https://news.yahoo.com/schiff-mauls-cipollone-on-impeachment-trials-first-day-233710133.html

Schiff mauls Cipollone on impeachment trial's first day
Jon Ward
Yahoo NewsJanuary 21, 2020, 5:37 PM CST


On the first day of the Senate impeachment trial, President Trump’s lawyers were caught off-guard and unprepared.

White House counsel Pat Cipollone and a crew of several other lawyers for the president arrived for their first day of the trial, apparently expecting things to start off slowly with sleepy arguments over the rules for the trial. Opening arguments were not expected until Wednesday.

Cipollone was granted an hour to speak a few minutes after Chief Justice John Roberts entered the Senate chamber and the trial began in earnest. He used only three of those minutes. He spoke in a halting voice and said little of substance, simply asserting that Trump “has done absolutely nothing wrong.” And then he sat down, yielding the floor to the lead House impeachment manager, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Schiff ambushed Cipollone and Trump’s team of lawyers, launching immediately into a passionate, comprehensive and piercing set of arguments about why the House impeached the president in December for withholding $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to pressure its government to announce an investigation into a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

More at link

Republicans senatorial choices:

A. Do what is morally right and convict Trump because he deserves removal to the nth degree.

or

B. Realize that if you vote to convict, you are pretty much acquiescing that your opposition will win the WH and you will lose power since Pence can not win the WH. Your chances of promoting conservatism are vastly diminished.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-lawyers-senate-gop-allies-work-privately-to-ensure-bolton-does-not-testify-publicly/ar-BBZa0RT

President Trump’s legal defense team and Senate GOP allies are quietly gaming out contingency plans should Democrats win enough votes to force witnesses to testify in the impeachment trial, including an effort to keep former national security adviser John Bolton from the spotlight, according to multiple officials familiar with the discussions.

While Republicans continue to express confidence that Democrats will fail to persuade four GOP lawmakers to break ranks with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has opposed calling any witnesses in the trial, they are readying a Plan B just in case — underscoring how uncertain they are about prevailing in a showdown over witnesses and Bolton’s possible testimony.

One option being discussed, according to a senior administration official, would be to move Bolton’s testimony to a classified setting because of national security concerns, ensuring that it is not public.

To receive the testimony in a classified session, Trump’s attorneys would have to request such a step, according to one official, adding that it would probably need the approval of 51 senators.

https://twitter.com/ktullymcmanus/status/1219706523762548736?s=20

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1218209902889525253?s=20

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1218213459491422210?s=20

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/a-prediction-for-how-the-2020-presidential-election-will-go-down/

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Continued at link

https://news.yahoo.com/susan-collins-surpasses-mitch-mcconnell-022450077.html

Susan Collins surpasses Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular senator in a new poll
Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY
USA TODAYJanuary 16, 2020, 8:24 PM CST
WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Susan Collins has surpassed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular U.S. Senator, according to a new tracking poll.

The Maine Senator's net approval rating has dropped 10 points since the end of September, leaving her with a 52 percent disapproval rating, a quarterly Morning Consult tracking poll found.

The poll comes as Collins, one of the most moderate Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, faces a tough reelection campaign for what would be her fifth term.

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Susan Collins surpasses Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular senator in a new poll
Savannah Behrmann, USA

TODAY
USA TODAYJanuary 16, 2020, 8:24 PM CS

WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Susan Collins has surpassed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular U.S. Senator, according to a new tracking poll.

The Maine Senator's net approval rating has dropped 10 points since the end of September, leaving her with a 52 percent disapproval rating, a quarterly Morning Consult tracking poll found.

The poll comes as Collins, one of the most moderate Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, faces a tough reelection campaign for what would be her fifth term.

She was reelected in 2014 with nearly 70% of the vote, but Democrats see her as one of the more vulnerable Republican senators for 2020 where more GOP Senate seats are on the ballot than Democratic ones.

Big Stuff
1.16.20

Good morning. There are 292 days until the presidential election. Lev drops so many bombs on Trumpland, Ukraine does what our scumbags should be doing and the president is getting a summons today.

Note: Hmmm, there are a lot of different ways we could go with today’s rant. Instead, we’ll just say something nice about someone. Sen. Kamala Harris has a great idea, and if we had a working press corps instead of a gaggle of kiss-asses and ambition junkies or if it had come from McConnell, you would have heard about it.

Harris is arguing that judicial nominees should be halted while we wait to find out if the Senate will convict Trump. We freaking love this idea because obviously a criminal shouldn’t be picking judges. We actually thought this would have been a good offensive back in the Michael Cohen days when Trump became Individual One, but better late than never. Thank you, Kamala.

And no, we have not and will not forget about the Democratic senators who have voted to help Trump reshape the judiciary with a bunch of unqualified white guys. It’s why we’ve never seriously considered a couple of them who are running for president. We need to see some aggressive shit from our people in the upper chamber. If they want to be cowards, they can switch parties.

Note two: Some breaking news as we were putting TBS to bed. GAO has released a report saying the withholding of aid to Ukraine was illegal. So for all the Republicans who were clinging to the ridiculous defense that there was no crime, well, you’re fucked. More: Washington Post

Lev-erage

Well that definitely qualifies as a holy shit night. Indicted Giuliani buddy Lev Parnas took to Rachel Maddow’s show last night to take a giant deuce all over Trump and his cronies. Lev named everybody, throwing in Pence and Barr. He argued that it was ridiculous that Trump didn’t know him or what he was doing. The funniest part was Devin Nunes running to Fox to scream that he suddenly remembered meeting Lev.

Parnas’s interview was one bombshell after another, and the best the White House can come up with is to trot out the drunken press secretary to Fox News where she said you can’t trust someone who has been indicted. Lady, you just described Trump’s whole social circle.

Unfortunately for Americans, Susan Collins seems to think we don’t need to hear about this stuff. They are going to try to cover this up. Then we will end their careers. More: Associated Press, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, New York Times

Ukraine but we won’t

To the enormous shame of decent Americans everywhere, Ukraine is doing what our scumbag leaders won’t -- they’re investigating the threats against Amb. Yovanovitch. They’re also investigating the Russians’ hack of Burisma. So White House press corps, try earning your salaries and finding out why the hell Ukraine is doing this but we’re not. The nastier this has gotten, the fewer questions have been asked. Tragically, the press just isn’t up to this shit. More: NBC News

It’s time, Donnie

Yesterday, the House announced impeachment managers and transmitted the articles to the Senate. While Trump’s Fox morons were obsessed with the pens used to sign the resolution to transmit the articles, the rest of us were focused on the president of the United States being a criminal and a traitor.

Today, we will hear from the speaker, the House managers will do a ceremonial procession to the Senate at noon ET. Then, the articles will be read aloud. At 2, Roberts will be sworn in and he will then swear in all 100 senators. After that -- and this is our favorite part -- the Senate will send a summons to Trump. We’re so proud of the Democrats who made this happen. And we tolerate the Democrats who fought us every step of the way.

Today’s clips

Iran’s president said Thursday that there is “no limit” to the country’s enrichment of uranium following its decision to abandon its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal in response to the killing of its top general in a U.S. airstrike.
More: Associated Press

But for media outlets that view themselves as above taking sides, attempts to provide a sober, “balanced” look at presidential speeches often end up normalizing things that are decidedly not normal.
More: Vox

The State Department abruptly canceled two classified congressional briefings Wednesday that were supposed to focus on embassy security and the U.S. relationship with Iran, Capitol Hill aides said, infuriating lawmakers and staffers seeking answers on the fallout from President Donald Trump's decision to kill a senior Iranian general.
More: Politico

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday that he won’t release women from confidentiality agreements they’ve signed relating to allegations of a hostile work environment at his company.
More: Associated Press

This media failure really could help Trump politically
More: Washington Post

The U.S. intelligence community is trying to persuade House and Senate lawmakers to drop the public portion of an annual briefing on the globe’s greatest security threats — a move compelled by last year’s session that provoked an angry outburst from President Donald Trump, multiple sources told POLITICO.
More: Politico

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Made in the USA

to win (MSNBC daily tracking). He can win with 45% Unless he's below in ALL the states that are swing/purple..

We are f u c k e d

Perhaps he will kill someone on 5th Ave.?

Just be realistic. What can we do to mitigate? Can we instead of concentrating on WH, concentrate on Senate?

on 2020 ads? On Rachel

On edit:. Helping Dingbat's economy