Impeach Trump Y/N

rumblings this morning that he will split his votes on the two counts

BIPARTISAN TOTAL EXONERATION

lonely senator thinking baout things

This is one thing where it's fine for Manchin to be chickenshit for "electability" since there's zero chance of conviction anyway.

we have to let manchin take this unethical vote so that we can get him re-elected so that he'll be there as a democrat for important votes, such as, i don't know, an impeachment hearing

manchin is like a permanent IOU - he's definitely going to pay out at the end!

Doug Jones, theoretically even more vulnerable, just made a definitive request for witnesses based on the WH defense.

man, fuck manchin. he's not up for re-election 'til 2024. grow some cojones.

Lede on NPR news: "Senate Republicans impressed with opening argument of Trump defense team." Your public radio donations at work!

(I realize M L Kelly did well, but otoh they give the likes of Jonah Goldberg regular slots)

for sure, NPR is a continual let down of "evenhanded" coverage these days, it's almost a performance piece

the trump/fruman/parmas "get rid of her" tape is now public

whereas the "grab her pussy" tape has been public for over three years now.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmaloop/trump-tape-yovanovitch-take-her-out-parnas-fruman-giuliani

trying to stay positive about things, where i can, so i'll note that this is very good timing. this is directly relevant to the impeachment proceedings, it is now public, and to not admit it as evidence in the "trial" is indefensible. yes, i know most of the GOP will vote to keep it out of the trial anyway. but it makes that decision more painful for them, at worst, and there's a chance that it could split off a few GOP votes for admitting evidence/witnesses

it's also kind of fascinating to have an hour long recording of trump candidly sharing his views with crooks, in a Nixon tapes kind of way

lots of golf talk, how surprising

these nimrods guffawing at every shit-for-brains utterance

It’s also mildly instructive that Parnas apparently is not bright enough to voice-record, so just used his camera app to make a video, with the phone face down on the table

Not that it makes a difference at all but I think it’s Fruman

well i'll tell you what, the next media session with the press secretary is going to be pretty intense, i don't...oh wait

^Jan 2021

xp more astounding yet that whoever is in charge of such things is perfectly cool w ppl having phones in the room at all much less on the table

when Rudy Giuliani is your cybersecurity czar

Republican Sen. Mike Braun said he hopes the impeachment process will “be instructive” for President Donald Trump’s conduct if he’s acquittedhttps://t.co/KJds56rkoe

— POLITICO (@politico) January 26, 2020

*bloodcurdling scream*

it will instruct him for damn sure, that the worst a Republic Senator will ever do is frown at him briefly, no matter who he shoots on Fifth Avenue.

Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

trump never even met bolton. i mean, maybe at a fundraiser or something, but

bolton is a democrat!

trump is not a racist!

At another point, Mr. Trump, while indulging a familiar lament — that other countries are not trading fairly with the United States — unleashed a tirade against the European Union.

“The European Union is a group of countries that got together to screw the United States,” Mr. Trump told his guests. “It’s as simple as that.”

Mr. Trump continued: “And frankly, they’re probably worse than China in a sense, just smaller. They’re worse than China in the sense of barriers.”

“But the European Union is really bad,” he said. “You know it doesn’t sound like it. You know, the European Union, we’re all sort of from there, right? But the European Union is brutal. But we’re changing that rapidly, too. They can’t even believe it.”

“The European Union is a group of countries that got together to screw the United States"

Uh, the United States more or less imposed the European Steel and Coal Community, the original precursor to the EU, on Europe in 1951 during the post WWII era. The European Common Market, created by the Treaty of Paris in 1959, was vigorously applauded by the USA as in complete accord with US interests during the Cold War. When the EU was formed, the USA was ecstatic to see its long-held foreign policy goal of a united Europe coming so much closer to fruition.

Tangentially as a crossword addict I was intrigued when the ECU (an actual historical French monetary unit) was floated as an EU standard.

But I was frkn _ecstatic_ at the idea of the EMU (European Monetary Unit), purely because I loved the mental image of the European version of Fort Knox: millions of emus strutting cluckingly about, waiting to be employed to do their part in a trade-rich transnational economy.

... are we the baddies?

Is there a bombshell counter anywhere online? https://t.co/OuJzRDWUmF

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2020

lol Ken Starr is so horrible at this!

Haha, I guess his non-yelliness is welcome, but I feel like I'm being sermonized by an elderly pastor.

the Jonathan Edwards of a new generation

something tells me that trump and every single GOP senator are finding starr incredibly inspiring and insightful, leading them to even more new perspectives on how trump has done nothing wrong

Tuning in to the Democrats last week, I must confess it felt like listening to an evangelical radio station. I can only assume the Republicans sound the same and then some.

From what I gather so far the defense is
1 impeachment is mean
2 everybody agreed on Nixon, not so here

It's kind of crazy how many people on Trump's team have been involved in covering up for sexual predators. Starr, Dersh, Jim Jordan ...

makes sense - how many different things do we experience that involve one person speaking for an hour at a time without commercials, without interruption or interaction by others? it's pretty much impossible in 2020,
because anything that can attract mass attention is monetized. sermons and these impeachment proceedings are one of the few exceptions

xp to "I must confess it felt like listening to an evangelical radio station."

both pastors and ken starr would look better if they put a giant Pennzoil logo running down their armsleeves

also if they were struck by lightning mid-sermon.

BREAKING:

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) said that he had been reading “Gone with the Wind” when I asked what he thought about the weekend’s Bolton news, but added that it “remains to be seen” whether the Senate should hear from Bolton.

When asked why wouldn’t the Senate want to hear from a firsthand witness, Roberts conceded that “that’s a good question.”

Has anyone thought to just...ask McConnell why he wouldn't allow witnesses? I'll bet it's a thing he just hasn't really thought much about and if you asked him he would just get real pensive with like a faraway look as the notion finally sank in for the first time. 'Huh...why wouldn't we allow witnesses?'

update: 50% achieved, 2 targets remain

Democrats, who control 47 votes, need the support of four Republicans to effectively commandeer the trial and force the Senate to consider calling witnesses. But of the four Republicans who have suggested they are open to doing so, only two — Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah — said on Monday that the Bolton report persuaded them that witnesses were needed.

A third, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said he was “curious,” but was otherwise noncommittal. The fourth, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, was similarly vague.

of course, you gotta watch out for Manchin, who may need to vote with republicans now so that he can have the advantage in his re-election in 2024, so that perhaps in the future he can be there to vote with democrats during important votes

It's all just so nakedly debased. Like a detective showing up to work with a shiny new lunchbox and saying, nah, we don't need to investigate that lunchbox warehouse heist, it'll work itself out. I'm talking one of those lunchboxes with the full-size canteen and everything.

update: 50% achieved, 2 targets remain

2 likely not possible because no one wants to be 51. it will be more than 51 or fail.

operation "two birds with one stone"

we're gonna need a miracle