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Brian Beutler Profile picture
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9 Feb, 6 tweets, 2 min read
Taking bets now on which manager will say what thing that certain Republicans pretend made them so mad that they can’t possibly vote to convict anymore, a theatrical maneuver known to many as The Susan.
I wondered this as well! A good guess. But typically a senator will deploy The Susan only after a dilatory period during which he or she pretends to be open-minded about and impressed with the opposing party’s case.
We are now primed for The Susan.
This is a prelude to The Other Susan, wherein Republicans justify doing exactly what Donald Trump demands of them on the grounds that A Chastening has occurred and thus no consequential action is necessary.
The Susan has been queued up.
Novel situation here where counsel for the president is trying to provide Republicans subtle instruction on what to premise their Susaning on.

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More from @brianbeutler

Brian Beutler Profile picture
13 Feb
Absolutely pathetic. The Raskin proposal was one hour Zoom depositions and document subpoenas. That should be the baseline for negotiations and Coons should resign to let someone who isn’t a complete coward serve his constituents.
Get Romney in there, come up with some cap on the number of witnesses, divided between both sides, final call on witness relevance goes to the whole Senate, that’s the agreement. Just keep Chris Coons as far away from negotiations as possible.
What a horrendous failure this would be, and it’ll be entirely on Democrats. With the opposition cornered and in a blind panic, they will...call the whole thing off? Total betrayal.
Read 4 tweets
Brian Beutler Profile picture
12 Feb
Seriously, how can you go straight to a vote with all this low-hanging fruit unplucked?!
You can even say, we didn’t intend to call witnesses, but the Trump’s team dishonest presentation leaves you no choice.
There isn’t as much honor as it might seem there is in leaving it half on the field
Read 5 tweets
Brian Beutler Profile picture
10 Feb
If Trump were really hard at work in the White House trying to stop the insurrection and not, say, laughing his ass off in front of one of his many televisions, wouldn’t @JoeBiden now have total control over the exculpating proof?
Extremely fake curious that Trump’s lawyers aren’t asking President Biden to release all evidence in his control that shows Trump scrambling to restore peace and definitely not watching television and laughing and refusing to help.
THIS would actually be a good question for the WH daily briefing RE Biden’s arm’s-length approach to impeachment: is he in control of any evidence that bears on claims the managers or Trump’s counsel have made, and if so, doesn’t he have an obligation to come forward with it?
Read 4 tweets
Brian Beutler Profile picture
25 Jan
A strategy optimized to get an insufficient number of moderates dug in on a worse bill, such that when it becomes clear Republicans are fucking around and there’s no way in hell there’ll be 60 votes for anything, there also won’t be 50 votes except maybe for the worse bill.
There’s no reason for this. Get the process moving quickly on the popular bill you want, make clear it’s the only ship sailing and it’ll pass with 50 votes. Maybe that entices some Republicans to throw in with the winning side. More likely it doesn’t, but if it doesn’t, so what?
Truly insane they’re going to do the same thing they did last trifecta, down to the same Lucy and same football.
Read 5 tweets
Brian Beutler Profile picture
23 Jan
Three thoughts recurred reading this.

1. The theory that ex-presidents can’t be tried by the Senate is fake, conjured in bad faith to give GOP sens cover to acquit without stating the truth: they’re OK with the right using violence to subvert democracy.
nymag.com/intelligencer/…
2. If and when Republicans acquit Trump on false pretext, Democrats must pivot immediately to a measure disqualifying insurrectionists from office under the 14th amendment—they might even warn Republicans that they’ll face this vote before the trial ends. nytimes.com/2021/01/12/opi…
3. This whole saga is an object lesson in the pitfalls of timidity and foot dragging. The original sin here was recessing the House in the hope of turning the page instead instead of voting on the impeachment within hours of the insurrection.
Read 16 tweets
Brian Beutler Profile picture
21 Jan
The solution is obvious. McConnell is *already* abusing the filibuster to block the constitution of the new majority. Nuking the filibuster is the appropriate response. At the very least the threat is the only thing that might make McConnell back down. politico.com/news/2021/01/2…
The alternative—cave to McConnell on this basic question of which party won the majority, and ratify his plan to set a 60-vote threshold for everything of consequence—would be a profound, irrevocable betrayal right off the bat.
This is an important thing for reporters to portray accurately, too. McConnell is *already* abusing the filibuster to nullify the Senate election results.
Read 11 tweets

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