“I will not vote to pack the courts. I think — and I will not vote to end the filibuster. Bret, this system, the Senate, this so unique body in the world, it was made to work together in a bipartisan way. And once you start breaking down those barriers, then you lose every reason that we are the institution that we are, the most deliberative body.” //

Manchin isn’t the only Democrat with this position, as he’s also joined by Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema.

Dean Cain
@RealDeanCain
If you feel you need permanent 8 foot high fencing rimmed with barbed wire, and 5,000 National Guard troops to guard the U.S. Capitol for months and months... perhaps you're doing something wrong.🤔🇺🇸
2:15 AM · Feb 16, 2021

When you look at the 1-535 (actually, there are 533 on the list) ordering, what you see is that Democrat staff is composed mostly of graduates of elite universities. It is a safe bet that a good number of them are lawyers. Republican staff? Not so much. That is a pretty good proxy for the people Democrats believe should be running things. If you’ve seen any evidence that having a particular piece of paper makes you smart, educated, or competent, you may be the only person in the world to have experienced that. //

Wes_W
5 minutes ago
If these people with college degrees are the smartest, why do we need to forgive their student loans? //

teapartyscientist
22 minutes ago
I think William Buckley said it best when he said he would rather be ruled by the first 2000 people in the phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. I spent many years at a top university. I agree whole heartedly with him.

Early in my career as a prosecutor, I learned a valuable lesson from a seasoned and highly regarded criminal defense attorney.

The best defense in a trial before a jury is to attack the case that the prosecution doesn’t make. Fight on the ground that the prosecution has looked past or ignored. If the prosecution tries to “circle back” and cover that ground, the defense becomes about what the prosecution missed — or better yet, what didn’t they want the jury to know when they chose to ignore it in the first instance. //

When the prosecutor calls a young agent to the stand — and there is almost always at least one youngster involved in order to get the experience — that agent is going to spend a long time answering questions from me about all the things he/she did not do during the course of the investigation. That sets in the jurors’ minds the idea that I know more about how the investigation should have been handled than the investigators do, and that the investigators took shortcuts and ignored evidence. It’s not necessarily evidence of “innocence”, just the fact of ignoring evidence calls into question the completeness of what they did and their competence doing so.

That’s what Lindsey Graham did today — likely aided by Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and a couple of other GOP Senators with trial experience in a courtroom. I’m not sure there is a single good trial lawyer among the Democrats in the Senate.

if this had been a regular trial, how do you pull a move like this after both sides have already rested?

They had their chance to present witnesses in the House. They didn’t even bother to have a hearing, they went ahead with a vote on impeachment without even that or any evidence. They didn’t even move to have witnesses earlier in the Senate trial. Talk about a last minute move to try to save their case.

But Americans hopefully have seen how hypocritical they are. They don’t care about doing the people’s work. It’s about doing anything they can to stop their political opponent, even after he’s already out of office.

Hopefully Americans make them pay heavily for this at the ballot box

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
CNN is no longer a news organization. They’re Dem propagandists.

Facts they are ignoring:

(1) senators are NOT jurors, as Dem Sen. Harkin clarified: https://tinyurl.com/4tvlnnl3

(2) Schumer repeatedly confers w/ House managers, as always & fully appropriate.

Three GOP senators meet with Trump's lawyers on eve of impeachment defense presentation
cnn.com //

Indeed. Also, I must have missed the CNN report that talked about how an “impartial” Democratic “juror” (Pat Leahy) presiding over the trial “told us all we need to know.”

The 10 minute video the defense showed was absolutely brutal, and Rep. Maxine Waters, Schumer, Biden, and Harris took center stage in them. They also used a full two minutes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren talking about bringing “the fight” and not backing down: //

There are legal arguments being made and political arguments being made during the trial by both sides. While the minds of the senators watching are likely to remain unchanged by any of it, it was imperative that the defense team show the American people the darker, much less “tolerant” side of Democrats that the mainstream media has desperately tried to keep hidden.

Why? Law professor Jonathan Turley broke it down earlier this week:

If this trial boils down to irresponsible political rhetoric, the public could find it difficult to distinguish between the accused, the “prosecutors” and the “jury.” That is the problem with a strategy that seems focused not on proving incitement of an insurrection but some ill-defined form of political negligence.

The Senate impeachment trial farce once again reminds us that the political class has elevated itself above regular Americans, and that there are only two classes of people in the US: the “elites” and everybody else. They are also reminding us that blatant hypocrisy, double-standards, fairness, equal justice under the law, and even common decency are irrelevant when the political class is on the warpath against someone like President Trump.

We citizens have allowed the political class to become:

• Unconstrained in their appetites; say anything, do anything without consequences (e.g., a sitting US president and his family thoroughly corrupted by Communist China with zero accountability)
• Protected by DoJ and what passes for law enforcements standards – double-standards, in reality (e.g., Obama-era apparatchiks and Democrat congressmen guilty of perjury and remain unprosecuted)
• Flush with money from the oligarchs on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley (e.g., the US Chamber of Commerce owns Establishment Republicans)
• Unaccountable to their constituents (e.g., election fraud is now the law in many swing states; the grossly misnamed HR 1 – “For the People Act of 2021” – will cement mail-in balloting and other fraud nationwide if/when passed into law)
• Blatant in their corruption, crimes, and hypocrisies (e.g., Marjorie Taylor-Greene removed from her committees, but Eric Swalwell remains on the House Intelligence Committee after sleeping with a ChiCom spy)

perhaps one of the central issues is that there was no hearing in the House, no witnesses or evidence actually presented and so no record of the case from which to work. Which means that the House managers are scrambling all over the place and pulling things out of the hat which aren’t true or are at odds with their stated theory of the case presented in their Article charging “incitement” because of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech. //

according to the Deseret News, what Lee actually said and what was left out from the Democratic presentation was that “Lee said when he later asked Tuberville about the conversation, he got the impression that Trump didn’t know about the chaos going on in the Senate chamber.”

The House managers left out that part, which directly contradicts its narrative that Trump knew about the riot and was relishing it as he was calling to further delay the electoral certification. If true, the House’s timeline argument would lose coherence, if not collapse entirely.

The House repeatedly argued that Trump wanted the riot and then used it to delay the proceedings. Yet, this call occurred “shortly after 2 p.m.” and, according to Lee, Trump did not appear to the senator to be aware of the extent of the chaos. A few minutes later, at 2:38, Trump tweets, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

“What is lacking here? All the talk and video, what’s lacking? Evidence.

“Where is the evidence that Trump worked with a single individual or single one of the groups? There is no evidence.

“Where is the evidence that anything he said in that speech resulted in the attack on that capitol? Lindsey Graham has said it. It was in “The New York Times” of all places. This was all preplanned.

“The FBI knew it might be coming. They were tipped off about it. There are many questions. What the hell did the FBI know and when did it know it?

“We know the sergeant of arms of the house was told by the former chief of the capitol police, you better get national guardsmen here and more help. What did he do? Nothing. Did he tell Nancy Pelosi? That would be a good question.

“Not only that, the sergeant of arms of the Senate was told. Who does that person report to? Reported to McConnell. What did McConnell know? What did they do?”

Congress should allow C-SPAN's news cameras to broadcast House and Senate action from the chamber instead of only providing a video feed to the public affairs network, a C-SPAN executive told Just the News.

C-SPAN Corporate Vice President and General Counsel Bruce Collins described the current setup as state-run television in an interview on the "Just the News AM" show.

During the CARES Act debate last March, some lawmakers in the House objected to passing the $2 trillion stimulus bill with a voice vote, but the public could not see a shot of the full chamber while the situation unfolded. "Well, that's the difference between journalism and government, I don't know, propaganda, or government television — state TV, is what we have in the House, in the Senate," Collins said, referring to the example above.

"[O]ver the years, we've noticed many times where there will be a disturbance in the gallery, for example, and everybody will be looking up," Collins recalled. "But the state TV or the congressionally controlled cameras won't show you what's going on."

C-SPAN has sent letters to congressional leaders over the years to request camera access in the House and Senate chambers. Despite C-SPAN's outreach efforts, Collins doesn't think the network will be able to get their cameras inside Congress any time soon.

"The answer is no," Collins said.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss
@RepAuchincloss
It is a mistake to turn the home of our democracy into a fortress. The Capitol needs to be safely open for constituents, press, and visitors.

Rep. Jennifer Wexton
@RepWexton
I adamantly oppose this action.

A fence didn’t fail us. Law enforcement leaders did.

I believe we can keep Members, press, staff, my constituents, and all those who work here safe without walling off the symbol of our democracy.

It’s the People’s House—let’s keep it that way.

Rep Rick Crawford
@RepRickCrawford
Madam Speaker, take down these fences!

Kira
@RealKiraDavis
So we won't build a wall to keep non-citizens from busting into our country illegally but we'll build a wall around the People's House to keep the citizens out. Got it. Got that America? You're not welcome in your own buildings.

One of these strategies being considered is for a senator or member of Congress to object to the votes submitted by the half-dozen or so states where fraud or gross incompetence was the rule of the day. //

The Democrats are a bit fearful of the vote because their margin in the House is very small, and there is no guarantee their Senate caucus would not have defections.

On the whole, the upside for the GOP far exceeds any downside.

The VichyCons will have this vote tattooed on their forehead forever.

Pressing a fight will keep faith with the GOP base that came out in record numbers to vote in 2020 and will serve as a rallying point for 2022.

Joe Biden’s presidency will be publicly flagged as fraudulent.

The issue of electoral integrity will be shoved to the forefront of the national agenda because, without a reliable means of conducting elections, we cease to exist as a Republic.

“This is not about airing your grievances,” Peters pushed back. “I don’t know what rabbit hole you’re going down.”

Johnson blasted Peters for his denial, where a shouting match ensued.

“You talked about Russian disinformation,” Johnson repeated, before moving on to grant Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul the floor.

Johnson’s Wednesday lecture comes as the committee opened up a hearing to consider the voting irregularities that took place in the recent November election which featured record turnout in the form of mail-in voting.

Sen. Paul called for hearings that included state lawmakers to shore up security in subsequent elections and criticized those dismissing claims of voter fraud entirely.

“We can’t just say it didn’t happen,” Paul said at the hearing with the nation’s former cybersecurity chief Christopher Krebs. “The fraud happened. The election in many ways was stolen, and the only way it will be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws.”

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley complained that after four years of non-stop accusations by Democrats that President Donald Trump was an agent of the Russian government, they had the audacity to condemn Republicans investigating pandemic irregularities at the ballot box.

“The whole Russia nonsense was based on we now know lies from a Russian spy,” Hawley said. “After four years of that, being told that the last election was fake and that Donald Trump wasn’t really elected and that Russia intervened, after four years of that, now these same people are told you just sit down and shut up. If you have any concerns about election integrity, you’re a ‘nut case’… That is not a recipe for success in this country.”

“What is so disconcerting about this particular situation is that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence really should have been spending a lot of time on this threat. That’s kind of what they exist for,” Hemingway said. “But every time in the previous years that Devin Nunes or Republicans tried to focus on China, the hearings were hijacked by Democrats, whether it was Swalwell or [Rep. Adam] Schiff, to talk about Russia and the Russia collusion hoax.”

After their party’s presidential nominee lost in the Electoral College, some House members lined up to object to and challenge the results during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes.

House Democrats made 11 objections. In each case, then-outgoing Vice President Joe Biden—presiding over the session in his role as Senate president—asked if the objection had a Senate sponsor.

Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she didn’t encourage the objection, but would “support” the objections from her caucus. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., demanded a senator join the challenge against certifying the results.

With no senators backing the objections, members of Congress counted the votes, and Biden said, “It’s over,” gaveling the official end of the 2016 election with a victory, giving it to President Donald Trump.

During the course of the last four years, we have heard every excuse in the book as to why Republicans can’t do something that they are entitled to do. Most of the time, it is some appeal to fairness, or justice, or some other appeal to emotion, but never do Democrats argue that the Constitutionally-appointed rules are being broken. The issue isn’t that Democrats are actually being treated unfairly. The rules have been clear. The communicating of ideals has been equal. They have run for the same offices, in the same states, in the same country as Republicans. It is that they have lost. Now that their failures have mounted to the point of cementing their legacy of failure for the next couple of decades, they want to change the rules. //

The rules of the game are written in advance so that all parties participating in the game, know how to succeed from the onset.

The rules for our country have long been written. //

The rules for the “game” are clear. Democrats don’t hate Republicans for their ability to conduct the business of government as they see fit. They hate the Constitution and many of the rules they’ve instituted because now, they’ve lost.

It isn’t like they haven’t tried to play the game. It’s just that… well… they suck at it. //

Here we are, beating the Democrats at their own game again and again, so what do they propose? Changing the rules again. Dems, instead of trying to appeal to voters in areas they know they are losing, are proposing to make D.C. and Puerto Rico states, //

Democrats aren’t mad that Republicans get to nominate and confirm a Justice of their choice. They are mad that they don’t. End of Story.

Which brings me to this thought exercise: Take a minute and try to think of a time, in the last 50 years, that Republicans have either changed procedural rules (or threatened to do so) in response to Democrats’ exercise of a legal, Constitutionally-appointed power? Sure, they’ve threatened to use the newly appointed power or rule change once they are in power, but when have they ever explicitly changed or threatened to change rules? Can’t think of a time? Neither can I. Now, do the same with Democrats.

The old sayings “the rules are rules” and “elections have consequences” have never been more true. The only difference is that Democrats don’t want to live by either. Sorry guys, those are the rules.

Says it all. //

AG Barr after being interrupted again:

"Well, this is a hearing. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be heard."

An additional 140 House Republicans joined a lawsuit Friday seeking to end proxy voting used by the lower chamber this week for the first time in history.

The House proxy voting rule allows it to do business with as few as 20 members present, with each controlling the votes of 10 others. //

This new House rule creates the strange situation of establishing a quorum by counting members as present who are, in fact, absent. It allows the House to do business with as few as 20 members present, with each controlling the votes of 10 others.

The only reason to attempt something so radical is the fear of failure under the traditional legislative practice that the Constitution requires and Congress has always followed.