“But Madison also knew that many of the Convention’s delegates were coming with specific instructions from their state legislatures only to reform the Articles, not do away with them completely. Other delegates were concerned only with the possible benefits to their own states or regions, and not the good of the country as a whole.
Success would require compromise, and compromise required a plan.
Enter Madison’s so-called Virginia Plan. Written in the weeks leading up to the start of the Convention by Madison and other Virginia delegates, the Virginia Plan wound up framing the entire debate that summer. It also served as the template for the resulting Constitution.
The Virginia Plan proposed a bicameral (two-house) national legislature—with representation based partly on state populations—with broad legislative authority, a national executive, and a national judiciary.
The United States finally had a structure sufficient for our federal government. But along with government structure, you need government responsibility. In Madison’s plan we find that structure and the defining feature of the American Republic: The separation of powers.
The U.S. Constitution is the most successful and widely copied national political charter in the history of western civilization. For the first time in history, people founded a system of government based on ideas rather than power, and purposefully delineated a separation of powers to preserve individual liberty.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the power of the federal government is artfully split among three branches that minimally overlap and check each other’s power. Congress, composed of the House of Representatives and Senate, makes the laws; the president makes sure the laws are enforced; the Supreme Court ensures those laws are constitutional.”
And now we see exactly that the GOP and all of its supporters are as unamerican as they can possibly be. They are a disease which threatens the nation.
Dahlia Lithwick knows as much about the courts and our laws as anyone. She shows how the entire GOP is committing treason.
“Trump Is Not Shamed
As the Senate hears his case, Trump is recommitting some of the same offenses that got him impeached in the first place.
One of the reasons House Democrats ultimately impeached Donald Trump is that they recognized that if they didn’t try to stop him from doing crimes, he would be emboldened do more of them. Or to put it another way, if the Congress makes an institutional decision to cede all of its oversight power back to the Executive Branch, the president will come to believe, quite correctly, that he is in fact above the law. Recall that the “perfect” phone call asking the president of Ukraine to announce that he would investigate corruption around Burisma took place the day after Robert Mueller let Trump off the hook in House testimony about Russian election interference. So, after weeks (and months and years) of trying to avoid impeachment entirely, House Democrats realized they had almost no other choice but to go ahead, even though the chance of Trump being removed from office was still essentially zero. Impeachment, put plainly, was undertaken not just to punish past misconduct, but to attempt to deter more of it.
Now, we find ourselves in the middle of an impeachment trial whose outcome is essentially pre-ordained. And as Republicans in the Senate are rewarding Trump for his blanket obstruction of Congress, the president has been chortling in Davos that he is obstructing Congress. In other words, Senate Republicans’ refusal to exercise their oversight muscles means that those muscles are atrophying before our very eyes, and this administration continues to flout the law in real time as a result. Senators who mistakenly think this is all about this president’s single call to Ukraine fail to comprehend that it’s about all kinds of lawlessness on the part of all of his enablers and appointees that they are also choosing to let slide. That lawlessness isn’t a static thing; it begets more and more of the same.
Under cover of the fog of impeachment, in large ways and small, other lawbreaking, other refusals of oversight, and other overt criming keeps on happening. What other bad acts has this president and members of this administration undertaken this month alone? Well, on Tuesday, the Commerce Department announced that it would refuse to obey a congressional demand for the release of a 2018 investigation into national security risks around imports of autos and auto parts, citing a presidential claim that it would “interfere with the president’s ability to protect confidential executive branch communications and could interfere with ongoing negotiations.” (Republican Sen. Pat Toomey “blasted the decision.”) Just last week, without any explanation, the Trump administration abruptly canceled four classified briefings related to the Iran crisis, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused a House request that he speak at a public hearing on the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. This, after there remain profound questions about whether the killing of Soleimani without congressional approval was itself unlawful. Earlier this month, Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, tried to block disclosure of how much taxpayer money has been spent on Secret Service protection for presidential travel for Trump and his adult children until after the 2020 election. Last week, the FBI failed to comply with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton’s order to turn over, by Jan. 17, summaries from interviews with Jared Kushner in Robert Mueller’s investigation to CNN and BuzzFeed. The FBI missed the deadline, then claimed this week that a member of the intelligence community “needs to ensure the material has been properly redacted.” It’s not clear when the summaries will be turned over.
Also this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection deported an Iranian student on a valid visa who was returning to Boston for school. Despite the fact that a federal judge had issued an emergency stay ruling his removal be stayed for two days pending a hearing in his case, CBP ignored this order and sent him home Monday night. Politico is reporting that a CBP officer is now alleging that their staff in the Seattle field office was told to target Iranian-born travelers for such questioning as of early January. On Thursday, a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals excoriated the Board of Immigration of Appeals for overt defiance of an earlier court order, reminding the BIA that “The Board seemed to think that we had issued an advisory opinion, and that faced with a conflict between our views and those of the Attorney General it should follow the latter.” It perhaps bears mention that William Barr and Pat Cipollone—both of whom have participated in the acts at issue in the impeachment—are involved in defending Trump’s conduct in these proceedings. Also this week, D.C.’s Attorney General Karl Racine charged the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization with using $1 million of charitable funds to enrich the Trump family during the inauguration. If you’re interested in more, CREW has more and more. This list isn’t by any means comprehensive, by the way. It’s more a tasting menu. None of this is normal, none of it OK, all of it is sliding by, as oversight moves away from government to journalists and private watchdogs, and as defiance of the law becomes the new normal.
It’s easy to look at all of this and insist that it’s all just Trumpian business as usual. That’s the same impulse that suggests that this impeachment effort is just an effort aimed at removing a despised president who has done nothing wrong. But to do each of these things requires defining unlawfulness down and also defining oversight down. The president’s defense team, in asserting the broadest possible claims that nothing the president does is illegal or impeachable, and also that Congress has no role in checking him, are actively fostering congressional obsolescence. Senators who agree to this as they play with fidget spinners and launch podcasts are greenlighting more law breaking as they limit their own ability to check it.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe this “trial” that allows for no witnesses, no evidence, hollow oaths, and fewer and fewer vertical jurors, is a perfect construct by which to end the illusion that there is such thing as unlawful conduct and also that there is such thing as oversight. And maybe the voters agree. This latest report from the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans believe Donald Trump either has definitely or probably done illegal things, while 70 percent believe Trump has definitely or probably done unethical things. A majority of the 32 percent of Republicans who say Trump has likely done illegal things either during the campaign or while in office also say he should remain in office. (59 percent of those Republicans say he should stay in office, while 38 percent say he should be removed.) That means there’s a not-small swath of Republicans who seem to agree that illegal or unethical conduct is OK for a president. Which, conveniently, is Trump’s argument too.
Nobody should be fooled into believing that Trump himself would be deterred from lawless or improper actions just because he’s in the midst of a Senate impeachment trial. Indeed, as Stephen Collinson has pointed out, given that Trump has never once moderated his conduct in the face of being caught out, we might also recognize that even impeachment won’t stop him and in fact, the possibility of acquittal in the Senate may actually embolden him. “It’s unthinkable that Trump will emerge from his impeachment drama chastened,” Collinson wrote. “He is instead likely to perceive validation for his conduct, and may consider, since he is branded with a historic badge of honor, that he has not got much more to lose and could shed even more restraints.”
The purpose of this trial wasn’t really to change Trump’s behavior; everyone knows that’s not possible. Perhaps it was always at most an attempt to jealously guard congressional prerogatives to define and monitor what the outer boundaries of presidential misbehavior might be. In which case those boundaries are vanished. In giving up on those prerogatives, Senate Republicans are inviting more defiance of any oversight, more blanket claims of immunity, and an ever-expanding class of actions that if taken by the president, cannot be illegal. That’s not something that will happen next month or next year. It’s happening as the impeachment itself unfolds.”
I can only imagine what Europe is thinking at Davos. I will never be back there again for any length of time during the rest of me my life. And the third “I,” I found myself having to explain why we as a people do the things we do culturally. It appears the tide is turning in Congress and amongst the people. We may be able to throw trump out of office and his followers. I think most of them know Trump is doing what it is claimed he is doing and what he has been found to be doing. They believe they are invincible . . . 10 months left.
” WASHINGTON ― At the center of the latest scandal threatening to take down President Donald Trump is $391 million in military aid that the U.S. leader reportedly asked his staff to freeze for two months before dropping the hold a week ago, under pressure from lawmakers.
On Wednesday, Washington was consumed with a July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. According to a memorandum of the call released by the White House, Zelenskiy asked to buy American-made Javelin anti-tank weapons, and Trump asked Zelenskiy to help him work with U.S. officials to investigate political rivals.
That call fueled a whistleblower’s complaint that has become central to the formal impeachment inquiry launched Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the call also highlights the vital role of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which has lost 13,000 of its people since its conflict with Russia began in 2014.
Here’s what you need to know about the U.S. military aid to Ukraine.”
”
By: Joe Gould September 26, 2019
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The Senate voted to send President Trump a measure to extend Ukraine military aid. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
WASHINGTON ― The Senate voted to send President Donald Trump a measure to avoid a government shutdown and extend Ukraine military aid that’s at the center of the House’s presidential impeachment inquiry.
Trump is expected to sign the continuing resolution, which passed the Senate by a bipartisan 82-15 vote, a week after it passed the House, 301-123. All the “nays” were from Republicans.”
And in order to ratf!ck his way to another election, trump illegally held back this aid for personal gain. That’s the crime the GOP cannot seem to deal with.
And then there are the effects.
“”Where were you on July 25th,” Crow began, speaking of the day of the president*’s now infamous phone call to the Ukrainian president. “It was a Thursday, and the members of the Senate were in this chamber.”
“On July 25 across the Atlantic are 68,000 troops stationed throughout Europe were doing what they do every day. Training and preparing to support our allies and defend against Russia. The professionalism and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform is a source of great strength, but America is also strong and America is also secure because we have friends.
“On July 25, 2019, one of those friends was a man named Alexander Markis. In a story told by the Los Angeles Times, Alexander was a soldier in the Ukrainian army defending his country and Europe against Russian backed forces on Ukraine’s eastern front. He was in a trench . He was 38 years old. Alexander would later died defending his country during a mortar attack on his fighting position. Giving his life just like over 13,000 of his fellow Ukrainians on the front lines of the fight for liberty in Europe.
“That same Los Angeles Times article painted a picture of what the Ukrainians were going through during this time. Quote, tens of thousands of Ukrainians like Markis volunteered to fight the Russian backed separatists in the east. Many of them were sent to the frontline wearing sneakers and without flak jackets and helmets . Let alone rifles and ammunition. Ukrainians across the country organized in an unprecedented united civil movement not seen since world war ii to raise money to supply their ragtag military with everything from soldiers boots to bullets. And while our friends were at war with Russia, wearing sneakers , some without helmets , something else was happening. On July 25 , president trump made a phone call. He spoke with Ukrainian President Zelensky and asked for a favor. And on that same day , just hours after his call , his administration was quietly placing an illegal hold on critical military aid to support our friends.”
For the first time, the consequences of the president*’s selfish shakedown of the Ukrainian government had some blood and bone to them. It was not merely that the president* tried to blackmail an embattled ally into helping him ratfck his way to another term. That, god knows, was bad enough. But he also sold out ill-equipped patriots like Alexander Markis and 13,000 of his countrymen. Jason Crow did this impeachment trial a great good service. He took it out of the realm of bureaucrats and politicians and brought it into the lives of soldiers, like himself. Alexander Makris was just another person who got used and discarded by this reckless president* of ours, who never even knew his name.”
I’m sure trump was not considering heling the russians with this latest crime, but it is just another “coincidence” of the vast amount of his foreign policy helping Putin.
I suspect the vote is already in for acquittal of the 2 charges made against Trump. I do not see a good ending to any of this as his supporters will say it was all a Dem lie and trump will be emboldened to do more. The priority is to win the majority in the Senate which will only enable Dems to block Repubs as they can still filibuster. At least if trump is re-elected (and I can see this happening considering the candidates we have running who keep back-stabbing each other), Dems can block him somewhat.
I disagree. Of course there was never a doubt that Trump would not be held accountable by the Senate, that wasn’t the point.
The point was to drive Dem voters to the polls to oust him from office, and that will also help to have Dems unite behind the primary winner despite the backstabbing that has so far taken place (not that much, but still discouraging).
Those Dem voters who withheld their votes voted to the 2016 primary nonsense only had an idea of what trump would be. Now they know that he is a danger to our entire Constitution and country.
Hopefully, there will not be any Susan Sarandons this election. May she rot in hell.
And on a subject which you and I agree, this Senate unfairness is the biggest criticism of the writers of the Constitution.
” January 22, 2020
GOP Senators Representing a Minority of Americans Are Preventing a Fair Impeachment Trial
Republicans who blocked a call for witnesses on Tuesday represent 15 million fewer people than Democrats who voted yes.
On Tuesday, senators representing 153 million Americans outvoted senators representing 168 million Americans.
A majority of the US public supports President Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, and an overwhelming majority wants new witnesses to testify in the Senate’s impeachment trial. But Senate Republicans appear almost certain to succeed in acquitting Trump and blocking the admission of new evidence.
On Tuesday, the first day of the Senate’s trial, Republicans defeated a series of amendments by Democrats to admit new evidence and call new witnesses on a 53–47 party-line vote. What explains the disconnect between the actions of Senate Republicans and the views of the public? Put simply, Senate Republicans do not represent a majority of Americans.”
The Senate was never supposed to represent by population. The filibuster was only allowed because Aaron Burr eliminated the “previous question” motion because Senators were considered to be gentlemen and would not disrupt procedure. The Senate was to be ruled by majority vote.
Could the Senate be established to represent by population the same as the House? It could be; but lets fix the issue of the House truly representing by population and fix the issues in the Senate where a minority of Senators can rule over the rest of them.
And now we have an issue where Trump threatens Senators. No one in the Republican Party and in the Senate will stand up to him and they know the issues.
Of course this is all expected. Despite all the facts, there was never a chance that trump would be impeached by the Senate.
Hopefully, this sham Senate excerzise, especially the lies, will drive Dem voters to the polls in record numbers. Personally, I am waiting anxiously for the first day to vote. And even though I live in unfamiliar territory right now, I have signed up to get out the vote.
They are such total ahs.
“Trump’s Defense Team Argued the Case Like They Know They Have the Votes
And they do have the votes, so nothing matters—not even the truth.
WASHINGTON—On Saturday, the president*’s defense team in his impeachment trial presented what amounts to the trailer for its actual case. It is entirely possible that the full banquet of crazy may be served up when we resume on Monday, but, for now, anyway, the White House’s lawyers are simply arguing the case on the basis that they Have The Votes.
Why else would they constantly refer to how long the House managers took to present their case while assuring the senators that the defense case won’t take that long? Why else would they make the transparently hilarious case that the president* is being denied due process when they know that the Republican majority in the Senate voted in lockstep against calling witnesses, and will do so again, even if it’s put up for a vote, which I doubt it will be? Why else would they manage the feat, heretofore thought impossible, of spending two hours talking about the Ukraine scheme without once mentioning the name, “Rudolph Giuliani,” let alone “Lev Parnas”? (Neither, it should be said, were either Joe or Hunter Biden, although that I am sure is coming Monday.) This is how you argue when you know you Have The Votes.
Also, when you Have The Votes, you can begin your presentation this way, the way lead counsel Pat Cipillone did on Saturday.
‘We believe that when you hear the facts, and that’s what we intend to cover today, the facts, you will find that the president did absolutely nothing wrong.’
Absolutely nothing wrong.
No errors in judgment. No rookie mistakes. And certainly no high crimes and/or misdemeanors.
Absolutely nothing wrong. A perfect phone call. A full gallon of vintage Flavor-Aid all around.
It would have been so easy for them to say the president* screwed up, that he did something wrong, but not something that requires the drastic step of handing the presidency over to Mike Pence. But that would not please the essential Audience of One whom the defense lawyers have to satisfy. You do not say in public that the president* made a mistake, let alone committed a crime. My dear men, this simply is not done, not unless you want the Internet hellhounds on your trail. Fear is driving the defense team as surely as it’s driving the Republican caucus, and it’s fear that has guaranteed that the defense team Has The Votes.
They’ve known they Have The Votes ever since all those Democratic amendments went down on the first day of the trial. And if they didn’t know it then, they knew it after Friday night, when all of the allegedly wavering Republican senators decided to get all huffy because of something Adam Schiff said.
When you know you Have The Votes, you can say anything at all. You can pretend that most of the people in the Senate chamber have not watched the news at any time since the House Judiciary Committee held hearings. You can pretend that there have been no interviews with Lev Parnas, and that there aren’t any tapes proving that, contrary to his denials, the president* knew Parnas damned well and that it was Parnas who lobbied him (successfully) to have Marie Yovanovich smeared and then relieved as ambassador to Ukraine, not that the president* could find the sand to do it himself. He subcontracted the job to Parnas and his American running buddy, He Who Shall Not Be Named, former mayor of New York. When you know you Have The Votes, nothing matters, not even the unfolding truth, which gets worse for them every day.”
The basis of our country.
“But Madison also knew that many of the Convention’s delegates were coming with specific instructions from their state legislatures only to reform the Articles, not do away with them completely. Other delegates were concerned only with the possible benefits to their own states or regions, and not the good of the country as a whole.
Success would require compromise, and compromise required a plan.
Enter Madison’s so-called Virginia Plan. Written in the weeks leading up to the start of the Convention by Madison and other Virginia delegates, the Virginia Plan wound up framing the entire debate that summer. It also served as the template for the resulting Constitution.
The Virginia Plan proposed a bicameral (two-house) national legislature—with representation based partly on state populations—with broad legislative authority, a national executive, and a national judiciary.
The United States finally had a structure sufficient for our federal government. But along with government structure, you need government responsibility. In Madison’s plan we find that structure and the defining feature of the American Republic: The separation of powers.
The U.S. Constitution is the most successful and widely copied national political charter in the history of western civilization. For the first time in history, people founded a system of government based on ideas rather than power, and purposefully delineated a separation of powers to preserve individual liberty.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the power of the federal government is artfully split among three branches that minimally overlap and check each other’s power. Congress, composed of the House of Representatives and Senate, makes the laws; the president makes sure the laws are enforced; the Supreme Court ensures those laws are constitutional.”
https://pacificlegal.org/the-founding-fathers-of-our-limited-government-james-madison-and-the-fight-for-the-separation-of-powers/
And now we see exactly that the GOP and all of its supporters are as unamerican as they can possibly be. They are a disease which threatens the nation.
Dahlia Lithwick knows as much about the courts and our laws as anyone. She shows how the entire GOP is committing treason.
“Trump Is Not Shamed
As the Senate hears his case, Trump is recommitting some of the same offenses that got him impeached in the first place.
One of the reasons House Democrats ultimately impeached Donald Trump is that they recognized that if they didn’t try to stop him from doing crimes, he would be emboldened do more of them. Or to put it another way, if the Congress makes an institutional decision to cede all of its oversight power back to the Executive Branch, the president will come to believe, quite correctly, that he is in fact above the law. Recall that the “perfect” phone call asking the president of Ukraine to announce that he would investigate corruption around Burisma took place the day after Robert Mueller let Trump off the hook in House testimony about Russian election interference. So, after weeks (and months and years) of trying to avoid impeachment entirely, House Democrats realized they had almost no other choice but to go ahead, even though the chance of Trump being removed from office was still essentially zero. Impeachment, put plainly, was undertaken not just to punish past misconduct, but to attempt to deter more of it.
Now, we find ourselves in the middle of an impeachment trial whose outcome is essentially pre-ordained. And as Republicans in the Senate are rewarding Trump for his blanket obstruction of Congress, the president has been chortling in Davos that he is obstructing Congress. In other words, Senate Republicans’ refusal to exercise their oversight muscles means that those muscles are atrophying before our very eyes, and this administration continues to flout the law in real time as a result. Senators who mistakenly think this is all about this president’s single call to Ukraine fail to comprehend that it’s about all kinds of lawlessness on the part of all of his enablers and appointees that they are also choosing to let slide. That lawlessness isn’t a static thing; it begets more and more of the same.
Under cover of the fog of impeachment, in large ways and small, other lawbreaking, other refusals of oversight, and other overt criming keeps on happening. What other bad acts has this president and members of this administration undertaken this month alone? Well, on Tuesday, the Commerce Department announced that it would refuse to obey a congressional demand for the release of a 2018 investigation into national security risks around imports of autos and auto parts, citing a presidential claim that it would “interfere with the president’s ability to protect confidential executive branch communications and could interfere with ongoing negotiations.” (Republican Sen. Pat Toomey “blasted the decision.”) Just last week, without any explanation, the Trump administration abruptly canceled four classified briefings related to the Iran crisis, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused a House request that he speak at a public hearing on the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. This, after there remain profound questions about whether the killing of Soleimani without congressional approval was itself unlawful. Earlier this month, Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, tried to block disclosure of how much taxpayer money has been spent on Secret Service protection for presidential travel for Trump and his adult children until after the 2020 election. Last week, the FBI failed to comply with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton’s order to turn over, by Jan. 17, summaries from interviews with Jared Kushner in Robert Mueller’s investigation to CNN and BuzzFeed. The FBI missed the deadline, then claimed this week that a member of the intelligence community “needs to ensure the material has been properly redacted.” It’s not clear when the summaries will be turned over.
Also this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection deported an Iranian student on a valid visa who was returning to Boston for school. Despite the fact that a federal judge had issued an emergency stay ruling his removal be stayed for two days pending a hearing in his case, CBP ignored this order and sent him home Monday night. Politico is reporting that a CBP officer is now alleging that their staff in the Seattle field office was told to target Iranian-born travelers for such questioning as of early January. On Thursday, a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals excoriated the Board of Immigration of Appeals for overt defiance of an earlier court order, reminding the BIA that “The Board seemed to think that we had issued an advisory opinion, and that faced with a conflict between our views and those of the Attorney General it should follow the latter.” It perhaps bears mention that William Barr and Pat Cipollone—both of whom have participated in the acts at issue in the impeachment—are involved in defending Trump’s conduct in these proceedings. Also this week, D.C.’s Attorney General Karl Racine charged the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization with using $1 million of charitable funds to enrich the Trump family during the inauguration. If you’re interested in more, CREW has more and more. This list isn’t by any means comprehensive, by the way. It’s more a tasting menu. None of this is normal, none of it OK, all of it is sliding by, as oversight moves away from government to journalists and private watchdogs, and as defiance of the law becomes the new normal.
It’s easy to look at all of this and insist that it’s all just Trumpian business as usual. That’s the same impulse that suggests that this impeachment effort is just an effort aimed at removing a despised president who has done nothing wrong. But to do each of these things requires defining unlawfulness down and also defining oversight down. The president’s defense team, in asserting the broadest possible claims that nothing the president does is illegal or impeachable, and also that Congress has no role in checking him, are actively fostering congressional obsolescence. Senators who agree to this as they play with fidget spinners and launch podcasts are greenlighting more law breaking as they limit their own ability to check it.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe this “trial” that allows for no witnesses, no evidence, hollow oaths, and fewer and fewer vertical jurors, is a perfect construct by which to end the illusion that there is such thing as unlawful conduct and also that there is such thing as oversight. And maybe the voters agree. This latest report from the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans believe Donald Trump either has definitely or probably done illegal things, while 70 percent believe Trump has definitely or probably done unethical things. A majority of the 32 percent of Republicans who say Trump has likely done illegal things either during the campaign or while in office also say he should remain in office. (59 percent of those Republicans say he should stay in office, while 38 percent say he should be removed.) That means there’s a not-small swath of Republicans who seem to agree that illegal or unethical conduct is OK for a president. Which, conveniently, is Trump’s argument too.
Nobody should be fooled into believing that Trump himself would be deterred from lawless or improper actions just because he’s in the midst of a Senate impeachment trial. Indeed, as Stephen Collinson has pointed out, given that Trump has never once moderated his conduct in the face of being caught out, we might also recognize that even impeachment won’t stop him and in fact, the possibility of acquittal in the Senate may actually embolden him. “It’s unthinkable that Trump will emerge from his impeachment drama chastened,” Collinson wrote. “He is instead likely to perceive validation for his conduct, and may consider, since he is branded with a historic badge of honor, that he has not got much more to lose and could shed even more restraints.”
The purpose of this trial wasn’t really to change Trump’s behavior; everyone knows that’s not possible. Perhaps it was always at most an attempt to jealously guard congressional prerogatives to define and monitor what the outer boundaries of presidential misbehavior might be. In which case those boundaries are vanished. In giving up on those prerogatives, Senate Republicans are inviting more defiance of any oversight, more blanket claims of immunity, and an ever-expanding class of actions that if taken by the president, cannot be illegal. That’s not something that will happen next month or next year. It’s happening as the impeachment itself unfolds.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/donald-trump-impeachment-criming-congressional-check.html
EM:
I can only imagine what Europe is thinking at Davos. I will never be back there again for any length of time during the rest of me my life. And the third “I,” I found myself having to explain why we as a people do the things we do culturally. It appears the tide is turning in Congress and amongst the people. We may be able to throw trump out of office and his followers. I think most of them know Trump is doing what it is claimed he is doing and what he has been found to be doing. They believe they are invincible . . . 10 months left.
” WASHINGTON ― At the center of the latest scandal threatening to take down President Donald Trump is $391 million in military aid that the U.S. leader reportedly asked his staff to freeze for two months before dropping the hold a week ago, under pressure from lawmakers.
On Wednesday, Washington was consumed with a July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. According to a memorandum of the call released by the White House, Zelenskiy asked to buy American-made Javelin anti-tank weapons, and Trump asked Zelenskiy to help him work with U.S. officials to investigate political rivals.
That call fueled a whistleblower’s complaint that has become central to the formal impeachment inquiry launched Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the call also highlights the vital role of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which has lost 13,000 of its people since its conflict with Russia began in 2014.
Here’s what you need to know about the U.S. military aid to Ukraine.”
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/25/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-us-aid-package-to-ukraine-that-trump-delayed/
”
By: Joe Gould September 26, 2019
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The Senate voted to send President Trump a measure to extend Ukraine military aid. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
WASHINGTON ― The Senate voted to send President Donald Trump a measure to avoid a government shutdown and extend Ukraine military aid that’s at the center of the House’s presidential impeachment inquiry.
Trump is expected to sign the continuing resolution, which passed the Senate by a bipartisan 82-15 vote, a week after it passed the House, 301-123. All the “nays” were from Republicans.”
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/26/senate-passes-ukraine-aid-extension-stopgap-spending-bill/
And in order to ratf!ck his way to another election, trump illegally held back this aid for personal gain. That’s the crime the GOP cannot seem to deal with.
And then there are the effects.
“”Where were you on July 25th,” Crow began, speaking of the day of the president*’s now infamous phone call to the Ukrainian president. “It was a Thursday, and the members of the Senate were in this chamber.”
“On July 25 across the Atlantic are 68,000 troops stationed throughout Europe were doing what they do every day. Training and preparing to support our allies and defend against Russia. The professionalism and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform is a source of great strength, but America is also strong and America is also secure because we have friends.
“On July 25, 2019, one of those friends was a man named Alexander Markis. In a story told by the Los Angeles Times, Alexander was a soldier in the Ukrainian army defending his country and Europe against Russian backed forces on Ukraine’s eastern front. He was in a trench . He was 38 years old. Alexander would later died defending his country during a mortar attack on his fighting position. Giving his life just like over 13,000 of his fellow Ukrainians on the front lines of the fight for liberty in Europe.
“That same Los Angeles Times article painted a picture of what the Ukrainians were going through during this time. Quote, tens of thousands of Ukrainians like Markis volunteered to fight the Russian backed separatists in the east. Many of them were sent to the frontline wearing sneakers and without flak jackets and helmets . Let alone rifles and ammunition. Ukrainians across the country organized in an unprecedented united civil movement not seen since world war ii to raise money to supply their ragtag military with everything from soldiers boots to bullets. And while our friends were at war with Russia, wearing sneakers , some without helmets , something else was happening. On July 25 , president trump made a phone call. He spoke with Ukrainian President Zelensky and asked for a favor. And on that same day , just hours after his call , his administration was quietly placing an illegal hold on critical military aid to support our friends.”
For the first time, the consequences of the president*’s selfish shakedown of the Ukrainian government had some blood and bone to them. It was not merely that the president* tried to blackmail an embattled ally into helping him ratfck his way to another term. That, god knows, was bad enough. But he also sold out ill-equipped patriots like Alexander Markis and 13,000 of his countrymen. Jason Crow did this impeachment trial a great good service. He took it out of the realm of bureaucrats and politicians and brought it into the lives of soldiers, like himself. Alexander Makris was just another person who got used and discarded by this reckless president* of ours, who never even knew his name.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30633693/jason-crow-ukraine-soldier-impeachment-trial/
I’m sure trump was not considering heling the russians with this latest crime, but it is just another “coincidence” of the vast amount of his foreign policy helping Putin.
EM:
I suspect the vote is already in for acquittal of the 2 charges made against Trump. I do not see a good ending to any of this as his supporters will say it was all a Dem lie and trump will be emboldened to do more. The priority is to win the majority in the Senate which will only enable Dems to block Repubs as they can still filibuster. At least if trump is re-elected (and I can see this happening considering the candidates we have running who keep back-stabbing each other), Dems can block him somewhat.
I disagree. Of course there was never a doubt that Trump would not be held accountable by the Senate, that wasn’t the point.
The point was to drive Dem voters to the polls to oust him from office, and that will also help to have Dems unite behind the primary winner despite the backstabbing that has so far taken place (not that much, but still discouraging).
Those Dem voters who withheld their votes voted to the 2016 primary nonsense only had an idea of what trump would be. Now they know that he is a danger to our entire Constitution and country.
Hopefully, there will not be any Susan Sarandons this election. May she rot in hell.
Run,
And on a subject which you and I agree, this Senate unfairness is the biggest criticism of the writers of the Constitution.
” January 22, 2020
GOP Senators Representing a Minority of Americans Are Preventing a Fair Impeachment Trial
Republicans who blocked a call for witnesses on Tuesday represent 15 million fewer people than Democrats who voted yes.
On Tuesday, senators representing 153 million Americans outvoted senators representing 168 million Americans.
A majority of the US public supports President Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, and an overwhelming majority wants new witnesses to testify in the Senate’s impeachment trial. But Senate Republicans appear almost certain to succeed in acquitting Trump and blocking the admission of new evidence.
On Tuesday, the first day of the Senate’s trial, Republicans defeated a series of amendments by Democrats to admit new evidence and call new witnesses on a 53–47 party-line vote. What explains the disconnect between the actions of Senate Republicans and the views of the public? Put simply, Senate Republicans do not represent a majority of Americans.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/gop-senators-representing-a-minority-of-americans-are-preventing-a-fair-impeachment-trial/
EM:
The Senate was never supposed to represent by population. The filibuster was only allowed because Aaron Burr eliminated the “previous question” motion because Senators were considered to be gentlemen and would not disrupt procedure. The Senate was to be ruled by majority vote.
Could the Senate be established to represent by population the same as the House? It could be; but lets fix the issue of the House truly representing by population and fix the issues in the Senate where a minority of Senators can rule over the rest of them.
And now we have an issue where Trump threatens Senators. No one in the Republican Party and in the Senate will stand up to him and they know the issues.
Of course this is all expected. Despite all the facts, there was never a chance that trump would be impeached by the Senate.
Hopefully, this sham Senate excerzise, especially the lies, will drive Dem voters to the polls in record numbers. Personally, I am waiting anxiously for the first day to vote. And even though I live in unfamiliar territory right now, I have signed up to get out the vote.
They are such total ahs.
“Trump’s Defense Team Argued the Case Like They Know They Have the Votes
And they do have the votes, so nothing matters—not even the truth.
WASHINGTON—On Saturday, the president*’s defense team in his impeachment trial presented what amounts to the trailer for its actual case. It is entirely possible that the full banquet of crazy may be served up when we resume on Monday, but, for now, anyway, the White House’s lawyers are simply arguing the case on the basis that they Have The Votes.
Why else would they constantly refer to how long the House managers took to present their case while assuring the senators that the defense case won’t take that long? Why else would they make the transparently hilarious case that the president* is being denied due process when they know that the Republican majority in the Senate voted in lockstep against calling witnesses, and will do so again, even if it’s put up for a vote, which I doubt it will be? Why else would they manage the feat, heretofore thought impossible, of spending two hours talking about the Ukraine scheme without once mentioning the name, “Rudolph Giuliani,” let alone “Lev Parnas”? (Neither, it should be said, were either Joe or Hunter Biden, although that I am sure is coming Monday.) This is how you argue when you know you Have The Votes.
Also, when you Have The Votes, you can begin your presentation this way, the way lead counsel Pat Cipillone did on Saturday.
‘We believe that when you hear the facts, and that’s what we intend to cover today, the facts, you will find that the president did absolutely nothing wrong.’
Absolutely nothing wrong.
No errors in judgment. No rookie mistakes. And certainly no high crimes and/or misdemeanors.
Absolutely nothing wrong. A perfect phone call. A full gallon of vintage Flavor-Aid all around.
It would have been so easy for them to say the president* screwed up, that he did something wrong, but not something that requires the drastic step of handing the presidency over to Mike Pence. But that would not please the essential Audience of One whom the defense lawyers have to satisfy. You do not say in public that the president* made a mistake, let alone committed a crime. My dear men, this simply is not done, not unless you want the Internet hellhounds on your trail. Fear is driving the defense team as surely as it’s driving the Republican caucus, and it’s fear that has guaranteed that the defense team Has The Votes.
They’ve known they Have The Votes ever since all those Democratic amendments went down on the first day of the trial. And if they didn’t know it then, they knew it after Friday night, when all of the allegedly wavering Republican senators decided to get all huffy because of something Adam Schiff said.
When you know you Have The Votes, you can say anything at all. You can pretend that most of the people in the Senate chamber have not watched the news at any time since the House Judiciary Committee held hearings. You can pretend that there have been no interviews with Lev Parnas, and that there aren’t any tapes proving that, contrary to his denials, the president* knew Parnas damned well and that it was Parnas who lobbied him (successfully) to have Marie Yovanovich smeared and then relieved as ambassador to Ukraine, not that the president* could find the sand to do it himself. He subcontracted the job to Parnas and his American running buddy, He Who Shall Not Be Named, former mayor of New York. When you know you Have The Votes, nothing matters, not even the unfolding truth, which gets worse for them every day.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30662436/trump-senate-trial-defense-have-the-votes/