While we were all (or I was, anyway) watching Slack-Jaw-Grandpa napping through his criminal trial in New York, the House GOP passed two articles of impeachment against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted on those articles, rather quickly dismissing the first one, and then, a bit later, killing the second article, as well.
The votes fell along party lines. If you want to understand why the 118th U.S. Congress is as worthless as a tit on a boar hog, the Mayorkas impeachment trial was an excellent explainer.
(Sec. Mayorkas, from news reports, did not attend the proceedings.)
(And is here where we bring up that the GOP has purposefully tried to not solve the border situation on which the impeachment was ostensibly based? No? OK. But, as the New York Times said previously, “On the border, Republicans set a trap, then fell into it.”)
Throughout the afternoon, the motions came flying. Several came from the GOP calling for an adjournment until next week so that their members could reread their Constitution to see if there was anything they missed (Sen. Rick Scott’s suggestion). And then the GOP asked to adjourn until the day after Election Day — presumably to give Republicans that much more time to familiarize themselves with their foundational document. There was also a GOP request to move to a closed session (to which all freedom-lovers everywhere asked “WTF?”), then to an executive session, and then to a session where everyone dresses up as their favorite Marvel character and speaks in French.
I may have made that last part up, but the striking part about the day — to me — was that Republicans launched this impeachment trial, and then they seemed hell-bent to stop or stall it.
The transcript went thus:
The GOP: Let's move to closed session!
The Senate: No.
The GOP: Let's recess so we read our Constitutions!
The Senate: No.
Then the Republicans would send in the biggest chuckleheads they have to repeat the requests -- verbatim -- ad nauseam. The moment a motion was shot down, another Republican would jump to present yet another motion that would then be shot down.
Bless the Democrats and that salty old Bernie Sanders for holding their feet to the fire. You made this bed, Republicans. Now lie in it.
When it was over, Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has done more to dismantle the Senate than any living senator, rose to decry the proceedings, and then Sen. Mike Lee, insurrectionist, rose to whinge on about how unprecedented was the outcome. I think these two were perfect for making very bad arguments against themselves and their actions. Let that be their legacy.
You nailed it! The DO HARM Congress is directly contributing to the world’s devolving into war, famine, disease et al! Then we have Arizona, as my grandmother said “time to take the gas pipe”….
Waste of time. The do-nothing Congress just keeps shuffling along. Pass the immigration bill, pass the aide packages for our foreign allies, how about stronger background checks for guns. Do something meaningful.