"Impartial Republican Jurors" Meet With Trump Lawyers

 

Surprised not surprised:

After the Senate trial adjourned Thursday, three of Donald Trump’s chamber allies, Sens. Lindsey O. Graham, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, were seen entering a room to meet with the former president’s attorneys.

After their meeting, Trump attorney David Schoen told reporters the senators were just “talking about procedure,” called them “friendly guys” and said they did not tip him off to questions they would be asking.

They discussed “just how this format goes, you know, the question-and-answer period, all that,” Schoen said. “And then just talking about where they’re from and all that, but it’s just very nice. I said to them it was a great honor to have the opportunity to talk to them.”

During the impeachment trial, the senators are supposed to be impartial jurors, listening to the evidence from both sides before voting on whether to convict.

The article goes on to note that longtime Trump enabler Sen. "Moscow Mitch" McConnell pulled the same stunt last year during Trump's first impeachment trial.  That this conduct then and now violates the oath they swore at the beginning of the trial was nothing more than words with no meaning -- like the Constitution.

Tweets Of The Day -- Utah's Pride

Thank you, voters of Utah, for sending this childish clown to the Senate:

"The solution to climate change is not this unserious resolution...the solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids." -@SenMikeLee on @AOC and @SenMarkey's Green New Deal

This is a real quote. pic.twitter.com/fbMzgwUMxA

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) March 26, 2019

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is on the Senate floor right now discussing @AOC and @SenMarkey's Green New Deal.

These are not photoshopped. pic.twitter.com/j8YWahtR1j

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) March 26, 2019

Meanwhile, an adult responds to the childish clown's assertion that the Green New Deal is an "elitist issue":

Safe to presume this is Ocasio-Cortez’s next viral video from a committee hearing pic.twitter.com/SrBd6MY5Xx

— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) March 27, 2019

So thank you, Utah, and thank you Sen. Lee;  our children and grandchildren will be sure to thank you and your fellow Republican shitstains in the future as well.

In-Fighting In The Republican Party Hits New Level

With the Republican clown car bus debates looming in early August, we've seen a circular firing squad already beginning to form among the 16-odd (and we do mean odd) candidates, with incoming and outgoing insults every day.  The turmoil isn't contained to the campaign trail, it seems, as the frothing natives in Congress are also increasingly restless and combative:

-- Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz (Tea Bagger-TX) recently claimed -- on the Senate floor no less -- that his Majority Leader, Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell lied to him and other caucus members over holding a vote on the re-authorization of the Export-Import Bank, which led McConnell and others to publicly humiliate Cruz (yay!);

-- Cruz's acolyte, Sen. Mike "Mini Me" Lee (Tea Bagger-UT) was just caught trying to get right-wing organizations to support his rule-flouting effort to demand a vote repealing Obamacare as an amendment to the pending transportation bill, causing McConnell to rip him a new one in a meeting of Senate Republicans;

-- Rep. Mark Meadows (Tea Bagger-NC) filed a "motion to vacate the chair" in a parliamentary maneuver to remove Speaker of the House John "Mr. Tangerine Man" Boehner. Meadows' motion read, in part:

[the] “Speaker has, through inaction, caused the power of Congress to atrophy, thereby making Congress subservient to the Executive and Judicial branches, diminishing the voice of the American People. Whereas the Speaker uses the power of the office to punish Members who vote according to their conscience instead of the will of the Speaker.”

We like that "voice of the American People" line, although we think the voice Rep. Meadows may be hearing is coming through the fillings in his teeth.

BONUS:  Nancy LeTourneau on the right-wing media that's largely the cause as well as the beneficiary of the turmoil.

Wanking The State Of The Union

Rather than a State of the Union epilogue, which Charles P. Pierce handles quite nicely here, we want to look at some of the wankery on display last night (in addition, of course, to the thuggish wankery of Rep. Michael "Dim" Grimm noted in the post directly below).

Wanker #1 -  Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Tea-Totally Nuts), who engaged in this incoherent, bullying nonsense with Rachel Maddow:

Huelskamp (with finger-stabbing): The President acted in numerous unlawful manners, particularly in his willingness to suspend parts of Obamacare … I think that’s lawlessness, I don’t think he has that authority. I do not think he had the authority to make recess appointments; I think the Court’s going to agree with me … [snip]

Maddow: Sir, I’m just trying to focus on the case that you’re making, which is that his speech… 

Huelskamp: A speech makes no law! The President makes good speeches… 

Maddow (quoting Huelskamp’s tweet): … “reads like dictates from a King. [hashtag]LawLess”; What did he say in the speech that was lawless tonight? 

Huelskamp: …Fourteen different points where the President said, ‘I don’t like the American people, who they elected…’ That’s what the President was saying! He said, ‘I don’t like Congress! I don’t like the American people that sent these people up here, and so he listed fourteen different dictates, executive orders…

That's exactly what the President said, Rep. Hayseed.. er, Huelskamp.  Where's the guy with the net when you need him?  Also,  Huelskamp has a long history of being a ... dick.  That's why we put him on top of the list, barely.

Wanker #2 -  Rep. Randy Weber (R-Deranged), who tweeted before the SOTU:

On floor of house waitin on "Kommandant-In-Chef"... the Socialistic dictator who's been feeding US a line or is it "A-Lying?" 

Wow.  The Weber in our back yard has more wit and intelligence than this one, and is way less paranoid.

Wanker #3 -  Sen. Mike Lee (R-Cruzland) who, after careful study of the heavily annotated and edited U.S. Conshtitushun he keeps in his jacket pocket next to his copy of "Atlas Shrugged," plus a correspondence course from the Hayek School of 19th Century Economics, has found the source of inequality in America:

But where does this new inequality come from? From government ...

Well, he's right in part.  That would be the part of government and the party to which he belongs, whose unofficial motto is "Benefit Cuts For Thee, Tax Cuts For Me."

Tailgunner Ted Cruz' Mini-Me in Trouble in Utah

From today's once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle, a cautionary tale about Tailgunner Ted Cruz' sidekick mini-me, Utah Republican tea bagger Sen. Mike "Mini-Me" Lee:

When Mike Lee toppled longtime Republican Sen. Robert F. Bennett here in 2010, it was the tea party’s first big triumph. But now, after a 16-day government shutdown, it’s Lee who faces a revolt within his own party.

Utah, one of the most Republican states in the nation, has a long tradition of being represented by pragmatic, business-minded conservatives in the U.S. Senate. Lee broke that pattern by governing as an ideological firebrand — standing alongside Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in the push for a shutdown in a failed bid to undermine President Obama’s health-care law.

As a result, Lee’s approval ratings in Utah have cratered, and prominent Republicans and local business executives are openly discussing the possibility of mounting a primary challenge against him. Top Republicans are also maneuvering to redesign the party’s nomination system in a way that would likely make it more difficult for Lee to win reelection in 2016.  (our emphasis)

Unfortunately, Mini-Me Lee won't be up for reelection until 2016, so he has plenty of time to mend fences.  But, being a True Believer, Mini-Me Lee is more likely to continue taking his lead from Dr. Evil Tailgunner Ted and playing to his tea bagger base.

(Photo:  "Eeeee!")

How's That Republican Rebranding Coming Along? (Cont.)

Let's take a look at what's going on in Washington, DC, as the Rethugs try to "rebrand" their New Confederate/ Stupid party:

Utah Rethuglican Sen. Mike Lee has proposed an amendment to the immigration reform legislation currently being marked up.  His helpful proposal

... would allow undocumented immigrants to be lawfully employed -- but only only as domestic workers.

Lee's amendment would exempt undocumented immigrants working as "cooks, waiters, butlers, housekeepers, governessess, maids, valets, baby sitters, janitors, laundresses, furnacemen, care-takers, handymen, gardeners, footmen, grooms, and chauffeurs of automobiles for family use" from prohibitions against "unlawful employment" for undocumented immigrants. [our emphasis]

You've o.k. if you cut my lawn or wash the dishes!  Es muy blanco de ustedes!

Of course, that's only one of the egregious, insulting anti-immigrant amendments offered by Senate Rethuglicans;  check 'em all out!

But they aren't the only Rethuglicans out a-courtin' the Hispanic voters, no siree!  They've got the assembled brainpower of the right-wing Heritage Foundation to help them (and it's new president, former Senator and continuing crackpot Jim "Demented" DeMint).  Heritage recently put out a pile of shit report claiming immigration reform would be unacceptably costly.  Come to find one of the report's authors has some racist highly dubious ideas about intelligence:

The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the economic consequences of immigration reform uses absurd methodology to come to conclusions entirely at odds with the organization’s own findings in 2006. Perhaps one explanation for this incoherence is that one of the paper’s coauthors, a new hire, opposes Hispanic immigration because he thinks Latinos are stupid.

Jason Richwine joined Heritage in 2010, after finishing his PhD in Public Policy in 2009. The Washington Post’s Dylan Matthews dug up Richwine’s dissertation, which was titled “IQ And Immigration.” In it, Richwine argues that Hispanics have and will always have lower IQs than whites. Matthews summarizes:

Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — ‘the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ’ — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, ‘No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.‘

Oh, Pancho!  Oh, Cisco!  Tambien es muy blanca!

Of course, Heritage and some other right-wingers are back-pedaling from Mr. Richwine.  But, as the bill is marked up in the Senate, it's hard to ignore the inherent racism and inhumanity of the Rethuglican proposals.  They seem to be in accord with Mr. Richwine's "thesis" in more than just a casual way.

UPDATE:  Mr. Richwine is now updating up his resume.