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Split Thread A second impeachment

I saw a post on another site earlier today that speculated that the lack of witnesses was down to McConnell.

The theory was that it's in the House rules that they can only conduct other business while there's an agreement to do so between both parties. That's how come for the last week they've been able to do normal Senate stuff in the mornings and hold the trial in the afternoons. But if McConnell didn't want witnesses he couldn't have stopped them from being called, but he could threaten to withdraw his support of conducting other business and drag the process out - leaving the Democrats unable to actually do the work of government. And the Democrats thought actually getting **** done in the middle of a pandemic was more important than calling witnesses which wouldn't affect the outcome of the trial anyway.

It certainly seems a plausible hypothesis.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I saw a post on another site earlier today that speculated that the lack of witnesses was down to McConnell.

The theory was that it's in the House rules that they can only conduct other business while there's an agreement to do so between both parties. That's how come for the last week they've been able to do normal Senate stuff in the mornings and hold the trial in the afternoons. But if McConnell didn't want witnesses he couldn't have stopped them from being called, but he could threaten to withdraw his support of conducting other business and drag the process out - leaving the Democrats unable to actually do the work of government. And the Democrats thought actually getting **** done in the middle of a pandemic was more important than calling witnesses which wouldn't affect the outcome of the trial anyway.

It certainly seems a plausible hypothesis.
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I don't see it. It was down to the House Managers, adding witnesses at the last stage was the normal procedure. They had even already voted to have witnesses. So it was the House's option to take it back.

Clearly the GOP's big threat was that they'd drag the proceedings out if the House called any witnesses. Seems to me Raskin held the cards nonetheless. There wasn't any reason for witnesses, the compromise made sense from the House's POV.

Bottom line, they did indeed prove the case against Trump.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I saw a post on another site earlier today that speculated that the lack of witnesses was down to McConnell.



The theory was that it's in the House rules that they can only conduct other business while there's an agreement to do so between both parties. That's how come for the last week they've been able to do normal Senate stuff in the mornings and hold the trial in the afternoons. But if McConnell didn't want witnesses he couldn't have stopped them from being called, but he could threaten to withdraw his support of conducting other business and drag the process out - leaving the Democrats unable to actually do the work of government. And the Democrats thought actually getting **** done in the middle of a pandemic was more important than calling witnesses which wouldn't affect the outcome of the trial anyway.



It certainly seems a plausible hypothesis.
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I'm dubious.

What authority would allow McConnell to do that?

He is no longer majority leader.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
What authority would allow McConnell to do that?

He is no longer majority leader.
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There's still a bajillion and one unwritten gentleman's agreements between the parties.

All you have to do is ask yourself what authority the Majority and Minority Leaders have at all and way since those aren't actual positions that exist and the answer is the same.
 
JoeMorgue said:
There's still a bajillion and one unwritten gentleman's agreements between the parties.



All you have to do is ask yourself what authority the Majority and Minority Leaders have at all and way since those aren't actual positions that exist and the answer is the same.
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They are actual positions. Enhanced salary, a separate budget for office and staff specific to those leadership roles, different letterhead, all of it.

Anyways, McConnell threatened to stamp his feet and gridlock Congress. We backed down. Now he has to not gridlock Congress or he'll be shown as totally untrustworthy.

We sure showed him.
 
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Segnosaur said:
McConnell wanted right wing judges, and he got them. But now that the republicans are out of power, they won't be getting any more for at least 4 years, maybe more.

And while he wanted right-wing judges, I suspect he didn't care which right wing judges were picked. Had he been smart, perhaps he might have decided to reject Drunky McRapeface... Trump would have picked someone just as right-wing as a replacement, but likely without the baggage. And perhaps fewer moderates or democrats would be as fired up to vote against the republicans as a result.

And yes, they got their millionaire tax cuts, but those are unlikely to last much longer now that the democrats have taken control.
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We'll see on that last one. Truth is, those tax cuts that some (but not all) lower-income folks got are just about set to expire - meaning folks are about to see their taxes shift upwards, while the super-rich get to keep their cuts.

If dems play this well, they can use Biden's position to blame this on the GOP. I'm not convinced that some goofball like Sinema or Manchin won't wreck things, however.

As for Drunky, that ended once Toupee Fiasco went around mocking the woman who (very credibly) accused him of attempted sexual assault. Whoite supremacists are very protective of women that are meek and submissive (thus the weird Asian fetishes they often have - the stereotype is for them to submit to the wonderful white man), but women who speak up are another matter. They got their order on who to hate, and this time it was Ford - in addition to Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, as two other prominent white women that "don't know their place.

(a discussion of Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, and Harris is in order, but again, just look to Bagative's avatar for a good example of that, and what in implies)

ETA: It's really no different than him waiting until the last credible second to acnowledge that Biden and Harris won. He's trying to both keep the racist lunatics, the people who are disgusted by the first but thought they were completely harmless for some bizarre reason, and the business owners that figure genocide will be bad for business. That's becoming increasingly difficult, if not completely impossible, to do.

But, at the very least he could have done more in the short term... get more legislation passed when they had both congress and the white house, do more to try to hold on to the senate for at least another term to at least have some control over tax legislation and judicial nominees.
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Well, they failed to get rid of Obamacare, which was their *other* plan to harm the poor and middle class and hand money to the ultra-rich. Aside from that...what did they seriously want at the federal level?

I can tell you what dems want - cleaner environment and a way to at least slow the climate crisis, living wages, a pandemic response, criminal justice reform (although this is really as much a state level issue as anything else), renewing VAWA, racial and sex orientation/gender equality, and the list goes on.

The GOP is split between those that don't care about any of that, and people who want the federal government to hurt the people they hate, even if they get hurt too. Moscow Mitch is in the former. Graham is a great example of someone who has slid morally into the latter, to wallow with Cotton, Greene, and other raving bigots.

bruto said:
One of the things that gets me is that it seems McConnell was once a supporter of Martin Luther King, and an integrationist at a time when this was not the popular position. I'm sure he would still be offended to be called a racist. And yet.... I've long maintained that most Republicans would support Satan if he promised right-wing judges, and I think McConnell's sick cynicism drives that home.
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I like to give credit where credit is due. And I do believe in redemption for those who earn it - but I also believe in the opposite. Moscow Mitch may have stood up for MLK Jr. in his past, I've heard that as well. Current day Mitch, however, is delighted to see black people stopped from voting, out of a Machiavellian lust for power.
 
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bluesjnr said:
As a Ukian I'm interested in your use of "Conservative".

Being entirely serious, is it your contention that having conservative views in the US removes any political nuance?

I understand that Trump caused a lot of damage to the GOP and conservatives in general, but reading your, let's face it, polemic, it insists that all "Conservatives" are.

  1. Racist
  2. Homophobic
  3. Transphobic
  4. Fundamentalists
  5. 2nd amendment Proud Boys
  6. Anti-immigration
  7. Anti-abortionist
  8. Climate Change Deniers
  9. Covid 19 hoax proponents
  10. Anti free speech
  11. Cancel culture whores

I think I got 'em all.

Your position seems a little extreme to me and one borne from anger. How accurate do you believe it to be? Would you claim that it's representative of the general leftist position?
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I was using it in the same ironic way that the Alt-Right does.
 
bluesjnr said:
As a Ukian I'm interested in your use of "Conservative".

Being entirely serious, is it your contention that having conservative views in the US removes any political nuance?

I understand that Trump caused a lot of damage to the GOP and conservatives in general, but reading your, let's face it, polemic, it insists that all "Conservatives" are.

  1. Racist
  2. Homophobic
  3. Transphobic
  4. Fundamentalists
  5. 2nd amendment Proud Boys
  6. Anti-immigration
  7. Anti-abortionist
  8. Climate Change Deniers
  9. Covid 19 hoax proponents
  10. Anti free speech
  11. Cancel culture whores

I think I got 'em all.
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Seditionists,
Anti-Science
Anti-American
Hypocrites
Dishonest

I figured I'd add a few. Not sure you could ever list them all.

But in all fairness, I'm not sure this describes conservatives. It describes most Republicans these days however. The GOP is not conservative. It is selfish, self centered and nuts.
 
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