Pelosi: Impeachment Is Moving Forward

[Artemus]

Rule changes in the Senate require a two-thirds vote. Per  Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate


McConnell actually mentioned that as the reason he had to hold the trial. (Not because it was the right thing to do, but because he didn't have enough votes to do the wrong thing.)

I'll defer to your opinion, but what about what it says here:

The nuclear option is a parliamentary procedure that allows the United States Senate to override the 60-vote rule to close debate, by a simple majority of 51 votes, rather than the two-thirds supermajority normally required to amend the rules. The option is invoked when the majority leader raises a point of order that only a simple majority is needed to close debate on certain matters. The presiding officer denies the point of order based on Senate rules, but the ruling of the chair is then appealed and overturned by majority vote, establishing new precedent.

This procedure effectively allows the Senate to decide any issue by simple majority vote, regardless of existing procedural rules such as Rule XXII which requires the consent of 60 senators (out of 100) to end a filibuster for legislation, and 67 for amending a Senate rule.

Maybe McConnell is saying that he is bound to hold the trial, but in reality once the trial starts they can change the rules as they wish.

Don't defer to my opinion! I just saw the quote from McConnell and quoted the Wikipedia article that seemed to confirm it. The "nuclear option" is clear as mud. Maybe McConnell actually does want to do the right thing but wants the republican voters to think that that he only did it because he had no choice.

 

[ZiprHead]

TRUMP IS JUST SIX SENATE VOTES AWAY FROM IMPEACHMENT

 

[WAB]

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If this nonsense from Trump ends up putting Ukraine at a disadvantage with Russia and helps Russia successfully grab territory from Ukraine, Trump is sunk. And that may be happening. Ukraine can no longer count on the US and has to cut the best deal they can with Russia being in a weak position. The GOP made great hay out of "Who lost China!?" chants at the beginning of the cold war. We may see the GOP take it on the chin as weak on aggressive enemies like Russia. It could be the Republican cross to bear on future elections when (not if but when) this all goes sour on the US.

Weak and incompetent will be a dead cat hung around the necks of the GOP for years to come.

 

[Patooka]

TRUMP IS JUST SIX SENATE VOTES AWAY FROM IMPEACHMENT

That's a lovely dream, but the article isn't accurate with regards to the title. The scenario outlined has more caveats than an iTunes agreement. Any Republican senator is taking a big risk, because if Trump goes down, they're going to have to explain to their constituents why they were part of something unprecedented.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

TRUMP IS JUST SIX SENATE VOTES AWAY FROM IMPEACHMENT

That's a lovely dream, but the article isn't accurate with regards to the title. The scenario outlined has more caveats than an iTunes agreement. Any Republican senator is taking a big risk, because if Trump goes down, they're going to have to explain to their constituents why they were part of something unprecedented.

It didn’t contemplate the current smoking gun scenario.

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Trump Has Disqualified Himself From Running in 2020 - The New York Times Since he has essentially admitted his part in the Ukraine scandal,

Mr. Trump has supplied American voters with overwhelming reason to doubt that any election he participates in can be fair. That’s why he can’t be allowed to run for any public office, much less the presidency, ever again.

...
If the House goes through with impeachment but the Senate acquits, Mr. Trump’s lawlessness will have been lavishly rewarded. He will take it as a signal that absolutely anything goes — especially given the Senate’s failure to act in any meaningful way on election security. Should he win, a sizable majority of the public will see it as an electoral coup and deny the validity of his claim to power. It’s easy to imagine enormous mass protests that bring Washington to a halt, dangerous indeterminacy in the continuity of government, and worse.

If Senate Republicans hold their majority through an election that stinks of corruption, they’ll be dogged by the same crisis of legitimacy. If they nevertheless go on to use their dubious authority to continue stacking the courts and shielding the president from accountability, Americans won’t be wrong to conclude that our democracy has crumbled and that the United States has devolved into one of the world’s many soft-authoritarian kleptocracies claiming popular legitimacy from behind a cheap veneer of rigged elections. It can definitely happen here.

 

[lpetrich]

Senate rules: Mitch McConnell says the upper chamber has “no choice” but to take up impeachment if House brings charges - Vox

The Senate would need to hold a recorded vote to “reinterpret” existing rules on impeachment.

...
“It’s a Senate rule related to impeachment that would take 67 votes to change,” he added.

Trump’s treason and civil war tweets show he’s dangerously unfit - Vox

Over the past several days, the self-proclaimed “stable genius” has been on a nonstop Twitter binge, lying about what’s going on in Congress, lying about what happened in Ukraine, and escalating his inappropriate conduct by threatening the country with a civil war and threatening his enemies in Congress with criminal charges.

He also posted a rapid-fire set of Fox News clips, complaining furiously about a brief moment of Fox content that displeased him.

He refers to "Do Nothing Democrats" several times, yet:

Under the circumstances, it’s worth emphasizing that this is simply false. House Democrats have passed a lot of bills, including conceptually ambitious legislation to curb corruption in politics and begin to address climate change along with a host of smaller measures. They’ve passed legislation on background checks for gun buyers, tried to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, tried to extend nondiscrimination rules to LGBTQ people, and tried to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. The reason these bills — and measures addressing prescription drug prices, insurance for people with preexisting conditions, and consumer protection in financial services — aren’t going anywhere is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t bring them up for votes.

It isn’t even that these bills are being defeated in the Senate. McConnell is aware that these are popular measures, and he doesn’t want to make his members cast unpopular votes against them. Consequently, Republicans have simply refused to let them come to the floor, even while pretending to be mad that Democrats are too busy with impeachment to legislate. By contrast, Senate Republicans are not passing popular bills featuring conservative ideas to address problems. Not because they’re too busy with impeachment, but because they don’t seem to have any.

Then, "Trump has a lot of dishonest thoughts on Ukraine" and "Trump is threatening his enemies with prison"

The Ukraine call, however, reveals not just inappropriate conduct but the fundamental inadequacy of this line of thought as a response to Trump. Members of Trump’s administration have been trying, since Inauguration Day, to steer him toward something approaching a normal conservative Republican approach to Russia.

But as Trump’s former top Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert explained over the weekend, it’s been impossible to dissuade Trump from propagating a baroque conspiracy theory involving Ukraine and an IT security company called Crowdstrike, whose CEO Trump wrongly believes is Ukrainian.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump cranks up grievance machine - POLITICO - calling himself a victim, despite conservatives claiming that they frown on claims of victimhood. Where are the oh-so-righteous conservatives about Trump? Why aren't they demanding that he take responsibility for his actions instead of calling himself a victim?

The push demonstrates how Trump, in less than three years in office, has perfected a grievance machine that converts deep-seated outrage on the right into fundraising dollars and new support. As Trump confronts the gravest threat to his presidency yet, his campaign is stoking — and monetizing — the anger of a Republican base that has long seen the president as under siege.

...
“This approach enables Trump to set the narrative on his terms and paint himself as the iconoclast that is always under attack from the ‘fake news media’ and Democratic ‘witch hunt,’ and it clearly works as they continue to perpetuate it every chance they get,” McGowan added.

The Trump team has orchestrated a massive digital campaign aimed at pushing his supporters’ emotional buttons by conveying a singular message: The president is under assault.

 

[James Brown]

TRUMP IS JUST SIX SENATE VOTES AWAY FROM IMPEACHMENT

That's a lovely dream, but the article isn't accurate with regards to the title. The scenario outlined has more caveats than an iTunes agreement. Any Republican senator is taking a big risk, because if Trump goes down, they're going to have to explain to their constituents why they were part of something unprecedented.

That's why impeachment votes should be anonymous.

That way all these "Off-the-record" Republicans who want Trump gone can vote their conscience without worrying about being primaried by a rabid minority.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Trump cranks up grievance machine - POLITICO - calling himself a victim, despite conservatives claiming that they frown on claims of victimhood. Where are the oh-so-righteous conservatives about Trump? Why aren't they demanding that he take responsibility for his actions instead of calling himself a victim?

This observation is well late to the table. Trump was whining about how unfair the campaign ads were to him in a debate with Clinton. It was exactly one of those things that had Clinton said it, she was "just being a woman" and they can't take it. Trump with the whining, gets a free pass much like he has received a free pass in everything else in his life. It is simply unexplainable how a guy can walk through life and suffer nearly no consequences of any of his actions.

With the SD IG having something urgent to say to Congress, we are possibly about to find out if he walks on this garbage too.

 

[Keith&Co.]

TRUMP IS JUST SIX SENATE VOTES AWAY FROM IMPEACHMENT

That's a lovely dream, but the article isn't accurate with regards to the title. The scenario outlined has more caveats than an iTunes agreement. Any Republican senator is taking a big risk, because if Trump goes down, they're going to have to explain to their constituents why they were part of something unprecedented.

That's why impeachment votes should be anonymous.

That way all these "Off-the-record" Republicans who want Trump gone can vote their conscience without worrying about being primaried by a rabid minority.

Can't agree.
If it's anonymous, then they can go back to their voters and claim to have voted whichever way the polls suggest is popular.


It is unfortunate that Trump can hold people accountable for their votes, but the voters HAVE to be able to hold their representatives accountable.

But i doubt that this will come to a vote. Like Nixon, he'll be given a chance to resign. Not for his sake, but to protect the GOP from actually having to go on record as for or against corruption.

 

[James Brown]

Fair point, Keith.

 

[PyramidHead]

View attachment 24167

What was deceptive about what I said?

I don't think PH got your point. Also, someone did mention the Nixon map in the comments of Trump's tweet. Nixon crushed it in '72. And was gone by '74. My point was more to Trump's fake 2016 map.

The comic wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the map, which conservatives use to try to show that most of the country supports Trump. The reality of course is that the red zone contains about the same number of people as the blue ones, just spread out over miles of land.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't think PH got your point. Also, someone did mention the Nixon map in the comments of Trump's tweet. Nixon crushed it in '72. And was gone by '74. My point was more to Trump's fake 2016 map.

The comic wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the map, which conservatives use to try to show that most of the country supports Trump. The reality of course is that the red zone contains about the same number of people as the blue ones, just spread out over miles of land.

The map is also wrong and doesn't represent any map for any recent election.

Fair point, Keith.

There is no room for courtesy on the Internet! You provided an opinion, now you have to fight for it!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is hard to tell just how much this "briefing" is going to matter. It feels like the Devin Nunes stunt from a while ago. However, the SD IG is a hold over from the Obama Admin.

Meanwhile, Giuliani just hired a Watergate assistant prosecutor to be his lawyer for the Ukrainian crap.

 

[Politesse]

TRUMP IS JUST SIX SENATE VOTES AWAY FROM IMPEACHMENT

That's a lovely dream, but the article isn't accurate with regards to the title. The scenario outlined has more caveats than an iTunes agreement. Any Republican senator is taking a big risk, because if Trump goes down, they're going to have to explain to their constituents why they were part of something unprecedented.

The thing that bugs me is that they should have a perfectly good answer to that question by now.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

SD IG meeting could be interesting. CNN reports that the invitation states:

Consistent with obligations under the Inspector General Act, Inspector General Steve A. Linick would like to discuss and provide staff with copies of documents related to the State Department and Ukraine. OIG obtained the documents from the Acting Legal Advisor of the Department of State.

This sounds less like a snow job now and more like the SD is revolting (following the law).

 

[Keith&Co.]

Fair point, Keith.

There is no room for courtesy on the Internet! You provided an opinion, now you have to fight for it!

It's okay, it's okay!

He also neg-repped me and called my mom a vegan, so it worked out in the end.

 

[Treedbear]

SD IG meeting could be interesting. CNN reports that the invitation states:

Consistent with obligations under the Inspector General Act, Inspector General Steve A. Linick would like to discuss and provide staff with copies of documents related to the State Department and Ukraine. OIG obtained the documents from the Acting Legal Advisor of the Department of State.

This sounds less like a snow job now and more like the SD is revolting (following the law).

Also -

According to CNN, the inspector general is expected to speak with committee staff from House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations, House and Senate Appropriations, House Oversight, Senate Homeland Security, and Governmental Affairs, as well as from the House and Senate intelligence committees. The briefing will be held in a secure meeting room in the Capitol.

I heard the IG requested that he speak to those committees.