Also, what's the point of keeping the trial short instead of doing it the Republican way (Bengazi style) when the Senate isn't going to convict anyway?
Benghazi wasn't a trial, it was a theoretically endless hearing. The Republicans control the Senate and thus control interpretation of the rules depending on how Roberts rules.
The main thing is that a number of Democrats who aren't Joe Biden don't want a trial going on while they're trying to gain position in a Presidential primary and campaign. Had Harris not dropped out you could have been pulling five of the top eight candidates off the trail in the months leading into Iowa, NH and Super Tuesday. Unless they're named to the prosecution they'd effectively disappear from public view as deliberation is done in private.
For the record, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House on December 19th. The Senate trial took from January 7th to February 12th. It was also on two counts.
I personally do not know why they think a trial in this case would take any longer especially like that POLITICO article talking about it going on for four plus months. If anything the Senate should immediately move to vote on the counts as Robert Byrd did in the Clinton impeachment, except this time there should arguably be enough of a vote to pass it rather than shoot it down as happened then.
So literally a slap on the hand for trump?
Politico article doesn't define censure, but it sounds like nothing that would affect trump, or he would be so mindblown he'd just sublimate into his hair.
Censure by Congress means they're really really really mad and don't you do it again or they might have to tell you how mad they are again.
Andrew Jackson and Alexander Hamilton were both censured by Congress. A lot of Presidents have had censure motions introduced against them, but most go nowhere.
