“I cannot vote to convict,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski on the Senate floor late Monday afternoon. She said the process has been flawed and was built on a rotten foundation from the outset.
Murkowski went on to argue how the House had rushed through the process on a self-imposed deadline and had failed in its responsibilities. She also took on her fellow senators, saying they should be ashamed by the rank partisanship that has been on display.
“We cannot be the greatest deliberative body when we kick things off by issuing letters to the media instead of coming together to set the parameters of the trial and negotiate in good faith on how we should proceed. For all the talk of impartiality, it is clear to me that few in this chamber approach this with a genuinely open mind.
Some have been calling for the president to be impeached for years, she said.
“Indeed, we saw just today the clips that indicate headlines, 19 minutes after the president was sworn into office, calling for his impeachment. Others in this chamber saw little need to even consider the arguments from the House before stating their intentions to acquit,” she continued.
“It’s my hope that we’ve finally found bottom here,” she said, as the last speaker of the day. “That both sides can look inward and reflect on the apparent willingness that each has to destroy not just each other, but all of the institutions of our government. And for what? Because it may help win an election? At some point, Mr. President, at some point for our country, winning has to be about more than winning, or we will all lose.”
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Her phony self-righteousness is staggering.
Who is Lisa‘’s sanctimonious sourdough speechwriter?
1. Montesquieu?
2. Apotheosis?
3. …the demon of faction extended his scepter…
Real Alaskans don’t talk this way? Neither does Lisa.
Hypocrisy… at least I understand that.
Your speech is so faux.
Please, for the love of all that is truly sacred, there’s certainly no longer any need to mince around what has become all too blatant and obvious.
Murkowski is, and always has been, all in.
Murkowski has finally dropped the mask that deceived so many for so long.
Trouble is, she just might of got a glimpse of herself in the mirror at the same time.
In her statements, each following on the heels of every one of her treasonous votes, those strident, dissonant and implausible excuses she ladled up, each succeeding statement she produced only served to ultimately illuminate her utter failure to find any coherent justification suitable, even to herself, for her to hide behind.
At long last it has happened, the capstone of her long history of perfidious actions has finally given her what she for so long has only pretended at: …now, for the first time, she’s suffering actual moral qualms.
She can have none of that, though, so she’s doubling down, strapping on her armor again and again, against the possibility of feeling any shame, …or at least, not being seen showing any shame.
Expect more statements, …she knows what she has chosen is wrong. But she’s all in. Always was.
So there has to be more statements to come, …there’s still more work for her in the roll she’s chosen serving the likes of McConnell, Trump, and Putin
She’s not even fooling herself. I can’t imagine she still fools anyone else, and I mean, …anyone.
Nice. She is correct. That ship is sinking. Why jump on it?
Lisa, your goose is cooked. Left-leaning Alaskans won’t vote for you again due to this decision, and folks on the right believe you’re a RINO. Say goodbye to DC in 2022.
Unfortunately, the Woofer above is correct. By continuously jumping around, she has been banished by all camps. A lonely place to be……where no side trusts you, and you find no sincere friends. Who could really trust Lisa? I suspect that in the end, her daddy Frank talked to her. When he was the US Senator from Alaska, he voted to convict Bill Clinton on both articles of impeachment. Her Republican daddy, who appointed her to the US Senate, also found himself abandoned by all sides. He got his a$$ kicked in the 2006 Republican Primary. Lisa’s fate is similarily sealed for 2022. The Murkowski train must finally end.
Yeah you guys didn’t like her from the get-go. You didn’t even though for this time. We may keep her around as long as she continues to vote with some common sense.
Murkowski slams Trump’s ethics…
“The President’s behavior was shameful and wrong. His personal interests do not take precedence over those of this great nation. The president has the responsibility to uphold the integrity and honor of the office. “
She used to command my respect, the only rotten foundation is her logic. She along with all the other GOP Senators (Reps as well!) have tarnished the legacy of the US Constitution. Murkowski is plain and simply a former straight shooter and now a coward.
Cowed by Trump’s Mob and their mob mentality. Ignoring precendent and feigning excuses – time for a challenger with some integrity – Murkowski has lost whatever she had!
The videos you see are a put on….This didn’t happen with the Senators, it was staged…Suzanne Downing…you made a big mistake with this. There is no way anyone should use this as the word to the final vote on the Impeachment. That happens on Wednesday. That comes from the Senator McConnell and the Justice of the Supreme Court. Everyone in this state knows Murkowski is a fake.. If Sullivan was smart he would stay about 10 miles away from her while running for re-election. The videos should have the caption of “fake news” because there is no one in the Senate floor while Murkowski is trying to look like the first and the last word on her judgment of the President of the US. Another “dog and pony” show by Murkowski.
DK – Thank you for cleaning that up.:-) – sd
Senator Murkowski spoke for the vast majority of Alaskans and Americans.
Her address reminded me of the girl from Monroe I knew in the early ’70s.
I share her hope that we have learned from this debacle and the Kavanaugh debacle that upholding the principles upon which our country was founded are much more important than ‘winning’. I agree with her that Congress has ceded far too much responsibility to the executive branch.
What she didn’t say, that WE have to recognize, is that WE have allowed that to happen by electing our elected representatives based on their promise to ‘bring home the bacon’ rather than their commitment to upholding the principles of justice. It isn’t THEIR fault. ‘They’ will not change until we change what we are asking of them.
Thank you Senator Murkowski.
(Fr. McGuigan is smiling.)
Mike, you can’t be serious. Lisa is a mess. She has no roadmap from which to find direction, and no compass in which to follow. A lost person. And that’s what you get ……. from an appointment borne of nepotism, and a privileged class without a well-developed skillset. She’s unqualified, even at her old age.
Is she running for President? Sounds like a good plug. If only there was a base there…
A base? Quickster…….there isn’t even half a brain.
What’s with her toga robe? Did she just get out of a Swedish bath, or is she on her way to an Indian pow wow with Lizzy Warren? Lisa nauseates just about everyone.
Christians like to believe that God blesses America because we’re such a wonderful godly nation. No, God blesses America because He has a purpose for America to fulfill. Trump could be viewed as a symbol for that, in that he’s definitely not a “godly” person, just as America isn’t the “godly” nation it likes to believe it is. Yet, we have been greatly blessed.
I believe that America is about to go through one of the most blessed periods ever. God said, speaking to Abraham, “Whomsoever blesses you, I will bless, and whomsoever curses you, I will curse. God also said that He turns the hearts of leaders whichever way He so chooses. God has turned Trump’s heart to blessing Israel. Trump has blessed Israel as no other American president ever has.
God couldn’t have done that with many Dems because their hearts are set too hard against God. They’re bent towards socialism, towards communism, away from godliness. Trump has a heart that can still be reached by God, in spite of his many sins.
We make the mistake of looking only at Trump, when we should be looking for the hand of God guiding America towards His goal for America.
Sir, with all due respect, I would direct you to books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens. Free yourself, and be liberated.
You forgot Dennett. There’s four, not three “Horsemen”. Those four are considered heirs to Voltaire, but they’re closer to plagiarists. None of them has displayed an original thought, just a regurgitation of trail-worn arguments.
If there’s no God, then all is an accident. If there’s simply some “higher power”, then it’s mindless and just another accident. If we’re captains of our own destiny, then we stand in the place of any gods, waiting to commit our own series of accidents.
Everyone except a real God has only an opinion, a belief, a hope, or a best guess. If there is a real God, as described in the Christian Bible, only He can persuade anyone that He is. Only the Father can draw anyone to Jesus, and salvation.
Evidentially you’ve chosen to be an Atheist. One can be an Atheist only if they have rejected any gods. One can reject any gods only if they first consider the possibility. Atheism fits well within the broad category of “religion”.
Only way one can be empirically logical about the possibility or impossibility of any gods is to be neutral, no opinion either way. “Proof” in either direction is an impossibility.
You have chosen to believe that gods are impossible, which requires an subjective belief. You have displayed a belief. You are a religious believer that there are no gods.
Sir, there is no point in us trying to convert one another. You are as steadfast in your beliefs as I am in mine. Years ago, my beliefs were nearly as strong as yours, but I have since chosen a path of free thinking instead of blind obedience to received dogma. After a devout youth and middle age, I’ve chosen to go the way of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris for a reason.
With regards to there being a God or any God, who can ever know for sure? No one, as you so rightly state above. It then follows that no one religion can have a lock on religious Truth, including Christianity.
Why did I throw my religion overboard? Actually it was gradual, but easy. To this day, I still very much enjoy the trappings of religions – the Great Music of the church, hymn singing, the rituals, and even the occasional salve for the soul offered in times of grief and distress. But the theology – forget it. I long ago decided that it was ridiculous, and there was no way I could support it any longer. Virgin birth? Highly improbable. Triune God? Why not a God of two parts, or ten parts? Salvation, Heaven, and Hell? Nothing more than conjured-up concepts created to keep people in the Church for ages. The Resurrection? Sorry, life doesn’t work in reverse. And all of the nonsensical constructions devised to cover up logical inconsistencies in theology – Purgatory, Limbo, Creation…etc. One need only read the story of how the Mormon religion was created behind closed curtains to understand that religious theology is fiction, created from thin air, imagination, and illogic.
Now please don’t get me wrong. There is also a lot to like about it. Religions often promote compassionate and loving behaviors between people, they fulfill societal needs, and they sometimes suppress the violent and aggressive nature of humans.
But they also have a strong tendency to drive people to extremes, and often in bad ways. Witness Islamic Jihad. Witness endless war in the Middle East. Witness hatred and separation between the Hindus and Muslims of India and Pakistan. Witness the bombings of Christian churches in Indonesia. Witness the Christian Crusades of the past. Witness the Commandment of “love they neighbor”, unless of course if he/she is gay, or of another faith, and therefore eternally damned.
In this day and age, when much of what used to be explained, however illogically, by religion, is now fully explained by science, the role of religion is rightfully diminishing. Secular humanity and science is a better way forward.
I don’t disrespect you for what you believe. But, I also think that you probably have Doubts, as I did, that you are reluctant or unable to confess out of fear of admission of self-delusion, or out of fear of peer pressure.
Read a few of the books that I mention, if you dare, and perhaps they will open your mind to a new way of thinking. Once you read them, they can never be unread.
Free yourself, and be liberated.
I’m in step with about every fault which you find with religion. You reiterate most of my points against religion.
The Bible as we have it today is full of errors, emendations, and general lies about God. However, I believe that it’s the way God allowed, so that we wouldn’t worship a book in place of God.
The two creation accounts in Genesis are shepherds oral accounts. They’re poems, ballads. They served to remind the people Whom created everything, and nothing more.
To read them as an accurate historical account is grave error, within the realm of pure superstition.
Intelligent creation, scientific creation, or any other effort to reconcile faith with science is a total waste of time.
It’s all about whether one is willing to have a relationship with a Creator whom can’t be controlled with some mumbo-jumbo.
Faith, intuitive reasoning, trust, hope; they stand in contrast with cold empirical logic.
I prefer to believe that there’s a creator whom cares if I live or die. Everything else is just a mindless accident.
You and I have chosen our inner preferences, our heart’s desire.
Murkowski spoke for herself. Not the state….She spoke beyond the framework of the two Bills the Senate passed to set the frame and procedures for the end of the impeachment hearings. Murkowski voted “yes” and then broke the ethical pattern while the process is still in the hands of the senate, McConnell and the Chief Justice. Murkowski’s bad manners and intent, as usual, and need to be above the president, the chief justice and McConnell is out of control. She is stupid and judgmental on someone she hates. Her thinking she has to show the state she can say “shame on you” to the president. It means that she thinks less of her self and of the state she is representing. She is behind in assertive management. Its not the leadership the state of Alaska needs or should tolerate. Therefore, the first chance you get to elect anew Senator with a vision of good imaging of him/he self or to put the state in a better and forward healthy image, then whatever you do, vote for that person. So, Kavanaugh is another issue of poor judgment and voting. She voted against and as the world works its way to a truth, the accuser’s attorney let go of Ford because she found she lied, or perjured herself under oath about Kavanaugh. The White House suggested he sue Ford but as yet it hasn’t happened. So, Murkowski is on a destructive path. She needs to be voted out and replace by someone with better thinking.
DK:. She inherited no brains from Daddy Frank, thus no thinking.
Murki is attempting to straddle the line and in so doing dignity a sham by failing to call it what it is… a political hack job with political corruption in your face by the left. Like Schiff, her aspersions have no basis in fact and she is yet again a talking head for the LEFT. She can’t comprehend, just like she couldn’t comprehend the Kavanugh Kangaroo hearing. She continues to be a part of the problem and she obviously is just not up to the job. Rino is a dirty word and Lisa has to go… let’s see 2002 right?
Gutless. If you think the president acted in a manner so despicable that it is impeachment worthy then vote that way. You know you didn’t because you were catching hell from constituents. Don’t lecture us on partisanship and hypocrisy. That crap started long before Trump. He is just the first one not to play by the swamp rules in a long time.
Best comment yet. Brian nailed it!
Alaska will be so “uplifted” when Lisa Murkowski gets beat in November 2022. The party will be huge.
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