Another hit at the top

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Does Lamar Alexander want to be thrown out of the GOP?

And he's one of the GOP's biggest assholes.  What's happening?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Paid sick leave?! Are you out of your mind?!?

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to quickly pass legislation on Wednesday that would require employers to provide paid sick leave.

[...]

Sen. Patty Murray's (D-Wash.) legislation would require employers give workers 14 days of paid sick leave during public health emergencies. She tried to get unanimous consent on the legislation on Wednesday, which would have it bypass a vote, but Alexander said he could not support the bill.

  The Hill

Dick.

Democrats are pushing for new paid sick leave measures as an effort to try to prevent the spread of the virus. They worry that without paid sick leave, employees will try to come to work sick.

Of course they will. It's a perennial problem.

January 31, 2020: The day the rule of law died

Jesus.  

We don't care what our president does.  We just want to prevent a Democrat in the White House.  The power is ours to wield.  

Justice in America.  A lot of white folks should be beginning to understand what it has felt like to be black in America.

There's not a scintilla of a doubt.

Ken White is in need of a sarcasm font...

Yeah?  Well I bet there's a whole shitload of criminal and near-criminal shit John Kelly could tell us about Trump while Kelly was Chief of Staff.  What's HIS responsibility?

Adam Schiff will have a place in American lore.

And so goes "the world's greatest deliberative body."


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Remember when Michael Steele headed the RNC?

Harsh, but true.

The spirit of Edward R. Murrow is beaten

We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men...

—Edward R. Murrow, March 9, 1954

We may not be descended from fearful people, but we certainly have evolved into them.

[...]

[Senator Lamar] Alexander [gave] a statement that is going to go down in the annals of unmitigated weaselspeak. Gaze in awe.

I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution's high bar for an impeachable offense. There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; he said this on television on October 3, 2019, and during his July 25, 2019, telephone call with the president of Ukraine. There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a "mountain of overwhelming evidence."

Alexander believes that the president* shook down the president of Ukraine in order to help the president* ratfck the 2020 presidential election. Alexander believes this is what happened. Alexander believes that the House managers have made that case. Alexander believes that the House managers have made that case so convincingly that calling further witnesses and demanding further documents would be superfluous. And because Alexander believes all that, he believes that the president*...should be acquitted on the charges of which Alexander believes the president* is guilty as hell.

[...]

In addition to arguing that a guilty president* is guilty but should go unpunished, Alexander is claiming that the solution to a ratfcked election is to hope the next one isn’t ratfcked.

[...]

Now, it’s possible that this latest spasm of political cowardice will cost Mitch McConnell his Senate Majority. (I, for one, don’t think this is going to rescue Collins in Maine. Cory Gardner likely is a dead fish in Colorado, and Martha McSally of Arizona can’t get out of her own way. In their fondest dreams, the Democrats will come out of Georgia with at least a split.) [...] At the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, the moles and trolls are going to throw themselves a party.

  Charles P Pierce

The usual suspects are now safe to vote to allow witnesses

Thanks to Lamar Alexander falling on his sword, Susan Collins can finally say something that sounds like she's reasonably being less than a partisan hack and then actually do it.

Lamar Alexander played his role as the sacrificial lamb so that Susan Collins has a chance to keep her seat.  He's retiring anyway.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Alexander to vote no witnesses

"I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense," he said.

  NBC

And so he will retire in ignominy.

I view this - with the attending announcement beforehand that he was going to give his answer tonight - Lamar Alexander's last grab at publicity.  It's going to leave him with negative notoriety.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Why would he do this?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.