Once Skeptical, Senate Republicans Are All In on Trump.
'In pressing toward their preordained vote of acquittal, Senate Republicans made it clear they see their fortunes and futures intertwined with the president’s. . .
In their almost unanimous vote on Friday to bar new impeachment trial witnesses, they once again raised one of the big questions in Washington over the past three years: Will Senate Republicans ever step in against the president and say, “Enough?”
Although many Senate Republicans have long expressed serious reservations about Mr. Trump’s character and conduct in office — and some went so far as to say the Democrats had successfully made their case against him — little daylight is visible now. In pressing inexorably toward their preordained vote of acquittal, Senate Republicans made it clear they see their fortunes and futures intertwined with the president’s, and are not willing to rock the 2020 boat.
“Their party is a cult of personality at this point,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut.
Senators who normally are jealous guardians of their power over federal spending seemed to brush aside Mr. Trump’s attempt to hold up military aid that Congress had allocated to Ukraine, an ally fighting Russian aggression on its eastern border. Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to leverage that aid in return for investigations of his political rivals is at the heart of the impeachment trial.
The transformation of the Senate can be seen in the way Trump-like tactics have seeped in over recent days. Senator Martha McSally, the Arizona Republican appointed to replace John McCain, called a CNN reporter a “liberal hack” after he posed a routine question — a break with civil press relations of the past. She then immediately started raising campaign money off it.
Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, the newest member of the Senate through her recent appointment, attacked Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, her fellow Republican, on Twitter for trying to “appease the left” by backing the idea of witnesses.
Her clear aim was to curry favor with Mr. Trump and she may well have scored a success. . .
But on Friday, as Ms. Murkowski cast an important vote against calling witnesses, she sounded a few Trumpian notes in lashing into Democrats for what she saw as a partisan show.
“It has also become clear some of my colleagues intend to further politicize this process, and drag the Supreme Court into the fray, while attacking the chief justice,” she said, referring to repeated efforts by Democrats to have Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., rule in favor of witnesses and to a question from Senator Elizabeth Warren that was critical of the chief justice. “I will not stand for nor support that effort. We have already degraded this institution for partisan political benefit, and I will not enable those who wish to pull down another.” . .
Democrats say they now fear that Mr. Trump, emboldened by his expected Senate acquittal, will be even less restrained exerting his authority. They aren’t counting on Senate Republicans to do much about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/trump-impeachment-senate-republicans.html?
Feeling lousy about this. 
Hope this will help: Porgy and Bess
George Gershwin Metropolitan Opera https://weta.org/listen-live
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