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Senate Vote Falls Short for Conviction on Impeachment

Donald Trump, who holds the record for the number of times an occupant of a desk in the oval office has been impeached in the House of Representatives, avoided conviction in the Senate today.

All 50 Democrats and seven Republicans voted “guilty,” falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds necessary for conviction.

Maybe now the media will finally stop its coverage of all things Trump. They have been reduced to an insignificant pebble in an otherwise mountain of smooth grains of sand.

Congress can can turn its attention to things that matter, like providing economic relief to the residents of this country and tackling the coronavirus and its mutations. [More...]

I don't have huge hopes for the nation this year or next because state governments seem ready to make the same mistakes as last year: opening too fast and too soon in an effort to cater to small business owners and sports enthusiasts. Concerts, sporting events, gyms and indoor dining at restaurants should be the last things to open. How many times do we have to go through surges and the increased rate of hospitalization and deaths that come with them before we learn? The countries that lock down the fastest after even just a few cases have the best long-term success rate. Vaccines will be a big help, but they won't end the pandemic, at least not this year.

But, I'm delighted that Donald Trump has been reduced to an itch you can scratch or not. The sooner the media stops covering him as a person of "great social and political import" (as Janis Joplin so aptly put it), the better.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Questions (5.00 / 2) (#1)
    by FlJoe on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 05:55:45 AM EST
    for Mitch. You said  
    The mob was fed lies," McConnell said. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like," he added.

    Who are these other powerful people?
    Are any of them still serving in the government?
    If so, since you are not constrained by the "former office" exemption what sanctions should be levied?


    Do Trump commissars (none / 0) (#3)
    by jondee on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 03:10:29 PM EST
    like Rush and Mark Levin and their dozens of talk radio clones, and Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Rudy, The Crack Hen, Ginny Thomas, and groups like Turning Point USA etc all count as "powerful people"?

    When the noisiest players in the rw insane clown posse can't be called-out and mentioned by name it makes you realize where the real power lies on Mitch's side of the aisle.


    Parent

    What people like Mitch (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by jondee on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 03:21:55 PM EST
    would prefer would be to pin it all on Trump and leave the rw bullsh*t factory operating exactly as it was before -- with the added bonus of now claiming to be Free Speech martyrs of 'cancel culture.'

    Parent
    Good luck (none / 0) (#8)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 04:54:06 PM EST
    with that. If he was so darn concerned about having Trump attached to the GOP he should have rounded up 67 votes to convict him. Moscow Mitch tried having it both ways with some nonsense constitutional argument.

    Parent
    Lindsay (none / 0) (#4)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 03:18:55 PM EST
    is having a conniption fit saying that Moscow Mitch's speed is going to be used to cut ads for the Democrats in 2022.

    Already saw an ad with Rubio where he had Qanon paint on his face from the Florida Dems.

    Parent

    The loosening restrictionsthe day after the first (5.00 / 1) (#21)
    by ruffian on Mon Feb 15, 2021 at 07:21:08 PM EST
    downtick in numbers is how we are still here a year later. For myself, I am ignoring it, staying out of restaurants and stores as much as possible.

    Small businesses aren't going to recover util we are out of this. They and their employees should have been supported with income for 3 months while we did a complete lockdown. But that ship sailed. No one has the political will to do it now.

    COVID (5.00 / 2) (#22)
    by Steve13209 on Tue Feb 16, 2021 at 10:07:47 AM EST
    Same here. I haven't been to a restaurant other than to pick up a take-out since the pandemic started.
    I also rarely visit stores, but use curbside or locker pickup mostly. I find it incredibly nerve-racking to be among strangers even with my double-mask.

    Parent
    The next step, it seems to me, should be (4.57 / 7) (#11)
    by Peter G on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 06:11:45 PM EST
    a joint resolution, to be submitted for a vote by a simple majority of both Houses of Congress, under the Fourteenth Amendment, section 3, declaring that all those who participated in invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021, are guilty of "insurrection" and, if they had "previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States," are thereby disqualified from "hold[ing] any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State," and that this disqualification includes all those who planned, aided and abetting, and incited that insurrection, or who conspired to enter the Capitol unlawfully that day, whether or not they physically entered the building, including all those persons who spoke at the rally that preceded the invasion of the Capitol and urged the crowd to participate, such as but not limited to "Donald John Tr*mp and Rudolph Giuliani."

    Yesterday was a sad day (none / 0) (#2)
    by MO Blue on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 12:33:30 PM EST
    with 43 Republicans condoning Trump's attempt to overthrow the government to remain in power. They failed the country, failed to honor their oath to God and the Constitution. The Republican Party in the various states that censured members of their party who voted in favor of upholding our republic form of government are equally guilty and the blood shed on 1/6 and any future violence is on their hands as well.

    I would like to believe that they will face consequences for their actions but I am not convinced that will be the case.

    The worse consequences that (none / 0) (#5)
    by Ga6thDem on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 03:20:24 PM EST
    can happen to most of them is being voted out outside of perhaps Cruz, Hawley and Johnson who may have some legal liability.

    Parent
    I would like to believe that (none / 0) (#9)
    by MO Blue on Sun Feb 14, 2021 at 05:26:51 PM EST
    will happen but I'm not sure that they will be voted out of office. Seems too many Republican voters are just fine with the insurrection. The only problem they have with it is that it failed.

    Parent
    Well (5.00 / 1) (#12)
    by Ga6thDem on Mon Feb 15, 2021 at 05:45:05 AM EST
    that kind of gets to what Howdy and I have been saying around here for quite a while that the problem is the voters. Too many people in this country want a fundamentalist Christian totalitarian state.

    Parent
    From P Wire (none / 0) (#13)
    by CaptHowdy on Mon Feb 15, 2021 at 08:48:30 AM EST
    the numbers from the last few weeks:

    The number of Republicans who backed the Texas lawsuit to overturn the presidential election: 126;
    The number of Republicans who voted against certifying the electoral votes of Pennsylvania: 138;
    The number of Republicans who voted to protect conspiracy theorist/bigot Marjorie Taylor Greene's committee assignments: 199;
    The number of House Republicans who voted against impeachment: 197;
    And then Saturday's vote. Overall the pro-Trump GOP vote (in the House and Senate): 240-17.
    "Over the last five years, Republicans have shown willingness to accept -- or least ignore -- lies, racism, and xenophobia. But now it is a party that is also willing to acquiesce to sedition, violence, extremism, and anti-democratic authoritarianism."

    --

    "The Republican Party of the past won elections by persuading most Americans that it would do a better job than Democrats of running the country. Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower each won at least 57 percent of the vote in their re-election campaigns. George W. Bush won 51 percent, largely by appealing to swing voters on national security, education, immigration and other issues. A party focused on rebuilding a national majority probably could not stay tethered to Trump."

    "But the modern Republican Party has found ways other than majority support to achieve its goals."

    "It benefits from a large built-in advantage in the Senate, which gives more power to rural and heavily white states. The filibuster also helps Republicans more than it does Democrats. In the House and state legislatures, both parties have gerrymandered, but Republicans have done more of it. In the courts, Republicans have been more aggressive about putting judges on the bench and blocking Democratic presidents from doing so. In the Electoral College, Democrats currently waste more votes than Republicans by running up large state-level victories."

    link

    Parent

    By tying themselves (5.00 / 2) (#18)
    by KeysDan on Mon Feb 15, 2021 at 01:37:42 PM EST
    to Trump by their vote, most House and Senate Republicans have made it abundantly evident that they are complicit. Rather than casting a vote that socially, physically, politically and every other way distanced themselves from the Insurrectionist-in Chief, they have glomed onto the albatross that is Trump and his attempt to overthrow the government. And, what about Republicans' grand concern for police. So much for Blue Lives Matter, GOP.

     Trump's friend McConnell just thinks he should be confronted with the "justice system" and "civil litigation". Nice try, Mitch. You could have been a House Manager, save for your vote.

    The Republican senators (except for those seven) tried to justify their votes by anything and everything except his guilt.  The most galling was their ignoring of the senate determination, after a day of debate and vote, that the impeachment process after leaving office was Constitutional. These senators, like Trump, do not accept voting results that they do not win.

    The next question is how are Democrats in Congress to work with these Republicans.  What about "bipartisanship" and kumbaya.. Difficult with those who have no trouble with mobs coming after Congress members.  And, just how do you negotiate with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green?  Argue "Jewish Space Lasers" on its merits?  

    Time is now to get rid of the filibuster. Does it seem likely that Democrats could get 10 Republican senators to vote on substantive matters? Bipart