“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

...The biggest and the best argument for moving ahead is to get back to the work of the COVID relief bill. But my understanding is that the Senate is preparing to start a weeklong recess and fly home. That speaks for itself and with a horrible, demoralizing deflation.

Senate Democrats and Majority Leader Schumer have thus far shown many signs of learning the lessons of the last decade, not negotiating against yourself, not honoring norms and imperatives toward comity your opponents mock and disregard. This decision signaled a failure to grasp the damage sustained by deeply demoralizing your supporters. It opens those who defend them to ridicule and contempt. That sows internal coalitional turbulence and division. More than anything, Senators are in a terribly vulnerable position when they show themselves to be less committed, more indifferent, less dedicated than the voters who put them in office. We’re rushing off to go on break? That’s a terrible look, as is what seems from every angle to be an inexplicable climb down and surrender. Countless Americans gave everything of themselves to bring the nightmare of Trumpism to a conclusion. This, I’m genuinely sorry to say, makes a mockery of that.

I will be very curious to hear more about what precisely was happening here in the background. Did the majority of the Democratic Senators not have the stomach for it? Were they tired of the process and wanted to bring it to an end, like their Republican counterparts so clearly do? Or were there one or two senators who said no and maintaining caucus unity was more important than forcing the split public? I really don’t know which of these it is.

But again, the lack of any explanation, the spectacle of holding all the cards and then inexplicably folding is just a gut blow for a lot of people, at least for a lot of committed partisans, the people Senators will need to be rallying for them, spending long hours phone banking, knocking on doors, giving money to them next year when they struggle to hold control of the Senate. As I said Senators are in a terribly vulnerable position when they show themselves less committed and dedicated, more indifferent than the voters who put them in office.

i think everyone here has learned the correct lessons

From Baton Rouge: “The Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Louisiana has unanimously voted to censure Senator Bill Cassidy for his vote cast earlier today to convict former President Donald J. Trump on the impeachment charge.”

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) February 13, 2021

There was a lot of discussion yesterday about what the president knew and when he knew it,”

I get that this would have been a clear thing to show people, but this is what I was trying to get at above. If a super bad thing a guy did was to personally put out a hit on one of his own, maybe you shouldn’t really be arguing whether people did or didn’t give him status reports on it going down. It makes him look like a bystander, when he was no such thing. But whatever.

On the plus side, he's not president anymore, so fuck him forever. I look forward to his death.

I thought Plaskett's and Swalwell's arguments and video clips on Wednesday were very forceful and clearly incriminated him directly in putting Pence and Pelosi and the rest of them in danger, also the evidence read into the record today from Jaime Herrera Beutler

Whatever investigations that were going to happen are still going to go ahead regardless of this aren't they?
LIke is there anything that is likely to shed more light on events and expose it for what it was. I take it those in the public who had the capacity to care already do so and those who don't were either involved or rooting for them.

Would be good to see some bad punished for once. I'm intrigued as to whether some of the possibly expected justice might be diverted in the wake of this on top of this. But will keep fingers crossed taht there might be developments related , won't hold breath though.

Must give those who are involved in the court system in the US at the moment a real desperation about whether there is such a thing as justice but maybe that is something they already doubted

NEW: White House -- "We accepted the resignation of TJ Ducklo after a discussion with him this evening." pic.twitter.com/mrm0NwzXQn

— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) February 14, 2021

The unit of time formerly known as a "Scaramucci" will now be known as a "Ducklo."

did TJ Ducklo do something else or did they finally realize it was wrong not to fire him

Ducklo's own statement fairly tone-setting on its own:

My statement on resigning from the White House. pic.twitter.com/3Jpiiv75vB

— TJ Ducklo (@TDucklo) February 14, 2021

What did this person do?

Threatened another journalist. Shoulda been fired immediately but glad they're gone either way

Reportedly threatened a woman reporter covering the WH. The unacceptable language he used has been left out of news reports I've seen. At least it wasn't another non-apology-apology, as we get so often. He accepted blame, showed contrition, and resigned. Hard to do more under the circumstances.

Here's a summary from New York magazine:

After being friends for years, deputy White House press secretary TJ Ducklo and Axios political reporter Alexi McCammond finally admitted their feelings for each other in November 2020. Their feelings presented a professional conflict of interest: They met when Ducklo was the press secretary on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and McCammond was covering it for Axios. After they both disclosed their relationship to their respective employers that same month, Axios said they took McCammond off the Biden beat — but she still covered Vice-President Kamala Harris, making the distinction between her old and new beats unclear. A People article published on Monday broke the news of their budding romance, which was an open secret in Washington. “TJ and I knew full well the unfair criticism our relationship might face,” McCammond told People, “but [we] knew that we weren’t going to let bullies get in the way of our own happiness.”

Enter Politico’s Tara Palmeri. On Friday, Vanity Fair reported that Palmeri, a reporter for Politico’s Playbook, asked McCammond about her romance before the People story was published (one of Palmeri’s male colleagues reached out to Ducklo). That’s when Ducklo, wanting to kill the story, subsequently made a menacing off-the-record call to Palmeri, instead of the male reporter who had reached out to him. According to Vanity Fair, he threatened to ruin Palmeri’s reputation and said, “I will destroy you.” He is quoted making additional sexist comments, accusing Palmeri of reporting the story because she was “jealous” of his relationship with McCammond and “jealous” of the fact that an unnamed man had previously “wanted to fuck” McCammond and not Palmeri. Gross.

Ducklo made the threatening call to Palmeri on Inauguration Day, which is also when President Biden addressed his new employees at a virtual swearing-in ceremony. “I’m not joking when I say this: If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot,” the new president said. “No ifs, ands, or buts.” Yet, the administration placed Ducklo on a one-week suspension without pay after his threats were published. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when Ducklo returns, he will “no longer be assigned to work with any reporters at Politico.”

“It feels like she is punishing us more than him,” an unnamed Politico reporter told CNN’s Oliver Darcy, since the White House is effectively cutting off communication between a high-ranking official and Politico, something that is neither here nor there for the White House, but detrimental to the entire Politico team.

One White House official, according to Vanity Fair, criticized Palmeri “by accusing her of breaking an off-the-record agreement with Ducklo and pressing Politico as to why the contents of the call had been revealed.” Palmeri said she only told her editors about Ducklo’s threatening phone call when they asked her about it. Another recent time journalists debated whether to honor off-the-record agreements with a threatening source involved McCammond, strangely enough. In November 2019, she had an off-the-record conversation with former basketball player Charles Barkley, who told her, “I don’t hit women, but if I did, I would hit you.” She justified breaking their agreement and going public by tweeting that “threats of violence are not a joke, & no person deserves to be hit or threatened like that. Silence only allows the culture of misogyny to fester. And those kinds of comments don’t merit off-the-record protections.”

The McCammond-Ducklo-Palmeri debacle is part of a broader story about the Biden administration’s antagonistic relationship with the press, which isn’t as overtly hostile as the previous administration, but more underhandedly contentious. Palmeri observed on Twitter last week that, during daily press briefings, “If Psaki doesn’t like your question, she doesn’t call on you.” If Ducklo doesn’t like your question, I suppose you’re in for a lot worse.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/i-will-destroy-you-biden-aide-threatened-a-politico-reporter-pursuing-a-story-on-his-relationship
it happened weeks ago, took a while for the press secretary to even punish him it looks like. contrition developed over time.

But outside the managers’ debate, momentum for witnesses was growing.

By Saturday morning, multiple liberal Democrats had joined the earlier call by Whitehouse, including Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

But the bulk of Senate Democrats arrived in the Capitol not expecting the face a witness vote. The case the House had presented, they thought, was overwhelming and witnesses would do little to move GOP votes.

“They made such a strong case,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “If I thought any further witnesses would change any Republican minds, I’d say go for it. But I don’t think so.”

On a 9 a.m. caucus call, Schumer repeated a line that had become a mantra for Senate Democrats over the previous week: If the managers chose to call witnesses, Democrats would support them. But multiple people on the call said they were left with the impression that the issue had been settled and that witnesses would not be called.

It wasn’t settled.

According to a person close to the managers who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, Schumer’s staff had been briefed Friday night that the witness question had not been resolved — and it remained a live issue well into Saturday morning.

Herrera Beutler’s statement was intriguing to the managers: She was a potential friendly witness who could testify, albeit indirectly, about Trump’s state of mind on Jan. 6. The managers had homed in on a limited request to seek her testimony.

The final decision, though, wasn’t made until minutes before the Senate was scheduled to convene. Schumer’s staff was informed of the decision at 9:55 a.m. — five minutes before the gavel was to go down.

Raskin rose and asked the Senate to call Herrera Beutler, calling the account she relayed “an additional critical piece of corroborating evidence further confirming the charges before you, as well as the president’s willful dereliction of duty and desertion of duty as commander in chief of the United States.”

Van der Veen, Trump’s lawyer, thundered in response, suggesting the request violated a prior “stipulation” not to call witnesses. He issued a threat: “They want to have witnesses, I’m going to need at least over 100 depositions, not just one.”

The threat was largely an idle one — it was up to the Senate, not Trump’s team, how many witnesses could be called, but the message was clear: Calling witnesses was a recipe for delay.

On a 54-to-46 vote, the Senate moved to authorize witnesses, a tally that carried a warning: Two Republican senators thought to be in play for conviction, Cassidy and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.), had voted against witnesses — indicating they had seen enough.

The vote threw the Senate into temporary chaos as senators, aides, managers and defense lawyers all scrambled to figure out what was next. In fact, no one knew. Under the trial rules, the rules themselves would have to be renegotiated to account for witnesses.

Frustrations rose among Senate Democrats. One Democrat familiar with the internal discussions said “it was clear the managers had no plan” and “didn’t know what their next step was.”

Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a close ally of President Biden’s, visited the manager’s room off the Senate floor, according to a House aide. He told the managers any delay would cost Republican votes to convict — and potentially Democratic votes, too.

“The jury is ready to vote,” he told them. People want to get home for Valentine’s Day.”

Jonathan Kott, a spokesman for Coons, said the senator “was simply conveying to the House managers that several of his Republican colleagues told him there were no more votes on their side and their members were ready to fly home.”

Coons urged them to accept an emerging deal — introduce Herrera Beutler’s written statement into the trial record and move on with closing arguments, sidestepping any further debate over witnesses.

Less than two hours after the witness vote, Raskin returned to the floor and read Herrera Beutler’s statement out loud. “Mr. President, we have no further motions,” he said at 12:52 p.m.

Three hours later, Trump was acquitted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-democrats-learned-of-managers-witness-decision-only-minutes-in-advance/2021/02/13/8e3e821e-6e2d-11eb-ba56-d7e2c8defa31_story.html

like a well-oiled machine

Not empathizing with the idiot racist shitstains, but jfc, letting the rich guy off while putting his followers in prison for years is some real USAmerican justice shit.

it's really dumb, the whole thing

Based on his statement today, my guess is he’ll be holding rallies again by May.

I don’t think he’s a realistic threat to be president again, but I think we are in for some terrifying years to come.

Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a close ally of President Biden’s, visited the manager’s room off the Senate floor, according to a House aide. He told the managers any delay would cost Republican votes to convict — and potentially Democratic votes, too.

“The jury is ready to vote,” he told them. People want to get home for Valentine’s Day.”

I invite Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) to deep-kiss my hole for Valentine's Day, and every day thereafter.

"we can't possibly hold a racist shitstain accountable for encouraging his followers to overthrow the government and install an Evangelical white ethno-fascist state, we have a made-up corporate holiday to celebrate"

how fucking bad of a politician do you have to be to say that out loud

Won’t someone think of all the disappointed mistresses.

nothing matters, i guess

like, it was there place of work that the mob terrorized, not mine. and they don't even give a shit.

how fucking bad of a politician do you have to be to say that out loud

Are you a bad politician if it's not going to cost you your job? Coons has nothing to fear by being honest here.

nothing matters, i guess

you say that, but I doubt you act like you meant it in anything but the most ephemeral way.

Biden administration backs DeVos in fight over testifying about loan forgiveness

DeVos is no longer the defendant in the lawsuit since she resigned from office Jan. 7 in the wake of the Capitol riots. But lawyers for the student borrowers say they need her testimony to get to the bottom of why her agency for years slow-walked the loan forgiveness claims and then began churning out denial letters with little explanation.

Democrats for four years slammed DeVos’ handling of student loan forgiveness for defrauded borrowers under a program known as “borrower defense to repayment.” President Joe Biden has vowed to reverse DeVos’ approach and restore Obama-era policies that were designed to more easily relieve the debts of students who were misled or cheated by their college.

But the Justice Department under the Biden administration is now coming to DeVos’ defense in the lawsuit, teaming up with her personal attorney this week to fight the subpoena compelling her testimony.

“Plaintiffs’ demand for a former Cabinet official’s deposition is extraordinary, unnecessary, and unsupported,” DeVos’ personal attorney and Justice Department lawyers wrote in a joint court filing on Monday. “It is a transparent attempt at harassment — part of a PR campaign that has been central to Plaintiffs’ litigation strategy from the outset.”

So are things like totally fucked or is it just a little bit on the encoule scale.

So I don’t know, obviously I would have loved for the Dems to have pulled out every stop and just laid into Trump’s team with everything they had, including witnesses. But I’m lucky in that I’m doing ok right now, and the main thing I wanted from the Senate right now was to force consequences onto Trump. But that’s not everybody. A lot of people need actual help right now. I feel like we’re lucky to have gotten the impeachment trial we got, without having to wait until after the first 100 days. The impeachment managers put together a solid case in a format that was easily digestible and very public. It’s all on the record now, and his defenders are tied to their votes forever. It seems like the general optics were on the Dems’ side, which is encouraging, but it wouldn’t have lasted forever. The Republicans have a way of turning a bad hand into an advantage, and I have no doubt they would have gamed the system into some kind of delay, during which they could have pointed fingers and blamed the Dems for focusing on Trump instead of taking real action to help people. I think they cut bait at the right time. They got all the positives they were ever going to get out of this trial that they were never going to “win”, and now it’s time to get to work on more productive and tangible agenda items. Nobody says they are completely halting all investigations into Trump- they just allowed the hopeless impeachment trial to end without getting dragged out for too long. I would think the House and Senate committees have plenty of Trump-related inquiries to follow, and there are better avenues than impeachment for getting some actual teeth into Trump.

Also, Neanderthal and Alfred vm otm throughout above.

I don't know how to feel

whole thing was weird

but, at the end of the day, there was no satisfying ending to this

Nothing that requires a large group of heavily entrenched individuals to admit that they were horribly wrong is ever going to have a satisfying ending, I feel like.

has everybody infected by GOPers refusing to wear masks during this recovered ok?

Couldn't they just infect each other happily.

There are going to be a lot of people looking to replace these enablers as soon as possible and hopefully picking up on any false moves they make during the next 2 years at least but is that going to have any effect? or is this conscience numbness universal to all of that anyway.

epistantophus extremely otm imo

I have a feeling there was a bit of rope-a-dope going on wrt to witnesses but who knows. Repubs a have a way of crowing about every result as though it were a win.

As the day went on, and the clumsiness of the whole episode aside, I came around to the view that no-witnesses was the right call. I do sigh, though, every time I see the clip of Trump's lawyer saying "You want witnesses? Okay, then I'll need to call 100 witnesses." He's practically Dr. Evil making up the most arbitrary number that pops into his mind. (Although I suppose if he were really Dr. Evil, it would have been "then I'll need to call five witnesses.")

It’s time to get to the more important work of helping the American people

...after Valentine’s Day, which is obviously sacred to all of us, and a week recess in the senate to wash some of the trump administration’s feces and boot debris off their tongues

the optics of this are pretty bad for the Dems, but as always, I'm not sure what they can do in the confines of a system that endlessly rewards those who act in bad faith. I hate letting these idiots dictate the terms but they absolutely would've wasted weeks or even months on this. with the Dems in control of all 3 houses and staring down the face of encroaching fascism I don't think this is the best use of their time. they got 57 votes, that's more than anyone would've thought a month ago. ever since "grab 'em by the pussy" it's been abundantly clear that there would never be any political consequences for Trump. legally though, who knows, there is so much pending shit against him that had to wait until his term was up, and his actions since losing the election probably doubled or tripled his problems. that NY AG case ain't going away & knowing what we do about him it feels like this one will be a slam dunk as well. I don't think Trump is going to have the luxury of spending the first 4 years quietly plotting his return.

(also, maybe this is just me, but I don't think barring him from future office is really a high priority when Twitter basically made that decision already)

Dems in control of all 3 houses and staring down the face of encroaching fascism I don't think this is the best use of their time.

wasn't that what they were doing at the trial? staring down the face of fascism and trying to send a clear signal that it wouldn't be tolerated in this country?

i get it, it was going nowhere. republicans would have delayed. but is the house incapacitated right now? and is the senate capable of doing other things for the next 3 weeks as depositions take place, as the nation suffers the continuing wounds of _being reminded about the fascist administration_ that had to be physically and violently forced out of DC? couldn't the senate resume the trial in 3 weeks, for a few afternoon seshes?

also, i saw an op-ed this morning in the WashPost advocating for Trump's return to Facebook. for bullshit reasons. he'll be back.

it really is a post truth society

it doesn't matter, nothing we can do, best to forget about it and move on

ugh, i'm sad as fuck and i'm mentally slotting this thread into the running theme of the adam curtis doc where people just don't give a fuck anymore because they tried all the other ways and got their ass kicked

Despite the frustrating acquittal, there was no real attempt to flip the narrative to “TOTAL EXONERATION” or anything. This whole trial was a big loss for Republicans and they took their lumps. It really does feel like Trump’s power over them has diminished somewhat. Thank god for the Twitter ban, why didn’t it happen sooner.

After brewing a cup of strong tea, I flipped through the Big Three Sunday morning talk shows and, yeah, was surprised: while more than a few commentators wondered why the Dems had turned the witness question into a vote, they all said Trump, the first president impeached by a majority, was "damaged goods" or whatever, ripe picking for Georgia and New York courts.

I’m trying to look beyond the result of the trial and at the bigger picture. Somehow it really feels different this time, more like the Rs are admitting defeat despite the votes they cast. But I guess it’s a feeling more than anything right now, maybe I’m wrong.

Kicking him off Twitter did it.

But KM your frustration and anger is justified and I am not trying to handwave away your feelings.

Sorry epistantophus, I didn’t mean to pull you (or anyone else) into that. I don’t think you’re wrong. I’m just so frustrated.

I’m not sure there will ever be a time to more directly confront (and punish) republicans who strongly supported the maga crowd - trump, but also Cruz, Hawley, the others.

They will eventually be up for re-election, and Democrats could attempt to win those elections, which isn’t punishment exactly, but I’m not the punishing sort

wasn't that what they were doing at the trial? staring down the face of fascism and trying to send a clear signal that it wouldn't be tolerated in this country?

but they were never going to get any results that way. like, if we want to argue that America has already fallen to fascism, consider that in both impeachment trials Trump was A) clearly guilty and B) stood no chance of being convicted. the end result was just as assured as Putin winning an 8th term or whatever. we know what the GOP is capable of and how low they will go. we also know that they are a minority in this country. Dems should focus on what they can control - get rid of the filibuster, pass covid relief, get working on DC statehood, expand voting rights, unfuck the post office, start getting public sentiment against the electoral college cuz I really don't see how the GOP wins the popular vote before 2040

if the goal is to keep this shit in the news and tar the GOP for as long as possible, open up a 9/11-style commission into the events. I mean if there's one good thing coming out of all this, it's that Dems are increasingly pissed and the fact that Trump has faced basically no consequences whatsoever (outside of a social media ban, which to be fair isn't exactly nothing) is a huge albatross over this country right now. if the Biden administration starts talking about a need for unity and how we need to "move on" it'll be a political disaster for them. if they don't want to get crushed in 2022 they HAVE to try to prosecute.

Getting crushed in 22 seems baked in to me, like 2degC warming