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Tom Nichols, Opinion columnist Published 5:00 a.m. ET Feb. 14, 2021 | Updated 9:17 a.m. ET Feb. 15, 2021

Presidents have been impeached, but none have been removed from office due to impeachment. Confusing? Here's how. USA TODAY

Trump's acquittal proved with final certainty that Republicans are driven only by ambition, comfort and self-interest and the Constitution be damned.

The second Senatetrial of Donald Trump is over. Trump has been acquitted of betraying his oath and his country. He was guilty of these charges, and so is the Republican Party, despite a handful of exceptions in a 57-43 vote that allowed Trump to escape conviction and a permanent ban on holding federal office.

The Democratic House managers did a magnificent job, marshaling elegant rhetoric and ironclad logic far beyond what Trumps obvious guilt required. Their case will stand for years as an example of civic virtue.

Trumps defense team, composed of a personal injury lawyer and a few other nonentities, was incompetent andwhined like Trump himself about Democrat managers and cancel culture. They managed to make ambulance chasing seem noble by comparison.

And none of it mattered. The outcome was foreordained. On a weekend we once reserved for honoring the births of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, so-called constitutionalistslike Sen. Mike Lee of Utah gleefully betrayed everything for which Lincoln lived and for which he was murdered in cold blood. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, barely able to contain his smirking, made the case within minutes of Trumps acquittal that the former president was probably guilty anyway, but hey, maybe someone else can take him to court just somewhere other than the Senate.

It is long past time to put aside rationalizations about ideology and party loyalty and tribalism. The voters back home in these Republican states and districts might be drunk on the vile moonshine brewed by Fox News,One America News Network and other right-wing outfits, but McConnell and the Republican members of Congress are with the obvious exception of kooks like Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado or Marjorie Taylor Greeneof Georgia educated men and women who know better. They know exactly what they are doing and why.

The acquittal of Donald Trump proved, with final certainty, that the Republicans are driven only by ambition,comfort and self-interest and the Constitution be damned.

For all of their complaints about The Swamp, these GOP careerists are creatures of Washington. No matter where they were born, they are now the squires of Northern Virginia and Georgetown and they are not going back. For all their populist bravado about how the elites hate the Real Americans, no one is more elitist and hates Real America including their own constituents as much as the Republicans who will do anything rather than risk being sent home to live among them.

Sens. Ted Cruz, left, and Josh Hawley on Jan. 6, 2021, in the Senate in Washington, D.C.(Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY, AFP via Getty Images)

Arkansas Sen.Tom Cotton and the Houses dreadfulElise Stefanik, from New York's Adirondacks,did not both go to Harvard just to end up as the mayor of Fayetteville or relegated to a city council in Plattsburgh. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley didnt make it to Stanford and Yale just to hang out a shingle probating wills and handling divorces in Sedalia.

These opportunists will never do anything that might incur even so much as the remote risk of a primary challenge. They have made it and they are staying where they are. Exile from the District of Columbia is not for them. If bending the knee yet one more time to the cult of Trump keeps them motoring along the Rock Creek Parkway while taking in the vista of the Potomac River, it is a price they will gladly pay. And so will all of us pay, too, as democracy settles into trench warfare between a shrinking but powerful claque of ruthless frauds and the rest of America.

Violating their oaths: In Donald Trump v. democracy, acquittal shows depth and danger of Trumpism pandemic

There are a few noble exceptions among the Republicans, but not enough to matter. Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, for one, has said point-blank that he is willing to lose his job if that is the price of telling the truth, and that if it happens, he will be at peace.

But others, such as Sens. Rand Paul (himself the son of a long-serving congressman) or Ted Cruz a man known for his legendary and insufferable ambition since college, and who probably ran for class leader in his newborn ward in the hospital will risk no such sacrifice. They, you see, were bred for better things far from Kentucky and Texas, and if that means allying themselves with the worst and most partisan elements in America rather than with the Constitution, so be it.

The Republicans have repeatedly betrayed both Lincoln and the Union. The party whose first president died as a martyr at the hands of an insurrectionistis now controlled by empty, hollow people who rolled their eyes and lazed their way through the trial of a president who was manifestly guilty of inciting an insurrection.

If nothing else, perhaps this disgusting dishonoring of the memory of our 16th president should persuade the rest of us to bring back the actual Feb. 12 and Feb. 22 birthdays of Presidents Lincoln and Washington as national holidays, so that we do not confuse their heroism and nobility with the cult of personality practiced by modern Republicans.

Acquitted: Shared identity and fear of Trump kept most Republicans in line

Presidents Daywas always a sham.Americans once knew that we should not worship an abstract office we honor the best among us who have sat in that office. It was never sensible to allow, say, both Warren Harding and Franklin Roosevelt to be feted on the same day. But this final obscenity, this last rebuke to the memory of Lincoln, should inspire us never to allow the chance that Trump is remembered on the same day as the man who saved the Union.

The Republicans who voted to acquit Trump acted with selfishness, cynicismand even malice. They have smeared their betrayal of the Constitution all over their careers the same way the January insurrectionists smeared excrement on the walls of the Congress itself.

At least human waste can be washed away. What the Republicans did on Feb.13, 2021, will never be expunged from the history of the United States.

Tom Nichols,a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors,is the author of Our Own Worst Enemy, coming in August. Follow him on Twitter:@RadioFreeTom

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Republicans who acquitted Trump put their careers over duty, honor and the Constitution - USA TODAY

Amy Walter:

Right, and where is the Republican Party, right?

And this seems to be the question that we continue to grapple with or have been grappling with really since 2015, Judy, when it seemed that so many times during Trump's first campaign, during his time as president, that the party was going to break up over Donald Trump.

And yet, when all is said and done, the party continues to rally around him. In this case, on the vote over the weekend to convict, the president was no different.

In some ways, as you said, this was a historic moment. This was the most bipartisan impeachment ever in American history. So that's quite remarkable. And yet, at the same time, it doesn't tell us anything about Trump's inability to keep a hold of the party. In fact, what it tells us is that he still has a pretty good hold on the party.

As you pointed out, a number of those senators who voted for conviction have since been censured. We know members of the House who voted for impeachment have also been censured, and they have been threatened with primary races. We know that, even in a bipartisan vote, it was still 10 votes short of a conviction.

And we also know that the seven Republicans who voted these are not who voted for conviction these are not the rising stars in the party. These aren't folks who you're going to see on the ballot in 2024 running for president. Only one of them is up for reelection in 2022. That's Lisa Murkowski from Alaska. Two of them are retiring, Senator Burr and Senator Toomey, Burr from North Carolina, Toomey that you pointed out from Pennsylvania, also been censured.

The rest are either up in 2026, so they were just recently elected, reelected, or one of them, Mitt Romney, up in 2024. So, there is no immediate repercussions for these most of these senators like, there is for members of the House.

But, at the end of the day, I think what's been made very clear is that this is still the party of Donald Trump, the local grassroots activists who are censuring these members making it very clear where their loyalties lie and what they're expecting from other elected officials down the road in 2022 and beyond.

Continue reading here:
Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Trump's control of the GOP - PBS NewsHour

National Review

Appearing at a friendly CNN town-hall event yesterday, President Joe Biden dropped a string of untruths on issues both large and small. One of the presidents most egregious falsehoods was the claim that we didnt have [the vaccine] when we came into office. The first shot was administered back on December 14, 2020. Glenn Kessler, lead fact-checker for the Washington Post, quickly jumped into action on Twitter, explaining that this was merely a verbal stumble, a typical Biden gaffe, as he had already mentioned 50 million doses being available when he took office. Ex Trump officials should especially cool the outrage meter, as it just looks silly. Castigating those who pointed out the lie is a weird thing for someone charged with verifying factual information to do. It was a strange coincidence, indeed, that Bidens verbal stumble corresponded perfectly with the concerted administration-wide effort to mislead Americans regarding the presidents new vaccination plan. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris had herself accidentally stumbled into numerous similar gaffes, saying there had been no national strategy or plan for vaccinations, that the new administration was starting from scratch on something thats been raging for almost an entire year, and that there there was no stockpile . . . of vaccines. When a Twitter follower asked him how he determines what constitutes a verbal stumble or a lie, Kessler explained: People screw up on live television. Biden with his stutter especially does so. Ah, the stutter. How quickly the media has taken to the Bidens stutter excuse. The Democratic presidential candidates gaffes may be rooted in a little-understood disability, The Hill theorized when Biden first shared the story of his early struggles with stuttering. Do those who similarly struggle usually steal entire speeches nay, life stories from others? Do they coherently say things that are provable lies? I suspect not. It is odd, as well, that a fact-checker would contend that Biden must have had a verbal stumble because he had previously admitted the truth on the issue. For one thing, it seems unlikely this was the standard used for Donald Trumps contradictory ramblings. And though Im not a professionally trained fact-checker myself, Im relatively certain that most politicians have the skill set to tell the truth on a topic in one instance and then lie in another. All of these defenses of Biden rely on the notion that the president wouldnt intentionally mislead us. Which is also weird, considering he is a notorious fabulist and fabricator. Now, many Americans might be unaware of the history of Bidens untruths. Because, while fact-checkers may sporadically, if tepidly, correct falsehoods uttered by Democrats, or retroactively admit to them, they also regularly offer rationalizations, excuses, justifications rich layers of contextual detail to safeguard them from criticism, which is a complete abdication of the job they ostensibly claim to do. Perhaps the most mendacious fact-checker is CNNs Daniel Dale, who produces prodigious amounts of disingenuous partisan clickbait. Yesterday, Dale also bored into soul of Biden to discern exactly what the president meant, which, it conveniently turned out, was the opposite of what he said. Then again, Dale noted back in September that Biden makes some false and misleading claims but assertions of fact have been largely factual. Tautology aside, a quick fact-check of this claim earns a gaggle of Pinocchios. Then again, Dale is just a left-wing columnist. Nothing wrong with it. But no one needs to pretend otherwise. The fact is if youll pardon the expression this kind of partisan gruel would never have existed in a reputable newsroom 30 or 20 years ago. Yet it thrives in an age in which the number of Twitter followers and hits are valued over fact-gathering. There has been no price to pay for this destruction of political journalism only high ratings. Perhaps it will change post-Trump. Its not only that the fact-checkers are objectionable but also that the idea of fact-checking is un-journalistic. There is something more insidious about fact-checks than the average hackery. Listening to PBS NewsHours Yamiche Alcindor, for instance, regurgitate the administrations talking points is sad but inoffensive. Fact-checkers circumvent debate by making pronouncements about highly disputable contentions. One might be able to look past the five-year abandonment of journalistic ethics and professionalism if reporters and fact-checkers were equal-opportunity sticklers. The problem wasnt the adversarial relationship journalists had with those in power though the self-aggrandizement and navel-gazing were insufferable its the selective deployment of these ethics as now displayed with a different administration. And no one exemplifies the problem better than the self-anointed fact-checkers.

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The Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines. - Yahoo News

(Reuters) - Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine U.S. democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.

More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of principled conservatism, including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law - ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say.

Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trumps grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.

Three other people confirmed to Reuters the call and the discussions for a potential splinter party, but asked not to be identified.

Among the call participants were John Mitnick, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security under Trump; former Republican congressman Charlie Dent; Elizabeth Neumann, deputy chief of staff in the Homeland Security Department under Trump; and Miles Taylor, another former Trump homeland security official.

The talks highlight the wide intraparty rift over Trumps false claims of election fraud and the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the former president, but others seek a new direction for the party.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump on Jan. 13 on a charge of inciting an insurrection by exhorting thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on the day Congress was gathered to certify Democrat Joe Bidens election victory.

Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of Bidens election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.

Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this weeks Senate impeachment trial.

Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy, McMullin told Reuters. The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.

THESE LOSERS

Asked about the discussions for a third party, Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, said: These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden.

A representative for the Republican National Committee referred to a recent statement from Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

If we continue to attack each other and focus on attacking on fellow Republicans, if we have disagreements within our party, then we are losing sight of 2022 (elections), McDaniel said on Fox News last month.

The only way were going to win is if we come together, she said.

The Biden White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McMullin said just over 40% of those on last weeks Zoom call backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party. Another option under discussion is to form a faction that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.

Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.

Members are aware that the U.S. political landscape is littered with the remains of previous failed attempts at national third parties.

But there is a far greater hunger for a new political party out there than I have ever experienced in my lifetime, one participant said.

Reporting by Tim Reid; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney

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Exclusive: Dozens of former Republican officials in talks to form anti-Trump third party - Reuters

Photo: Chip Somodevilla (AP)

As the crisis of rolling blackouts in Texasunfolds this week, some of the states loudest Republican politicians are falsely dragging frozen wind turbines as the cause. But behind every wind energy smear by a Texas politician is a dizzying amount of money contributed by the fossil fuel industry.

Earther looked at whose money is behind the loudest anti-wind voices this week. We used OpenSecrets data as well as individual political donations logged with the Federal Election Commission website to look at donations for Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and Sen. John Cornynthree of the Texas politicians sitting in Washington, D.C., who have been most outspoken in their criticism of wind energys supposed role in the blackouts.

All three have continued to scapegoat renewables throughout the week, and looking at their donors, its no surprise. Federal campaign finance data shows more than 30 companies in the oil and gas industry, from multinational names like Exxon and Chevron to local power players like Texas Transeastern and Wildhorse Energy, gave tens of thousands of dollars to Cornyn, Cruz, and Crenshaw over the past year. That includes thousands from individuals employed by those companies as well as largesse from their corporate PACs.

Cornyn, who was reelected last fall, was a big recipient of industry money. Between 2019 and 2020, Cornyn raked in more than $50,000 from Marathon Petroleums PAC and $25,000 from natural gas infrastructure company Sempra Energys PAC, as well as $25,000 from utility giant NextEnergy and $40,000 from Koch Industries. He also did well with oil and gas power players individually: CEOs or other key executives of Western Refining, Hunt Oil Company, Chief Oil and Gas, Walter Oil and Gas, Magnolia Oil and Gas, Occidental Petroleum, Cox Oil, Hilcorp Ventures and Kinder Morgan all donated $50,000 or more each to PACs associated with Cornyns campaign in the last election cycle.

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Crenshaw, who ran for reelection in the House, also made out handsomely from the industry last cycle. The oil and gas industry overall donated $453,247 to Crenshaw last year ($311,947 from individuals, $141,300 total from PACs). Oil and gas was his largest industry donor by PAC money, including $10,000 each from Energy Transfer, Valero Energy, Occidental Petroleum, and Marathon Petroleum.

Cruz wasnt up for reelection last year, but the industry didnt forget about him. He still bagged $14,000 from Chevrons PAC and $10,000 from Exxonsa little spending money, we guessas well as tens of thousands of dollars in individual contributions from employees of 30 oil and gas companies. All told, these three Texas Republicans alone snagged more than $1.1 million from the industry in the 2020 election cycle.

But it wasnt just these three Texans in the nations capital doing dirty work for fossil fuels. On Tuesday, as millions in his state suffered through the cold and without power, Gov. Greg Abbott made an appearance on Sean Hannity where he ripped into renewables. The blackout shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America, Abbott told Hannity. Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis....It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.

And lets not forget Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who just last week was busy preparing a bill that would blacklist businesses based on their friendliness to fossil fuels. For Texas two head honchos, we used individual contributions pulled from state-level data logged on the site Transparency USA, and found some real Easter eggs from the industry.

Abbott and Patricks PACs share a bunch of big individual fossil fuel donors. Syed Javaid Anwar, the CEO of Midland Energy, was Abbotts top donor between 2019 and 2020, giving a total of $1,617,500 to his PAC. The CEO also gave generously to Patrick, kicking his PAC just under $250,000 over that same time period. Douglas Scharbauer, an heir to a West Texas oil, ranching, and race horse fortune, gave a total of $350,000 to the lieutenant governors PAC in 2019, while another oil heir, Ray Lee Hunt, also pitched in generously with donations of $500,000 to the PACs of Abbott and $250,000 to Patrick. (Hunt also gave more than $63,000 to Cornyns PAC.) Not to be outdone, Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, kicked $500,000 to Abbotts PAC and $200,000 to Patricks in the same time period. Warrens firm is behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, and he has said talking about the pipeline is like talking about my son.

Whats happening in Texas right now is a perfect storm of poor planning, crazy weather, and a widespread government failure to prepare the electric grid. Fossil fuels had a big part to play in how this disaster went down as natural gas and coal sources failed at multiple points, from energy sources themselves freezing to pipelines shutting down. The Texas grids terrible setupa lack of integration with other states to ensure a consistent power supply, lagging weatherization updates, predatory pricing habitscant be tied to one source, but politicians like Crenshaw, Cruz, and Abbott are choosing to hammer down on renewables while blessing fossil fuels, similar to how theyve reacted during Californias blackouts in recent years. While its impossible to say why, their donations tell a pretty damning story hereand research has shown donors make it rain on politicians who do their bidding.

The fossil fuel industry has also made it clear that it sees wind power in Texas as a threat to its business. A panel on Texas windpower convened at the wind industrys key summit in 2019 addressed this issue directly. People are spending millions of dollars to hobble the wind industry, moderator Chris Tomlinson, a Houston Chronicle columnist, said at the panel, claiming that there are lobbyists in Austin who have been told to spend nearly half their time opposing the wind industry.

When such a large-scale screw up like this happenswhen lives are lost and people sufferwe have to examine what those in control of the status quo have to lose, and what changes they are advocating. The fossil fuel industry is fighting to keep its control over a rapidly changing energy landscape, and part of their strategy is giving as much as possible to those in charge, particularly Republicans. Even though experts across the board agree that we need a clean energy grid thats reliable and have even created a popular plan for how to get there, conservative politicians with loud platforms are blocking serious discussion, let alone action.The longer the industry keeps the political system captured and the more these people lie, the more likely it is well see even more death and chaos ahead.

Dhruv Mehrotra contributed reporting to this piece.

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How Much the Oil and Gas Industry Paid Texas Republicans Who Are Lying About Wind Energy - Gizmodo