LA Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy flips, votes Senate Trial constitutional
Forty-four Republicans voted the trial was unconstitutional, but not Cassidy: “President Trump’s team were disorganized.”
I only watched a small portion of the Night of the Living Dead-on-Arrival Senate trial of Donald Trump.
The only issue argued today was whether the trial was constitutional and could proceed. The arguments, at least the small portions I saw, were nothing new. The points have been argued before and briefed extensively.
You can read Trump’s Trial Memorandum here, the part addressing unconstitutionality starts on page 13. Jay Sekukows ACLJ also issued a Memorandum on why the trial is unconstitutional, and Byron York lists 5 Reasons the trial is unconstitutional in non-legal terms.
You can read my posts here:
- Impeachment 2.0 – No, the Senate cannot convict Trump after he leaves office
- Impeachment Problem? Chief Justice Roberts May Not Have Constitutional Authority To Preside At Trial Of FORMER President
- Report: Senate Republicans Negotiating Terms of Unconstitutional Post-Departure Trump Impeachment Trial
- Mitt Romney on board with post-departure impeachment trial of Trump
- Reports: Chief Justice John Roberts Will Not Preside At Upcoming Trump Senate Trial
On a prior vote, 45 Republicans voted that the trial was unconstitutional. I thought a couple more might join the “No” vote. But I was wrong.
Bill Cassidy from Louisiana voted “yes” because, in his own words:
“The House managers were focused, they were organized. They relied upon both precedent, the Constitution, and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump’s team were disorganized.”
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy: "The House managers were focused, they were organized. They relied upon both precedent, the Constitution, and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump's team were disorganized." https://t.co/pqewUs2nMy pic.twitter.com/zgJCNByhJU
— The Hill (@thehill) February 9, 2021
He’s in impartial juror? How nice. Is there a single impartial juror on the Democrat side? Not one.
The constitutional question is not dependent on the performance of the lawyers.
Cassidy doesn’t need to worry about local backlash, he just won reelection, so he’s there for six more years.
Louisiana Republican Party, condemning GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy: "The R Party of Louisiana is profoundly disappointed by Senator Bill Cassidy's vote on the constitutionality of the impeachment trial now underway against former President, now private citizen, Donald J. Trump"
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) February 9, 2021
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Comments
I confess I didn’t watch so my comment may be worth the proverbial two cents.
Given the multiple complaints I’ve read that Mr. Trump’s lawyer was “terrible” —
First penny — perhaps Mr. Trump & lawyer realized that with 40+ votes on their side, they need not present much of a case. Note that it’s unconstitutional, note that it’s foolish, then sit down and let this go. It’s not going to change more than one vote either way.
Second penny — perhaps the Lincoln Man/Boy Association (I love when the Ace of Spades is in such fine form) and other awful leftie groups have intimidated enough lawyers in this country that Mr. Trump couldn’t do better. And given the first penny, decided not to worry about it.
So they fortified the impeachment? Good to know.
Both of the Trump team lawyers who spoke yesterday appeared rather hoarse, coughed, stammered, read from their notes….were not powerful speakers to say the least.
I was not impressed – and even wondered if the treacherous Democrats were pumping dry air on the Trump lawyers to give them difficulty. Or if the lawyers were ‘throwing the game’ so to speak.
However, some commenters thought they were great, including Hannity.
Other comments quoted Sun Tsu – claiming the appearance of weakness was planned and that things would look up when the Trump team presents big booms as this sham peach mint progresses.
And none of these trivial factors you mention should affect the Constitutionality of this farce. It’s a very simple and easy challenge that is being ignored. It doesn’t help that a partial propagandist is running the whole sham.
Any GOP that is against trump is becaose they don’t want him back him back in so they will have to work hard…this is why we need term limmits for congress..they stay there like a pope and think they own the place
This guy should be dragged out and tarred and feathered.
This farce of supporting the GOP is getting more and more dangerous – to you and I.
If they’re willing to do this to Donald Trump, imagine what they have in store for you and I.
DESTROY the Republican party. Starve it to death. Support ANY candidate running in its place.
Let’s just cut the crap already, and get with a new party.
An old fashioned tar and feathering, with hot tar, not room temp solvent based tar.
It’s never a bad thing when a deceiver steps out of the shadows, exposing their true colors for all to see. If the GOPe wants to commit public suicide, so be it.
A zombie impeachment trail overseen by a zombie political party.
GOP RIP.
It’s one thing to kill yourself, but another to take others with you. In that regard, the GOP is no different than any Islamic terrorist wearing a suicide vest.
Junta ‘law’ is what we’re seeing in this ‘impeachment’ b.s. – literally. This is Maoist terror. And we know where it’s coming from.
These morons in suits should be in orange jumpsuits.
We have to the hell out of was formerly ‘America’. Our nation exists no more. It might on paper, but not parchment. It’s done. It’s all over but the oppression and the killing – which is right around the corner.
Secede, or die.
Secession doesn’t work, unless you have a plan to prevent freeloader immigration. I’m going to post this every time I see you post this, until you present a plan that works.
Freeloaders can ‘immigrate’ all they want, but when laws prohibit their freeloading, they’ll either starve or go running back where they came from.
The idea is to prevent any GOP POS from gaining any position of influence or power. We can take a tip from the left, and ban them – or implement a judicial body to determine if they are indeed rino sh-t. No, we don’t shoot them: we turn them back where they came from.
Is that a start to you? It beats dying in an American-Maoist concentration camp – which you know are coming in one form or another.
They don’t freeload off the bat. They immigrate enough to vote to change your laws to permit freeloading. Then they freeload. Like Colorado, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Virginia, and soon Arizona and maybe even Texas.
Low social programs, government doesn’t recognize “duty to care”, etc. Freeloaders weren’t a big problem until the 1960’s “Great Society” and later, because the system didn’t enable them.
And get rid of birthright citizenship after the founding of the new state. We can even carry that text over from the US Constitution but interpret it as originally intended.
No need for a big wall, at least I hope not. It’s better to have strong laws than a strong wall. Trump had to go with a wall because he couldn’t make the laws (and unworkable SCOTUS interpretations) disappear.
From New Mexico … one of the “border” states — actually, partial border. No number of “strong laws” will stop the awful consequences of anything less that that high wall with its supporting technology all along the USA/Mexico border. Aliens illegally crossing into the border states and staying in the USA; illegal drug shipments into the 4 states – and beyond. Even the lefty younger black man lately in tie and jacket who sometimes appears on FOX News has changed his reporting after going to Luna County, NM; he saw the stretch of wall that has stopped smuggling of people and drugs, theft of cattle, damage to property, etc; sadly, he also saw the area where laid-off workers abandoned that EFFECTIVE wall because of Slo Jo and the Ds who care nothing about the damage to the USA, its citizens and lawful residents.
Careful, the fine report will just accuse you of being Mitch McConnell. He has a plan for secession: restore American ideals, except for people who don’t agree with his exacting principles, in which case they will be executed.
Secession could have worked while Trump was in office, during the 2 months between the steal and inauguration. He had at least some control of the military to make it happen.
Now it’s much harder or impossible. Secession is only a good idea if it works. Biden’s generals will surely try to stop it “by any means necessary”. Our problem is that we never learned to do things that way, so they won.
I agree. I find myself strangely grateful for the events of the last few months. When it comes to the Republican Party the scales did not fall from my eyes, they were forcibly ripped away by Republican leaders who I previously respected (but no more).
The Republican Party has been revealed to be a party of deceitful, crooked politicians like Cassidy. Say what you will about the Communists who now control the nation: they have never hidden their hatred for anyone who does not worship them, and have never concealed their enthusiasm for gulags, kangaroo courts, KGB-style surveillance, mass executions, and famine as weapons against people like me. In a nation where the alleged “party of freedom and the rule of law” is working both sides of the street, it is almost a pleasure to be targeted by honest open hatred.
There are a lot of “deceitful, crooked politicians like Cassidy”. These kinds of people are drawn to politics, much like piles of dung draw flies. For some reason the worst of them rise to leadership positions in both parties.
To survive, the Republican party will have to be purged of the low life, and embrace Trump and honestly become what he stands for.
Likely they’re compromised and controllable, therefore they can be supported by the people (like the ones who can force Dominion on us) who can put them in office.
do these representatives/senators realize they are giving up a golden opportunity to take the house and the senate, and maybe undo some the disaster that the biden admin is doing to the country. if the republican party survives the oncoming years I will be amazed
Then they would have to actually do something, rather than issue sermons from the comforts of their iron rice bowls.
They don’t care what Biden is doing; they’d be doing the same thing, only slower. GOP = Democrats Lite. Fewer calories, half the principles.
Surely you realize they DO control them. Despite what some naive people believe, the Uniparty is a thing.
The Republican leadership are the Generals. Occasionally they get a player that allows us rubes to think the system isn’t rigged, but the Generals aren’t gonna win.
Impeach the [cassidy] motherfuc*er.
You can’t impeach him. Idiot.
Why not?? The ‘impeachment’ against Donald Trump is a contrivance with no legal basis.
We can do whatever the hell we want!
TY… Rules no longer apply.. PERIOD…
The law may not apply, but power does. What power structure exists that will allow us to put Cassidy through the ringer?
Of we were coordinated, then maybe. If the 6th had been a real insurrection instead of a pretend one, then maybe.
Sure you can. He’s a federal office holder. He can be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. Or he could be recalled by his state if such a process exists for US Senators by Louisiana law.
He cannot. If he was a state senator, he’d get run out of town on a rail.
I voted for this man. His explanation on Twitter was laughable. I responded by telling him, “Great! I’m never voting for you again!”
He voted the first time that the trial was unconstitutional, and even a reasonable person could see that this was a waste of time. Now, what changed? Nothing, really.
He is taking his job as an impartial jury seriously. It is Un-Constitutional but his vote was overruled so he moved on to the “Jury Trial” thing and is trying to be impartial. I have no doubt he will vote to acquit and put this attack on the Constitution and our Government behind us.
No, he cannot be impeached. He is not a “civil officer of the united states”. Nor can he be recalled. It doesn’t even matter what Louisiana law says; it doesn’t get a say in the matter. He holds his office under the US constitution, not LA law.
Milhouse – you are so cute. You still believe in the rule of law and such quaint anachronisms.
Reading your comment as “he cannot be impeached” and not as “you are not the House of Representatives and it follows that you cannot impeach him but they could but they won’t.”
What in the Constitution supports your claim that he cannot be impeached? Please cite to Article, §, and clause.
Milhouse is making the correct point that impeachment is written in the Constitution for specific Federal executive and judicial officers, elected or appointed. Congress has separate processes for removing their members – impeachment isn’t one of them.
The others are making the point that, “Heck, if the rules don’t apply HERE, then they don’t apply THERE.” I detect several tongues firmly in cheek, but with a note of seriousness that the Democrats, for all their ballywho’ing about “abrogating norms” have blown up most of the “norms” over the last 20 or so years, with complicit GOPe members.
I think most of us agree that Cassidy needs to be held accountable for his duplicity and frankly, being a moron who is easily swayed by Democrat Kabuki theatre rather than the plain words of the Constitution. We don’t need public servants who are easily distracted by the next bright shiny object they see. The sad thing is we have to wait until 2026 for that.
Thanks for the reply. And I agree with most of it, especially the last part.
However, I want to know why Milhouse thinks that certain people cannot be impeached. After all, he claims that former Presidents can be impeached although the language seems to indicate that only “the President” can be impeached. I can only conclude that he does not see any restrictions in Article 2. So where are these restrictions he claims do apply?
Cassidy appeayto have a room temperature IQ
Felix, he cannot be impeached because he is not and has never been the president, the vice president, or a civil officer of the united states. If he had once held such an office then I think he could be impeached for his official acts while in that office, but not for anything else.
But why is it relevant whether
as this language is from Article 2 § 4?
Doesn’t Article 2 § 4 only says what happens to people currently holding one of the offices mentioned, and does have nothing to do with who can be impeached? Additionally, Article 1 § 3 cl. 7 shows that the Senate can sentence to disqualification alone.
Or so says the argument, the House managers, scores of legal scholars (most of whom have very timely voiced this opinion after Mr. Trump had become a viable candidate that threatened to try to “drain the swamp”), and the one you yourself make.
So, how exactly can you conclude impeachment cannot reach private citizens?
He can be impeached after he leaves office?
The party of stupid continues it’s self destruction. Anything to get back on the grift.
The Franz von Papen Republicans are absolutely convinced of the following:
1. There was no voting fraud in 2020. Instead, Trump drove away millions of suburban voters who will eagerly come back for rich white lefty Jeb!-style Republican nominees in 2022 and beyond.
2. Likewise, the Deplorables will come crawling back to the Republican Party and never again threaten their self-anointed moral and intellectual betters.
Both of these beliefs are demonstrably false. The so-called Republican suburban voters who allegedly ditched the GOP because of Trump actually ran out in 2008 so they could virtue signal by voting for Obama – twice. They have not been your voters for almost a decade, and are not coming back, no matter who the Republicans nominate.
The black and brown voters that Trump did attracted in record numbers in 2020 will NOT turn out for the rich white leftists now in charge of the Republican Party (which is just as well, since the current GOP leadership despises anyone who is not white, male and rich).
And as for voting fraud – you would have more luck convincing a Flat Earther that the world is round than trying to reason with someone who is convinced that there was no significant voting fraud in 2020.
It’s simpler than that: they’re part of the scam. If not for their political scam, they’d have to go back to work in the private sector – like that scumbag boehner, who is now a lobbyist for the federally illegal pot industry. Some POS, huh?
Except for Reagan and Trump: it’s all been a scam.
Which means those same voters are going to virtue signal by voting for Harris, pretty much guaranteeing 12 years of her.
Yet they will, bizarrely, turn out in droves for the even richer white leftists in charge of the Democrat Party.
The Regressives promise more goodies.
Look, Dominion has customers on both sides of the aisle. 2020 is not the first time Mitch McConnell seemed uncertain of reelection from Kentucky, but somehow the election came out much better than any polls, as if by magic. Such a master political strategist he is!
Now we see what his strategy probably was.
And even though everyone now sees what Dominion does to elections around the world, they’ll be forced on us and many other countries. There’s a big effort to force Burma to accept its Dominion-result.
One quibble: The GOPe likes rich people of either sex and will even tolerate the occasional POC if it means money in their grifting pockets— just not too many, please.
It is amazing, Trump has the GOP by their gonads, and they still keep jerking his chain. Dems are even more stupid. They have been driving people off for a long time, and now all these EO’s are alienating broad swaths of their base. You can bet that some unions, and many of their members will switch to Trump.
They don’t see it like that. They think the left has the former America by the gonads – and they’re right. The not-so-secret grip doing the squeezing is Communist China, which outright owns every democrat in federal office. The GOP sh-t in office sees this, and they want in on the looting.
Except for a HANDFUL of Republicans – an HANDFUL – every single person in congress is a traitor. Every single one.
Why would anyone ever vote for a Republican again?
Yes! Are you kidding??
There’s a class of business people (not big corp types, but comfortable individuals) who have their heads up their butts about what the Republican party is. They think they’re living in 1990.
Vichy Republican…spineless cowards need to be drug through the streets.
Fed up to my eyeteeth with bullshit.
I am so disgusted and sickened by the left of this country that I can’t comment coherently about it.
Some Republicans are abandoning the people who elected them in favor of their swamp brethren and the leftist swill. Others simply are not doing enough to prevent the collapse of Constitutional government, and it is happening. There are a few good Republicans left but they too few to make a difference.
Biden has not done one thing to make my life better, but he has worked overtime to begin destroying it. I don’t see where anything gets better from here. I can’t understand why anyone would support these people.
God help us. We are going to need it.
“I am so disgusted and sickened by the left of this country…”
What “country” are you talking about? “Country” means a political unit. We no longer have a “unit”. A Junta is in power federally, and the states are disparate.
We live in Weimar Germany. Some “country” that was.
Most Republicans bizarrely care more about what media outlets controlled by their opposition will say about them than what their constituents will say about them.
Well I’m sorry you feel that way. I wonder if you could get Biden to carry out one policy what would that policy be?
Makes me wonder what “they” have on these people. I’ve been wondering that for a long time now.
Trump is laying low for now.
He needs to utilize all of the GOP support he has until this dog-n-pony show is over.
But the minute it is over, he can start building a new party.
He won’t need a one of them.
I am thinking he will.
We’ll take all the winners, and the Cheney’s and all… who cares?
So long Murkowski, Collins…
It would purify and solidify the new party.
And the stranded Democrats… they’d probably consider joining up too because the Democrat party as we knew it… is dead.
Split the party?
I think a new party would come out on top in a hurry.
Look what Nigel did in just a couple years.
Look, I got a down-vote for that.
Which is fine…
But let’s have a conversation, I’d like to know your thoughts.
Justify it. Let’s argue the point.
Mark
You are absolutely right. We need a bonfire, with the GOP charter thrown in.
If Trump starts a new political party, it will immediately DWARF the GOP into irrelevancy.
Remember the Whig party, which preceded the GOP? When the Whigs saw their party about to be clobbered by the newly formed Republican Party, guess where the Whigs ran? – To the democrat party!
History is about to repeat itself. Good riddance to the rino scum about to run to the democrat party when we throw them out.
I assume you are referring to me. I haven’t voted on your comment. Completely indifferent.
Of course not. And therefore? Is that a reason for Republican jurors to also violate their oaths?!
It kind of is, though, since it’s the lawyers’ job to argue their case to the senate, and convince the senators of it. The House managers presented what he found to be a convincing case that the trial is constitutional; Trump’s lawyers did not convince him of the opposite. Having been persuaded that it is constitutional, naturally he voted that way as was his duty.
None of this has anything to do with Trump’s guilt, or utter lack thereof. Constitutional or not, Cassidy is still likely to vote for acquittal. Not on a technicality but because the defendant is actually innocent.
But isn’t that exactly the point?
Let’s put aside for a moment it this shampeachment is or is not constitutional. Of course, you go in with a prior of his vote is correct, while my prior is that his vote is wrong on the merits.
What we should be able to agree on is that his justification is not that the House managers convinced him on the merits but that they were “more organized.”
That is not an appropriate reason. the constitutionality of the trial does not depend on whether the lawyers are sufficiently diverse, or if they are awkward. That is an entirely different matter and the Trump team’s performance was certainly not on point.
They should have shown a movie of 10 minutes splicing the images of the Capitol attack with the calls of Democrats for political violence to suggest that they incited the attack. Since they were involved with the “shadow cabal” that proved to be able to give order to Antifa and BLM this is more likely than the time travel story the Democrat impeachniks tell.
I don’t think he violated his oath by voting for the wrong side, I think he comes dangerously close to violating his oath by coming to his conclusions—by his own admission—for completely extraneous reasons.
Have you ever been on a jury? When lawyers are organized and present the jury with a convincing case, they win. When they are disorganized and don’t present a case that convinces the jury, they lose. It’s pretty simple. They might actually have the facts and the law on their side, but to win they have to be able to convey that to the jury.
I have little doubt that juries are often swayed by the performance of the attorneys.
However, I would be surprised if the judge’s instruction includes a passage saying you may set aside your reasonable doubts and convict if you find the prosecution better organized than the defense.
Let’s not forget that the man is not a juror but a Senator and the Impeachment trial is trial before 100 judges, not before 100 jurors, if anything.
I’ve been on a jury. The prosecution was very well organized. The defense was an overworked public defender who only made one point the whole trial, as far as I can remember.
But that point contradicted the prosecution case. Also I suspected the very well organized prosecution was coaching child witnesses as a part of its admirably thorough preparation of the case — far beyond reasonable doubt about that.
I voted to acquit and we did acquit. We didn’t care that the PD was rough around the edges. We cared about reasonable doubt. The lawyers are just there to work for or against the defendant.
A classic Millhouse garbage take. It’s not about “preparation”, but the argument, which was clearly the original point. It’s right there in plain English. Now, if you want to make an argument that the “preparation” is what affected Trump’s argument, then go ahead, make your case. Take your time.
That’s exactly what Kennedy said. The House managers presented a case that convinced him. Trump’s lawyers didn’t.
It is what he is saying, but considering literally no new evidence and no new arguments were presented, we shouldn’t assume he is speaking/acting in good faith.
No new arguments since when? When were the arguments previously made? Who previously made the case for the constitutionality of the trial?
To express that he should have been referring to the evidence and argument presented, not the qualities of the presenters.
Umbrella Constitutional philosophy… opens a little more. Baby steps.
Please explain.
Breaking news: by a secret ballot, mcconnell, biden, pelosi, harris, waters, sandy smollet, and many other hacks in our government have been impeached.
More to come.
Magical thinking??? I like it though.
Follow the money…..
Revolutionaries are often focused, doesn’t make them right.
May I say that a juror/judge who tells the world that his decision was based on what he thought of the advocates’ performance reveals a fundamental unseriousness and unfitness for the job?
Is it safe to assume that he was sold on this thing by the deceptive movie that through editing and playing on tv and movie conventions convinced him that someone needs to be punished? Good to know that at least one GOP senator would run with any lynch mob because his reason was overridden by emotion even when he was not part of a crowd.
We’ll see if he is able to regain his senses or if he continues to apply a patently unconstitutional test for his decisions as a judge/juror: which lawyer do I like better?
Who knows why jurors decide as they do. A partner at my law firm lost a slam-dunk case at trial. A couple of jurors told us it was because he wore a tan suit and brown shoes when he made his closing argument. The jurors said he just didn’t look professional, and they discounted his case.
No, that is not safe at all, because the vote was only on the question of whether the trial is constitutional, and no movie of events in 2021 could possibly affect that. Now if you presented a movie made in 1788…
I watched part of the terrible performance of Bruce Castor, Trump’s lawyer. Unfocused, rambling, and cringeworthy is the best that can be said of it.
When he praised the House managers – his adversaries – I could not help but wonder if he was deliberately undermining his client. I mean, his job is to zealously defend his client. And he uses his time to praise the House managers? WTF? How does that advance the interests of his client?
It does not excuse Cassidy’s vote, but that Castor guy was an unmitigated disaster.
It’s possible that with Trump’s lawyers abandoning him en masse, and cancel culture setting their sights on any attorneys who choose to step up and act within their professional capacity, it might be difficult to not only to find legal representation, but when finding them, getting them adequate time to prepare.
Show trials tend to have this sort of effect.
Can someone please explain to me, and/or, offer a theory about what the hell is going on with the GOP? First feckless, self-serving Liz Cheney, now this guy Cassidy, coming out of the woodwork to give cover to the Dhimmi-crats’ utterly vindictive and vengeful show trial stunt. I know Senator Kennedy from Louisiana, who is pretty funny and entertaining. I have no idea who Cassidy is.
Why can’t the GOP ever show unity in the way that the Dhimmi-crats always do?
The GOP is moribund. Plain and simple. They had a leader and refused to support him.
“Why can’t the GOP ever show unity in the way that the Dhimmi-crats always do?”
Because conservatives can think for themselves.
We often decry the Dems for their lock-step mentality and their inability to think for themselves/reliance upon other to be told what to “believe” (rather than “think”). They make fun of us for being so contentious. But we’re contentious because we are independent thinkers. I think we should not wish to be like the Dems. We should be unified in our cause, even when we are not in our thinking. Perish the thought that we act as mindlessly!
Imagine how dreary this comment section would be if we all thought alike? Go to any liberal site and read the comments there – not a single original thought to be found among the comments. BORING!
“Because conservatives can think for themselves.”
But yet can they all think for themselves? Perhaps they should take time to read some from our past and contemplate older wisdom. Perhaps they will come upon the following:
“We must hang together or surely we shall hang separately.”
Cassidy and the other five morons are too stupid to understand their place in the line up to gallows is of little concern to the leftists, but surely they will have a place. And of all the men and women who they hang, they shall be the the most reviled by all.
They are none of those things. They are controlled opposition to give us the illusion of a voice in our country as we are slowly enslaved.
The only reason it is moving so fast now is that Trump wasn’t supposed to win.
LOUISIANA GOP has already censured/rebuked Cassidy.
Have spent a lot of time lately reviewing Spygate and Russiagate. I really appreciate the Democrats opening the doors wide for the impeachment of both Obama and Hillary. I am a little surprised that Obama didn’t whisper in Joe’s ears a version of that Frozen song “Let it go” in order to protect him and his former SOS from future impeachment. When the whole Epstein story comes out, many many more former members of Congress as well as a former president/veep or two may find their own heads laid waste to the impeachment guillotine! Beware the Ides of March–you may reap what you sow!
I hear you…. but I don’t think the Republicans in their current have what it takes to pull off an impeachment of Hillary or Obama. They seem to be scared of their own shadow.
Yes, exactly. And I said before this started that if the House impeaches Trump then the next Republican-controlled house should impeach 0bama, just to make this point.
So, constitutionality is determined by how good you thought the lawyers were? No, sir, constitutionality is determined by the Constitution.
And how do you know what the constitution says, if not by listening to the lawyers’ arguments and evidence on the question?
In the current age, it seems the philosophy of the Democratic party and liberal establishment is that, today, the constitution can say this, because that is what I want it to say. Tomorrow, it can say the opposite, because that suites me better for the moment. It lives and breathes, in accordance to my needs and desires.
I think this is the point many are trying to make – that we are a post constitutional era. Debatable, but most everything is.
I think you’re position is to counter with the assertion that the constitution is the club we can beat them with.
But that means we have to afford them all the freedoms they deny us.
Please, of course, do not let me speak for you.
I have no doubt you are on the correct side. I think your disagreement with many is strategic and tactical. And after all, if it is not the constitution we are fighting for, what, indeed, are we fighting for?
But that is what a lot of people on the right are now saying, especially the commenters here. If it were 0bama being tried, I have no doubt whatsoever that 90% of the commenters here who have been rabidly asserting that the trial is unconstitutional would be making the exact opposite claim, and just as rabidly.
This blog is infested with worthless commenters who not only determine their positions based on whose ox is gored, but can’t imagine anyone ever doing anything else. I am constantly being accused of being a liberal, a Democrat, an 0bama-lover, and who knows what else, simply because I take a position that happens to be useful for the left in a particular situation. What kind of person thinks like that? How can a person live through life without any principles at all, and without even the concept of principles?
Is it sometimes better, or at least preferable, to do odious things if that thing will produce a better outcome? I am not asserting it is. It’s a question earnestly held. Sometimes, it’s just not possible to square the knot, and all you have left are bad choices. It’s a call we all have to make at some point, and then live, or die, with.
I am all for using the constitution as our club to beat the enemy with. I am placing my hope in federalism and the distribution of elected powers that will hopefully simply refuse to comply with illegal and unconstitutional edicts from a detached and culturally foreign and hostile potentate, and act with righteous valor and integrity to defend the freedoms of the people.
If I may suggest, I think we should all start to consider how we can use the constitution constructively to reestablish freedom. I am not saying you are in any way more deficient than I in this regard, please note. I do not see in my self any form of lead productive leadership of any sort. But the other side uses the constitution quite disingenuously and to success. The people on our side see that success, and our lack of success, and so seek to emulate what appears to be winning tactics. It’s hard to blame them if a better way cannot be found.
Do you not find it horrifying that a Senator needs a presentation to determine if something is constitutional?
The constitution isn’t rocket science. We don’t need lawyers to read the very plain text. Lawyers have unnecessarily complicated it in their attempts to pervert it.
Come on, you cannot possibly be serious. Every court in the land takes arguments before deciding what the law says. What do you think lawyers do in appeals courts? There is no argument on the facts; those are determined at trial level. Appeals are entirely about the law, so what is the lawyers’ role, according to you? Why do you think the Supreme Court expects written briefs and also holds oral argument? Shouldn’t they just have the appellant submit half a page pointing out the error in the judgment below, and that’s it? The defendant shouldn’t even get to say anything. After all, the law is clear, isn’t it?
If a judge were to refuse to hear the parties’ arguments on the law, claiming that the text speaks for itself and he will just read it and figure it out for himself, he’d be disciplined and probably impeached.
That is exactly my point. A nation that requires lawyers and judges to have extensive knowledge of “the law” is an abomination. That means our legal system is totally broken. It means a normal person has no idea if they are breaking the law and that is a problem. It means every one of us has broken the law and can be held accountable even if we didn’t do anything immoral or harm anyone. How can you pretend like that is a good system or even tolerable?
You really seem to go for arguments that are so complicated only an academic could seriously entertain them.
Lawyers are there to make the best available argument for their client thus making sure that the judges, who are after all human beings and not God, do not forget these aspects of the law.
However, it is not too much to ask for the judges to know and apply the law, is it. After all, that is their job. And usually, the opinion doesn’t read because the attorney said so but rather the law says so.
We have some really deep thinkers in Congress now. Too bad they weren’t around for the founding of the country. We’d be so much better off with their wisdom than we are today. /s
Reagan’s rule to not speak ill of fellow Republicans, and Buckley’s rule to vote for the most conservative Republican, are based on the assumption that there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. That assumption is no longer true.
I complain that I so seldom vote for someone; that I am always voting against the opponent, viewing the Republican as a less bad alternate. No longer: they are both worthless; they are indistinguishable. It no longer makes any difference who controls which branch.
The Constitution calls for the Chief Justice to preside at an Impeachment Trial. Therefore if the CJ ain’t presiding, it ain’t an Impeachment Trial.
And even another judge would have been better than what we have here, a very partisan leftist Democrat sitting as judge. That’s like being on trial for, say, kidnapping, and having a parent of the child you allegedly kidnapped preside as judge.
No, it says the chief justice presides only at the impeachment trial of the president. Trump was the president but he isn’t now, so Roberts interpreted that to mean he doesn’t preside. And that leaves it with the vice president, or in her absence the president pro tem, just like any other session of the senate.
Seems awful “have your cake and it it, too” of you.
I wonder what his [Cassidy] going rate was.
I would think in the neighborhood of 30 pieces of silver.
The day after Sicknick’s reported death, depraved toilet paper company and full-time libel factory known as The New York Times jumbo-tronned a massive, howler headline, later confirmed to be a Judith Miller-level damn dirty lie.
https://www.revolver.news/2021/02/maga-blood-libel-why-are-they-hiding-the-medical-report/
I don’t care if Trump’s legal team is Huey, Dewey, and Louie. The other side has no case. The ever-evasive SCOTUS made a big deal of “standing”. No one has standing to impeach a private citizen.
Kennedy, having actually listened to both sides’ cases, decided that the house managers did have a case, and a good one. Hundreds of the top experts on the constitution agree with it. So did such historical experts on the constitution as J. Q. Adams. So your hysterical claim that they had no case at all is worth nothing.
Have all y’all (the plural form of “y’all”) seen this:
https://www.revolver.news/2021/02/maga-blood-libel-why-are-they-hiding-the-medical-report/
I see Neo beat me to the punch.
“Let’s never vote GOP again!” [cheering]
Has no one realized that there are Republicans who can get elected in deep blue states like Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts? They might not be the epitome of whatever “principles” you anonymous commenters purport to hold, but they are not out-and-out Communists. If Bill Cassidy pisses you off this much because of this vote, then support a primary challenge. Just make it someone electable. Honestly, I bet we could get 35, maybe even 40 “rock solid constitutionalists” in the mold of Ted Cruz (oh, wait, you hate him too), in the Senate. And then the Democrats would have veto-proof control. Is that what you want? All I am saying is that maybe, maybe you can support some compromise within a big tent Republican Party. Or just secede like the Fine Report into some sort of psychopathic totalitarian state that no other country would ever sell food and good to. Maybe I’m wrong.
You won’t get anyone passed the GOPe. This is the problem with the GOPe as they will always put the GOPe ahead of you because you don’t matter to them.
As Ace points out, yes a third political party will syphon off votes from the Republican party and make it more likely to get a Democrat but with time people will gravitate to the political party that their views align with (hint NOT the Republican or Democrat parties).
Just as Democrats were prepared to play the time game, conservatives too must be prepared for the long game.
I do not agree with him as I think this entire thing is a farce and Un-Constitutional but he at least has a reason for flipping his vote. He is taking the “impartial jury” seriously and from watching the performance the first day I have to agree with him on this.
That was unclear. I agree with him that the Trump lawyers didn’t make a strong case to dismiss on the first day of the “Hate Trump Till The End and Ignore The Executive Orders Silver Alert Joe Is Ramming Through” farce
I am so seething mad – I don’t know what to do. Here we sit, watching our country being torn apart, our Constitution being shredded, our legislators being paid enormous sums of money to undermine the country they are paid to protect, and the most we seem to able to is sit and argue with each other.
So…..This “SENATOR”…..is smarter about the Constitution, than several PHD’s…{ Professors}….that have made a life study of the Constitution, & what it “LEGALLY”…means ? If this ‘Senator”, knew his law, & our Constitution, he would already know this is a “Bogus” political theater move!
So YOU are smarter about the constitution than all the hundreds of legal scholars, and all the historical experts, who disagree with your interpretation?! Come on. What makes your reading so special and obvious that you claim no other reading is even possible?
When the senate in the Blount trial decided that the flaw in his impeachment was only that he had been a senator, and not that he currently held no office, were they all liars or ignoramuses? Were they NOT smarter than the “PhDs and professors” you are championing?
How about J. Q. Adams? Was he not much more expert in the constitution than any of your “PhDs and professors”?
How about the majority of the senate that explicitly voted in the Belknap trial that they did have jurisdiction? Also idiots, liars, or ignoramuses?
They were “disorganized”? Was Cassidy under the impression he was judging a moot court competition?
Being “disorganized” does not negate facts or the law.
As reiterated numerously above, “The constitutional question is not dependent on the performance of the lawyers.”
I definitely used to admire the guy. No more; evidently, he’s been somehow corrupted enough to speak such so called “better-organized-legal-team; and so, the-demonstrably-better-case” gibberish.
Probably nobody, say, in the Third Reich was better organized than Herr Doktor Joseph Goebbels. History shows, however, a particularly bad case-content, to put it mildly.
Read the prime wording at Art II, Sec 4 of the US Constitution more carefully, Senator, Dr Cassidy: “The President,” the eminently tidy and clear paragraph begins; and you say, your senatorial panel has jurisdiction to try the unlawfully impeached FORMER president, and now, therefore, a private citizen?
Now for the distinguished senator and physician from Louisiana, the Constitution is a mere single element of his 3-part basis to find this patently sham proceeding valid and lawful, along with what he deems relevant precedent and the looks and sound — the most organized presentation — of the prosecuting legal team’s narration, A-V aids, and abundant pathos.
Well arranged, ordered, convincingly delivered cause for emotion compels, I guess he’s saying. Evidence of a causal link between the president’s speech and the violence that ensued, committed on their own by (extra-equipped and -prepared) some (from where, and at possibly whose behest and with whose coordination?) at the Capitol on January 6? Nonexistent, so far; and maybe, even in the end, just immaterial.
This gig’s Beria-styled, Show-me-the-man-and-I’ll-show-you-the-crime process is enough to make Comrade-Uncle Joe Stalin, Beria’s boss, blush in his grave. Of course, what else is to be expected from the Fascist-Socialist-Left Dems, heirs to and owners of the legacy of such egregious totalitarian injustice — a once-thought wise and good man’s better sense and outright rejection of such things unjust, so contrived for show and the eventually compulsory, “unity”-driven conduct of the propaganda-lobotomized, low information masses? Apparently not now.
The senator deserves to be recalled, in my view, for such dangerous public idiocy — undoubtedly, along with his intellectual cohorts across the isle in agreement with the impeachment managers’ argument — a true threat to our representative democracy and precious liberties.
I had to read that twice! Wow. You are a great writer!