At Least One Republican - Mitt Romney- Still Has A Spine And Moral Compass

I never thought I'd say it, or admit it, but one Republican in the Senate actually showed yesterday he has the balls and intestinal fortitude to stand up to Dictator Donnie Dotard and his cult of criminals, traitors and enablers.  In a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Mitt Romney said he would vote to convict Donald Trump on the first article, becoming the first senator in U. S. history to vote to remove a president of his own party in a Senate impeachment trial.See his full speech here.

Full speech: Romney speaks on senate floor, plans ... - YouTube

The Senator from Utah said:

"The grave question the constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did.”

Adding:

“With my vote I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty.  What the president did was wrong. Grievously wrong.”

And with those words he torpedoed the insipid meme  that Trump got "total vindication: or any vindication. True, only four Senators were in attendance but the fact Romney is the first and only Senator to break with his party on an impeachment votes seals his place in history. Alas, it also means the vipers and vermin in his own party - starting with the Traitor-in-chief and his spawn and ass lickers will now come after Romney with blades drawn.  After all, the Republicans have almost entirely devolved into a cult and we know what happens when members of a cult dare to disagree with the leader or the zombie members who adore him.(Donald Trump Jr has called for Mitt Romney to be expelled from the Republican party.)

Romney’s move was rightly praised by several leading Democrats including primary House impeachment manager, Adam Schiff, who had led the team that made the case for Trump’s impeachment during the trial.

Romney’s speech reportedly came as a surprise to the Dotard Traitor White House, which abruptly cancelled a planned press event with Trump and Venezuela’s opposition leader.  Trump Jr,  Dotard's oldest maggot spawn, who recently tried to peddle a preposterous and churlish book, e.g.  

Trump Jr's Book Shows He's As Much A Lying Mudslin...

 Wasted no time tweeting his deranged venom, accusing Romney of being “forever bitter that he will never be president",  i.e. after losing the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama.  Don't these losers ever get off their one track moron minds that it isn't about elections, or "overturning" previous ones, but holding to some moral compass and code, say as defined by the Constitution?  Of course not, because they have no moral capacity or sensibility themselves!  They are simply out for their own personal gain - whether robbing the country blind with their sleazy cons and gimmicks, or violating every norm and law on which the nation is based.

Like the typical cultist he is,  Donnie Jr. then  called for Mitt to be expelled from the Republican Senate conference. Such a move is very unlikely, but hey, we can't put anything past these cockroaches.  Joni Ernst has already vowed that within days - if Biden is elected- impeachment proceedings will begin if the Reeps regain the House.  Not to be outdone, Kevin McCarthy has insisted the Dems impeachment will be "expunged" if the Reeps retake the House.

Which makes me believe McCarthy must be on some pretty potent MJ candy or maybe opioids, or a mix.   So also I suspect is Lisa Murkowski, whose brain appears so addled she can't tell the good guys from bad.  She actually said in a speech on the Senate floor that the chamber “should be ashamed by the rank partisanship that has been on display here,.” 

Adding later: “It’s my hope that we’ve finally found bottom here.” She voted to acquit Mr. Trump.

Lady, the only thing to be ashamed of is the moral blindness and cowardice of those like yourself who would don the specious mantle of "rank partisanship" to try to find cover for your own crimes of protecting and enabling a depraved traitor.  How do you even manage to sleep at night after  acquitting this mutt?  Must take a hell of lot of Ambien

Trump, meanwhile, tried to strike back at his moral superior, Romney,  by posting an idiotic video that is as lame as he is  - especially if he now believes he will transcend the black mark on his presidency.  

Which will be there long after his orange offal of a body is eaten by orange (and yellow) maggots. 

See also:

Impeachment | Mitch McConnell

Moscow Mitch Completes His Cover-up, but Not Without Some Hitches and Real Jeopardy Ahead

And:

Romney knew a storm was coming over his vote. How long it lasts will be up to Trump.

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Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, quickly tweeted, accusing Romney of being “forever bitter” that he will never be president after losing the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama, and then calling for him to be expelled from the Republican Senate conference. Such a move is very unlikely.

Look For A New Shutdown As Impeachment Noose Tightens Around Trump's Orange Neck

"I will shut down the government again if the Dems do not stop impeachment!"

In the wake of the passage of the resolution for the House impeachment rules yesterday, too many have forgotten that a series of high priority federal decisions lay ahead - touching on every aspect of the government and beyond.  In particular, the chances for a government shutdown before Thanksgiving loom much larger given zero progress reported on any of the 12 key spending bills.  These actually expired one month go but have been given a temporary extension until November 21st.

As this goes on the risk grows with each passing week and day of a shutdown and one that would be far more sweeping then the 35 day partial shutdown earlier this year.

Besides the spending bills, other laws are expiring or lapsing and require attention and appropriate action. These include:

- The National Defense Authorization Act which sets Pentagon policy (approved every year since 1946)

- An ensemble of tax break bills, ranging from the health care industry (medical devices' tax) to paid family leave, all of which will expire on December 31st.

- A World Trade Organization appellate body ceases to exist unless approved for extension.


Alas, for many,  each of these is seen as separate from the House Democrats impeachment of Trump. But not for Dotard and his brash enablers. Despite  Repukes like Kevin McCarthy yammering for the Dems to "trust the people instead" (i.e. in the general election) any one with an IQ above moron knows if left to his own devices - with no oversight- Trump will be emboldened to do even more pernicious damage to the Republic. At least impeachment forces the mutt to lawyer up and focus on the impending open hearings and the eventual Senate trial to remove his orange ass.

For Trump himself, however, there is no assurance he sees the bills' passage as separate from impeachment.  This is given he tends to see critical issues as one large negotiation - linking together seemingly disparate threads and issues into one "legislative ball of wax"  in the parlance of one WaPo columnist.   A specific indicator of that and of how unfit this human swine is to hold office - any office - was spotlighted in his Dallas rally 2 weeks ago.

We know already that the man has zero interest in working (like Obama did for 10 hrs./day)  - and rallies provide him with a kind of ersatz "oxygen " to energize his dementia- afflicted brain.  Also,  a ready made excuse to get out of DC and the impeachment spotlight. - while railing against the Dems and his other enemies seen  (e.g. Never Trumpers)  and unseen ("the Deep state" in his febrile, CT brain).  At that Big D rally we beheld his return to all his greatest hits, each reeled off in a couple hours of irrational whining and loathsome, unpresidential behavior.

By last week Sunday, even his tweeting, Fox TV watching and other goldbricking became old hat so he had to get his staff to gin up the takedown of al-Baghdadi to start looking "presidential" again.  Never mind it was mostly a PR stage show and the raid on the Isis head was accomplished more despite Trump than because of any substantive contribution. See e.g.

Foreign Policy

The Baghdadi Scam

by Margaret Kimberley | October 31, 2019 - 5:45am | permalink

Excerpt:

"The corporate media, Democrats and Republicans all joined in celebrating Baghdadi’s reported demise. Even those who count how often Trump tells lies suddenly expressed complete confidence in the version of events. Once again we see the embrace of Trump by the so-called resistance if he adheres to imperialist orthodoxy. The same man who they claim to want to impeach suddenly gets praise as he did when he launched an attack on Syria in 2017. The man mocked as a buffoon can be seen as “presidential” if he kills or even claims to kill people in a far away land.." 

With the impeachment process now fully formalized, and hearings likely to begin by the middle of this month, Trump's ratlike,  cornered behavior is likely to worsen, and no matter how much his Repuke stooges (like McCarthy, Jim Jordan and Lindsey  Graham) grovel and kiss ass, he won't be satisfied.   Thus many congressional leaders worry that Captain Bonepurs might use any of the must pass bills as hostages to try and gain leverage against an impending impeachment.

My take is the probability is very high it could happen with an unstable sociopath and authoritarian like Trump in the Oval office.  All sentient citizens need to be paying attention to what happens to the above cited bills as the Nov. 21 deadline approaches. We may well be seeing another shutdown and just before Christmas.


See also:

• Republicans claim that Tim Morrison's testimony exonerated Trump, they couldn't be more wrong 

And:

Government | Republicans

Shutdown, Impeachment: Welcome to the Beginning of Another Crappy Holiday Season Courtesy of the GOP

Excerpt:

"Republicans are at the political positioning/finger-pointing stage of budget negotiations, ahead of a potential government shutdown in a few weeks. While Congress approved a budget for the next fiscal year before the August recess, it didn't pass the necessary spending bills allocating the money. The stop-gap funding bill it also passed last month is going to expire on Nov. 21, after which there are three possible scenarios, only two of which are feasible. The Congress could pass and Donald Trump could sign all of the 12 appropriations bills. That's not going to happen. The two real scenarios: another stop-gap bill going until Christmas or into the new year, or a shutdown."

Don't Be Misled By Overthinking (Or Indignant) Pundits Or Faux- Outraged 'Pukes ) - Donnie Dotard Brought This On Himself

"He wants a foreign government to provide him with information which he can use to target a political appointee. They key thing is you don't need a quid pro quo for it to be an impeachable offense. But we have one here, in the face of this transcript.  We have it in the other information we've seen, most notably in how the administration went about withholding the aid that Ukraine was depending on.  

In that context you see this president being willing to trade our national security - because that aid was being sent to Ukraine to stop Russia's aggression - so risking our national security to force a foreign government to retaliate against one of his political opponents.  It is hard to think of a more serious abuse of his office than that." - Former DOJ spokesperson Matt Miller this morning.

"Trump announced he'd be releasing this very controversial transcript of this July phone call with the Ukrainian president. Where there is no explicit quid pro quo, 'we'll give ya the money if ya investigate Biden' . Of course, we already know the context of the phone call because Trump is the one that told us.

It is important we see the transcript but it is not the whole story by any means. We also don't know if we can trust any document produced by the White House, frankly.  I mean it's terrible to say that, but true.  You gotta keep in mind this is a White House that used the levers of power to lean on a bunch of weather forecasters - at the National Weather Service in Birmingham - to retroactively lie about where a hurricane was going.  And then sharpied a map in front of us as if we wouldn't notice. 

I don't know if the transcript is going to be sharpied up by the president before it's released to the public. But it soon became obvious that a transcript released by the White House would not be enough." -  Chris Hayes, last night, on 'All In'.

"I don't care if I just serve one term in congress, so long as I do my job with the constitution foremost on my mind and the rule of law. So if I have to I will retire, and go on my way recognizing I did the right thing." Rep Dean Phillips, MN, yesterday - in answer to a question concerning political penalties.

We need to thank Chris Hayes for basically nailing all the salient issues leading up to Pelosi's impeachment inquiry announcement yesterday,  in his opening  on 'All In' last night. Also indicating clearly why we can't trust a mere transcript and need to get all the ancillary information as well, which includes the full whistle blower complaint - in writing and preferably from the 'horse's' mouth in a public hearing.  Former Watergate Senate investigator Elizabeth Holzman went even further and said we also need to get the tapes of Trump's phone conversation with the Ukrainian president FROM THE UKRAINE, as well as transcripts of it. If for no other reason than to confirm what the White House provides is on the level. Personally, I wouldn't trust any thing Trump or his cabal of vipers offers. 

Make no mistake there will be many pundits - unlike Chris Hayes-  asserting this is a "dangerous step" for the Dems.  For example, former DOJ "unitary executive" inventor John Yoo, e.g.

John Yoo

Beware of Impeaching Trump. It Could Hurt the Presidency.

 

Yoo is  the same derelict miscreant who once defined the "unitary presidency", effectively ceding unlimited powers to the executive branch. He also invoked this balderdash to try to provide legal cover for the torture of  Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib as well as Bush Jr. approving CIA renditions of dozens of Muslims.  So you need to look at the source. No surprise if he could have done all that he'd skate over the fact that the office of the presidency has already been befouled by the pestilence named Trump. Hence, that only a high grade "colonic" will  remove the accumulated  toxic waste.  That colonic is none other than impeachment.  The error Yoo makes is conflating the office with the madman and human garbage now occupying it - who merits no sanctuary or protection.  But if one advocates a "unitary" executive, then a conflation is inevitable.

Meanwhile, true to form,, Reepo House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy belched like the brash imbecile he is that:  "I realize that 2016 did not turn out the way Nancy Pelosi wanted but she cannot just change the law".   But she isn't "changing the law"!  She is using it as the Founders intended against a lawless rogue president which McCarthy would see if he wasn't so intent on sucking Dotard's  orange ass every damned minute. Methinks this ignorant jackass needs to go back to school and take Government 101 all over again! 

Other talking heads who know less history than even Trump will also  bark that it may "tear the country apart" as if it wasn't already, and also lose the election next year. Of course, as I noted earlier the Founders already had this debate at the Constitutional Convention, on whether it was better to have a rogue, lawless president voted out, or use impeachment. The majority - including James Madison  - decided on the latter. It was simply too big a risk to allow a chief executive scofflaw to possibly continue if a majority of the population became bamboozled about his motives.  

Trump himself, predictably, called the whole announcement by Pelosi "garbage", neglecting the fact it wouldn't have been needed if this human garbage called Trump were not sitting in the White House and defiling the office of the presidency each and every day, with his lies, extortion, bribes, graft and threats - like a Mafia Don.  Besides we're still a long way from actual impeachment given Pelosi did not present articles of impeachment - as I believed she ought to have (they'v been 'hiding'  in plain sight especially after the latest Trump atrocity in preventing his DNI Maguire from allowing a whistle blower to deliver his report to congress).  So all we really have right now is the announcement of an "impeachment inquiry".  But hey, given Pelosi has been postponing this step for 9 1/2 months at least it's a start.

Some pundits expressed a degree of shock at the turn of events but they shouldn't have because this was a basic no brainer especially after the overgrown, bombastic  man baby spat in the Dems face with his total stonewalling, preventing any testimony of cabinet members - as well as those no longer in the WH.  Add on the latest, brazen bribery of the Ukrainian president and you have a case par excellence for impeachment. .  As FOX's own judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano  informed  anchor Shepherd Smith yesterday afternoon, Trump basically openly admitted to committing bribery which is an impeachable offense.   To jog memories, recall this all began when Trump pressured the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a July phone call to investigate the son of Joe Biden, the former vice-president and the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to compete for the White House in the 2020 presidential election.


Indeed, Judge Napolitano noted the Founders ranked  bribery right up there with treason - which crime Trump is also likely guilty of. Napolitano was referring to the fact that Trump sought the help of a foreign country (Ukraine)  to gain leverage to destroy his potential political opponent - Joe Biden. And worse, he used the withholding of over $450m in already taxpayer- allocated foreign aid as an extortion tool.  

 As Napolitano put it, in historical time "beheading was the punishment" - though he would "hesitate to prescribe such for Trump". Well, I wouldn't. But I would hang him first, or maybe electrocute him- as he insisted ought to be done to Joe Biden. .  Anyway, impeachment will do so long as the Dems carry it through and not cop out when crunch time comes as it surely will.  

As Nancy Pelosi put it:

“The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution.  The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law."

Adding,

“This is a national security issue.  And we cannot let him think that this is a casual thing.”

She vowed to move ahead “expeditiously”.  Well, I hope so and that means having the articles of impeachment filed at least two months before the Iowa caucuses next year.

In her official announcement, Pelosi noted that the chairs of six key House committees already involved in investigating Trump and his administration would make recommendations to the House judiciary committee, which has the authority to handle impeachment. Their reports would help form articles of impeachment brought against the Dotard.

Trump definitely has convinced himself he's above it all, by blowing past every norm, every guardrail and flouted and dishonored his constitutional oath. He's done it not only to enrich himself  but to create a criminal syndicate accountable to no one but himself - capturing the DOJ,  the Pentagon, and now even the intel community (as the recent whistleblower revelation shows)

Launching an impeachment inquiry does not necessarily mean that the House will vote to charge the president with “high crimes and misdemeanors”, though that is the likely outcome of such a process. If the House does charge the president, the articles of impeachment would then be sent to the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans who rarely break with Trump. 

Trump has openly admitted that he discussed Biden on a call with Zelenskiy but has denied any suggestion of a “quid pro quo”, even as it was reported that he ordered his staff to withhold nearly $400m in aid to Ukraine days before his call with Zelenskiy.

Maguire is due to testify on Thursday, his deadline for turning over the whistleblower complaint to CongressThe allegations came to light after a whistleblower working in US intelligence filed a formal complaint reportedly related to the phone call. The acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, refused to release the details of the complaint.

Later in the afternoon, the Senate, in a rare act of bipartisanship, unanimously approved a resolution calling for the DNI to turn over the whistleblower complaint to Congress.

As might be expected, not all Democrats support impeachment. Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said an impeachment inquiry would distract from Democrats’ legislative priorities and deepen the political divides in the country.  This is a joke, of course, given there are no legislative priorities more critical now than holding the lawless brigand in the White House to account. Fail to do that, normalize his obscene behavior, and worse create a precedent for an even more malignant occupant in the future  and we won't have a country.

This latest Trump atrocity triggering the impeachment process has many wringing their hands on whether the American people will get behind it. They damned well better if they want to have a representative democracy as opposed to living under an autocracy. And as Elizabeth Holtzman explained yesterday, we don't need all of our countrymen to buy in,  just a basic majority - say  51 percent.  I am betting (and hoping) there are at least that proportion of aware and intelligent citizens left in our nation.   Those who can read Matt Miller's quote at the very top of this post, nod their heads and agree: "Of course he needs to be impeached!" 

Even a few Republicans who finally grasp they have to now put country over party.

To read the obviously truncated/ edited version of the Trump phone call transcript go to the link from the WaPo below:

Rough transcript released by White House

See also:

David Leonhardt

Why I Changed My Mind About Impeachment

And:

Donald Trump | Impeachment

The Impeachment Predicament Remains

And:

Cody Fenwick

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Donald Trump | Impeachment | Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi Announces an ‘Official Impeachment Inquiry’ into Trump’s Conduct — Saying He Has ‘Violated the Constitution’

Bask In "Barr Report" PR Glory? Trumpies Would Rather Torch The ACA And Divide Their Party

It was JFK who once offered this insightful quote on Republicans and their symbol, the elephant:   "You've  seen the circus elephant, with his head full of ivory, a long memory, and no vision..The Republicans are like the circus elephant who moves around the circus ring and grabs the tail of the one in front of them."  Meaning, they lack any practical foresight, any vision.  In today's context, they also seemingly lack the savvy or brilliance of strategy to be able to secure - however temporarily- the "Win" they  got from the Mueller findings.  Actually, make that the William Barr spin and  premature conclusion on the Mueller findings - which as one former acting solicitor general (Walter E. Dellinger)  noted will be evaporated when the actual, unabridged report is made public.

But the Reepos don't even appear to know how to secure a temporary consolidation for a clear PR victory.  So full of hubris and drunk with perceived victory, they vowed revenge on all those who persecuted their sorry asses, e.g.

Trump and his allies plan to use Barr’s summary of Mueller report as cudgel against critics 


Then revealed the same Barr DOJ that delivered a PR coup Sunday - but now more drunk with unearned power- filed a notice late Monday in a federal appeals court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act.  This bone- headed move would basically gut health care for over 20 m people who benefited from the ACA expansion of Medicaid, and also make it more difficult for millions of others to secure care if they have pre-existing conditions..   Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, how about beating down court house doors to do it?

The backstory to this farce began two years ago when the Trump bunch  staked out its new position in a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Texas and other states.  This was after Congress failed  to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but later reduced the law’s tax penalty for people who do not have insurance to zero. The suit contended that the absence of the real tax penalty rendered the law’s “individual mandate” — the requirement that most Americans have insurance — unconstitutional..

Without a requirement to purchase insurance, the Reepo lawyers argued, the law could not then insist that insurance companies cover pre-existing medical conditions and a suite of other “essential health benefits,” such as maternity care, mental health therapy and prescription drugs.  A judge in Texas agreed and invalidated the entire law, including its expansion of Medicaid and subsidies to help many low- and middle-income people buy insurance. 

The Justice Department initially said that only parts of the law, including its protections for pre-existing conditions, should be struck down. But on Monday, the Barr -led DOJ - clearly intoxicated by the win it believed it gave to Donnie Dotard -  expanded its attack to say the whole law should be invalidated..  Do they really believe the people affected (more than half Trump supporters) are this dumb, and they won't see what's happening?

This confirmed for me once and for all that Attorney General William Barr is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is.  If he had been, he'd never have made such a stupid move, especially after the summary he put out on Sunday to try to exonerate Trump.  (Which even hard core Trump haters admit cost them political advantage, since Trump is now more emboldened than a drunken buffoon standing in the middle of 5th avenue trying to stop traffic with hand waving.  But as with all such buffoons that act can't last long.)

Never mind, Barr had his cheerleaders - including the Tea Party Patriots Action - an organization of conservative extremists who asserted "the attorney general made the right decision."   Well, we'll see about that, won't we?

In the meantime, as one wit put it: "Typical  dummies. Take their cars to the car wash then park it under trees with shitting birds."

Needless to say the Justice Department’s move caught both parties by surprise, and put Republicans in a very awkward position.  As Tom Reed (R, NY) put it:

"Not only is this a poor political move, this decision hurts real people who will unfairly lose their health insurance coverage as a result. We need to work to find ways to fix our health care system — not blow it up.”

Doh,  yuh think?  

Even House No. 2 Reepster, Kevin McCarthy,  who a day earlier was so pumped up by Barr's barf he was yelping for the Dems to "move on" - was caught flat footed, saying:

"I haven’t read through what they — was it last night? I think the president has always been very clear that he wanted to repeal Obamacare, and to put a system in that actually lowers the cost and protects individuals’ pre-existing conditions.”

Yeah, but do this right after a huge political  PR win where you all got to gloat and "spike the football"?  Interjecting a  move that will have more than 15m of your voters - who stand to lose their coverage - so pissed they will have forgotten all about Trump's phony vindication from a phony PR summary.  Well, after some further ruminating on what the Dotard demanded of his DOJ, McCarthy got the picture and spat: "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard of! It's about like punching yourself in the face!"  Well, at least you finally figured it out, maestro.

Susan Collins  was more forthright in her distress:

"I thought it was bad enough when last year they wouldn’t defend parts of the law, including the parts protecting people with pre-existing conditions.  This goes far beyond that and I think was a huge mistake.”

Yes, and now your intrepid party will pay again, like they did in the midterms, and despite William Barr's fake clearance of Trump from any crimes.  Who gives a shit about Trump's vindication when they're losing their health care?

Where I differ from the media pundits is when they write "this gives House Democrats a new opening and winning political strategy to move past impeachment."

Well, maybe, maybe not. Depends what the full Mueller report discloses, which former Solicitor General Dellinger believes will be laden with impeachable offenses.

In any case, Dems aren't dopes like the Republicans.  They can actually walk and chew gum at the same time!