The motion was just voted upon for witnesses.
51-49, the motion was rejected. Senate is now in recess.
And Britain leaves the European Union in 15 minutes.

so senate republicans are the predictable joke of a 'check' on the executive. absolutely pathetic, they don't even want to KNOW the facts (i mean, pretty sure they all do, but they want to keep that flimsy of being able to claim 'i had no idea trump actually misused the presidency when i voted not to be confronted with even more evidence of it'). trump IS the republican party, there are no principled republicans left in washington. at least they are all on the record now...

https://twitter.com/npratc/status/1223367570209853441
Marie Yovanovitch has submitted her resignation just as the last contentious vote in the senate was carried out.

I try to step back from it when moments like this happen. Pretend the election went the other way:

Hillary pressured a vulnerable ally to investigate her likely political opponent in 2020, and she did so by withholding aid and a White House meeting. She used her personal lawyer to do it, along with various government officials. She talked to the president of the country and the rough transcript clearly shows how she associated the giving of aid with investigations into her opponent, and a batshit crazy conspiracy theory. She's denied it completely, and claimed the call was perfect. Her former National Security Adviser later leaks that Hillary clearly associated the withholding of the aid with investigations.

And the Democrat controlled senate won't even call the former NSA to testify.

It's incomprehensible.

A sidenote:


I'm still kind of amazed how mainstream pundits have not internalized the way the Trump cult operates. They keep reacting to every bombshell story as if new facts will change the reality that the Republican party is the cult of Donald Trump.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jan 31 2020 05:36pm

I heard Diamond and/or Silk may be available to fill in.

Except that's not what happened. Lol.

-Ukraine didn't even know the aid was being withheld.

-Guliani had already previously been discussing Biden/Burizma with Ukraine prior to him being a presidential candidate. Months prior to Biden announcing.

This post was edited by GLYC123 on Jan 31 2020 05:51pm

You're a brave one. Taking post #666

- Ukraine at some point knew the aid was being withheld, and there's a multitude of news stories on when that might have been. Irregardless, Trump withheld the aid because he wanted the investigations, and the Ukrainians definitely knew early that he was withholding the White House meeting because of that issue. There's no reason to believe that Trump withheld the aid for any other reason. And Bolton's revelation just confirms what every reasonable person already knew.

- Giuliani discussing Biden and Burisma prior to Joe announcing isn't that relevant. It doesn't take a genius to predict Biden might run in 2020, and even if he doesn't, it's still the president using his power to attack a political rival. Trump has a weird obsession with tarnishing Obama's legacy, so encouraging an investigation into his VP isn't a bad way to do it.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jan 31 2020 05:58pm

The next democratic president can remake our country into a communist dictatorship with impunity now. Thanks republicans for setting the precedent!

You mean.. a country that has had strong ties to corruption recently and had a previous leader that ran out of the country with billions of dollars has no merit in contemplating delivering foreign aid to?

It's not worth checking into a new leader for that country prior to sending them hundreds of millions of American tax payer dollars?

This post was edited by GLYC123 on Jan 31 2020 06:06pm