Under pressure for a fair and legitimate Trump impeachment trial in the Senate, #MoscowMitch McConnell sounded a bit less cocky on yesterday’s Fox & Friends than he had two weeks before on Hannity.
You may recall that on the December 12 Hannity, McConnell repeatedly boasted about conducting the Senate trial “in total coordination” with the White House and he signaled a desire to acquit Donald Trump without hearing from witnesses.
But Fox’s own poll found that 52% of Americans think the Trump administration has not cooperated enough with the impeachment inquiry. A more recent Morning Consult poll found 54% think the Senate should call additional witnesses.
Also, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding on to the articles of impeachment. Her move simultaneously trolls Trump (who wants an immediate trial), pressures McConnell to provide a fairer trial and threatens the possibility of further articles.
Not one of the three cohosts (Brian Kilmeade, Griff Jenkins and Lisa Boothe) mentioned a word about the polling. Instead, cohost Brian Kilmeade set the tone with his slobbering opening remarks. First, he called McConnell’s latest book “excellent.” Then he said, “Senator, you had every reason to take today off, but you’re here to tell America that you’re still working. And first things first. Are you surprised you haven’t been handed the two impeachment articles from the speaker?”
McConnell accused Pelosi of “trying to tell us how to run the trial” and blustered, “She wants to hold on to the papers, go right ahead.”
McConnell didn’t mention whether he’s still in lockstep with Trump nor did any of the three lapdogs ask. Instead, cohost Griff Jenkins, moonlighting as an opinion host from his job as a supposedly straight news correspondent, “asked” if McConnell “has the constitutional authority to hold a trial without [Pelosi] handing (the papers) over.”
“I don’t think so,” McConnell said. “I can’t imagine what purpose is served by her holding on to the papers. So sooner or later, I’m assuming she’s gonna send ‘em over.”
Jenkins failed to mention that proceeding without the articles is what Trump wants. Nobody questioned whether McConnell and the White House are no longer in perfect lockstep. Instead, after we saw a clip of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer correctly saying that McConnell has boasted of being biased, McConnell asked the lickspittles whether they think Schumer or Sen. Elizabeth Warren is impartial.
“No,” Kilmeade quickly answered. Nobody bothered to remind the viewers there's a big difference: McConnell is the one running the trial.
That allowed #MoscowMitch to pretend he’s not planning the sham trial he previously signaled.
MCCONNELL: Let’s quit the charade. This is a political exercise, a political exercise. All I’m asking of Schumer is that we treat Trump the same way we treated Clinton. We had a procedure that was approved 100 to nothing - Schumer voted for it – to go through the opening arguments, to have a written question period and then, based upon that, deciding what witnesses to call. We haven’t ruled out witnesses. We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton. Fair is fair.
The three cohosts nodded in agreement. But this is not President Clinton’s impeachment. CBS News explains what Kilmeade, Boothe and Jenkins kept from their viewers:
When it was Bill Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, to investigate the Clintons' business deals. The investigation later expanded to include a probe of Clinton's testimony in a sexual harassment case and his grand jury testimony about an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The Justice Department under Mr. Trump declined to investigate an intelligence community whistleblower's complaint about his July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine.
That meant that it would be up to Congress if Democrats wanted further information. Instead of an independent counsel presenting evidence to the House Judiciary Committee, the House Intelligence Committee collected it and wrote a 300-page report summarizing their findings. They heard more than 130 hours of private and public testimony from 17 current and former diplomats and Trump officials.
Instead, McConnell moved to boast again about his judicial appointments and to promise he’ll do what he can to acquit Dear Leader as soon as possible by any means possible. “Impeachment is gonna fade away” by the election, McConnell declared. “It will all be completed sometime, I assume, in the early part of the year. We all know how this is gonna end.”
Watch Kilmeade, Boothe and Jenkins promote the propaganda below, from the December 23, 2019 Fox & Friends.
However they may argue that this is quite different from a court trial, the definition of a jury remains the same:-
‘A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England during the Middle Ages, and are a hallmark of the Anglo-American common law legal system.’
I wouldn’t, however, try to keep the game in extra innings for more than a month or so. The faithful won’t change their minds regardless and people willing to do so don’t need much more time. They need to hear a lot more about what could be done to improve “their” lot also about what Trump et.al. have already done and plan to do for the 1%. The stock market is not a valid indicator for an economy that does something for the 99%. And most analysts see the booming stock-market as a bubble ready to burst. After all, it’s been over 10 years since the previous administration managed to reverse the worst recession in two generations.
Dems should continue to follow the GOP lead in this silly game of cheap tricks for a month or so, max. By which time it will be painfully evident to all but the willfully blind (aka the faithful) that Senate GOPers are defending the indefensible.
Keep the impeachment process going until the election.
Hope all of you had a lovely start of the holiday (burp, in Italy). All the best for 2020.
GET OUT AND VOTE!!!
The Pence White House was gooning it up with the new president of Ukraine, figuring that they could get away with it since they’d just gotten away with all the shenanigans from 2016. Their assumption, which isn’t an unreasonable one, was that they could just do it again, given that they had a dedicated Right Wing media machine and a lot of terrified Republican legislators to run cover for them. And from what we can see, that’s what is now happening.
It’s nice that Pelosi is running a delaying action here, but the outcome is really not in doubt and it never has been.
2020 promises to be a watershed year in the fight against ignorance, political opportunism and paranoid nationalism. Sadly, we will see unparalleled chaos in Britain as one result of Vlad the Poisoner’s maleficence, and the continued assault on everything good in America, at least for a while, on another. At the same time, we can expect resistance to reach tsunami proportions and by the end of the year, a whole new era of hope and positive change will be upon the land.
Profound thanks to dear Ellen and her helpers, without whom we should collectively be so much the poorer.
The real purpose of McConnell’s appearance, as Kilmeade explains it, is to market his book now out in “paper-whack”. The riveting story of how McConnell dishonestly held up judges in the Obama administration and is now ramming them through so fast at least 11 have been judged incompetent by the ABA. Oh, #MoscowMitch emphasizes they’re lifetime incompetents. I’m thrilled! You?
Well, like #MoscowMitch I have only one talking point I brought with me that goes hand in glove with my hidden agenda. I came to wish you a merry, safe and joyous Christmas! 🎄
This should, and probably will, be the beginning of the end of MacConnell’s wretched reign.
