Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans do not pay their debts.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

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

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

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

Procedural Open Thread: The Work Continues

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I didn’t jump in on the WITNESSES NOW debate earlier, because I remember all too vividly the Repubs lying and showboating during the Iran-Contra hearings, which made it possible for that era’s monsters to finish destroying the evidence, sometimes by killing (even more) nameless not-American people. Those hearings not only gave VP Bush (and, later, his even more vile spawn) a free pass to the Oval Office, they made Oliver North a celebrity, and wealthy — and those were the days before GoFundMe.

What I said or didn’t say here wasn’t gonna change anybody’s calculations, most specifically those of the Democrats running Impeachment Two, and I’m willing to accept their political acumen in this area is more to the point than mine. YMMV…

Reader Interactions

270Comments

  2. 2.

    Winston

    The second impeachment is over. Hail the second impeachment. And now the trials will start. Hail the trials.

  5. 5.

    Winston

    The history of Time travel is on prime. I know I’ve watched it  before. But now it seems entirely different.

  6. 6.

    Cameron

    Plus GA and NY (and who knows which other states) are lining up to fire a harpoon or two.  They can do that; what they can’t do is provide a COVID relief bill.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    One of my favorite features on Twitter is the ability to mute words or phrases that you don’t want to show up in your timeline. If you mute “Kardashian,” for example, any news about the antics of those overexposed dopes will vanish from your Twitter experience. Yay!

    Yesterday, during the impeachment trial, I muted the word “witnesses” for several hours because I was weary of overheated takes that warned Dems would suffer for their alleged timidity on the witness question and that this failure would fuel Trump’s comeback.

    I don’t think it’s outrageous for Democrats or Dem-leaning voters to criticize elected Democrats. They fuck up sometimes, as we all do. Good faith criticism — and even dumb hot takes and/or idiotic preening – are fair game, IMO. I muted the word “witnesses” to miss the “how-dare-you-you’re-dead-to-me” responses to criticism of that type too.

    I don’t know enough to guess if declining to call witnesses was the right decision or not. But the argument I find most unpersuasive from those who think it will hurt the Dems is the idea that the failure to convict will fuel a big comeback for Trump.

    McConnell is a cynical old bastard, and there’s a reason he and several other Republicans called Trump out for his behavior after voting to acquit him. They’re trying to placate donors and non-Q Republican voters while throwing a bone to the cult at the same time. The fact that they had to twist themselves into pretzels tells me they’re the ones with the massive PR problem, not Democrats.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    It is and always has been critically important to the GOP’s social and economic agenda that the public be distracted by savvy critiques of Democratic decisionmaking, no matter how trivial.  See Hillary’s email server as exhibit 1.

  14. 14.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker:

    My husband doesn’t eat breakfast, so I always read People magazine while eating mine. This morning I was horrified to realize that I had read every word of an article about how Kim was contemplating divorcing Kanye. What is wrong with me?

  15. 15.

    satby

    AL@top: I’m willing to accept their political acumen in this area is more to the point than mine.

    I am too. And I blame generations of Perry Mason (original show) and Law and Order reruns for people somehow thinking that witness testimony leads to dramatic, game changing results. Hardly ever.

  19. 19.

    Sloane Ranger

    At first I was frustrated when the House Managers agreed to the compromise hammered out by the Senate leadership but I deliberately didn’t say anything because I was afraid my emotions were clouding my judgement.

    Looking at it now, I think they did the right thing. The Turtle had made it clear the Senate was going to twiddle its thumbs until the trial was over and there’s a lot of stuff that needs doing quickly, from COVID relief to getting the remainder of Biden’s nominations confirmed. Plus, the defense lawyers would have demanded the right to call Pelosi, Hilary Clinton, Uncle Tom Cobley and all and turned the witness examination and cross examination into a clown show. As it was, the House Managers were able to get the defense of agree to admit the statement by (forgotten her name) and stipulate it was accurate. There was never going to be a Perry Mason/Matlock moment so getting this was a win for them.

  20. 20.

    MomSense

    Let me get this straight, based on reporting by the Republican aligned politico, the leftier than thou are more angry at Democrats for not engaging in a futile exercise than the corrupt Republicans.
    We need to go scorched earth on these “progressive” assholes.

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    @zhena gogolia:

    She is introducing quotes for and against trump that she can cite depending on her audience.  For the base during the primaries, no one supported him more.  For the general, she was a principled critic.

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: That was a fascinating article, IMO (Tim Alberta’s, which I assume you’re referring to). It’s telling that the most cynical and calculating and — dog damn them, successful — figures in the GOP are willing to be seen tossing Mango Mussolini under the bus. They stuck with him no matter what when he had power. Now he doesn’t, and they’re scared of his base but not scared enough to remain silent. They’ve made their calculation.

  24. 24.

    raven

    I keep wondering about this

    “Investigators have struggled for weeks to build a federal murder case in Sicknick’s death as they pored over video and photographs to try to determine the moment when he suffered his fatal injuries. Investigators have determined that initial reports suggesting Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher aren’t true, CNN previously reported.”

  25. 25.

    Lawrence

    @NotMax: It happens. There’s a whole country song where a man explains how he watches CNN but doesn’t know the difference between Iraq and Iran. And I always think “Anderson Cooper, do your job, sir.”

  26. 26.

    Buckeye

    I don’t know enough to guess if declining to call witnesses was the right decision or not. But the argument I find most unpersuasive from those who think it will hurt the Dems is the idea that the failure to convict will fuel a big comeback for Trump.

    This is what was annoying to me yesterday, not that people were upset on the witnesses/no witness part, but that somehow this is what voters were going to remember during the 2022 elections.

    No, the average voter isn’t going to be moved by whatever online outrage is going on.

    That’s something that last year’s primaries should have taught people, political blogs and Twitter still aren’t the real world for most people, including voters. Because if it were, we’d be talking about President Sanders and not President Biden.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    Half hoped we’d be granted one single day without seeing the Persimmon Pustule’s name sully this arena.

    Alas, ’twas not to be.

  28. 28.

    Kristine

    I know it’s been said here before, but Republicans are happy to let people die to maintain power. That is the bottom line of any deal, workaround, negotiation, etc. Until Democrats build a supermajority at a national level–and I don’t see how that can happen in the near future–we’re going to need to deal with that reality.

    I’m going to keep sending money to voters rights organizations and state/regional orgs like DLCC. Rebuild from the ground up. It’s going to take years, but that’s how this game will be played.

  29. 29.

    Benw

    @zhena gogolia: you’re fine. I find being a good pandemic citizen a mix of breath-holding stress (grocery shopping) and deep boredom (all the time I’m stuck at home not grocery shopping). I’ve read/watched dumber things!

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Thinking witnesses would have changed anything is, of course, the typical Green Lanternism that a number of our leftier friends subscribe to.  Whose mind would have changed with witnesses?  GOP Senators who voted to acquit after the presentation they received and the attack they lived through would not have changed.  Voters minds were also made up already.  That leaves history, and Trump’s role in the insurrection is and will continue to be well-recorded.

  31. 31.

    ArchTeryx

    @Kristine: I know it’s been said here before, but Republicans are happy to let people die to maintain power.

    Replace “let people die” with “commit mass murder” and you’re closer to the truth.  Their voters and a fair number of their politicians are genocidal monsters at this stage.​​​​​​

  32. 32.

    Balconesfault

    Everyone should make note.

    If somehow Donald J. Trump is the Republican nominee in 2024 . Mitch McConnell will support his election.

    I hope our media finally gets that.

  33. 33.

    lowtechcyclist

    1. According to the NYT, the decision to forego witnesses was the result of a threat by Mitch to fuck things up maximally once the trial was done, if the Dems went forward with witnesses.
    2. If they couldn’t get more witnesses quickly, letting Rep. Herrera Beutler testify, uncontradicted by any other witnesses, would have kept the story of the Trump-McCarthy shouting match in the headlines for a full day (was it even in time to be in Saturday’s headlines?), rather than being wiped out by the acquittal verdict.  The right play was to maximize the exposure that the news of that call got.  The Dems flubbed that. It’s already gone.  I feel like we know about the call, but most people don’t; that story whizzed by before most people caught a glimpse of it.  That stipulation won’t change that.
    3. Back to point #1, paying Mitchgeld doesn’t get you rid of Mitch. He’ll still filibuster and delay when it’s important to him, just not at every last opportunity.  This was one time the Dems should have gone ahead and called Rep. Herrera Beutler, and let Mitch prove to the world how unreasonable the Republicans can be.
    4. IMHO, the reason why Mitch threatened to go nuclear was that he was afraid that if the McCarthy call got enough play, there was a real chance that enough Republicans might have to vote to convict after all.  I still think it would have been extremely long odds, but I sure wish we’d gone down that timeline and found out.

    The main thing is, the point of this trial wasn’t to convict Trump, but to put the GOP Senators on trial for voting to acquit.  The McCarthy call was the most damaging piece of evidence possible on that score.  It needed maximal play in order to make an acquittal vote way more morally untenable than it already was.  Dems can bring it up now, but voters will say, ‘Huh? What?’ rather than being in the news all weekend.

    Hell, even spending a day debating whether or not to call Rep. Herrera Beutler, then deciding not to, would have kept the McCarthy call in the news for another day. That would have been fine, actually.

  34. 34.

    Elizabelle

    If we are so on to Maggie Haberman and her, um, work product, wouldn’t you love to know what Democratic offices are saying about her?

    I loved that some fellow journalist had to describe her as “popular” in some story a while back.**  Problem is, she likely is “popular” with some absolutely terrible and craven people.

    ** think it was about the time freelance editor Lauren Wolfe was fired by the cowardly FTF NY Times for making some pro-Biden comments on the eve of his inauguration; one was an outright error (as to why Biden flew a non-government jet to DC), but still ….  people immediately complained about Maggs and her many twitter miscues and some tongue bather at the WaPost or NYTimes or some such outlet had to step in to protect the lady’s reputation …  I know Lauren is last month’s news, and the coddlers of the well off still remain in power at the FTF NY Times (although much hopeful chatter about cat’s paw Baquet retiring one of these days ….)

    Enough with the ellipses.  Mentioning Maggie Haberman is like waving a tasty snack before a hungry dog.  I plead guilty.

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    Problem is, she likely is “popular” with some absolutely terrible and craven people.

    Venn diagram for popularity of Haberman and of Ted Nugent has near total overlap.

    ;)

  37. 37.

    dmsilev

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, that’s where I am as well. Calling witnesses would have been great if there were any reasonable prospect of swaying any votes. Since the vast majority of Rs had made it clear that that prospect didn’t exist, there wasn’t really much to gain. If there are hostile witnesses who might have more to add, Mark Meadows as a possible example, form a House committee or a special commission or whatever, issue whatever subpoenas are needed, and spend the year that it will take to get the information into the public record.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Hell, even spending a day debating whether or not to call Rep. Herrera Beutler, then deciding not to, would have kept the McCarthy call in the news for another day. That would have been fine, actually.

    That would have been an elegant solution, but I read somewhere that Chris Coons told the House managers that they were in danger of losing Republican votes if there was any delay because Republicans were keen to get home for Valentine’s Day. Who knew they were such romantics? <3

  40. 40.

    oldgold

    If Charlie Brown the House Prosecutors  had approached the football at just the right angle and velocity, Lucy  43 Republican Senators would not have pulled it before the kick.

    Nah.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    @Elizabelle:

    Mentioning *** is like waving a tasty snack before a hungry dog.  I plead guilty.

     

    Yeah, my guess is that she has realized she gets the most clicks and retweets when she trolls Dems.

  42. 42.

    Immanentize

    @satby: I’ll say what I said yesterday in the middle of the witnesses discussions:

    I suspect there is significant Venn crossover between those who said:
    “Why are we wasting our time on impeachment?! It’s a fait acompli!”
    And those now saying:
    “The Dems are useless sellouts. We would have convicted Trump if only they had called [this perfect smoking gun imaginary in my head person] as a witness!!!11!!!”

  44. 44.

    Shalimar

    @raven: I have seen speculation stating that Sicknick didn’t have any blunt force wounds and he might have died from a reaction to something like bear spray.  What I don’t understand is how an autopsy wouldn’t have been more specific than just guessing.

  45. 45.

    A Ghost to Most

    57-43 is better than expected. The “Fight!” goes on. And on. Fascists always double down.

  47. 47.

    LurkerNoLonger

    Donald Trump is a former president today because of us. Never forget that. In a democracy, voters do have the ultimate power. And when you do not vote, you surrender the only real power you have.

    I don’t know who Jeff Fecke is, but he’s got that right. Never forget! We kicked these lying low-life scumbags to the curb.

  49. 49.

    Betty Cracker

    If those numbers are accurate, it’s very good news. With any luck, Trump will undertake a narcissistic vendetta and lay waste to his former party, and we’ll buck the midterms curse and make gains in the House and Senate. A gal can dream, right?

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    So many dumb takes on the impeachment trial.

    I mean, I don’t think that impeachment was a bad idea. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. But it was always going to end this way and it’s not likely it has long term electoral impacts either.

    The cowardly Republicans have wounded democracy. There is no way to know where this might lead or if this can be repaired.

    I hope that their cowardice continues to cause problems for the GOP.

    I do not blame Democrats for anything. The evidence they presented should have been enough to convict.

    ETA. It is SO refreshing not seeing any social media bullshit from the Orange Beast.

  54. 54.

    Shalimar

    @Betty Cracker: I remain a big believer that we need testimony from witnesses to Trump’s sociopathic behavior on January 6th.  I completely changed my mind on the timing of those witnesses yesterday.  It wasn’t going to happen during the impeachment trial.  Plaskett is right, all of the witnesses to his behavior are Trump loyalists who will challenge any subpoena.  Extending the trial past yesterday was a waste of time better spent on legislation and confirmations.

    What we need is a public commission looking into what happened, to get the records all in one place.  It can start in May or June.  It doesn’t have to be now.  And if McCarthy, Pence, Tuberville, Meadows, Miller, Kushner, et. al. want to stall for a year with court challenges and leave the most damning testimony for Fall of 2022, so much the better.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    McConnell is a cynical old bastard, and there’s a reason he and several other Republicans called Trump out for his behavior after voting to acquit him. They’re trying to placate donors and non-Q Republican voters while throwing a bone to the cult at the same time. The fact that they had to twist themselves into pretzels tells me they’re the ones with the massive PR problem, not Democrats.

    I have almost as much trouble listening to McConnell as I do trump, but I did get the impression he pretty much gave Biden political permission to call for, even appoint, some kind of special investigation. And I don’t think that was the Turtle’s intention.

    Not a prosecutor. Not a Mueller or a Fitzpatrick focused on finding an indictable crime with a better than even chance of being found guilty by a jury. A commission, or whatever, to produce a report for the public of what happened on 1/6, and who we got there. After the information is made public, then talk about criminal referrals

  56. 56.

    Immanentize

    @Shalimar: I suspect the autopsy is way more specific about cause of death — but there is no reason to release that information if you are still looking for the person(s) who killed Ofc. Sicknick.  This investigation is not even out of the maternity ward yet, let alone the cradle.

  57. 57.

    MJS

    @lowtechcyclist: No, “deciding not to” would have been the story. “Feckless, Incompetent, Cowardly Dems”, would have been the story. That’s how the media plays these things. The Democrats have their ads ready for 2022 – “Trump incited a riot. Senator so-and-so let him off”, with accompanying video. That’s the best they were ever going to get out of this.

  58. 58.

    RSA

    @zhena gogolia:

    Nice statement by Biden, but it should be “lay,” not “laid.”

    Correct. Biden is using the verb “to lie” in the past tense, which should be “lay”.  “Laid” is the past tense of the verb “to lay”, but there’s no direct object in Biden’s sentence.

  59. 59.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @zhena gogolia: I’m still puzzling out Nikki Haley’s motivations for throwing him under the bus the day before.

    She wants to run for president in 2024 and sees Trump as an obstetrical. It’s not an unreasonable calculation, Trump’s base a pack of gullible idiots and will forget about Trump the day after he is off the public stage for the next shinny thing, for a Republican to win the Presidency the need the moderate right and the moderate will never work for a Trumpster. So she establishes some Never Trump cred while gambling the Trump base would have forgotten by 2023.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @oldgold: The only hope for conviction was Moscow Mitch’s bagmen saying no dough unless he voted to convict.  The rest is kabuki.  He talked them down to a bad-faith speech afterwards.

    And here we are.

    There’s still a lot that Congress and the courts can do, but it will take a while.  Father Time is coming, also too.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  61. 61.

    wvng

    @Kristine: There is a fundamental imbalance between the two major parties; Democrats care about how actions and policies impact people, republicans don’t.  While that makes Dems less willing to be ruthless in politics and gives republicans an edge in negotiations (“darn shame if that kills people, but …”), I am happy to be associated with the party that tries to make people’s lives better.

  64. 64.

    brantl

    I have only one beef with Nancy, she should have said at the end of that, “Sending your henchmen to kill your honest opposition gets you jailed, and if you’re president, it gets you impeached, but not with this GQP group of cowards!”, and that is the line she should have gone out on.

  65. 65.

    PST

    @brantl:

    @zhena gogolia: Nope, he used the same tense as the verbs in the rest of his statement. He was right.

    No, zhena is correct. The past tense of lie is lay. It is a small, pedantic point that I would never think about correcting in a message from a friend. In fact, I probably wouldn’t notice. But presidential dispatches like this one are in a formal register and should be correct. I have been enjoying the last few weeks of proper English, not the ridiculous mishmash of Trump tweets, so I hope the press office does better.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @RSA:

    The lie/lay fiasco is Biden trying to distract us from the witness controversy.

    ITS STRAIGHT OUT OF TRUMP’S PLAYBOOK DON’T FALL FOR IT!!!

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    I’m quite satisfied with the House Impeachment Managers and the case they built and presented to the Senate and the American people. And by the fact that the 57 Senators who voted to convict and hold Trump guilty together represent more than 2/3rds of the American population, who by and large appear to know that Trump is a defective person, guilty of far more crimes than merely the recent small and ineffective insurrection his deluded followers attempted at our nation’s capitol last January 6th.

    Trump’s larger crimes include his lies about the Sars2-Coronavuris19 plague, which created a dangerous surge of infection in America that looks to kill way more than 500,000 Americans over the course of the disease in our nation. He lied about the danger from the beginning, even as he admitted to a reporter that he knew from the beginning that it was hugely dangerous.

    He lied about how to prevent the transmission of the disease, lied about the need for people to stay home, work from home, STAY HOME!! and wear masks. He refused to use his powerful office to create masks, personal protective equipment for our front line responders and medical staff, directly leading to many deaths. He told malicious lies about strange folk remedies that in fact can only make anyone more ill if they attempt to self treat their Covid infection with pick one: [ bleach, light, wormer, malaria treatment, so many more ] !

    No one can say now many of our 500,00o so far deaths were directly  or indirectly caused by Trump’s lies and failures to act properly, but it has to be an huge proportion. And his lies had a ripple effect across the world, also. His bully allies in Brazil, the Philipines, the Stans and in Africa still deny the effectiveness of masks and the need for universal vaccination.

    These are his really big crimes, actually. The failed and incompetent insurrection was, due to the effective resistance of many loyal patriots, the least of Trump’s crimes, no matter how horrible, evil and unpatriotic it was. . . And now he faces actual prosecution for the many crimes, big and small, of theft and spreading the Trumpian plague.

    My personal thanks to the House Impeachment Managers, to Speaker Pelosi, to the few patriotic Republicans who saw the open truth about Trump, and to all who worked and voted to put Trump out of office forever!

  72. 72.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @lowtechcyclist: other more damning evidence will come out about Turnip’s and other ejected officials’ connection to the insurrection. There will be several “stories” that won’t be drowned out by an impeachment trial. Just because the trial is over doesn’t mean it’s going away.

  75. 75.

    germy

    All for the sake of Biden’s agenda.

    Hmmph.  Such a minor thing.

    Rachael Bade must be very comfortable to say “all for the sake of Biden’s agenda” as if the agenda is a minor distraction for the drama she was hoping for.

  76. 76.

    brantl

    @PST: He lay down, or he layed down? You’re wrong. Laid is the past perfect. As in something that was habitually done. You’re wrong..

  81. 81.

    Hungry Joe

    Maybe a month of Twitter silence from Trump has gotten us accustomed to his non-presence, but does anyone find it odd that he hasn’t commented — not even in a brief public statement — on the “vindication”? The biggest, most beautiful Vindication in the history of our Great Country?

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tommy Vietor @TVietor08
    “The president is a handful!” @LindseyGrahamSC talks about Trump like a toddler and then goes all in on nepotism by endorsing Laura Trump for senate. Qualifications? Who needs em!

    Justin Baragona @justinbaragona· 23m
    Lindsey Graham ends interview with Chris Wallace by kissing up to Trump’s daugher-in-law. “The biggest winner I think of this whole impeachment trial is Lara Trump… If she runs, I will certainly be behind her because I think she represents the future of the Republican Party.”

    I refuse to get too optimistic about Florida, because Florida, but no one can convince me that Dollar Store Ivanka is a smart move for the North Carolina Senate race. I think Ivanka herself is much more likely to be circumspect about risking her “brand” on a race.

  91. 91.

    karen marie

    @Sloane Ranger: And how would it have worked, with McConnell as majority leader until Warnock and Ossoff were sworn in?  Would he have retained control for the trial while Schumer managed regular business?  That would have been a clusterfuck on its own.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    And now reading the whole thread, there’s some really funny stuff up there, mixed in with the horror!!

    And yes, genocidal monsters is the proper term for the Republicans in the White House and their deliberate mis-handling of the Trumpian Corona Virus Plague, thanks to ArchTeryx for pitching in with that!

    Some days Balloon Juice is like a mixture of humor and horror, Young Frankenstein style. One of my favorite movies of all time!

    • “My God, What Knockers!”
    • “Why, thank you!”

    How can you beat that pair of lines?

  93. 93.

    oldgold

    This morning, against my better judgment, I watched Chris Wallace’s Sunday show.

    Worse, I sat through Wallace’s interview of Lindsey Graham. Here are few of this montebankian-lickspittle’s excremental statements.

    “I thought the impeachment trial was not only unconstitutional, I condemn what happened on Jan. 6, but the process they used to impeach this president was an affront to the rule of law.”

    “I don’t  know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House.”

    Lindsey Graham has achieved the impossible. He has become worse than Ted Cruz.

  95. 95.

    Zelma

    I heard one or another of the commentators suggest that McConnell would have supported a guilty verdict but only if he was assured that at least the required 17 and better yet more Republicans would so vote. He couldn’t find the needed votes so he went with the majority. Had he not, he would have lost his leadership position. I don’t know if this makes sense but it seems to fit his personality.
    It fits the old adage, if you go for the “king,” make sure you get him.

  96. 96.

    Hungry Joe

    @NotMax: Thanks — didn’t see that. But why no live, in-person statement/rant/brag? He wouldn’t have to take any questions, just strut and preen and spew gibberish for a few minutes, just like the old days. It’s not like him. At all.

  100. 100.

    Barbara

    I know that like me many commenters here are lawyers or have legal training. The notion that something super magical and compelling would result from hearing witnesses is just . . . annoying.

    The most important thing, establishing the narrative, was done better than I could possibly have imagined. It would have been nice if the narrative on the second day of presentations had included narrative summation based on evidence — not necessarily witnesses — of Trump’s gleeful, bloodthirsty cackling as he watched the mob endanger lawmakers. That’s why they wanted Beutler’s statement included.
    It’s striking the way so many Democrats focus on what they didn’t get versus what they did. Tom Nichols is not a Democrat, but he and Brian Beutler were leading the charge yesterday re lack of witnesses. But then, they are not lawyers and they seem to have no understanding of how hard it is to pull the soundbites out of a seven hour deposition. I turned it off.​

  103. 103.

    germy

    RASKIN says that McConnell's comments after the vote went even further than Democrats by suggesting Trump could be criminally charged.

    — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 13, 2021

    I know Cyrus Vance is working on a NY case, but he’s one I don’t trust. I’m more interested in what Tish James uncovers, as well as the Georgia investigations. Even the sexual assault charge moving forward.

  107. 107.

    guachi

    I wish I could have muted all the disingenuous arguments from the thousands of people who thought that the reason people wanted witnesses was because those people thought witnesses would change the outcome.

     

    It was such an absurd straw man argument.

     

    Further, the argument that there couldn’t be witnesses (it even one witness) because it would have taken months and stopped Senate business is also bogus. The Senate was doing no business next week. Subpoena the witnesses that would show up voluntarily. Depose them. Then vote.

    Instead, the Senate wanted to go home for the weekend and have next week off.

    And witness testimony isn’t sexy. It doesn’t involve making nice speeches or having cool A/V presentations. So I’m not surprised the House managers eventually gave up on witnesses, too.

  108. 108.

    Jinchi

    @Hungry Joe: but does anyone find it odd that he hasn’t commented — not even in a brief public statement — on the “vindication”?

    He has.

    That’s the beauty of the twitter ban. He can shout into the wind all he likes now but it no longer cascades down the echo chamber.

    As a person who hated hearing even mock parodies of his voice, I was completely surprised that banning him from twitter had such an immediate effect on the national psyche.​

  109. 109.

    J R in WV

    @Baud: ​

    @J R in WV:

    Thank you for that.

    You are welcome.

    I had to type it mostly twicet, as I reached the end the first time I musta hit some kind of button, I wound up on the front page of the blog, all my work was gone! So I did it all over again. As WaterGirl says, if you want to be safe, use a text tool to write big complicated comments. I don’t usually do that… my own bad.

    And I coulda shoulda added ArchropTerix’s genocidal maniacs to it also too.

  110. 110.

    Zelma

    @Baud:

    That’s why I said hopefully more.  I’ve pondered whether he could have gotten even ten more votes and I can’t get there.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @brantl:

    Nope, nope, nope. It’s the intransitive “lie, lay, lain” in this instance (meaning to rest or recline).

    You’re incorrectly using the transitive “lay, laid, laid” (meaning to place an object on something).

    It’s one of the English language’s more confusing rules, and breached far too often, but AFAIK it’s still a rule.*

    *(Although who really knows these days? One of the major English-language dictionaries recently decided to allow “irregardless,” so I guess anything is possible.)

  113. 113.

    germy

    Just watched Face The Nation.

    Margaret Brennan said she invited Republican senators, but none of them wanted to appear.

    I guess they can’t Face us?

  114. 114.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Barbara: The most important thing, establishing the narrative, was done better than I could possibly have imagined.

    Yes, the most important thing that trial lawyers need to do is tell their client’s story in a way that is memorable and resonates with the jury.  The impeachment managers did a masterful job of that.

  116. 116.

    Hungry Joe

    The more I think about Trump’s non-appearance, the more worried I get. Have any of you talked to him recently? The last time I saw him he looked depressed. I think we should call the neighbors and ask them to check on him. Does anyone have a number?

  117. 117.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Hungry Joe: Except for a few of his sycophants in the media, that have not yet been sued by Dominion or the other voting machine company, to the major media outlets he is radioactive since he no longer holds the presidency. That is why you are only seeing quotes from “sources close to” and not direct interviews, the media outlets fear of losing billions in lawsuit judgements outweighs their fear of not covering him.

  120. 120.

    Jinchi

    I would’ve been perfectly happy to hear witness testimony, particularly from the Capitol police officers who defended the building.

    But the reality is that no witnesses were needed at trial. We all witnessed it – not the least the members of the House and Senate. If people like McConnell and Pence and McCarthy can’t be convinced to convict the man who sent a mob to hunt them down, no witness testimony was going to change that outcome.

  121. 121.

    LurkerNoLonger

    This is the last thing I’ll say on the subject of witnesses: (I’ve already made 3 comments oh this thread and that’s 3 more than I usually make) of the 43 that voted for acquittal, find 10 that would have changed their vote if witnesses had been presented based on their history of voting with Turnip, public statements and the color of the state they represent.

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Barbara: I’ve been a Beutler fan for a long time, but he has completely lost the plot in the last couple of years. The underlying flaw of Do Something Twitter is the assumption that Dems, usually Pelosi in particular, can make the lumpy mass of (white) American voters care by holding hearings of one form or another, and if people don’t care, it’s because Dems haven’t done the hearings right. The Witnesses! fantasy was almost made for that crew.

    I would’ve like to have had witnesses for the sake of the case to history, but not at the expense of swallowing a poison pill made by the actually increasingly nutty Lindsey Graham (has he mentioned his grounds for impeaching Harris? is he even bothering to pretend it’s anything but cheap partisanship?)

  123. 123.

    zhena gogolia

    @brantl:

    He is lying in state.

    (yesterday) He lay in state.

    (repeated, although that’s impossible) He has lain in state.

    He is laying the book on the table.

    (yesterday) He laid the book on the table.

    (repeated) He has laid the book on the table.

  128. 128.

    JMG

    I still think not having witnesses was a mistake, but that’s because I felt the purpose of the trial was to humiliate GOP Senators for their inevitable acquittal votes, making them even more toxic. But if Democratic Senators didn’t agree with me, then there was no shot of that happening and all that remains is to take the L in good grace.

  129. 129.

    sdhays

    @lowtechcyclist: I think there are more damaging revelations to come from the machinations inside the administration before and during the insurrection which could make a whole lot of Senators wish they weren’t on record acquitting the piece of shit.

  131. 131.

    Jinchi

    @JMG: I still think not having witnesses was a mistake

    Gotta point out that there’s nothing stopping the media from interviewing all the witnesses they can find. What we know today is so much worse than what we knew in the moment on January 6th. I think it’s going to become clearer over the next few years just how bad this really was. There’s plenty of time for Democrats to lay this on the heads of the spineless Republicans.

  132. 132.

    Danielx

    @Betty Cracker:

    Re Kardashians – if only I could do the same things with the gossip mags next to grocery checkout lanes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone actually buying one of those.

  133. 133.

    sdhays

    @germy: There’s plenty of smoke, to me, to suggest the possibility of federal charges related to the insurrection itself. We’ll just have to see how many notes they took on their conspiracy.

  135. 135.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Betty Cracker: I agree with that. But both the hot takes I referenced concluded – I am paraphrasing here, feckless Ds are feckless, that caused me to roll my eyes.

    This was my take on blog father’s post

    Democrats have managed to do what the opposition parties in UK, India and Israel have tried to do but failed, deny the autocratic demagogue  a second successive term.  I am not ready to write the epitaph of either the Democrats or democracy in America. Congressional Ds under Nancy Pelosi have earned my trust. And no I don’t think they are infallible.

    I am not a constitutional lawyer so don’t have a professional opinion about witnesses. What I would have liked to see more of was why the Capitol was left defenseless, the last minute changes at the DoD and why it took so long for the National Guard to arrive. I think this story is far from  over. Impeachment was just the first chapter in this saga.

  136. 136.

    Chyron HR

    @guachi: ​
     

    While you were busy squealing “DIMBYCRAPS IZ LAZY AND STOOPIT NOT LIKE AOC” you forgot to make the supposed “real” argument for calling witnesses. Never mind, I’ll just assume you wanted it for the same reason Lindsey Graham did, whatever that might be.

  137. 137.

    Amir Khalid

    @brantl: ​
     Sorry, zhena gogolia is correct. Lay is the past tense of the intransitive verb lie, which is the one to use here: as in, I lie in bed. Laid is the past tense of the transitive verb lay, which takes an object: I lay my cards on the table.

  138. 138.

    gwangung

    I think some people are conflating “witnesses” in general with witnesses who would help this particular impeachment.

     

    They aren’t an identical set. Witness testimony of police officers who were beaten would not have been relevant to the link between the insurrectionists and Trump.

     

    And the witnesses for that are hostile and would have taken months, if not years, to get. And if you don’t think Dems would have been branded as impotent and “do nothing” over that delay, then you aren’t paying attention.

  139. 139.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    but I do think this is an issue where people can disagree in good faith.

    Yes, but it’s the emotional rhetoric that’s attached to the disagreement with the Dems decision that is beyond the pale.

    To use the email analogy again, the problem wasn’t that it wasn’t worth reporting on, as the NYT has contended, it’s the NYT’s obsession with it that was the problem.

  143. 143.

    Barbara

    @Baud: ​It’s just bizarre. I mean, seriously, I have been let down pretty hard by some of the witnesses I was hoping to rely on.

  144. 144.

    Jinchi

    @Just Some Fuckhead: ​
     

    “My home was attacked last night — windows broken, spray paint, really bad words spray painted everywhere. And the thing is, you guys don’t know me, but you know I’m not a controversial guy. I’m not politically minded so to speak,”

    I think his point is that it’s only free speech if you’re threatening to murder controversial people. You know like child gun-control advocates or teens wearing hoodies.

  145. 145.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JMG: If they weren’t humiliated by voting to acquit him after the House Managers presentation and their own lived experience on January 6, then nothing would humiliate them.   The man sent a mob to intimidate and/or kill them and their colleagues and they know it.   They still voted to acquit.

  147. 147.

    Baud

    @Barbara:

    There was a commenter here yesterday who said something like Dems winning last year was essentially worthless because of the witness issue.  I simply can’t respect that sort of extreme take.

  148. 148.

    JMG

    Graham’s only every on Fox News now, so all I see are screenshots, but he’s really going to seed physically. I mean that close to literally. More and more, he looks like the potato that rolls out of the bag to the back of the kitchen drawer you only find six months later.

  149. 149.

    germy

    @Amir Khalid:

    Is it possible there’s a grammar exception for the deceased, though?

    Like we say “hanged” for a person’s execution or suicide, rather than “hung” like a picture on the wall (or a horse) ?

  150. 150.

    PST

    @lowtechcyclist:

    According to the NYT, the decision to forego witnesses was the result of a threat by Mitch to fuck things up maximally once the trial was done, if the Dems went forward with witnesses.

    I can’t see any particular reason to believe that bit of speculation over others. I’m inclined to take the managers at their words about their decision. There will be plenty of time for Rep. Herrera Beutler to testify in the many hearings to come exploring the events of January 6. These will offer more time and opportunity to tease out all the evidence of Trump’s guilty knowledge during the afternoon. If this evidence emerges in a striking, convincing way, it will still be effective at that time and Democrats can still use it to condemn the Republican senators, since the broad story was known and in evidence at the time of the vote. I am frankly glad the House managers wrapped up while they were ahead. It is very difficult to predict how the calling of witnesses would have played out. There are too many unknowns. In any event, it would have sapped momentum from the convincing job the managers had done and also slowed the pace of necessary emergency legislation. Would the Republican really have slow rolled that? Sure they would. Would they have gotten the blame? Who knows! Anyway, getting Covid relief done is more important than who would be blamed for delay.

  151. 151.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Since The Turtle has made it OK for the Executive to do whatever the fuck it wants, I wonder just how much scrutiny the bidness dealings of Senator and Mrs. Turtle, especially in China, can withstand over the next four years? I’m not saying go all Nixon on them, but hell, may as well take this puppy out for a ride.

  153. 153.

    Jinchi

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
     

    What I would have liked to see more of was why the Capitol was left defenseless

    Yeah. There are some pretty strong clues that it was deliberate.

    Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday he immediately mobilized state police and National Guard members when asked to go to Washington to help protect the U.S. Capitol, but the state was repeatedly denied permission before finally being authorized to send help by a defense official.

  154. 154.

    Immanentize

    @Barbara: No joke. Further, I haven’t heard one person come up with one name of a credible witness who would not either be repetitious, irrelevant, or hostile to the Dem. case.

    People wanted the House Managers to embarrass Senators, not try to win their case.

  155. 155.

    Kirk Spencer

    I lean toward being glad they didn’t call witnesses. Because (apparently forgotten) the defense gets to call witnesses as well.

    It becomes an ideal way to muddle the message and delay, delay, delay everything else.

    It would not have brought a clearer message or reinforced message to the public because of that. And the additional witnesses would not have changed the minds of 10 more Republicans.

    So end while the message is clear. And hang the decision of 43 Republican senators around their necks in a year and a half.

  157. 157.

    germy

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Trivia:  Lay Lady Lay was first offered to the Everly brothers, but Don Everly turned it down.

    The brothers later covered it in one of their “comeback” albums of the 1980s.

  159. 159.

    Amir Khalid

    @SiubhanDuinne: ​
     

    (Although who really knows these days? One of the major English-language dictionaries recently decided to allow “irregardless,” so I guess anything is possible.)

    Descriptivism will bring chaos to the language, I tells ya.

  161. 161.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Barbara:

    WTF does Trump have on Graham? 

    I wonder the same thing.  Graham went from “If we nominate him, we’ll get destroyed.” to sucking his orange ass at every chance.

  162. 162.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Immanentize: People wanted the House Managers to embarrass Senators, not try to win their case.

    Given that impeachment is a political, not a legal, process, that is a reasonable objective.  IMO, they accomplished it sufficiently without witnesses.  And once we are into the political aspects of the trial, there were legitimate political reasons to wrap up the process and get on with governing.

  163. 163.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MJS: ​
     

    @lowtechcyclist: No, “deciding not to” would have been the story.

    Yabbut only AFTER they decided not to. Until then, the McCarthy call would have been the story.

    Right now, I bet it’s still a story most Americans haven’t heard the first thing about. And that’s a huge own goal by the Dems.

  164. 164.

    piratedan

    well now that the expected has happened and the GOP has shown us what we’ve known them to be, I fully expect there to be some fallout from the events of Jan 6th.

    Because there are STILL some serious questions that need to be answered and I do expect that the Dem’s will Benghazi the ever lovin shit of them.

    1. who set up the Capitol Police for the fall?  Who decided that the staffing should be as it was and that all of the folks in authority would be unavailable on this date, the most important ceremonial date they had to cover in THIS political environment?
    2. Who at the Pentagon was in the decision chain denying support of the National Guard to the Capitol Police?  Multiple times denying their release and response?
    3. Was their coordination between the WH and the mob and members of Congress?  If so, who was involved?  What did they do?
    4. Will the DOJ and the FBI pursue any crimes that these commissions reveal?

    I don’t care if these commissions to investigate the cause get oodles of attention, but I want them working on getting these answers.

    As an aside, I also want the FBI and the DOJ kicking ass on Domestic terrorists, I want them defanged and destroyed.

  165. 165.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Amir Khalid: meh.

    The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
    –James D. Nicoll

  166. 166.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: I agree with what you wrote there.

    @Baud: Fair enough. But there’s a lot of what could fairly be called emotional rhetoric from folks who think the House managers’ decision was the right one too, especially on Twitter. In general, I think members of our snippy, brittle coalition spend too much time shitting on other factions of our snippy, brittle coalition. I’m guilty of it too!

  167. 167.

    Immanentize

    @germy: I love that period of Bob Dylan’s when he was doing voice coaching and getting more of a deeper, crooner but Dylan voice.  Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid times. Knocking on Heaven’s Door also too.

  168. 168.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kirk Spencer:

    Because (apparently forgotten) the defense gets to call witnesses as well.

    King and Manchin were said to have declared that Both Sides must be allowed to call an equal number of witnesses, and I have to assume they got that from the Romney Caucus.

    side note: Nicole Wallace likes to have Angus King on her show, and I admit I’m a sucker for his understated and flinty righteousness (I think he’s what David Broder thought all Republicans really were, underneath the Gingrichite bluster), but she has never once asked him about Susan Collins, and I gotta think that’s some kind of condition of his appearance. I’m guessing they have a close working relationship, which is one more thing to remember along with Manchin and Sinema as we move forward, incrementally.

  170. 170.

    Geminid

    I want witnesses. Before Federal grand juries, and in criminal trials for charges up to and including felony murder.

  171. 171.

    PST

    @brantl: I don’t want to pile on, but I agree with the several commenters who noted that what President Biden (doesn’t that sound nice) should have used is some form of the intransitive lie, lay, lain rather than the transitive lay, laid, laid. I took a lot of knuckle punishment in my youth getting those straight so I don’t want to let the distinction slide in my golden years.

  173. 173.

    Immanentize

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think the embarrassment is still to come.  The Republicans are going to cry and whine: “That’s all behind us, why do they keep bringing it up?!”. But there are enough big revelations ahead, I suspect, that that complaint won’t resonate.

    As for embarrassing Senators during the impeachment?  7 Republicans was an amazing result which wouldn’t have happened under the embarrassment strategy.  IMO

  175. 175.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JMG: I take offense to you even thinking about comparing Leningrad Lindsay to a rotten spud.  (He’s much worse.)

  177. 177.

    hitchhiker

    @J R in WV:

    Well said, thanks.

    The Donald legacy is going to be:

    1. He bears full responsibility for the USA’s half-assed, destructive non-attempt to manage the pandemic.
    2. He bears full responsibility for the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan 6th, because it was his voice insisting that he’d “really” won the 2020 election and therefore his voters, having been cheated, were entitled to take action.

    That’s what my grandchildren (born on Jan 6th!) will read in their history books.

  178. 178.

    Jinchi

    @Barbara: ​

    ​WTF does Trump have on Graham?

    My guess is – The same thing he has on Pence. Nothing.
    We give Graham too much credit thinking he would act more ethically ‘if only’. These are just horrible people. Trump is surrounded by people like Graham because these are the type of people who can stand to be in the same room as Trump.​​​​

  179. 179.

    mrmoshpotato

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    One of the major English-language dictionaries recently decided to allow “irregardless,” 

    Who?  Who needs to be smacked with their own dictionary?

  180. 180.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     

    That would have been an elegant solution, but I read somewhere that Chris Coons told the House managers that they were in danger of losing Republican votes if there was any delay because Republicans were keen to get home for Valentine’s Day. Who knew they were such romantics? <3

    Who knew, indeed? Gotta let Toomey and Burr get back home to give that heart-shaped box of chocolates to their loving wives, or they’ll vote to acquit!

    Of course, this goes back to the “what is the goal here?” question. Was the object to get as many GOP votes as possible, knowing it would fall short anyway? Or was it to further destroy the credibility of the Republican Party?

    (I really think a day or two of constructive dithering would have accomplished both. And thanks for the compliment, in the math world I come from, being told one’s solution is “elegant” is high praise!)

  181. 181.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: There really needs to be some Occam’s razor type rule for autocorrect to follow.

    There is – actually there are multiple disambiguation rules. But that’s the problem in this case; whatever was typed was closer to “obstetrical” than to “obstacle”, according to one of those rules.

  183. 183.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Just saw this clip on the Jonathan Capeheart program. This could get interesting.

    Fox News @FoxNews ·14m
    Graham: McConnell ‘put a load on Republicans’ back’ with anti-Trump speech

    Graham said he has spoken to Trump since the trial, and while the former president is upset with some members of his party, he is “excited about 2022” and looking to help rebuild the Republican Party in next year’s midterm elections.

    We could have the best of all possible post-Beast worlds. The Beast finally has a full Elvis on a gold-plated crapper, and Eric and Dollar Store Ivanka go to war with Grifterella and Trust-Fund Gilligan in the battle for his legacy, while Fredo and his $15K/week girlfriend are caught on tape screaming “You brought us park coke!” at Mark Meadows

  184. 184.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jinchi: Graham is an empty shell.  He defines himself by the person to whom he toadies.  When it was McCain, he seemed okay because, while McCain had myriad faults he also wasn’t a truly horrible person.  When it became Trump….  Well, Trump is a truly horrible person.

  185. 185.

    lowtechcyclist

    @PST: ​
     

    Anyway, getting Covid relief done is more important than who would be blamed for delay.

    And I look forward to their resuming work on Covid relief around Feb. 22 or 23.

  187. 187.

    Steeplejack

    @Betty Cracker:

    They stuck with [Trump] no matter what when he had power. Now he doesn’t, and they’re scared of his base but not scared enough to remain silent. They’ve made their calculation.

    Can’t remember where I read it—somewhere on Twitter, probably—but someone offered the thought that at this point it’s more helpful to think of the GQP not as a political party but as a virus, concerned only with survival, power and self-replication. That got me to consider the framing of Trump not so much as the head of the party or a cult leader but as the current host of the virus. Now that he’s out of office and facing a lot of legal problems, his viability as a host is in question. (Not to mention he’s old and not healthy.) So Cruz, Hawley, Haley et al. are calculating how to slide into that position without being seen as the one to kill the old host.
    Maybe it’s not helpful to think only in terms of “Trump’s base” and think that if the Trump problem is solved everything is okay. (Not saying that you are doing that.) If Trump disappeared tomorrow the racists and fascists would still be around and would quickly find someone else to attach themselves to. Like a virus.​

  191. 191.

    RaflW

    The abject failure of Mike Pence to defend himself after Jan 6th, and particularly this past week when ‘sources close to him’ were pointing out Trump defenders lies, but anonymously, well it caps a terrible, mealy, jesus-gazing twatwaffle’s career.

    I hope he becomes as irrelevant to American life as Dan Quayle.

  193. 193.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: It does sound like one of the few things that would get Nero Wolfe out of the brownstone.  “Archie, bring the car around. We are going to the publisher of this abomination, where I will commit the perfect murder.”

  195. 195.

    Another Scott

    @germy: Who’s expecting Moscow Mitch to turn on a dime, within a few Scaramuccis, and decry the unfair prosecution of a President by feckless Democrats who are abusing the terrible power of the state and federal governments for personal political gain, yada yada yada?

    [ raises hand ]

    He always argues in bad faith when it comes to Democrats.

    His comments should be treated as a sideshow, or even better, ignored, IMHO.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  198. 198.

    PST

    @Immanentize:

    @germy: my one past tense pet peeves is when people say someone “pled guilty.”

    I don’t mind that, but have you noticed that people who say someone “pled guilty” are starting to spell it “plead guilty”? That goes along with spelling the past tense of “lead” as “lead” instead of “led,” presumably by analogy to “read.” I see that frequently now in the writing of educated younger people, but never in people my age.

  201. 201.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Thinking witnesses would have changed anything is, of course, the typical Green Lanternism that a number of our leftier friends subscribe to. Whose mind would have changed with witnesses?

    That’s assuming they could even get witnesses to show up! People forget that the Democrats just spent four years trying unsuccessfully to get people to come before various committees. Hell, their subjects wouldn’t even send documents.

  202. 202.

    debbie

    If anyone needed a bright side to all this, we’ve now got quotes we can use against Haley and McConnell (and probably others) in the next campaigns.

  204. 204.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jinchi: what trump has on Graham is Graham’s (frustrated) ambition, in the end he’s no different than any number other pols who just can’t imagine life out of political office, without being what Graham called “relevant”– Dianne Feinstein is older and richer than god, there’s nothing else she wants to do as the sun goes down? He comes from one of the most conservative states in the country and he’s vulnerable to a challenge. My own recollection and theory is he pretty much invented “Benghazi!” as a scandal cause he need to distract the South Carolina GOP from his own “moderation” on immigration and his association with the always suspect (by true believers) and tepid John McCain.
    Speaking of immigration: In one of the behind the scene stories from December, Graham is reported to have tried to talk trump into giving up on talking about 2020 because Graham wanted him to start talking about caravans for 2022. His new campaign to impeach Kamala Harris is (hold on to your wigs and keys) about Scary Black People!

    “I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House, because she actually bailed out rioters, and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody’s head open,” Graham said. “…

    In June, Harris and other Democrats urged people to contribute to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which was posting bail for people arrested during George Floyd protests.

    Even if the actuarial tables do catch up with trump pretty soon, Lindsey is all in on being the new George Wallace, because the alternative is “former Senator Lindsey Graham” wandering the halls of Fox News, hoping Laura Ingram has a segment to fill at the last minute, or Tucker Carlson’s producer will listen, one more time, to the story about that time Lindsey totally burned Obama, if only the cameras had been there.

  206. 206.

    JMG

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Small state Senators have powerful incentives to work together, more so than Senators from, say Texas or New York. If they don’t, far less likely the rest of Congress will consider their state’s problems. Without the need to reciprocate favors from two Senators, little chance Senators from New Mexico or Idaho would be too interested in the problems of the lobster trade.

  207. 207.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​
     I don’t get why Republicans still want to cling to Trump. He’s already toxic to voters outside his base, as was shown in the Georgia Senate runnofts. If a House or Senate seat is at all competitive, Trump’s “help” will only sink the R candidate.

  208. 208.

    Jinchi

    @RaflW: The abject failure of Mike Pence to defend himself after Jan 6th, and particularly this past week when ‘sources close to him’ were pointing out Trump defenders lies, but anonymously, well it caps a terrible, mealy, jesus-gazing twatwaffle’s career.

    The funny thing is that in Trump’s mafia-based worldview that glorifies “strength” and vengence, the one who successfully puts the dagger in the boss’s heart often ends up taking control of the whole business.

    Pence had a golden opportunity – Trump took a shot at him and missed. Few would have faulted him for striking back when he had the opportunity and today people like Pence and McConnell would be singing his praises.

  210. 210.

    debbie

    @Amir Khalid:

    Any number of things. He could be saying the mean, horrible things they secretly think so they don’t sully themselves. Or they may not be willing or able to admit they were wrong to ever support him (what I’m going with in regard to my family members).

  213. 213.

    Another Scott

    @PST: I saw similar comments in Liz Dye’s report at Wonkette:

    12:45: PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins says counsel are coming to an agreement that instead of witnesses, they would just stipulate Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record. Otherwise they’ll block all Biden’s nominees. Hi, I have a crazy idea, what if we abolished the filibuster???

    12:52: Leahy recognizes Bruce Castor (dumb cop of dumb cop mean cop), who says we’ll allow Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record. Jamie Raskin agrees and reads her statement.

    Sigh.

    12:58: Well, that was deflating! But here is Jamie Raskin for his closing statement. “After he knew violence was happening at the Capitol, he took measures inflaming the crowd against Mike Pence.” He refused requests to call off the rioters. He taunted Kevin McCarthy, per this evidence that has just been stipulated to be part of the record. It is OBVIOUSLY part and parcel of the offense, inciting violence. It is decisive evidence of his intent to incite an insurrection. When van der Peen says IGNORE IT, that is PLAINLY WRONG. They have no defense. If you start a fire and are charged with arson, you can’t say everything I did after is irrelevant. If you try to get water and put out the flames, the court might infer it was accidental. But if you go and pour more fuel, or watch it gleefully, any reasonable people would infer you are Darrell Issa!

    The timing of voting-to-have-debate-about-witnesses-and-then-deciding-not-to-have-witnesses was a bit odd, but it looks like there were many good reasons why it happened the way it did.

    Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  218. 218.

    WaterGirl

    Totally, OT, but there will be a BJ zoom on President’s Day (Monday 2/15) from 7-9 pm Eastern.  Doors open at 6:30.

    Send me an email if you want to attend.

    *I have not responded to any of the RSVPs yet, so don’t worry that you haven’t received a message from me yet.

  219. 219.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody’s head open,” Graham said. “…

    WTF is that traitorous asshole on about? “Broke somebody’s head open”? WTF is that? He ain’t talking about Kyle Whitenhouse, that’s for sure.

  220. 220.

    RaflW

    @Jinchi: Exactly. Both Mike and Mitch look like weak fools to me. They had the chance to be politically rid of Trump while largely pinning it on the dastardly Democrats, and they failed.

  221. 221.

    Mary G

    @schrodingers_cat: This. One black woman I follow went off, saying oh, there was no justice, boo hoo hoo, we live with this every single day of our lives. I muted more than one drama queen over “I refuse to vote in 2022” bullshit.

  222. 222.

    RaflW

    @SFAW: Also remarkable that Lindsey is now, fatuously of course, saying that an elected leader may be impeached for publicly known conduct that took place before the election.

    It’s just a more grandly absurd version of the nullification of votes by or for Black people.

  223. 223.

    Ken

    @debbie: Heh, this is why I always look it up when I have to use that verb.

    Maybe we could make up a mnemonic. “Lay an egg, lie a-bed, black on red, go ahead”?

    (Or is the coral snake one “black on red, soon be dead”? This mnemonic stuff is harder than I thought.)
    “

  224. 224.

    Mary G

    @SFAW: Lindsey’s letting his racist misogynist flag fly. He pitched a giant fit over the Kavanaugh hearing and has let the grudge fester ever since.

  225. 225.

    zhena gogolia

    @MagdaInBlack:

    Thank you. I read 1400-page Russian novels for a living, so I think I can be forgiven for reading People with my 15-minute breakfast, contra a lot of the commenters here. But I do castigate myself for reading the whole Kim/Kanye article. Usually I’m more discriminating and save my attentive reading for Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas.

  226. 226.

    SFAW

    @Mary G:

    Understood. But what exactly is he talking about with someone’s head getting broked?

    I have little doubt that he’s equating a lone instance (which may or may not have been caused by a BLM-adjacent protester) with the attempted murder of key Dems (the Speaker, for example) and the ex-VP. Seems sort of like how Van Derp Veen equated Klobuchar’s “fight for you” with the Murderer-in-Chief’s incitement.

  227. 227.

    SFAW

    @zhena gogolia:

    I read 1400-page Russian novels for a living

    Seriously? What kind of job do you have? Translating? Scholarly critique/review? Yes, I’m being serious (for a change).

  228. 228.

    Steeplejack

    @brantl:

    To pile on a bit: As others have pointed out, the past tense of lie is lay. You lie down today; you lay down yesterday. The verb lay is transitive; it takes a direct object. You lay something down today; you laid it down yesterday.

    And someone’s (?) stupid comment about “get lay”: “Getting laid” is based on the construction that someone will lay you (which, admittedly, no one has used in decades)—transitive verb with an object. And people get confused by biblical phrases like “He lay with her and she bore him a child” or whatever—lay, past tense of lie.

    All of which is some sawdust-sawing of the finer points of the language, but you can’t dismiss them out of ignorance.

  229. 229.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jinchi:

    They were never, ever, going to have testimony from Capitol police officers. The Republicans would never have allowed it. And contrary to what twitter says, the Republicans had the votes to stop it.

  240. 240.

    Dan B

    @lowtechcyclist: I agree that the McCarthy call is devastating but it was highly susceptible to being a “politicians (untrustworthy) fighting” narrative.  We know that McCarthy is one of the most powerful and conservative GQP’ers.  90% of the public doesn’t or is unsure about his politics.

    I believe that the Dems failed to include injured and terrorized police in their videos as effectively as they could.  The videos were shocking but would have been emotionally powerful if there had been comments from them about their feelings in those terrifying hours, or, in my dreams, testifying live in the Senate.  We know now that Mitch would stall that for months or years.

    Mc Carthy is not a sympathetic character even to the GQP, perhaps to Sasse or Murkowski, although I’m not sure there is a deep well of empathy in any of these old style conservatives.

    I’d love to force the GQP monsters vote to deny justice to the cops who suffered terror for hours, and terrible harm for untold number of years.  I’d like the cops and their families included at the center of the media campaign.

    Perhaps this will happen in criminal suits against the Mango Monsters.

  244. 244.

    trnc

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
     

    If they couldn’t get more witnesses quickly, letting Rep. Herrera Beutler testify, uncontradicted by any other witnesses, would have kept the story of the Trump-McCarthy shouting match in the headlines for a full day (was it even in time to be in Saturday’s headlines?), rather than being wiped out by the acquittal verdict.

    It was an all or nothing deal for witnesses. If dems wanted to call Herrera as the one witness, the Army of Bad Faith would have called 100 and every single one would have to be voted on. On top of that, there were some reports that Herrera was not really keen on testifying, and she’s still a republican. That means maybe getting the one thing about McCarthy confirmed on the stand and then probably a shitload of stuff to deflect from any other republican bad acts.

    The managers did a great job with what they had control over. I suspect they knew as much about their witness options as they did about every other part of their presentation.

  246. 246.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    This.

    Republicans in congress, for the most part, know who and what  shitforbrains is. That they can’t admit it out loud is politically  understandable if also unconscionable. And while we may see them as complete and utter assholes, they are complete and utter political assholes, in a party that allows almost no dissension whatsoever. So when they do see it and do say it, especially the leadership, that is politically important, if not anywhere close enough.

    We are all, I’m sure disappointed that shitforbrains isn’t going to be tried and convicted in every possible place and way, for who he is, what he’s done and what he hasn’t done and what he’s caused. Partially this is the structure of our government, partially the completely asinine way our electoral system operates, in a democracy the people’s vote is actually not what elects our leader. We have a layer of real possibility of electing the person who the majority does not want within thousands of miles of the point of power in our representative government, because he does not in any way represent that majority and we’ve just seen what happens when the system craps out a totally illogical, irresponsible, deranged asshole as our leader.

  247. 247.

    Dan B

    @Barbara: Your legal expertise is excellent.  My question in the impeachment trial is who is the jury?  I believe the actual jury is the American electorate.  The “jury” in the Senate was rigged and even if it had bern impartial the pressure to acquit would likely have been diminished by a small amount.  The fact that 71% of Americans polled believe that Trump was guilty is an excellent outcome.  I believe the next step is to convince them that Trumpism is a threat to democracy and tie that to personal threats to a huge swath of the country, specifically to the white middle class.  It’s not yet imagined as a direct threat with any specificity or any emotional hook.

  248. 248.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Graham is a remora politician. He is the definition of remora politician. His picture should be in the political dictionary under the term remora politician as the leading example.

    He gloms on to whoever is leading the pack, to protect and feed himself. He has no political gravitas, he is total suck up. Either that or he likes the taste of ass, some days it’s hard to tell the difference.

  251. 251.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:

    She has high political aspirations. She’s not the dumbest rock in the box as well. She sees that extreme anything in politics gets one no where in this country, we are now too opposed in what we want from politicians. The hard right wants us to install the south from before the civil war as our leaders and the hard left wants us to install an old man who has all the political acumen of a bag of weed. We’ve seen what happens when the far right gets it’s way. For the last 50 yrs we’ve seen what happens when the right gets their man, not only disaster for the majority, but disaster that doubles every time it happens. The right has doubled down on how far to the right their candidate has to be with every election since Nixon. How well has that gone?

  253. 253.

    JimV

    “What I said or didn’t say here wasn’t gonna change anybody’s calculations” except mine. My rule is:

    1. Go with what Anne Laurie thinks.
    2. . If you’re not sure Anne Laurie is right, see 1.
  256. 256.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Immanentize: @different-church-lady: The AI is clearly imperfect.​

    Chorus of Cornell Glee Club drinking song ca. 1970, updated for 2021:

    AI, yi, yi yi –
    Your processor swims out to troopships!

    ;^p

  257. 257.

    Dan B

    @gwangung: It seems that by your logic train that including video of rioting insurrectionists would not be relevant because Mango Monster was not rioting or there or at the head of the mob.  Police officers personal stories of trying to stop the mob would lend context to the scale of the fury and their recounting of what the rioters were saying is also important for context.

    It’s of no importance to the Senators.  My point is an impeachment is not an ordinary trial.  In this case the GQP was on trial and the public was the jury was the only way this could, in the end, result in justice.  The fact that 71% of Americans believe T*#$× is guilty is where one should measure success or failure.  43 craven GWP Senators would not appear on corporate media talk shows is another measure.  They may wield power but they represent a minority of a minority.  They represent the smallest population per capita and 39% or less of the entire country.  They are as pitiful as they are venal.

  258. 258.

    Dan B

    @Jinchi: I wonder how many brilliant investigators and respected leaders would jump at the chance to be on a 1/6 Commission or on an investigation of Russian and Chinese meddling (hot potato Saudi?).

  259. 259.

    Ruckus

    I think we need to remember that impeachment is a political trial. It is important for the political power that a person has, really nothing more. It is not a trial before a jury in a court of law. There is no prison sentence as punishment, the worst that can happen is the person loses their job. shitforbrains had already done that. Can he be tried in a court for his job actions/mis-actions/lack of actions? Possibly the inciting an insurrection part. Other than that I’d bet the job protects him. And the politics, considering the miles wide differences of concept of the two sides of politics in this country, I’d bet that he will get lots of support. What will work best is if Joe Biden actually makes life in this country a lot better for a lot of people, which shouldn’t be that difficult, given the bug going around, over the next 4 yrs that might change a lot of minds about politics. It might not. But we are still ahead in numbers. I wonder if playing politics ourselves might be the way to go, long term.

  261. 261.

    Dan B

    @piratedan: Great list!  One thought occurred to me.  Mayor Muriel Bowser is quoted requesting that the Capitol Police not be threatening or escalate to deadly force.  It seems to have been in reaction to the violent clearing of Liberty Plaza (?) for the Bible photoshoot.

    I still want to know what slowed down the National Guard because it stinks of criminal delay and abetting a couple.  I’m only a bit concerned about the corporate media spin of Bowser’s statement about limiting police confrontation.

    There’s also the issue of 30,000 rioters vs. 500 or 1,000 police.  I can see a corporate media spin that the police couldn’t have imagined such a large crowd, even though the DOJ had advance warning.  Was this Intel kept from the Capitol Police?

  262. 262.

    Dan B

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder if the Dems tepid pronouncements about GQP threats to stall legislation – Covid relief, and appointments – Garland, is they don’t want to anger McConnell.  He’s going to obstruct everything possible so do they believe he will play nice if they don’t call him out publicly?  Seems like they’re missing the chance to get the full story to the public.

  265. 265.

    Kristine

    @wvng:

    I am happy to be associated with the party that tries to make people’s lives better.

    As I am–I wasn’t saying Dems should be as ruthless. Just that it’s a reality we need to deal with and attack from many angles, including local and state races.

  266. 266.

    Kristine

    This tweet aligns with what I posted. It is referred to as The Principle of Least Interest.

    Actually, I can sum it up in a saying I heard once: “He who cares the least controls the most.” That’s how I feel about the GOP over the last four years.
    — Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) February 14, 2021

  267. 267.

    Le Nettoyeur

    Trump is an autocrat. All autocratic movements suffer from turbulence (and often violence) associated with succession. The classic accelerated model is the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, which went through several fatal leadership changes in just a few months. Russian history is full of  them (Ivan III, Ivan IV—the various false Dmitris— Elizaveta, Piotr, Ekaterina…. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin )……..   I expect thatwe will see a fairly rapid rotation as post Trump  MAGA favorites knock each other out of favor. The more of them, and crazier, the better.  I so love the GQP that I want there to be two or three of them.

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