Teresa Hanafin writes in the Boston Globe’s Fast Forward:
You have to hand it to Mitch McConnell:He is quite open about his devotional obeisance to Trump. Just look at the TPP he has unveiled (that’s Trump Protection Plan, not Trans-Pacific Partnership) and which the Senate will vote on today: His rules are very different from those in place for the Bill Clinton trial, which he had pledged to follow. (Wait, a Republican lied? I’m shocked, shocked to find that lying is going on in here!) A cynic would sum up the proposed rules as no evidence, no witnesses, no time, no sunshine.
Evidence. The material the House collected during its impeachment investigation will not be automatically entered into evidence, as it was at the Clinton trial. Instead, it will be subject to a vote of acceptance by the full Senate, a vote that won’t happen until after statements and arguments by both sides.
Witnesses. McConnell is opposed to calling witnesses who refused to testify in the House unless the Senate votes to call them — again, after the arguments by both sides.
Time. Like the Clinton trial, each side will have 24 hours to present its case. But McConnell is forcing those 24 hours into just two days each (Clinton’s opponents and supporters had four days each). Since the sessions can’t start until 1 p.m. because of Chief Justice John Roberts’s Supreme Court morning schedule, the trial arguments will go into the wee hours of the morning each day. That’s why the hashtags #MidnightMoscowMitch and #MidnightMitchand the phrase “Nobody likes him” are trending on Twitter. Oh, wait — that last one is about Bernie Sanders, not McConnell. Sorry about that.
Sunshine. That’s the nickname given to laws and acts that mandate openness and transparency on the part of government and businesses, designed to reassure the public that officials are acting ethically, to allow the public to bear witness to certain activities, and to prevent corruption. In fact, there is a federal sunshine statute that applies to Congress. McConnell looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in quite some time, so there’s that.
Let’s review what’s at issue here: The charges against Trump are that he abused the power of the presidency to help himself get re-elected, and then obstructed Congress when it tried to find out the truth by blocking all requests for testimony and documents.
Trump held up $391 million in congressionally approved and critical military aid for Ukraine, a US ally that is fighting off the Russians on its eastern border; refused to invite the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to the White House to demonstrate US resolve to help him clean up corruption; and canceled VP Mike Pence’s attendance at Zelensky’s inauguration, which would have signaled US support for Ukraine to the Russians.
He stands accused of doing all that to try to force Zelensky to publicly announce that he was investigating Trump’s chief political rival, former VP Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Testimony from multiple witnesses during the House impeachment investigation showed that Trump wasn’t the least bit interested in the widespread corruption in Ukraine that Zelensky was trying to tackle. Nor did he care whether Zelensky actually conducted a Biden investigation, witnesses said. All he wanted was an announcement that could be played on an endless loop on Fox News until November.
Of course, the whistleblower derailed that plan when he/she revealed the contents of a phone call in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. After Trump found out about the whistleblower’s complaint, and after three House committees launched investigations into the scheme, Trump finally released the aid — after a delay of 84 days. (In other words, after he got caught.)
The Democrats released their 111-page trial argument, which says that Trump’s actions jeopardized national security, compromised the integrity of US elections, and undermined US democracy. The White House legal arguments read partly like a combination of Trump’s Twitter tirades and his rally rages: It’s a rigged process, Democrats are trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election, the charges are flimsy and dangerous, Chuck Schumer is ugly, etc. etc.
One of the White House’s main arguments is that Trump committed no crime, although first of all, most legal scholars say that’s not required for impeachment, and second, he actually did break the law. The Government Accountability Office ruled last week that he did so when he withheld the military aid to Ukraine, saying that the president cannot substitute his policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. And obstruction of Congress is a federal criminal violation.
They also argue that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. Funny, it was when Nixon’s impeachment articles were being prepared, and it was again during the Clinton impeachment when independent counsel Kenneth Starrunsuccessfully tried to persuade the House to make that an article of impeachment. In fact, he argued that repeatedly invoking executive privilege is abuse of power. He’s now on Trump’s legal team, but apparently sees no contradictions.
Neither does Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz,who is on Trump’s team for one reason: to argue that abuse of power isn’t an impeachable offense under the Constitution because it isn’t a crime under federal law. Of course, in 1998 during the Bill Clinton trial, he argued the exact opposite.
Meanwhile, a panicked Trump and Senate Republicans are frantic over the possibility that the Senate will, indeed, vote to hear from witnesses, so they are pulling out all the stops, coming up with plans to keep former national security adviser John Bolton from testifying. Man, he must know a lot. But why he doesn’t just hold a press conference and spill his guts, or send House Democrats a document outlining what he knows, is beyond me. Another GOP drama king.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
What a 3-ring circus!! Present the evidence. Let all the witnesses testify. Let Judge Roberts do his job and preside. Then let the senate vote.
Are they afraid they might find something don’t want out there? Will the witnesses clear him. No one knows because all the witnesses have been forbidden from testifying.
Maybe the witnesses haven’t been forbidden, but are afraid for their lives and well being…or that of their family? Bolton has a lot to tell, but everyone has their limits. I’m surprised that the whistle blower has remained anonymous so far.
Coercion…A much better way of keeping witnesses from testifying. Every incumbent should be voted out of office. We the people are the only ones who can change what is going on in DC
You are correct! The Senate needs to change before anything meaningful can be done. McCain died and the Republicans that were moderate in nature who could sway other politicians have retired. We are left with a Circus Show of epic proportions.
“Since the sessions can’t start until 1 p.m. because of Chief Justice John Roberts’s Supreme Court morning schedule, the trial arguments will go into the wee hours of the morning each day.”
There is a vote on whether or not to accept the evidence put forth by the House? The ‘trial’ will go from 1:00pm for 12 hours? Abuse of power is not an impeachable offense?
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued a report concluding that the president violated a federal law called the Impoundment Control Act by blocking military aid to Ukraine that Congress already had approved.
The president “is not vested with the power to ignore or amend any such duly enacted law,” the GAO said.
Are these people totally crazy?
Trump’s lawyers submitted a 171-page legal brief to the Senate, their first major filing in the case, asserting that the two articles of impeachment approved by the House last month are unconstitutional and threaten to set a dangerous precedent by constraining future presidents in foreign affairs.
“Sen. McConnell’s resolution stipulates that key facts be delivered in the wee hours of the night simply because he doesn’t want the American people to hear them. Any senator that votes for the McConnell resolution will be voting to hide information and evidence from the American people,” Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said in a statement.
RE: McConnell’s absurd 2 12hr days schedule: apparently he never heard of DVR. There are plenty of folks at each end of the political spectrum who will be recording, & watching…
The Life-Changing Magic of Impeaching Trump
By Andy Borowitz
October 17, 2019
Over the past five years, millions of Americans have ascended to a higher plane of fulfillment by tidying up their homes. By talking to our possessions, one by one, and asking if they spark joy, we have achieved a kind of contentment we never dreamed possible.
Now it’s time to tidy up a residence that belongs to all of us: the White House.
At first, this seems like a daunting task. After all, the White House has a hundred and thirty-two rooms. There is much culling to be done.
But there’s no reason to despair. Many useless things have already been hauled away. Reince Priebus, John Kelly, Steve Bannon, Kirstjen Nielsen, Michael Flynn, John Bolton, Sean Spicer, Hope Hicks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders—none of them sparked joy. And now they are all gone. And Anthony Scaramucci, who sparked joy as briefly as those paisley pants you immediately regretted buying at H&M—he is gone, too.
Clearly, though, more culling remains to be done.
We must look at Donald Trump and ask ourselves, “Does this spark joy?” And, although the answer to that question might be somewhat different in Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, the answer here is a resounding no.
Remember how, once you tidied up your dwelling, you discovered hidden treasures buried under all of those needless possessions? Well, once that garish orange thing that sparks no joy has been removed from the Oval Office, you’ll be amazed what you’ll find underneath. Things you forgot you even had, like democracy.
In the video above, from last weekend’s New Yorker Festival, I speak about the happiness we can attain by decluttering the country of Trump. Much like Marie Kondo, the authors of the United States Constitution gave us a unique tool for improving our surroundings: impeachment. And the Twenty-fifth Amendment is pretty good, too.
The Life-Changing Magic of Impeaching Trump
Check out this video on The New Yorker:
https://video.newyorker.com/watch/the-new-yorker-festival-andy-borowitz-the-life-changing-magic-of-impeaching-trump/
I like the Marie Kondo reference to tidying up our surroundings and freeing us from things that do not spark joy. We need to clear out the radical right wing that only sparks animus.
Moscow Mitch. He, too, is on the Russian payroll:
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/how-putin-s-oligarchs-funneled-millions-into-gop-campaigns/
Treason and corruption in plain sight, but the treasonous and corrupt are untouchable. This is what life in a Banana Republic or an Orwellian state looks like.
An innocent person does not do everything in his power to prevent the testimony of witnesses who will exonerate him.
Trump is guilty of this and of much, much worse. You know it. I know it. The Senate Repugnicans know it. Moscow Mitch knows it. Trump’s lie-yers (thanks, Jon) know it.
Everybody knows.
“Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. … The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, “It never happened” – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs.”
–George Orwell, “Looking Back on the Spanish War”
That’s what unrestricted power look like.
“O’Brien smiled, slightly. ‘You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally, you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down he passages waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.” –George Orwell, 1984
This is truly historic.
In this document Trump’s lawyers play the Trump card: real power, as they see it, is post-truth. Truth is whatever the leader says it is. Everything else is fake news. And believing anything other than what the leader says makes you an Enemy of the People.
I look at this as just fallout of impeaching a President whose party holds the Senate, & doing it in an election year. It is what it is. Opposite party holding the House had to impeach for obvious Constitutional reasons– Prez overreaching, imperiling balance of power; Senate w/clear Prez party majority & rabid popular base oblivious to Constitutional issues backing party over country. That it’s an election year complicates House position. If they let Senate procedural shenanigans go to court, they risk obscuring their party’s prez primary. Would probably have happened same in any other era w/same paradigm. The only thing opp-party House can do is what it has done: extend the process long enough for addl evidence to come out in press & allow public maximum time to digest. Ultimately the point of it all, despite surety of Senate refusal to remove Prez, is to bring case before public.
Putin’s little Mitch is a disgrace to America. Democracy dies in darkness b
yes
From J. C. Hartley
In your course of online discussions, you may be asked by a Trump legal scholar: “Name one crime Trump committed! What law did he violate?”
Here is your handy reference guide:
– 52 U.S.C. § 30121 Solicitation of Foreign Influence
– 18 U.S.C. § 201; U.S. Con. Art II § 4 Bribery
– 18 U.S.C. § 641 Misappropriation of Funds
– 18 U.S.C. § 371 Conspiracy
– 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346 Honest Services Fraud
– 18 U.S.C. § 1512 Witness Tampering
– 18 U.S.C. § 610 Coercion of Political Activity
– 18 U.S.C. §§ 1501-1521, Obstruction of Justice
Yes, the fact that Hunter Biden was serving on the board of a large, foreign energy company at the time when his father was Vice President of the United States is an example of endemic corruption that has long taken place. But that’s irrelevant to whether Trump committed crimes. It’s whataboutism writ large. Obviously. Hundreds and hundreds of wrongs don’t make a right.
Very well said.
I also strongly object to people who try to minimize blatant spurning of legal behavior like Trump committed with what happened with Hunter Biden, which is no different than the advantages that Trump’s sons are being given which is NOT why Trump is being impeached. We know Ivanka’s “brand” got special treatment in China and she is benefitted financially from it but that is not why Trump is being impeached.
Trump is being impeached for illegally holding up foreign aid to extort Ukraine into announcing a public smear of Joe Biden. That is not favoritism, that is a crime.
I was a big fan of Zephyr Teachout, but she lost me when she wrote an article that misused the word corruption, which means to act illegally, to smear Biden for what I could only see as a way to normalize the right wing argument that Trump was acting properly. Politicians’ children have always benefitted from their connections – so have other rich scions – and that should stop, but calling that “corruption” which should be reserved for ILLEGAL behavior is wrong. Bernie Sanders’ stepson also benefitted from his connections, pulling a $100,000 salary to run a think tank he was not in any position to be able to run. That is NOT corruption. That is not illegal. That is not what this impeachment is about. But the right wing wants it to be about that to normalize the proto-fascist actions that Trump and the Republicans are promoting. Whenever I hear those on the left helping the far right commit crime by using what you rightly call “whataboutism writ large”, I know that is the way to fascism. Using that “whataboutism” has only one purpose – to exonerate what Trump did by confusing it with the favoritism that all politicians’ families get which is also wrong but is an entirely different matter from breaking the law.
It’s like saying that a right wing Republican who guns down his rival on Fifth Avenue should get off because a Democrat politician’s son got stopped for speeding and got off with a warning instead of a ticket.
I suspect that we are talking, here, about more than simple “favoritism.” 50K a month is a LOT of money. People expect to get something in exchange for that kind of dough.
Yes, it’s not illegal, but is it ethical, and should it be legal? And don’t people hire, for enormous sums, these sons and daughters of the powerful so that they CAN effect some illegal end? Influence peddling IS illegal. But NONE OF THAT is relevant to whether Trump committed crimes in his handling of the Ukraine matter. He committed a slew of them, violation of:
52 U.S.C. § 30121 Solicitation of Foreign Influence
18 U.S.C. § 201; U.S. Con. Art II § 4 Bribery
18 U.S.C. § 641 Misappropriation of Funds
18 U.S.C. § 371 Conspiracy
18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346 Honest Services Fraud
18 U.S.C. § 1512 Witness Tampering
18 U.S.C. § 610 Coercion of Political Activity
18 U.S.C. §§ 1501-1521, Obstruction of Justice
Apparently Trump thinks it would be legal and even popular for him to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, outside Trump Tower.
As President, he says, he can do whatever he wants. He is above the law. Says he and his legal team.
“and his legal team.” That says a lot, doesn’t it?
“And don’t people hire, for enormous sums, these sons and daughters of the powerful so that they CAN effect some illegal end? ”
Of course, but apparently it doesn’t matter if Mitt Romney’s sons or George W. Bush or a myriad of Republican family members get hired. It only seems to matter when Democrats do — and remember that only matters when the Democrats happen to be a danger to Republicans in power. Trump didn’t care about Burisma and nor did any Republican when it looked like Biden had retired from politics. Neither did those few on the left who are now jumping on the bandwagon to attack Biden as no less corrupt than Trump.
So many family members get benefits when their parent or husband or wife has connections that they would not have received otherwise, Bernie Sanders’ family among them. It is never okay, but just because other people want to hire them or put them on boards does not mean that the politician to whom they are related are acting in any way improperly because they want their relative to keep their job. Some are, but that is the real problem — that Republicans are constantly actually acting corruptly and they say “but you don’t have 100% proof because the only thing we call “proof” is a full confession by the politician that the corrupt action he did was specifically because it advantaged him financially or politically”. And the same time they say “but it is possible that had the Democrat wanted they could have done something to favor the company that hired their kid and even though they never did and there isn’t any action they took, the mere appearance is corruption.”
In other words, the so-called liberal media has declared what we all must accept:
A Republican can actually take improper actions — actually do improper thing and use their power for personal benefit — and the media repeats the Republican talking points that without a full confession by that politician that the only reason that they took that action that personally benefitted them was because of their child’s or wife’s position, then we must declare them innocent.
But a Democrat that takes absolutely no action to favor someone that hires their child or takes no action that personally benefits him or her is guilty and corrupt merely because “the appearance” looks bad since the politician COULD have taken that action if he wanted to but of course he didn’t take that action, but still he is guilty since he “could have”.
That the media accepts this crazy and absurd double standard is why this country is in the mess they are. Republicans can commit crimes but all evidence is dismissed. Democrats do NOT commit crimes but the mere “appearance” of the fact that IF they wanted to commit a crime they could have done so makes them “guilty” of corruption.
Barack Obama took lots of positions that favored billionaires and charter schools. There is no evidence that he took those reprehensible positions because he and Michelle or their relatives would personally get rich. He took those positions because his thinking was wrong and he could not be bothered to spend the time listening to anyone but the most entitled advisors who gave him a very one-sided view of the world.
NY Public School Parent. Penny Pritzger, the billionaire heir of the Hyatt Hotel fortune, got several of her friends together to buy the Obamas a magnificent, multi-million-dollar vacation home in Hawaii. Then he named her Secretary of Commerce. That’s not OK. That kind of thing is never OK. Did she do it simply out of her love for the Obamas? Perhaps. But. . . .
This kind of stuff doesn’t just happen with Republicans. Graft and influence peddling are bi-partisan. It’s particularly bad, now, with this president and this Republican Party. They’ve made it a standard modus operandi. But it’s always bad. That’s why we need laws that prevent someone like Mitch McConnell from taking 800K from Russian oligarchs close to Putin, why we need to kill Citizens United, why we need finance reform and so much else.
Bob Shepherd,
Can you check the facts in your post? I tried to do so, and I found nothing except articles about how expensive the daily rate is for the Hawaiian beach house where the Obamas spent their Christmas vacations while he was President. They didn’t own that home. His friends may have owned it, but the articles implied the Obamas paid the rent. And your post suggested that Obama owned it.
Are you saying there was a 2nd home that Obama owned in Hawaii? Your post is confusing because if Obama made her Sec. of Commerce AFTER she arranged to buy him a house, Obama would have been either a Senator or President and that would clearly be illegal. Obama as Senator or President couldn’t accept a gift of a house from anyone.
There are a number of people who are writing about the injustice of the impeachment and attempt by the Democrats to wickedly get rid of our great president. Most of these printings from the WH had places to read the full article. You’ll get the gist of what is being sent out from the WH. Poor Trump. Over 16,000 lies isn’t enough. How interesting that Sen. Marsha Blackburn writes for Fox “news” and claims that the impeachment trial is a political farce.
……………………………
West Wing Reads
Sen. Marsha Blackburn: Impeachment Trial is a Political Farce
House Democrats’ impeachment managers had one big goal yesterday: trying to quickly rewrite their own three-year narrative on impeachment.
“Chief revisionist Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, began by asserting that the House Democrats have compiled evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated by the president,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) writes for Fox News.
“Later, however, Schiff revealed that the over 100 hours of testimony, and thousands of pages of documents, that led to his conclusions simply weren’t enough. He then asked that the Senate fetch additional evidence he neglected to secure.”
Click here to read more.
“There is a strong case to be made that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff seriously mismanaged the House’s impeachment proceedings into President Trump. But Schiff has one word for his critics: whatever . . . This is as lame as it is deceptive,” Kaylee McGhee writes in the Washington Examiner.
“Efforts to remove Trump didn’t start with Ukraine. And won’t end there . . . Maxine Waters has been chanting ‘impeach 45’ since the spring of 2017. Representative Al Green introduced the first impeachment resolution that summer . . . In November 2017 a group of House Democrats introduced additional articles of impeachment. The same thing happened in December 2017, January 2018, March 2019, May 2019, and July 2019,” Matthew Continetti writes for National Review.
“If the purely partisan and reckless maneuvering of House Democrats receives more than it deserves — rapid disposition with a strong dose of senatorial scorn — future presidents, at least those who face House majorities from the opposite party, can look forward to the impeachification of all political disputes down the road,” Hugh Hewitt writes in The Washington Post.
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I am hoping for a Blue Wave that sweeps out every Republican Senator and member of Congress in November.
Amen to that!
That’s the ONLY way that this circus will end.
Drugs are bad, m’kay.
Trump is bad, m’kay
No victim = no crime
Shooting someone on Fifth Avenue is bad, m’kay
A Republican President shooting someone on Fifth Avenue is not bad, m’kay.
Republican President does it = no crime
That was my interpretation of what your poem was about and I hope I am wrong.
Oh, my Lord. This list of Trump’s crimes. It goes on and on and on. I long to see this monster and his Propaganda Minister, Stephen “Goebbels” Miller, in the dock at the International Court of Criminal Justice, charged with crimes against humanity for the wholesale kidnapping and other crimes at our southern border. And then there’s the serial sexual predation. And the money laundering for Russian mobsters. And the violations of the emoluments clauses of the Constitution. And use of his charity as a personal piggy bank. And soliciting interference in our elections from foreign governments (treason). And this doesn’t even begin to cover the territory.
I am going to make the assumption that the democrats in the house saw so little chance of actually getting a conviction in the senate that they sped the process along rather than to tie up the sups in court for a long time. Seems like they want the republicans on record as supporting the accusations rather than risk the removal of one guy to get another (Pence).
Most people are not going to take the time to find out what laws Trump has broken. The ballot box must speak. That is a difficult thing here in trumpland. A vote for an opponent here is as wasted as a banana peel. When the state republicans get done carving Nashville up, we will not even have a democrat from Nashville, and the right wing can do anything it wants.