The US Senate just voted 51 to 49 not to allow any witnesses in their proceeding. This clearly demonstrates that Senate Republicans have now joined in the cover-up of Trump’s impeachable offenses and that the proceedings going on within the Senate chambers cannot be called a “trial”.
Senators Romney and Collins joined all Democratic Senators in voting to allow witnesses and other evidence into the proceedings.
But without witnesses and any documentary evidence, a trial cannot be held, and therefore, the proceedings are a sham, a fake.
As soon as the vote on witnesses was completed, the Senate moved into recess. It’s not clear what the next action will be or when it will occur.
Republican senators – all of them except 2 – are now part and parcel of Trump’s cover-up. What a sham! One of Trump’s own lawyers arguing in the Senate is in fact, a fact witness; Cipollone was in the room, according to recent revelations from John Bolton, when Trump ordered Bolton in May to call President Zelensky of Ukraine to get him to talk to Giuliani about finding dirt of Democrats.
This is a huge stain on the Senate. In every impeachment trial ever held in the Senate – and there’s been 15 of them – witnesses and documents were allowed. It’s actually more of a stain – it’s creating a dysfunctional Congress, a co-equal branch of government to the Executive. And if Congress no longer has any power of oversight or having its subpoenas upheld, it cannot legislate.
This is a sad, dark day for America. The American people were denied witnesses being brought before the TV cameras. The American people are being denied the truth. Trump’s cover-up continues.
If Congress is broken, the country is broken.
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A stain, indeed. Shame on the Senate, shame on the CJ, they have sullied so much. So I say, probably outlandish to most, that the responsibility of impeachment should be taken away from the Senate. That the nation needs to adopt the system that California has, ballot. For issues that are vital to the nation’s function and democracy, clearly the Senate is incapable of orchestrating a fair trial, a trial that has witnesses and evidence, and so these issues should be put to a national vote. Not one that is dictated by an electoral college. Not one that waits for some presidential election. So Alexander was right in saying “let the people decide”, but wrong in punting that to some presidential election!
No, when there are issues of this importance to the nation, we can no longer rely on a body like the Senate for fair representation; they can only, apparently, manipulate for either the Dem or Repug parties…how many citizens have been marginalized by this kind of representation? They have totally corrupted the format of legal justice. If witnesses and evidence had been allowed, and Trump had been ultimately acquitted, then so be it. A fair trial. But this is very different, this is not what has happened. The entire proceeding has been stonewalled by the executive office and one party.
If the Senate has performed this inadequately over Trump’s abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, just think about all the other, urgent, global problems, that are lined up outside the door, waiting to be heard. This does not portend well. Congress has failed us on a national scale.
Shame on ANYONE who allies with a specific political party!
A dark day indeed.
Well folks, it looks we have reverted to 1775, and we now have King Donald the 1st to deal with. Some good news though, Kings were often publicly beheaded.
President Trump’s impending acquittal is real, and it’s spectacular.
So what, anybody actually not expect this? The Senate TOLD us they were going to do this so nobody believed them? Two mafia families fighting over the spoils of corruption. The DNC or the RNC, what’s your poison? What is good for the State is not necessarily good for the Country but there are profits to be made, eh?
The part I found disgustingly sick is that judges and prosecutors deny evidence all the time…when it points to innocence! Over and over, after sometimes DECADES in prison or after a person has been murdered by the State, out comes evidence that cops lied or that DAs hid and/or manipulated evidence that would have PROVEN their innocence. Oops, so sorry, you can go home now and ‘find a job.’
But those are Working Class people, and the poor. Useless eaters.
The judge in the trial of the Venezuelan Embassy protectors is doing this right now, denying defense evidence including what the elected Venezuelan government allowed them to do. The DC cops INVADED the embassy (against the law) to arrest them and now they have been told they cannot defend themselves. We see year after year environmental & anti-war & social justice protesters get denied admission of exculpatory evidence. THIS IS HOW THE US LEGAL SYSTEM WORKS. And always has…if you aren’t part of the privileged class.
Premier US Historian Howard Zinn told truth in his books (ten years dead, RIP) and if you haven’t read his People’s History of the United States I strongly suggest that you do so. And then read Historian Peter Kuznick/Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, and after you digest those two read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous History of the United States. Those three books should be taught in every history class in the US starting in 7th grade. We would have a much better chance of being the country the propaganda says we are, and aren’t.
Even President Jimmy Carter recently said in Europe that the US is no longer a functioning democracy. Not that it has ever been such a place but hey, that was a surprising thing to hear from a former president!
The below is a cut from an article I read today, link below it if you want to read the entire thing, but it says what I’m thinking. The Rag article stated: “If Congress is broken, the country is broken.” Figured that out decades ago, folks. We live with lies and myths of what our country has NEVER been for the vast majority of citizens.
“Trump is a vile human being. This much is a given. But let’s be honest. This is a battle among the wealthy ownership class about crimes that this class commits on a regular basis. It isn’t about real crimes any of us would be tried or convicted for, and it is isn’t about things humanity should be appalled by, like separating children from their parents and putting them in cages, or carpet bombing civilians, or drone bombing foreign nationals on foreign soil, or training death squads, or deregulating planet killing industries, or opening up untouched lands to mining, fossil fuel, agriculture and timber interests. No crimes against humanity or the living planet, the ones that count, are being addressed here.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/31/towards-zero-hour/
sealintheSelkirks
Shameful.
A cover up; concentration camps; Fox News propaganda; an out of control sociopathic president and his stooges, corrupt beyond redemption; the list goes on and on. Goodbye democracy: hello fascism. We’re already there.
Trump has packed his administration with corporate executives, corporate lawyers, corporate lobbyists and corporate consultants, directly contradicting his pledge to upend the “failed and corrupt” political establishment.
Don’t you just love Tom Tomorrow cartoons? This certainly fits in this comment thread!
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/3/1915781/-Cartoon-Excuses-for-acquittal
sealintheSelkirks