Long, Drawn-Out Trials Are No Way to Convince Anyone of Anything

Posted on January 23, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 23, 2020

If either side in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump believes they are benefiting from the non-stop talkfest they are currently engaging in they are sorely mistaken.

The current schedule calls for 24 hours, 24 hours!, of incessant gabbing by the Dems, broken up over three days. Then the GOP gets a crack using the same timeline. 48 hours of political chin-wagging in total.

Yup, 24 hours of continuous talk from politicians on both sides will do the rhetorical trick, ya think? Oh it may convince people of something. It’ll convince them for the need of a noose or a revolver loaded with one bullet after having to endure the kind of torture that would have made WWII Japanese POW camp guards swoon with envy.

It’s a given that pols love the sound of their own voices. But they don’t generally love the sound of the voices of other pols. Does either side actually think that after hour upon hour of verbal assault a senator is going to rise and cry out, “I see it now! I change my vote!”

Not very likely.

This bad sequel to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” cannot be designed to sway voters either. What sane voter wants to hear 2 days of a political diatribe even if they agree with half of it?

If you’ve watched the total proceedings to this point, as I have, then you’ve seen the Dems make the same points over and over again. The GOP lawyers will no doubt do the same thing. Thus, the worse indictment of this court schedule?

It’s bad television.

The only possible motivation is to draw out the process. It’ll benefit the GOP, as a tired public will grow more weary of impeachment with every passing day.

It’ll benefit the Pelosi-picked House managers because it gives them national exposure and hours of free advertising.

It may also benefit Biden and other Dem candidates by keeping senatorial candidates Warren, Sanders, and Klobuchar stuck in the Senate while other contenders merrily hop across Iowa.

It is 2020 and the average consumer and voter attention span is that of a flea. Thus 48 hours of excruciating political theater must be seen as a tad too much.

The Dems seem to want to take up every second of it with never-ending argle bargle. When they get their shot in a couple of days hopefully the GOP won’t be so self-obsessed

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Trump First President in History to Speak at March for Life

Posted on January 23, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 22, 2020

On Friday President Donald Trump will be the first president to address the March for Life rally in DC in the 47 years the event has taken place.

The rally brings together Americans from all over the nation who oppose abortion. About 100,000 attend and last year Vice-President Mike Pence made an unscheduled appearance, much to the delight of the audience. This announcement came on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the group that organizes the march, had this to say:

“From the appointment of pro-life judges and federal workers, to cutting taxpayer funding for abortions here and abroad, to calling for an end to late-term abortions, President Trump and his administration have been consistent champions for life and their support for the March for Life has been unwavering. We are grateful for all these pro-life accomplishments and look forward to gaining more victories for life in the future.”

The president’s canny media move will rain on the PR parade of House Dems who will be wrapping up their arguments against him in the Senate impeachment trial.

In a further goading of the Left, his participation will draw out the vicious criticism of the abortion on demand and partial-birth abortion crowd.

The abortion hardliners will want their share of air time as well, thus also contributing to a lack of attention for the House Dem impeachment managers.

While it must be granted that many have sadly come to view abortion as a legal right, many also draw the line at partial-birth abortion and agree with numerous state laws restricting access to the fatal procedure. The president will no doubt also be talking to those relatively moderate voters in his address to the rally.

Pro-life and social conservative groups were first leery of Trump when he joined the 2016 race for the presidency. He had been a registered Democrat, an outspoken supporter of and donor to Dem campaigns, and was not viewed as reliable on social issues.

His personal life also left some traditionalists aghast.

But his actions as president have proven his pro-life bona fides and social conservatives largely and enthusiastically have come to support him for reelection.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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States Speak Up Asking Senate to Throw Out Impeachment

Posted on January 22, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 22, 2020

Fox News reports on Wednesday that 21 GOP Attorneys General have requested that the U.S. Senate bounce both articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, saying that the impeachment and trial, “establishes a dangerous historical precedent.”

They pulled no punches.

“If not expressly repudiated by the Senate, the theories animating both Articles will set a precedent that is entirely contrary to the Framers’ design and ruinous to the most important governmental structure protections contained in our Constitution: the separation of powers,” the AGs said. They continued.

“Even an unsuccessful effort to impeach the President undermines the integrity of the 2020 presidential election because it weaponizes a process that should only be initiated in exceedingly rare circumstances and should never be used for partisan purposes.”

In conclusion, they noted, “It cannot be a legitimate basis to impeach a President for acting in a legal manner that may also be politically advantageous.

Such a standard would be cause for the impeachment of virtually every President, past, present, and future.”

The letter was signed by the GOP Attorneys General of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

The states have hit upon a point also stated by the president’s lawyers in the trial and by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) last week. At least three of the “jurors” in the Senate, Warren, Sanders, and Klobuchar, would directly benefit from a partisan guilty verdict.

How can a person with that kind of conflict of interest sit on the jury? In fact, the entire 47 member Senate Dem caucus would benefit.

How indeed can they sit in judgment of the man they have already said they desperately want removed from office before he is reelected?

The GOP is in the same boat, you say. They directly benefit from the president’s acquittal. But the GOP didn’t bring these charges, they did not initiate this fiasco and weaponize a process that should be reserved for solemn and dangerous constitutional questions.

Like these:

FDR trying to pack the Supreme Court to ram through more socialism? Sure, impeach and convict him.

John Kennedy’s 1960 election stealing and intimate mob ties? Boot him.

Jimmy Carter, well, just on general principle? He’s history.

But this president has done nothing wrong and these states know it. As does, the American people.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Trump Trial Winners and Losers: We’ll Help You Decide

Posted on January 22, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 22, 2020

In a couple of hours, we’re again diving into what may become another late-night session in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump.

But before that news eclipses last night’s events, let’s look at an overview of Monday’s hijinks and see how they played out legally and politically.

Presidential lawyers Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow knocked it out of the park yesterday in their defense of the president. Cipollone especially shined as he had just the right mix of scholarly demeanor and lawyerly aggression.

He knocked down Dem arguments like swatting away slow-learning gnats and his consistent success at the podium drove Dems to fits of agitation. That agita made Jerry Nadler lose it at the end, as we covered in a previous piece.

Adam Schiff fared no better, as his personal mannerisms got truly odd as the trial wore on.

He seemed not to know what to do with his hands at the rostrum, first holding them together, then kneading them against one another in scenes that made him look like Lady MacBeth in a bad suit.

The Dems used a PowerPoint demonstration that would have embarrassed a third grader as they trudged from point to redundant point not ever moving enough Republicans by their exertions to win the vote on a single amendment.

In fact, during the entire night, they got one Republican one time, Susan Collins of Maine, to break ranks. It didn’t matter and the GOP won that vote too.

It seems the Dems are not playing to the Senate, as they almost admitted a couple of times. They are playing to the media, to give them their talking points, and to the fall election. The agitprop bullets you see on the screen at the trial you will see again in Dem messaging in the fall election.

Speaking of that benighted political group, three of their coterie, Senators Warren, Sanders, and Klobuchar, must be seething in their seats as the trial promises to bleed into long days, longer nights, and has the potential to go weeks.

That will keep the trio off the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire and is a serious boon to Joe Biden and the rest of the Dem field.

Whether Chuck Schumer has intentionally designed it that way is an interesting idea to contemplate.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

The post Trump Trial Winners and Losers: We’ll Help You Decide appeared first on The Political Insider.

Chief Justice Roberts Forced to Play Referee During Impeachment Trials

Posted on January 22, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 22, 2020

Tuesday’s first day of the Senate trial of President Donald Trump was a relatively boring affair, up until almost the end.

The GOP shield wall held up on vote after vote, losing only one member, Collins of Maine, one time on a small procedural matter. At the end of the night, the score was Trump 11, the Dems 0.

Fans of the president cheered and chortled on social media as 11 out of 11, save the one noted above, pathetic Schumer amendments were shot down in flames on 53-47 party line votes.

After a night of that kind of battering the Dems started to lose their equilibrium. You could see it in Schiff. He began to oddly glare at the GOP lawyers as if he could conjure up a death stare that would make them cease and desist legally beating him like a rug.

They didn’t seem to even notice him.

At almost the end, not long before 1am, the Dems could stand it no longer.

The frustration that they were convincing no Republican in the Senate to break party ranks enough to give them even one victory overwhelmed the already delicate sensibilities of Dem House Manager Jerry Nadler. He let loose.

He called GOP legal actions “treacherous.” Nadler claimed the Senate was engaged in a “cover-up” and that “only guilty people try to hide evidence.” He went on to say that “the Senate is on trial” and asked if they would “betray your pledge to be an impartial juror.”

The president’s personal lawyer struck back hard.

“We’ve made our arguments to you. And you don’t deserve, and we don’t deserve, what just happened. Mr. Nadler came up here and made false allegations against our team. He made false allegations against all of you; he accused you of a cover-up. He’s been making false allegations against the president. The only one who should be embarrassed, Mr. Nadler is you, for the way you’ve addressed the United States Senate. This is the United States Senate. You’re not in charge here. … It’s about time we bring this power trip in for a landing,” said Cipollone.

It got so heated that Chief Justice John Roberts, presiding over the trial, had to warn both sides on their language. He scolded, “Those addressing the Senate should remember where they are.”

The night ended soon after with complete GOP victory and Dem loss. Day two starts in mere hours.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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