Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When we show up, we win.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

T R E 4 5 O N

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Impeachment Hearings / Senate Impeachment Open Thread: Big Contrast

Senate Impeachment Open Thread: Big Contrast

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The “loyal” opposition:

Representing Indiana:


Also, probably none of Doug Jones’ constituents will listen to this who weren’t voting for him anyway, but it’s still good:

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    probably none of Doug Jones’ constituents will listen to this who weren’t voting for him anyway,

    In Alabama, they’re called black people.

  2. 2.

    chopper

    so if warren doesn’t go to vote on impeachment she’s not doing her job, and if she does it’s a conflict of interest.

  5. 5.

    Dadadadadadada

    Mike Braun looks like Ned Ryerson. But, like, more like Ned Ryerson than Ned Ryerson. He is the meta-Ned Ryerson. What Ned Ryerson is to a normal person, Mike Braun is to Ned Ryerson.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @Adam L Silverman: I had read on BJ earlier that that had been debunked.  That it was some 19-year old somebody that the trumps knew.  But I don’t have the source

    never mind.  scott beat me to it, and of course, he has the link. no surprise there  :-)

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Adam L Silverman: Any reports on pictures of Lev bounding around the Moon with Neil and Buzz, Lev debating Nixon and JFK, Lev aboard the Missouri, Lev being every one of the ironworkers having lunch on that I-beam well above New York City?

  18. 18.

    jl

    “I don’t see an issue at this point, going through that and it just sounds like the president had a normal conversation that is no different than what he said in public places.”

    Trump has clearly been setting this up. If he blabs about crimes in public, hey, why would he do that if it were a crime? It’s a juvenile stunt that impresses only fools and fellow crooks.

    A substandard Costanza ‘Was that wrong? Is that frowned upon here. No one told me?’ move

    He didn’t get impeached when he stood in front of cameras and asked China to investigate Biden and Warren for unspecified corruption, for which not a iota of evidence has ever been produced? Did he? No. Clearly, that was not wrong, then.

  19. 19.

    jl

    Lev has pix with everyone. We sinister Deep State  coup plotters are hiding them in our sock drawers. A pic with Lev means nothing. Except, I didn’t get any stinking money out of it. I guess that is the difference between Trump and me.

  24. 24.

    mrmoshpotato

    @jl: Oprah had some film stock to use up.  “You Rethuglican Trump trash get a picture with Lev!  You get a picture with Lev!  All you Rethuglican Trump trash get a picture with Lev!”

  27. 27.

    chris

    Lt Col Vindman’s name came up a lot today including just now in Schiff’s closer. A very good speech btw. Anyhow, when the shitgibbon is gone can Marsha Blackburn be next? And this other LT Col?

    I don’t even think Q could have predicted that one of its adherents would become a social media whisperer for a U.S. Senator. pic.twitter.com/D3JQXuVMgv— Jim Swift (@JimSwiftDC) 24 January 2020

  32. 32.

    kindness

    While we all figured Republicans will not vote to impeach, I wasn’t sure how the media would play that.  Yea the Pravdas will toe the Trump line and proclaim Democrats traitors worthy of punishment how would the conventional media play it?  I still think most of the MSM will move on to the next shiny object a week after the vote to acquit but the cracks in the ranks we are seeing is pleasing.  Hell even Peggy Noonan is calling for witnesses (although she thinks calling the Bidens is kosher (it isn’t)).  My real hope is that Republicans so overplay their hand that even center right folk are disgusted enough to vote them out.  We can all dream, right?

  33. 33.

    hitchhiker

    Adam fucking schiff.

    Damn, we actually have a man who has risen to the moment. Go find the last few minutes of his closing if you weren’t watching.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @chris: Hickman wasn’t Vindman’s commanding officer. He wasn’t even in Vindman’s chain of command. Hickman was an observer/controller at an exercise at the Joint Military Training Center (JMRC) at Hohenfells in Germany. He claims that he overhead Vindman, who was then a major, badmouthing America to non-American military personnel we were partnering with at the training exercise. There is nothing that validates or vindicates Hickman’s claims. And Vindman’s actual commanding officer at the time, a US Army general officer who was then the Senior Defense Official (SDO) at Embassy Moscow, has come out defending him.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    Doug Jones
    @SenDougJones
    I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but I practiced law for over 40 years and I just can’t understand why we shouldn’t be able to access witnesses and documents that we know contain relevant information.

    I just like him. He seems so decent. Can we possibly save him from being defeated by some horrible sleazy Trumpster?

  39. 39.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    Blackburn blathering about the chain of command – completely ignorant – Vindman was in fact following the Chain of Command – the one spelled out in his oath of enlistment (and oath of office he swore when he was commissioned) when he pledged his allegiance first to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and *then* do what the CIC and his CO said.

  40. 40.

    chris

    @Adam L Silverman: I’d expect no less from someone who thinks that Qanon is interesting. Thanks for the info and I must say that I am shocked that US senator would tell such a blatant lie. No, not really.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kay: He is either going to wind up running against Judge Roy Moore, the last law west of the junior high or Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @chris: Hickman is retired. And apparently a kook. He took a chance to grab some wing nut spotlight and did. I haven’t bothered to even ping my friends at US Army Europe about him because it just isn’t worth bothering them.

  52. 52.

    Bill Arnold

    Having fun playing spot-the-bots on the replies to Marsha Blackburn’s tweets today, by profile, with https://botsentinel.com and manual checks to confirm.
    Sample profile. Bot or not?:

    I Am the Man in the Arena@IAmtheManinthe1
    Text Trump to 88022 #MAGA #KAG2020 #TRUMP2020 #TRUMPWARRIOR #CULT45 Don’t be the One that Exclaims “I Could Have Done More.” Karma is Real. No DM’s/Links/Porn
    Joined December 2019

    Every tweet supporter of Marsha Blackburn of the 6 that I’ve checked is at least a propaganda account. (She’s getting seriously ratio-d with negative replies.) (There was one that was a non-native speaker that at least had original tweets.)

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Claire McCaskill reporting that her sources, i.e., she strongly hints, sitting Senators, are telling her trump and McConnell want this over by next Friday. Because trump will be interviewed on SuperBowl Sunday, and wants to be able to gloat.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Name recognition is everything. I’m always amazed at how many people just pick the familiar name. It’s disappointing. It’s why Mike DeWine is the governor of Ohio. There are no other reasons.

  58. 58.

    TS (the original)

    Warren on GOP claims that she can’t sit on Trump’s impeachment trial while running for his seat.

    Anyone in the GOP said the same about Sanders? Anyone in the media reported this about Sanders?

  60. 60.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    McCaskill asks Schumer about “the phones”, what are constituents saying, Schumer says they’re “pretty good, not overwhelming” like with health care

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Michael McAuliff @ mmcauliff
    John Barrasso (R-Wyo) on Schiff’s scathing you-can’t-trust-Trump closing tonight: “I think people on our side were absolutely offended by what he had to say.”

    the bad-faith pose of “how dare you!” is astounding to me, even after the last three years

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: They also want it over with before the State of the Union so the President can use his address to rub it into Pelosi’s face on national television for an hour. And the State of the Union is the Tuesday after the Super Bowl.

  65. 65.

    mad citizen

    @Dadadadadadada: You are spot on with this Ned Ryerson observation!  Braun is my Senator.  Self-made business guy from Southern Indiana.  Has always struck me as quite dumb.  Had more hair, or a better combover, in the 2018 campaign.

  67. 67.

    jl

    @TS (the original): ” Anyone in the GOP said the same about Sanders? Anyone in the media reported this about Sanders? ”

    They’ll say it about each one of them, as soon as they make a statement that hits the news. Before this is over, there will be howls about the five (? I think 5) Dem Senators running for president and they all should recuse themselves for a conflict of interest. If they don’t they are more corrupt than poor innocent Trump could ever even dream.

    Edit: has the advantage of getting bogus corruption smears at half the Democratic field ‘out there’ in one swoop, so that news media hacks can hound them about it, and wonder whether voters are ‘satisfied’ with their pathetic pleas that they are not corrupt, or not.. That will impress Trump mightily.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @TS (the original):

    OMG, the ethical bankrupts are now weighing in on recusal? Why does she even have to respond to these people?

    Warren has a cute ad at her old elementary school. Woodrow Wilson Elementary, home of the wildcats. That’s what I do instead of listening to Republicans- I watch Warren ads. In a bizarre coincidence Glen Beck once called her “the female Woodrow Wilson” so they invade even my ad watching.

  69. 69.

    jl

    @chris: I’d like one too. But since Trumps legal nightmare team is  bald face lying its ass off, I don’t care whether it works in court or not. The managers need to do everything they can to get the fact that the depraved Trump team is nonstop lying, which I’ve read would result in disciplinary action in any other venue, the news.

  70. 70.

    mad citizen

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is sickening.  There had better be a votestorm of major proportions in November.  Any normal citizen can see the con artist and his enablers from a mile away.  Vote you assholes, vote!  (Message aimed at all non voters)

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    watching Angus King to see if he takes a shot across the bow of the leaky SS Collins– the closest he comes is saying that he’s getting a lot of calls, and they’re 95% in favor of witnesses and documents

  75. 75.

    Another Scott

    Doesn’t get more humiliating than this. Trump is in a meeting with the president of Iraqi Kurdistan Nechirvan Barzani, but he mistakes him for the leader of the Syrian Kurds & goes on & on talking “safezones” in Syria & Turkey. Truly astounding ignorance.

    pic.twitter.com/YQbu4SA3it— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) January 22, 2020

    (Sigh)

    Via Popehat.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    JoeyJoeJoe

    Just on Alabama, there is also a congressman and a football coach running in the Republican primary, and one of them could be the nominee.  The coach was within the margin of error along with Sessions in polls, if I remember right and for whatever the individual polls are worth

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