I was riveted, to be honest, & really looking forward to today.
The House Managers were slick, organised, focussed and well prepared. Trump’s were a shambles. Still, lots of Republicans seem to think the trial is unconstitutional and a conviction remains unlikely. Mitch McConnel will have to stick his neck out and give his colleagues permission to vote Yay. Closer to the actual event, that seemed a possibility but not now.
Today, the prosecution starts in earnest. It should be a harrowing watch. The Managers have one hell of a story to tell, dating back months, and they strike me as excellent story tellers. It’s very difficult to imagine how the defence lawyers are going to respond.
Of course, it’s all theatre for watching Americans and the world. It will be fascinating to see how the Republicans will justify a Nay vote. They must be delighted there are no cameras on the jurors and they all have to wear masks. Still, if Mitch shifts his approach, he might take another ten with him, enough to convict. A long shot, but a shot nonetheless.
Stay tuned. This is no white collar crime. Trump’s character is under the spotlight & it’s not going to be pretty.
God knows he deserves it, but I think the whole thing is a waste of time and money. He won’t be convicted and the main thing about impeachment anyway is removal from office, already achieved.
Worth it for the chance to prevent him from standing again, though, surely?
I don’t think he can win a Presidential race again. But they can’t win the vote so it is irrelevant.
Whilst there is even a vague, million-to-one shot that he’ll be dragged kicking and screaming to the electric chair and fried to a crispy frazzle, I think it’s probably worth the effort.
They do that, don’t they?
Good god, can you imagine the smell?
Ewwwwww
Like a dog poo bag with a leak.
I dont think he has a cat in hells chance of standing again. Reputation in tatters and an embarrassment to the GOP.
The several private prosecutions waiting to be filed will I presume had more fuel to his already questionable integrity.
Re: Dai (above)
Agreed.
Simply seems to be of purely symbolic value.
Also runs the risk of back-firing badly when Trump inevitably starts bleating how. unbeautiful it is that the swamp folk up in DC have not only ” stolen the election but are now also trying to punish me – to punish YOU, salt-of-the-earth, small town-Murikans – for telling the truth!”
I fear my certainty about things never happening or things never happening again has taken a bashing these past few years……….
He is documented as calling the ‘Muricans on Jan 6 “low class”. Just like a bridge-and-tunnel gold taps capitalist might be thought to. Blue collar America should wise up to how much he hates them and their striving for something more.
“I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and I wouldn’t lose any votes.” Can you guess who said this?
They know he is likely to be acquitted but to not have done anything would have been unthinkable. This way it goes on the record that an attempt was made and who was for and against. History will show who stood up to be counted and who thought it was nothing to get worked up about. There are clear downsides but not to have taken action would have been worse, it would have said you can do this and there will be no consequences.
Can see your point. Sadly, it seems to be one of those damned if you do and damned if you don’t decisions
I think the Democrat line is ‘to do nothing is to say that a president can do what the hell they like in their last month, once there is no risk of there being time to being removed from office’. I get that.
No, he won’t be convicted. The disgust at him from McConnell and the rest has had time to fade. The world has kept turning and the sky hasn’t fallen and the Republicans have a base to feed. The back-pedalling which began about 10 days ago has a momentum now and the handbag raising ‘how dare they now he’s gone’ won’t allow the pus filled sac to be properly chastised.
The lad himself has slimed to his lair and plays golf daily like the serious public minded politician he’s always been. He has little shame but he’s probably much more worried about the corrupt finance charges he still faces. New York has yet to drag him back up to a Manhattan court room to get him and his latest Lionel Hutz to explain things.
That’s the ratings winner I want.
NO shame, brain, innane.
Republicans have to get folks to swing to them (steady) if they are going to be in power again. That Trump base is strong but it’s not going to get any bigger after What Just Happened. The Dems’ intention is to make sure that swingers (I said steady!) automatically associate the GOP with the events of the 6th January. Trump and Trumpism is the best weapon they have.
I’m against it because it keeps the fat fuck in the news and relevant and he’ll love that.
Exactly. Ignore “the fat fuck” (pefect!) and take away his reinforcement. That’s why he was shooting his mouth off most of the time – free publicity appealing to Joe SixPack wanting to be able to continue to say anything ignorant and stupid and get away with it.
This is a lot about shifting the middle ground towards Democrat. Enough people were appalled at what happened to achieve a double win in the Georgia run-offs. The hope must be to win more over with a My-God-this-man-is-awful narrative, yet-these-GOPs-still-toady-to-him.
Anyway, there were tears on both sides yesterday. I could relate to Raskin’s but Schoen’s were just weird. Longfellow has never made me so emotional.
Typically sharp commentary from the New Yorker.
What looks like incompetence by Trump’s legal team may be better understood as contempt for the process.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trumps-impeachment-trial-lawyers-refuse-to-seriously-engage-with-the-constitutional-issues
Now “contempt for the process” I do have some sympathy for. Consider, if you will, their shitpool of an electoral system. It’s like knowing the rules to “Mornington Crescent”, and convoluted process is a classic ploy to keep criticism at bay. See almost every administrative system.
I don’t think ours is really all that much to shout about, mind.
Three words: the honours system.
When you put your money in the box when someone leaves eggs by their gate? Yeah, fuck all that
…we’ve gotta get on with these…
…..make ’em laugh…
Waste of time which never had any chance of preventing him doing something he wasn’t going to do anyway
They can’t and they shouldn’t let this go without holding Trump to account. When you see the full footage of the insurrection, it is inconceivable that there would not be a reckoning.
“A window to something really dark in this nation…that people would be willing to kill…on the basis of a lie” – CNN’s Abby Phillip
Marcy Wheeler is always a good read on legal/judicial process. She has absolute contempt for everybody involved in the impeachment, not for the reasons you might expect.
https://www.emptywheel.net/
In brief it had to be done given what happened, he probably won’t get properly held to account and those who voted for him probably see him as a patriot and a martyr or somesuch bollocks.
Re. Trumps lawyers. Money for jam. Of course they’re shite. I doubt they care very much at all. They don’t need to be any good, cosey in the knowledge that their man will be getting off regardless.
As others have said, this is likely a setup for the mid terms. Those GOP Senators that choose not to convict will be made to carry the scars for a while to come.
Good luck to them in getting their money. Trump has a history of not paying.
There’s not a lot you can do when someone isn’t answering questions but is giving the appearance of answering questions. A slippery eel of a lawyer can filibuster vigilantly like this for hours.
The Russian influence in Trump’s affairs continues because it makes me think of the delaying behaviour of Oblomov in that book by Goncharov.
You and your Sting obsession about his lyrics, but I don’t recall that one.
That’s twice, in five minutes, on an exceedingly gloomy day, that this site has caused me to guffaw. Nice work, Retro..
I’ve used another phrase from a pop song too. Can you spot it, readers?
It’s those bloody Giants blokes innit.
Must Be
Might be.
Today should be entertaining. The defence begins…
As has been noted before, the people who stormed the Capitol building carrying Trump flags and wearing MAGA hats are being condemned by Trump and his lawyers. “We were just as surprised as YOU were – what the…?!” seems to be their argument. Defense lawyers argue that those people, not the former President, should be punished to the full extent of the law.
He (Trump) is throwing his own supporters under the bus in order to save his own skin. This as obvious as his clear-as-day role in inciting the violence.
Not guilty, inevitably. McConnell put his scumbag pants back on, and most of the sheep followed him. What next, I wonder?
“President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” – Mitch McConnell.
Also Mitch McConnell: “Not guilty.”
Mitch McConnell IS the swamp.
His point being that presidents cannot be impeached after they leave office, however he did change a prior position on appointing Supreme Court judges close to elections, so he is shameless.
But as I said above, a waste of time. They even knew what the final vote would be before they started
MitchyMac is also pretty much single-handedly responsible for pushing back the whole show the couple of weeks it took for DT to leave office..
His speech means he is incurring the wrath of the Trumpists just as much as those who voted to impeach. He may well have voted Guilty. The only reason he didn’t was to cling on to the leadership of the senate GOP.
There’ll be a big shakeup next time the senate elections roll around. Some Republicans will lose their seats to Democrats, as happened in Georgia. Some will be replaced by their local party as not Trump-Loyalist enough, some will be replaced as too Trump-Tainted. The Republicans are going to have to decide which way they’re going.
Meanwhile, I’m not expecting much from Joe Biden’s presidency. Or, sadly, Kamala Harris if she ends up taking over. The machine will roll on and the swamp will remain stinky for decades to come.
Well, Biden has done more good things in 3 weeks than Trump managed in 4 years.
By the end of Biden’s presidency Americans will still not have a proper healthcare system and decent employment rights.
You have to have realistic expectations.
It would seem (if my Twitter is anything to go bye) that a lot of people are expecting Trump to face a lot of charges in various courts for various reasons.
I believe that he will not face any consequences/sanctions or punishment stronger than a reprimand.
None of the senior politicians involved in the events on January 6th will. It’s not going to happen.
As for the his tax returns being released, that’s not going to happen either.
Trump acts as if the law does not apply to him simply because the law does not apply to him.
Bastard that he is.
I’m with you Jack. He deserves to end his days a convicted felon with his assets stripped.
He’ll see none of it. A bastard he is.
Listening to a podcast recently to mark one year of COVID, the US Embassy in Beijing used to have a highly respected unit of epidemiologists based in China. This was established following the SARS outbreak. They had a good relationships with the Chinese medical authorities – high levels of trust with a common purpose. When the COVID-19 outbreak happened in Wuhan, the unit had been disestablished by Trump, so that was a shame. Nevertheless, the data was made available and so their work in preparation for another outbreak was not in vain. And then Trump politicised it. And then the Chinese stopped cooperating.