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WASHINGTONMy new old friend, Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, was bouncing with delight. Considering that the latest Morning Consult poll has her five points underwater back home, this showed a remarkable joie de vivre, which made her sarcasm positively effervescent. She spoke in fluent Italics. I am excited that all of these members are going to be supporting the United States military as we bring up military spending, she said. Whether thats the new Space Force, whether thats autonomous vehicles, AI, hypersonics, all of those things we need to push back against Russia, and I am glad to know theyve publicly stated it. Apparently, proving that the president* blackjacked Ukraine by withholding military aid makes you obligated to fund every wild hair that grows upon the Pentagon procurement people.

(Ernst also was passing notes around noting how many of the House managers had missed various military funding votes in the past year. Unfortunately for her, one of the votes Jerrold Nadler missed because his wife was ill.)

Ernst had gathered with several of her colleagues during Thursday nights dinner break in the impeachment trial of the President* of the United States. Joining her were John Barrasso of Wyoming, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and Tim Scott of South Carolina. Ernst, Lankford, and Scott all had been rumored to be possible votes in favor of calling witnesses when and if that comes to a vote sometime next week. But on Thursday night, with the president*s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, and White House spokesman Hogan Gidley chatting about eight feet away, all of them spoke like good McConnellite functionaries.

We want to get the whole story, Lankford said. I was trying to take notes today on how many half-truths we were hearingthat they were telling part of the story, but not the other part. Or they would talk about the phone call, but conveniently leave the sentence out before or the sentence out afterwards.

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Weve heard the same story, over and over again, for two days, Scott added. Theres an old saying that, if you say it often enough, it must be true. The good news is that the Democrats have literally bought into that premise that if you say it often enough, its true. Weve heard the same storyrinse it, recite it, repeat it. And what is that story? That the President of the United States has no authority whatsoever to look for injustice or corruption anywhere, even in the 2016 election. And it is a sad day for our nation that the House managers are telling the same story, over and over again, with no basis in fact. My frustration is that the American people are only getting half the story.

All week there were little signs that little things were going sideways. First, Mitch McConnell actually changed his original rules for how the trial would be managed. Then, on Wednesday, Robert Ray, one of the two former Whitewater special prosecutors on the White House defense team, went on Fox News and conspicuously declined to compliment lead attorneys Pat Cipollone and Sekulow.

But all of the big stuffincluding every vote taken so farhas gone straight down party lines. The idea that four Republicans will vote to hear witnesses seems as remote as ever, and the notion that 14 of these Ernsts, Scotts, and Lankfords actually would vote to convict the president* and remove him from office remains utterly preposterous. The whole party in Congress doesnt seem to be thinking past tomorrows lunch menu, and even these young stars dont seem able to reckon with what their futures might be, or with the prospect the marks on their political souls might be permanent.

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No Republican in Congress Is Thinking Past Tomorrow's Lunch Menu - Esquire

Shell be joined by Cruz and Rubio, who are special targets of my disappointment because they were once special targets of Trumps ugliness. They know it firsthand and well.

They campaigned against him for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, when he didnt just criticize them but viciously belittled and even savaged them. He conspiracy-theorized a role for Cruzs father in John F. Kennedys assassination.

A pathological liar, Cruz called Trump.

But now that Trump is president and his base has become the most impassioned constituency in the party, Cruz is his biggest cheerleader and a ready mouthpiece for all of those lies. He has swapped thoughts of 2016 for thoughts of 2024, when theres another opportunity to reach for the White House and Trumps loyalists will come in handy. Hell have to muscle aside Javanka and Don Jr., but thats a pickle for another day. First step: acquittal!

Rubio has long fashioned himself a foreign-policy maven and took a hard line when it came to Russia. So you might think that the Trump presidency would be especially galling to him. You might also think that Trumps bullying of Ukraine which left the country more vulnerable to Russian aggression would be some sort of breaking point.

But hes a Republican member of Congress in 2020, which means hes a sycophantic shell of his former self. And having bitten his tongue about Trumps global misadventures, hell now abet more of the same by helping Trump stay in office.

There are so many other Republican senators to marvel at. Mitt Romney, what was the point of diving back into public life if youre going to prop up a president whose fraudulence you once gave a whole long speech about? Lamar Alexander, you venerated Howard Baker, a fellow Tennessean who once held your Senate seat and put principle above partisanship by standing up to President Nixon. Why not do the same and stand up to President Trump?

Susan Collins, I cant imagine the exhaustion of your role as political wild card, scrutinized to a fare-thee-well. But come on. If youre going to pride yourself on autonomy, you need to exercise it when it matters most.

Its not fun to be any of you right now, with McConnell above you and #MAGA hellions below you poised to make your life a misery if you stray. But no one forced you into public service. When you entered the Senate, you took an oath, and you took another one on Thursday. I have a third question, maybe just a rewording of the first and second: Doesnt that nag at you even a little?

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Senate Republicans Are Bathed in Shame - The New York Times

WASHINGTONThe biggest news about this corrupt administration* was not made in the Senate chamber on Tuesday. It was made out on the campaign trail by Senator Professor Warren. From CNBC:

Make no mistake. If we ever are going to repair the damage done by this administration*, it is going to have to include a thorough fumigation of every corner of the national executive. The first big mistake made by President Barack Obama was his determination to look forward, and not back. Too many of the criminals working for the last worst president in history skated. Too many Wall Street vandals got away clean. That cannot be allowed to happen again. The corruption of this administration* is unprecedented. It demands this kind of unprecedented response.

And we might as well look to the future, because the present is too dismal to contemplate. In the Senate on Tuesday, the Republican Party, represented by its majority caucus, formalized its fealty to this renegade administration*. It had several chances to demonstrate a modicum of independence, a smidgen of human courage, and it failed every time. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer proposed amendments to add further documents and witnesses to the deliberations. All of them failed by a straight, party-line 53-47 margin.

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In this, no Republican was different from any other Republican. Lisa Murkowski and Tom Cotton were the same. Thom Tillis and Ted Cruz were the same. Cory Gardner and Jim Inhofe were the same. Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse were the same as Mike Rounds and Mike Enzi. And they were all the same as Mitch McConnell. There were no moderate Republicans in the Senate on Tuesday. There were no Never Trumpers. There were only collaborators. There was no independence in the Senate on Tuesday, only complicity. And it was a deadening, sad thing to watch. The only real reaction was another cup of soggy oatmeal from the increasingly useless Susan Collins.

First of all, I dont believe a word of that. I think that three weeks from now, or whenever, shell find a way to weasel out and, even if she doesnt, I dont think there are three other Republicans who would follow her to a free buffet, let alone to a vote that would inconvenience the White House. Every single Republican in the chamber on Tuesday looked like theyd rather be anywhere else, up to and including hanging by their thumbs from the Key Bridge.

I like to look around and see how many of my colleagues are looking guilty, said Senator Amy Klobuchar. I saw a lot of them just sitting there, looking down. The Democratic senators seem content to plug along, letting the majority keep voting down what would seem to anyone whos ever watched a police procedural on TV to be reasonable requests. All this talk about how theyre asking the Senate to do the Houses work, thats just BS, said Senator Mazie Horono. Im listening very carefully, I take notes, and then I make my comments parenthetically, like, 'What a bunch of...

House manager Hakeem Jeffries later made a fine presentation of how many witnesses testified in previous impeachments. (Andrew Johnsons trial had 40 of them.) Thats the kind of thing that will survive on the record after all the knee-jerk constitutional negligence has been toted up. Barack Obama was wrong in 2008 and Joe Biden is wrong today. The fever never will break. The patient is going to have to die.

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There Were No 'Moderate Republicans' in the Senate on Tuesday. Only Collaborators. - Esquire

Two years ago, Pennsylvanias supreme court dealt a blow to state Republicans when it said they had unconstitutionally rigged congressional elections in the state. Republicans fumed and threatened to impeach four of the justices, but the map was redrawn, and voters elected an even split of Democrats and Republicans to Congress in 2018. Now, Republicans are weaponizing a new tactic a move that seems designed to increase their power on the states highest court.

The Republican proposal overhauls the way that court justices are elected in a state that can swing both red and blue. The justices on the court, where Democrats hold a 5-2 majority, are currently appointed through statewide elections, but the new plan would make it so the justices are elected from districts throughout the state. The change would probably hurt Democratic candidates four of the current justices are from the Pittsburgh area and one is from Philadelphia, both urban areas that tend to skew blue.

If the proposal is successful, it could offer a roadmap for Republicans elsewhere to undermine state courts. Thats significant after last years supreme court decision that determined federal courts couldnt stop gerrymandering the partisan redistricting of state maps but that nothing stopped state courts from acting. State courts responded swiftly: a state court in North Carolina followed Pennsylvania and struck down electoral districts as unconstitutional gerrymanders there. And a slew of gerrymandering lawsuits are expected when districts are next redrawn in 2021.

With the Pennsylvania supreme court having struck down the general assemblys gerrymandering, the general assembly is now clearly trying to gerrymander the Pennsylvania supreme court itself, said Daniel Jacobson, an attorney who helped represent the plaintiffs in the gerrymandering case. It only goes to show the lengths that the general assembly leaders will go when they feel that their grip on power is threatened.

The Republican effort also comes as state lawmakers across the country have moved to weaken the independence of state courts, said Douglas Keith, who studies courts across the country at the Brennan Center for Justice. Some states do elect supreme court justices by districts and there can be good reasons for doing so, Keith said. But, unjustified efforts to change the composition of state courts can weaken public confidence in judges.

If the calls for geographic diversity are just a thin veil on an effort to make the court more political, or capture more seats for a political party or ideology, then theres a problem and a misunderstanding of what judges responsibility in our democracy are, Keith said.

The office of Representative Russ Diamond, the measures main sponsor in the House, did not return a request for comment. He has previously said the change would ensure there was more geographic and ideological diversity on the court.

The change would require a constitutional amendment that voters in Pennsylvania need to approve through a ballot referendum. Before it goes to the ballot, it needs to pass the state legislature in two consecutive sessions, so the earliest it could appear is 2021. The measure has already passed the Pennsylvania state house and is being considered in the Senate.

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Republicans push to weaken court that caught them rigging elections - The Guardian

Senators continue to show that they dont care about the impeachment trial by trying to get the schedule changed, so they have the weekend off.

CNNs Manu Raju tweeted:

The suspicion is that Republican Senators are the ones who are asking for the weekend off because they are the ones, who for the most part have been walking out and absent for long stretches of the impeachment trial.

Senators are being asked to do the jobs that they are being paid to do, and right now that job involves sitting down, being quiet, and fulfilling their constitutional duty to act as jurors in Trumps impeachment trial.

If this job is too hard, or if any of these complaints happen to be coming from the Senators who are running for the Democratic presidential nomination, which is doubtful because none of them have expressed regret over being at the trial, there is a simple solution.

Any Senator who doesnt want to uphold the oath they took at the beginning of the trial can quit the Senate, and do whatever they choose with their time.

The constant complaining from Senators who are acting as jurors is an insult to people who break their backs, sometimes working multiple jobs each week to make ends meet.

The Senate voted for these rules, and they should stick to them, so sorry spoiled millionaires, you cant have the weekend off.

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Mr. Easley is the founder/managing editor and Senior White House and Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA.Jason has a Bachelors Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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Republicans Are Whining That They Want The Weekend Off From The Impeachment Trial - PoliticusUSA