the senate doesn't get that option. They have to have a trial once they receive the article of impeachment. ~ JFC

The Constitution says the Senate shall have the power to try impeachments. It doesn't say they have to. If they thought an impeachment was devoid of merit, they could (as far as the actual text is concerned) simply ignore it.

JFC is actually correct here. There are Senate rules regarding impeachment, of which the majority originated in the early 19th century. They contain a plethora of rules regarding what the Senate shall do when Articles of Impeachment are presented by the House, and (not surprisingly) choosing simply to ignore them isn't among the previously written Senate rules.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R46185.pdf

I suppose the Senate could endeavor to change the longstanding rules to include the "ignore the impeachment if we decide to" language... oh, who am I kidding? There's no way in Hell the Senate is going to change the longstanding rules to allow impeachments by the House of Representatives to simply be ignored by the Senate in power. *laughs*

Have I told you lately that this place is so much greater with your wit and darkly delicious sense of humour ...

Have you maybe misinterpreted SF Bear's comment?

It's SO difficult to tell if "we're" refers to the voices in your head or all of Idaho or what!!

You have the floor!

If you are going to be commenting on the Big Lie you should at least know what the Big Lie is.

. . . says the obsessive-compulsive troll who thinks that boring, idiotic, repetitive spam is gonna sell his scam.

I need your advice like I need a hole in my head.

If you are going to be a successful grifter, you should build a better mouse trap instead of trolling

The current 3rd wave of USA infections is going to top out above 500,000 KBI (killed by inaction). Chalk wave 1 up to unpreparedness. Waves 2 and 3 resulted from the fake notion that there was a trade off between public health and the economy.

Indeed. The frustrating thing for me is to hear people, including Biden, seemingly resigned to the fact that the deaths will climb, inevitably with no end in sight.

Nothing is inevitable about the horrible projections. We know what works to stop the chains of transmission - we just need to do it.

But, once again, everyone now seems laser-focused on JUST the vaccines. First, it was JUST the masking up.

In the words of the WHO director general for the last many months, "We need to do it all!"

Couldn't agree more with you about public health and universal health care being intricately woven together with a resilent economy. Can't have one without the other. Hopefully, that is lesson number one that is learned from this pandemic so that we are ready for the next and more deadly one.

I do think he'd like to extract some revenge, but the GOP was/is complicit with the Big Lie.

One hundred percent! Especially that last bit.

The plan to shut down the virus in your country and mine. We can wait for vaccines. Which, in any event, are NOT a some sort of silver bullet.

I do agree with you, though, that promises are not plans. I do not wish to discuss promises. Wherever did you get that silly notion?

Mitch is diabolical, but I'm skeptical. I do think he'd like to extract some revenge, but the GOP was/is complicit with the Big Lie.

The current 3rd wave of USA infections is going to top out above 500,000 KBI (killed by inaction). Chalk wave 1 up to unpreparedness. Waves 2 and 3 resulted from the fake notion that there was a trade off between public health and the economy.

EM-53

What plans? Promises are not plans. The US has a miraculous stock pile of newly engineered vaccines that cannot be distributed in a timely fashion. All this can be laid at Trump’s feet. Biden has inherited a twofer mess:pandemic + insurrection. American exceptionalism isn’t what it used to be.

It took less than 5 weeks to go from 300,000 to 400,000 deaths.

Please, get immunized and stay home unless you HAVE TO GO OUT in public.

Speaking of Garcia's guitars, he had some very cool ones custom made by Doug Irwin, two in particular were Wolf and Tiger.

I've learned that after Garcia's death these two guitars were willed to Doug and after some legal battles with the band, the will held up and Doug got Wolf and Tiger. Then, after being a victim of a hit and run and falling on very hard times, Doug auctioned off these guitars in 2002 with Wolf going for $790,000 and Tiger for $950,000. Then, in 2017, the owner of Wolf put it up for auction with $1.9 million dollars going to charity. All of that just goes to show how well-respected the guitar playing of Garcia was - Rolling Stone ranked him at 13th top play of all time.

Looks like Jerry is playing Tiger in this video of the Grateful Dead doing Franklin's Tower

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Kzp2DRcak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRot9IjNSso

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQlLTaaOAs

Nice start to our little soiree this evening, JFC!

So, I'm in the mood for a little fun ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWphbRxtAgE

It Won't Take Long to forget you
Time it passes fast
It'll all be over in a minute
You'll be in the past

So, don't have too much fun without me. Heh.

If we throw our hands up and rely soley on vaccines, the we are all in for a lot of hurt in the coming months ...

Thank the gods!

The Big Lie. How to confront and counteract it? The comparison to Hitler is wholly apt and should strike a chord with all people who love justice and believe in principles of fairness and equality and in the promise of America.

And, what about the Republican party? I agree with James Comey and others who hope that this Republican party has no future. But, that's not enough of an answer.

Mass disinformation has to be countered in everyway and over a sustained period of time - by anti-extremism and anti-racism efforts and education campaigns extending from childhood civics classes right through to retirees. Given that these kinds of efforts have already been undertaken in one degree to another only confirms that this needs to be a stepped up, continuing and sustained effort.

I do agree with David Gergen, though, that it would be a good start if all Republicans who stand against the Big Lie - at the national, state and local level - do so in public, often and vociferously. And, if they don't, they should be constantly reminded of the parallels between an at-all-costs allegiance to Trump/Trumpism and the Hitler years in Germany.

Trump's hardcore followers won't be persuaded but they aren't the biggest part of the intended audience.

Will the Biden administration be able to begin cutting through the vicious hate, nationalism and white supremacy by simply acting in the best interests of all Americans? I thing a big part of that answer will center around how effectively they will be able to communicate with the American people.

Hopefully, the art of persuasion isn't a lost one.

In some ways.

Having one would be great, but handicapping a horse race doesn't require one. He's been around a long time despite his unpopularity. He's going to trust his instincts, not ours. We can only hope they align on conviction.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/opinions/capitol-fence-symbol-for-trump-years-gergen/index.html

JL

if republicans take the majority in 2022 anyway, with trump out of the way and biden bottlenecked by the senate, mitch would literally be the most powerful person in washington, no?

JL

Well, what might look good now may not turn out to look so good two years from now. And, I don't think he has a crystal ball. So, doing the right thing just may be the way to go for him.

And, as far as how he intends to proceed as minority leader, well, Biden has a few things to say about that ... along with the American people.

But, watch what he does, indeed.

I think it would be in his best interests to exorcise the orange demon, but that doesn't mean that Mitch is making that same calculation. He seems physically feeble and it's hard to imagine him running again in six years when he's 84. He doesn't want to just be the most powerful Republican, he wants to be majority leader again in two years and I'm sure he's running through all the senate race possibilities. He's not going to risk doing anything that he thinks will increase the Dem majority.

I don't know what that means as far as his calculations, but I don't think I'd bet any money on him voting to convict. It wasn't that long ago that he voted against a bill that he introduced. Watch what he does, not what he says.

It's a matter of total indifference what the Fed Res Bank money is devoted to. As long as the gov't is spending Fed Res money (as opposed to tax money or money borrowed from anybody OTHER than the Fed Res bank), the results are identical, meaning a reduction in the purchasing power of all the pre-existing money. Law of economics.

Most of the commentary I'm reading suggests that relief checks in a pandemic are very different from stimulus checks in a recession, not to mention increasing the money supply during an economic boom.

There's plenty of supply but no demand because 1) a heck of a lot of people are out of work or on short hours, making less or no money than they were last year; and 2) people with money, including those who get these checks who don't really need them, have far fewer ways to spend it as all public entertainment and travel is shut down. The checks and boosted unemployment benefits, in short, tend to artificially replace normal productivity during an enforced lockdown that has nothing to do with economic factors.

Inflation wasn't a problem for the past 20 years during regular economic ups and downs; there's no reason to think it will be a problem if the Biden folks follow the Trump folks in drip-feeding, rather than jump-starting, the economy for another year or so.

As to the nation's savings running out, whatever that means, I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

You guys pushing the $2000 checks for everybody need to realize that currency inflation is nothing more nor less than an alternative to conventional taxation as a means of financing the gov't. It amounts to a de-facto tax on savings, and when the nation's savings run out, the monetary system (the dollar) collapses.

Get ready, it's coming.

If there is one thing I've learned about the US Constitution, then it is that 'shall' means 'do it if you're the one with the power to do it!' Heh.

He's a lot like the orange one. He doesn't have any core beliefs. Two things matter to him - himself and winning. His lifelong target position was always senate majority leader and he attained that. His primary motivation at all times will be to get it back.

Although I agree removal of Secret Service protection is an extreme punishment for an ex-president, I doubt Trump would be unprotected as a result. He is, he assures us, a multibillionaire who can afford the absolute best people to protect him and his family.

And of course once convicted and jailed, he'd get excellent state or federal protection 24/7 for years and years.

I doubt Biden would do it, all the same, primarily to avoid the risk of Trump becoming a martyr if he actually was assassinated in retirement. (Not that he isn't already playing the martyr, of course - but losing the election actually isn't the same as being killed.)

Save his own political skin?

Save his party?

Save the Republic?

I can’t figure him out - his political posture has changed a lot over his long career. He started out as relatively progressive. He probably knows the rules better than anybody else playing the game.

The Constitution says the Senate shall have the power to try impeachments. It doesn't say they have to. If they thought an impeachment was devoid of merit, they could (as far as the actual text is concerned) simply ignore it.

No. We don't announce that someone is fair game for any nutjob who wants to shoot him. Put him in jail, if a court convicts and sentences him. Fine him, likewise. But telling Kim Jong Un or whoever that it's open season, no.

Precisely.

Pardoning him would not solve the problem you're concerned with. The media could just fixate on the NY prosecutions 24/7.

Pardoning him would be injustice. He's the person least worthy of one. Biden should pardon all the people in prison for marijuana "crimes".

Again, I wasn't talking about the senate trial and, neither was Comey. We're talking about the criminal prosecutions Trump may face, especially if he tries to pardon himself ... in which case he would almost certainly be prosecuted.

I wasn't talking about the senate trial. I was talking about what would happen if Trump were prosecuted by DOJ or SDNY - that could take forever or it would at least feel that way. :)

BTW- has anyone else noticed that Tuberville and Maher look like brothers?

Fox would be programming some very bad TV if they allow that. He is exceptionally stupid, boring, and repetitive. He doesn't want to talk about current affairs. He wants to talk about himself.

How many of his "followers" were bots or foreigners?

Lucky for us, the senate doesn't get that option. They have to have a trial once they receive the article of impeachment.

How many votes in the Senate would it take to convict Trump? Is it a two-thirds majority?

As I understand it, it takes two-thirds of those present when the vote takes place.

Does it follow from a conviction that Trump would automatically be prohibited from ever running for public office or would that require another congressional vote?

It would require a separate, simple majority vote.

The media - all parts of it - would be able to focus on nothing else. Try to imagine having to endure that, 24/7.

It's not as if it has to take very long. The first impeachment was more complex and it was short. We all saw what happened on TV this time.

I just listened to the whole interview that BBC Newsnight did with Director Comey and not just the clip of him saying that Biden should consider pardoning Trump for the sake of the country being able to move on and deal with the critical challenges it faces and not having the dysfunctional media culture and news cycle focused on a federal prosecution of the former president, day in and day out for the duration of Biden's first term.

Comey has a point. The media - all parts of it - would be able to focus on nothing else. Try to imagine having to endure that, 24/7. Thanks, but, I think I'll pass.

Further to the notion of considering a pardon, Comey was not talking about pardoning the president for inciting an insurrection but rather for any other federal prosecution that may be undertaken against Trump. And, he said that if Trump actually pardons himself, that would set in motion a DOJ prosecution because the validity of a self-pardon would have to be tested.

Let's see what happens with potential prosecutions of Trump and how it proceeds and then re-visit whether a pardon should be considered.

Comey also asserts that Trump should be impeached AND convicted for incitement of an insurrection on the US Capitol, a symbol of democracy not only in the US but around the world.

He also commented on the future of the Republican party by saying that he hoped it had none. Heh.

Anyway, just for the record, here is the full BBC Newsnight interview with Comey,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p093yr2d

I especially like the idea of telling Republicans they can have unity by apologizing in public about the election, and by voting to convict Trump. As I've said before in the past few weeks, those who don't should be on the permanent White House s*** list for at least the four years of this administration, with every possible obstruction to their enjoyment and performance of office raised by the executive branch against them.

And that's for those who don't get expelled for fomenting rebellion in the form of obstructing the legal electoral vote count, under the long-dormant clause of the 14th amendment.

And I wait with bated breath to see if the FBI is really going to be able to show that two or three of the Republican Reps actually conspired with the mob to attack the Capitol and lynch the liberal leaders and the vice-president.

Meanwhile, Talking Points alert, Uncle Joe is already showing what a pro-active and intelligent president and administration can do to mobilize and activate the nation's resources to fight the plague, the recession, and the sagging morale of its people. As you say about people waking up and realizing the president is no longer an insane and incompetent nihilist, Joe shows already that he has plans, people under him who know how to execute plans, and a vision that the plans are designed to get to.

Unbelievably refreshing, even if none of it turns out as well as hoped. Just the effort shows what a difference this next president is going to make.