There Were No ‘Moderate Republicans’ in the Senate on Tuesday. Only Collaborators. – Esquire

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