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.

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.

Collins earns a new nickname in Moscow Mitch’s impeachment game: Sidekick Sue

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Joan McCarter

There's a new nickname for Maine Sen. Susan Collins floating around the internet: It’s #SidekickSue, in recognition that she's Moscow Mitch McConnell’s most valuable player when he's trying to fix a Senate vote. That the fix was in (and that she had a key role in it) was glaringly apparently Thursday night in the choreographed release of statements from Collins and Sen. Lamar Alexander regarding whether they wanted to compel additional witnesses and testimony in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. (Collins said yea, while Alexander said nay.)

The final cynical fillip came Friday morning from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the other reliable player in McConnell's game, with her duplicitous embrace of the cover-up with crocodile tears: "It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed." But she did her job for McConnell, and she's providing the cover Collins needs. It's not going to work this time.

The jig has been up for Collins since she betrayed every principle she previously touted and voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh’s conformation to the Supreme Court. "Just as we've known she would, Collins announced her support for witnesses only when the votes were fixed to block witnesses and rig the trial to cover-up the corruption of Donald Trump," Marie Follayttar, co-director of Mainers for Accountable Leadership, told Common Dreams. "We see Collins for who she is—Sidekick Sue to Moscow Mitch and a corrupt and despotic Trump."

Collins has chosen her side, and Maine knows it. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

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.

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.

Collins, Alexander prove that fix has been in all along on Trump’s impeachment trial

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Joan McCarter

There will almost certainly not be a 50-50 tie in the Senate impeachment trial on whether to have additional witnesses and documents. Sen. Susan Collins, almost immediately following the closing of Thursday night's session, showed that she'd been given the "hall pass" from McConnell to vote "yes" on witnesses. In a three-paragraph statement that was probably written before the trial even began.

Moments after Collins’ statement, as if it were totally choreographed to try to make her look like the hero, Sen. Lamar Alexander announced that he is a "no" because "there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense." He goes on to say essentially, yes Trump definitely did it, but we don't need to impeach him over it.

If, as expected, Sen. Mitt Romney votes for witnesses, that leaves just Sen. Lisa Murkowski as an unknown. She’s said she's thinking on it. That's most likely false, because the main thing has been trying to give Collins cover, and McConnell is not going to allow Chief Justice Roberts being in the position of having to decide whether or not to break a tie.

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

WATCH: Murkowski says Bolton book revelation ‘weighs in favor’ of calling witnesses

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press

Sen. Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska drew a reaction in the impeachment trial when she asked simply: "Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?"

WATCH LIVE: Trump impeachment trial — Jan. 31

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Molly Finnegan

The debate and vote on Friday will focus on whether new witnesses should be called as part of the Senate trial. Watch live here.

Senate GOP grows more confident it can block witnesses in impeachment trial

Posted on January 30, 2020 by PBS NewsHour - Politics

U.S. senators are preparing for a critical vote on whether to allow new witnesses to testify as part of President Trump's impeachment trial. On Thursday, they had their second and final chance to ask questions of House impeachment managers and Trump's legal team. Amna Nawaz reports on their different interpretations of truth, and Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff to discuss.

2 former Senate staffers on precedents set by Trump impeachment trial

Posted on January 30, 2020 by PBS NewsHour - Politics

In President Trump's impeachment trial, senators had their second and final opportunity to ask questions Thursday. The Brookings Institution's Margaret Taylor, former chief counsel and deputy staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and John Hart of Mars Hill Strategies, who worked for Republican Rep. Tom Coburn when President Clinton was impeached, join Judy Woodruff to discuss.