The U.S. Senate voted to acquit President Trump on both articles of impeachment. The vote to convict on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress was 48 to 52. In the end, the vote to convict and remove Trump from office was bipartisan, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) joining every Democrat and two independents on the abuse of power article.
Every other Republican voted to acquit the president.
Ari Berman: “The 48 Senators who voted to convict President Trump represent 18 million more Americans than 52 Republicans who voted to acquit.”
New York Times: “When all the partisan posturing, parliamentary wrangling and legalistic arguing are stripped away, the impeachment process that dominated Washington for months produced a set of facts that is largely beyond dispute: The president of the United States pressured a foreign government to take actions aimed at his political opponents.”
“As the Senate moved toward acquitting President Trump on Wednesday, even some Republicans stopped trying to defend his actions or dispute the evidence, focusing instead on the idea that his conduct did not deserve removal from office, especially in an election year.”
Playbook: “After 4 p.m. today, impeachment is over, and we’re left to wonder: Did it matter politically? Republicans are more firmly in the president’s corner, and Democrats seem to hate him more than ever. There are now 272 days until Election Day — and hundreds more news cycles. By November, it’s anyone’s guess what we’ll all be talking about.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) voted to convict President Trump on abuse of power, the New York Times reports. Said Romney: “I think the case was made.”
He added: “I believe that attempting to corrupt an election to maintain power is about as egregious an assault on the Constitution as can be made. And for that reason, it is a high crime and misdemeanor and I have no choice under the oath that I took but to express that conclusion.”
Romney told the Washington Post that his decision to vote to convict the president “the hardest decision” he has ever had to make.
CNBC: “Just as Sen. Romney finished speaking, the White House announced that reporters will now no longer be invited to the Oval Office for the pool spray that was scheduled at 2:15 pm. Reporters were already on the South Lawn and ready to go in when the White House cancelled it.”
“Days before the July 2019 call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, U.S. officials were still working to expedite the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles to the country,” according to emails reviewed by CNN.“The new information underscores how the July 18th decision to hold the military aid stunned officials, who had already assessed Ukraine deserved to receive it and were preparing a Javelin missile order as well. The decision reverberated across the government for weeks. Officials grew so concerned over the deferrals by the Office of Management and Budget that they noted the aid was at ‘serious risk,’ and questioned if the move was illegal.”
President Trump’s State of the Union address drew a considerably smaller audience on the broadcast networks — down about 25% from the comparable figure last year, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Associated Press: “At least 138 people deported to El Salvador from the U.S. in recent years were subsequently killed, Human Rights Watch says in a new report that comes as the Trump administration makes it harder for Central Americans to seek refuge here.”
“The organization also confirmed at least 70 cases of sexual assault or other violence following their arrival in the country.”
The Washington Post flags 31 false or misleading statements in President Trump’s State of the Union address. “Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them.”
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) told CNN that it is “likely” House Democrats will subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton and continue investigations into President Trump’s hold on military aid to Ukraine.
Josh Kraushaar: “The chaos of the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night obscured an alarming reality for Democrats: President Trump now looks like a narrow favorite to win a second term in office.”
“The latest wave of national polls show Trump hitting or nearing all-time highs in his job-approval rating—even after weeks of impeachment proceedings. Gallup’s latest tracking survey showed his job-approval rating at 49 percent, tantalizingly close to an outright majority of the country. The president is delivering his State of the Union address amid a strong economy and growing consumer confidence. Nearly two-thirds of the country approve of his economic stewardship—the highest rating on this score in nearly two decades. Republicans look energized and united behind the president.”
“Meanwhile, Democrats face growing factional warfare between their progressive and pragmatic wings.”
“He shredded the truth so I shredded his speech.” — Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quoted by The Hill, in a meeting with House Democrats.
President Trump dismissed Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) comment that he had “learned a lesson” from impeachment, the Washington Post reports.
When asked about Collins’s comment during a lunch with news anchors ahead of the State of the Union address, Trump said that he’d done nothing wrong.
Said Trump: “It was a perfect call.”
Josh Marshall on the significance of Mitt Romney’s vote to convict: “
After the witness bar was surmounted, a number of Republican senators piped up and said well, he clearly did something wrong but it’s not wrong enough or it doesn’t matter or something else. Romney’s statement puts the lie to this in what I suspect is a pretty uncomfortable way, and one which will be damaging to at least a few reelection candidates in November. He’s saying, no, you weren’t willing to say he was wrong. You said it was fine. And that really is what they’re saying. Because they’re cowards and derelict in their duties.
There is a reasonable argument and one that I believe in that you can believe the President is guilty of wrongdoing but still have it come short of what is necessary for removal from office. I think you can also say the President is guilty but there are prudential reasons to refrain from removal. What you can’t say is that I will vote to block even hearing any witnesses. That doesn’t add up. That means you know it is very bad but you have different priorities. You don’t care.”
The FBI director on Wednesday danced around a question about whether the President Donald Trump or anyone from his administration had sought investigations from the Bureau as retaliation over Trump’s impeachment.
“Has the President, the attorney general or any other administration official asked the FBI to open an investigation into Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, John Bolton or any member of Congress?” Chairman Nadler asked.
Wray chuckled slightly, then said “I have assured the Congress, and I can assure the Congress today that the FBI will only open investigations based on the facts and the law and proper predication.”
Nadler understood that, he said. “And I assume that it is correct that neither the President, the attorney general or any other administration official has asked the FBI to open improper political investigations?” Again, Wray didn’t exactly answer the question. “And no one has asked me to open an investigation based on anything other than the facts, the law and proper predication,” he said.
Kevin Roose: “Basically, we should be begging for the most analog election technology possible. Because what happened on Monday night — a long and confusing delay in vote counting, due in part to a mobile app that was hastily designed and inadequately tested before being deployed in one of America’s most important elections — was an inexcusable failure. It caused distress and confusion, set off innumerable conspiracy theories, and started the 2020 election season by undermining trust in the democratic process.”
“And all because Iowa Democrats wanted a new app.”
ProPublica: “A glitch in the smartphone app used to count and report votes from individual precincts continues to delay results from Monday’s Iowa caucuses. But a closer look shows that the app had a potentially graver problem that apparently did not come into play: its vulnerability to hacking.”
“The IowaReporterApp was so insecure that vote totals, passwords and other sensitive information could have been intercepted or even changed, according to officials at Massachusetts-based Veracode, a security firm that reviewed the software at ProPublica’s request.”
I feel like these IDP technocrats are not as fucking bright as I was lead to believe.
Do you have to cuss in every post? It is the sign of a mangina that is always looking to be the center of attention. You have no idea how bright a “technocrat” is in my opinion (mainly because you aren’t very bright) and the failure in Iowa is the best example of how the Leftists mess up on a routine basis.
Actually, it turns out that what helped mess everything up was you Trumpies flooding the switchboard.
You folks can’t accomplish anything in terms of solving problems, so you like to screw up people who actually can.
If the cussing bothers you you can always go away. And oh, BTW, calling someone a “mangina” is the sure sign of a guy who butches up because he’s afraid he’s not masculine enough.
Tom Perez calls for a recanvass of the Iowa results.
“The Daily Beast reported that a DNC aide defined Perez’s “recanvass” as a hand audit of caucus math worksheets and reporting forms to make sure that they were correctly tallied and reported in the telephone intake sheets and caucus reporting app.”
IDP said they would recanvass at the request of any campaign, but just doing it now seems smarter. Doubt it provides any better confidence, but definitely in the category of Thing You Should Just Do.
Posting because I love the headline:
Nancy Pelosi Dry Snitches on Trump’s Alleged Drug Use
Apparently the IDP reporting number got into the wrong hands and then posted to public spaces asking for people to flood the number with calls.
White men most likely to feel better off under Trump — poll
Of course, you realize that ALL Americans are better off under this President. Well, maybe you don’t as you are blind to it. Anyway, there is record unemployment among women, black and hispanics. Betcha MSNBC buried that.
Uh no, not all Americans are better off. (adding more resources because we need them)
Poverty Grew In One-Third Of U.S. Counties Despite Strong National Economy
1 in 6 Americans Can’t Make Their Monthly Bill Payments
Farm Bankruptcies Up in 2019
Almost half of all Americans work in low-wage jobs
Elderly Bankruptcies on the Rise
Real pay data show Trump’s ‘blue collar boom’ is more of a bust for US workers
US Manufacturing Sector in Recession
The news is filled with stories and data about very large numbers of people who are not better off under this president. I don’t even need to bet that FOX Noise buried that.
How long do you intend to put up with this fellow’s trolling?
He’s gone. And his alter ego, Chewy, too.
Thank you. I actually feel a little sorry for those folks. They must get tired of reciting this Fox News catechism to each other after a while, so they come here to display their piety.
One common theme: They all want to “win” arguments about matters of opinion by employing rhetorical instruments revealed as false logic over 2,000 years ago by the Greeks. Sophistry, in short. They have learned this by listening to radio talk shows, where hosts engage in that sort of thing all day long.
All Americans are not better off under this Human excrement occupying the Whitehouse. A huge percentge of “working” people are substantially worse off. He is an ignorant, hate-filled, vitriol spewing, poor excuse for a human who shreds the very fabric of our democracy. I would rather have a rabid racoon for a pet in my house than that subhuman hater in my Whitehouse.
There is more to life than the unemployment statistic. The current one, BTW, is heavily influenced by the departure of retiring Boomers from the workforce. Once again you are “thinking” very simplistically.
AP Unable to Declare an Iowa Winner
Re: Iowa.
People are actually getting what they claimed they wanted — Iowa’s results are not being used to pump up some artificial “winner.” Bernie and Mayo Pete essentially tied, and neither this nor any of the primaries are winner-take-all. They will get either the same number of delegates or be within 1 point of each other.
If people really want Iowa to stop being first, they’ll move on. But, because the media covers politics like it’s the NFL, they have to flap their yaps until the next game on Tuesday.
The places first in the cycle are always going to get the obligatory momentum story. It’s the way horse race reporting happens and who’s on first reporting is very valuable to campaigns. I really want the first state(s) to be more representative of America and not a freakin’ caucus.
Someone from dKos is floating an idea of having Iowa redo this as a primary on their regular primary day (June, I think) and allocate their delegates from that.
What I didn’t want was a Dems in Disarray story that was actually true.
Iowa and New Hampshire are less like the NFL and more like the start of baseball’s spring training. Everybody gets to play in the first couple of games but most of them are back in the minors by Opening Day when it’s time to play for keeps. The results are essentially irrelevant but the reporters get a couple of months to try out their story lines.
I don’t know that it will always happen that way. It happens that way mainly because the primary season drags on so long, so money becomes important. If all the primaries were sandwiched into a two-month period candidates wouldn’t have to spend time in any one or two states, regardless of how representative they are. But as you know this is all about the little fiefdoms that are state parties, so it won’t be easy to change. Repeated failure hasn’t done anything to change it so I don’t know what will.
Also, too, the Dems are in disarray because of Trumpist ratfucking.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/clog-lines-iowa-caucus-hotline-posted-online-encouragement-disrupt-results-n1131521