Category: Republicans

Trump defender Matt Gaetz publicly sulking after he didn’t get picked for Dear Leader’s B-team

Posted on by Hunter

One of the problems with being a professional political suck-up is that there is always someone willing to be more of a suck-up than you. Grovel all you like: Lindsey Graham will have you beat. Praise Dear Leader day and night: Nikki Haley will write a whole book about Dear Leader's hidden genius, even as Dear Leader kicks mud on her shoes. Rep. Matt Gaetz is not exactly in the upper tiers of the Republican brain trust, but he has devoted himself to sucking-up like a Hoover.

So right now he's really, really steamed that he wasn't picked to be on Donald Trump's impeachment "defense" team. Not the elite team, the one sitting on the Senate floor doing its best impression of mob lawyers who have made the big time, but the B-team, with Rep. Jim Jordan and other House shouters who have been selected as Trump's semi-official Fox News defenders. According to Gaetz, the White House did it to punish him.

Specifically, Gaetz is publicly blaming White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland for the betrayal, and is slamming him for it. Gaetz says Ueland is retaliating after Gaetz voted with Democrats to rein in Trump's war powers following Trump's assassination of a top Iranian military official. And he is steamed. Politico reports that Gaetz said, "He knows it’s House Democrats, not Iran, who are impeaching the president, right?" and added, “I thought ‘legislative affairs’ folks were supposed to help the president add friends, not extend silly fights with the president’s best friends."

BEST. FRIENDS. He is Dear Leader's BEST FRIEND, you White House lowlife. How dare you get between a man and his dog?

To emphasize: This is a very stupid fight. This is why Rep. Matt Gaetz is the best person to pursue it. Gaetz and the White House both know that Gaetz will still appear in front of any available camera to praise and defend Trump, regardless of whether he is allowed into the Dear Leader Fan Clubhouse or not. It is true that he wanted to be an executive talking point delivery boy, but he is still a regular talking point delivery boy. It's just a meaningless title that just helps insecure people feel better about themselves.

Trump is abusing his power and obstructing Congress right now while impeachment trial continues

Posted on by Joan McCarter

In the middle of an impeachment trial in which Donald Trump is accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the Trump administration is brazenly abusing its power, flouting a court order, and ignoring Congress. Just this week, the administration deported an Iranian student against a judge's express order, and defied a congressional order to turn over a report.

Late Monday night, Customs and Border Patrol deported Shahab Abadi, a 24-year old Iranian citizen studying at Northeastern University, despite a federal judge's order blocking his deportation. CPB claims it didn't know about the order, and the judge has to just let it go, or is choosing to, because now that Abadi is out of the country, there's no longer a case. The administration is getting way with it. So far, it’s also getting away with seemingly arbitrarily using national security as a bogus excuse to justify Trump's tariffs, and refusing to show Congress its evidence even after Congress ordered that it be turned over.

The administration says it has a secret report declaring some imported cars are a national security risk. Yes, cars. Because some imported cars and trucks were "weakening our internal economy" and thus pose a national security threat. That's really what is argued in this report (if it truly exists, and that has been in question because this is the Trump administration we're talking about). Congress included a provision demanding that the administration turn over the report in the spending bill passed at the end of last year.

The administration might not be turning over that report because it does not exist, which is as likely as anything. But that's not the point. The point is the administration says there is a report and because it says the law doesn't matter, it doesn’t have to turn it over to Congress even though Congress ordered it. The Commerce Department argued in its memo refusing to comply that it is "not releasing the 232 autos report because releasing it now would interfere with the President’s ability to protect confidential executive branch communications and could interfere with ongoing negotiations," and says it has a Justice Department opinion that backs it up.

This has two Republican senators supposedly hopping mad. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania says "the Department of Commerce is willfully violating federal law" and he is "evaluating the potential for corrective action to compel the rightful release of this report." Chuck Grassley of Iowa says the Justice Department memo "doesn't seem to have much merit on its face. The law as passed by Congress is clear."

If they wanted to send a message to the administration, and to Trump, that he is not above the law, they've got a very ripe opportunity right now. But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to take it.

Chief Justice Roberts lets Senate Republicans show blatant disdain for impeachment proceedings

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Senate Republicans are united again in saying they've heard absolutely nothing new in the House impeachment managers presentation against Donald Trump. That's after they voted en masse, as a unified bloc, against 10 amendments from Democrats to provide more information at the outset of the trial. They don't want to hear anything new, which is glaringly apparent in their disdain for the rules and blatant flouting of them.

They're acting like a bunch of middle school kids bored in their civics class. "Gum-chewing, snacking, yawning and alleged napping could be seen throughout the cramped chamber," AP's Laurie Kellman reports. "Some openly snickered when lead prosecutor Adam Schiff said he’d only speak for 10 minutes. And when one of the freshman House prosecutors stood to speak, many of the senator-jurors bolted for the cloak rooms, where their phones are stored." Which is the least of it. Numerous Republican senators have been reported to have just left for long stretches at a time. Rand Paul brought in a crossword to play with. At one point more 1/5 of the Senate—21 members—were out of the chamber. Which leads to one major question: what in the hell is Chief Justice John Roberts doing in the meantime, since he's refusing to enforce the rules?

He is presiding over this trial, which is supposed to mean enforcing the rules, not acting like a potted plant and doing whatever it is he's been doing—catching up on reading? Crossword puzzles? We don't know that either, because Mitch McConnell didn't let any cameras in besides the ones controlled by him. We get one camera view, the person who is speaking, so all the senators who are supposed to be remaining in their seats, paying attention, not talking can do whatever the hell they want, it seems.

Republicans clearly don't give a damn about anything, Trump could steal the entire treasury and if they got a kickback, they'd be fine with it. But they're being just a little too obvious in that, underestimating the extent to which the voters are turning against them, both in hearing new witnesses and documents, and in convicting and removing Trump from office.

They're playing with fire, increasing the likelihood that they'll be severely burned in November.

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.

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.

Jay Sekulow makes a fool of himself in the Senate, so of course the Trump team doubles down

Posted on by Hunter

One of the more baffling moments of the frequently baffling defense offered up by Trump's impeachment team was an extended rant on "lawyer lawsuits" delivered by Trump personal lawyer and co-conspirator to crimes Jay Sekulow. Nobody could figure out what he was going on about. Here’s a taste:

“Lawyer lawsuits? We’re talking about the impeachment of a president of the United States, duly elected, and the managers are complaining about lawyer lawsuits? The Constitution allows lawyer lawsuits. It’s disrespecting the Constitution of the United States to even say that in this chamber. Lawyer lawsuits.”

It now looks like Sekulow's whole rant was based on him completely mishearing House manager Val Demings. So naturally Team Trump is, rather than admitting that, doubling down on Sekulow's newly discovered bonnet-bug. Of course.

What House manager Demings was talking about, in her own speech, was "FOIA lawsuits" (commonly pronounced as FOY-uh). She was referring, of course, to the Freedom of Information Act-based lawsuits that have secured redacted government documents that the administration attempted to hide from the public. The Washington Post and reporter Igor Bobic, however, report that White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland insisted that Sekulow did not mishear and that "lawyer lawsuits" was a real thing. The transcript "says 'lawyer lawsuit,'" claimed Ueland.

Wait, what transcript? We don't know. Neither of the ones the Post looked at contained such a phrase, and there is certainly a distinct possibility that Ueland is, like the Trump White House continues to do on a daily and hourly basis, simply lying about it. Inventing a new hand-waving outrage out of thin air, refusing to acknowledge those who point out it is incorrect or manufactured, and then angrily insisting the new invention is in fact a great travesty and a shameful, shameful moment for Dear Leader's critics is exactly what Trump's team would do, because it is what Trump's team did throughout the night, over and over.

Republicans were not allowed to witness "secret" House depositions, they insisted. They not only were allowed, but did. Donald Trump was not allowed to present a defense, they shouted to senators. The House invited the White House to send a legal team, produce a defense, and produce documents for that defense; Trump's legal team refused. Republicans were not allowed their own witnesses, they claimed; House Republicans produced multiple witnesses, who were questioned and cross-examined on live television. These were not mischaracterizations. They were lies about recent, extremely televised, extremely reported-on public happenings that we all witnessed.

While Republican senators prattle on about the supposed dignity of their chamber, the Trump legal team lying to the Senate outright about matters in clear public view has resulted in exactly zero outrage from those lawmakers. We can infer from that that they both expect to be lied to and, in fact, are counting on it. It doesn't matter what Trump's "legal team" comes up with during their own presentations. Jay Sekulow can simply invent new words and phrases and scream at the Senate about the outrage they represent, and most of the Republican senators will nod their heads and vote ... exactly like they intended to from the first moment.

Some Democrats reportedly open to boosting Republican talking points with impeachment witness trade

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Behind the scenes of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, some Democrats are reportedly pondering a deal that could go wrong in about a dozen ways. With Republicans blocking witnesses while yelling about Hunter Biden, these Democrats are considering a trade in which they’d get to call White House officials like former national security adviser John Bolton, an actual witness to Trump’s actions that prompted impeachment, and Republicans would get to call Hunter Biden, a Republican talking point with no actual connection to impeachment.

While Democrats have repeatedly said that calling either Hunter or former Vice President Joe Biden would be irrelevant and a distraction, “behind closed doors, a small group of Democratic senators and aides has begun to question that logic, sounding out colleagues on whether to back a witness deal that could lead to testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton or other administration officials with possible firsthand knowledge of the Ukraine controversy,” The Washington Post reports, citing “multiple Democratic officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.”

Some Democrats have sent mixed messages. Sen. Chris Coons said that “If you want to give Joe Biden an opportunity to sit in the well of the Senate and answer the question, ‘Do you think the president acted appropriately?’ go right ahead”—but he also tweeted that “Trials have witnesses, and the witnesses have to be relevant to the case. It isn’t complicated. The President is on trial here, not anyone with the last name Biden. VP Biden and Hunter Biden are not relevant witnesses.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown told CNN’s State of the Union that he was “fine” with a Biden testifying in exchange for administration officials, but on Tuesday he called the idea “a typical Donald Trump-Mitch McConnell distraction that the national media continues to play with and continues to assist them.”

The big question at this point is not what Democrats are saying publicly, though. It’s what they’re talking about behind the scenes.

It is tempting to think that having Bolton or other current or former Trump officials testify could blow this thing wide open, but there are so many risks it’s hard to count them. Like, Hunter or Joe Biden testifies, giving Republicans the distraction they crave, and then Bolton refuses, or Trump manages to block Bolton. Just for starters. The Biden campaign is calling it right, saying that this is a “sad and obvious attempt at diversion” by Republicans. 

This impeachment trial is about Donald Trump and what Donald Trump did.