The Senate Can Stop Pretending Now

[babylonsister]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/trump-impeachment-trial-the-senate-can-stop-pretending-now?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned&fbclid=IwAR3ni7AjZSEovMJIE-uW2wE7QXt_NE8W0Wd9EuVWL34hHqNRQ5xyjeFk_A4

Letter from Trump’s Washington
The Senate Can Stop Pretending Now
Lamar Alexander and the end of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
By Susan B. Glasser
January 31, 2020

snip//

In the end, it’s no small irony that Trump was saved from embarrassing public testimony against him by one of the last representatives of the Republican establishment that so recently scorned him—and for which the President himself has nothing but scorn. Alexander declined to endorse Trump in 2016, and had previously bucked the President on trade, health care, and his much vaunted border wall. But as Alexander retires, later this year, after decades of service once characterized by bipartisanship, his most decisive final act will have been to do Trump an enormous favor. Alexander’s mentor in politics, Senator Howard Baker, is remembered as the Republican leader who pursued the facts about Richard Nixon during Watergate and demanded answers to the key question of what Nixon knew and when he knew it. Lamar Alexander will not have such an honor. He will go down in history as the Republican senator whose choice at a pivotal moment confirmed the complete and final capitulation of the G.O.P. to the crass New York interloper in the White House.

Alexander’s late-night statement was no real surprise. The “closest friend” to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—as McConnell made sure to point out to the Times, earlier this week—Alexander ended up where most Senate Republicans were always expected to end up. He criticized Trump but refused to vote to remove him from office. After making that decision, Alexander went a step further and said that there was no real need to hear any of the evidence that Trump has so far successfully ordered his Administration not to provide. Even the last-minute revelation, on Sunday night, in the Times, of Bolton’s unpublished manuscript, could not sway Alexander; he knew enough.

Right up until that oh-so-predictable end, though, Alexander played it coy. Perhaps he was loving his final moment in the spotlight. Perhaps he really was undecided. As Thursday’s proceedings began, virtually all of the other senators had declared their positions, and only four Republicans appeared to be genuinely considering voting for witnesses. Senators Mitt Romney and Susan Collins were likely to vote yes, which left Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander. Even if Murkowski, who pronounced herself Bolton-“curious” earlier in the week, would vote yes, Democrats needed both Murkowski and Alexander to get to fifty-one; three Republican yeses would only yield a 50–50 tie. And, as night fell on the capital, pretty much no one believed that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, presiding over the trial, would be willing to cast the deciding vote.

snip//

“It’s over,” one Democratic senator said to another, according to a reporter in the gallery. And, indeed, it was. The question offered a preview of the Alexander statement to follow. A few minutes later, Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, gave a truncated closing statement that suggested that he, too, knew what was about to happen. “They are afraid of the witnesses,” Nadler said. “They know Mr. Bolton and others will only strengthen the case.” On that note, the trial adjourned at 10:41 p.m. Nineteen minutes later, Alexander’s office tweeted out his statement. Murkowski did not join in, at least not yet. “I am going to reflect on what I’ve heard, reread my notes, and decide whether I need to hear more,” she told reporters; her office said she would announce her decision on Friday morning. Her colleague Susan Collins, meanwhile, announced that she would vote yes for the witnesses. Mitt Romney followed suit first thing Friday morning. But how much did it matter?

All fifteen previous impeachment trials in the U.S. Senate, including the two previous Presidential-impeachment trials, had witnesses. But Lamar Alexander has spoken. Donald Trump’s stonewalling will succeed where Nixon’s failed. Perhaps Alexander has done us all a favor: the trial that wasn’t really a trial will be over, and we will no longer have to listen to it. The Senate can stop pretending.

[CincyDem]

1. ETTD: Everything trump touches dies.

Alexander’s obit will lead with his actions today...be it 10 days, 10 months or 10 years. This is how he will be memorialized.

He caved to a wannabe dictator.

[bdamomma]

2. They want money

that is their end game, those policies will keep on adding to Moscow's Mitch's desk, but nothing will get done.

In the meantime, people like Mitch McConnell and rest will be in the Oligarch's club stealing everything they can get, Medicare, Social Security and more. They can't get it from the NRA, so we will be their target and other nefarious countries.

This is where we are now.

Unless we confront them and fight hard to regain our Country.