McConnell seeks to delay Trump impeachment trial until February
Source: Washington Post
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is proposing to delay the start of former president Donald Trump’s impeachment trial until February, according to three Republican officials familiar with his views.
McConnell laid out his thinking in a conference call with other Senate Republicans earlier Thursday. The minority leader says he wants to do so to give lawyers for the former president, who was impeached by the House Jan. 13 on a charge of inciting an insurrection, time to prepare.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The structure of the impeachment trial is one of several issues that McConnell has to work out with new Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/21/joe-biden-live-updates/#link-Z4ZFP75QHRBK3IVFILQVOPG62Q
Turtle - you have no power. WE will set the schedule. Schumer should get all "NY" on his KY ass.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Let them show themselves and ask for more time, not hide behind a turtle.
Also, on edit, "KY ass" may not be the best choice of words. 
.... Trump's impeachment trial or Kavanaugh's hearings?
unfortunately got steam-rolled for the last 4 years because Turtle broke the Senate's "Regular order" and spent much of the time shoving judges into the courts. The irony being that a bunch of them ended up torpedoing Ghouliani and "kraken" lawsuits.
The immediate passage of the tax-cuts for the wealthy (including the reduction of the corporate income tax that even Raygun was unable to get) as well as the longest government shutdown in history in 2019/2020, justifies moving Turtle to the dustbin of history.
If it weren't for taking the House in 2018, we would have truly been "screwn", but even with that, hundreds of bills sent from the House were promptly ditched by him and never saw the light of day. He will no longer have "the power" to refuse to send House bills to a committee for hearings, draft markups, debate etc., nor to bring them to the floor.
THAT is a "power" that represents the CORE of what Senate is supposed to do - LEGISLATE.
This is a country that supposedly operates under the "rule of law" and he will no longer have the power to refuse to have the Senate do it's damn job.
Partisan divide and Senate’s focus on confirmations among factors cited
By Michael Teitelbaum
Posted January 22, 2020 at 6:31am
It would stand to reason that representatives and senators, dissuaded by the gridlock in Congress, would hesitate to introduce legislation. After all, only 105 laws were enacted during 2019, a poor showing by historical standards. But that’s not what happened last year. In fact, lawmakers are on a pace to introduce more bills and joint resolutions than they have since the 1970s, when Congresses routinely saw 20,000 or more introduced.
In 2019, they introduced 8,820 bills and joint resolutions, 23 percent more than they did in 2017, the first year of the prior Congress. About 2 in 3 of the measures introduced in 2019 were in the House, an indication perhaps of a pent-up desire among Democrats now in the majority to put forward ideas that the previous GOP majority had bottled up. Outside congressional experts also highlighted the fact that there was a large cadre of freshmen eager to make their marks.
Freshman representatives and senators introduced just under 1,000 bills and joint resolutions, about 11 percent of the total. Of course, the 98 freshmen in this Congress (nine senators and 89 representatives) make up almost one-fifth of the total number of lawmakers.In 2017, freshmen introduced 434 measures, or about 6 percent of the total that year.
Still, the total of 105 laws enacted is among the lowest in this millennium, exceeding only the 72 new laws of 2013 and 81 of 2011. Given the large number of bills introduced, this Congress is on track to enact a lower percentage of bills than any in modern times.
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/01/22/congress-saw-more-bills-introduced-in-2019-than-it-has-in-40-years-but-few-passed/
And the one thing that Democrats DO have as a "bonus" is a man in the WH who predated every single current sitting Senator when he served in the Senate for 35 years, and he knows "where the bodies are buried".
Oh I have because I have been one who continually posted this about Obama in response to the DU angst as much of this was going on. For example here is the reproduction of my post Tue Aug 28, 2018, 05:15 PM -
https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=11064525
Harry Reid did this sort of thing in the past too but just note that although it sounds like they are ramming through
millions of judges and Obama did nothing, this is not the case.
Just as a comparison - from an article in 2014 during his 2nd term -(...)
Finally, after years of threatening, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) went on the Senate floor in November 2013 and invoked the “nuclear option,” changing the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees (other than those for the Supreme Court).
A year later, the effect of that change is clear: The 113th Congress confirmed 132 district and circuit court judges, including 89 this year. That’s the highest single-year total in 20 years, and the highest two-year total since 1980. (That’s particularly impressive considering that this Congress was one of the least productive in history.) On Tuesday night alone, the Senate confirmed 12 nominees. All this means that the once-lagging Obama has now appointed more judges in his first six years (305) than Reagan, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. And because Obama has gone out of his way to nominate judges from a wide array of backgrounds, the federal bench is more diverse than ever. All in all, it’s an extraordinary turnaround, one that both Obama and Reid deserve credit for.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/12/19/the-nuclear-option-transforms-obamas-judicial-legacy/
And his final legacy after 8 years from an article from January 2017 -POLITICS 01/12/2017 07:00 am ET Updated Jan 12, 2017
How Barack Obama Transformed The Nation’s Courts
He filled two SCOTUS seats and made the judiciary more diverse than ever. But the GOP stopped him from doing more.
By Jennifer Bendery
WASHINGTON ― Republicans cannot wait to begin dismantling President Barack Obama’s accomplishments, but there’s one thing they can’t undo, even with full control of Congress and the White House: his judicial legacy.
Obama will leave office with 329 of his judicial nominees confirmed to lifetime posts on federal courts. That includes two U.S. Supreme Court justices and four judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the two most powerful courts in the nation. Because of Obama, Democratic appointees now have a 7-4 advantage on the D.C. panel, and those judges will play a major role in deciding cases during the Trump administration related to environmental regulations, health care, national security, consumer protections and challenges to executive orders.
Obama also tilted the partisan makeup of circuit courts. Nine of the country’s 13 appeals courts now have majority Democratic appointees, compared with just one when he took office in 2009.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/barack-obama-judicial-legacy_us_586c1944e4b0de3a08f9eb1f
So although there will be some natural turnover and there were still vacancies out there (because some of these courts have dozens of judge "slots" available because they include senior and emeritus judges who can fill in if necessary), there is still a big imprint out there from the Democratic side, which is why you have seen the rulings you have seen (and that's not including the GOP appointees who have ruled against the ridiculousness of the current administration).
Here is the current confirmation list (53 as of today) - http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/confirmation-listing
My argument has been that by having Majority Leader and Chairs of all of the Committees, means the Minority, other than failing to show up, cannot stop the flow of legislation to the committees and refuse to have it considered, which is what has been experienced much of the last 4 years.
In essence, Turtle ditched the idea of "Regular Order". The hope is that Schumer will bring that back.
There are many obscure procedural tools available - most encoded in Riddick's Rules... and a Leader like Harry Reid, was a master at using them. And the hope is that Schumer keeps in touch with Reid, IMHO.
And yes, Manchin has positioned himself as the Lieberman and Max Baucus of progress, wielding a mace unless they are afforded attention. But it might behoove that Manchin is reminded of his predecessors Byrd and Rockefeller, and how they managed to stay in office for years, and that is if similar "earmarks" are available to give him "for the benefit of the state of WV", then so be it. It is politics.
If anything, Biden came from the center-right of the party and has remarkably and gratefully been molded to represent the left and center-left in terms of priorities. However he still has deep roots in that Senate and I think that "problem solvers caucus" - apparently headed up on the Senate side by a fellow Delawarean Chris Coons - might have more prominence the next couple years.
