Category: 2020

The Democratic’s Party Mask Has Been Removed And They Are Just As Ugly As We Told You

Posted on by Wayne Dupree

The long, winding road of impeachment has dominated the conversation in Washington since allegations that President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine as a political tactic to harm Joe Biden became public in September.

Or that is what the media wants us to believe as they will rewrite the narrative. No, it started the day after Trump was elected. Tell the truth. Democrats said they found collusion? I agree, but not like you think.

MORE NEWS: Now That Trump Has Been Acquitted, Are We In Agreement The Dem’s Future Is On Fumes?

  • Collusion is when the Attorney General in charge of investigations, has a secret meeting on the tarmac with the spouse of someone that’s under investigation.
  • Collusion is when the media provides the questions to a presidential debate in advance, to one of the candidates.
  • Collusion is when a political party conspires with one candidate to rig their primary against the other candidate.
  • Collusion is when a sitting President wiretaps a candidate from an opposing party, to help their party.
  • Collusion is when government officials leak classified information to the media in an attempt to smear a sitting president.
  • Collusion is when the FBI Director gives immunity to persons involved in a criminal investigation, that destroyed critical evidence.

Now that I showed you the craziness that is the Democratic Party let’s talk about what their latest failed attempt has resulted in.

Trump’s base of loyal voters and supporters just dug in deep for the election run, and there’s nothing the media can do to stop or change it. Not only did impeachment strengthen Trump’s chances for re-election, but it also showed that any president could be impeached when the opposition party won the majority in the House of Representatives, whether or not a justification for impeachment exists.

MORE NEWS: Gingrich: Pelosi Should be Censured for “Viciously Partisan” Actions

The impeachment process, no matter how one looks at it, has divided the country beyond anything I’ve ever seen in nearly 60 years. The press wants to blame Trump because they don’t like him. The Democrats blame Trump because they don’t like him.

In other words, the Democrats were not concerned with what Trump did; they were using all of their investigations to affect change in the upcoming election, just what they accused Trump of doing. Anyone with a brain will recognize this and will not vote for any of the Democrats. Of course, Democrats do not care about reality, they only care about their entitlements.

What other results has impeachment accomplished? It has shown us the insidious side of the Democrats. They think that they are doing this for the greater cause of this country, which they truly believe they are the chosen ones to see things through. It’s really about power and the swamp. And they’re doing this with all of our money. Unfortunately, the Obama years put the Democrats in Lalaland, thinking that all the vote-buying measures he put in place would cement their control forever, then along came Trump. At a time when, under Obama’s watch, only a semblance of this country was left.

MORE NEWS: New Video Shows Pelosi Practicing Ripping Up Trump’s State Of The Union Speech

The impeachment process was also about voter manipulation. The Democrats have poisoned the election process and will be held responsible in years to come. I blame the media and democrats for dealing with the situation and not doing their job. There is no longer fair news reporting.

The Democratic Party is in freefall, and they don’t have one leader who knows how to fix it or wants to. The mask as been taken off, and America has seen just how ugly and evil that party is.

Most of us in the United States are pretty moderate, but our nominees from both sides may not be in recent years. I think the primary system is broken. The most extreme on either end tend to vote in the primaries disproportionately since the people who care the most about politics are the ones who are paying attention this early. That means that the moderate candidates have a harder time getting nominated, even if they are the ones that most Americans would prefer to vote for.

Please read up on the candidates this year and get out and vote in the primaries.

What Others Are Reading On WayneDupree.com

 

The post The Democratic’s Party Mask Has Been Removed And They Are Just As Ugly As We Told You appeared first on The Political Insider.

Moscow Mitch completes his cover-up, but not without some hitches and real jeopardy ahead

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Moscow Mitch McConnell has a poker face. It’s lipless and chinless, but it’s still a poker face. But he has a tell he can't control when he gets angry: His face gets red. His face was very red on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon after Republican Sen. Mitt Romney delivered an honest-to-God inspiring and moving speech explaining why he would vote to convict impeached president Donald Trump on the first article of impeachment.

That vote, and the impassioned, honest, and eloquent speech that grounded it, will haunt every Republican in the Senate for the remainder of their careers. "Were I to ignore the evidence what has been presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history's rebuke and the censure of my own conscience," Romney said. That's a soundbite that can be used in every campaign against each of the Senate Leader’s vulnerable Republicans, for the rest of the year—and by Moscow Mitch’s own challenger. That speech and vote from Romney blast a big hole in McConnell's most important message: The Republican-controlled Senate is safe.

It's time to end McConnell's destructive stranglehold on the republic. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as majority leader.

When McConnell trotted out that message after the vote today, it rang hollow. "Every one of our people in tough races is in better shape today than they were before the impeachment trial started," he said, knowing that it was absolutely not true. He also knows that this will not be the end of revelations about Trump's illegal and impeachable behavior. He knows that this will only embolden Trump to do more outrageous and dangerous things. And he certainly knows that the American people’s anger will land on the Republicans who protected Trump.

Especially the majority leader who orchestrated the entire sham of a trial.

YouTube Video

Boy, does Susan Collins look like a craven, partisan hack today or what?

Posted on by Joan McCarter

What a day for Maine Sen. Susan Collins, huh? Her colleague, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, just provided a master class in political principle, courage, and independence—you know, all those qualities Collins has pretended to possess during her too-long Senate career. How will she look anything other than craven, compared to that? Her actions seem particularly gutless after the cringe-inducing interview she gave CBS to explain her vote to acquit impeached president Donald Trump.

"I believe that the president has learned from this case," Collins said. "The president has been impeached. That's a pretty big lesson." Uh, huh. How much has he learned? The Washington Post's Josh Dawsey tweets the answer, reporting on the pre-State of the Union lunch Trump had with news anchors: "Asked about Sen. Susan Collins saying he'd learned a lesson, Trump told the anchors he did not agree. He had done nothing wrong. 'It was a perfect call.'" So much for that. Now Collins says she shouldn't have said "believe" and a better word would have been "hopes." Uh, huh. 

Collins has chosen her side, and Maine knows it. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

It’s just like the time she "hoped" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's promise to give her a vote on her health bills in return for her support on the GOP Tax Scam was "ironclad." Just like she hoped that now-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would respect precedent on Roe v. Wade.

She's not impressing anyone in Maine, and her actions are drawing very unfavorable comparisons to Romney with political observers back home. Steve Collins, the State House reporter for the Sun Journal in Lewiston and apparently no relation to the senator, tweeted that the combination of Romney's decision and Trump's disavowal of having learned a damn thing "combine to make her decision to acquit politically dicier." He continues, "She likes to claim the middle ground. But it's Romney, not her, who is standing on it."

The Democrats respond to Trump’s State of the Union

Posted on by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has designated rising star Democratic women to provide the Democratic response to the State of the Union. Michigan's first-term Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is delivering the English-language response. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a freshman representing El Paso, Texas, is delivering the Spanish-language response.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:33:29 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

Whitmer begins by noting that she’s at her daughter’s public school, which is quite the contrast with Trump’s attacks on public education.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:35:48 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

Whitmer is going with optimism over Trump’s message of fear, with the importance of potholes and infrastructure and what Democrats like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy are doing about it.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:36:48 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

“Bullying people on Twitter doesn’t fix bridges—it burns them.”

Whitmer then turns to health care and her time as a member of the sandwich generation, caring for her own baby and for her mother during her mother’s fight with cancer.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:39:15 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

Whitmer goes on to emphasize teens who’ve raised money for medical treatment for themselves or their loved ones. “No one should have to crowdsource their health care. Not in America.”

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:39:53 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

Have to say, a lot of the time the role of the SOTU response is a kiss of death for a rising politician, but Whitmer feels really strong here.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:41:20 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

“Michigan invented the middle class, so we know: if the economy doesn’t work for working people, it just doesn’t work.” Whitmer goes on to tout House Democrats’ legislation to raise the minimum wage and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. She takes that right home to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:42:37 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

If there’s a Democratic governor who isn’t getting a shout out here, that person must be pretty unhappy, because this is a strong litany of actions Democratic governors have taken for working families.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:44:13 AM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

On impeachment: “The truth matters. Facts matter. And no one should be above the law.”

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:48:25 AM +00:00 · Gabe Ortiz

Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, delivering the Spanish-language Democratic response, addresses the white supremacist terrorist attack that devastated her community:

“On August 3rd of last year, El Paso suffered from the deadliest targeted attack against Latinos in American history.  A domestic terrorist confessed to driving over 10 hours to target Mexicans and immigrants.  Just before he began his killing spree, he posted his views online and used hateful language like the very words used by President Trump to describe immigrants and Latinos.

That day, the killer took 22 innocent lives, injured dozens, and broke all of our hearts.

Incidents of gun violence take place in our schools, places of worship and neighborhoods every single day.”

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:49:14 AM +00:00 · Gabe Ortiz

Rep. Escobar on Trump’s lawlessness and the need to continue fighting for accountability:

“We know that President Trump violated his oath by asking for foreign interference, jeopardizing the integrity of our elections, putting our national security at risk, and then attempting to cover up his wrongdoing.    

This is a tragic moment, and Congress must defend our republic. 

We Democrats will continue to fight for truth and for what is right.

No one is above the law.”

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:50:50 AM +00:00 · Gabe Ortiz

Rep. Escobar: “From attacks against Dreamers, family separation, the deaths of migrant children, to the Remain in Mexico policy that sends asylum seekers into dangerous situations. These are policies none of us ever imagined would happen in America in our lifetime. 

I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island for the first time.  I was in awe of Lady Liberty.  She stands as the guardian of our ideals—that all people are created equal, that the vulnerable are to be cared for and not shunned, and that America is the shining example of goodness.  

It is up to all of us—in the face of one of the most challenging times in history—to reflect the dignity, grace of Lady Liberty and the values of America.”

Live coverage of impeached president’s State of the Union speech, #2

Posted on by Joan McCarter

The bad reading job of "meticulous and carefully honed" words appearing on a teleprompter by impeached president Donald Trump continues.

Chat amongst yourselves about it here. Watch on every national broadcast channel, the cable news channels, C-SPAN, or your choice of news outlets on YouTube.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:06:01 AM +00:00 · Barbara Morrill

Ongoing coverage can be found here.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:38:38 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

He actually says this. "NO PARENT should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.” Government. School. Fuck you, impeached president. And fuck you more for exploiting a young person of color in this.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:39:58 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The announcement on a scholarship for Janiyah Davis was not in Trump's prepared remarks

— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:40:34 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter Secretary of Education standing up, smiling and applauding him talking about failing government schools.  Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:42:46 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

You knew that was coming—protecting patients with pre-existing conditions. WHILE HE’S SUING IN FEDERAL COURT TO HAVE IT DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:43:06 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Also, he’s trying to take away people’s Social Security disability.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:45:16 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

WALK OUT DEMOCRATS. WALK OUT RIGHT NOW!

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:47:22 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Pelosi mouths "Not true" twice when Trump asserted Democrats wanted to give taxpayer funded health care to undocumented immigrants

— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:48:00 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

They should really walk out of the room, but this is something.

Dems are now chanting HR 3 � their drug pricing bill. Trump is trying to talk over them

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:50:03 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Rush. Fucking. Limbaugh. Rush. Fucking. Limbaugh.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:52:36 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

So, Susan Collins, about that Trump learning from being impeached and modifying his behavior. What do you say tonight?

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:54:23 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Melania Trump giving racist Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the same #SOTU speech where Trump tries to use black people as props for his political agenda is offensive.

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:56:17 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Now we’re onto the forced birther part of the speech. After he touted taking food away from 7 million people. Cuz he’s pro-life.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:58:02 AM +00:00 · Gabe Ortiz

None of the Republicans who are standing up to clap for anti-abortions legislation did anything when there were babies in cages and dying at the hands of ICE and CBP. That tells you everything you need to know about their "values" #SOTU

— Bruna B. Sollod (@brunasollod) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 2:58:04 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Oh, hey. It’s infrastructure week again.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:02:03 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

We’re back to the horrifically racist shit and reveling in gore and violence again, to talk about immigration and sanctuary cities. Fucking monster.

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:02:24 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter A rapist talking about how awful another rapist is. Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:02:36 AM +00:00 · Gabe Ortiz

Trump back to scaring folks about so-called “sanctuary cities.” The truth: 

These policies don�t give immigrants special protections; they ensure they have basic constitutional rights that can�t be trampled on and focus law enforcement resources on protecting local communities instead of on jailing families and separating children.#sotu #sotu2020

— Battle Born Progress (@BattleBornProg) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:03:04 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

these illegal alien snuff film incitement passages are always a disgrace

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:03:28 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

We are now onto late-term abortion and we've lost another Democratic congressmember. @RepSpeier has left the chamber, folks. �

— Kadia Goba (@kadiagoba) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:04:10 AM +00:00 · Gabe Ortiz

We are hearing, again, as in previous #SOTU, horrible stories that distort a reality � immigrants, with or without papers, commit less crime than people born in the United States.

— Monica Campbell (@monica_campbell) February 5, 2020

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2020 · 3:05:19 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Do you suppose Trump will next talk about all the people killed and hurt by the massive rise in white supremacist violence. No? Okay. #SOTU

— Arshad Hasan (@ArshadHasan) February 5, 2020

Moscow Mitch: Master of covering up Trump’s election cheating

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Moscow Mitch McConnell, so well-known for, among other things, his efforts to cover up Russia's interference on behalf of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, is now scorching the political ground of the Senate over the idea that an impeached Trump should be convicted and removed from office for trying to extort and bribe Ukraine into interfering on his behalf in 2020.

In a particularly loathsome and vile performance Tuesday, McConnell said, "It insults the intelligence of the American people to pretend this was a solemn process reluctantly begun because of withheld foreign aid." Which is really a leap, since the majority of the American people support Trump's impeachment and at least pluralities support his removal from office. If the intelligence of the American people is being insulted here, it's by the travesty he and fellow Republicans are inflicting on the republic.

It's time to end McConnell's destructive stranglehold on the republic. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as Senate majority leader.

"We must vote to reject the House's abuse of power," McConnell said, and "vote to keep factional fever from boiling over and scorching our Republic." Yes, this is the same McConnell who has been coordinating with Trump's lawyers—including Pat Cipollone, who turned out to be a material witness to Trump's attempted extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—at every step of the way in this process.

The man who says partisan fever "led to the most rushed, least fair and least thorough presidential impeachment inquiry in American history" is trying to keep "factional fever" from "scorching our Republic." That's really rich. There's only one answer from a smart American public: We end his Senate majority.

Eleven takeaways from last night’s Iowa debacle

Posted on by kos

What a night, huh? Here are the big takeaways:

1) Ever since there was a Daily Kos in 2002, I’ve railed against the Iowa caucus system. It is unfair (who made Iowa king?), unrepresentative (91% white and mostly rural), and undemocratic. With turnout expected to be around the same as 2016’s, and well off the 2008 mark, it means that only about 6% of Iowa voters turned out. And yet it’s this small group of people that’s supposed to shape the field for us? Enough is enough. The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus is a disgrace, and finally everyone else sees it. 

2) There is no conspiracy theory that explains away the incompetence of Iowa’s Democratic Party. That’s what happens when an unelected elite thinks it deserves an unearned gift—complacency and unresponsiveness.

3) That said, Joe Biden benefits the most, given what seems to be, by all indications, a dismal night. In our world of media micro-cycles, we’ll be moving on to chattering about whether Donald Trump will mention impeachment in tonight’s State of the Union address, the New Hampshire debate, and New Hampshire’s looming primary (another unrepresentative state with an unearned pole position in the primary). 

4) The biggest loser, conversely, is the person who appears to have won the night—Bernie Sanders. He loses his prime-time victory speech. Ironically, it was his campaign’s insistence that Iowa count actual votes that led to last night’s disaster, but don’t blame him—he was right. While Hillary Clinton won the delegate counts in the 2016 caucuses, chances are very good that Sanders would’ve won a count of the popular vote. And why are we recreating everything that is wrong with the Electoral College at the state level? The obvious answer was to ditch the stupid delegate counts and just declare the popular vote winner the winner, right? But the Sanders camp didn’t push that. 

5) The biggest asshole of the night was small-liberal-college-town Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who gave a victory speech utterly divorced from the reality on the ground. His pretend “I won and shocked the nation” speech was everything we hate about politics—a Trumpian attempt to create reality by merely declaring it so. 

6) It’s hard to see how Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar continue forward from here. Sure, there’s no reason to quit before New Hampshire, but they’ve got no juice left. They bet all on Iowa, and Iowa said, “We suck,” and that was that. 

7) Republicans are taking a victory lap, with a “If they can’t run a caucus, how can they run a country?” tour. Let them have it. We’d do the same if they were in these shoes. Luckily for everyone, the Iowa Democratic Party isn’t on the presidential ballot. I think we could agree to vote for the other candidates instead. And you can always ask them about the raging success of their “repeal and replace” strategy. 

8) The cable networks pretty much all cut away from Elizabeth Warren’s speech, for reasons that make zero sense. Now, Klobuchar was smart enough to go onstage when the cable network pundits were all staring at each other with nothing to say or do. But really, with all that dead air to fill, just play the candidate speeches. All of them. I mean, CNN cut away from Warren to put on RICK FUCKING SANTORUM. Unacceptable. 

9) Given last night’s mess, it’s extrafortuitous that our new national pre-primary primary (aka “2019”) whittled down the field before Iowa could get its grubby hands on it. As a result, candidates spent less time in Iowa than they had in prior cycles.

x

Now I’m looking forward to seeing that number go down to single digits in future cycles. 

10) Another note on turnout: 

x

11) For all the talk about Sanders reshaping the electorate, it’s just not happening. If he eventually gets 25%, which seems about right, he will have lost half his support from 2016, without managing to increase the number of caucus-goers. Fact is, only Barack Obama has managed to “reshape the electorate” in recent history, and we have no one of his caliber on the line. Michelle Obama would’ve done it. Hard to see anyone else. And that’s tragic, because Obama made everything so much easier. 

Buttigieg: 63 Million People Might Have Voted for Trump But All of Them Are Still Racist

Posted on by Guest Author

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has said time and again that he believes Americans who voted for President Donald Trump are racist. On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Buttigieg if he regretted saying this.

Does Pete Buttigieg Really Believe 63 Million Americans are Racist?

“Republicans have been seizing, including in a new Trump ad, a statement you made that ‘Anyone who supported this president is, at best, looking the other way on racism.’ You’ve also said that on my show,” Tapper explained. “That’s almost 63 million Americans who you’re painting with a pretty broad brush. Do you regret saying that at all?”

Buttigieg responded without hesitation.

RELATED: Team Trump Airs Super Bowl Ad Touting President’s Important Criminal Justice Reform

“No. I’m very concerned about the racial division that this president has fostered,” the former South Bend, Indiana mayor explained. “And I’m meeting a lot of voters who are no longer willing to look the other way on that, looking for a new political home.”

Polls Show Trump Approval is Up with Minority Voters

If Buttigieg believes Trump and his supporters represent racism, a host of recent polls might bely that argument.

An Emerson poll in early December put Trump at 35 percent with black voters and 38 percent with Hispanics.

“If you add in Asian voters at 28 percent approval,” notes Emerson’s director of polling Spencer Kimball, “our number is very close to the new Marist poll,” which finds Trump’s approval at 33 percent among non-white voters. Trump received 34 percent approval among black voters in a recent RasmussenReports poll, and a CNN poll puts Trump’s approval among non-white voters at 26 percent.

Rush Limbaugh said of these polls, “We’ve got three polls today showing Donald Trump at 30 percent or higher with black voters. We’ve got Emerson, we’ve got Rasmussen and we’ve got Marist!”

RELATED: Biden’s Strange New Anti-Trump Ad: Same Old Message, Same Likely Result

‘You can’t dispute the fact that African-Americans have been benefiting from President Trump’s policies’

“You can’t dispute the fact that African-Americans have been benefiting from President Trump’s policies,” said Katrina Pierson with the Trump campaign. “Four years ago, the president asked the black community, ‘What do you have to lose;’ now we are thinking, ‘Imagine what we stand to gain!’”

No doubt the unemployment rate falling to a 50-year-low has something to do with Trump’s rising popularity with non-white voters.

Buttigieg can continue to call Trump supporters racist all he wants. He’ll be lucky to get anywhere near the Democratic nomination–much less the only poll that counts in November.

The post Buttigieg: 63 Million People Might Have Voted for Trump But All of Them Are Still Racist appeared first on The Political Insider.

Collins’ legacy: To be ‘remembered not for her courage, but for her capitulation’

Posted on by Joan McCarter

The convention wisdom, for some unknown reason (laziness? lack of imagination?), that Sen. Susan Collins is a "moderate" still persists. Here's a headline in Sunday evening's Washington Post: "Republican Sen. Susan Collins finds it's lonely in the middle."

"Here in Maine," the story says, "where the famously independent Collins is locked in a tight reelection campaign, the choice elicited a wintry mix of cold shoulders and icy glares." The choice meaning her vote for witnesses in impeached president Donald Trump's trial, a vote that was carefully choreographed in Mitch McConnell's conference. That's because her "famous independence" is a sham, and people like Bill Nemitz, Maine's leading political observer, know it. In Sunday's Portland Press Herald, he laid out the whole con job.

Collins has chosen her side, and Maine knows it. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

"She will say she tried her best. She'll note that she voted for witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump, but that vote fell short," he writes. "Then, when the final impeachment vote comes on Wednesday afternoon, expect Maine Sen. Susan Collins to fall back into the Republican line and vote to acquit." She has "pages upon pages of detailed notes" to justify her vote, but since they just could hear from those witnesses she really wanted to hear from, the case just hasn't been proven so she, sadly, has no choice. She has to stand with Trump. But Nemitz remembers when Collins "demonstrated integrity," when she wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining "Why I Cannot Support Trump."

"Collins’ statement of conscience bears revisiting," Nemitz writes, "if only to show that while Trump hasn't changed, the senior senator from Maine most certainly has." She's no longer a moderate, an independent voice for Maine, and Maine knows that. This is what Maine is expecting to see this week: "So, come Wednesday and the final impeachment vote, look for Collins to express her deep concern at how nasty everyone has become, wring her hands over how difficult her life has grown and then, ever loyal to a party that now devours those who dissent, vote to let Trump off the hook." Yes, Nemitz knows her very well. "And long after this national trauma passes into history, Maine's Susan Collins will be forever remembered not for her courage, but for her capitulation."

Senate Republicans vary from tortured to triumphant in abetting the Trump/McConnell cover-up

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Senate Republicans are taking various approaches in rationalizing their decision to cover up impeached president Donald Trump's crimes, depending on how much they care about their reputations. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Bible-verse-touting Republican from Florida, pretends to be thoughtful and statesmanlike in his statement. "For purposes of answering my threshold question I assumed what is alleged is true," he wrote. "And then I sought to answer the question of whether under these assumptions it would be in the interest of the nation to remove the president." Essentially, "Yeah, he did it. He tried to cheat in the 2020 election, but so what?"

That's taking a page from Sens. Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski, bemoaning that they can't find the awful impeachable behavior of Trump impeachable because of the nasty, nasty partisan House forcing them to destroy the republic. Add into that pile the guy who loves to position himself as very troubled by Trump, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He can only offer up, "Let me be clear; Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us." Brave Sasse can't even use his own words.

Please give $3 to our nominee fund to bury them. The Democrats must take the Senate back.