Senate Majority Leader McConnell has released the motion, which will be voted on tomorrow, that delineates the rules for the Senate’s impeachment trial.
Also, as expected, there will be a debate of up to four hours on the question of "whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses and documents." The Senate will then vote on whether to subpoena any witnesses.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 20, 2020
Resolution allows for a vote “at a later time on the question of whether or not (evidence) may be admitted as part” of trial, per GOP aide, who noted it’s different than Clinton trial, which admitted evidence automatically. GOP argues bc Trump was “denied due process” in House
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 20, 2020
– Tomorrow: Debate on amendment(s) and vote on McConnell resolution
– Wednesday: Dem arguments
– Thursday: Dem arguments
– Friday: Trump team arguments
– Sat: Trump team, or senator questions
– Monday: Senator questions
– Tuesday: possible senator questions, vote on witnesses— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 21, 2020
So here’s the bottom line:
- The evidence, records, and documents sent over by the House will not automatically be made part of the Senate’s trial proceedings. It may, at such time as Senator McConnell brings up a subsequent motion to allow it and that motion passes with 51 votes. And this will be done on an individual basis for each piece of evidence, not en masse for the whole of it, which is a break from how the Senate handled President Clinton’s impeachment.
- The Democratic impeachment managers from the House will have 24 hours to make their case, divided into two days. Each day will start at 1 PM EST and will conclude no later than 1 AM EST the next morning. Then the President’s defense team will have the same arrangement.
- According to Senator Halwey (warning: auto play video at that link!), Senator McConnell has built a kill switch into the rules package allowing him to move to summary dismissal whenever he feels he has the 51 votes to do so.
- There will be no vote on witness or additional evidence until after the Democratic House managers and the President’s defense finish presenting their cases.
- Senator McConnell controls the audio and video in the Senate chamber. He has already pissed off C-Span by informing them that he will control their cameras and feed during the trial, not C-Span, as part of his news media control rules that he has implemented for the Senate trial. Americans will see as much or as little as Senator McConnell wants them to see and only what he wants them to see.
Yes, I know Senator Schumer is putting up a fight. And he’s doing a good job, he almost looks like he’s caffeinated! More seriously, Senator Schumer is fighting the good fight, but he doesn’t have the terrain, nor does he have the ammunition to win. The simple reality of the Senate is that Senator McConnell as the Majority Leader controls the Senate. Especially if he has the votes. And for everything involving the Senate’s impeachment trial he only needs 51 votes and, according to all the reporting, he has the 51 votes he needs to at least get started the way he wants. And as soon as he has the 51 votes to acquit, he’ll entertain that motion from the President’s defense and hold that vote. Until he has those 51 votes, he’ll allow things to continue, even if that is through a crooked and corrupt process.
Senator McConnell knows, because he has been doing it successfully since January 2009, that the majority of Americans do not care about process, if they even understand it. And that the vast majority of Americans aren’t political junkies either. So if he just does what he’s going to do, give his regular more in sadness than in anger remarks, and is boring, then the news media will move along to whichever shiny object catches their attention. This is how he stymied President Obama for eight years. This is how he brought the Republicans back into the majority in the Senate. This is how he stole a Supreme Court seat. This is how he stole over 150 Federal judgeships. And this is how he was able to place Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. As I wrote back in June 2018 when people were hoping that Senators Corker, Flake, and Collins might break with him:
Senate Majority Leader McConnell really isn’t a politician or like any politician who has ever served as Senate Majority or Minority Leader. Rather than view him as a politician, it is more appropriate to understand Senator McConnell as an insurgent, albeit a non-violent one. He recognizes no legitimacy but his own. When out of power he’ll do whatever is necessary using asymmetric, irregular, and/or unconventional means to achieve power. And once he achieves power he will do whatever he can to achieve his objectives to consolidate his gains as quickly as possible using any means necessary as he believes his actions are self justifying – that his achievement of power justifies his by any means necessary strategy. This is, by the way, the basic argument of the premier Italian fascist (national-syndicalist) theorist Sergio Panunzio, who delineated the fascist theories for the use of political violence and low intensity warfare in the 1920s. As a result, there is no law, rule, tradition, norm, ethic, promise, and/or deal he won’t violate or renege on. This also makes him an unreliable interlocutor and makes it impossible to negotiate with him in good faith as he doesn’t believe in good faith negotiations.
Since Senators Corker, Flake, and Collins, let alone anyone else, cannot negotiate with Senator McConnell in good faith, because Senator McConnell doesn’t do anything in good faith, if they want to get anything done, then they need to rely on their leverage as senators in a very slim Senate majority caucus to force their initiatives through. This means threatening to and/or actually caucusing with the Democrats. The last thing that Senator McConnell wants is to lose control of the Senate. Whether now because of the defections of a pair of his retiring members using it as leverage to achieve their own objectives or in the mid terms because enough voters want a check on the President to override the partisan Republican advantage in this senatorial election cycle. It is why he’s ground everything in the chamber other than handling nominations, specifically judicial nominations, to a halt. It is why he doesn’t want to do the legally required annual budgetary resolution so he can avoid having his members take tough votes before the midterms. And it is why he’s cancelled most of the August recess under the pretense that it is the only way he can move judicial nominees because of what he alleges is Democratic obstruction. Nominations that only exist because he prevented President Obama from seating almost any judicial nominees during his final two years in office. The Democratic minority has no tools to stop these nominations, regardless of what Senator McConnell says because Senator McConnell in conjunction with Senator Grassley has gotten rid of the blue slip rule and refuses to recognize Democratic senators holds on nominees. Senator McConnell’s cancellation of the August recess is really just a thinly veiled attempt to keep incumbent Democratic senators up for reelection off the campaign trail. Every Senate rule, tradition, norm, ethic, and even law (Congressional Budget Act) has been bent or stretched to breaking or just outright ignored by Senator McConnell in his quest to consolidate his power and achieve his revanchist and reactionary objectives. As an insurgent, albeit a non-violent one, Senator McConnell only understands and recognizes the application of leverage and force. Senators Corker, Flake, and Collins have the ability to apply significant leverage and force. The question is whether or not they have the will to do so. The sad reality is the answer is almost certainly not.
If you are counting on Senators Romney, Murkowski, Alexander, and/or Collins to do what Senators Corker and Flake did not in 2018, please email me about the great bridge I have to sell you on a lovely beachfront in Florida. The Senate runs according to McConnell’s rules and Senator McConnell’s only rule is doing whatever he can get away with to maintain power to achieve his objectives. That’s it. Expecting anything else to happen is self delusion.
Open thread!
January Sneak Peek
Hunter Gathers
It is imperative that McConnell finish this up by the end of next week.
The State of the Union is on the 4th, and Trump must take his nationally televised victory lap.
And like everything else in this Foul Year of Our Lord, 2020, a week later no one will give a fuck.
Like that Iranian General he had whacked.
Anybody still give a shit? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
The Dumbest Timeline Persists.
joel hanes
@Hunter Gathers:
Anybody still give a shit?
This is a question best asked at your local Democratic Party office, on a night when the committee meets.
kindness
What’s the over/under for how many days into the trial MoscowMitch calls for and gets 51 votes to acquit?
Adam L Silverman
@kindness: I think he’ll do it after the President’s defense rests. I don’t think he’ll be able to do it before then as he doesn’t seem to have 51 votes locked in for that yet.
Adam L Silverman
@kindness: Or sometime tomorrow evening…
donnah
I am now sadly conditioned to believe that the Republicans always cheat and they always win. Sure, some get caught and some have been called on their misdeeds, but Moscow Mitch and his cronies have made Trump’s term one destructive event after another, weakening our democracy and burning down the Republic from the inside.
Mitch has already declared that Trump will not be removed and he has the final say. He has the power to control the votes and he’s rigged the system to turn the impeachment trial into a farce. Evidence will be suppressed, witnesses denied, and it’s being rushed to get it all over with.
Republican senators have sold their souls if they ever had them, and they won’t turn. It’s frustrating and it’s infuriating, but it will mean we all have to pull out all the stops for November. And maybe Trump will stroke out before then.
some guy
Fascism. and the abc/nbc/cbs networks will play right along with Moscow Mitch’s “media coverage” rules.
and 41% of American voters will say “Fuck yeah. USA, USA….
what a nightmare
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: I think that’s about right. They need to do just enough so that the media will say McConnell technically fulfilled his constitutional responsibilities, but also give enough of a finger to Democrats and the process so that they’ll make the Base happy.
That seems like a good point. “Look, the Democrats just failed completely and Trump’s defense was fantastic, so nyah.”
Kraux Pas
They keep using this phrase due process. It doesn’t mean what they think it means.
piratedan
well as long as there are 51 members in the Senate with an R behind their names, then Mitch has the votes. Would I be pleasantly shocked to find out otherwise, yes… yes I would. Do I expect to be? No, no I do not. There is no Rubicon for these people, at least as I understand it because that would involve ethics or morals or something other than political self interest.
tomtofa
There’s a slim but real chance we’ll flip the Senate; also a slim but real chance we’ll lose a seat or two instead.
That’s where the battle will be. Voter registration, big money sent down from the billionaires who won’t be the presidential candidate, unrelenting (and shiny) attacks on corruption and cowardliness.
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: It’s about doing just enough to cover the tuchases of Senators Collins, Gardner, Ernst, Tillis, and McSally in their reelection campaigns. If he moves to quickly, such as first thing after the rules package is set, it makes it harder for them to lie their way out of accusations that they were part of the fix that McConnell worked out with the President to acquit him.
debbie
Fuckem.
Omnes Omnibus
Jesus Fucking Christ, we have known this would be the result since the process started. When I was a skeptic about impeachment, everyone said that it was important and we had to do it no matter what was going to happen in the Senate. I came to agree with that view. What has changed? It was is ether worth doing or it wasn’t, but the end result in the Senate was never in doubt.
Bill Arnold
From the nytimes link, bold mine.
Nancy Pelosi has to be tempted about that.
I’m shallow (and not Nancy :), and if McConnell plays any camera games, no mercy. For the SOTU I’d go with an unflattering-cam, that finds the worse DJT camera angles, highlights all the flaws in his makeup and fatbody and clothing, focuses on boos and studiously (but deniably) avoids the Republican hive-cheering, And maybe banning Fox News. Then we’d see phone videos on youtube.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s worth it, but people need to be clear eyed about what is going to happen and how it is going to happen, rather than engaging in wishful thinking.
Ruckus
As he always does. He is out of control and he is ruling this country as a dictatorship. He doesn’t control the military but he controls the guy who does. And will have a massive hold on him if he gets him out of impeachment. trump will owe him a lot and probably has the loan from vlad to pay off moscow mitch, as if moscow isn’t already owned by vlad.
I’ve seen low points in this country in my life. This is the lowest. Although I have to say I didn’t expect anything different from trump or moscow.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: I think the other side of this is that he NEEDS to display a certain level of contempt for the process to please Trump, conservative media, and the base.
So he gives a few vulnerable senators the ability to say “I didn’t rubberstamp the impeachment trial, the Democrats just screwed it up” and then does his best to be as obnoxious as possible about the whole thing. Collins et al will have ‘concerns’ and wish things could have been different if only the Democrats had been nicer to Trump.
It’s depressing, but also fairly invigorating. We’ve got to get these fuckers out of office.
And not that I expect it to do anything, but I sincerely hope that Schumer files a formal complaint to Roberts about McConnell bragging regarding working closely with the accused and how he won’t be impartial. It probably won’t go anywhere, but it should be in the legal record.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Now about that bridge you have on the market…
MisterForkbeard
@Bill Arnold: They won’t do this, because it will piss off the press. The press acts hurt when Republicans disrespect them and then tries harder to get conservative approval.
They get really goddamn catty when Democrats do anything. And Democrats need friends in the media going into the 2020 election.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, no and yes. We were pretty sure that there would be an acquittal. We did not know that it was likely that McConnell would go for a sham trial to try to minimize political damage to Republicans. It came down to votes; McConnell says he has ’em. I will believe it when the votes happen, since he’s a bit of a liar.
Odds of more impeachment proceedings in the House? I think they’re a bit higher now.
Kent
This feels like poker or the opening hand.
Mitch is throwing out and absurdly biased and slanted quickie show trial.
Collins will concern troll about the “process” and they will “negotiate with themselves to give an extra day to the Democrats or some such. And it will be called a “bi-partisan fair-minded negotiated solution.
And we will end up where they wanted to be all along except the press will be praising the GOP for being so “fair minded”
Fuck them. Voting them out of office and fumigating the place is the only answer.
debbie
“Abuse of power is not impeachable.” I can’t even. Can’t Dershowitz be disbarred for making this defense?
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: Someone should ask Collins if she’d like to propose another sham FBI investigation for a week that will ignore most questions and evidence, just like she did last time. :)
More seriously, this what Collins does. She pretends to have principles and that allows the GOP to negotiate with itself and then say it’s compromised.
Bill Arnold
@MisterForkbeard:
Yeah, I was careful to note that I’m not Nancy. The press is starting to improve its game, and needs to be cultivated.
Though throwing Fox News around a bit might not be net harmful.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Nope. He had his underwear on when he made the argument, which protects him from disbarment.
Felanius Kootea
I hope the acquittal leads to Senate wins for Dems in AZ, CO, and ME. I wish I felt confident about Doug Jones holding his seat. We knew what McConnell would do but I still applaud the Democrats for doing the right thing.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah this shouldn’t be any surprise. The entire republican party is rotten to the very core. There is no contest that they are in it only for themselves 1000%. Whatever isn’t tied down they steal and then the knives to cut the ropes for everything else. I have no idea how this will work out in 9+ months but if we don’t rout them it will be bad for most of us. If my SS gets slashed I have no idea what I’ll do. If the VA gets slashed I have no idea what I’ll do. And all of that is due to Bush’s recession to get his and Cheney’s disaster of a war on and the republican concept of finance, which is steal every fucking thing that isn’t tied down.
Kraux Pas
This reminds me I wanted to learn about actual Kabuki theatre.
frosty
Gee, Adam, my Senator Toomey the Moderate isn’t on that list? I’m calling him twice a week now, and have given my wife the script to use. I’m sure he will follow our advice to vote for witnesses and evidence … would you be interested in a bridge across the Susky?
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: I’d be interested in a full time equivalent position that allowed me to move back to PA. I gotta get out of Floriduh! before I wind up in one of my own Floriduh! Man posts!!!!!!
dww44
@tomtofa: Re the big money and the Super Pacs. our brand new appointed Senator, Kelly Loeffler, who replaced Johnny Isakson, is already running TV ads, positioning herself to be ahead of the pack in the jungle primary next November (where there is no separate primary election for the 2 parties) to vie for Isakson’s seat which he vacated because he has health issues related to his Parkinson’s diagnosis well ahead of his being reelected in 2016. To muddy the waters, the new Sec of State is seeking law changes from the GOP controlled state legislator to insure that anyone who wants to challenge her has to declare in March, even though there will not be a primary either in March or in the summer either. He’s attempting to clear the field for her.
As it stands, we will have both Senate seats on the ballot in November, but the GOP is busy gaming the system, in spite of the best efforts of Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight Georgia. In a fair world, we Democrats would have a good shot at one of those seats.
Kraux Pas
Wait til the market is right. If you aren’t on beachfront property, you will be soon.
sab
@Ruckus: I am hoping voters are watching. hope my mealy mouth Senator Rob Portman (never had a public opinion ever about anything accept comity) gets hoisted on his own squelchy petard next election.
Everyone I know is/are furious, and have been for months. He seems comfortable. maybe he is in a bigger bubble than I am.
Thor Heyerdahl
Kentucky senators from one of the best in Henry Clay to the nadir known as Mitch McConnell.
Raoul
I don’t know all the rules and arcana of the Congress. But it occurs to me that perhaps some House committees should be subpoenaing people like Bolton and Parnas this week.
Even if it’s just to set up a hearing room with only Dem Congresspeople in their seats, facing an empty table with an “Ambassador Bolton” cardboard table tent on it for a prop.
Make it plainly obvious that the GOP Congress is unwilling to hear evidence, and that scoundrels like Bolton have no intention of actually testifying.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus:
For me, with the testimony and the evidence in the House, and the news that’s come out since then, what has changed was a hope (not an expectation) that Republican senators wouldn’t continue to put their party over their country. I still have that hope, idiot that I am.
piratedan
I do wish that the Dems would push back harder on all of this, I imagine an ad coming out from the Dems that would maybe be voiced over by someone that America trusts.. say Tom Hanks and run it as follows…
He said it was a “perfect call”, he thinks that its perfectly acceptable to use your tax dollars to not only deny aid to an ally but to also use it to serve his own political interests…
He admitted what took place in a public statement to the media… (play the clip)
His chief of staff admitted it took place (play the clip)
The House investigated it and found corroborating statements that show that he did what he openly admitted… and they took it to the Senate, just like the Constitution said that they should… and look what happened…
Run pictures of the Chief Justice swearing in the Senate, show the line indicating that they were supposed to be an impartial jury… show statements of GOP senators coordinating with the President’s legal team…no press, no cameras, no witnesses and Mitch McConnell “found out” that despite Donald J. Trump admitting that he broke the law, that it didn’t matter that he broke the law. Run McConnell’s statement of clearing the President before hearing any evidence.
Because Mitch McConnell is also a Republican, and everyone else who exonerated the President, who broke the law, is also a Republican.
So which is it, are extortion and bribery and abuse of power no longer illegal, or are they perfectly acceptable behavior for only one political party?
Do you think laws matter?
Do you?
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
Oops.
debbie
@frosty:
At least voters will have more information to base their decision on. Small comfort, but still.
Jerzy Russian
@debbie: At the very least we need those nut-kicking robots I have been advocating for to go to work.
smike
@Omnes Omnibus: Totally worth it. It may show a few people the way to sanity when they witness how the rethugs handle this impeachment. For senate control we need every vote we can get.
sdhays
@frosty: This is the real reason they need a quick acquittal (and the heavy-handed control of the C-SPAN cameras). The longer this goes on, the harder the vote gets. There are no exculpatory witnesses for Dump. All testimony will be damning. If there are witnesses and this drags out for weeks, public opinion in certain states may get even worse than it already is, and some Senators will start to wonder if voting for Dump will actually work out for them.
They desperately want to say that there’s nothing to talk about here because the Preznit has already been acquitted “lalalala-ICANTHEARYOU!!!1!!!”.
Jinchi
Of course it was worth doing. People put their careers on the line, they did that to show at least the civil services were acting to protect the rule of law. The House investigated and laid out clear evidence against Trump. Senate Democrats are fighting for a fair trial. It’s important to put Senators on the record concerning corruption in the White House. If the Republicans and the courts are going to fail the test, they have to be seen to fail it.
Otherwise it will never be fixed and no-one will ever step forward again.
Why do you think anything has changed?
SFAW
One hopes the DNC will have someone out there, every day, talking about a cover-up. Yes, I know the MSM is more than happy to ignore the Dems, but the Dems should at least make a sustained, coordinated effort, in the hope that some portion of it gets through the firewall of the press. That type of sustained effort was how the RWMFs bullied the press into submission; we gotta start somewhere.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
Eeek! Bad outcome! Keep checking the want ads!*
* I have the job that I’m retiring from in two weeks because a 60ish co-worker told a 30ish me “Read every ad** in the paper every Sunday, no matter how happy you are. You never know when the perfect job will show up.”
** Or 21st Century equivalent which thank FSM I’ve never had to figure out.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: You realize that they don’t advertise for nat-sec professionals specializing in asymmetric, irregular, and unconventional warfare, civil affairs and PSYOPs in the Sunday paper, right?
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: Took me awhile to edit my comment. See **. Seriously, best of luck to you. While I’d rather be back in Maryland, PA is better than Floriduh.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Of course they do. You just gotta know where to look. I don’t expect the Sarasota Star or the Port St Lucie Press or the Key West Kronicle to have them, but the Punxutawney Psyops Gazette is a pretty good source.
Oops. I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. I hope the worst outcome is that I only lose my TS.
frosty
@SFAW:
Good source. I hear they’re working with unconventional agents. Although they apparently only work on specific days in February.
ETA: Rackout time. 10 days and a wakeup until I don’t have to set an alarm any more.
Ruckus
@sab:
Well the one known trumper at work avoids me like one of us has the plague. It’s him BTW. I’m not going to talk politics at work, the boss knows that’s a no no and he’s made it clear that includes all of the employees.
I’m very vulnerable to the economy and have been for the last 12 yrs. So far I’ve managed to gain back some level of margin but not a real cushion. Now I know that a number of people on BJ are in similar positions, end of or close to end of work life, no great bank and really not wanting to work till our last day. trump and his republican sycophants are making that reality worse and worse every damn day. As I said above we should have been expecting the worst from moscow, this is who he is. I have a suspicion that they think they can get reelected and screw us even more than already. If they win by a similar margin that they did last time, I really think that would be bad and would be the end of the country. I don’t know how that would happen but shit for brains winning, given the entire shit show and the numbers? Yeah I don’t think that would be at all believable. He’s screwed so much up now I think there is only a small percentage who isn’t decided. Things like today in VA really underscored how bad it is and if my twitter feed is any indication it’s getting to be hard core on both sides.
Yutsano
I mean, we already knew the fix was in. The trial lasting less than a week won’t be enough to protect the vulnerable Senators especially if none of the House evidence is allowed. And if the Democrats running for Senate against them have enough brains in their head, they’ll hang this around the Republicans’ necks.
Nothing changes the fact he’s been impeached. That asterisk will never go away.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
That reminds me, I have one of my clipped want ads from years ago* that the CIA posted that I swear was for a spy. I’ll scan it and send it to you at the front pager email. Might be worth a post on a dull day.
* and yes, I never throw anything away.
oldgold
What is Roberts role in this 1:00 PM to 1:00 AM cynical scheduling joke? The claim that Roberts is too busy with his “day job” to start the “trial” before 1:00 PM each day is BS!
mrmoshpotato
@Bill Arnold: Ugh. Constant close up for Dump’s fucking orange Soviet shitpile mobster conman sniffles face.
ETA – I just disgusted myself.
Ruckus
@frosty:
Lucky bastard. I’ve got somewhere around 13 months left. It’s not a bad job I’m just tired. When I retire next year, I will have had a tax paying job for 58 yrs.
frosty
@Ruckus: Thanks, and good luck to you. I held out a couple of extra years until the SS meant we could eat the premium cat food in a pinch (Hello Fancy Feast!!). We’re both still in reasonably good health so I hope that hangs on for a few years.
ETA the last two or three years at work flew by, hope it’s the same for you. I’m gonna miss all these kids I work with, seems like work is my main social life. Start working on that now if you haven’t already.
mrmoshpotato
Or you no longer have a house, but a houseboat that oddly is the same shape and size, and as unseaworthy, as your house. :)
mrmoshpotato
@Jerzy Russian: May I suggest you convert them to crotch-punching robots? We can’t have them going after the Russthuglican men only.
mrmoshpotato
@smike: Impeaching the motherfucker also got a bunch of shady shit out into the light. Yes, totally worth it. And the motherfucker is forever impeached.
mrmoshpotato
@frosty: Haha, misread that thinking for a second there was a town of Maryland in Pennsylvania.
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: The Pennsylvania Pysops Picayune has better classifieds.
ETA – See, here I’m now sitting by myself, uh, er, talking to myself. That’s, that’s chaos theory.
Jerzy Russian
@mrmoshpotato:
That should be an easy software fix. I will let the developers know.
mrmoshpotato
@Jerzy Russian: Glad you designed them to be versatile.
frosty
@mrmoshpotato: My elder son checked out Indiana University and California University … both PA state schools. And got his degree from Cal U.
I went to the left coast for college and had to explain how I could possibly be from Pasadena, MD (on the Magothy).
mrmoshpotato
@frosty: Hehe
JaySinWA
I was wondering, what if Mitch pulled the kill switch and nobody died. Taking a strategic loss on a dismissal might bolster some of the weaker incumbents, giving them the aura of fairness before finally voting to acquit. See ma, not a lick spittle.
Jim
And McConnell is trying to put in a kill switch-
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/mitch-mcconnell-mulling-kill-switch-that-will-allow-him-to-pull-plug-on-trump-impeachment-at-any-time-report/
SFAW
@mrmoshpotato:
Their classified classifieds? But thanks for the pro tip. [And I wish I had thought of “Picayune.”]
low-tech cyclist
Then he’s fighting the wrong fight. The Senate will acquit Trump.
The game here, per Josh Marshall, is to put the Senate Republicans on trial in the court of public opinion for their willingness to go along with McConnell’s bullshit rules, their likely unwillingness to break with McConnell and allow witnesses, and their likely willingness to go along with turning the Chief Justice into a figurehead and a puppet who is allowed to do only what Mitch McConnell allows him to do.
This is a very winnable fight. But like the saying goes, you’ve got to play to win.
Eolirin
@low-tech cyclist: We can do all of that, but it won’t be media amplified, and the dems were unfair on process lines will be. We can’t count on media messaging to make a difference in our favor. They’ve overreached so much that it doesn’t matter so much though. People generally know what’s up, that’s why polling for Trump being removed is at 51% in favor and 58% of the country thinks he’s abused power, even though he media is essentially asking people to ignore all that.
We’re not going to be able to get any of that remaining 42%. Messaging isn’t the issue now. Voter suppression, Russian propaganda and election tampering is what we need to be worried about. Everything is going to come down to on the ground organizing and finding ways to beat back those attempts to distort the vote.
Heywood J.
A mass Dem walkout at the SOTU might be one way to send a message. They’re going to cheat and lie and operate in bad faith no matter what, no reason you have to sit there and take it.
I know they won’t, but I really wish they would. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.