Senate Republicans officially vote five more times for a cover up

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Joan McCarter

After a parliamentary inquiry from Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to Chief Justice John Roberts as to whether he was aware that presiding judge Salmon Chase broke ties in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, and Roberts said yes he was but he wasn't going to be doing that, the Senate Republicans killed the last-ditch efforts by Democrats to stop this cover-up of an impeachment trial.

The first was an amendment to subpoena Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, Michael Duffey and Robert Blair as well as documents from White House, OMB and the Defense and State Departments, the Senate Republicans voted to table it unanimously and it failed 53-47. On the second amendment, to subpoena John Bolton, Republicans Susan Collins and Mitt Romney voted with Democrats, but it was still killed, 51-49. The third amendment was to both subpoena Bolton and further that he be deposed in a session presided over by Roberts, then requiring one day for live testimony before the Senate within the next five days. Again Collins and Romney voted with Democrats, but this amendment was also killed 51-49. The final amendment was Sen. Chris Van Hollen's amendment to require that Roberts rule on motions to subpoena witnesses and documents, and to rule on any assertions from Trump of privilege. Chief Snowflake Roberts was defended unanimously by Republicans, and they killed that one 53-47. The underlying resolution governing the remainder of the trial passed again on a party-line vote of 53-47.

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

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

Posted on January 31, 2020 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.

NYT Editorial Board Member Compares GOP Opposition to Impeachment to the Defense of Jim Crow

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Mairead McArdle

Mara Gay of the New York Times editorial board on Thursday compared Republicans's behavior during the impeachment trial of President Trump to twentieth century politicians' defense of the Jim Crow South.

Bernie Sanders Has Already Drafted ‘Dozens Of Executive Orders’ To Bypass Congress If Elected President

Posted on January 31, 2020 by LifeZette

By PoliZette Staff | January 31, 2020

Disturbing campaign documents have just come to light showing that 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ staffers have already begun preparing “dozens of executive orders” so that he can bypass Congress in the first days of his presidency, should he win the election in November.

The documents, which were obtained by the Washington Post, show that Sanders’ has executive orders prepared on a wide range of issues that include the environment, immigration, and the economy.

Sanders’ team has prepared over a dozen options for reversing President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, with one of them being the immediate halting of construction on the border wall. Another potential executive order would remove the limit for the number of refugees that could be admitted to the United States, while a third would reinstate Barack Obama’s DREAMER program, which granted legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children.

This is just the beginning of the executive orders that Sanders has planned. One order legalizes marijuana in the entirety of the United States, and another would allow the U.S. to import prescription drugs from Canada. Sanders would also declare climate change to be a national emergency as soon as he took office, and he would ban the export of crude oil.

This shows that Sanders is anticipating that Republicans will keep control of the Senate come November, and that he has no intention of letting this stop him from achieving his radical agenda.

Another document obtained by the post was written by Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager; Warren Gunnels, a senior adviser; and Josh Orton, the campaign policy director, who all urge him to use the executive orders to undo the many “wrongs” of Trump’s presidency.

“We cannot accept delays from Congress on some of the most pressing issues, especially those like immigration where Trump has governed with racism and for his own corrupt benefit,” they said.

These documents make it all the more terrifying that Sanders has taken the lead in Democratic primary polls, according to The Blaze. This man clearly thinks that he is above the law, and he would destroy America as we know it if he is able to get to the White House.

Now, more than ever, it’s important that we ensure Trump is reelected in 2020, if for no other reason than to keep this nutcase Sanders out of power.

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

The post Bernie Sanders Has Already Drafted ‘Dozens Of Executive Orders’ To Bypass Congress If Elected President appeared first on The Political Insider.

New Bolton Book Allegations Drop Hours ahead of Vote on Witnesses

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Zachary Evans

New reports of the contents of Bolton's book have surfaced hours before the Senate is scheduled to vote on whether to call witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump.

Let’s make sure there’s hell to pay for Moscow Mitch’s impeachment evil

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Joan McCarter

Thursday night's highly choreographed dance between Sens. Susan Collins and Lamar Alexander in impeached president Donald Trump's trial demonstrated one thing: It is as critical to take away Mitch McConnell's Senate majority as it is to defeat Trump in November.

Collins didn't decide to vote for witnesses after hearing all the facts. She negotiated her opportunity to feign independence from Trump on a vote Maine is watching. The fact that she had a three-paragraph statement ready to tweet out mere moments after Thursday night's session was gaveled out proves it. Moments after that, Alexander was cued to announce his decision in a series of 15 tweets, clearly not written on the fly and admitting that, yeah, the entire Republican conference admits that he did it but they don't give a damn. And no, Lisa Murkowski is not going to save the day—this was all too carefully engineered to leave that as a possibility. So the cover-up McConnell promised from day one is complete, as will be Trump's acquittal.

What does that mean for us now? Payback in November. Moscow Mitch's majority gone. It won't be easy. We'll be fighting against everything an emboldened Trump—and Putin—throw at us. It means we unify behind the Democratic candidate for president and we don't get distracted for one second from giving the new president a Senate that will help her save the republic. It starts today.

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.

Biden Claims Trump’s Trial is ‘Not a Partisan Impeachment’ While Clinton’s Was

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Tobias Hoonhout

Biden, speaking from Iowa, was challenged in an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos over comments he had made in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Senate Republicans plan to wrap up their cover-up Friday, whatever it takes

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Laura Clawson

Friday is the day. The day Senate Republicans close out the impeachment cover-up, that is. After the “opening” arguments from both sides and two days of question-and-answer in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, senators will debate whether to have witnesses and new evidence—something the vast majority of Republicans have already said they’re not interested in, in some cases because they admit that Donald Trump did try to pressure Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 elections and they just don’t care.

The trial once again begins at 1 PM ET, and will start with four hours of debate—two hours for each side—over witnesses and evidence. Presuming that fails—as it is overwhelmingly likely to do, because, again, Republicans do not care how corrupt Trump is and want to set him free to continue trying to rig the elections—then here’s what Politico Playbook reports will happen: “There will be a bit of discussion, then a vote on whether to proceed to the final vote. That motion is amendable, so Democrats might want to try to force some tough votes.” That’s the motion to go to the final vote. After that comes the final vote. Here’s the fun part: “SENATORS we spoke to Thursday predicted this could go as late as 3 or 4 a.m. Saturday morning.” Because Republicans really, really want to wrap this up.

All this is how it’s supposed to go. In theory there’s a chance that some Republican or other could have a sudden attack of caring about something other than Republican power and vote for a fair trial, but … in theory there’s also a chance that pigs could someday fly. As of this writing, Sen. Lisa Murkowski hasn’t announced her decision on the vote on whether to consider witnesses, and if she votes yes, that will produce a tie that lands in Chief Justice John Roberts’ lap. But that’s to say that the likeliest path to witnesses now requires both Murkowski and Roberts, i.e., two partisan Republicans, one of whom last night joined a question arguing that even if Trump did everything alleged (which he did), it still wouldn’t be impeachable. The less likely path involves some Republican who has heretofore not indicated that they might vote for witnesses suddenly coming forward, which, ha ha ha ha ha, yeah, right.

In short, buckle up for a long, long day of Republicans telling us it doesn’t matter that Donald Trump tried to use the power of the presidency for his own personal benefit, to the detriment of American democracy, and then obstructed any effort at congressional oversight.

Republican Lawmaker Launches Bill To Officially Classify CNN And Washington Post As ‘Fake News’

Posted on January 30, 2020 by LifeZette

By PoliZette Staff | January 30, 2020

A Republican state representative from Tennessee filed a bill on Wednesday that would officially categorize the publications of CNN and The Washington Post as “fake news” while also condemning them for “denigrating our citizens.”

Rep. Micah Van Huss, a veteran of the Marine Corps. who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, filed the bill in the state’s General Assembly, according to The Daily Caller. The bill’s summary states that it is “A RESOLUTION to recognize CNN and The Washington Post as fake news and condemn them for denigrating our citizens.”

“WHEREAS, it is fascinating to see this latest ‘cult-of-Trump’ meme coming from the left, because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda,” the bill reads, “because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda; and WHEREAS, any thoughtful observer can see the cult-of-Trump meme as a classic case of psychological projection; after all, accusing someone’s perceived opponent of exactly what one intends to do is a very old tactic; and WHEREAS, the mainstream media is in a panic because President Trump has opened the eyes of many average Americans who are tired of politics as usual.”

The bill goes on to list multiple instances in which CNN and The Washington Post have drawn a “line between Trump opponents and Trump supporters” by claiming that Trump’s supporters are “cultists,” without offering any evidence to back this up. One example that is cited was when a CNN guest “suggested that Trump supporters belong to a cult and that our president is using mind control.”

The bill continues:

“WHEREAS, it is fascinating to see this latest ‘cult-of-Trump’ meme coming from the left, because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda, “because they are the true masters of deploying mobs to demand total conformity and compliance with their agenda; and WHEREAS, any thoughtful observer can see the cult-of-Trump meme as a classic case of psychological projection; after all, accusing someone’s perceived opponent of exactly what one intends to do is a very old tactic; and WHEREAS, the mainstream media is in a panic because President Trump has opened the eyes of many average Americans who are tired of politics as usual.”

Van Huss’ bill argues that because the “cult diagnosis draws a line between Trump opponents and Trump supporters” and “oversimplifies the way people think and feel about their own beliefs and those on the other side of that line,” the state of Tennessee should classify these outlets as “fake news and part of the media wing of the Democratic Party.”

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we condemn them for denigrating our citizens and implying that they are weak-minded followers instead of people exercising their rights that our veterans paid for with their blood,” the bill concludes,

Van Huss posted on his Facebook page that he decided to file the bill because his constituents are sick of being lied to by the media.

“I’ve filed HJR 779 on behalf of a constituency that’s tired of fake news and Republicans who don’t fight,” Van Huss wrote.

“I remember when the news was informative and honest,” he later added. “CNN continues to divide this country in an era of significant political polarization.”

Van Huss went on to say that his fellow Republicans are “excited” about the bill, indicating that it is receiving lots of support.

“I have not received any negative feedback,” he said.

CNN and The Washington Post have torpedoed their own reputations as trusted news organizations in recent years with their blatant anti-Trump biases. If this bill does indeed become law, they only have themselves to blame.

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

The post Republican Lawmaker Launches Bill To Officially Classify CNN And Washington Post As ‘Fake News’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Trump defense in court: Impeachment, not courts, is proper remedy for a president ignoring subpoenas

Posted on January 30, 2020 by Hunter

There were gasps and laughter on the Senate floor when House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff announced this: Even as Trump's lawyers insisted repeatedly, over and over, that a president cannot be impeached for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas, his Bill Barr-led Department of Justice is in court, today, insisting that Congress absolutely can respond to a president refusing to abide by congressional subpoenas by ... impeaching that president.

CNN reports, "Justice Department lawyer James Burnham said without hesitation that the House can use its impeachment powers, among other options, like withholding appropriations." The courts have no role in enforcing subpoenas directed at the executive branch—that has been the repeated Trump court argument. In the Senate, in the meantime, Trump's team is simultaneously arguing that impeachment cannot be used in response to a president's team ignoring subpoenas, that it must be argued through the courts.

The Trump defense is inherently corrupt. The Republican defense, in the Senate, is inherently corrupt.

"You can't make this stuff up... The Justice Department, in resisting House subpoenas, is in court TODAY and was asked: If Congress can't come to the court to enforce subpoenas... what remedy is there?The DOJ lawyers response? Impeachment." - @RepAdamSchiff pic.twitter.com/eUMkaENXHQ
— House Intelligence Committee (@HouseIntel) January 30, 2020