Total Disinterest in Senate Impeachment Trial

[saxitoxin]

Even the Democrats themselves have become bored by their little show.

Beginning at 1:20 p.m., lawmakers began peeling off slowly to the Republican and Democratic cloakrooms at the back of the Senate chamber, where they can make calls and check their smartphones for emails and text messages.

Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, one of the chamber’s four presidential candidates, was the first lawmaker to spend a few minutes in a cloakroom, where members meet for private discussions. He repeated the trip 25 minutes later. A few minutes after that, Republican Senator Rob Portman headed into the Republican cloakroom on the other end of the back wall.

From about 1:52 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., at least nine Democrats and 22 Republicans left their seats. Some lawmakers were gone for just a few minutes, others nearly half an hour.

Two other Democratic presidential candidates - Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar - also headed to the cloakroom, Sanders for eight minutes and Klobuchar for 16.

At intervals, one Republican senator or another could be seen through cloakroom doors sitting in a cushioned wing-back chair and fingering a cellphone. At one point, voices could be heard from inside.

The fourth Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren, was not fully visible.

Some Republicans who remained seated had another way to distract themselves, after small toys known as fidget spinners were handed out at a private lunch of party members before the hearing.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1ZM33J

[nietzsche]

it's boring because it's kind of an administrative fault, we don't give a shit if it's treason or not, we want him impeached for being stupid or having diarrhea or something like that



every fucking president used his influence at some point to gain some sort of advantage. to think otherwise would be naive, even if it can't be proven.

[HitRed]

The congressional after-party hosted by Bill Clinton is getting high marks.

Off the record.

[mrswdk]

It's just such a stupid process from start to finish. Accuse him of a crime then submit him to a trial overseen by his own party, who can clear him without having to provide any justification for why they've chosen to clear him. Why even bother when everyone knows exactly how it's going to end? Do these politicians really have so little work to do?

I was thinking of putting a massive bet on Trump being cleared but the odds are so pathetic that even in this era of minuscule interest rates I'll get better returns just sticking my money in an ISA.

[saxitoxin]

I'll get better returns just sticking my money in an ISA.

how about you stick your money in your ass and see what kind of return you get

[saxitoxin]

There was a short break in the trial to give a round of applause to the Senate pages who are ending their terms today. Everyone applauded the eight young boys who had survived their twelve month ordeal of daily sexual molestation in the Senate cloakroom. The Senate then announced they would get an extremely early start on tomorrow's proceedings and would convene at 1:00 p.m.

[mrswdk]

I'll get better returns just sticking my money in an ISA.

how about you stick your money in your ass and see what kind of return you get

You have correctly estimated that my delicious ass is fulsome enough to be capable of having a lot of money inserted into it.

[tzor]

It's just such a stupid process from start to finish. Accuse him of a crime then submit him to a trial overseen by his own party, who can clear him without having to provide any justification for why they've chosen to clear him. Why even bother when everyone knows exactly how it's going to end? Do these politicians really have so little work to do?

I think it is clear you have very little understanding of American Politics. The Democrats are using this process to constantly bring up accusations against TRUMP on a daily basis. This will be used in every campaign of Democrats running against Republican senators running in 2020. They want to leverage this to the tune of millions of dollars of political contributions. They have the mainstream media in their pocket (or was that the other way around ... hard to tell these days) and so for their base they have a solid message that they will lovingly accept.

And they will use anything to accomplish this, even though they have neither the authority to do and even if it violates constitutional rights. They don't care because they are masters of lies and bullshit spin and they have the media who will sell that bullshit as the finest gold.

[NomadPatriot]

impeachment was always the plan...

Apr 18, 2017

[mrswdk]

It's just such a stupid process from start to finish. Accuse him of a crime then submit him to a trial overseen by his own party, who can clear him without having to provide any justification for why they've chosen to clear him. Why even bother when everyone knows exactly how it's going to end? Do these politicians really have so little work to do?

I think it is clear you have very little understanding of American Politics. The Democrats are using this process to constantly bring up accusations against TRUMP on a daily basis. This will be used in every campaign of Democrats running against Republican senators running in 2020.

All of which will influence the votes of maybe 0.5% of the voting American electorate. Is it worth shutting down government operations for the next two months to achieve that? Or are there no government operations in the US to shut down anyway. The last time the US government went bankrupt (euphemistically known as a 'shutdown') society seemed to continue operating in exactly the same manner it had before the bankruptcy.

[tzor]

All of which will influence the votes of maybe 0.5% of the voting American electorate. Is it worth shutting down government operations for the next two months to achieve that?

The election is pretty much lost as it is. This is the long term plan. None of the presidential candidates have a snowball's chance in Key West of getting close. But Trump is five more years at most. The goal is not to get an independent to vote Democratic candidate. It's to get them so disgruntled as to not vote at all. There are still a number of red congressional districts in blue states where the congressional arguments against the incumbent is "he supports Trump." Trump isn't going to win New York, but if turnout is light in the state, he could lose a number of Republican Congressmen including one of his greatest supporters, Lee Zeldin (who is currently on his "team" on the impeachment trial).

As for shutting down the government; we know what happened when the Democrats took total and absolute control back with the election of Obama ... almost nothing. The Affordable Care Act barely got passed. Currently nothing of any significance to the Democratic party the House passes will be accepted by the Senate and even then, it's going to be vetoed and die anyway, so ... nothing is actually better than a failed something.

The big thing is that this shuts down the presidential campaigns of every Democratic senator. The good news is, apart from Bloomberg, the other non Senator (Biden) is mostly incapable of taking advantage of that and the whole thing is pouring radiation on his campaign anyway. (Let's see we are up to two sons getting government kickbacks.)