i understand romney’s vote on witnesses, the mittster has famiy wealth and a safe seat, i’m surprised at collins because her concern rarely goes past a raised eyebrow, the vote i worry about is lindsey graham’s vote for witnesses. i wonder if he’s going to start calling witneses to talk about benghazi benghazi benghazi?
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The GOP is making some weird ass threats in an attempt to avoid witnesses.
Graham himself threatened to call witnesses from the FBI. I have no clue how the fuck that’s intended to help their side. Calling DOJ and law enforcement people who are no longer controlled by Trump. Who are by all accounts investigating GOP congress members and staffers?
Now their threatening to call Pelosi and Bowers.
For what? Dems are gonna get them talking about the experience of nearly being assassinated and the Trump adminstration obstructing help. While the GOP asks them about conspiracy theories?
How the fuck is that not an own goal on every front?
They seem to be currently fighting out over whether they need to vote on each witness. If there’s a vote on each witness they’re not going to get much crazy balls through. But the GOP seems to be pushing the each witness while Trump’s attorneys are demanding “lots of witnesses”.
I don’t think there’s any kind of strategy here or plan here. They’re just sewing procedural fights.
But that vote was pretty much identical to the vote on constitutionality. Seems to be the “party line here”. DNC + 5 for a legit trial vs most of the GOP for sloppy bullshit.
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because in the gop ecosystem, harassing pelosi with stupid questions is going to help them with their base. the only way this could be a loser for them would be if the questions they asked pelosi were too respectful or too coherent. asking ridiculous questions contemptuously framed and stated will thrill their base, give fox, one america, and newsmax soundbites for years, and spawn a thousand memes my right-wing relatives will be sharing for decades.
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Yeah the issues they have is that the majority of Americans already support conviction.
Stirring up the base might stall the Trump base’s attempts to eat their own. But throwing around more wack while the DNC continues to provide cogent information, and compelling personal narratives doesn’t help on that front.
Meanwhile the less insane GOP members are threatening to split off over this exact approach to it.
The Senate was literally laughing at Trump’s attorney today.
It’s the same short term long term problem. Maybe Trump’s base is happy for week. But you get another attack on March 4th, they’re all fucked. All these investigations they can no longer stonewall uncover a single email connecting this to anyone involved in Jan6 and they’re all fucked. Either way their party might fracture anyway, just in a slightly different way.
It doesn’t really matter if the base is cheering this on, if everyone else views it as embarrassing. Or if the base is still out to murder their own leadership.
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You called it.
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Eh seems like they decided to admit evidence without actually calling any witnesses. And move on to closing arguments.
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This is fucking disgraceful. I am absolutely livid right now.
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in a country which had an actually existing proportionally democratic (small d democratic) system with two or more relatively rational political parties your statement of fact would be not only suggestive but also decisive. unfortunately, the success of republican state legislatures in voter suppression and gerrymandering coupled with how effectively the constitution consolidates the power of rural minorities it requires virtually a two-thirds majority of voters in cities and coastal regions to equal the legislative power of republicans and requires a minimum of 6-8 million more democratic votes than republicans to gain the presidency. given how quickly republican state legislatures have already responded o the election of the democrat joe biden it will probably take an even larger majority of democratic votes ongoing.
the republican legislators, indeed virtually all republican politicians, are deathly afraid of being out-flanked to the right. because the republican party from the level of cities to states to the national level has had its position amplified as described above there are no penalties to republicans for acting as they have and do. there are only incentives to pander to the most reactionary members of their base.
which is why your concluding paragraph does not reflect reality.
it only matters if the base is cheering this on. the views of anyone else is irrelevant.
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Does he believe the Antifa bs? Is the issue that they will say they can’t vote on the stimulus for example until the impeachment is out of the way?
How has this asshole not been fired already?
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The base. And especially Trump’s base. Is not the sum total of their membership or their voters. That is just not what’s meant by “base”.
Meanwhile that base is already splitting. 60% of Republicans have said they’d follow Trump out of the party.
60% of Republicans is not enough to win elections, even in many of those red states.
It is enough to swing primaries.
And with elections as close as they are, even in many red states. Even as few as 10% not showing up or moving off to a 3rd candidate loses them a lot.
All while demographic and generational trends are very much against them.
That’s what they’re concerned about. Primary challenges from the Trump lead wing lose many of these people their careers. A split party makes majority control by conservatives impossible.
They’re trying to lock down Trump’s voters for the sake of the next election cycle. Damn the consequences. And who cares what the impact is 5 years from now.
I don’t think they’re going to manage to do it either. The Trump side of this wanted to see people screaming about Q and votes being stolen (as did Trump). They wanted to see Nancy Pelosi interrogated and arrested.
Meanwhile their rote line up behind Trump has self branded “sensible” Republicans talking about leaving the party one way or the other.
Does Lindsey Graham believe anything?
They’ve been doing half days during the week, and these weekend days to leave room in the schedule for normal business. There is serious concern that if they allow the GOP to sew too much nonsense it’ll lock up the Senate for weeks or months as the public increasingly lose interest and grow more frustrated at other things not getting done.
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It’s my understanding that it’s being worked on. Only so many hours in the day to undo all of Trump’s rank fuckery.
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Someone needs to photoshop Hawley’s face onto the picture of Jacob Rhys-Mogg lounging like one of your French women in the House of Parliament.
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Missing zip ties.
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rare footage of a republican admitting that trump intimidated him:
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And what makes her even remotely qualified to run for Senate? Is she a public servant? A lawyer? Someone with a civics background? An educator? An activist? Military service? (Checks Wikipedia… uh nope!)
Oh, she has Trump in her name. I guess that’s enough qualifications these days? It seems like all someone needs is a willingness to run and an oath of fealty to right wing extremism.
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And money. LOTS of money…
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