There is a frontpage story yelling that the Democrats CAVED! Y’all on DK ought to know better than this.
This is the problem with Democrats. Wildly reacting without thinking things through will never get our side anywhere.
Let’s be clear here.
Who is at fault? The GRAND Q Party. That is it. No one else.
We are pushing on 500,000 DEAD from the Coronavirus. Remember the pandemic? It has not gone away, nor has the economic disparity that this pandemic has caused.
Garland MUST be confirmed. Nothing prevents the DOJ from pursuing criminal charges against the the former President and members of Congress who have aided and abetted the January 6th insurrection.
It’s hard to take but the wheels of justice moves slow and there is a reason for it. We got through the first 4 years of hell. Surely we can be patient to get through the next 2 years rebuilding from it.
Damn y’all. Get it together.
EDIT: I see that some of y’all need to spit and vent. Vent away. But when you come back down to earth and think things through, you will come to the conclusion that this was the only play to be had. Whether you like it or not.
EDIT 2: Interesting defensiveness going on here. But I was always told that good lawyers don’t ask questions that they don’t already know the answers to. The Dems in the Senate weren’t blindsided by the Manager’s request — it was Lindsay Graham who changed his vote that caused the chaos on the Republican side and one has to ask why? Sen Johnson was arguing with Sen Romney on the Senate floor (it was reported) saying that he was going to be blamed for all of this. The real question to ask here is why did Graham change his vote, being such the hardliner former p suck up?
Lastly, I wanted to post a reply from someone who is actually a lawyer:
The Octopus -—
Thanks for writing the diary. I’m mostly in agreement and least with this big point that there’s nothing “caving” in about what happened here and that using that kind of emotional language suggests that the big picture is being missed. I’ll add as a trial lawyer that this is completely normal. Litigation, and especially trying a case, is a game. And the thing about games like this is you’re not the only player and the others playing are always, constantly changing their strategy not only the whatever their strategic objectives are but also in response to your own tactical decisionmaking. Literally, sometimes shit happens. You start down a path that you then realize isn’t going to pan out. And what good lawyers, what good decisionmakers to, is they are adept at realizing that quickly and then they stop and go in a different direction. Yes, that has consequences. Yes, it has collateral damage. And yes, that means that you leave some people — a jury, a judge, the public — disappointed because you promised X and now you’re not delivering X. And please trust that that’s all baked into the decision to stop and change tactics. Yes, it sucks. It happens all the times. It’s normal. It’s not caving. It's called try to win: playing your hand the best possible way it could have been played. That doesn’t mean you win all the time. It does mean there’s just nothing else you could have done, having to make decisions in real time, under the circumstances. That’s what happened here. For the bridge players, that headline about “caving” is like trashing the declarant in bridge on a correctly bid and correctly played hand where you just got screwed with where a trick was (or rather, wasn’t). It's not caving; it just wasn’t there. Shutting the Senate down would be stupid. Dragging this out for the same result is stupid. Risking having undeposed witness do a shitty job would be stupid. It’s the right play.
Last Update:
So I’m watching Rep. Stacey Plaskett on Jonathan Capehart’s show. She said EXACTLY what I tried to explain last night to many on here who were asking why did the House Managers asked for a call for witnesses and then did not call witnesses.
It was a strategy to get statements made by Republican Congresswoman Herrera Beutler onto the record that further established the timeline, the motive and intent of the former President of the United States. In plain words, they did it deliberately for that purpose and they were successful.
While many advocated the need for witnesses from the beginning (including me), the fact of the matter here and Rep. (she is really a delegate, which is shameful and for another discussion about STATEHOOD) Plaskett reiterated, is that the House Managers were able to effectively make their case using the video statements and images of the day to clearly establish the events as they happened and the former President’s role in pushing those events along to its tragic conclusion.
Furthermore, as everyone should know by now, the impeachment process is a political one. While it’s binding, the trial doesn’t work like a regular court case for many reasons. For example, in a regular court trial, none of the Senators would qualify for jurists because they all were victims of a crime. Also, because the process is political in nature, other political concerns will be taken into consideration. Like the work that the other guy — you know the one we just sworn in less than a month ago, has to do for this country that was nearly broken apart by the former President? Him?
Biden has work that must get done and at the end of the day, it would have been Biden who would get blamed for a long, protracted trial because the Republicans who would need to have been called as witnesses would not show up without a subpoena and only after they drag the courts into it to try and stop the action.
Also, let’s be perfectly clear. The real culprits are the Republican Senators who voted to acquit that man. I’m not referring to the lost cause Q Senators who are bad actors, I’m referring to those who knew better, knew in their souls that the former President was guilty as sin and voted to acquit. I don’t care what their reasons were. I don’t care if they were scared of their base. If John Lewis could stand up to the bigots in Selma Alabama for the right to vote, even if it cost him his life (which it nearly did), I feel that if you take an oath to serve this country and agree to stand against enemies — both foreign and domestic, then I expect that you damn well ought to do that and not be a flailing hypocrite like Mitch McConnell who voted to acquit and then had the unmitigated gall to make a speech to explain how guilty the former President was. Ugh.
In conclusion — Yes I was being deliberate with my snarkiness yesterday and that put off some folk here, but I felt strongly in making my point about the front page diary that appeared here yesterday evening. If a regular member had made that post, I wouldn’t have even bothered, but I look at Daily Kos as being a strong ally and in an influential position to directly advocate for Progressive policies with an Administration that appears to actually be willing to listen.
This is a golden moment not be blown by errantly shooting from the hip and I stand by every word of my diary here.