The cringing abdication of Senate Republicans

[Zorro]

Republican Senators who voted Friday to suppress known but unexamined evidence of President Trump’s wrongdoing at his Senate trial must have calculated that the wrath of a vindictive president is more dangerous than the sensible judgment of the American people, who, polls showed, overwhelmingly favored the summoning of witnesses. That’s almost the only way to understand how the Republicans could have chosen to deny themselves and the public the firsthand account of former national security adviser John Bolton, and perhaps others, on how Mr.?Trump sought to extort political favors from Ukraine.

The public explanations the senators offered were so weak and contradictory as to reveal themselves as pretexts. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she weighed supporting “additional witnesses and documents, to cure the shortcomings” of the House’s impeachment process, but decided against doing so. Apparently she preferred a bad trial to a better one — but she did assure us that she felt “sad” that “the Congress has failed.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the case against Mr. Trump had already been proved, so no further testimony was needed. But he also said, without explanation, that Mr. Trump’s “inappropriate” conduct did not merit removal from office; voters, he said, should render a verdict in the coming presidential election. How could he measure the seriousness of Mr. Trump’s wrongdoing without hearing Mr. Bolton’s firsthand testimony of the president’s motives and intentions, including about whether the president is likely to seek additional improper foreign intervention in that same election?

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) echoed Mr. Alexander’s illogic, only he lacked the courage even to take a position on whether Mr. Trump had, as charged, tried to force Ukraine’s new president to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, or whether that was wrong. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) managed to be even more timorous, telling reporters that “Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us” and refusing to elaborate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cringing-abdication-of-senate-republicans/2020/01/31/b35ac36e-444e-11ea-b5fc-eefa848cde99_story.html

[Mister Ed]

1. Profiles in Cowardice. n/t

[Liberalhammer]

2. Profiles

In whoredom!

[SmartVoter22]

3. Punish All GOP's for this corruption

To send a clear message to the GOP, vote against every conservative candidate in your state in 2020. They can always run again in 2022. In 1936, after years of identical GOP obstruction and nonsense, during the Depression, voters were fed up and they punished the GOP, en masses across the nation. The next Congressional Session had only 18 GOP Senate seats and 88 House seats. We can do this again in 2020. Wisconsin had only 4 counties where the GOP squeaked by. Not enough to matter.

Also, try Voting at Home in 2020. No reason needed other than you want to. You get a couple of weeks to look over your ballot and research candidates and vote from the comfort of your own home, when it's very cold outside.

[ConstanceCee]

4. Wrong Word

I am sick of the word "inappropriate".

[nitpicker]

5. It's very simple. Committee assignments.

The Senate Repug leadership has the power to appoint their Senators to committees at the start of each Congress. If your state hosts major base(s), do you want to be on the SASC (Senate Armed Services Committee), or be relegated to Veterans' Affairs? Similarly, if your state's economy relies heavily on agriculture, you WANT to be on the "Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry". It's all about the ability to raise funds for the next campaign.