Category: MitchMcConnell

GOP falls into further disarray after seven Republican senators admit Trump was 100% guilty

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

Donald Trump may have escaped conviction, but the Republican Party will be suffering the consequences of his abhorrent insurrection for years to come. The fact that a historic number of GOP Senate and House lawmakers joined Democrats in declaring Trump guilty of betraying the country sets up a dramatic rift in a party that already appears to be going through a tumultuous realignment. 

Trump's constant defender, golf partner, and sometimes election meddler Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina rushed out to the Sunday talk shows to assure Republicans they are doooooomed without Donald Trump. “Donald Trump is the most vibrant member of the Republican Party. The Trump movement is alive and well,” Graham told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. “All I can say is that the most potent force in the Republican Party is President Trump. We need Trump.”

The notion that a guy who just came the closest leader in American history to getting convicted of impeachment charges is the "most vibrant member" of the GOP is really a stunning admission—Graham just doesn't know it. Graham is legitimately panicked. In essence, Republicans can't win without Trump, but trying to win with him is going to weigh down the party like a bag of bricks. 

Graham panned as "wrong" a recent move by Republican Nikki Haley to try (yet again!) to distance herself from Trump as she angles for 2024. Graham also twice declared during the Fox interview, "I'm into winning," taking a swipe at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for ripping into Trump in a cynical effort to appease corporate donors who have soured on him.

But Graham did make one observation that is surely true about McConnell's oratory castigation of Trump despite the fact that he ultimately surrendered to casting an acquittal vote. "That speech you will see in 2022 campaigns,” Graham predicted. Truth. Any right-wing Trumper who emerges victorious after a bruising GOP primary will certainly hear the echo of McConnell's words slamming their general election pitch. 

McConnell knew that before he made the speech, and it also tells you just how desperate he is to keep those corporate donations flowing. He was trying to split the baby by acquitting Trump in one breath and skewering him in the next, but that’s also bound to cause some GOP collateral damage heading into 2022.

Just to truly drive home how far the GOP star has fallen, Graham declared none other than Lara Trump, the supremely uninspired beneficiary of Trump nepotism and Ivanka wannabe, the future of the Republican Party. Verbatim—not kidding.

“The biggest winner I think of this whole impeachment trial is Lara Trump,” Graham said. “If she runs, I will certainly be behind her because I think she represents the future of the Republican Party.”

Lara led Trump's "Women for Trump" initiative targeting the suburbs, which you may recall, wasn't the electoral fast ball the campaign hoped it would be.

On the other side of Graham's sycophantic appeals and McConnell's Machiavellian maneuvering was Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who seemed to grow genuinely outraged over the course of the trial by Trump's murderous riot and overt lack of remorse. After Cassidy voted to convict, he released an exceedingly simply and unapologetic statement: "Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty."

On ABC's This Week Sunday, Cassidy predicted Trump's influence over the party had peaked and was on its way down. “I think his force wanes," Cassidy said.

What's so fascinating is that both Graham and Cassidy are likely speaking shades of the truth. Trump remains the most high-profile Republican nationwide and, while he will surely continue to harness the intensity of the nativist wing of the GOP, his ability to command a broad enough coalition to win national and statewide elections has just as surely taken a hit. In essence, Trump is a short-term bandage for a gaping oozing wound within the Republican Party. The Lindsey Grahams of the world are clinging to Trump for dear life, but his epic toxicity guarantees that wound will only deepen in the months and years ahead. 

Republicans just proved it: If the filibuster doesn’t end, we cannot restore our democracy

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

The founding fathers, chafing under the malign thumb of Britain's monarchy, most definitely envisioned the potential for a Donald Trump. Alexander Hamilton pretty much nailed Trump in 1792: "When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper … despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'"

Thus we have the tool of impeachment and the checks and balances of a legislative, executive, and judicial system. What the founders apparently didn't account for in their careful crafting of the three branches was a Mitch McConnell, a lawmaker so unprincipled that he would enter into a bargain with Trump to enhance his personal power at the expense of the whole Senate, and use that power to subvert the third branch—the judiciary. The reasonable "cooling saucer" of the Senate created to counterbalance the rabble in the House of Representatives wasn't supposed to become a tool of the corrupt, but here we are—and not for the first time. There's a throughline in all of American history for the fight against majority rule democracy: white supremacy. Every sustained backlash against progress has come from privileged whites. We saw its violent and very public resurgence in Trumpism, a storm Republicans have been happy to ride. There are myriad reforms the country has to undertake to beat that back down again, but it has to start now and in the Senate, with the filibuster.

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The vehicle for that is singular: H.R.1, the For the People Act of 2021, and its companion in the Senate, S.1. The House bill, first passed in 2019 and subsequently ignored by McConnell, would enact substantial and groundbreaking electoral reforms. It would remove existing barriers to voting, secure the elections processes to secure the integrity of the vote, expand public financing to fight the pernicious entrenched and monied interests, and ban congressional gerrymandering to ensure equal and fair representation in the House of Representatives. It would also start to chip away at the imbalance of representation in the Senate—where states like Wyoming have a fraction of the population of the nation's largest cities—by granting statehood to the District of Columbia.

That bill is not going to pass the Senate if the filibuster holds, nor is any of President Joe Biden's agenda. Senate Republicans made that abundantly clear from Biden's first day in office, and even before. When the Senate flipped into Democratic hands on Jan. 5 with the runoff results in Georgia, McConnell started in, refusing to bring the Senate out of recess until Jan. 19. (That also built in his excuse for not voting to convict Donald Trump in his impeachment—he could say then, duplicitously, that a former president couldn't be convicted.) McConnell then spent three weeks refusing to allow Biden to form a complete Cabinet by blocking an organizing resolution for the Senate, the necessary piece of business for all of the committees assignments be made and the committees to start serious business, like considering legislation referred to them and processing Biden's nominees.

McConnell—with the tacit support of 49 Republican senators—insisted that this was all in the name of "unity," just like Biden wanted. His stance was that Democrats had to prove that they wanted unity by capitulating to his demand that they promise not to get rid of the filibuster and let him continue to block Biden's agenda and his nominees. To Schumer's credit, he didn't get that. To Joe Manchin's and Kyrsten Sinema's discredit, they agreed with McConnell. Sinema, in fact, has continued to do so.

Sinema is insisting that she'll oppose a minimum wage increase in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that Democrats are pushing through using budget reconciliation, a limited tool that isn't subject to the 60-vote majority rule and thus can't be filibustered. More than that, Sinema says: "I want to restore the 60-vote threshold for all elements of the Senate's work." That would mean handing a veto of every Biden nominee—including potentially to the Supreme Court—to McConnell.

Sinema is undoubtedly trying to hedge her bets just in case Republicans retake the Senate in 2022, trying to worm her way into their good graces. As if McConnell and team would reward a Democrat for anything. As if it wasn't a betrayal of her own constituents, who support a minimum wage increase. As if it wasn't a betrayal of the LBGTQ community in which Sinema claims membership. She's expressed her willingness to help Republicans filibuster the Equality Act, which bans discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. She's saying that she'll reimpose the 60-vote threshold to block Biden's pro-equality judges after Trump appointed so many anti-equality judges, needing just 51 votes.

She somehow believes that this can be put in the hands of Senate Republicans, only seven of whom voted to convict the guy who incited and directed an insurrection against them, a mob that was primed quite literally for their blood—and very nearly got it.  So, sure, these will be the people who will provide the 10 votes necessary to help Biden save the nation from COVID-19, provide health care to everyone in the aftermath of this pandemic, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform to help border states like Arizona.

Which takes us back to the For the People Act. The events of Jan. 6 and the Senate Republicans' acquittal of Trump underline just how critical it is that Democrats respond forcefully and quickly to stamp down the radicalized Republican Party, to end its ability to maintain outsized power while representing the minority of the nation's population. It means, particularly for the likes of Manchin and Sinema, realizing that the Republicans they pal around with everyday are not their friends. That they would perhaps lament their deaths at the hands of a violent mob, but aren't going to act to prevent it from happening. It means ending the filibuster.

The For the People Act is the vehicle to use to do just that, because it would level the playing field for Democrats. More than that, it would allow for actual majority rule—for the majority of voters to have their will enacted. To have universal accessible and affordable health care. To have an economic system that's not weighted against them. To not have their families living in fear of separation. To have a government taking on the changes in the climate that threaten to make living in their home regions impossible.

None of that happens without a profound change in our electoral system, and H.R.1/S.1 would start that process. It's also where to dare Sinema and Manchin to thwart the will of the majorities who elected them, to dare them to stand with the white supremacist Republican Party that is fighting to keep whole communities of color disenfranchised.

Mitch McConnell protected Trump from consequences, then tried to distance himself from the damage

Posted on (Updated by Hunter

Here in the new millennium, two district species of Americans have evolved. There are the Americans who, from many years of having it demonstrated to them, know Sen. Mitch McConnell to be dishonest, power-obsessed, and eager to sabotage both nation itself and the lives of its citizens in service of Republican Party power.

And then there's the press, which cannot stomach the thought that the most powerful political figure of recent times is singularly corrupt and dishonest, a man who through relentlessly false claims and rhetorical psychopathies worked diligently to turn the Senate into little more than an exceptionally pompous Fox News show.

On Saturday, Sen. Mitch McConnell gave a rousing speech blasting Donald Trump for a "disgraceful dereliction of duty," among other offenses, agreeing that there was "no question, none," that Trump is "practically and morally responsible" for an insurrection attempt that killed a police officer, injured around 140 others, caused multiple other deaths, and came close to capturing or killing Trump's own vice president and others specifically targeted by Trump as political enemies. As is rote for all McConnell speeches, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the body knows, it came immediately after McConnell voted to himself sabotage action against Trump—a sabotage that was deliberate, had taken place over the course of many weeks, and could likely not have succeeded if it were not for McConnell's own dereliction.

McConnell's argument was that a former president cannot be impeached—a theory deemed nonsensical by historians, scholars, and other experts not accessories to Trump's modern fascist movement, and one that the Senate had already explicitly rejected. McConnell's argument was that Democrats—because every single speech in which McConnell defends his party's embrace of a new corrupt, counterfactual, or plainly malevolent act comes with an explanation that Democrats caused it to happen—did not move swiftly enough to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection, allowed Trump to leave office, and now his party's bloodstained hands are tied.

But it was McConnell who blocked action while Trump was in office. It was McConnell who refused to call the Senate back to conduct the trial, and who justified the refusal by calling the House's impeachment a "light-speed sham process." Once he had lost the majority and with it, the powers to control the Senate clock, McConnell voted at every turn to block the Senate from hearing the case against Trump. It is McConnell himself inventing yet another New Rule that he now claims stands in the way of impeaching a Republican for violent insurrection; it comes after countless similar New Rules about the Constitution and the Senate that McConnell claimed to have discovered, both small and large.

McConnell declared that a sitting Democratic president could not appoint new Supreme Court justices during the last full year of his term; McConnell declared that a sitting Republican president could do so during his last weeks in office. It is all a farce. We have been here a dozen times before.

McConnell agrees that Trump was responsible for a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. But he did so too close to the end of his term, and so falls into a new loophole in which presidents are allowed to sit back and watch as a mob hunts his enemies in the U.S. Capitol so long as he gets the timing right.

Like the apocryphal man who murdered his parents, then begged the courts for leniency because he was an orphan, McConnell protected Trump through his last weeks in office, and now says that the delay he himself engineered now prevents the Senate from imposing consequences. Trump is culpable, he is fully willing to declare.

And with that declaration, McConnell singled himself out as willing collaborator.

This is the part of the well-worn program where Sen. Mitch McConnell knows a member of his party has done an unforgivable and evil thing, and thus prepares his dual defenses. To preserve party power and cultivate a base that has grown ever more willing to accept any crime in service to their cause, McConnell maneuvers to sabotage whatever accountability is being attempted. To preserve the money flow from donors horrified that the party would go so far—but who still count tax breaks and corporate deregulation as more urgent needs than flushing out white supremacist-laced, propaganda-fueled fascism—McConnell seeds stories about his personal frustration with the behavior, assures the donor class that he is absolutely not on board with the new horror he himself worked to protect.

It seems when a violent mob comes close to assassinating Sen. Mitch McConnell personally, that will be enough to stir an actual condemnation directly from the man himself. But it will still not, once the heat of the moment has died down and the mob has been dispersed, rouse him to support his country over his party. It is seemingly not in his nature, or in the nature of anyone left in his now-purged party.

Hey guys, (some) Republicans want you to forget that they’re Trump toadies

Posted on (Updated by kos

Senate Republicans, like almost all Republicans, stood strongly with Donald Trump through four years of chaos, incompetence, malice, and mayhem. They stood with him as he promoted his Big Lie, that he hadn’t lost decisively to an American electorate sick of his bullshit. They stood with him during certification of the vote, not just those who challenged the Arizona and Pennsylvania votes, but those who stayed quiet and refused to criticize their colleagues’ efforts to undermine democracy. And with seven notable exceptions, they stood by him during the impeachment vote by refusing to hold Trump accountable for his unprecedented efforts to destroy American democracy. 

Now they want you to think that they really don’t stand with Trump, you know, just because. 

There are only seven Senate Republicans with any credibility left on the matter of democracy—Richard Burr (NC), Bill Cassidy (LA), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitt Romney (UT), Ben Sasse (NE), and Pat Toomey (PA). Every single other Republican can go to hell, having destroyed the United State’s credibility on matters of human rights, democracy, and the right of self-determination. Why should the military coup leaders in Myanmar give two shits what Mitch McConnell has to say about their undemocratic power grab? He literally just gave Donald Trump a pass on the same kind of effort, here at home. 

Trump literally tried to get Vice President Mike Pence killed, and 43 Republicans didn’t give a shit. 

Oh, many are talking a good game. 

McConnell himself tried to have it both ways, pretty much hoping the criminal justice system does to Trump what he himself was too afraid or feckless to do. With an eye to nervous corporate PACs, wary of giving money to insurrectionists, he all but begged them to come back to the GOP’s embrace, without doing anything to actually address those concerns. 

Trump’s literal strategy was to try and throw out the votes of predominantly Black voters in Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Detroit. And McConnell, given the chance to do something about it, merely shrugged, while his Senate committee sent out “stand with Trump” fundraising emails. 

As Senate GOP leader McConnell blasts Trump but uses constitutional excuse to vote to acquit, his NRSC issues fundraising email to “stand with Trump against impeachment.”

— Rick Pearson (@rap30) February 13, 2021

Other Senate Republicans are equally eager to put Trump and the damage he creates in his wake behind them. “Senate Republicans are warning that they no longer view former President Trump as the leader of the party amid growing signs that they are ready to turn the page after a chaotic four years,” says the lede of a Hill piece on those efforts, as I almost died of laughter. North Dakota’s Kevin Cramer, who was too cowardly to hold Trump accountable for trying to murder his Vice President, said, “Now, as you can tell, there’s some support that will never leave. But I think that there’s a shrinking population and it probably shrinks a little bit after this week.” South Dakota’s John Thune claimed that the vote was “absolutely not” an endorsement of Trump’s actions, except it was exactly that. 

You’d think that Republicans would be concerned about their political peril. Under Trump, Republicans lost the House, the Senate, and the White House. In fact, Trump was only the third president in the last 100 years to lose reelection. They lost ground among people of color (in absolute numbers, even if as a percentage, they may have made some gains). They lost ground among young voters. They lost ground among suburban college-educated women. 

Their most substantial gains? Old white rural men, a constituency that is literally dying off. 

Smart Republicans might look at that damage and think, “on the one hand, he tried to get his Vice President murdered, launched an insurrection against our country, and damaged out international standing, and we’re okay with that, but hell, do we want to keep losing elections?” It’s not as if they’re blind to the damage, as Indiana’s Kevin Cramer said, “I am more concerned about how we rebuild the party in a way that brings in more people to it.”

But really, their strategy, for the most part, really appears to be “let’s pretend Trump doesn’t exist.” Texas’ John Cornyn said, “We won’t keep talking about his tweets or what he did or did not do.” Ha ha ha as if they ever talked about his tweets. It was uncanny how Republicans never ever saw his tweets! 

Meanwhile, too many Republicans still think they can win over Trump’s base in a 2024 presidential bid, like the Senate’s biggest opportunist, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham. “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asserted on Sunday that twice-impeached former President Donald Trump was the face of the Republican Party, declaring that “Trump-plus” was the best path forward for the GOP. At the same time, he insisted that Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara was the “future of the Republican Party,” reported the Daily Beast, on his appearance on Fox’s Sunday show. Too many Republicans will trip themselves to be the biggest Trump cheerleaders, when Trump will only ever enthusiastically support someone from his own tribe, and her name is “Ivanka.” 

Undoubtedly, Trump’s deplatforming has dramatically reduced his influence, but it’s only a matter of time before he lands on one of the right’s many platforms, whether it’s Gab, OANN, or Parler, if it ever resuscitates. And then, it doesn’t matter if Trump is speaking to the mainstream as long as he reaches the true believers. He doesn’t have to control the party to severely damage it.

Now to be clear, there’s no way Trump launches a viable third party to challenge the GQP. No freakin’ way. We’ve seen the crowd that surrounds Trump. He doesn’t exactly attract top talent. He’s the guy who bankrupted a casino, a business that literally mints its own money. What’s he going to do, put Steve Bannon in charge? Jared Kushner? We’d witness the biggest grift in political history, which might be great for Trump and his cronies, but wouldn’t be particularly effective in winning significant support. 

Ultimately, it’s much easier to take over the existing party, which is where Republicans stand today—swarmed by the MAGA/Q believers they so avidly cultivated with fear-based racist appeals. I don’t think anyone doubts that Trump would be convicted by the Senate in a secret vote. The fact that Republicans couldn’t publicly pull the trigger is all the evidence you need that the Republican Party hasn’t moved past Trump or his supporters. They remain held in thrall by them. 

In the short- and mid-term, it’s important we hold corporations accountable for any donations to the Republican Party. They made the right move to cut off that flow of money, and McConnell did nothing to mitigate their concerns. And of course, we need to make sure our side remains engaged and active, to punish Republicans in 2022. History says we’ll lose Congress, but history isn’t always right. It wasn’t in 2002 when George W. Bush won seats in his first mid-term, in the wake of 9-11. January 6 should have as much cultural and political resonance, if not more, than 9-11. Saudi terrorists never threatened our Constitution or democracy. My own fury remains unabated. 

So yeah, good luck GQP trying to pretend that they can move on and pretend Trump is irrelevant, and that their own actions enabling him to the very end should be shrugged off. No one is ready to move on. 

Who is Donald Trump’s most gutless toady?

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

The result of the latest Trump impeachment trial was a fait accompli when Mike Pence was pulled from his mother’s womb, saw his shadow, and scurried back home like a frightened baby wallaby for six more weeks of gestation.

The evidence now makes it abundantly clear that Donald Trump incited a riot, delighted in the mayhem, knew Mike Pence was in mortal danger, and not only did nothing to protect his unflinchingly loyal VP after hearing about his potential, you know, murder but actually sought to further incite the rioters by tweeting hateful lies directly at him. 

And what was Pence’s response to all this?

Crickets.

And not cool, genetically engineered murder crickets or anything—just plain old regular crickets.

Senate Republicans acquitted Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors twice. So make them pay: Donate $1 right now to each of the Democratic nominee funds targeting vulnerable Senate Republicans in 2022.

The Washington Post:

[A]fter four years of obedience as vice president, Pence has no plans to condemn Trump or to speak out during the Senate impeachment trial, people close to the former vice president said. He is still operating from a playbook of obsequiousness that became second nature — he never aired his grievances publicly and delivered his often rose-colored counsel to Trump only in private, one-on-one settings.

I wonder if there’s a literal “playbook of obsequiousness,” and if so, does Mother let him read it after bedtime?

Oh, but Pence’s continued public deference to Trump doesn’t mean his feelings weren’t hurt by Trump’s decision to let him be hanged in public so Trump wouldn’t have to give up his extra White House ice cream scoop and unlimited free airplane rides. They were. You’d just never know it from talking to him.

But the rift that emerged between Trump and Pence — after Trump encouraged a frenzied mob that later chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” as it stormed through the Capitol, in search of the then vice president — is unlikely ever to fully heal, people close to Pence said.

One ally described the former vice president as frustrated with what Trump did and said it would forever change his relationship with Trump. This person added, however, that Pence does not share the animus or fury that some of his former aides have for the president.

Do Republicans feel some weird frisson of excitement when Trump brutally attacks or betrays them? Is this something we mere mortals simply can’t understand? Because if any of my bosses had ever treated me this disrespectfully, I’d have immediately FedEx’d them my company-issued gimp costume (without dry-cleaning it first!) and never spoken to them again.

But Republicans keep coming back for more.

Why?

And it’s not just Milquetoast Mike Pence. 

Trump gave out Lindsey Graham’s private cell phone number at a rally, and Graham eventually became his champion.

Trump implied Ted Cruz’s wife was ugly and that his dad had a hand in JFK’s assassination, and Ted became his gracious and loyal servant.

Kevin McCarthy was harassed and nearly killed by Trump’s mob, and Trump refused to lift a finger to protect him. Nevertheless, McCarthy still flew down to Florida three weeks later to kiss his ring.

And despite knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump is the human equivalent of dumpster sushi, Mitch McConnell gladly wolfed down every rancid, mealy bite for years.

It’s inconceivable, but it is what it is. If these guys got into a gruesome clown car accident and you had to Frankenstein them together to confect one historically awful legislator, you’d be hard-pressed to locate a spine or recover a single languorous ball.

So who do you think is the worst? Answer the poll question and find out!

”This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry." — BETTE MIDLER on author ALDOUS J. PENNYFARTHING, via Twitter. Need a thorough Trump cleanse? Thanks to Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, Dear F*cking Lunatic, Dear Pr*sident A**clown and Dear F*cking Moron, you can purge the Trump years from your soul sans the existential dread. Only laughs from here on out. Click those links, yo!

A whole bunch of reactions to the Senate impeachment vote

Posted on by Jessica Sutherland

Anger. Rage. Disgust. That is the vibe after 43 cowards and zealots within the Party of Trump opted not to convict their Dear Leader for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 in his historical second impeachment. Seven Republicans—a record-breaking 14% of the caucus—did vote “Guilty,” but it wasn’t enough to protect the nation from four more years of Trump rallies full of emboldened devotees. 

Minutes after the verdict was read, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who vowed to acquit ahead of the last day of the trial, had the rotten gall to state that Trump was absolutely guilty, but couldn’t be convicted due an extremely questionable “process” technicality of the Kentucky Republican’s own creation. 

Senate Republicans acquitted Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors twice. So make them pay: Donate $1 right now to each of the Democratic nominee funds targeting vulnerable Senate Republicans in 2022.

How predictable this outcome may have been doesn’t temper the horror that Americans and our allies feel today. We can rage together.

The 43 (complete list here) will not be remembered fondly.   

To quote a friend, “Today tells me that there are 43 Republicans and 57 Americans in the US Senate.”

— Laura Anne Gilman (@LAGilman) February 13, 2021

Officer Goodman risked his life. The 43 wouldn't risk criticism from Fox News.

— Kurt "Masks Save Lives" Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) February 13, 2021

The precedent set is of concern.

43 Senate Republicans have endorsed the idea that a president can do anything in his last month in office, without facing any consequences. It is hard to overstate what a dangerous precedent this is.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) February 13, 2021

Today, the Senate minority was large enough to establish a precedent that presidents may send hordes of raving followers to attack the Capitol building and commit murder in an effort to overthrow the outcome of a valid national election.

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) February 13, 2021

Acquittal is not only approval of Trump’s effort to overturn the election and install himself in power, it is an invitation for him or someone else to do try it again.

— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) February 13, 2021

The cowardice of the GOP is palpable.

If Trump had incited two white nationalist insurrections, would that have been enough for Republicans to find their spine? What about four? Seven? What’s the number here?

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) February 13, 2021

43 cowards put one man and their own political ambition ahead of the Constitution, the rule of law, and our democracy. Apparently, for them, there is no depravity too low.

— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) February 13, 2021

It’s remarkable that so few Republicans put their country first.

It is truly sad and dangerous that only 7 Republicans voted to convict a president who is promoting a Big Lie, conspiracy theories and violence, and is aggressively trying to destroy American democracy.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 13, 2021

But some did step up and do what was right. Remember, Sen. Mitt Romney was the first, in the first Trump impeachment, to vote to impeach a president of his own party. So the seven also matter.

Thank you,@MittRomney@SenatorBurr@lisamurkowski@SenatorCollins@SenBillCassidy@BenSasse@SenToomey History will remember u as courageous patriots who put country first. The other 43 Republicans, were a rigged jury, an embarrassment to the country. History will not forget. pic.twitter.com/mMOfisui3G

— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) February 13, 2021

This trial proved Trump’s high crimes against the Constitution. 43 senators put Trump first and failed the test of history. But history was also made with the largest bipartisan majority ever voting to convict a president. The rest of the story is ours to write.

— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) February 13, 2021

Donald Trump incited a mob of domestic terrorists to attack our Capitol and overturn the election. Even 7 Senate Republicans couldn’t stomach his act of insurrection. Our democracy must be stronger than the former president and the 43 senators who sided with him today.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 13, 2021

Unfortunately, they’re the minority within their own party.

Well that was a waste of time. Let’s get back to work.

— Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) February 13, 2021

House Managers did an amazing job proving Trump’s guilt. Republicans did an amazing job proving that they don’t care.

— Irishrygirl (@irishrygirl) February 13, 2021

Republicans have a great gig in that they can just refuse to take governing seriously and gum up the works and everyone blames Democrats for it.

— Joshua Holland (@JoshuaHol) February 13, 2021

How can the Democrats ever work with these obstructionist cowards who answer to one man?

5 years ago—Republican Senators warned what would become of their party if Trump became their nominee. 5 years later—Trump tried to overturn the results of an election and provoked an assault on our government. And well over half of Senate Republicans decided to condone it.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 13, 2021

Republicans: If you call witnesses we'll obstruct congress, you'll never get anything done. Democrats: Fine. No witnesses. You win. R: D: R: Just kidding. We're going to obstruct congress anyway and you'll never get anything done! Ha hah! Owned! D: Rats!

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) February 13, 2021

The demands to kill the filibuster might never be louder than they are now.

The danger of having Republicans in government is obvious.

— Secret Agent Number Six (@DesignationSix) February 13, 2021

Even an armed insurrection isn’t enough to persuade 10 Republicans to seek bipartisanship so nuke the filibuster and let’s get to work.

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) February 13, 2021

If 7 Republicans is the most that will vote to convict a man who incited a mob that threatened their very lives — where the hell do people think 10 GOP votes are going to come from for anything in Biden’s agenda? We must abolish the filibuster. There is no other path forward.

— Kai Newkirk (@kai_newkirk) February 13, 2021

To: President Joseph Biden From: Every American who saw what the GOP did today Forget unity. Forget bipartisanship. Forget compromise. This is Trump's mob. Eliminate the filibuster and get everything America needs done now.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) February 13, 2021

Beyond the filibuster, folks are looking forward.

Republicans have ZERO conscience. Remember in 2022. Pass it on.

— Chip Franklin InsideTheBeltway.com (@chipfranklin) February 13, 2021

The big winner from the impeachment is Biden. In 3 days he has divided the Republicans, destroyed Mitch McConnell & accrued huge moral authority The failure to convict will be an albatross around the Republicans’ neck. Not least because Trump isn’t gone

— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) February 13, 2021

Ppl saying this are overlooking how Republicans are already at work to prevent next election. Y’all think you’re going to defeat them electorally because Americans are outraged but they’re not trying to win electorally. It’s going to be a raw power grab w/ more political violence https://t.co/THxRNPIejT

— Unite in justice for the poor & oppressed (@BreeNewsome) February 13, 2021

Okay, the Senate trial is over. Republicans are traitors. Time for law and order to take over. DOJ, SDNY, DC and NDVA...whatcha got??? Bring it NOW!

— Kimberley Johnson (@AuthorKimberley) February 13, 2021

Then there was the limerick.

Republicans, making their pick, Concluded acquitting him quick. They have no dispute; They kneel at his boot; They want to continue to lick.

— Limericking (@Limericking) February 13, 2021

Feel free to share reactions that resonate with you in the comments, or even your own tweets.

Anger. Rage. Disgust. That is the vibe.  Republicans won’t hold members of their own party accountable, so we have to. Chip in $1 right now to each of these six Senate Democratic nominee funds to flip Republican Senate seats from red to blue in 2022.

McConnell announces he’ll vote to acquit Trump, cementing place on the wrong side of history—again

Posted on (Updated by Jessica Sutherland

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed his continued fealty to Donald Trump on Saturday morning, as he revealed plans to let the disgraced dictator off the hook for the Jan. 6 insurrection. McConnell, like 45 other Senate Republicans, continues to hide behind the fake “constitutionality” defense, which hinges on whether or not an impeachment trial can be held after the subject has left public office.

McConnell, of course, also famously refused to hold the impeachment trial while Trump was still in office, and thus made this ridiculous non-defense copout possible. 

The announcement comes even as Washington state Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and other Republicans came out to confirm that Trump knew Pence was in danger and did not care, most vividly illustrated by a nasty call with a frantic Kevin McCarthy, where the one-term tyrant mocked the House Minority Leader’s distress. This revelation also comes even as multiple senators—Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, and Ed Markey, as well as Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney as of this writing—are expressing support for witnesses.

Saturday, Feb 13, 2021 · 3:35:47 PM +00:00 · Jessica Sutherland

Four Republicans voted with Democrats in support of calling witnesses: Susan Collins, Murkowski, Romney, and Ben Sasse. After the roll was called, Lindsey Graham—who was tweeting threats against calling witnesses up to the very last second—changed his vote from “nay” at the very last possible second, leading to a final vote tally of 55-45 in favor of witnesses.  

As Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner wrote Saturday, there’s no reason for the Democrat House impeachment managers not to call witnesses. The Senate is currently scheduled to be off next week, so important Senate business won’t be impacted by the additional time spent on the trial. The only thing delayed by the calling of witnesses would be a Senate mini-vacation.

McConnell’s email offers GOP senators a thinly veiled copout to the “January exception” rule, expressly saying that thanks to his refusing to hold the trial while Trump was still in office, McConnell does believe he’s given his cowardly colleagues a thin talking point to deflect valid accusations of supporting a seditious traitor and letting him get away with inciting a deadly insurrection.

McConnell says it was a “close call” but says impeachment is “primarily a tool of removal” and the Senate lacks jurisdiction . He says criminal conduct by a president in office can be prosecuted when the president is out of office pic.twitter.com/JGMTjCp2OL

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) February 13, 2021

Saturday, Feb 13, 2021 · 3:06:52 PM +00:00 · Jessica Sutherland

Maine Sen. Angus King has expressed support for the calling of witnesses—or rather just one … Kevin McCarthy.

Saturday, Feb 13, 2021 · 3:07:53 PM +00:00 · Jessica Sutherland

Lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin’s first words of the day? We are going to subpoena Rep. Herrera Beutler.

Trump’s impeachment trial will also be an indictment of Republican lawmakers—and they know it

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

The Republican Party, which has now firmly staked its claim as a “big” tinfoil tent, is deploying some of the very same lawmakers who perpetrated a giant election fraud lie to assure the nation that impeaching Donald Trump is unwarranted, unfair, and unconstitutional.

“I mean, the House is impeaching him under the theory that his speech created a riot,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Face The Nation Sunday despite being directly involved himself with pushing the very lie that fueled the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. At one point, Graham even pressured Georgia officials to commit fraud themselves in order to overturn the election. 

But that's where the Senate GOP is: pushing out liars who lied to poke holes in the impeachment case assembled by House Democrats. Please proceed, senators, because the impeachment presentation Democrats are getting ready to make starting on Tuesday is going to be a doozy.

“The story of the president’s actions is both riveting and horrifying,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead prosecutor, told The New York Times. “We think that every American should be aware of what happened — that the reason he was impeached by the House and the reason he should be convicted and disqualified from holding future federal office is to make sure that such an attack on our democracy and Constitution never happens again.”

The Democrats' case will rely heavily on a video recreation of the violent siege, viscerally reminding both lawmakers and citizens alike of the trauma Trump inflicted on the nation that day. Since Democrats will need the votes of at least 17 GOP senators to convict Trump and only five have signaled a willingness to consider the arguments on their merits, winning a Senate conviction seems unlikely. But convicting Trump and his GOP enablers in the court of public opinion is clearly worth the energy—particularly as Republicans spend the next couple years whining about President Biden sidelining them in his effort address the country's urgent needs. Congressional Republicans spent four years helping Trump shred the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of stealing another election. Now they think they deserve to be equal players in a presidency they sought to nullify by overturning the will of the people. Democrats are going to remind The People that Trump engineered an attack on the homeland specifically to disenfranchise them and the Republican Party aided and abetted that effort.

Republicans' chief argument against convicting Trump is that it's unconstitutional since he's no longer in office. But remember—Sen. Mitch McConnell stalled the Senate trial until Trump was safely out of office. As luck would have it, Senate Republicans are now basing their key defense strategy on a loophole McConnell created.

But it's not only a phony loophole, it’s also a weak loophole at that. The notion that presidents can't be held to account for their conduct during the entirety of their tenure is ludicrous. As the House impeachment managers wrote in their brief, "There is no 'January Exception' to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution." 

Even conservative stalwart and constitutional law expert Charles Cooper is calling BS on the notion that a president can't be held accountable for their actions in office merely because they are no longer in office. Specifically because the Senate has the constitutional authority to bar people from holding office in the future, Cooper argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “it defies logic to suggest that the Senate is prohibited from trying and convicting former officeholders.”

So GOP efforts to discredit the impeachment trial come down to sending out a bunch of discredited Republican lawmakers to make a preposterous constitutional argument based on circumstances that they themselves manufactured.

Sounds totally reasonable, said nobody who was sane enough to vote for Biden in the first place. And just maybe a few people who voted for Trump but were repulsed by the lethal Jan. 6 riot—or who had hoped the Republican Party would redeem itself in a post-Trump era—will find the Republican posture equally as revolting. The Capitol siege already set in motion a wave of conservative voters who are fleeing the party. The sentiment fueling those defections is only likely to gain steam as Americans watch the impeachment trial and the GOP’s bogus defense of Trump and, by extension, themselves.

Republicans still fighting results of 2020 election, refusing to allow Democratic Senate to organize

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

It's now February and nearly a full month since the Jan. 5 election in Georgia that flipped the Senate to Democrats. At least nominally—the body is split 50-50 and the weight goes to Democrats because they can bring in Vice President Kamala Harris as necessary, so they've got the majority. But the Senate still hasn't passed the organizing resolution to finalize all that and, critically, hand the keys of the committees over to the Democrats.

Why? Sen. Dick Durbin says it’s Sen. Mitch McConnell. "He's the key to it," Durbin told CNN's Manu Raju after an infuriating exchange of tweets and letters Durbin has had with the abhorrent Lindsey Graham, who is the pretender in the Judiciary Committee chair. Technically, the committee doesn't have a chair. The committee doesn't have members, not until the organizing resolution passes. But habit is keeping the gavel in Graham's hand, and he's refusing to schedule a hearing for President Biden's nominee for attorney general, Merrick Garland. Durbin went public with his frustration Monday afternoon tweeting out a plea and a letter to Graham to schedule the damned confirmation hearing on Feb. 8.

To which Graham replied in his typical pissy, hypocritical way. In other words, no, he's not going to extend even a bit of consideration or courtesy, and he's going to be a condescending and patronizing ass in "explaining" why. "Your request is highly unusual," he says. Then he blames it on impeachment and goes through three paragraphs of lecture about committee procedure. Which Durbin knows. Well.

The committee has reams of background material on Garland and has had it since 2016, the last time Republicans were assholes about this particular—completely qualified and non-controversial—nominee, that time for the even more important job on the Supreme Court. 

This might be McConnell and team exacting revenge for their embarrassing loss in filibustering the organizing resolution to keep the filibuster. They're dragging this out as long as they can, though talks among staff have reportedly been "productive." Soon, aides say, maybe as soon as Tuesday. But no one is giving a deadline.

At this point, Biden should just start threatening to name all his nominees who haven't yet had hearings "acting" directors and Schumer should try to force them onto the floor without committee hearings. It would take unanimous consent, but it would also highlight the fact that Republicans are still fighting the results of the 2020 election by refusing to allow Biden to complete his government and the Senate to fully function.

McConnell’s vote against allowing impeachment trial shows once again how he’s manipulating the media

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Senate Republicans once again showed the limits of their willingness to hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions. Those limits include the occasional disapproving statement, but emphatically do not include following through when he’s impeached. Just five Republicans voted to even allow the impeachment trial to go forward when Sen. Rand Paul tried to block it on the grounds that Trump is already out of office.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had used leaks that he might vote for conviction to con the traditional media into portraying him as a fair broker, was not one of those five Republican votes. Sen. Rob Portman, who likes to be seen as a reasonable guy who’d consider bipartisan action and who doesn’t have to worry about a primary because he’s retiring, was not one of those five Republican votes.

Nope, the only Republicans who were even open to hearing the evidence on Donald Trump inciting an insurrection that physically threatened all of them were Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey. Murkowski and Romney probably meant it, Collins and Sasse knew that the time had come when they had to do something do justify continuing coverage of their supposed distaste for Trumpism, and Toomey is retiring.

Here’s the really perfect, chef’s kiss part of McConnell voting against a retroactive impeachment trial: Two weeks ago, when he was still majority leader and Trump was still in office, McConnell refused to reconvene the Senate for a trial. But at the same time, he leaked that he might maybe vote to convict, getting the Very Serious Reasonable Person headlines he was seeking. Now McConnell turns around and votes against holding a retroactive trial that is only retroactive because of him.

I’d say, “Do they not think we’re going to notice what they’re doing?” Except that McConnell has the measure of the traditional media, most of which will absolutely allow itself to get played in this way. To really oomph up the level of “Are you kidding me?” involved here, Republicans decided to hear from their go-to constitutional law scholar, Jonathan Turley, about how retroactive trials are no good … even though in 1999 he strongly endorsed retroactive trials. 

The next level of Republican procedural objection will be because Chief Justice John Roberts isn't presiding over the trial, which was 100% his decision and apparently didn’t come with any indication that he is opting out because he considers the trial illegitimate. But Sen. Patrick Leahy, the most senior Democrat in the chamber, will be presiding, which Republicans will use to suggest it’s a partisan event even though Leahy is scrupulously fair, frequently to a self-owning extent.

It remains possible that evidence of Trump’s incitement of insurrection will emerge that’s so strong that not even most Republicans can ignore it. But in the absence of that, consider the wagons fully circled around Trump, and don’t be surprised by it.