Well, God is a secret Kenyan, socialist, Muslim. And Trump clearly would have the biggest, brightest and bestest wings, evah. And Satan? If you’re listening, where ARE St. Peter’s emails??
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I know that Republicans in the majority will be able to change rules on the fly as they see fit, but how much control over the “prosecutor” do they really have? Wouldn’t the “prosecutor” continue until he runs out of witnesses? I’m not really seeing a pathway for them to limit the length of the trial. Plus you have Roberts overseeing the whole thing as well. He would have to abide by any rule changes they make, but isn’t he ruling on things like admisability, etc.?
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Yesterday it was all “we got this” Moscow Mitch and Trump are best of buds and the fix is in. Had many here clutching their pearls. Now they are back to scattershot, no one knows what they are doing. The fear Trump is projecting is starting to wilt even the Fox talking heads who can’t get the orange stain off the phone. Keep up the good work, boys. 
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I believe your math is wrong on the first group, both that is bigger than Collins, and that she has any chance of winning by voting for his removal.
The reality is, I don’t think any republican up for re-election, can win by voting for Trump’s removal. They math is pretty simple, which has them between a rock and a hard place…they can’t win with just Trump supporters and they can’t win without Trump supporters. The caveat to that statement however is, they certainly cannot win if Trump turns the entire election into a grievance campaign about how badly he is being treated, which he certainly would do.
The problem with your second grouping, is people like Romney and Murkowski, are not running for office in 2020, so they do have a bit more leeway in their vote than people like Gardner, Collins, McSally, etc.
They have a Senate Majority to gain. And that ain’t nothing. Particularly when eyeing a Democratic President moving into the WH in January 2021.
IMO, its actually going to come down to republicans running for re-election in 2020, and it IS going to be difficult to convince them to vote to remove. Because of the above math. If you are Collins, McSally, Gardner, Ernst, Perdue…and a few others, you want Trump to resign and avoid the trial altogether.
There is of course the possibility that gets brought up that the Senate could change the rules and make it a secret ballot. I find that an extremely unlikely scenario. McConnell is crafty enough to see that there isn’t a good outcome for him or his party if that happened…if Trump IS removed that way, EVERY republican will be accused of voting against him by the Trump supporters (and McConnell himself would be hung out to dry for making the change). If pressured into considering such a change, look for McConnell to poison the vote by inserting other changes that will never pass, thus insuring the whole thing fails.
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I am extremely skeptical of these time lines of the House being done and passing it over to the Senate in January. Pelosi is giving ZERO indication of that, and is actually floating the idea that it could go on well past January.
My own personal belief is still to look for sometime in March for the House to vote and give it to the Senate. It could possibly be even later.
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That will happen. Particularly if republicans try and do a short trial and quickly vote to acquit.
That’s their dilemma right now. They know they ARE going to acquit, but they know its going to cost them dearly. Their path out of this quagmire is pretty clear, too. Get Trump to resign ahead of a trial.
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No. They came dangerously close to getting away with it. Trump actually sees Biden as his most likely opponent, or at least, the one that would give him the most trouble. But it also pretty likely that they are busily trying to manufacture dirt on everyone they consider having a credible chance of winning the Dem nomination. We just haven’t found out yet.
Yeah, Biden is making mistakes. He has been making mistakes since he declared. But no one is coming close to challenging him with Black voters. And with the front loaded primary schedule this year, the timeline for that shift to happen is getting smaller.
Biden becomes even more worrisome as a nominee, if Trump does resign.
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The impeachment hearings seem to have been well planned. They had weeks of confidential testimony, and used that to prep the public hearings. It is hard to find fault with how they sequenced the public witnesses. It is a bit surprising how much the Republicans seemed to be surprised by what came out. Their defense was reduced to yelling conspiracy theories at the witnesses.
That doesn’t get any votes in the Senate. It also doesn’t mean that the Democrats have shown all their cards. This will go to a trial, at which point we will see how Democrats approach a truly hostile (but stupid) witness like Mulvaney, and wild card Bolton. Limiting it to two weeks will look bad, it will look like GOP is shutting it down in the face of a bad result. Dismissing it on its face would play better in Deploria, but there are a few Senators who aren’t that shameless.
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I never believed that McConnell wanted to extend this trial to try to force Dem candidates to attend a trial as opposed to campaigning. Speechifying at an impeachment trial makes for great campaigning! And it seems obvious that any ongoing trial could only hurt Trump.
A two week trial is about as institutionally unsound as the rush job they did for the Kavanaugh confirmation.
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I think Biden is the easiest Democrat to beat because Biden is the one most closely tied to the establishment. He doesn’t appeal to anyone worried about the corrupt insider elites. Trump has to be afraid that a more populist candidate will peel off some of his support. Sanders and Warren, especially Warren, are appealing to the Joe SixPack voters who feel they have been abandoned by the Democrats. To a lesser extent some of the other candidates appeal to those folks as well. Amy Klobuchar is right. To win an Democrat is going to have to win Michigan and Wisconsin. I don’t see Biden doing any better in either than Hillary.
I think the House Managers have some say in the length of the trial as well, but I would suspect they can get the job done in 2 weeks.
Vs. Trump? He definitely will do better/Trump will do worse.
Both states seriously stepped up their voter suppression efforts in 2016. Now both have Democratic governors, which makes taking those steps a great deal more difficult. And the fact that both voted in Democratic governors is a pretty solid indicator of where voters are at. Enthusiasm in terms of Democratic voter turnout is running very high, and will continue as long as Trump is in office.
In fact, his campaign is worried about their chances in MI (as they should be, he is seriously upside down in MI, WI and PA)
I don’t buy that for a second. Trump voters are not going to vote for either Sanders or Warren. If those voters feel they have been “abandoned” by Democrats, it’s not about “economic anxiety”…its about racism. They don’t want “the Other” getting what they think they deserve. Both Sanders and Warren’s message raises those fears, it doesn’t diminish them.
Trump knows who his base is, and how to motivate them. It through “owning the libs” and hating “the Other”. It is not, nor was it ever, about any sort of economic messaging. In a large part, that is why he has engaged in his tariff wars. Its economically damaging, but its hating “the Other”, so his base likes it.
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If you haven’t read Josh’s editor’s blog Read This, it directly impacts this. The contributor says that according to the Senate rules, House managers can call any witnesses without going up to SCOTUS and all the delays that entails.
However, if the Senate only gives them two weeks, is that nearly enough time to call Mulvaney, Giuliani, Pompeo, Bolton, etc., to get their testimony on top of all the info House Intelligence has brought out?
I know. The stench of asshole in that room must have been overpowering.
There is a Spanish word “gancho”, which can mean “hook”. In parts of the Spanish Caribbean, it is also used for “excuse” or “pretense”.
“Economic anxiety” was and is certainly present for many a Trump voter and sympathizer, but the enlivening factor was always “The Other”.
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WH And GOPers Mull Limiting Senate Impeachment Trial To Two Weeks
Two weeks, huh? Here’s an idea… Let’s limit the trial to the number of weeks Trey Gowdy used to investigate Hillary’s Benghazi involvement.
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Again and again, the old cliche proves all too true: elections have consequences and so does ignoring them. I don’t think we’ll see a repeat of 2016 where Did Not Vote was the clear winner but I’m not sure the country can survive if 2020 is even close: we not only have to win the presidency and hold the House, we’ve got to take back the Senate and turn more states blue.
Politics was never my favorite subject but now it’s like needing enough air to breathe. I haven’t been this engaged in decades and it isn’t just ‘anti-Trump’ either.
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If smiling now is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
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Trump resigning to help Republican senators clings to the notion that Trump cares about anyone but himself. There’s money to be made on that bet.
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