Category: Impeachment

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

Posted on 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.

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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.

RELATED: States Speak Up Asking Senate to Throw Out Impeachment

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.

Read more at LifeZette:
President Trump Wins His First Impeachment Trial Victory as Senate Votes 53 to 47
Tim Tebow Officially Tied the Knot and Their Wedding Photos Are Stunning
Liberals Shamelessly Boo President Trump and Vice President Pence During Visit to MLK Memorial

The post Long, Drawn-Out Trials Are No Way to Convince Anyone of Anything appeared first on The Political Insider.

Former Rep. Bob Barr, Clinton impeachment manager, on ‘fatally flawed’ case against Trump

Posted on by PBS NewsHour - Politics
Former Congressman Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican, was a House manager during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss how the roles of the impeachment managers during the Clinton trial were different from today, what he thinks about the current managers' performance so far and why he believes the articles of impeachment are "fatally flawed."

Senate and legal experts analyze the prosecution in Trump’s impeachment trial

Posted on by PBS NewsHour - Politics
On Wednesday, House impeachment managers began making their case for the removal of President Trump. Georgetown University's Victoria Nourse, John Hart of Mars Hill Strategies, former Democratic Secretary of the Senate Martin Paone of Prime Policy Group and former Republican Secretary of the Senate Elizabeth Chryst of Congressional Global Strategies join Judy Woodruff to discuss the arguments.

Schiff shines bright light on Moscow Mitch’s dangerous negligence in protecting our elections

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Rep. Adam Schiff, in his role as impeachment manager, both distilled the import of this trial and put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell under a harsh light, without ever mentioning McConnell's name. In his opening argument, as prepared and provided by email, Schiff says that the "House did not take this extraordinary step lightly. As we will discuss, impeachment exists for cases in which the conduct of the President rises far beyond mere policy disputes to be decided, otherwise and without urgency, at the ballot box."

But, he says "we are here today to consider a much more grave matter, and that is an attempt to use the powers of the presidency to cheat in an election. For precisely this reason, the President’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box—for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. [emphasis added]"

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

That's the case in a nutshell, that and the continuation of the thought, that "in obstructing the investigation into his own wrongdoing, the President has shown that he believes that he is above the law and scornful of constraint." Trump believes he's above the law and unconstrained because McConnell refuses to do his constitutional duty and provide a check. No where is that failure of McConnell more dire than in refusing to secure the ballot box, which Schiff is subtly underscoring in his statement.

The legislation to protect our elections from interference from Russia and other adversaries has been sitting in the graveyard of the Senate for months, with McConnell refusing to act on it because he says the government has done enough, and even congratulates the Trump administration for the actions it's taken. That presumably includes Trump publicly, on national TV,  inviting any foreign government who wants to interfere to come on in.

This is deadly serious business. McConnell and Senate Republicans might not be taking that seriously, but the nation is watching.