump urged the Senate simply to dismiss the charges against him — without hearing arguments from House prosecutors or his own legal team.

On Monday, senior Republicans said immediate dismissal could not win approval in the chamber, where Republicans hold a 53-seat majority. And even some staunch Trump allies argued that the president’s legacy would benefit from a robust trial…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he wants the trial — only the third impeachment of a president in U.S. history — to follow the format used 21 years ago in the trial of President Bill Clinton. In that case, the Senate approved a resolution that would have allowed the Senate to vote to dismiss the charges.

But senior Republicans signaled Monday that they are not inclined to include such a provision in the resolution that will kick off Trump’s trial, perhaps as soon as Thursday…

Speaking of elaborate fantasies… it’s probably too much to hope Roooody Colludi will get his wish here:

Reader Interactions

44Comments

  2. 2.

    Emma from FL

    I can’t even. Not today. Our nearly brand new fire alarm has gone off at 1am three times in the last ten days for no reason I can figure out and I don’t sleep well after being jerked out of my sleep by a shrill bark followed by an android voice bellowing about non-existent smoke. It has made me murderously cranky and the only good use I can see for Rudy and his cohorts is as shark food.

  3. 3.

    Bruuuuce

    CBS lists Collins as likely to buck McConnell.

    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

    Like Charlie Brown, they fall for Lucy’s football feint every time. Suckers.

    But hey, she talks a good rebellious game, huh?

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    @satby: New fresh (reasonably) upbeat Tuesday Morning Open Thread scheduled for 6am.

    Gotta give Alain’s post some time at the top of the page!

  8. 8.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    ABC Poll — Jan 11th

    Q.  The killing of Soleimani has made the U.S. …

    a) Safer…………………25%

    b) Less Safe…………..52%

    c) No Difference……22%

     

    This has really blown up in Dump’s face.

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    Given what I think of Trump’s fitness for office and Giuliani’s lawyering skills, I am 200% in favour of Rudy G joining Donald’s team of lawyers on the Senate floor.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Rudy Giuliani, whose dealings with Ukraine are a key facet of the impeachment case, has been lobbying the President to join his legal team on the Senate floor during his upcoming trial

    Dreams I’ll never see.

  14. 14.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Iowa Poll  —  Monmouth University — Jan 12th

    Biden…………24%
    Wilmer………18%
    Pete…………..17%
    Warren………15%

    Pete’s voters migrating back to Joe.

  17. 17.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    New Hampshire Poll — Quinnipiac University — Jan 12th

    Biden…………25%
    Wilmer………19%
    Warren………18%
    Pete…………….8%

  19. 19.

    satby

    @Bruuuuce: yeah, the media falls for it every time. Hopefully her constituents are sick of her bullshit. And that Rick Wilson turns his Lincoln Project ad guys loose on a campaign against her. The enemy of my enemy does very effective ads.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    @Baud: Warren appears to have tired of Sander’s games, so it will be interesting to see how they interact tonight.

    Joe’s not my first choice, but now I hope he carries the first four states to rid the field of billionaires.

  22. 22.

    Bruuuuce

    @satby: Wasn’t there that big fundraiser for her theoretical next opponent after she voted to confirm Crying Frat Boy Brett? IIRC, that should be a few million bucks opposing her, for a start.

  23. 23.

    satby

    @Baud: yep, I would say the same. Bottom three for me are Yang, Wilmer, Gabbard. Yang and Gabbard don’t seem to be threats any longer, so we have to deal with Wilmer. Who is such an egomaniac that he’s almost surely ignoring medical advice to continue campaigning. Which renders him completely unfit, along with all his other unfit qualities.

  26. 26.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: I approve that sacrifice. I used to be a nice person three years ago. Now I root for incapacitating but non-fatal heart attacks for several people, Trump and Vermont Trump being the two top choices.

  27. 27.

    Bruuuuce

    @satby: True dat. But if she does screw us again, those votes (Kavanaugh and acquittal) get highlighted in saturation ads. Can’t be good for her. I hope. (I despise blacks of honesty and integrity, and her faux-good-one style is among the worst of those. Not as bad as Mitch and Lindsay, but ugh.)

  28. 28.

    bjacques

    @satby: THIS. A review elsewhere (Guardian?) left me with the distinct impression of someone who hated Trump but was happy to go on helping every other Republican. I found his advice (as represented in the review) of abandoning states whose EC votes the Dems couldn’t hope to win as counterproductive since it meant abandoning downticket contenders too, in direct contradiction to his correctly pointing out that the GOP has contested every race down to county dog catcher.

     

    so if Wilson is offering his advice to Democrats, I want to see him use it effectively against Republicans first.

     

    Also, God doesn’t love me enough to put Giuliani on Trump’s impeachment defense team. Only Rudy can make the kangaroo acquittal even more of a farce.

  30. 30.

    satby

    @bjacques: I wouldn’t take his advice without the requisite salty addition, but his ads are effective because they present the case with a video that provokes a visceral negative response. Unfortunately it works, so we may as well use it to our advantage. We need to win before we can reform things.

  32. 32.

    germy

    Gillibrand, Harris, Castro and Booker were out before a single fucking vote was cast. It’s a joke. This election system is a goddamn joke.

    — Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) January 14, 2020

  33. 33.

    germy

    This is why these 18 month long presidential cycle are bullshit.

    The media is gleeful that there’s a conflict between Sanders and Warren.

    Meanwhile, no progressives/Democrats/socialists/whatever are winning as a result of this. Republicans and the media are.

    it’s all nonsense

    — Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) January 14, 2020

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    “Never go against Pelosi when a vote count is on the line!”

    I’d feel better if the character being quoted (to make the point) didn’t die because of his own arrogance.

    If you’re going to refer to a “classic” film to make a snarky point, it would help if you understood context, or had a clue.

  35. 35.

    satby

    @germy: and everything that Imani is angry about and wants reformed, as probably all of us do, requires us to win first. Just win, as a wise old lady has said on a number of occasions.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Well, as long as we have the political system we do, this goat fuck is probably still with us. We can’t change it with laws (Freedom of speech and all that)

  40. 40.

    kindness

    MoscowMitch is such a skank.  The bloviators at Fox News have to love/hate him.  They no doubt see when MM is bullshitting even them and know they have to portray it as real.  Do the Fox folk feel like they got used when it turns out what they have been repeating is a lie?  Probably.  Then they blame Barack or Hillary and it goes away.

  41. 41.

    artem1s

    And even some staunch Trump allies argued that the president’s legacy would benefit from a robust trial

    Oh brer turtle, plz don’t let Donald testify at the impeachment trial! All us poor libtards will wither up and die with shame when exposed to his brilliant, perfect testimony!

    I doubt they understand the meaning of ‘robust trial’ given the GOP usually hands over their investigations to Trey Gowdy and Darrel Issa.  And Trump hands his off to Rudy and a bunch of guys who are still searching surfing the waves in Hawaii.  But hey, no time like the present to learn.  I’m sure Nancy and Schiff will be glad to show them what it looks like.

  43. 43.

    MisterForkbeard

    @artem1s: Nah, I don’t think you understand. They’ll CALL it a “robust trial” when it’s just a whitewash, they only call favorable witnesses, call Biden to the stand and harangue him for things that didn’t happen, etc.

    And then they’ll declare that having examined none of the witnesses and followed up on zero contradictions, and not having Trump speak on his own behalf… he’s been exhaustively investigated and is clearly innocent. The whole thing was a witch hunt.

  44. 44.

    Michael Cain

    Recall that the Senate’s current written rules (but modified by precedents that only the Parliamentarian understands) allow any Senator to challenge any individual part of the proceedings, and that challenge will be settled by majority vote.  It’s one thing to get four Republicans to vote to allow witnesses.  It’s another to get them to allow specific witnesses, and to vote to ignore the executive privilege claims when those are raised.

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