“If calling for Viktor Shokin to be fired is a sign of corruption, then someone really needs to ask @RonJohnsonWI and @senrobportman why they also called for his ouster.”
Josh Marshall: “I see we are on to the constitutionally prescribed portion of the trial in which the defense advances a series of conspiracy theories concocted by the Russian intelligence services.”
Trump tweeted: “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book….”
Jennifer Rodgers: “Publicly engaging on the content of these conversations waives any privilege claims to them.”
now that Trump defense team has used impeachment trial to tar the Bidens on Ukraine, remember career US diplomat George Kent’s sworn November testimony
any truth to idea that Biden acted to protect son’s business?
Statement at the link. I don’t know which member of Trump’s team is the worst. I think the Bolton bombshell has pushed them to go all out, and what a shameful display. It’s reminiscent of the McCarthy era – we’re seeing things happen on the Senate floor, and more broadly in our institutions, that have no business happening there. Makes me queasy.
The State Department Correspondents’ Association says the State Department has denied a National Public Radio reporter a seat aboard Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s plane for an upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia.
The decision came a few days after Pompeo lashed out at another NPR reporter.
The correspondents’ association said Monday the decision to remove NPR correspondent Michele Kelemen from Pompeo’s plane led it to conclude “the State Department is retaliating” against NPR. The group asked the State Department to reconsider and allow Kelemen to join Pompeo.
The State Department declined to comment on the correspondents’ association request.
…
In its statement Monday, the correspondents’ group said Kelemen “is a consummate professional who has covered the State Department for nearly two decades. We respectfully ask the State Department to reconsider and allow Michele to travel on the plane for this trip.”
“What’s especially ironic about this dumb @StateDept decision to remove @michelekelemen is that it was made on eve of @SecPompeo’s departure on trip that includes stops in Belarus, Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan–3 countries where there are freedom of media concerns. Nice message.”
(It would be ironic if Trump, Pompeo, and the gang shared those concerns, but they don’t. It’s authoritarian.)
“Unbelievable: Sens. @SenJohnBarrasso and @SenJoniErnst openly speculating/bragging that the current focus on Joe Biden from Trump’s team will hurt Biden’s campaign in Iowa. This is basically exactly what Trump wanted from Ukraine in the first place.”
Video at the link. This is what our country’s come to.
“EXCLUSIVE: Bolton privately told Barr last year that he had concerns Trump was effectively granting personal favors to the autocrats of Turkey and China. Barr said he was concerned Trump created appearance he had undue influence on inquiries…”
Harry Litman: “Dersh’s rule of lenity argument totally misplaced. The reasons for lenity have everything to do with the imbalance of the power of the state arrayed against the individual. Pres is not a crime D and it’s public, not Pres, whose interests must receive benefit of doubt.”
As Donald Trump’s defense team wrapped up for the night, the New York Times revealed more excerpts from John Bolton’s unpublished book.
The former national security advisor reportedly told Attorney General William Barr last year that he was concerned the president was granting personal favors to Turkey and China.
From the Times:
Mr. Barr responded by pointing to a pair of Justice Department investigations of companies in those countries and said he was worried that Mr. Trump had created the appearance that he had undue influence over what would typically be independent inquiries, according to the manuscript. Backing up his point, Mr. Barr mentioned conversations Mr. Trump had with the leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.
Mr. Bolton’s account underscores the fact that the unease about Mr. Trump’s seeming embrace of authoritarian leaders, long expressed by experts and his opponents, also existed among some of the senior cabinet officers entrusted by the president to carry out his foreign policy and national security agendas.
Mr. Bolton recounted his discussion with Mr. Barr in a draft of an unpublished book manuscript that he submitted nearly a month ago to the White House for review. People familiar with the manuscript described its contents on the condition of anonymity.
WASHINGTON — John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, privately told Attorney General William P. Barr last year that he had concerns that President Trump was effectively granting personal favors to the autocratic leaders of Turkey and China, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Barr responded by pointing to a pair of Justice Department investigations of companies in those countries and said he was worried that Mr. Trump had created the appearance that he had undue influence over what would typically be independent inquiries, according to the manuscript. Backing up his point, Mr. Barr mentioned conversations Mr. Trump had with the leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Xi Jinping of China.
Mr. Bolton’s account underscores the fact that the unease about Mr. Trump’s seeming embrace of authoritarian leaders, long expressed by experts and his opponents, also existed among some of the senior cabinet officers entrusted by the president to carry out his foreign policy and national security agendas.
Mr. Bolton recounted his discussion with Mr. Barr in a draft of an unpublished book manuscript that he submitted nearly a month ago to the White House for review. People familiar with the manuscript described its contents on the condition of anonymity.
The book also contains an account of Mr. Trump telling Mr. Bolton in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations of political rivals, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The matter is at the heart of the articles of impeachment against the president.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Barr’s conversations with Mr. Bolton, as did a spokesman for the National Security Council. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Bolton, his publisher and his literary agency said they had not shared the manuscript with The Times.
“There was absolutely no coordination with The New York Times or anyone else regarding the appearance of information about his book, ‘The Room Where It Happened,’ at online booksellers,” Mr. Bolton, Simon & Schuster and Javelin said in a joint statement. “Any assertion to the contrary is unfounded speculation.”
Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, responded that “The Times does not discuss its sources, but I should point out that no one has questioned the accuracy of our report.”
Mr. Bolton wrote in the manuscript that Mr. Barr singled out Mr. Trump’s conversations with Mr. Xi about the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE, which agreed in 2017 to plead guilty and pay heavy fines for violating American sanctions on doing business with North Korea, Iran and other countries. A year later, Mr. Trump lifted the sanctions over objections from his own advisers and Republican lawmakers.
Mr. Barr also cited remarks Mr. Trump made to Mr. Erdogan in 2018 about the investigation of Halkbank, Turkey’s second-largest state-owned bank. The Justice Department was scrutinizing Halkbank on fraud and money-laundering charges for helping Iran evade sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department.
Mr. Erdogan had been making personal appeals to Mr. Trump to use his authority to halt any additional enforcement against the bank. In 2018, Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Turkey that Mr. Trump had promised to instruct cabinet members to follow through on the matter. The bank had hired a top Republican fund-raiser to lobby the administration on the issue.
For months, it looked as though the unusual lobbying effort might succeed; but in October, the Justice Department indicted the bank for aiding Iran. The charges were seen in part as an attempt by the administration to show that it was taking a tough line on Turkey amid an outcry over Mr. Trump’s endorsement of its incursions in Syria.
Mr. Bolton’s statements in the book align with other comments he has made since leaving the White House in September. In November, he said in a private speech that none of Mr. Trump’s advisers shared the president’s views on Turkey and that he believed Mr. Trump adopted a more permissive approach to the country because of his financial ties there, NBC News reported. Mr. Trump’s company has a property in Turkey.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly praised dictators throughout his presidency. Last year, he said, “Where’s my favorite dictator?” as he waited to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Mr. Trump’s soft spot for authoritarians dates at least to his presidential campaign, when he praised Saddam Hussein for being “good” at killing terrorists and suggested that the world would be better off were Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the deposed Libyan dictator who was killed in a violent uprising in 2011, “in charge right now.” Mr. Trump then suggested the ouster of both men was ultimately worse for the Middle East because the Islamic State had filled the void.
Mr. Trump declared himself “a big fan” of Mr. Erdogan as they sat side by side in the Oval Office last fall after Mr. Trump cleared the way for Turkish forces to invade Syria, though he warned Mr. Erdogan behind the scenes against the offensive.
Of Mr. Xi, Mr. Trump has been similarly effusive. When the Chinese Communist Party eliminated term limits, allowing Mr. Xi to keep his tenure open-ended, Mr. Trump extolled the outcome.
Mr. Xi had personally asked Mr. Trump to intervene to save ZTE, which was on the brink of collapse because of tough American penalties for sanctions violations.
Lifting the sanctions on ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications giant that also serves as a geopolitical pawn for its government, most likely helped Mr. Trump negotiate with Mr. Xi in the trade war between the two countries. But Republican lawmakers and others objected to helping a Chinese company that broke the law and has been accused of posing a national security threat.
Mr. Bolton’s reputation for muscular foreign policy was always an odd fit with Mr. Trump, who often threatens excessive force but rarely reacts with it. Mr. Bolton was pleased when Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, including the United States, that the Obama administration had entered into. Other Trump advisers had urged him against it.
But Mr. Trump’s lack of action after Iranian aggression against the United States rankled Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Bolton’s book has already netted significant sales. Shortly after the disclosure of its contents on Sunday night, Amazon listed the book for purchase. By Monday evening, it was No. 17 on Amazon’s best-seller list.
Eric Lipton contributed reporting.
Before he even headed to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp liberated 75 years ago on an equally icy January 27, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin’s first task on landing in Warsaw was to make peace with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Duda was of one the few conspicuous absentees from the commemoration Rivlin hosted last week in Jerusalem, when Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, observed the event in the presence of some 50 world leaders, including Vice President Mike Pence and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In fact, Putin was the reason Duda stayed away.
The Russian president has advanced a revisionist account of World War II in which Moscow’s notorious non-aggression pact with the Nazi regime is erased, and Poland, which was invaded by both Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin in September 1939, is cast as the guilty party collaborating with the Nazis.
In 1941, when Hitler tore up the nonaggression pact and launched his invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin became an ally of the United States and Great Britain. But he had already murdered, in his own right, millions of his own subjects. In 1940 his troops massacred systematically some 22,000 of Poland’s military officers and members of the intelligentsia.
When Polish President Duda heard that Putin would give a keynote address in Jerusalem, he demanded equal time. But Yad Vashem, a public institution, refused, so Duda stayed conspicuously away.
But there is more to it than this dispute over Putin’s reimagined Russian history. Behind the controversy lies a web of rivalries and power struggles pitting independent nations once under Soviet dominion against Putin’s broader effort to recover what he sees as the glory—and at least some of the territory—of the Soviet empire.
In a parallel channel, the controversy is fed by a feud between two Jewish billionaires leveraging the Auschwitz commemorations to vie for international influence.
On one side, is former U.S. Ambassador Ronald Lauder, scion of the Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune and president of the World Jewish Congress, based in New York, who has long sponsored the annual memorial celebrations at the gates of Auschwitz in Poland.
On the other is the oligarch Viatcheslav “Moshe” Kantor, a Moscow-born fertilizer magnate who is close to Putin. Kantor heads the European Jewish Congress and its subsidiary, the World Holocaust Forum Foundation.
Rivlin is Israel’s titular head of state. When he dreamed of Israel hosting an event to mark the Nazi defeat, he did not imagine that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of government, would still be running for office more than a year after dissolving the parliament, or that Netanyahu would be managing a campaign while facing criminal indictments.
As the event approached, and Netanyahu encroached, hoping the moment would bolster his candidacy as “Israel’s face to the world,” Israel’s low-budget presidency found itself in want of a sponsor.
Enter Kantor, for whom the commemoration became a platform to prove his international usefulness to Putin.
“It wasn’t Yad Vashem’s event, nor Rivlin’s, nor even the ministry of foreign affairs’,” said Ofer Aderet, history correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz, who has followed Israel’s increasingly fraught relations with the eastern European nations in which much of the Holocaust took place. “It was a one man show run by Moshe Kantor, a guy whose name is not known to Israelis, who understood this to be an Israeli event, something official.”
…
Jonathan Cummings, Rivlin’s spokesman, said it was “accurate” to report that Kantor had, in effect, footed the entire bill—an undisclosed sum—for a three-day event Israel billed as one of the most important diplomatic showcases in its entire history.
The question of why Israel would outsource a major diplomatic achievement to a Russian oligarch remains officially unanswered. But it was vigorously debated in Israeli cafés in recent days, especially by Israelis of Russian origin, many of whom, having left post-Soviet Russia for Israel, are no great fans of Putin or of the loose cast of ultra-rich men who surround him.
…
In a message to followers, an exultant Netanyahu summed up the diplomatic whirlwind in Jerusalem as “the morning with Vladimir Putin, midday with world leaders at Yad Vashem, and the evening with Vice President of the United States.”
But the result was clear: “It was a huge victory for Putin,” Aderet said, a triumphant prance around the jewel of Jerusalem, in which he publicly cemented his role as the new face of power in the Middle East.
In a Jerusalem speech that left many stunned, and made no mention of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Putin said that worse than the Nazis, were their “accomplices… often crueler than their masters. Death factories and concentration camps were served not only by the Nazis, but also by their accomplices in many European countries.”
“He won,” Aderet said. “He succeeded in creating a situation in which he was transformed into the supreme hero, a revered king to whom everyone here pays obeisance, as if he himself opened the gates of Auschwitz.”
…
In an elegant gesture, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ceded his delegation’s seats at the Jerusalem event to Holocaust survivors, few of whom secured invitations. Space was so tight at Yad Vashem, and so many personalities had to be accommodated, that only 30 out of the 780 seats at the ceremony were reserved for those who had endured the horrors of the death camps.
“Israel comes off as a miserable failure,” Aderet lamented, “prepared to bend history for any immediate domestic interest.”
He noted that in recent years, Poland’s right-wing populist government has indulged in its own revisionism, even passing a law criminalizing any comment implying Polish collaboration with the Nazi final solution, such as the term “Polish death camp” instead of a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland.
Putin’s tactic is to suggest that he and those he supports, especially separatists in Ukraine, are still fighting the old fight against modern fascists and Nazis. And on Monday, Putin boycotted the ceremony at Auschwitz, where Lauder and Duda are the hosts.
…
On Monday, Netanyahu was in Washington, D.C., with his great political ally President Donald Trump, who has promised to settle the long, painful Israeli-Palestinian dispute by unveiling “the deal of the century,” which most analysts believe will die aborning.
At the very moment that Netanyahu tweeted on Monday that he was “At the White House. Making History. Keeping Israel safe,” Rivlin made his way along rows of about 200 Holocaust survivors who attended the commemoration at Auschwitz, slowly shaking hands, exchanging words with each of them, and finally marching with other world leaders on the dark path the Nazis forced on the Jews.
The Kushner “peace plan” is too stupid to remark upon.
Donald Trump still thinks the Chinese government showed “strength” when they killed more than 200 people to crush pro-democracy student protests in 1989 — but he’s not saying he agrees with what the regime did.
“That doesn’t mean I was endorsing that,” Trump said. “I said that was a strong, powerful government. They kept down the riot, it was a horrible thing.”
Trump told Playboy in a 1990 interview: “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”
Asked about comments that seeming supported authoritarian leaders, Trump also discussed past statements praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I think Putin’s been a very strong leader for Russia, he’s been a lot stronger than our leader, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “That doesn’t mean I’m endorsing Putin.”…
Doug Collins, the Republican representative from Georgia you may remember as a leading defender of Donald Trump during the president’s impeachment, is expected to announce a run for Senate, according to multiple reports.
Collins would face off against GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler, complicating the Republican party’s efforts to hold onto the seat in what has become a battleground state.
Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) is planning to announce a run for the Senate, according to multiple sources, challenging appointed GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler and complicating Republicans’ path to holding onto a battleground Senate seat this year.
Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate after Senator Johnny Isakson stepped down due to health concerns. Though Trump advocated for Collins as Isakson’s replacement, Kemp chose Loeffler, a finance executive, and major Republican donor who some strategists believed would be competitive in suburban areas where support for the GOP has waned.
Loeffler recently came under fire by conservative groups for sitting on the board of a hospital that performed abortions. She was in the news earlier today after she called out Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah, for his openness to call witnesses to testify in the Senate trial.
@ewarren says Alan Dershowitz’ arguments tonight were “contrary to both law and fact.”
“His characterization of the law simply is unsupported. He is a criminal law professor who stood in the well of the Senate and talked about how law never inquires into intent…”
“…and that we should not be using the president’s intent as part of understanding impeachment. Criminal law is all about intent. Mens rea is the heart of criminal law. That’s the very basis of it. So it makes his whole presentation just nonsensical. I truly could not follow it.”
A renewed drive by President Bashar al-Assad to recapture rebel-held territory in Syria’s northwest sparked a fresh exodus of many thousands of civilians toward Turkey’s border on Monday amid heavy air strikes, aid workers and witnesses said.
Syrian government forces backed by Russian air power have stepped up a campaign to recapture Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold where millions took refuge after fleeing other parts of Syria earlier in its nearly nine-year civil war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said Assad’s forces had since Friday wrestled control of 22 towns and had cut through a strategic highway in Idlib that links the capital Damascus to Aleppo in northern Syria.
It said the Syrian army had encircled and was close to capturing Maarat al-Numan, an urban center 33 km (20 miles) south of Idlib city. This would mark a significant advance for Assad’s drive to take back all of Syria.
…
Moscow and Damascus say they are fighting jihadist militants that have stepped up attacks on civilians in Aleppo, but rights groups and rescue workers say air strikes have demolished hospitals, schools and other civilian areas.
The renewed fighting comes despite a Jan. 12 ceasefire deal between Turkey and Russia, which back opposing sides of the conflict….
In all seriousness, one of Schiff’s best and most pointed lines was when he argued that the Senators all knew that any one of them could be the next target for Trump’s political attacks and abuses. It was a few days ago and Trump and his sycophants and enablers have done their best to prove Schiff’s point.
For some reason today I’m thinking of when Dershowitz lied about Robert Mueller’s actions in relation to Whitey Bulger, and he was informed of the truth and acknowledged the truth and said he would stop telling the lie and then continued to tell the lie, and then the judge in the case published an oped in the NYT explaining in full detail that what Dershowitz was saying was false, and then he continued to tell the lie, and Richard Painter called him out on TV and said he was lying and Mueller was a “good American,” and instead of correcting his lies and apologizing Dershowitz responded “he may be but you’re not.”
I remember, in the second phase of the Kavanaugh nomination fight, the zeal that developed among Democrats for calling additional witnesses or having an FBI investigation. The idea was some new information would shake loose in such a process and potentially move more votes.
It felt like real progress when Jeff Flake bucked the Judiciary Cmte majority and insisted on an FBI investigation. But Flake didn’t close the deal. The new FBI process McConnell offered and Flake acquiesced to was so tightly constrained it couldn’t find sand on Bethany Beach.
It’s a lesson worth remembering in Democrats’ current process struggle, I think. They don’t just need 3-4 Republican defectors, they need those defectors to be committed to making it count.
Any coalition demanding witnesses and evidence will almost surely have fight for the new process to be broad, real, and open enough to have a chance to work. Based on the Kavanaugh experience, it’s unlikely that will be McConnell’s first offer.
I also remember thinking that the Kavanaugh story would come out one way or another pretty soon—that someone would get Mark Judge on the record, his finances would leak, or the FOIA suits would open up revealing docs. It’s sobering how many of those secrets are still being kept.
“Funny Pam Bondi not mentioning she was making twice as much per month as Hunter from Qatar for no apparent reason. ‘Bondi registered in July under FARA — Foreign Agents Registration Act — as a part-time, $115,000-per-month lobbyist for Qatar’.”
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has withdrawn his request for immunity from prosecution hours before parliamentary proceedings on the subject were set to begin.
Netanyahu, who was visiting Washington before the launch of Donald Trump’s long-anticipated peace plan on Tuesday, said he decided “not to let this dirty game continue” in a statement issued on his official Facebook page.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, was set to convene to discuss the formation of a committee to debate the prime minister’s immunity request. It is still expected to meet even after the withdrawal.
The Knesset had been widely expected to reject Netanyahu’s immunity request, which would have dealt a blow to the prime minister before the 2 March parliamentary elections – the third in less than a year. Netanyahu’s Likud party was planning to boycott Tuesday’s Knesset session.
Netanyahu’s retraction paves the way for legal proceedings against him to go forward. He was indicted on counts of fraud, breach of trust and bribery in November in three separate cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.
…
Netanyahu’s chief political opponent, Benny Gantz, who leads the Blue and White party, said in a statement that Netanyahu “is going to trial – we must go forward”.
Nobody could run a country and simultaneously manage three serious criminal charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Gantz added.
…
Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint List of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament, said “the path to trial is paved and no diplomatic public relations stunt in the world” would prevent Netanyahu from being brought to justice.
Netanyahu and Trump were scheduled to meet later on Tuesday at the White House for the peace plan’s announcement.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been formally indicted on charge of bribery and fraud and breach of trust in three separate corruption cases, @OrenCNN reports.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s efforts to distance himself from the controversy surrounding Ukraine and its role in President Donald Trump’s historic impeachment trial collapsed this weekend, days before he leaves for an awkward visit to Kiev after questioning whether Americans “care” about the country.
Pompeo has had to grapple with damaging Ukraine-related headlines that raise questions about his temperament and flatly contradict his public claims about administration policy toward the country. Conservative allies have called him a “baby,” senior diplomats have publicly chastised him and State Department staff — pointing to the secretary’s emphasis on respect and professionalism — privately say they’re “incensed” about what they see as his hypocrisy and embarrassed by his leadership.
They’re so accustomed to his angry eruptions that some have nicknamed him “Mount Mike.”
Pompeo is set to land in Kiev Thursday as the administration’s Ukraine policy — specifically Trump’s push to exchange military aid and a White House visit for investigations into his political rivals — occupies center stage in Washington, where the Senate impeachment trial continues.
Pompeo’s profanity laced explosion at an NPR reporter who asked about Ukraine set off shockwaves that continue to ripple and are likely to overshadow his visit to Ukraine, which was rescheduled from early January because of the situation in Iraq. He is also scheduled to travel to the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
…
…The gap between Pompeo’s words and actions and his behavior with NPR in general left many at State unsurprised, said one staffer who added that many see the secretary as hypocritical.
This person and others pointed to Pompeo’s move to unveil an “ethos” statement in April, hanging huge banners inside the department that declare, among other things, that staffers will “serve with unfailing professionalism, in both my demeanor and my actions, even in the face of adversity,” act with “uncompromising personal and professional integrity,” and take “ownership of and responsibility for my actions and decisions.”…
johnson catmansays
re SC @31:
He is also scheduled to travel to the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
I wonder if Pompouseo could point to all of them on an unmarked map.
“The @WSJ editorial page is says there’s no need for Bolton to testify because everyone already knows that aid to Ukraine was conditioned on a Biden investigation.
But the President and his lawyers are literally arguing the precise opposite to the Senate.”
Really pathetic how @FoxNews is trying to be so politically correct by loading the airwaves with Democrats like Chris Van Hollen, the no name Senator from Maryland. He has been on forever playing up the Impeachment Hoax. Dems wouldn’t even give Fox their low ratings debates….
…..So, what the hell has happened to @FoxNews. Only I know! Chris Wallace and others should be on Fake News CNN or MSDNC. How’s Shep Smith doing? Watch, this will be the beginning of the end for Fox, just like the other two which are dying in the ratings. Social Media is great!
Comments include:
“We need Trump News Network!”
“Impeach Fox News!”
“FOX IS THE NEW CNN!”
“A flush RNC is paying Trump’s private lawyers defending him at impeachment trial — unlike Bill Clinton, who left the White House with millions of dollars in legal bills and ‘dead broke’.”
When Volodymyr Zelensky won Ukraine’s presidential election in April 2019, President Donald Trump was one of the first world leaders to call to congratulate him. For officials inside Ukraine and out, Zelensky represented a chance for the country to rebuild its anti-corruption institutions and a chance for Kyiv to develop better, stronger relationships with Western countries, including the United States.
But in the weeks and months that followed, efforts to construct a partnership between the Zelensky and Trump administrations, one focused on fighting corruption, crumbled. It crumbled in part because the Zelensky team was pulled into an American domestic political fight spurred by Trump’s push to have Ukraine investigate his rival Joe Biden, Biden’s son Hunter, and supposed interference in the 2016 election. That’s according to Oleksandr Danylyuk, the former chairman of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, who said the requests “rattled” Zelensky’s team.
Danylyuk spoke to The Daily Beast last week in his first on-the-record conversation since impeachment proceedings began in Washington, saying he resigned from his post in Kyiv in September in part “because of the situation with the U.S.”…
Over the course of two hours, Danylyuk laid out his reasons for joining the Zelensky team and why he decided to leave the administration. The former official said his hope was that he would get to “change lives” as a part of the Zelensky government, helping develop Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions and promoting the country as an international powerhouse worthy of respect. Danylyuk, a self-described technocrat, said the U.S.-Ukraine shakeup “set an uncomfortable background” but that the two countries can still forge ahead with a new, better roadmap.
“There is no other way besides just continuing on,” Danyluk said. “Because what else is there? What else? Emotions? There’s no place for emotions.”
Looking back almost four months after his resignation, Danylyuk says there’s one person in the Trump administration he trusted to help secure a new pathway forward for the U.S. and Ukraine: former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton. Bolton departed the Trump administration in September, just two weeks before Danylyuk left his post.
“I would say it was definitely John who I trusted,” Danylyuk said. “I think John, because we worked together on trying to set up an official framework for a U.S.-Ukraine relationship.”
…
Danylyuk said he and Bolton arranged a meeting to discuss a roadmap for U.S.-Ukraine cooperation on July 10, 2019. Several former U.S. officials have testified in front of House impeachment investigators that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland first broached the topic of Trump’s demands for investigations. Fiona Hill, the administration’s former top Russia adviser, said during her testimony that Danylyuk appeared “alarmed” during Sondland’s interjections about the investigations. “He didn’t look like he knew what was going on.”
“When I designed it, and drafted it, I discussed it with Zelensky,” Danylyuk said of his roadmap for the U.S. and Ukraine to cooperate on a range of issues. “We went through it very thoroughly. He said, ‘Yeah, I fully support this… it should be the basis of the relationship.’” Danylyuk wouldn’t discuss the military component of the plan but said the plan was “very broad” and included proposals for the U.S. to export American natural gas to Ukraine.
“This roadmap… it covered several areas. But at its core it is about national security,” Danylyuk said. “So if anywhere you can talk about this holistically—it’s with the U.S. National Security Council and Bolton. And he was the person to… discuss the vision.”
…
“This roadmap should have been the substance but… [the investigations] were raised,” Danylyuk said.
Danylyuk said he maintained contact with Bolton and his aides at the National Security Council in Washington in the following weeks in an attempt to get a meeting between Zelensky and Trump on the books.
But Team Zelensky grew more and more concerned as the days rolled on, Danylyuk said. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani had for weeks appeared on television shows, saying Ukraine should open an investigation into the Bidens and claiming it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election, not Russia. (The claim is a widely debunked conspiracy theory that national-security officials say has been propagated by Russian intelligence services.)
“At that time it was clear to me that we should not be dropped into into this battle at all,” Danylyuk said. “If we were dragged into this internal process… that would be really bad for the country. And also, if there’s something that violates U.S. law, that’s up to the U.S. to handle.”
On July 21, Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor sent a text message to Sondland, pointing to a conversation he had with Danylyuk about the U.S. taking Ukraine seriously.
“Gordon, one thing Kurt and I talked about yesterday was Sasha Danyliuk’s point that President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics,” Taylor wrote to Sondland.
…
Then came the now-infamous July 25 call between Zelensky and Trump, the one in which Trump asked for a “favor” and suggesting Ukraine investigate whether individuals in the country interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Things grew “worse” after that, Danylyuk said.
“One thing I can tell you that was clear from this call is that that issue [of the investigations] is an issue of concern for Trump. It was clear,” Danylyuk said.
And then in August, Danylyuk said, he thought that partnership with the U.S. and the roadmap he had designed with Bolton was doomed.
Danylyuk said he first found out that the U.S. was withholding aid to Ukraine by reading Politico’s article published Aug. 28. U.S. officials and Ukrainian diplomats, including the country’s former Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal, have said publicly that Kyiv was aware there were problems with the U.S. aid as early as July.
“I was really surprised and shocked. Because just a couple of days prior to that… I actually had a meeting with John Bolton. Actually, I had several meetings with him. And we had extensive discussions. The last thing I had expected to read was an article about military aid being frozen,” Danylyuk said. “After that… I was trying to get the truth. Was it true or not true?”
Danylyuk said that “it was a panic” inside the Zelensky administration after the initial news broke, saying Zelensky was convinced there had been some sort of mistake. Danylyuk put in calls to the National Security Council and asked other officials in Washington what to make of the news.
…
Danylyuk left the Zelensky administration in September, citing multiple “triggers” that pushed him to quit, including the ongoing struggles with the Trump administration.
“I was committed to develop a constructive agenda,” Danylyuk said. “It was a big investment. I invested my reputation, I invested my time. When the situation changed [with the U.S.], I didn’t like it.”
On Monday, the Republicans put on a full-throated defense of President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial in front of the United States Senate. It was a disjointed presentation. Unlike the case offered against Donald Trump by the seven Democratic House managers, the Republicans adopted no coherent narrative to explain why Trump did the things he’s admitted to doing, and couldn’t even stay on the same page in terms of whether he did them at all.
Each Republican lawyer rose to offer what seemed like their own independent theory for why Donald Trump must not be impeached. It’s worth outlining their core claims, just so all of their random and terrible legal arguments aren’t lost in the cacophony of this sad day in American discourse.
Ken Starr argued that impeachment is no longer a constitutional provision that should be applied to a president. Michael Purpura argued that nobody ever heard Trump order a quid pro quo. Jane Raskin argued that Rudy Giuliani was a distraction, but also a great guy who did nothing wrong. Patrick Philbin argued that presidents never have to comply with congressional subpoenas they don’t like. Pam Bondi argued that corruption is rampant in Ukraine because of Joe and Hunter Biden. Eric Herschman argued that… well, he held a MAGA rally from the well of the Senate and argued that President Barack Obama should be impeached. Robert Ray argued that presidents cannot be prosecuted. And finally, Alan Dershowtiz argued that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense, while self-owning the fact that essentially no credible legal scholars agree with him.
One would be forgiven for thinking all the legal gibberish was merely designed to distract and confuse those who tuned into the trial.
In fact, there was only one audience for all of this: Donald Trump. The lawyers were not trying to convince a jury of senators, or even the American people. The Republican defense team is confident that senators are too afraid of Trump to cross him, and perhaps even more confident that his base of support will never abandon him. Their arguments sounded like they were cribbed from Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, because they largely were.
What made the day shocking, though, even to those who expected nothing less than this level of slavish devotion to Trump’s cause, was the sheer hypocrisy on the part of Trump’s lawyers. They put on defenses drenched in bad faith, ones that were internally illogical or self-contradictory to their own well-known positions. It required a level of indecency rarely seen and widely shunned even among other lawyers.
There are lawyers who make bad arguments for guilty clients who can nonetheless walk out of the courtroom with their heads held high for their contributions to justice. Not in this case. Here, everybody on Trump’s defense team should be ashamed of what they’ve done. The fact that they’re self-congratulatory makes their mendacity all the more disgusting….
“Wow. In a video posted to Facebook on Monday, Eddie Gallagher referred to some members of his former platoon as ‘cowards’ and highlighted names, photos and their duty status and current units, potentially putting them in jeopardy.”
President Donald Trump is denying that he told former National Security Adviser John Bolton he wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until the country launched investigations into Joe Biden and his son, allegations that Bolton levies in his new book, according to news reports.
But one of Trump’s former top aides told a Sarasota crowd Monday evening that if the reporting on what Bolton wrote is accurate, he believes Bolton.
“If John Bolton says that in the book I believe John Bolton,” said retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months.
…
Asked about the passages in Bolton’s book — which has yet to be released — that appear to reinforce the impeachment allegations, Kelly said Monday evening that “John’s an honest guy. He’s a man of integrity and great character, so we’ll see what happens.”
There are growing calls for Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, something GOP leaders have resisted. Kelly said he supports calling witnesses during the trial.
“I mean half of Americans think this process is purely political and shouldn’t be happening but since it is happening the majority of Americans would like to hear the whole story,” Kelly said.
“So I think if there are people that could contribute to this, either innocence or guilt … I think they should be heard,” Kelly said, adding: “I think some of the conversations seem to me to be very inappropriate but I wasn’t there. But there are people that were there that ought to be heard from.”
WASHINGTON — If a voter accidentally casts a ballot in the wrong precinct, should it be counted? Should early voters be able to give their sealed ballots to someone else to drop in the mail or deliver to a polling place?
In Arizona, the answer to both questions has been a resounding “no” — until this week.
On Monday, a federal appeals court ruled that those restrictions, in a state with some of the nation’s more stringent voting rules, should no longer stand. The result? In Arizona, which is seen as a battleground in the presidential race this fall, many voters will find their ballots considerably easier to cast and less likely to be excluded from election-night tallies.
In the past, Arizona voters who cast ballots in the wrong precinct had their votes thrown out. And since 2016, the state has outlawed a popular voting aid — letting campaign workers and other outsiders collect voters’ early ballots for delivery to polling places.
Democrats and voting rights advocates had argued that the rules made voting too hard, especially for minorities. But the Republican-controlled State Legislature, which had put the strict rules in place, said they kept elections free of fraud.
Arizona’s attorney general, Mark Brnovich, a Republican, says the state will appeal this week’s decision to the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the 7-to-4 finding from a full panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
But any appeal would almost certainly be delayed until the court’s next term, keeping ballot collection and out-of-precinct voting legal during this spring’s primaries and the closely-watched November general election.
The judges said both laws violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act because they had a lopsided impact on Latino, Native American and African-American voters, which the act was designed to shield from discrimination. In 2016, for example, those groups were roughly twice as likely to cast out-of-precinct ballots as were white voters.
[…]
Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature said the ban was needed to control fraud. But the court said “there is no evidence of any fraud in the long history of third-party ballot collection in Arizona.”
[…]
The out-of-precinct ballots may seem small, but elections are becoming increasingly close in Arizona, where booming population growth and changing demographics have eroded Republicans’ onetime dominance of statewide races.
The notion that Senate Republicans were “blindsided” by Bolton’s revelations is a sick joke. They always knew what Bolton would tell us — which is *exactly why* they have opposed hearing his testimony so aggressively.
Ken Starr argued that impeachment is no longer a constitutional provision that should be applied to a president. Michael Purpura argued that nobody ever heard Trump order a quid pro quo. Jane Raskin argued that Rudy Giuliani was a distraction, but also a great guy who did nothing wrong. Patrick Philbin argued that presidents never have to comply with congressional subpoenas they don’t like. Pam Bondi argued that corruption is rampant in Ukraine because of Joe and Hunter Biden. Eric Herschman argued that… well, he held a MAGA rally from the well of the Senate and argued that President Barack Obama should be impeached. Robert Ray argued that presidents cannot be prosecuted. And finally, Alan Dershowtiz argued that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense, while self-owning the fact that essentially no credible legal scholars agree with him.
MSNBC hosts have commented that Trump’s lawyers presented their case for impeaching Hunter Biden yesterday.
A far more representative attitude in the Republican caucus was expressed by Roy Blunt, of Missouri, who said on Monday, “Unless there’s a witness that’s going to change the outcome, I can’t imagine why we’d want to stretch this out for weeks and months.”
With this tautology Senator Blunt gives away the game: All witness testimony to date — all presented as part of the House impeachment proceedings — has only strengthened the case against Mr. Trump, but Republicans will not vote to convict him under any circumstances. By definition, then, no witness in the Senate could possibly change the outcome.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] As the Missouri senator apparently sees it, GOP senators aren’t taking their oaths or responsibilities too seriously; they’re simply going through the motions and pretending to care about the impeachment proceedings. By Blunt’s telling, presenting his Republican colleagues with evidence is pointless because they won’t consider it, regardless of merit.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but John Bolton’s testimony should “change the outcome,” and in fact would “change the outcome” if Senate Republicans were approaching their duties with a degree of maturity and independence. If a far-right Republican official gives sworn testimony that proves the president’s guilt, it stands to reason that GOP senators would have the wherewithal to take that seriously.
But for Roy Blunt, therein lies the point: he’s confident that his Republican brethren don’t and won’t care. It’s a posture predicated on the idea that GOP “jurors” will vote to acquit without regard for facts or propriety.
It’s one thing for Democrats to denounce Republican indifference to the evidence; it’s something else for a member of the GOP leadership to effectively say Democratic assumptions are correct.
Some Republicans have decided to question John Bolton’s status as a firsthand witness.
[…] CNN’s Haley Byrd caught up with the Missouri Republican [Senator Josh Hawley] yesterday and asked why the Senate wouldn’t want to hear from a firsthand witness. “Well, I don’t know,” Hawley said. “Is he a firsthand witness? I’m not sure.”
Commentary:
[…] Bolton was Trump’s White House national security advisor. He appears to have written a book in which he describes conversations he had with the president, including discussions about Trump’s Ukraine scheme.
I don’t mean to sound picky, but according to Merriam-Webster, “firsthand” means “obtained by, coming from, or being direct personal observation or experience.”
I can appreciate why congressional Republicans see Bolton’s testimony as a threat to Trump’s presidency, but can we agree that the former White House aide meets the definition of a firsthand witness?
As The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein joked, “What would be firsthand? An informant inside Trump’s subconscious?”
Ivanka Trump has waded into a row over a CNN segment in which host Don Lemon laughed as two guests ridiculed supporters of her father.
The president’s daughter said: “The arrogance, mocking accents and smug ridicule of this nation’s ‘real elites’ is disgusting.”
Amid backlash to the CNN clip and Ivanka’s Tuesday morning tweet, one of the CNN guests, Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant turned Trump critic and author, responded with characteristic force.
Wilson said in a message to the Guardian: “Her hypocrisy is breathtaking. She went to Chapin and never worked for anyone not called Daddy.”
Chapin is an exclusive all-girls school in Manhattan, which the first daughter attended before boarding at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. She joined the Trump Organization from college, appeared with her billionaire [sic] father on TV in The Apprentice and is now a senior White House adviser….
She was seated in the front row and grinning as Trump made the remarks to Pompeo @ #45, of course, because she’s a complicit clown. As the CNN clip indicates, Wilson was in Tallahassee, which he lives near. It’s…not Palm Beach.
More Republican excuses for not calling John Bolton as a witness:
[…] “The President has already acknowledged that what Bolton is contending…is not the case,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said a press conference. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) told reporters that there “are no witnesses who can provide anymore clarity…than the President of United States.” Meadows also cited public claims by Vice President Mike Pence and Ukrainian officials denying a quid pro quo. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), one of Trump’s most ardent supporters and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that President Trump “has said that he did not tie” the release of aid to investigations. […]
Ah, the “Trump said it, so it must be true” defense.
Another excuse is that Bolton’s testimony would amount to being mean and cruel to Trump. From Senator Kelly Loeffler:
After 2 weeks, it’s clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment. Sadly, my colleague @SenatorRomney wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame.
Ah, the “we must exclude all negative testimony because that would “slander” Trump” defense.
Sekulow is now talking about how Ukrainian officials have “repeatedly claimed there was no pressure,” within hours of the publication of the interview @ #36 above.
“Pretty big news: DOJ announced this morning that the chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department was arrested in connection with aiding China. Another Chinese national was arrested & charged w/attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China.”
White House lawyers, including Patrick Philbin and Jay Sekulow, are all in on Alan Dershowitz’s argument that the articles as written are not enough to remove Trump.
A quid pro quo on foreign aid to investigate a political rival is not impeachable, they say.
Consider the ramifications of this argument:
A U.S. president can pressure a foreign power to investigate a political rival, or anyone else, with the threat of withholding foreign aid, with impunity–and even if the scheme is unmasked and proven, cannot be removed from office.
To be clear, the White House lawyers still deny that happened, but they argue that denial is immaterial.
Their legal theory is that Trump can’t be removed from office even if they admitted it.
They can also spend months lying to the public about it and engage multiple government agencies in covering it up.
“Per @NBCNews Jordan rejects any plan that leaves the Palestinians out and expands Israel’s borders without negotiating.
A serious blow to the plan, coming from Israel’s next door Arab neighbor.”
(The Palestinians’ rejection would also seem to be a blow.)
Sen. Warner: “I’m having a hard time taking this Danger Will Robinson defense seriously. Heaven help us if we buy the notion that putting Mr. Bolton and other witnesses under oath and finding out the truth is somehow a danger to the Republic.”
a_ray_in_dilbert_spacesays
Charlie Pierce: “Lisa Page! Peter Strzok!!!!! It’s the encore!”
SC @63, I laughed out loud every time Jay Sekulow shouted “Danger!” during his presentation to Senators today. I don’t know how anyone could keep a straight face. Surely this is prime source material for an SNL sketch.
Indiana’s Senator Mike Braun says on CNN “almost every Republican” will vote not to hear from witnesses because they’ve now heard from “someone of the stature of a Dershowitz” that it isn’t necessary.
Alan Dershowitz is a disgraced figure in the legal community, and has been since long before Donald Trump came down the escalator. He was never a constitutional scholar and for decades has occupied the role of an outrageous, trolly contrarian.
The impression that he’s a distinguished authority on constitutional matters is principally Harvard University’s fault. Like John Yoo at Berkeley, he has occupied a protected role there that serves the purposes of the university even though his scholarly work is widely rejected.
Donald Trump’s legal strategy of throw it all up against the wall and see what sticks has hit a bit of a snag. Turns out, people actually notice when you take one position with the courts and a totally opposite one in nationally televised impeachment hearings. Go know!
To wit, Trump’s crack legal team has asserted for months that the court has no right to intercede in a dispute between the House and the president. But now they’re arguing that the House impeachment efforts is UNLEGAL and no further witnesses can be called because mean Adam Schiff with his treason paraphrases failed to sue to enforce subpoenas on witnesses the White House barred from testifying.
And that goes double for anyone who might have a book coming out that contains a firsthand account of Trump withholding aid to Ukraine until their government agreed to announce a bullshit investigation of Joe Biden and his son!
When John Bolton’s assistant Charles Kupperman sued to get a judicial determination of whether he was obliged to answer the House’s impeachment subpoena, the White House intervened to argue that “this Court lacks jurisdiction to issue declaratory relief against the President.” That case has been dismissed, but the House suit to compel Don McGahn to testify in response to a House subpoena is still ongoing.
In the McGahn case, the White House has consistently maintained that the House Judiciary Committee lacks standing to sue to enforce its own subpoenas against the executive branch. Back in November, US District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed, calling that argument horseshit, roughly speaking, and ordered Don McGahn to comply with a subpoena and testify.
The Justice Department immediately appealed, with DOJ Attorney Hashim Mooppan arguing on January 3 that, if judges step in to “resolv[e] a purely political dispute, a dispute between the political branches, it risks politicizing the court and undermining public confidence in the court.”
Which is exactly the opposite of what Donald Trump’s legal team has argued this week in the Senate, where Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow bellowed sanctimoniously that, “The President’s opponents in their rush to impeach refuse to wait for complete judicial review. That was their choice.”
Yes, why didn’t House Democrats, who have been litigating the McGahn case since the spring and probably won’t see it resolved for another year at least, allow the impeachment to get bogged down in years of litigation to secure the appearance of witnesses in the face of persistent stonewalling by the Trump administration? It’s a mystery! […]
Senators’ questions will be submitted in writing and read by the chief justice.
Roberts cites a comment Rehnquist made during the 1999 trial, saying answers should be limited to 5 minutes. Says he thinks that’s a good time limit, asks both sides to abide by it.”
The Senate Republicans are meeting right now in the Strom Thurmond Room, which is perfect.
Claire McCaskill just made a very good point: Everyone is falling into the trap of talking about a “deal” or “trade” of Hunter Biden for John Bolton or whatever. But Republicans don’t need to make any deals. They have the votes to call whatever witnesses they want. If they want to subpoena Hunter Biden, they can do that. So it’s just a sham for them to claim that they won’t call Bolton if the Democrats don’t agree to Biden. They don’t need that agreement at all. They control which witnesses they call, and then face the consequences themselves.
After Republicans got wiped out by Democrats in Virginia, Jerry Falwell calls on conservative Virginia counties to … leave the state and join West Virginia. He made his announcement alongside Jim Justice, WV’s Republican governor. Both men constantly praised Trump at the event.
Falwell goes on to say that people in Washington DC are voting in Virginia and taking away the will of people who live in VA. But the people who voted in Virginia -overwhelmingly for Democrats – live in Virginia. It’s their government.
Alongside Falwell, WV governor Jim Justice says his state would accept seceding counties from Virginia “with open arms,” and of the effort he says, “you’re never going to get there unless there’s an effort to try.”
I think Harvard should censure him for giving the misleading impression that he’s a constitutional scholar and allowing the others on Trump’s legal team to refer to him as such during the Senate trial when he factually is not. If someone were to be testifying in a regular trial as an expert witness, which is what Dershowitz has portrayed himself as, they would have to submit their CV demonstrating that they are really an expert in the specific field at hand, for obvious reasons. This would be all the more important to know if their claims were contrary to the large consensus of recognized experts. Because this wasn’t required here, he and the rest of the team have been able to pass him off as something he’s not, and Republican Senators have either bought it or gone along with the misrepresentation for their own purposes. But Harvard shouldn’t allow people representing the institution to do this.
Trump’s “peace plan” is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn’t diplomacy, it’s a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form—and reverse any policy that supports it.
The United States can bring unequaled leadership to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we must use that leadership to promote a just and durable agreement. Any acceptable peace deal must be consistent with international law and multiple UN resolutions.
It must end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent state of their own alongside a secure Israel. Trump’s so-called ‘peace deal’ doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict. It is unacceptable.
“Kushner tells @camanpour that if the Palestinians get on board with plan, they’ll be treated respectfully. ‘If they don’t, they’re going to screw up another opportunity, like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence’.”
“Senate Democratic Leadership swiftly and resoundingly rejects Trump’s ‘one-sided’ Israel/Palestine Plan which they say would ‘disregard international law…and undermine existing U.S. policy regarding…unilateral annexation’, incl. prez contenders Klobuchar, Sanders + @ewarren…”
I have to confess here to having read Ayn Rand in order to point out that this echoes one of the few things in her fiction that I found convincing: When a crooked, rabble-rousing publisher decides to go straight and use his immensely influential newspaper to do what the author considers a good thing, his public immediately disowns him and turns against him.
Fox News is getting the treatment now, for the sin of having one or two Democrats come on and say things that aren’t in The Script.
Nailed it, Rand. We’ll politely overlook all the times you were wrong and just honor this one.
F.O.says
I have been following the Sanders/Rogan thing from the margins, but I found this comment interesting:
No one is talking about how Joe Rogan has forced the mask of the democratic party off. For years the democrats have been telling marginalized groups and the left that they HAD to compromise with republicans to “get shit done” by throwing us under the bus.
F.O. @ #84, as your opening sentence reflects, this is the “Sanders/Rogan thing.” The Sanders campaign touted an endorsement from Rogan, which in my view was wrong and hypocritical. Rather than acknowledging the error, many of his supporters have twisted themselves into knots claiming that while this is exactly what it appears on the surface, at some invisible political level it has a completely different meaning and effect because Bernie. That tweet takes it to new heights: now Sanders’ promotion of a Rogan endorsement becomes Rogan somehow revealing something about the Democratic Party or (presumably non-Sanders supporting) Democrats. The claim that Sanders’ actions with regard to Rogan “forced the mask…off” the Democratic Party is illogical.
I wish more Sanders fans would step back and recognize that he doesn’t stand outside or beyond the political fray. I don’t mean that as an insult. He’s a human being, he’s a lifelong politician, and he’s right in the mix with everyone else. Some of the people on his campaign, truth be told, are among the nastiest political operatives around, to say nothing of many of his online supporters. It would really be better for all involved if everyone could just acknowledge that he and the other Democratic candidates are all just politicians with their own strengths, flaws, and potential to be mistaken or hypocritical; and try to be fair in our support and in our criticism and not idolize or demonize anyone.
Sen. Wyden responding to the NYT report @ #16 above: “After I opened an investigation into whether Donald Trump meddled in the criminal investigation into Turkish-owned Halkbank, @USTreasury confirmed that Steve Mnuchin was tasked with intervening in the investigation to benefit Pres. Erdogan. AG Barr was given the same direction.”
I believe that Washington Post readers and employees, including myself, deserve to hear directly from @PostBaron on the newspaper’s handling of this matter. My statement on The Post’s decision tonight:
Washington Post journalists endeavor to live up to the paper’s mission statement, which states, “The newspaper shall tell ALL the truth so far as it can learn it, concerning the important affairs of America and the world.”
My suspension, and @PostBaron’s Jan. 26 email warning me that my tweets about a matter of public record were “hurting this institution,” have unfortunately sown confusion about the depth of management’s commitment to this goal.
I hope Washington Post newsroom leaders will not only prioritize their employees’ safety in the face of threats of physical harm but also ensure that no journalist will be punished for speaking the truth.
Sonmez was suspended by WaPo for tweeting about Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault allegation after his death. While she was receiving death threats and despite the fact that this history was included in WaPo’s own obituary of Bryant, Marty Baron outrageously tried to privately silence and then suspended her. The suspension was lifted last night.
“Alan Dershowitz: ‘Hunter Biden is obviously a relevant witness for the state of mind of the President’.”
Oh, obviously.
johnson catmansays
re SC @90: So, Hunter Biden can testify about the state of mind of The Orange Toddler-Tyrant? How fucked up do you have to be to take this line of argument?
President Donald Trump berated his former national security adviser John Bolton on Wednesday, bashing his former top aide after the aide reportedly contradicted a key element of the president’s impeachment defense in an upcoming book.
Trump went as far to suggest that if Bolton, a conservative war hawk, were still in the White House, the U.S. “would be in World War Six by now.”
southpaw: “I’m super frustrated by the respect afforded to the indolent emotions of Never Trump Republicans. If they want to play in the D primary, they can change parties and have at it. If they had any sand in their own party, they could be challenging Trump’s renomination. They’re not.”
And the attention they’re getting! While voices from the Left are roundly ignored! Infuriating.
The most striking thing in these Energy Department documents pertaining to Secretary Rick Perry and Ukraine is what they did NOT release.
1/3 of the documents they were ordered to produce after being sued by @weareoversight
are entirely redacted. Look: [link atl]
2: There are exemptions to FOIA releases, but with Rick Perry and Ukraine it is vital to note context: a President stonewalling Congress, an Administration defying subpoenas, a massive cover-up that includes refusing to release documents.
5 pages in this release look like this: [completely whited out]
3: The Energy Department used a “(b)(5)” redaction for “deliberative process” to withhold huge swathes of Perry’s communications pertaining to Ukraine ahead of his trip there. Of the 139 pages of Rick Perry’s Ukraine documents just released, 45 look like this: [completely whited out]
4: There are also two pages with partial (b)(5) redaction, which appear to cover aspects of Secretary Rick Perry’s meeting in Ukraine with Senator Ron Johnson, another key figure in the Ukraine story:…
5: Remember: Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine because Trump ordered Mike Pence to cancel his visit, allegedly because Ukraine refused to open an investigation into the President’s political opponents. It’s a key episode in the events which led to the President’s impeachment.
These redactions come as Trump stonewalls Congress and blocks the testimony of top officials who were eye witnesses to his abuses of power related to Ukraine.
Rick Perry is one of those eye witnesses. His refusal to testify and release key documents is a really big problem.
“Trevor, dying from liver damage and opposed [to] Obamacare, perfectly demos the power of whiteness: ‘I would rather die. We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens’.”
Link atl.
Akira MacKenziesays
Remember all of Trump’s claims that demonstrators at his various public appearences are “paid?” Well…
Allies of Donald Trump have begun holding events in black communities where organizers lavish praise on the president as they hand out tens of thousands of dollars to lucky attendees.
The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.
The tour comes as Trump’s campaign has been investing its own money to make inroads with black voters and erode Democrats’ overwhelming advantage with them. But the cash giveaways are organized under the auspices of an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition, permitting donors to remain anonymous and make tax-deductible contributions.
The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.
“Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities,” said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division at the Internal Revenue Service who is now in private practice at the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It’s not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act.”
Asked about the legality of the giveaways in a brief phone interview, the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s CEO, Darrell Scott, said that most gifts were between $300 and $500, and that the group mandates that anyone who receives over $600 fills out a W-9 form in order to ensure compliance with tax law. He did not respond to follow-up questions about how the giveaways were structured and whether they met the legal standard for a charitable act.
Scott declined to name the donors funding the effort. “I’d rather not,” he said. “They prefer to remain anonymous.”
Scott, a Cleveland-based pastor, has been one of Trump’s closest and most prominent black supporters. He struck up a relationship with the real estate mogul in the years before Trump’s presidential run, and — along with Trump’s former lieutenant Michael Cohen — co-founded the National Diversity Coalition for Trump to promote that run.
Scott, who once called the Democratic Party, “pimps” who “pimped out the inner city” like a “pimp stands next to a prostitute” and claimed that Trump would be “the most pro-black president” in his lifetime, is a Prosperity Gospel huckster.
“WATCH: @HeidiNBC presses Reps. Zeldin, Stefanik and Johnson during a tense exchange about her tough questioning style on a question about corruption in Ukraine as it relates to the Senate impeachment trial.”
Video atl, and more in the responses. Przybyla has been a real standout at NBC.
These Trumpers have painted themselves into a very small corner – lying and furiously spinning, retreating to dishonest talking points, refusing to do town halls, voting to hide evidence (including from themselves, thus unconstitutionally diminishing the power of their own branch), preemptively attacking and seeking to intimidate the press – and personally insulting individual reporters – when they can’t answer basic questions. It should be clear to you when you’re acting like this that you’re in the wrong and your position is indefensible. And Trump would turn on them in the blink of an eye.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 100
I would rather die. We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens.”
At the risk of being accused of cruelty: good fucking riddance!
Trump: “Mexico is in fact — you will soon find out — paying for the wall. OK? You know?…No, the wall is ultimately, and very nicely, being paid for by Mexico.” I don’t know what he’s talking about, and, as usual, he’s not explaining.
re Lynna @104 about The Orange Toddler-Tyrant and republicans in general, taking advice from Joseph Goebbels:
It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.
The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.
Want to understand why Trump’s Middle East plan is racist & enshrines apartheid in the holy land? Try replacing the words “Israel” with “White people” & the word “Palestine/Palestinian” with Black people & then re-read the plan. Here are some examples:…
“White People will maintain at least one early-warning station in places where black people live, as designated on the Conceptual Map, which will be run by white security forces. Uninterrupted white security forces access to & from any early-warning station will be ensured.”
“To the extent reasonably possible, solely as determined by caucasians, white security forces will rely on blimps, drones and similar aerial equipment for security purposes in black areas in order to reduce the White people’s presence within the black communities.”
“In addition to the overriding security responsibility over areas where black people live, the Whites will be responsible for security at all international crossings into black people communities, deciding who can enter and exit.”…
“@mehdirhasan says Trump’s Middle East proposal, announced yesterday, should not be called a “peace plan” by anyone. ‘This is a plan for apartheid. This is a plan for settler colonialism’.”
In other news, Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, is airing an anti-Biden ad in Iowa. The ad is full of bogus (false) attacks related to Biden’s efforts in Ukraine. This is part of team Trump’s follow up to Pam Bondi’s smear of Biden during the Senate impeachment trial. It is somewhat like the Joseph Goebbels tactic described in comment 106. Lots of repetition. Still, it’s odd to see a Senator from Florida campaigning against Biden in Iowa.
In other election news: A federal appeals court this week struck down voting restrictions in Arizona, and as the New York Times noted, the result is a possible battleground state in which “many voters will find their ballots considerably easier to cast and less likely to be excluded from election-night tallies.”
Republican sources tell Axios that party leaders and the White House will still try to resist witnesses because, as one top aide put it, “there is a sense in the Senate that if one witness is allowed, the floodgates are open.”
“If [Bolton] says stuff that implicates, say Mick [Mulvaney] or [Mike] Pompeo, then calls for them will intensify,” the aide said.
Well, yes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said, “One witness would probably lead to a lot of witnesses.” Well, yes.
And, as Steve Benen noted:
A Politico report added that the White House is warning senators that if they don’t resist the call for witnesses, the proceedings could “turn it into a full-fledged trial with multiple witnesses on both sides.”
Heaven forbid.
As Vox’s Ezra Klein put it this morning, “We’re not arguing over what Trump did. We’re arguing over whether Republicans want to know what Trump did. Sometimes this whole saga feels like a thought experiment where we keep layering on more and more extreme conditions to see how broken the Republican Party really is.”
Trump’s latest attempt to insult John Bolton so much that he marches up to the Senate and starts testifying in the hallway:
For a guy who couldn’t get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn’t get approved for anything since, ‘begged’ me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying ‘Don’t do it, sir,’ takes the job, mistakenly says ‘Libyan Model’ on T.V., and many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?
Commentary from Steve Benen:
So let me see if I have this straight. John Bolton, according to the president, was basically an unaccomplished loser, with misguided instincts. The president was advised not to hire him, but he ignored the guidance, felt sorry for the pathetic hawk who struggled to find a real job, and put Bolton in an enormously powerful and influential position.
In the months that followed, Trump proceeded to ignore Bolton’s dangerous recommendations — even while publicly praising his work and leaving him in his position for a year and a half.
Is Trump under the impression that this makes him look good?
Also note the president’s obligatory reference to Bolton having “begged” him for the White House job. It’s amazing the frequency with which people allegedly “beg” him: perusing the Trump Twitter Archive, the Republican has claimed that Mitt Romney begged him for a cabinet post, Omarosa Manigault begged him for a job, so did Steve Bannon, Bob Corker begged him for an endorsement, as did John McCain.
It’s possible these humiliating displays unfolded behind the scenes. It’s also possible that Trump sees this as a go-to boast that he believes belittles those who dare to criticize him. […]
Postscript: There’s a dynamic in which Trump praises prominent members of his team, right up until they do something to cross him, at which point he attacks them with a vengeance. If it seems at all familiar, it’s because we’ve seen the story play out over and over again.
A total of 50 U.S. service members suffered traumatic brain injury from this month’s Iranian missile attack on Iraqi bases hosting U.S. troops, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, can include concussions. Of the 50 patients, 31 were treated in Iraq and have returned to duty, Army Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said in a statement.
We have swiftly gone from Trump’s claim of “no injuries,” to Trump’s claim of a few “headaches,” to the Defense Department confirmation of 11 injuries, to the DOD confirmation of 34 injuries, to now, when we have 50 injuries.
Trump has not corrected nor expressed regret for his earlier inaccurate statements.
From New York’s Eric Levitz:
[Trump] may have dismissed American troops’ potentially incurable brain injuries as mere “headaches” out of a narcissistic refusal to concede that his Iran policy had had any ill effects. […]
On the other hand, it is hard not to think about what would have happened to Barack Obama, had he dismissed the wounds of U.S. soldiers as not “very serious injuries, relative to other injuries that I’ve seen,” or to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had she referred to a potential Iranian attack on U.S. installations in the Middle East as “a little noise.”
[…] During an episode of his show earlier this week, Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs went after Bolton, the former national security adviser and ex-Fox News contributor whose new book reportedly ties President Trump directly to the Ukraine aid pressure scheme cooked up by Rudy Giuliani. Dobbs made the befuddling claim that because Bolton used the same literary agent as James Comey — now a nearly retro object of Trump’s ire — he’s involved in some underground effort to destroy the President.
One of the literary agents who works with Javelin, which is publishing Bolton’s book, was quick to point out on Twitter that Dobbs himself used Javelin for his own book. As the Dobbs’ conspiracy-mongering fell flat, Trump and Giuliani employed their next best tactic for turning on an old friend this morning: name calling. In tweets, Trump called Bolton “nasty” and Giuliani labeled him a “backstabber.” We anticipate the fallout will continue down the juvenile path the President and his lawyer have paved. […]
The Trump White House is trying to stop former national security adviser John Bolton’s book from being published, CNN is reporting. The “formal threat” comes in the form of a letter, CNN’s sources say […]
As Karen Tumulty tweeted, get ready for the advertising campaign dubbing this “the book the White House doesn’t want you to read,” but what the United States needs is not Bolton’s book, it’s Bolton’s testimony.
Bolton is a warmonger with blood on his hands and decades of faithful service to the Republican cause. But here, he has information the country needs to hear, not by giving him money for a book but under oath in the impeachment trial. The White House threat is not, most likely, about the book itself, either. It’s about sending a message to Republican senators not to vote to hear him, and to make regular people think of him as tainted.
The White House needs to discredit Bolton somehow, with polls showing big majorities in support of witnesses at the impeachment trial. Putting a cloud over him separate from the Senate vote on witnesses is the first move. There will be more—but all the people watching the White House campaign against Bolton need to remember that it’s not about him. It’s about what he witnessed Donald Trump saying and doing during his time as Trump’s close adviser.
Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, today made the following statement:
“President Trump is wrong that John Bolton didn’t say anything about the Trump-Ukraine Scandal at the time the President fired him. He said something to me.
“On September 19, shortly after Ambassador Bolton’s departure as national security advisor, my staff reached out to him at my request. I’ve known Ambassador Bolton for years; we have a cordial and respectful relationship and I wanted to thank him for his service. I also wanted to ask if he would talk to the Foreign Affairs Committee, as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did, to aid our general oversight efforts of U.S. foreign policy.
“He and I spoke by telephone on September 23. On that call, Ambassador Bolton suggested to me—unprompted—that the committee look into the recall of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. He strongly implied that something improper had occurred around her removal as our top diplomat in Kyiv.
“At the time, I said nothing publicly about what was a private conversation, but because this detail was relevant to the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight Committees’ investigation into this matter, I informed my investigative colleagues. It was one of the reasons we wished to hear from Ambassador Bolton, under oath, in a formal setting.
“Ambassador Bolton has made clear over the last few months that he has more to say on this issue. And now that the President has called his credibility into question, it’s important to set the record straight.
“It’s telling that, of all people, John Bolton is now the target of right-wing ire. It underscores just how important it is that the Senate subpoena Ambassador Bolton as a witness.”
Two videos are available at the Twitter link. Trevor Noah shows Trump insulting lots of U.S. Senators. “Jurors are instructed to disregard these insults. Thank you for doing your civic duty.”
[…] The Washingtonian reports that The Daily Show has been airing 30- and 60-second versions of this video on local news channels in D.C. The publication says the truck has been on the move in the Capitol since Monday. […]
The truck shows the video on a large side panel, while also broadcasting sound.
Nearly two dozen legal, faith-based, humanitarian, and community organizations that have assisted asylum-seekers abandoned by the Trump administration in Mexico are calling for the immediate termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols program, also known as Remain in Mexico, telling acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf in a letter, “This program is not only inhumane and dangerous, but it is also illegal.” […]
Disinformation and online foreign interference erode our democracy, and Donald Trump has invited both. Anyone who seeks to challenge and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 election must be fully prepared to take this on—and I’ve got a plan to do it.
[link to her Fighting Digital Disinformation plan atl]
In the 2016 election we saw how digital disinformation was used to influence and suppress voters. But 4 years later, we’re hardly better prepared for it. Donald Trump has welcomed foreign interference in our elections, and if he isn’t removed from office, he’ll continue to do so.
Anyone who seeks to challenge and defeat Donald Trump must be prepared to take on the full array of disinformation that foreign actors and people in and around his campaign will use to divide Democrats, suppress Democratic votes, and erode the standing of the Democratic nominee.
So today, I’m making a pledge: I will not knowingly use or spread disinformation to benefit my own candidacy or damage others. And I will fight disinformation aimed at my campaign, my opponents, and voters.
I’m sending a clear message to anyone associated with the Warren campaign: I will not tolerate the use of false information or false accounts to attack my opponents, promote my campaign, or undermine our elections. And I urge my fellow candidates to do the same.
I’m also calling on tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google to take real steps right now to fight disinformation spread on their platforms. The safety of our democracy is more important than shareholder dividends and CEO salaries.
Campaigns and tech companies can take a number of steps to slow the spread of misinformation right now. And as president, I’ll take a series of actions to further address the spread of disinformation.
The stakes of this election are too high. We need to fight the spread of false information that disempowers voters and undermines democracy. I’ll do my part—and I’m calling on my fellow candidates and big tech companies to do their part, too.
Now Philbin is talking about how basically the House impeachment is like a grand jury and the Senate trial, you know, a trial. Which is further making Schiff’s case about the need for witnesses and evidence. Same thing with their references to Mulvaney’s and others’ statements that aren’t under oath, backed up by documents, or subject to further questioning.
I don’t know if this is how it ordinarily goes, but the Republicans are asking each question on behalf of several Senators, and then Trump’s lawyers are drawing out the introduction to their answers. Seems like they’re stalling for time.
Gah – he just claimed again that the Ukrainian officials all said there was no pressure. I don’t get why no one is paying attention to the bombshell Danylyuk interview @ #36.
“Poll published now by Israel TV Ch 11:
61% of those polled (Israeli Jews and Arabs) think the Trump ‘vision’ would not lead to peace. Only 10% think it would.”
johnson catmansays
re SC @122:
The safety of our democracy is more important than shareholder dividends and CEO salaries.
BLASPHEMOUS!!!11!1! No wonder that the DNC and the power structure hate her.
“Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz: ‘If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment’.”
Wow. I missed several questions, but this answer from Sekulow about why they shouldn’t call Bolton is the weakest I have seen yet.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 129
The arrogance of these people! However, I’m sure that will play well to bubbas: “In order to keep those dirty, godless, baby-aborting, gun-grabbing, tax-and-spend, race-mixing, border-opening, DEMOCRATS out of the White House, Donald Trump is willing to do anything–bribery, theft, murder–for YOU, the Amerian people! (Singing) Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…!”
johnson catmansays
The claim by The Orange Toddler-Tyrant that Bolton’s manuscript contains “significant amounts of classified information” is nothing more than another stalling tactic to give the despicable republicans enough time to refuse to call witnesses and end the trial in a sham vote to not convict. I am not a fan of Bolton, but I would be willing to wager everything I own that he knows the difference between classified and not-classified information and would know not to put classified information in a book that would go out to the general public. Have I mentioned lately that I hate republicans?
Mexicali police have confirmed with News 11 that a portion of the new border wall fell on the Mexico side of the border, landing on several trees.
Police said it happened a little before 12 p.m. local time. A portion of the wall landed on the trees, preventing it from hitting the ground. It runs about 130 feet in length.
Today Common Sense will release a bombshell medical report proving there was an attempt to murder the key witness in the Biden-Poroshenko double bribery case, Viktor Shokin.
Viktor was diagnosed by a world famous Austrian Doctor who confirms he was nearly killed.
One question I’d like a Senator to ask Trump’s defense team:
Throughout the past several days, both sides have pointed to false or unsupported claims Donald Trump has made in private or in public: for example, about hostile things ambassador Yovanovitch had supposedly said about him; about Europe not providing substantial aid to Ukraine (“Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it’s something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way…”); and about the Crowdstrike conspiracy theory. Defense counsel has argued that Trump listened to “people he trusts.” Can you describe the trusted sources and evidentiary bases on which he relied for the three claims above?
During the proceedings yesterday, a Trump campaign official retweeted something with the alleged name of the whistleblower. Rand Paul also put a name into his questions hoping Roberts would read it aloud, but he didn’t.
As you wake up this morning, imagine the rest of the 2020 race given the WH team’s argument a president can do virtually anything to get elected, including accepting information from foreign countries, if the president deems his/her re-election in the national interest.
These are the answered questions:
Can you accept dirt from a foreign government? Yes.
Can you pressure a foreign govt for that dirt? Yes.
Can that foreign govt be corrupt therefore raising questions about said dirt? Yes.
That leaves the unanswered ones:
Can you accept dirt from authoritarian govts?
Can that dirt be stolen or hacked by those govts?
Who is to vet the dirt, if anyone, to assess whether it’s credible?
Would DNC emails stolen and supplied by Russia fit under this umbrella?
Stolen Podesta emails?
I’ve had fringe Trump supporters make that argument re 2016 to me already. Now, it’s being repeated by one of the president’s lawyers on the floor of the US senate.
Big picture, has the WH defense effectively opened the door to a repeat of Russian 2016 interference but now with a congressional deal of approval?
(I believe he meant to type “seal” in that last sentence, but I left it because “deal” works here, too.)
Susan Hennessey: “The same Republicans who were claiming to be completely outraged that anyone would accuse them of participating in a cover up are now openly contemplating refusing to call a direct eyewitness who wants to testify against the president. Words fail.”
The fact a President would send his lawyer out to say such grossly unconstitutional things highlights the need for impeachment. If he believes he can do anything, so long as 1 of his motives is to win reelection, he won’t just do Ukraine leverage again, he’ll do far far worse.
If he is ever accused, he can assert his motives are pure/mixed. And because he thinks he can boycott the proceedings+bar all witnesses and testimony, incl his own, it means there is no way to test that, or impeach/remove him. It reads the impeachment clauses out of Constitution.
I’m just astounded that at no point has Trump’s epistemic responsibility, and utter epistemic incompetence, as someone exercising that much power, been raised as an issue here.
Philbin argued at one point: “If there is something that shows a possible public interest and the president could have that possible public-interest motive, that destroys their case. Once you’re into mixed-motive land, it’s clear that their case fails.”
But Trump’s pretextual motives – burden-sharing, Biden quid pro quo, Yovanovitch sabotage, Ukrainian anti-Trump interference in the 2016 election – are also complete garbage. I recognize that the central point is that since his primary motive was transparently corrupt these are a sideline and a pretext. But that doesn’t mean that we can accept that officials can present not just fake rationales but also ones based on dangerous conspiratorial delusions and/or lies. Would Trump’s counsel argue that a president bombing Israel to corruptly advance their electoral chances wouldn’t be impeachable if they also believed or made claims based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Popehat re #143 above: “It is supremely appropriate that a defense of this President would eventually require the defenders to argue that you didn’t hear them say what they said, that you should not believe your eyes and ears.”
Katie Hopkins has been suspended from Twitter for violating the social network’s anti-hate policy.
The outspoken media personality, whose follower count has been growing since US president Donald Trump started sharing of her tweets recently, has been temporarily locked out of her account for using the public platform to spew harmful comments based on race, religion, nationality and gender identity.
Twitter is expected to carry out a “full review” of her usage in the near future.
Not only is she banned from posting anything new, but most of her existing tweets have been hidden. The only one that is still visible is a retweet from producer Nitin Sawhney calling out Hopkins’ “racial hatred” against grime artist Stormzy.
Countdown’s Rachel Riley and other campaigners on Wednesday met Twitter officials to urge the company to delete Hopkins’ account. The meeting was organised by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) campaign group.
“We are pleased that Twitter has recognised that the identity hate-based actor, Katie Hopkins violated their hateful conduct policy and have taken preliminary action following productive discussions with Twitter’s UK office,” Imran Ahmed, CEO of the CCDH, said in a statement. “They should now remove her from their platform….
Re: Newly constructed border fence toppling over in wind,
I gather from news reports that the fencing section in question toppled because hard wind hit at an unlucky moment, before the concrete anchors were properly hardened.
AFAIK the issue isn’t that Trump admin lacks the competence to build generally functional fencing. The issue is
a) that the massive barrier is being sold as an impenetrable, cost efficient and necessary means for securing the Mexican border against drugs/human trafficking/illegal immigration
b) that the idea that Mexican border needs to be secured at any cost is really largely just a dogwhistle for excluding Hispanic people from US, while the wall is an inspirational monument for this exclusion.
johnson catmansays
re lumipuna @150: I did not say that it was due to a faulty wall, and yes it was because the concrete had not cured. I just thought it was hilarious. If not for the trees, it would have been flattened to the ground by the wind.
.
As to the wall being ineffective, a new tunnel was discovered that was about 3/4 mile long and underground 70 feet. No wall could stop that. Authorities find longest Southwest border smuggling tunnel: https://www.wral.com/authorities-find-longest-southwest-border-smuggling-tunnel/18917528/
U.S. authorities on Wednesday announced the discovery of the longest smuggling tunnel ever found on the Southwest border, stretching more than three-quarters of a mile from an industrial site in Tijuana, Mexico, to the San Diego area.
The tunnel featured an extensive rail cart system, forced air ventilation, high voltage electrical cables and panels, an elevator at the tunnel entrance and a drainage system.
Evan McMullin: “Republican leaders in Congress believe—and privately say—that they fear the country is quickly changing in ways that may soon deprive them of power, and that they must use the power they have now to delay it as long as possible, even by harming the Republic if necessary.”
“Sen. Burr, whose committee has done a major investigation into Russia’s 2016 meddling, tells me he has ‘no problem’ with the Trump team’s arguments about election interference.”
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will move on Thursday to weaken a century-old law protecting migratory birds by dropping the threat of punishment to oil and gas companies, construction crews and other organizations that kill birds “incidentally” in the course of their operations.
The proposed regulation, if finalized, would cement a legal opinion that the Department of Interior issued in 2017. The agency’s top lawyer argued that previous administrations had interpreted the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 too broadly, and that only actions explicitly intended to kill birds should be forbidden under the federal law.
[…]
With the outcome of November’s presidential election uncertain, the Trump administration is moving quickly to finalize dozens of regulatory rollbacks and other actions to weaken environmental protections viewed as burdensome by industry.
In recent weeks, the administration has scrapped a clean water regulation aimed at protecting streams and wetlands, and blocked an effort to require Americans to use energy-efficient light bulbs. Within the next month the administration plans to weaken vehicle emissions standards and a rule restricting mercury, a toxic chemical emitted from coal-burning power plants. Completing the rule curtailing the Migratory Bird Treaty Act before the November presidential election will be difficult, but the agency has indicated it will push aggressively to do so.
“It’s a race against the clock,” Bob Dreher, senior vice president of conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental organization, said of the proposed regulation.
[…]
Mr. Dreher noted that codifying the opinion into regulation, as the Trump administration is trying to do, would make it harder for a future Democratic president to issue a quick reversal.
“They’re trying to entrench this as much as they can, and get stuff locked into place,” he said, but added, “We’re going to fight it.”
[…]
Illegal acts are also protected under the plan. For example, a farmer who sprayed a banned pesticide that killed birds would not be held liable as long as the birds were not the “intended target.”
Elie Mystal: “I wonder if McConnell’s statement, assuring the Chief Justice that the Senate will still be respectful to the chief, was his signal that the @RandPaul faithless stunt to out the whistleblower will not be tolerated.”
Paul just presented his question. Roberts: “The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted.”
Schiff calls the recent arguments from Dershowitz “a descent into Constitutional madness. That way, madness lies.” He’s now bringing up Nixon’s “When the president does it, it’s not illegal.” “Have we learned nothing?” We thought we’d enacted effective reforms post-Watergate, but we’re right back where we were, and even worse off, because now that argument might succeed. “That is the normalization of lawlessness.”
“There is nothing—no law, no regulation, no nondisclosure agreement—that prevents John Bolton from going on camera today and telling us what he knows.”
The claim by The Orange Toddler-Tyrant that Bolton’s manuscript contains “significant amounts of classified information” is nothing more than another stalling tactic
Correct.
This is so frustrating. Team Trump is trying to give Team McConnell time to wrap up the faux trial and the faux acquittal of Hair Furor (aka, The Orange Toddler).
“REPUBLICAN SENATORS WERE BRIEFED ON THE BIDEN EFFORT TO OUST VIKTOR SHOKIN IN 2016. THEY WERE TOLD THAT IT WAS U.S. POLICY TO USE LOAN GUARANTEES TO UKRAINE AS LEVERAGE. THERE WAS ZERO CONTROVERSY ABOUT THIS.”
Lawyers for a woman who accuses President Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s are asking for a DNA sample, seeking to determine whether his genetic material is on a dress she says she wore during the encounter.
Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers served notice to a Trump attorney Thursday for Trump to submit a sample on March 2 in Washington for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA present on the dress.”
Carroll filed a defamation suit against Trump in November after the president denied her allegation. Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, then had the black wool coat-style dress tested. A lab report with the legal notice says DNA found on the sleeves was a mix of at least four people, at least one of them male.
Several other people were tested and eliminated as possible contributors to the mix, according to the lab report, which was obtained by The Associated Press. Their names are redacted.
While the notice is a demand, such demands often spur court fights requiring a judge to weigh in on whether they will be enforced.
The Associated Press sent a message to Trump’s attorney seeking comment….
johnson catman @121, “We are going to have to redact the whole thing.”
Ha! Unfortunately, your joke is, almost, NOT hyperbole. We have examples of them redacting material that is in no way classified.
Just one example:
[…] Last month, a court ordered the government to release almost 300 pages of emails to the Center for Public Integrity in response to a FOIA lawsuit. It released a first batch on Dec. 12, and then a second installment on Dec. 20, including Duffey’s email, but that document, along with several others, were partially or completely blacked out.
Since then, Just Security has viewed unredacted copies of these emails, which begin in June and end in early October. Together, they tell the behind-the-scenes story of the defense and budget officials who had to carry out the president’s unexplained hold on military aid to Ukraine.
The documents reveal growing concern from Pentagon officials that the hold would violate the Impoundment Control Act, which requires the executive branch to spend money as appropriated by Congress, and that the necessary steps to avoid this result weren’t being taken. […] The emails also show that no rationale was ever given for why the hold was put in place or why it was eventually lifted. […]
The emails also reveal key decision points, moments when senior officials hoped the hold might be lifted. This includes Vice President Mike Pence’s September meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, […]
“Pam Bondi responds: ‘I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!'”
Some of the disinformation about which Elizabeth Warren warned:
[…] the Trump campaign has run Facebook ads claiming the “Fake News media” will try to block the Republican’s Super Bowl commercial. That’s not even close to being true.
From CNN:
[…] Trump’s reelection campaign has run more than 200 misleading political advertisements on Facebook in the past day claiming the “Fake News media” will attempt to block the campaign’s upcoming Super Bowl ad — despite federal regulations that require the TV spot be aired. […]
“We know the Fake News media will do everything they can to ensure our ad never sees the light of day,” the Facebook advertisement reads. “That’s why I’m calling on YOU to step up and DEMAND that they air our ad during the Super Bowl.”
“DEMAND THAT THE LIBERAL MEDIA AIRS OUR AD,” the advertisement continues. […]
[…] Warren has since repeatedly accused Facebook of taking money “to promote lies.” Zuckerberg has said Facebook does not restrict politicians’ speech because users should judge that speech for themselves.
Trump’s newest Facebook ad is misleading on two counts, according to Andrew Schwartzman, an expert in media law at the Benton Foundation, a civil society group.
First, the Super Bowl, and by extension, the Trump campaign’s Super Bowl ad, will be aired exclusively on Fox, whose chairman, Rupert Murdoch, shares close ties with Trump. Other media companies will have no role to play in determining whether Fox airs the campaign ad. […]
Second, regulations by the Federal Communications Commission prohibit broadcasters such as Fox from rejecting political advertisements by legally qualified candidates for federal office.
“They must run the ad,” said Schwartzman. “The only alteration they can make is if the ad does not comply with the sponsorship identification requirements saying ‘paid for by so-and-so’ in lettering of a certain size. That’s it.” […]
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross thinks that the coronavirus might be good for business.
What a heartless ghoul.
[…] Talking to Fox Business Network Thursday morning, Ross touted the potential economic boom that could result from the disease, after an obligatory “Every American’s heart has to go out to the victims.”
“But the fact is, it does give businesses yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain,” Ross continued. Just like with SARS and other mass disease outbreaks, “It’s another risk factor that people need to take into account,” he said. “So I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America. Some to U.S., probably some to Mexico as well.” […]
NBC News reports that as of Thursday, 170 people in China have died from the disease, with more than 7,700 cases confirmed. The World Health Organization’s emergency committee meets again Thursday. It has not yet declared the virus a global public health emergency. In the U.S., five cases have been confirmed, with another 165 people identified as potential cases.
Ten days before Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman dined with President Trump at his Washington hotel, they were part of a small group of Republican Party donors who met with the president at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, a new recording shows.
The two men — who later assisted Rudolph W. Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine — were part of a gathering held in an ornate room of the property also attended by RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, according to the video and people in attendance.
While it was known that Fruman and Parnas had attended an event at Mar-a-Lago, the focus of the event, the timing and who else was in attendance had not been made public.
The April 2018 meeting came days before the two men took part in a donor dinner with with the president at his Washington hotel, an encounter captured on a video released last week by Parnas’s attorney.
During that dinner, Parnas told the president that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was agitating against him, prompting Trump to abruptly call for her firing.
The recordings of the two events undercut Trump’s repeated assertions that he does not know Parnas and Fruman, who were arrested in October on campaign finance charges. Last week, the president referred to Parnas as “a con man” and a “groupie.”
Taken together, the two recordings provide a window into Trump’s close interactions with high-dollar donors, despite his pledge to “drain the swamp.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“On a given day, the Chairwoman greets hundreds if not thousands of people at events across the country. This is nothing more than that,” said Michael Ahrens, RNC spokesman.
He declined to answer additional questions regarding the event, including about the guests in attendance.
In an interview, Parnas said the back-to-back events he attended with Trump shows the proximity they had to the president.
“When Trump would see us, he would call us, ‘my boys,’” he said. “Me and Igor together? It’s not something you’d forget. Particularly in that scene.”
Giuliani — who began working with Fruman and Parnas later that year — was not present at either gathering, people familiar with the meetings said.
Parnas had donated $50,000 to a joint fundraising committee for Trump’s campaign and the RNC in October 2016, campaign finance records show.
Parnas’s attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, provided the recording of the Mar-a-Lago gathering to The Washington Post. He said he has previously given a copy to House impeachment investigators.
Parnas and Fruman say little in the recording, but Parnas can be seen acting as a photographer for the group, snapping photos of other attendees on their cellphones before posing for a picture with Trump himself
McDaniel — whose nameplate can be seen directly across from where Fruman was seated — can be heard giving a presentation on polling and the 2018 midterms.
Also in attendance: then-Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, who has been subpoenaed as part of the ongoing criminal investigation, and Brian Ballard, a Florida lobbyist who is close with Trump.
Ballard and Sessions declined to comment.
In the recording, which lasts about 37 minutes, Trump talked about his poll numbers asked Sessions and McDaniel to provide the group with an update on Republican efforts to win the 2018 midterm elections. At the time, Sessions was head of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“Mr. President, thank you very much. We win when we are together. We win when we gather ourselves together around a common theme. That is, a president of the United States that wants to make America great again. It’s the common denominator for every single member of Congress,” Sessions said.
McDaniel also gave the group a pep talk about the upcoming elections, explaining that Democrats were energized but that Republicans were excited with Trump’s leadership.
“We must win. And we can win,” she said of the election, in which a Democratic wave ultimately swept Republicans from power in the House.
At one point, the group talked about Syrian policy with the president, with an unidentified attendee criticizing President Barack Obama’s actions in the country.
A woman who identified herself as Syrian American from New Jersey lavishes praise on Trump telling him, “Syrian Americans love you.”
In response, Trump attacks the Obama administration’s policy on Syria.
“Obama, he didn’t go over the red line,” Trump said. “That was a disaster. You know, Obama gave Syria up two or three years ago.”
Another attendee complained to Trump about a section of an upcoming financial services bill that he said would undercut the success of a lending program that benefits veterans.
Sessions, former chair of the House Rules Committee, told Trump that he was unaware of the legislative provision.
“I see every piece of legislation through the Rules Committee and I was unaware of it,” he said. “I told Bill, ‘You have to talk to the president about this.’”
[…] First, the good news: In the wake of the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, the Trump administration actually made a few strategic moves to prevent the spread of disease around the world. It invested substantially in the CDC’s Global Health Security program, which helps set up infectious disease monitoring and treatment centers around the world. In 2017, the administration created a $70 million Emergency Reserve Fund at USAID to respond to outbreaks of contagious disease, along with a similar $50 million Rapid Response Fund at the CDC.
On the other hand, in May 2019, the president’s proposed budget for global health was dramatically lower than it had been in previous years—$8 billion for 2020, compared with more than $10 billion every year since 2010.
[…] here in the United States, epidemic preparedness hasn’t been a priority, to put it mildly. Let’s start with the leadership in the White House—or lack thereof. At the beginning of the Trump administration, public health legend Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer led a global health security team at the White House’s National Security Council. This, almost everyone agreed, was a very good thing: […]
But in 2018, when John Bolton assumed the role of national security advisor, Ziemer left, and Bolton disbanded his team, amid public outcry. No one has since filled the position. […]
That no one in the White House is coordinating a multi-agency response to the coronavirus is “worrisome,” says Asha George, executive director of the global public health advocacy group Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. “Is it the CDC director?” she says. “Where is the surgeon general? He could be issuing messages. But I’m not seeing any of that.” Rebecca Katz, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security, echoed those concerns. “The decision to get rid of the directorate within the NSC, the pandemic response officer—people in our field found that really distressing,” she said. […]
Preparing a country for infectious disease is a complicated process—to do it right will require sustained attention and resources, and it’s unlikely that a comprehensive plan will materialize in time to make a real difference as the coronavirus spreads. […]
Question concerns who’s paying Giuliani’s legal fees, international travel, and so forth.
Schiff: I don’t know. If someone else is paying, it raises profound questions. “I don’t know directly who’s paying the freight for it, but I can tell you the entire country is paying the freight for it.” Sends message to other countries that the “Presidency is open for business.”
Sekulow giving pathetic response focused on lies about Biden. He’s upping the performative outrage. Now he’s reading letter from Democratic Senators about Ukrainian cooperation with Mueller investigation, which I don’t think is really a door they want to be opening (in addition to the obvious fact that it’s not remotely comparable).
Schiff: describing as in the realm of “you can’t make this stuff up,” talks about how the DoJ blocking subpoenas for Trump is in court today, and when the DoJ lawyers were asked if those issuing subpoenas can’t go to court, what’s the remedy, and their answer was “Impeachment.” Laughter ensued.
He’s making plan the distinction between previous aid holds and this corrupt hold.
Oh lookee here: In contrast with Trump legal team, Justice Department lawyer says House can impeach over defied subpoenas
[CNN link atl]
“Asked by a federal judge what the House can do to enforce its subpoenas, Justice Department lawyer James Burnham said without hesitation that the House can use its impeachment powers, among other options, like withholding appropriations.”
“The topic came up in a court hearing about the 2020 census. The House Oversight Committee sued the Justice Department and Commerce Department in November, asking a judge to enforce its subpoenas for documents.”
Schiff just talked about this on the Senate floor : )
The House of Representatives passed two Democratic amendments Thursday designed to constrain presidential war-making authority.
One, introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, would repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for the Use of Military Force that the Trump regime most recently leaned on for its authority to assassinate Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. That amendment passed 236-166. The other, introduced by Lee’s fellow Californian Rep. Ro Khanna, would require a president to obtain congressional approval for any offensive use of force against Iran. It passed 228-175. Both were attached to a noncontroversial World War II medals bill, H.R. 550.
[…] Passage of the legislation in the Republican-controlled Senate seems unlikely, though not impossible. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could simply ignore the legislation, tossing it into the pile of nearly 300 bills the House has passed since January 2019 that he has held back from consideration.
In a statement of policy before the vote, the White House said that repealing the 2002 AUMF would undercut “the president’s ability to defend United States forces and interests in the region against ongoing threats from Iran and Iranian-sponsored proxies.”
Yeah, the White House would say that.
In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Lee said that she doesn’t believe Trump “understands or believes that this is a democracy.” She added, “Congress has the responsibility of making sure that we insist that we uphold our constitutional responsibilities, and make sure that we hold any president, now it’s this president, accountable.” […]
The Cover Up Express Train just keeps rolling along. Yesterday we suggested that perhaps a March 17 release date for John Bolton’s book was a tad optimistic, since he needs the White House to sign his permission slip before going to press. Bolton is willing to deliver Donald Trump’s Ukraine extortion plot on a silver platter, so God only knows what embarrassing tea he’s ready to dish on everyone else in the Trumpland. […]
Yesterday morning, Donald Trump tweeted that John Bolton was a loser with lousy judgment who begged Trump for a job and then wrote a nasty book, full of untrue lies that are also somehow “Classified National Security.”
And right on cue it emerged that the National Security Council sent Bolton’s lawyers a letter last week saying that “the manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information,” some of which rises to the “TOP SECRET level.” Surprise!
This was widely reported as a “formal threat,” because of its warning that “the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information.” But it’s probably more accurate to interpret it as a signal that the White House is buckling in for the long haul, and they plan to make this fight as expensive and time-consuming as possible for Bolton and his publishers at Simon & Schuster.
You can also color us highly skeptical that a man who served multiple tours in the State Department, Justice Department, and National Security Council would carelessly include highly classified information in his memoir. The guy may be a warmongering loon, but he’s not an idiot. […]
Bolton’s lawyer Charles Cooper responded in a collegial email saying that the NCS need to step up their review pronto and say what they think is classified because his client is warming up to shout that Ukraine stuff to the rafters next week if the Senate votes to call witnesses: “We do not believe that any information could reasonably be considered classified, but given that Ambassador Bolton could be called to testify as early as next week, it is imperative that we have the results of your review of that chapter as soon as possible.”
But the reality is, the White House can draw this out almost indefinitely. […]
And speaking of spurious, Trump’s impeachment lawyers are acting squirrelly as hell about whether they knew about the Bolton manuscript before it broke. Mitch McConnell was reportedly blindsided and PISSED to find out that the White House knew for a month now that Bolton had the goods on Trump. […]
As to whether the entire White House has read Bolton’s book, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, says that it’s entirely routine for these documents to make their way around the building.
From personal experience I can attest that, despite 28 CFR 17.18(h), the exec branch often circulates manuscripts submitted for prepub review widely, including to political officials, & it often asks for deletions for reasons having nothing to do w/ disclosure of classified info.
Yet another bad idea from the Trump administration: rolling back restrictions on land mine use.
The Trump administration has rescinded an Obama-era directive that ended the production or use of land mines, according to a State Department cable first reported by Vox.
The cable does away with a 2014 directive to no longer “produce or otherwise acquire any anti-personnel landmines” outside the Korean Peninsula. […]
“The United States will not sacrifice American service members’ safety,” the cable reads, “particularly when technologically-advanced safeguards are available that can allow landmines to be employed responsibly to ensure our military’s warfighting advantage, while also limiting the risk of unintended harm to civilians.” […]
The cable said the administration is set to formally announce the decision Friday. Asked Thursday about any prospective change in policy, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said “there will be a change coming out,” though he declined to comment further until its release.
Schiff catching Philbin in the admission that Giuliani and his henchmen weren’t “conducting policy,” despite their repeated claims that this was about policy differences. They were on what Hill called a “domestic political errand.” “They just undermined their entire argument.”
He just offered Trump’s counsel a deal – that, as in the Clinton case, they limit depositions to one week, during which the Senate can conduct its ordinary business.
Schiff giving a passionate speech about his staffer and about the whistleblower.
Sekulow now saying that the statute protects the whistleblower from retribution but doesn’t provide for complete anonymity. Given that Trump has publicly called for the whistleblower and his sources to be executed, this isn’t the strongest argument. Then he just veered off into irrelevant nonsense.
Maddow: “My favorite evidence that President Trump cared strongly about corruption in Ukraine is the fact that when it came time to hire a Chairman for his own campaign, he picked a guy whose last job was running the political shop for this Ukrainian president:…”
Link to article about Yanukovych’s corruption atl.
I thought that was a good response from Lofgren – explaining her comments about the Clinton impeachment by pointing out the contrast of Clinton’s actions to those of Nixon, and then describing how Trump’s are like Nixon’s. Turned the question around on them.
Evan McMullin: “We’re witnessing the raw, partisan pursuit of power by Senate Republicans, most of whom appear willing to destroy the Constitution if it serves their personal interests. I never thought I’d see such an unpatriotic display in America, let alone the Senate. Never.”
The husband of one of the patients in the U.S. with coronavirus has also been diagnosed with the illness — the first evidence that the new virus has spread person-to-person in this country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
Also from NBC News:
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the new coronavirus outbreak a global public health emergency. While nearly 99 percent of the 7,874 diagnoses have been limited to China, 98 cases have been diagnosed in 18 other countries, including the United States.
Trump is doing Putin and his buddies another solid favor:
The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it will lift sanctions on three companies linked to Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire who was punished for Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Three states urged a federal judge Thursday to declare that the proposed Equal Rights Amendment is now part of the U.S. Constitution, after Virginia this week became the 38th state to ratify it.
Murkowski asks why they shouldn’t call Bolton. Philbin has a super weak answer. Something about how it would set a precedent of the Senate accepting “incomplete” impeachments from the House and that shouldn’t be how things are done blah blah blah. If any Republicans claim this was convincing they’re lying through their teeth.
Shimon Prokupecz: “Stay Tuned: Key swing vote Sen. Lamar Alexander says he’s going to announce his decision on witnesses tonight, a decision that will make clear whether the Senate trial will come to a swift conclusion or if it will lead to an unpredictable phase over witnesses and documents.”
“Alan Dershowitz was a hero to the White House and GOP Senators Tuesday night. By Thursday afternoon, he wasn’t allowed to answer questions that mentioned him by name.”
Prokupecz: “Lamar Alexander statement to come within the hour. He has told Mitch McConnell of his decision.”
Collins just released a statement that she’ll vote for witnesses and documents to be subpoenaed. Sen. Whitehouse tells Maddow he suspects a charade in which Collins has been given permission for a bogus safe vote when they know it will be under 51.
No one is going to save us from Trump and his corruption and destruction of the rule of law. Not Mueller. Not 51 Republicans. Not John Roberts. We have to save ourselves.
We have 10 months. Get to work.”
Going to watch an inspiring old Columbo. Goodnight, all.
Now that the Senate trail is going to fizzle out without removing this tumor from the Oval Office before he does more damage, it’s time to “make it personal:”
“The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference – the only difference in their eyes – between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
publicolasays
75 years ago the US saved the world from Fascism. Now we are one the verge of taking the first step toward it. We may have lived long enough to be witnesses to the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Imperium. “Oh the times they are a-changin'”.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren submitted a question during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial about the legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court and the Constitution, leaving the chief justice no choice but to read it aloud.
On Thursday while presiding over impeachment, Chief Justice John Roberts read the Democratic presidential candidate’s question, which asked, “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?”
Many observers said Robert’s reaction, though stoic, did seem to include a least a somewhat lengthy stare and “pursed” lips.
But Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead Democratic impeachment manager, attempted to take some bite out of Warren’s sharp question by praising Roberts, saying, “I would not say that it contributes to a loss of confidence in the chief justice. I think the chief justice has presided admirably.”
Although some think Warren’s question, as part of an overall aggressive strategy, has an upside, the Senate Democrats’ impeachment fight for witnesses and documents appears to have failed. According to Politico, leading Republican senators believe they have enough support to defeat a vote for witnesses and are optimistic about ending the trial by the weekend.
Understand, when we call Republicans #cowards we’re not just using an invective designed to shame and embarrass these people.
We’re accurately describing their state of mind. They are AFRAID. They are more afraid of @realDonaldTrump than they are of the damage he causes.
The problem is that cowardice, the true, pathetic panic in the face of danger, also engenders sympathy. Republicans like @SenAlexander have shown themselves to be small and weak. Their dripping fear in the face of danger, almost humanizes them.
So I prefer the word “complicit.” For that is what they are. They are not merely afraid of Trump, they are active enablers of his crimes and misconduct.
Cowards flee from the great evil. Republicans… help it along.
I’ll point out that history overwhelmingly demonstrates that their actions now, when they have very little actually to fear, give Trump more power to create conditions in which they and everyone else have far more to fear. Voting to authorize Trump’s abuse of power now sets them further down the road from “I fear estrangement from my friends and less lucrative opportunities after retirement (during which I’ll have to continue my complicity)” to “I fear my arrest.” As Schiff has been at pains to get them to understand, complicity in no way makes them immune from becoming targets themselves at any moment, and they’re handing him more weapons with which to target anyone who stands in his way. Fear-based complicity isn’t just immoral – it’s fucking stupid.
His retirement is less relevant than you might think. Trump’s grip on the GOP has implications far beyond elected office. Lamar is looking forward to a life after politics — and he knows it will be complicated by any break w/ Trump over impeachment….
In four months, Alexander will turn 80. He has $14 million.
“EXCLUSIVE: Bolton book contains new, earlier, allegation of Trump’s involvement in pressure campaign. Trump asked Bolton to call Zelensky to ensure he would meet w/Giuliani. Cipollone and Mulvaney were in room.”
SC @218, I would use the word “enablers” for Republicans in the Senate, and for most Republicans in general. They are enabling Trump.
I grant that they feel afraid and that they are acting like cowards. In the overall big picture, they are enabling a narcissistic autocrat as he destroys democracy in the U.S.
U.S. farm bankruptcy rates jumped 20% in 2019 — to an eight-year high — as financial woes in the U.S. agricultural economy continued in spite of massive federal bail-out funding, according to federal court data.
According to data released this week by the United States Courts, family farmers filed 595 Chapter 12 bankruptcies in 2019, up from 498 filings a year earlier. The data also shows that such filings — known as “family farmer” bankruptcies — have steadily increased every year for the past five years.
Farmers across the nation also have retired or sold their farms because of the financial strains, changing the face of Midwestern towns and concentrating the business in fewer hands.
From the White House’s Peter Navarro, one of the principal architects of Donald Trump’s trade war, who spoke about a month ago:
Farmers are doing great.
From Trump, who spoke last night in Des Moines, Iowa:
We’re going to win the great state of Iowa and it’s going to be a historic landslide. And if we don’t win, your farms are going to hell.
And, lastly, this unfortunate news from The Washington Post:
Many of those grumbling about Trump today concede they are unlikely to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate next year.
“Sounds like Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel and the president’s lead attorney in the trial, could be a firsthand witness, if the Senate cared to call witnesses.”
The number of U.S.troops that sustained traumatic brain injuries after the Iranian missile strikes in Iraq has now climbed to 64. That number is in an official announcement from the Defense Department.
“In early May meeting in Oval office that included Pat Cipollone, Rudy Giuliani, and Mick Mulvaney, Trump directed Bolton to call Zelensky to ensure he met with Giuliani.
‘After pushing out Yovanovitch…During the Oval Office conversation, [Giuliani] also mentioned a State Department official with the last name of Kent, whom Bolton wrote he did not know. Giuliani said he was hostile to Trump and sympathetic to George Soros’.”
“UK foreign secretary suddenly realises that Trump’s Middle East plan may contain hidden threats that go against long-standing British position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”
[…] Trump urged former national security adviser John Bolton last May to put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in contact with Rudy Giuliani, according to a report on the unpublished manuscript of Bolton’s forthcoming book.
The New York Times reported that Trump gave Bolton the directive during an Oval Office meeting in May 2019. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone were also present, Bolton wrote. Bolton wrote that he did not make the phone call.
The latest allegation from Bolton’s unpublished book, which is due out in March, comes as the Senate appears ready to acquit Trump in an impeachment trial focused on allegations he used his office to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.
“IMPORTANT: So the CBP lied when they said there was no directive to profile people at the border. Looks like there is indeed a directive asking officers to profile people based on their national origin (Iranian, Lebanese, Palestinian) and their religion and sect (Shia)….”
CBP document atl.
tomhsays
Such bullshit.
Lamar Alexander: “I had not focused on the fact we were being asked not only to remove the president from office, but to tell people they couldn’t vote for him in 2020,” he said. “And when I talked to my colleagues, most of them hadn’t thought about that either. … So we’re tearing up the ballots and telling people basically, as an election is starting, you can’t vote for or against President Trump. I think I hadn’t thought about that … extraordinary action.”
From Wonkette: “The Expected Joyless Depravity Of An Unhinged Trump Rally”
Republicans appear poised to save America from the tyranny of a constitutional democracy. It’s hard to predict how an unrestrained Donald Trump will act. […] This is the GOP’s king, as we saw in shocking detail at his Des Moines, Iowa, rally Thursday night. […]
TRUMP: Look, you know, I could make this speech really short. All I have to do is say, “Uh, hello Iowa. You have no choice but to vote for me. Otherwise, everything you have loved in your entire life will be gone. Goodbye, Iowa. Have a good time.” Instead, I work my a– off up here, OK? True. You think this is easy? It’s a little hot in this room! This room wasn’t designed for this many people.
The MAGA hat crowd didn’t seem to care that Trump implied the facility they’re in can’t safely contain them. […]
TRUMP: Congressional Democrats are consumed with partisan rage and obsessed with a deranged witch-hunt hoax. You know, we’re having probably the best years that we’ve ever had in the history of our country and I just got impeached! Can you believe these people? I got impeached. They impeached Trump.
It’s as if the part of the brain that triggers despotic tendencies also makes leaders refer to themselves in the third person like a common Doctor Doom.
TRUMP: They want to nullify your ballots, poison our democracy, and overthrow the entire system of government. That is not happening, I can tell you that. Washington Democrats have spent the last three years trying to overturn the last election. Why am I not worried?
Just a hunch, but I think Trump isn’t worried about elections in general any more now that Republicans have given him a license to steal them.
TRUMP: Remember Nixon, it was a dark time. With Clinton, it was not good. With Johnson, a long time ago, none of us remember, it was a very dark time. This is a happy period for us.
You can lose yourself down a nasty rabbit hole trying to find logic in anything Trump says, but it’s super unclear which President Johnson he’s referencing. Contextually, he must mean Andrew Johnson, who was also impeached. (He avoided removal by a single vote — probably an ancestor of Lamar Alexander’s.) But it’s bananas that he’d describe Andrew Johnson’s presidency as a “long time ago, none of us remember.” It was literally the 19th Century. None of us were alive, […]
TRUMP: This is a happy period because we call it “Impeachment Lite.” Crazy Schiff, Shifty Schiff. He’s a sick puppy… The Democrats are trying to overturn the last election. We will make sure they face another crushing defeat.
Politico ran a glowing review of this crapfest called “The Unexpected Joy at a Trump Rally in Iowa.” Trump is on “the cusp of beating two articles of impeachment” and his supporters are in a “celebratory mood.”
They danced and raised their hands over their MAGA hats when The Village People’s “YMCA” played. They joined arms and screamed along to the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA. Even for Iowa it was an overwhelmingly white crowd. But it was also reflective of the total takeover of the GOP by Trump in that it was old and young, and blue and white collar. A group of female college students from Iowa State took selfies and danced. When Trump mentioned his reelection, a bidding war erupted: “Four more years!”, “Twelve more years!”, “Thirty more years of Trump!”
Jesus Christ. The article contrasted the energy of this rally to the “small and subdued” events for Joe Biden. […] The senators in the Democratic primary who were occupied with the sham impeachment trial had to send “low-wattage” surrogates to the state. These b-listers were Amy Klobuchar’s daughter, Bernie Sanders’s wife, and Elizabeth Warren’s dog.
Looks like everything’s coming up Ukraine for Trump, who warned his audience about the threat Democrats pose to our bovine community.
TRUMP: Wonderful cows! I love cows! They want to kill our cows! You know why, right? You know why? They want to kill our cows. That means you’re next.
Josh Marshall: “Let me restate that I fully expect a no-witness acquittal today. But we’re now hearing GOPs saying maybe they kick the acquittal to next week? That defies reason unless there’s some major problem.”
From Dahlia Lithwick: “Trump’s Lawyers’ Impeachment Defense Will Reshape the Office of the President.”
Donald Trump has ruled by emotion, rage, and whim. In the Senate, his lawyers’ defense of his actions could enable similar behavior from presidents to come.
It has long been clear to anyone paying attention that there is no discernible daylight to be found between Donald Trump’s immediate feelings as a person and the actions he takes in the role of president. When he is angry, he rage-tweets; when he doesn’t like a federal program, he summarily cancels it; when he is mad at Iran, he kills a guy; and when he wants to intimidate a witness midtestimony, he threatens her.
[…] That’s all “policy” really is anymore: things he does in response to stuff he feels. His lawyers spend the bulk of their time trying to find legal doctrine to support his spontaneous claims […] What we have experienced over the past three years has been nothing more and nothing less than what it is like to be ruled by one man’s self-obsessed, mercurial feelings.
That means that we also now occupy a constitutional regime in which the entire sweep and scope of Article 2 power is reconfigured to allow for this—to permit him, as he famously put it, to “do whatever I want as president.” What we’ve watched during this impeachment trial is the constitutionalization of this behavior. And because the president’s lawyers can no longer defend against the facts of his behavior, they have again attempted to reconfigure the law to allow it. […]
But the second part of Dershowitz’s defense is almost as terrifying as his “L’état, c’est moi” claim about limitless power to get oneself reelected. That was his related assertion that the president’s mental state is so vastly and multifariously unknowable that nobody on the Senate floor dare attempt to comprehend the complexity of the Ukraine scheme. To explain this, Dershowitz described Abraham Lincoln’s mindset during the Civil War:
The president a) believed it was in the national interest, but b) he believed his own election was essential to victory in the Civil War. Every president believes that. That is why it is so dangerous to try to psychoanalyze a president, to try to get into the intricacies of the human mind. Everybody has mixed motives, and for there to be a constitutional impeachment based on mixed motives would permit almost any president to be impeached.
To be precise, Dershowitz is not just claiming that anything a president does to get reelected is in the national interest; he’s also claiming that it’s impossible to separate out a president’s mixed motivation. Thus, given the great ineffable wonder that is Donald Trump’s reasoning process and unknowable mind, he cannot be impeached even if he was 99 percent extorting Ukraine for electoral goals and only 1 percent doing so for the national interest. As long as that 1 percent is there, it’s fine. But also unknowable. […]
The final verdict in President Trump’s historic Senate impeachment trial could be delayed to as late as Wednesday — after the Iowa caucuses and State of the Union address — officials said Friday, as senators were preparing to hear four hours of debate on whether the trial should include witnesses.
Neal Katyal: “In light of this massive development, w v serious allegations against Trump (and perhaps also against his lawyer at his trial Cippillone) from his former National Security Adviser, the Senate should take a serious pause and evaluate whether they really want to rush to judgment.”
Matthew Miller: “This puts Cipollone’s letter declaring Trump would not cooperate in a whole new light. He wasn’t just trying to cover up Trump’s wrongdoing, but also his own exposure.”
Analysis from Philip Bump: “Trump’s impeachment defense, distilled: He’s innocent, and his opponents are guilty.”
Attorney Patrick Philbin threw out all of his prior arguments in order to disparage Joe Biden
Late Thursday, after hours of questions from senators on the Senate impeachment trial’s ninth day, Sens. Mike Braun and Mike Lee submitted a question to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Presiding over the trial, Roberts had already read more than 100 such questions, most of which were aimed at prompting Trump’s defenders or the House impeachment managers to make a rhetorical point rather than provide new information.
The question from the two Republicans, centered on former vice president Joe Biden, was no different.
“Under Professor [Alan] Dershowitz’s theory,” the senators asked, “is what Joe Biden is alleged to have done potentially impeachable in contrast to what has been alleged against President Trump?”
Patrick Philbin, an attorney for Trump, stepped to the microphone to offer a response.
[…] he had already addressed similar questions a number of times.
[…] First, Philbin articulated the Dershowitz theory. That holds that there are three buckets of presidential actions: those of pure motivation, those of mixed personal-public benefit and those undertaken solely for personal benefit, what Philbin called “purely private pecuniary gain.”
“I think that would be the distinguishing factor in the — what is potentially present in the facts known about the Biden and Burisma incident,” Philbin said, referring to the vice president and a Ukrainian energy company. “Because the conflict of interest that would be apparent on the face of the facts that are known is that there would be a personal family, financial interest in that situation.”
[…] “Vice President Biden is in charge of Ukraine policy,” he said, describing the period in 2016 when Biden called for the ouster of Ukraine’s prosecutor general. “His son is sitting on the board of a company that is known for corruption. The public reports are that apparently the prosecutor general was investigating that company and its owner, the oligarch, at the time. Then Vice President Biden has quite openly said that he leveraged a billion dollars in U.S. loan guarantees to ensure that that particular prosecutor was fired at that time.”
He went on: “One could put together fairly easily from those known facts the suggestion that there was a family financial benefit coming from the end of that investigation because it protected the position of the younger Biden on the board. So — and that would be a purely private pecuniary financial gain.”
This is an outlandish argument, for at least two reasons.
[…] The key sentence is the one in which he asserts that “public reports” indicate that the “prosecutor general was investigating that company and its owner, the oligarch,” as though that is uncontested and the full extent of what one needed to know. In fact, the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, was seen as himself being broadly corrupt — in part, according to some anti-corruption activists, precisely because he wasn’t actively investigating the company at issue.
Biden’s push for Shokin to be removed was part of the official policy of the United States at the time, a policy Biden was advancing. […] This wasn’t Biden freelancing; it was Biden doing what he was tasked to do as point person on Ukraine.
“This is really pretty preposterous for the House managers to come and say, particularly with respect to the Biden-Burisma incident, there can’t be any legitimate interest in raising that, questioning that because it’s all been debunked,” he said. “And the question’s been asked, where was it debunked? By whom was it debunked? Who conducted that investigation?”
That investigation was carried out in public, in part by the media.
A former Shokin deputy, for example, told Bloomberg News that an investigation into Burisma and its owner was dormant. The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2015 publicly criticized Shokin for not actively investigating Burisma’s owner. […]
Philbin waves all of that away to impugn Biden’s motivations and, therefore, to argue that his actions were problematic. But that context also gets to the second reason Philbin’s argument was ridiculous.
“One could put together fairly easily from those known facts,” Philbin said — referring to his own hypothetical as “known facts” — “the suggestion that there was a family financial benefit coming from the end of that investigation because it protected the position of the younger Biden on the board … and that would be a purely private pecuniary financial gain.”
That’s obviously untrue. It was well known at the time that the United States broadly was looking for change in how Ukraine addressed corruption. It was necessarily the case that, even if Philbin’s untrue claims about Biden were true, Biden’s motivations for seeking Shokin’s ouster would have been spurred by some mix of public and personal gain. And that, according to Philbin earlier in the week, would have meant he couldn’t be impeached.
[…] “If there is any possibility, if there is something that shows a possible public interest, and the president could have that possible public interest motive, that destroys their case,” he said. “So once you’re into mixed-motive land, it’s clear that their case fails. There can’t possibly be an impeachable offense at all.”
[…] Philbin’s response to the Braun-Lee question was remarkable both in how it conflicted with Philbin’s stated views on a range of other issues, yes. But it was thoroughly unremarkable in what it revealed: a willingness to completely flip the legal theory depending on who was alleged to have conducted a questionable act. […]
Trump has made a response to the claim, saying that he “never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani” while at the same time calling Giuliani “one of the greatest corruption fighters in America.” He also mentions that the meeting never happened. […]
[…] since Republicans have already determined that the House team has proved its case, and they’re sticking with the Dershowitz Defense that Trump can do as he pleases … it’s not at all clear that learning that Trump’s lead counsel has been directly, repeatedly lying and covering up information right to the Senate’s face will have even a tiny effect.
POTUS statement: “I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky. That meeting never happened”
Followup to comment 242, regarding Trump’s statement that he never instructed Bolton to set up a meeting between Giuliani and Zelensky.
From Jennifer Rubin: “that would be another waiver of any privilege”
From Eric Schmeltzer: “RUDY CONFIRMED IT TO VOGEL.”
From Ken Vogel:
I just asked RUDY if BOLTON made up the mtg:
“I think he’s making some of it up. He’s sure making up — I wouldn’t call it making it up, but he’s acting like a real scumbag by never telling me that he objected once, & then saying I was a time bomb, or a firecracker or something.”
Additional reader’s comments:
Only one side is willing to say that under oath. Trust that side.
——————-
Every time Trump speaks he removes ANY chance of “exec privilege”
After these statements there is no way any court would allow it
——————-
We know everything out of his [Trump’s] mouth is a lie, but #Cipolline lied for a week under oath!
——————–
Bolton almost surely has contemporaneous notes.
“I think he’s making some of it up. He’s sure making up — I wouldn’t call it making it up, but he’s acting like a real scumbag by never telling me that he objected once, & then saying I was a time bomb, or a firecracker or something.”
NOTABLE: Around the day TRUMP was reportedly telling BOLTON to contact ZELENSKY about meeting with RUDY to discuss investigations intended partly to undermine the MUELLER probe, @RudyGiuliani
was talking to lawyers for PAUL MANAFORT about the same subject.
.@RudyGiuliani says he was not in WH mtg with BOLTON.
But he doesn’t rule out TRUMP asking BOLTON to call ZELENSKY:
“I don’t recall — although this one is more I don’t recall —the president ever asking him to call Zelensky. I have no recollection of him saying ‘call Zelensky.’”
Demings argues something I’ve been thinking about: It was Trump’s choice to contest the facts. He didn’t have to. His choice to do that means the Senate needs to get the evidence to determine who’s telling the truth.
‘I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed’.
‘It has also become clear some of my colleagues intend to further politicize this process, and drag the Supreme Court into the fray… We have already degraded this institution for partisan political benefit, and I will not enable those who wish to pull down another’.”
‘Pompeo did not give Mr Zelensky one thing he has sought since last May…Pompeo’s message that Mr Trump was not ready to receive Mr Zelensky at the White House was a blow to the Ukrainian president’s national security efforts’.”
Jay Sekulow, one of President Donald Trump’s lead attorneys during the impeachment trial, is being paid for his legal work through a rented $80-a-month mailbox a block away from the White House.
The Pennsylvania Avenue box appears to be the sole physical location of the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, a for-profit corporation co-owned by Sekulow. The firm has no website and is not listed in national legal directories. The District of Columbia Bar has no record of it, and no attorneys list it as their employer.
But Sekulow, 63, is registered as chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, a non-profit Christian legal advocacy group based in an expansive Capitol Hill row house a short walk from the Senate chamber.
A half dozen lawyers employed by the non-profit ACLJ are named in recent Senate legal briefs as members of Trump’s defense team — including one of Sekulow’s sons. The ACLJ, as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, is barred under IRS rules from engaging in partisan political activities.
The Republican National Committee has paid more than $250,000 to Sekulow’s for-profit CLA Group since 2017, when he was first named to Trump’s legal team as special counsel Robert Mueller was leading the Russia investigation, according to campaign disclosures.
…
Charity watchdogs for years have raised concerns about the blurred lines between for-profit businesses tied to Sekulow and the complex web of non-profit entities he and his family control.
The Associated Press reviewed 10 years of tax returns for the ACLJ and other charities tied to Sekulow, which are released to the public under federal law. The records from 2008 to 2017, the most recent year available, show that more than $65 million in charitable funds were paid to Sekulow, his wife, his sons, his brother, his sister-in-law, his nephew and corporations they own.
Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, said Sekulow appears to be mixing his defense of Trump with his charitable endeavors. The group has issued a “Donor Alert” about ACLJ on its CharityWatch website.
“Charities are not supposed to be taking sides in partisan political activities, such as providing legal services to benefit a politician in an impeachment trial,” Borochoff said. “Regulators should investigate whether or not charitable resources, such as office, labor, equipment, etc., are being wrongly utilized to benefit Sekulow’s for-profit law firm.”
…
A 2005 investigation by the publication Legal Times reported about questionable spending at ACLJ, quoting former employees describing millions in charity funds being spent to support the Sekulows’ lavish lifestyle, which included multiple homes, golf junkets, chauffeur-driven cars and a private jet used to ferry then-Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Guardian and The Washington Post reported additional details in 2017, shortly after Sekulow was named as Trump’s lawyer.
…
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, is investigating the potential abuse of charitable funds raised by the organizations tied to Sekulow. Spokeswoman Laura Brewer said it was unclear when that probe, begun in 2017, would be complete.
…
As Sekulow has positioned himself among Trump’s chief defenders in both the courtroom and as a legal analyst on Fox News, CASE has continued to raise more than $50 million annually through an aggressive mix of telemarketing and direct mail soliciting the conservative faithful to support ACLJ’s courtroom advocacy.
But tax records show much of that money is routed to Sekulow and his family. Over the 10-year period examined by AP, more than $12 million was paid in direct salary and benefits to Sekulow and his family members.
Gary Sekulow, Jay’s 61-year-old brother, was paid a total of $985,947 in salary and benefits in 2017 as the chief operating and financial officer at both ACLJ and CASE — two full-time positions that tax documents indicate would require him to work 80 hours each week.
Adam Sekulow, Gary’s 31-year-old son, was paid $229,227 as the director of development at CASE and $65,052 as the director of major donors at ACLJ the same year.
Records show millions more each year going to for-profit companies controlled by the family. In addition to the $5.8 million ACLJ paid to CLA Group in 2017, $1.4 million was paid to Regency Productions, a company owned by Jay Sekulow that receives his fees for appearing on the radio show “Jay Sekulow Live!” and his television show “ACLJ This Week with Jay Sekulow,” which airs on the same Christian network as Pat Robertson’s “The 700 Club.”
…
Marc Owens, who served for 10 years as the director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service, said the structure of the charities and corporations controlled by the Sekulow family appeared designed to obscure just who is getting paid and how much.
Federal law forbids charities from excessively benefiting those who have “substantial influence over the organization.” Owens said both the IRS and state attorneys general should investigate.
“This is an apparent web of organizations that seem to exist to pay compensation to Sekulow and his family members,” said Owens, who is now in private practice. “That pattern clearly raises questions for those entities that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) as to whether they’re operating for a public benefit or the private benefit of Jay Sekulow and his family members.”
Sekulow’s spokesman denied any wrongdoing.
“The financial arrangements between ACLJ, CASE and other entities have been reviewed by outside independent experts and are in compliance with all tax laws,” Kapp said.
Asked who those outside experts are and whether AP could speak with them, Kapp responded that he didn’t have anything to add.
Burn it down. The GOP has put the country on the path toward corrupt authoritarian rule. All that remains to stop this are sweeping Democratic wins in November. We are all in this together.
…Vote for every Democrat on the ballot. Every one.
SC @260, I’ve been waiting for more details to emerge concerning how Trump’s lawyers are paid, and who pays them.
This news about Sekulow is what I expected. He’s a scam artist, and he has involved his entire family in the scam. Christians are among his gullible targets.
Also, the huge amounts of cash that the Republican National Committee is required to throw into the black hole of trying to defend Trump should make donors angry.
One thing we know for sure, Trump is not going to use his own personal funds to pay for his defense in any legal fight.
[…] I’ll confess, I’m not altogether sure I understand Murkowski’s explanation for her position. She’s convinced that “there will be no fair trial” in the institution in which she serves, but given an opportunity to make the process better, the Alaskan chose not to?
[…] Perhaps Murkowski wanted to help avoid the complications of a 50-50 tie on the issue of witnesses. Maybe she’s hoping a “no” vote will truncate the process and help some of her vulnerable GOP allies in their respective re-election races. […]
Barring any last-minute changes, there will be 49 votes in support of including new witness testimony in the impeachment trial, which means Senate Republican leaders have the votes to shield members from information that further demonstrate the president’s guilt.
It also suggests the Senate is poised to make ignoble history. An analysis in the Washington Post recently noted, “Senate precedent, therefore, is astoundingly clear: In every single case in which the Senate has completed its constitutional obligation to conduct an impeachment trial, lawmakers have heard from fact witnesses before reaching a verdict. The only individuals who were impeached and did not face a full Senate trial with witnesses were individuals who resigned or were expelled from their position before trial.”
It means Trump’s proceedings will be unique: we’ll soon have the first Senate impeachment trial in American history in which members chose willful ignorance, deliberately deciding not to hear from a single witness – including the far-right former White House national security adviser who has directly relevant information, and who volunteered to answer senators’ questions. [Bolding is mine.]
[…] the president’s party wants to know less about his misconduct. […]
There’s a new nickname for Maine Sen. Susan Collins floating around the internet: It’s #SidekickSue, in recognition that she’s Moscow Mitch McConnell’s most valuable player when he’s trying to fix a Senate vote. That the fix was in (and that she had a key role in it) was glaringly apparently Thursday night in the choreographed release of statements from Collins and Sen. Lamar Alexander regarding whether they wanted to compel additional witnesses and testimony in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. (Collins said yea, while Alexander said nay.)
The final cynical fillip came Friday morning from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the other reliable player in McConnell’s game, with her duplicitous embrace of the cover-up with crocodile tears: “It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.” But she did her job for McConnell, and she’s providing the cover Collins needs. It’s not going to work this time.
The jig has been up for Collins since she betrayed every principle she previously touted and voted in favor of Brett Kavanaugh’s conformation to the Supreme Court. “Just as we’ve known she would, Collins announced her support for witnesses only when the votes were fixed to block witnesses and rig the trial to cover-up the corruption of Donald Trump,” Marie Follayttar, co-director of Mainers for Accountable Leadership, told Common Dreams. “We see Collins for who she is—Sidekick Sue to Moscow Mitch and a corrupt and despotic Trump.”
Joseph Bondy, Parnas’ attorney: “Below is the letter Stephanie Schuman @LeafLegal and I sent to Senator McConnell earlier today…summarizing the testimony Lev Parnas would be able to provide, were he called as a witness….”
Quite a letter from Bondy. He names as playing roles in the scheme:
Republican Super PAC America First
Trump
Pence
Perry
Pompeo
Barr
Graham
Nunes
Harvey
Solomon
Toensing and DiGenova
“and others”
Says he has more corroborating evidence.
johnson catmansays
re Akira @258:
That’s just 10 more months for Trump and his cronies to destroy this country.
Actually he has almost 12 more months. The election is in November, but the president will not be installed until mid-January 2021. If The Orange Toddler-Tyrant loses in November of this year, he will still have two months to do as much damage as he can. And you can bet that he will do so out of spite and rage.
I’m generally muting their arguments, but from what I’m catching in the closed captioning it’s the same with Sekulow. These white dudes walk into a trial heavily rigged in their favor, cough up some hairballs, and leave thinking they’re Clarence Darrow.
Schiff is back to respond because he intelligently reserved the balance of his time. I think Sekulow just waived his, because he’s a dipshit, but I could be mistaken.
“If Lev Parnas was called as a witness, he would provide testimony based upon personal knowledge, corroborated by physical evidence including text messages, phone records, documentary evidence, and travel records, which is directly relevant to the president’s impeachment inquiry. This would include, but is not limited to, the genesis of his relationship with President Trump and the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and his actions in Ukraine on behalf of the president, as directed by Mr. Giuliani.
“Mr. Parnas would testify to the efforts he and a handful of Republican operatives engaged in over a period of months, to remove Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and gather ‘dirt’ on Joe and Hunter Biden. Mr. Parnas would testify that those holding various roles in this plot included GOP super PAC America First, President Trump, Vice President Pence, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Bill Barr, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Congressman Devin Nunes, Nunes’ Staffer Derrick Harvey, Journalist John Soloman, Attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, Mr. Giuliani, and others. He is prepared to review and explain relevant phone records, text messages, and other evidence in connection with these activities.”
Gun owners from around Kentucky showed up armed at the state’s Capitol building in Frankfort on Friday, rallying for gun rights and protesting a proposed “red flag” law and other potential gun limits in the state. […]
“Lamar says it – ‘Whatever you think of his behavior, with the terrific economy, with conservative judges, with fewer regulations, you add in there an inappropriate call with the president of Ukraine, and you decide if your prefer him or Elizabeth Warren’.”
‘It’s a grand tragedy, one of the worst tragedies that America has ever overcome. America will remember this day … where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial’.
… It is so much easier to destroy than to create. It is so much easier to lie, to pretend the world is simple, to make people blame outsiders for problems which have complex origins. It is so much easier to burn stuff down than it is to build it up. And that is what they have done. They have destroyed something beautiful.
One moment this week provided a stark visual representation of that. Nigel Farage and his little gang of cronies sneered and waved tiny plastic flags in the European parliament, on a night in which European MEPs from across the continent joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne. It typified what is happening to us. On the one hand, international solidarity and common decency. On the other, bitterness, delusion, imagined victimhood, small-mindedness and spite. Britain reduced to a stump of itself, stripped of its better qualities. The replacement of patriotism with nationalism.
That is what we are now. Farage and his little flag.
But underneath it all, the seeds of a better Britain are already in place. Over the last four years, millions of people have discovered their values and their commitment to fighting for them. Openness. Internationalism. Liberalism. Reason.
That movement is online and offline, national and local. It exists in million-strong marches and small regional meetings. It is something new: a 21st Century variant of principles which go back through our history, a new generation carrying the flag for a proud intellectual tradition – one which embraces diversity, accepts complexity, believes in cooperation, and aspires to the confidence of a nation which can create instead of merely destroying.
History doesn’t have a direction. We were wrong to ever assume that the pathway is always towards greater freedom. Progress goes backwards as well as forwards. There is no guaranteed victory. But this movement has much on its side. It has commitment. It has identity. And, more than anything, it has the young. It has the future. There is no law that says that it must win. But it can win.
Today is a day of despair. There’s no point denying that. But tomorrow is a new day. And what happens in it is up to us.
Yup. The sad petty cultishness of it all. They’re basically $c**ntology at this point. Pretty soon they’ll be putting up web sites “The Truth about Mitt Romney,” “The Truth about John Bolton.”
“Once all the dust settles… Democrats will be able to say that Republicans voted FIVE TIMES to block Bolton from testifying. (This counts two amendments from the initial rules debate, today’s vote against considering witnesses, and now these two Bolton-specific amendments.)”
Senate investigators interviewed in recent weeks a whistleblower who claims wrongdoing in the Internal Revenue Service’s mandatory audit of the President and Vice President, the Washington Post reports.
Staffers on the Senate Finance Committee, for both Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), questioned the whistleblower for the transcribed session.
The whistleblower’s existence first came to light in August 2019 in a court filing submitted by the House Ways and Means Committee as part of its lawsuit seeking to obtain President Trump’s tax returns.
The tipster reportedly alleges that a political appointee at the Treasury Department possibly attempted to meddle in the agency’s mandatory audit of Trump’s or Mike Pence’s returns….
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, tweeted Friday that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was disinvited from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC.
“BREAKING: The ‘extreme conservative’ and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020,” Schlapp tweeted.
The decision was announced after Romney, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, aligned with Senate Democrats Friday with a “yes” vote for additional witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump.
[…]
CPAC, described as the “largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world,” launched in 1974. CPAC 2020 will take place at the National Harbor in Prince George’s County, Md., starting Feb. 26.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped […] Trump’s expanded travel ban after he included six other countries to the list of those that will face increased travel restrictions.
“The Trump Administration’s expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law. The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from traveling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“With this latest callous decision, the President has doubled down on his cruelty and further undermined our global leadership, our Constitution and our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants,” she added.
The statement comes after the Trump administration announced it would restrict the ability of immigrants from Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania to get certain immigration visas. The new policy does not amount to a blanket travel ban.
Friday’s proclamation will suspend immigrant visas for nationals of Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Nigeria. The restriction only applies to those seeking to live in the U.S. permanently rather than temporary residence. It will also restrict diversity visas for nationals of Sudan and Tanzania. […]
Pelosi said Democrats would oppose the new policy in court and introduce the NO BAN Act to “prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the President’s ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions.”
“In the Congress and in the Courts, House Democrats will continue to oppose the Administration’s dangerous anti-immigrant agenda,” she said. “We will never allow hatred or bigotry to define our nation or destroy our values.”
The proclamation signed by the president will go into effect Feb. 22.
[…] Understandably, millions of Americans today see darkness. Our president is a bad person and an incompetent leader. He lies constantly, stokes flames of racial division, tries to obstruct justice and represents much of what our Founders feared about a self-interested demagogue […]
The House impeached the president, and though the Senate will likely acquit, the American people can witness the whole thing. The free press fostered and protected by the genius of the First Amendment has let Americans know the truth, if they wish to.
They can see the facts and the process, and they will be shaped by that, both now and for the long term. In November, Americans, fully informed, will have the chance to decide what kind of country we are and what we expect of our leaders.
From Dahlia LithwickJan: “Three Branches of Government Conspired to Rig Donald Trump’s Impeachment Trial”
[…] One version of the Senate impeachment circus that has transpired these past two weeks holds that the greatest deliberative body in the world has now duly aired and considered the impeachment case against Donald J. Trump, and stands poised to issue a final decision on the merits. The better characterization of this whole sad spectacle is that in the world’s saddest game of constitutional chicken, nearly every single important player failed utterly to show up.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton will say that he offered to testify before the Senate, but the Senate refused to call him. […] Bolton has material evidence of the conspiracy to withhold aid from Ukraine to bolster the president’s electoral fortunes, information the Republican-controlled Senate is refusing to hear. Bolton will enjoy very much his book tour, royalties, and talk show circuit this spring—if the White House’s efforts to cover up Trump’s high crimes don’t extend to blocking publication of that book, as the administration has suggested it will. […]
Chief Justice John Roberts, who might have inserted himself into the proceedings to chide breaches of truth as opposed to lapses in civil discourse, will have a fun story to tell on the D.C. cocktail party circuit about the time he narrowly avoided having to break a tie or otherwise allow the stink of the political branches to sully his robes. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was briefly held out to be the last independent-thinking, old guard institutionalist, could have held out for witness testimony, as opposed to proclaiming that nobody needed to hear from witnesses to know that the president had engaged in misconduct that isn’t impeachable. Sen. Lisa Murkowski courageously grounds her refusal to stand up for the proposition that trials ought to have witnesses in the fact that John Roberts should not have to courageously stand up for the proposition that trials ought to have witnesses. All of this chatter for the goal of producing a trial unrecognizable as such, with even Murkowski herself acknowledging “there will be no fair trial in the Senate.”
As Auden put it, “The elderly rubbish they talk/ To an apathetic grave.” The game here was resoundingly similar to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing: Keep insisting that the only fair process was no process, allowing the rules of the road to produce slow death by neutral bystander.
Trump defense attorney Patrick Philbin blamed House Democrats for both rushing to judgment and also taking too long to get there. Alan Dershowitz blamed House managers for attempting to impeach a president merely for seeking to cheat in his reelection (in fairness, that’s what they were accusing him of). Sen. Rand Paul named a whistleblower for conspiring to oust a president, paid lobbyist Pam Bondi smeared Hunter Biden, Jane Raskin explained away Rudy Giuliani, and everything Trump’s defenders claimed to disagree with about impeachment—absolutely everything—was ultimately laid at the feet of Adam Schiff. At every turn, the GOP functionaries have made it their business to insist that Donald Trump, insofar as he is a problem for the rule of law, is someone else’s problem. In so doing, they have all colluded to ensure that he is above the law. We will pay the price for gifting him that in the coming months, of that we can all be certain.
[…] it’s sobering to see something that was dressed up as a trial, with rules and robes and speeches, wither and die on the vine […] It might have taken just a small act of courage from the chief justice, or Murkowski, or Alexander, or Bolton, to give the country an actual trial. But courage in the face of the juggernaut of bothsidesism is trickier than it looks, because it will be characterized as bias. Three branches of government worked together to obscure, delay, and confound a fair trial. Nothing about this process was neutral. […]
…California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Sanders campaign co-chair, sought to tamp down the latest round of Democratic in-fighting.
“I believe deeply that we need Bernie Sanders as President to secure Medicare for All, an infrastructure project for the 21st century, and a $15 minimum wage,” Khanna told CNN. “But we should acknowledge and respect the work of Secretary Clinton in expanding health insurance to children, in standing up for women’s rights as human rights, and in helping achieve a breakthrough nuclear deal with Iran. We will bring progressive change through addition, not subtraction.”…
Khanna continues to come from a place of decency and mutual respect.
John Bolton tweeted: “Brexit is done! Happy first full day of UK Independence as they reclaim their sovereignty from the EU. Brexit reflects deeply held views that the British enjoy governing themselves & are done surrendering their interests to the EU bureaucracy @BorisJohnson”
…To score candidates, we worked up a lengthy questionnaire with a big emphasis on democracy. What are candidates’ plans for reforming our democracy? How bold are their solutions? How high on their priority list are these reforms?
Warren scores highest overall and in the democracy category. Makes sense given her campaign’s focus on corruption. Unsurprisingly, she’s spent her time at the impeachment trial drawing the same connections.
As for other candidates, Buttigieg is lower overall but not far behind on democracy. Sanders, Steyer, & Klobuchar all have less expansive visions for democracy or place less of a priority on it – but they still get a 70+ score on this metric.
Way down at the bottom of the democracy ranking is Biden. When asked in a recent New York Times interview which of the big democracy reforms proposed by other candidates he supported, he gave a simple direct response: “None.”
Biden is also the only major candidate to decline to respond to Indivisible’s questionnaire at all. Every single other candidate put their thoughts down on paper when asked how they would save our democracy. Biden wouldn’t.
Biden has a pretty simple analysis: the problem is Trump. Once we get rid of him, all will go back to normal. Just a couple weeks ago, Biden predicted that McConnell would become “mildly cooperative” once Trump is gone.
All due respect, but there’s not a mildly cooperative bone in Mitch’s body.
The impeachment trial vote should shake everyone out of any illusion that we can go back to the way things were. Don’t listen to me, listen to a former senior GOP staffer on this: [Evan McMullin’s tweet quoted @ #153 above]
One side is rigging the rules to entrench their power. They’re rigging it against an increasingly diverse, unequal electorate that wants policies that actually reflect the will of the people. They were rigging it before Trump and they will continue rigging it after him.
I’ll work my ass off to elect whoever the nominee ends up being. And we’ve got several candidates who are well positioned to beat Trump. I’d just encourage you if you get a chance to ask your top picks about their plans for saving democracy after Trump.
“Trump ‘s new @FEC disclosure shows his re-election campaign spending $1.4+ million on legal consulting & lawyer fees in the 4th quarter of 2019 alone—roughly $12.4 MILLION since @realDonaldTrump became President facing Mueller investigation, Stormy Daniels lawsuit, impeachment…
New @FEC filing: Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign paid $194,247.57 to Trump family members, properties & businesses in the final quarter of last year alone—steering over $1.8 MILLION in donations from presidential campaign donors to @realDonaldTrump’s private interests.”
The Department of Justice revealed in a court filing late Friday that it has two dozen emails related to the President Donald Trump’s involvement in the withholding of millions in security assistance to Ukraine — a disclosure that came just hours after the Senate voted against subpoenaing additional documents and witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, paving the way for his acquittal.
The filing, released near midnight Friday, marks the first official acknowledgment from the Trump administration that emails about the President’s thinking related to the aid exist, and that he was directly involved in asking about and deciding on the aid as early as June. The administration is still blocking those emails from the public and has successfully kept them from Congress.
A lawyer with the Office of Management and Budget wrote to the court that 24 emails between June and September 2019 — including an internal discussion among DOD officials called “POTUS follow-up” on June 24 — should stay confidential because the emails describe “communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President’s immediate advisors regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine.”
…
The filings from the executive branch came Friday to meet a court-ordered January 31 deadline. A judge had specifically asked for an email-by-email breakdown of what the Justice Department redacted or withheld in Defense Department and OMB emails about the aid, and why it did so, after the Center for Public Integrity sued and got access to them in December through the Freedom of Information Act.
“BREAKING: Arab League Rejects #Trump plan for Israeli-Palestinian deal. League is 22 countries.
Full Statement (3 pages in AR) below calls it ‘US-Israeli deal of century’:…”
“Huge diplomatic victory for Abbas and the PLO. Even states that attended the Trump/Bibi ceremony (UAE, Oman, Bahrain) are now on record as rejecting. Anything less would’ve allowed the admin to claim some Arab support. That’s no longer possible.”
For meteorologists and senior leaders at NOAA, the first week of September 2019 is one they’re never going to forget.
Amidst the tumult of Hurricane Dorian and its threat to the United States, President Trump injected himself into the story by warning that several states, including Alabama, would “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever.” Alabama faced virtually no risk from the storm at the time. After being ridiculed for this errant forecast, the president responded with a White House event where he displayed an official National Hurricane Forecast map with a Sharpie-drawn extension that included Alabama in Dorian’s “cone of uncertainty.”
The controversy only burned all the brighter when the Birmingham office of the National Weather Service tweeted that Alabama residents had nothing to fear from Dorian (which was accurate). This tweet occurred after the president’s tweet about Alabama’s risk but was apparently not directly in response to the president. Instead, it came in response to a surge of public inquiries. According to the meteorologist-in-charge of the Alabama office, Chris Darden, his office’s phones “started ringing off the hook” with public inquiries and concern after the president took to Twitter.
In response to this sequence of events, NOAA released an unattributed statement on September 6 that rebuked the Alabama forecasters: “The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
All of this took place during the first week of September. The release of hundreds of emails on Friday night, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Jason Leopold, reveals the confusion and anger last year in the wake of the president’s Alabama tweets, Oval Office appearance, and then the NOAA statement.
NOAA communications officials themselves were mystified by their own statement, which was released at the direction of the White House. “You are not going to believe this BULL,” Maureen O’Leary, a public relations specialist at NOAA, wrote to a colleague.
…
Craig McLean, the acting chief scientist at NOAA, was even more aghast in emails. “What’s next? Climate science is a hoax?” he wrote in an email addressed to Jacobs and other senior leaders at NOAA and the National Weather Service. “Flabbergasted to leave our forecasters hanging in the political wind. Embarrassed, Craig.”
Meanwhile, the workforce at National Weather Service offices across the country were scared about their employment….
In the midst of this storm was Neil Jacobs, who on one hand had to answer to the White House and Trump—who clearly were not stepping back from a wrong-headed and irresponsible forecast—but also had the grace to realize that his workforce was being besmirched in the process….
The picture that emerges from this trove of emails is one of civil servants and government employees at NOAA and the National Weather Service trying to do what was right in the midst of a political (and self-made) crisis at the top and a natural disaster (Dorian) pressuring them from without.
The extent to which Trump’s actions severely distracted officials and forecasters at a time when they needed to be entirely focused on understanding the storm and warning US citizens about its impacts is significant. At the same time, the civility and dedication of people like Chris Darden, the meteorologist-in-charge of the Birmingham National Weather Service office, is pretty remarkable.
Here’s Leopold’s thread from last night with the docs:
BREAKING #FOIA: At 10 pm EST tonight, NOAA released hundreds of pages of documents in response to my and other #FOIA requests about Hurricane Dorian and Sharpiegate.
A late night dump from NOAA! Hmm wonder what’s in here.
Uploading docs now….
Meanwhile, in Miami,… “Just minutes before showtime, Harry Styles’ concert at the Meridian was canceled due to heavy rain, and fans were forced to [t]rudge through the downpour.”
Video atl. Meteorologist John Morales pointed out:
The rain was not excessive. But it was high tide, which spiked to over 1 foot above normal. This is what happens with #sealevelrise. This is #MiamiBeach’s future.
These docs are quite explosive and make clear top NOAA officials succumbed to WH pressure when responding to Trump’s comments abt Hurricane Dorian despite protests by dozens of NOAA scientists who said he was lying
I’m so angry NOAA dumped this on me on a Friday nite
Asked if he ever heard Trump explicitly link aid to Ukraine to investigations into the Bidens, Sec. Mike Pompeo tells @ABC News, “I don’t talk about conversations with the president. I’m telling you what our policy was.”
Yeah, right. I see you dancing around the question and refusing to give a straightforward answer.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Saturday won the presidential endorsement of Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), a prominent Hispanic House member.
Sánchez, who was the first Latina elected to a leadership position in Congress and is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), said she picked Klobuchar because she believed the Minnesota lawmaker is best positioned to defeat President Trump.
“Our number one priority in this election is defeating Donald Trump and Senator Amy Klobuchar is the best candidate to take him on,” Sánchez said in a statement circulated by Klobuchar’s campaign. “Amy not only has bold, progressive policies and an optimistic economic agenda, she also has a proven track record of delivering real results as I’ve seen in the Senate.”
The endorsement comes after Klobuchar met with the CHC’s campaign arm this week as she works to boost her White House bid’s appeal to Hispanic voters. Polling has her stuck in the single digits among voters of color, a figure that if left unchanged could hurt her chances to win the Democratic nomination. […]
“‘I think there should be a motion on the floor of the Senate to censure the President’, former GOP @RepCharlieDent says as Senate Republicans are poised to acquit President Trump. ‘He can be reprimanded… There should be a sanction of some sort’.”
Donald Trump’s goal of reversing everything Barack Obama ever did is set to take a bold new step soon, with the reversal of Obama’s 2014 directive mostly getting the US military out of the business of using or stockpiling landmines. The order was a step toward bringing the US a little closer to compliance with a 1997 international treaty banning the devices, which kill or maim between 15,000 to 20,000 civilians annually, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. And despite his order, Obama did not have the US join the 1997 agreement, also known as the Ottawa Convention, because the US military still thinks it needs landmines on the Korean Peninsula to deter a North Korean invasion of the south. […]
Trump may also have a stiffy for mining the US-Mexico border. He’s almost certainly been told civilized countries don’t do that, just like they don’t dig moats full of alligators and poisonous snakes. But Trump got out of the civilization business a long time ago, when he advocated torture during the 2016 campaign and salivating at the thought of shooting Muslims with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood. […]
As recently as 2004, the UN reported that half of landmine casualties in Cambodia were children, who were still being injured or killed by mines left 20 years before by the Khmer Rouge.
Clearly, Trump has no use for such sentimentality […]
The cable claims we need to bring back weapons that can’t distinguish between friend, foe, or 10-year-old girl crossing a farm field, because what about the safety of America’s Brave Troops? Besides, landmines have gotten a lot smarter now! […]
So the risks of mines blowing off kids’ legs ten years after America’s buggered off from some future war of choice should be substantially reduced. Unless something goes wrong with the safety features. But what are the odds of modern high-tech weapons malfunctioning?
[…] previous Defense Department studies cited by Rob Berschinski, who in the Obama White House coordinated landmine policy for the National Security Council. On Twitter Thursday, Berschinsky said it wasn’t just namby-pamby concern about “farmers blowing themselves up” or “maimed children” or “NGOs calling attention to kids missing hands and feet” that led the US to largely put away its landmines outside the Korean DMZ […]
DoD acknowledged that these weapons serve no good purpose on modern battlefields. In fact, DoD-commissioned studies have shown that during the Gulf War they mainly served to limit U.S. ground forces’ maneuver capability.
There’s a reason that during two decades of constant warfare they’ve essentially never been used. They don’t have much military utility.
[…] it’s unclear whether the military even wanted this change in the first place. Multiple experts — including US defense officials — said that the US military has clearly found anti-personnel landmines not to be that helpful in war. […]
SC @305, Trump has already used the phrase “impeachment lite.” I think he will shrug off a “reprimand.” But he will still take some kind of revenge on those who suggest it.
Sen. Schatz: “If John Bolton has something to say it needs to be said before Wednesday at 4pm when Republicans vote to acquit the President without conducting a trial.”
When @CoryBooker led an effort to change the debate thresholds, the DNC refused—saying they couldn’t benefit any candidate.
It seems the only candidate they’re willing to benefit is a billionaire who’s buying his way into the race. Total mess.
From Elizabeth Warren:
The DNC didn’t change the rules to ensure good, diverse candidates could remain on the debate stage. They shouldn’t change the rules to let a billionaire on. Billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to play by different rules—on the debate stage, in our democracy, or in our government.
From Andrew Yang:
The DNC changing its debate criteria to ignore grassroots donations seems tailor-made to get Mike Bloomberg on the debate stage in February. Having Americans willing to invest in your campaign is a key sign of a successful campaign. The people will win out in the end.
SC @305, Trump has already used the phrase “impeachment lite.” I think he will shrug off a “reprimand.” But he will still take some kind of revenge on those who suggest it.
I would like to see the Republicans have to go on record as voting against even a formal censure for an outrageously impeachable set of offenses.
In other news, recent reports show that Trump’s promises in regard to the economy were/are empty.
With the impeachment trial, the coronavirus, and the Iowa caucuses in the news, dry economic statistics aren’t getting much attention right now. But two new reports—the latest gross-domestic-product figures from the Commerce Department and a new set of budget projections from the Congressional Budget Office—shouldn’t be allowed to pass without comment. Indeed, the issues they raise should be central to the 2020 election.
The core of Donald Trump’s platform is that his policies have produced what he touts as “The Greatest Economy in American History!” The truth is very different. By enacting a huge tax cut, in late 2017, that was heavily slanted toward corporations and the rich, Trump and the Republicans gave the economy a temporary boost—in 2018, it grew at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent—that has now faded.
In the fourth quarter of last year, G.D.P.—the broadest measure of activity in the economy—expanded at an annual rate of 2.1 per cent, the new report from the Commerce Department showed. Taking 2019 as a whole, G.D.P. grew at 2.3 per cent. These growth rates are nowhere near the four-per-cent growth that Trump promised in 2016. Instead, they are in line with the average growth rate since 2000, which is 2.2 per cent. And this ho-hum outcome has only been achieved at a tremendous cost. The federal government is now running an enormous budget deficit and accumulating vast amounts of new debt, which will burden taxpayers for decades to come. After three years of Trump’s Presidency, in fact, the United States is starting to look like one of his highly indebted business ventures.
This year, the new report from the C.B.O. says, the deficit will be about a trillion dollars. […] Numbers like these are so big that they are hard to take in. The way economists make sense of them is by comparing the dollar amount to the level of G.D.P., much like a family might compare its mortgage to its income. If you do this, you can see just how out of whack with history the Trump Presidency really is.
According to the C.B.O.’s projections, the budget deficit will be 4.6 per cent of G.D.P. this year […] Before Trump took office, the United States had never run sustained deficits of this magnitude except during wars, […]
What about the level of government debt? “Because of the large deficits, federal debt held by the public is projected to grow, from 81 percent of GDP in 2020 to 98 percent in 2030 […
It’s no secret what happened during the early nineteen-nineties to some of Trump’s business ventures, including the Taj Mahal casino, in Atlantic City, and the Plaza, on Central Park South: they went bankrupt under the weight of the debts he had piled on them. Is the same fate in store for the United States? Probably not, fortunately. With interest rates at near-record lows, servicing large debts is easier than it used to be. And, in any case, governments have financing options that are unavailable to private businesses, such as raising taxes […]
[…] “we’re borrowing money for all the wrong things,” Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, points out.
Some of the debt that is being issued to pay for the tax cut could have been used to finance investments in infrastructure, renewable energy sources, universal day care, adult retraining, reducing the cost of higher education, or any other number of programs that yield long-term benefits to ordinary Americans. Instead, the biggest handouts went to corporations, who saw their tax rate reduced from thirty-five per cent to twenty-one per cent.
[…] Business investment did pick up a bit, in anticipation of the tax bill and immediately after it was passed. Since then, though, it has slipped back. For the past three quarters, the broad category of capital spending that the Commerce Department refers to as non-residential fixed investment has actually fallen, with the biggest drop coming in “structures”—a category that includes factories, office buildings, and things like drilling platforms. […]
So, what happened to the Trump tax cut? “Business saved some of the tax cut, but most of it seems to have gone on stock buybacks and dividends,” Shepherdson said. “There is zero evidence of any positive impact on capital expenditure.”
Just last week, I pointed out that the Democratic nominee, whoever it is, will need to debunk Trump’s claims about the economy. These latest economic reports provide plenty of material to work with.
Christiane Amanpour talks to Jared Kushner about the Middle East plan.
Hmmm. Kushner is certainly arrogant. He even makes an attempt to insult/bully Christiane Amanpour.
Kushner focuses on plans to help Palestinians in an economic way ($50 billion economic plan), without offering them freedom or self-governance. He advises Palestinians to “stop posturing.”
A few excerpts:
[…] “It’s a big opportunity for the Palestinians and they have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity they’ve had in their past, but perhaps maybe their leadership will read the details of it, stop posturing and do what’s best to try to make the Palestinians’ lives better,” he said.
Kushner said the plan was open to negotiation, but he did not indicate how much Israel and the US are willing to concede.
“The terms are not final terms. This is an opening offer and if the Palestinians come — and they have some adjustments, they want to move the line, they want to change one of the sentences, they want to negotiate on different thing — there’ll be flexibility […]”
“You have 5 million Palestinians who are really trapped because of bad leadership. So what we have done is we’ve created an opportunity for their leadership to either seize or not. If they screw up this opportunity, which again, they have a perfect track record of missing opportunities. If they screw this up, I think that they will have a very hard time looking the international community in the face, saying they’re victims, saying they have rights. This is a great deal for them.”
[…]”What’s Palestinian leadership? You’re talking about them like they’re great diplomats. What are they calling for? They’re calling for a Day of Rage. Who do you know that runs a state that when they don’t get what they want, they call for a Day of Rage?…Again, the Palestinian leadership have to ask themselves a question: do they want to have a state? Do they want to have a better life? If they do, we have created a framework for them to have it and we are going to treat them in a very respectful manner. If they don’t, they’re going to screw up another opportunity like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence.” […]
The plan envisions a Palestinian capital in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem on the eastern side of the separation barrier, physically separated from the rest of the city. Those neighborhoods include Kafr Aqab, Abu Dis and Shuafat. The plan allows for the Palestinians to call their capital “al-Quds,” using the Arabic term for Jerusalem, but includes no significant part of East Jerusalem and is well short of what the Palestinians would ever accept as their portion of the holy city.
Beyond proposing a new framework for negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the Trump plan gives Israel the green light to annex Israeli settlements regardless of Palestinian support for the plan, but mandates Israel freeze any further settlement expansion for four years. […]
From Kushner’s interview on Fox News:
These people have been professional at not finishing or making deals, and what they don’t like as we are not going to do it the same way it’s been done before. But the way it’s been done before has failed. So President Trump has been taking a new approach, and again, what we see with them is if they want to get to a conclusion, they have to act like people who are ready for a state. And they are proving — through their reaction — they are not ready to have a state.
More from Jared Kushner’s arrogant statements and approach to his Middle East “peace” plan:
[…] “If we don’t do this today, at the rate at which Israel is growing, I think that it will never be able to be done,” Kushner told Al Jazeera. “So we see this as the last chance for the Palestinians to have a state.”
He didn’t misspeak, which we know because he repeated this same talking point over an hour later. “This is something that we inherited, the situation where Israel continues to grow and grow,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
Let’s be clear about what this means: The White House’s lead staffer for finding a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine stalemate says Israel’s growth is basically unstoppable. For that reason, he claims, Palestine has no choice but to strike a deal.
It’s an astounding thing for Kushner to say. Israel restrains itself from extending its settlements into the West Bank unless it feels it has tacit American approval. Kushner’s plan and his statements will likely serve as a green light to Israeli leadership to expand those settlements. They may explain why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wants a vote on Sunday to annex 30 percent of the West Bank.
That could make a fraught issue so much worse.
[…] About 500,000 Israelis live in the settlements, of which there are about 130 scattered around the West Bank. Roughly 75 percent of settlers live on or near the West Bank border with Israel. Some of the settlements are vast communities that house tens of thousands of people and look like suburban developments. Some look like hand-built shanty outposts.
Settlements create what Israelis and Palestinians call “new facts on the ground.” Palestinian communities are split apart and their connection to the land weakened, while Jewish communities put down roots in territory meant for Palestinians.
In effect, it shrinks the area of land left available for any future Palestinian state to exist on and chops it up into pieces, destroying its potential viability as a real, contiguous state. For some settlers, this is the point: They want the West Bank fully incorporated as Israeli territory and are trying to make that happen.
A “conceptual map” of Palestine released as part of Kushner’s proposal shows he wants some of those settlements to remain where they are (they’re the flecks of beige interspersed among the blueish green parts). [see the link for the map]
Instead of coming up with a plan that would see those settlers relocated or finding some other solution, Kushner’s plan just takes the huge chunk of land where most of the settlements are located and gives it to Israel. In return, Palestinians get some pockets of land far away in the desert on the border with Egypt and not much else.
Which means one of two things: either Kushner doesn’t know how sensitive this issue is, or he doesn’t care and is using it as a cudgel against Palestinians. It’s hard to know which one is worse.
I’ve never seen a more insufferable & pathetic group of Senators than those in the GOP. They’ve chosen to strap themselves to a corrupt con man they KNOW is guilty. They’re all cowards. None of them belong in the Senate. They should go home and grow a backbone!
[…] “We reached one million donors without taking a single cent from Washington lobbyists, corporate PACs, or PACs of any kind,” the email read.
The announcement came amid the run up to Monday’s caucuses in Iowa, where Warren has seen a dip in polling but remains in the top tier of candidates in the race for the nomination.
Warren finished 2019 with over $13.7 million cash on hand, boasting a war chest that is bigger than all other 2020 Democrats besides Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg. […]
Various dunderheads are trying to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In the midst of impeachment mayhem, it can be easy to miss major revelations about other ways Republicans are destroying our country.
Next month, the Supreme Court will hear a case about the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Dismantling the CFPB is something that people it regulates have been trying to do basically since it was created in 2011. Because why protect consumers from fraud when you could be duping them and stealing their money?
[…] The CFPB is investigating a firm called Seila Law and requested a number of documents to help with their investigation. Rather than turn over the docs, Seila Law argued that the CFPB was unconstitutional.
The CFPB has recovered more than $12 billion for consumers in the last eight and a half years. It was created in the wake of the Great Recession as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, with a mission of protecting consumers from predatory companies in the financial industry. […]
The CFPB has only one director, appointed by the president and approved by the Senate, and the director can only be removed by the president for good cause. Seila Law argues this structure is unconstitutional.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that the CFPB was constitutional and ordered the alleged fraudsters at Seila Law to turn over the damn documents, so the fact that SCOTUS took up the case is not a good sign for the CFPB. And neither is the fact that they added a second issue for the parties to brief.
The Supreme Court granted cert in one question,
Whether the vesting of substantial executive authority in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency led by a single director, violates the separation of powers;
and added a second,
Whether, if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is found unconstitutional on the basis of the separation of powers, 12 U.S.C. §5491(c)(3) can be severed from the Dodd-Frank Act.
So not only could this case kill the CFPB; it could also kill the entire Dodd-Frank Act, which overhauled financial regulation after predatory financial practices helped lead to the Great Recession.
Trump’s CFPB chief, Kathy Kraninger, has refused to defend her agency […]
[….] 78% of the amicus briefs arguing the CFPB should be dismantled come from “CFPB-regulated entities, Republican lawmakers who have accepted campaign contributions from those industries, or think tanks and legal foundations funded by industry money or led by industry leaders.” […]
Advance Financial is a payday lending company owned by Mike Hodges. Hodges has been recorded bragging about buying influence with Trump and the RNC. Advance Financial also paid $350,000 to Al Simpson, a former Mick Mulvaney aide, to lobby the Trump regime for more lax CFPB regulations.
Roni Dersovitz and his companies were sued for “allegedly scamming 9/11 heroes out of money intended to cover medical costs, lost income, and other critical needs.”
Harpeth Financial Services is another payday loan company. In 2018, it lobbied the CFPB to try to gain more access to consumers’ checking accounts.
[…] The Buckeye Institute has received more than $3 million from organizations linked to the Koch brothers, who have been fighting against the CFPB since its inception. […]
Twenty-seven House Republicans filed a brief arguing the CFPB is an “unprecedented threat to the separation of powers and to the democratic legitimacy of the federal government.” Those 27 Republicans have received $67.9 million in contributions from the insurance, financial, and real estate industries.
Republican Senators Mike Lee, James Lankford, and Mike Rounds have each received more than $1 million in contributions from CFPB-regulated agencies, for a combined total of $4.98 million.
So yeah. They’re definitely all doing this for legitimate reasons founded in constitutional law.
[…] we can already predict with some certainty how one justice is going to rule. In 2018, Kegs Kavanaugh wrote a dissent for the DC Circuit, arguing the CFPB’s “novel structure” violated the Constitution with “power that is massive in scope, concentrated in a single person, and unaccountable to the President[.]”
As for the rest of the Court, only time will tell.
[…] I want nothing to do with a party led by the deluded and the dishonest. I fervently hope our democracy survives this debacle. I fervently hope the Republican Party does not.
Eric Lipton from the NYT re #299 above: “Not sure what the news is here and a similar report from CNN. We have known since December there are emails White House has about the aid freeze that have not been released. And that they date back to June 2019….”
Lynna @ #319, Bill Kristol also tweeted this morning: “Not presumably forever; not perhaps for a day after Nov. 3, 2020; not on every issue or in every way until then. But for the time being one has to say: We are all Democrats now.”
IIRC I’ve seen both Boot and Kristol on TV refusing to commit to voting for the Democratic candidate regardless of who it is. Weaver’s statement @ #262 above was clear that he would, but Kristol’s sounds vague to me. Does Boot promise in the article to vote for the Democratic candidate?
Walter Dellinger: “Before it fades into history, please note: the efforts to ‘out’ the whistleblower is one of the despicable acts in our public life. It no longer matters who he/she is. The effect is to 1) put his/her life at risk & 2) to chill anyone who would dare expose Trump wrongdoing.”
“Overlooked… ISIS envoy Jim Jeffrey: ‘we are seeing ISIS come back as an insurgency, as a terrorist operation, with some 14- to 18,000 terrorists between Syria and Iraq’.”
“Tucker Carlson on the Coronavirus: ‘Maybe this is a warning about globalization […] Maybe one of the reasons that the United States has thrived for all these years is that we are physically distant from a lot of the rest of the world and that’s not a bad thing necessarily’.”
Watched BBC cover #Brexit celebrations in London where they interviewed people making blatantly false claims about the EU. That journalists didn’t challenge them, or ask them to give evidence, is malpractice. Opinions are one thing. Facts? No…you’re either right or wrong.
TV news paradigm set up for vox pop soundbites, and when those soundbites are grotesquely misinformed, news outlets then hide behind “time restraints” to justify not pushing back. Well, sorry. Then drop the practice or accept your responsibility to not spread lies and make time.
Reporter: “Hello. Why did you vote in favor of banning cats in the UK?”
Citizen: “Cats have infiltrated our banking system and instituted blatantly anti-dog monetary policies.”
Reporter: “Cats can’t read, can they?”
Citizen: “Some can.”
Reporter: “I see. Thank you.”
I understand that journalists confronting citizens isn’t a comfortable look, and has the distinct feel of punching down, but “citizen on the street” stuff should never be a free pass to spout complete bullshit without being challenged by reporters.
And I make these arguments no matter what the politics or ideology of the issue or respondent. If they are repeating blatant falsehoods, it’s the job of the reporter to call them out. Giving unchallenged “space” to lies corrodes political discussion. Period.
As a final point: Yes, I understand the complexity of citizens being fed misinformation by Media A, regurgitating that misinformation, and then being challenged by Media B on factual accuracy. But that doesn’t absolve Media B from taking that role. #Brexit
(P.S. Claims that audiences “know” that blatantly false claims are false, or that people being interviewed who make false claims are just ”exposing their own ignorance,” is a cheap cop-out that shifts responsibility off of journalists and on to audiences.)
“Warren has been very clear about how she would pay to cancel most student debt and provide universal health care, but Biden is just telling people she doesn’t even know how much it would cost or how to pay for these plans.”
Mike Bloomberg’s campaign says there is no basis for Trump’s claim – which Trump made both on Twitter and rather angrily in his Super Bowl interview with Hannity – that Bloomberg is trying to get a box to stand on at debates. #journalism #factchecking
Trump to Hannity: “Now he wants a box for the debates, to stand on. OK, it’s OK there’s nothing wrong – you can be short. Why should he get a box to stand on, OK? He wants a box for the debates. Why should he be entitled to that? Really? Does that mean everybody else gets a box?”
Bloomberg campaign spokesperson Julie Wood has now sent me this comment: “The president is lying. He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan.”
@ #333
That’s not how American politics works. You have to get the nomination first before the Republican is your opponent, so right now their opponent is every other would-be nominee.
“We have only been out of the EU for 36 hours and already the ‘stab-in-the-back’ conspiracy theories have started. It didn’t work out well for Weimar and it won’t work for UK #Dolchstosslegende ps there isn’t a deal to renege on”
Daily Telegraph headline “Johnson fury as EU reneges on deal” atl.
“Here they are, for historians, that diverse bunch that have driven Brexit information warfare. Remember their names. They will be written in the annals of British decline, as a warning to others of the danger to democracy when media is captured by a narrow, ideological clique…”
SC @337, reveling in being small-minded, willfully ignorant … however you want to describe it. Brings to mind the crowds at Trump rallies. It’s fun to be proudly rude in a crowd of likeminded dunderheads.
SC @332, one pundit made the comment that if Bloomberg stood on a pile of his money/assets, he would be about 50 times taller than Trump. Trump’s harping on Bloomberg’s stature is typical. Trump ignores policy difference and/or governing experience in order to insult his opponents on a personal level. Trump as schoolyard bully.
SC @331, yeah. I heard Biden repeat that today. Either he doesn’t understand Warren’s plan, or he hasn’t read it, or he is disseminating disinformation just like a trumpian politician.
Biden can disagree with how Warren plans to pay for her plan, or he can explain how he thinks her plan is really not paid for even though she claims it is, or he should shut up about it.
@ #336
What does that mean, “Democrats” is plural, not singular.”? These are individuals in a race for the nomination. They are not in this as a team. And this is politics, which means that any one of them would knife another in the back to advance themselves. That’s just reality.
Sure, once one of them wins out the rest should come around and join forces, but we’re not at that point yet.
SC @322, I think Max Boot is in recovering-Republican mode. It looks like it takes a long time for guys like Boot and Bill Kristol to realize that Trump actually killed their Republican party. David Jolly is a good example for them.
I still expect Boot to have a hard time voting for a Democratic Party candidate.
SC @321, Bernie’s use of the word “establishment” as a lump-them-all-in category that he despises has always bothered me. He is using “establishment” to create an “other” against which he can fight, when he himself is an establishment kind of guy — longterm politician and all that.
The way he uses the term to describe some of his fellow Democrats is a crowd or cult-control mechanism. It’s not right. Bernie has frequently tended to create a supposedly ill-intentioned and evil “other.” That’s a tactic that will lead to bad results.
Also, it’s relatively meaningless when you look at the fundamental policy positions of the candidates.
Tech workers are opting to immigrate to Canada instead of the USA.
Tech workers would rather go to Canada than the U.S., suggests new trends. As the current administration cracks down on immigration, foreign tech workers are finding it more difficult to get work visas in the U.S. Alongside the lengthy process and stricter policies to be eligible for H1 visas, the administration’s travel ban on Muslim majority countries, which the Trump administration plans to expand, contributes to the decline of U.S. bound foreign professionals. As the U.S. strengthens its policies against immigrants and increases the rate at which it rejects visa applications, Canada welcomes immigrants with high skills to join its workforce.
“While the States has gone, ‘Let’s make it difficult to get the employees here on a visa,’ Canada’s gone the exact opposite, and it’s beneficial for Canada,” co-founder of TechToronto Alex Norman told NPR. ”You had a fast-growing ecosystem here that’s been getting a shot of steroids.” NPR also interviewed foreign tech workers in which it found that many chose to apply to Canada rather than the U.S. because of the less restrictive visa application and approval processes.
Delays in visa processing have also occurred for many applicants, despite following the correct process over the years. While many foreign tech workers acquired their higher education in the U.S., they pursued jobs in Canada because the vigorous application process for work visas makes companies more hesitant to consider foreign workers, Ozge Yoluk told NPR. “I said I will not waste my time applying for positions in the States,” Yoluk said. “Whereas in Canada, the process was easy.” […]
Some people are still feeling the bad effects of the shutdown Trump caused a year ago:
[…] a year after Donald Trump and his Republican allies shuttered the government as part of a pouting demand that Trump be allowed to build his useless border erection, many government contract workers who missed paychecks during that shutdown have yet to receive a dime of what they’re owed.
Why? Because Donald Trump and Republicans are blocking that pay: no other reason. Democrats sent a bill to the Senate last year to provide back pay, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow co-conspirators killed it dead and have refused any other effort to make things right. They don’t care. They don’t care who or how many people were hurt by Trump’s asinine little tantrum, and they don’t intend, to do anything about it—ever. […]
I’m not letting the senators off the hook. We’re still going to go into to the Senate this week and make the case why this president needs to be removed. It will be up to the senators to make that final judgment, and the senators will be held accountable for it.
By exposing [Trump’s] wrongdoing, we are helping to slow the momentum away from our democratic values until that progress away from democracy can be arrested and we can return to some sense of normalcy and support for the founders’ ideals […]
This is such a good idea. The Elizabeth Warren campaign is offering free child care during the Iowa caucuses.
[…] The Warren volunteer sign-up sheet asks questions including the age of children, their typical bedtime and dietary restrictions, according to CNN which first reported the child care effort. It also reportedly asks if parents are okay with a child watching a movie rated G or PG.
The sign-up also asks parents to include supplies, such as diapers, according to CNN. […]
Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is short. We all know this. But he’s not Lilliputian. According to my extensive research, Bloomberg’s 5’8″. That’s the same height as Humphrey Bogart or Tom Cruise when he’s wearing lifts. It’s irrelevant anyway — unless you’re a shallow, vain wretch of a man like Donald Trump. […]
Trump taunted Bloomberg last night in a series of deranged tweets that should’ve triggered the 25th Amendment. He’s upset because Bloomberg is using his billions to run ads reminding voters that Trump is mentally unfit to tie his own shoes let alone serve as president. […]
Trump refers to Bloomberg as “Mini Mike” because he’s observed that Bloomberg is short and he saw Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me once on a plane. Bloomberg was born this way, so it seems juvenile and wrong to mock him for it. I know it’s not as egregious as taking Barron Trump’s name in vain, but Melania Trump might want to consider that children are bullied because of their height every day. The president of the United States should set a better example […]
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trump is promoting a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact. There’s no evidence that Bloomberg has asked the DNC to accommodate his shortness, but even if he did, that’s not even half as corrupt as asking a foreign government to smear your political opponent. It’s the 21st Century and we don’t actively marginalize people who are physically different. Short people can be president — so can men of color and women. (That last one is still just a theory, but we stand by it.) […]
Trump gave another softball interview with Sean Hannity that’ll air before the Super Bowl today. He talked some more about Bloomberg’s height like the overgrown bully he is. What first pops into that demented mind of his when hears the name “Mike Bloomberg”?
TRUMP: I just think of little. You know, now he wants a box for the debates to stand on. OK. It’s OK. There’s nothing wrong. You can be short. Why should he get a box to stand on. He wants a box for the debates. Why should he be entitled? Does that mean everyone else gets a box?
This is how conservatives like Trump view affirmative action. Any perceived effort to “level the playing field” or remove a structural disadvantage against a group is just plain wrong. It’s unfair and unAmerican. Bloomberg should just let his microphone poke him in the forehead while Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren point and laugh. […]
“Does that mean everyone else gets a box?” You can dress up conservatism with all the fancy words from a William F. Buckley column, but that’s the core of its moral philosophy. No, everyone doesn’t get a box because not everyone needs a box. It’s not that hard to comprehend … or at least it shouldn’t be.
Like Trump, Bloomberg is also running a campaign ad during the Super Bowl. Unlike Trump’s, Bloomberg’s ad is moving and worth watching. […]
Ah, Republican’s and their interpretations of the Constitution … what can I say?
Montana State Representative Rodney Garcia is way out there on the far right fringe:
So actually in the Constitution of the United States (if) they are found guilty of being a socialist member you either go to prison or are shot.
They’re enemies of the free state. What do we do with our enemies in war? In Vietnam, (Afghanistan), all those. What did we do?
[…] according to the Constitution, I’m telling you.
The Montana Republican Party wants no part of that particular form of batshit crazy.
The Montana Republican Party wholeheartedly condemns the comment that was made and under no circumstance is violence against someone with opposing political views acceptable. It’s disappointing that this isolated incident took away from the weekend’s events which showcased the strength of our statewide candidates and the importance of the upcoming election.
Still, my bet is that Rep. Garcia is not alone in Montana. Beware those scary socialists … especially in Montana, where Garcia says, “They’re teaching that [socialism] to kids. Thank God my grandkids know it’s wrong because I teach them. And it’s a very dangerous situation.”
tomh,
The common opponent of all Democrats is the Republican.
That’s who we should be running against and working to defeat.
This is difficult?
tomhsays
@ #353
What’s difficult to understand is that you don’t seem to realize what the primaries are about. The isn’t the general election, so the candidates are not running against Republicans. They’re running against each other. Obviously. So I don’t get your point.
My point is not to kill each other now. Not to fatally weaken one another so that DFT can just step over the corpses and pick up his crown.
But you’re probably right. The real enemy is The Judean People’s Front, and we should devote all our energy to backstabbing now and developing a base that will refuse to vote for any candidate but their chosen one. Did I “realize” correctly?
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 353
No, we should be working to defeat capitalism, theism, and general racial/sexual prejudice.
Neither party is willing to do that.
johnson catmansays
Teenage climate activist nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
As you’ve probably heard, Iowa’s presidential caucuses are tonight, and if the polls are correct, Bernie Sanders is very well positioned to come out on top. FiveThirtyEight link
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Donald Trump trailing each of the leading Democratic presidential candidates in hypothetical general election match-ups.
In a bit of a surprise, the 200,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union, which supported Sanders’ campaign four years ago, endorsed Biden over the weekend.
Secretary of State John Kerry, a prominent Biden supporter, was overheard by an NBC News reporter yesterday in Des Moines, talking about what he’d have to do to enter the 2020 race and prevent Sanders from “taking down” the party. Kerry soon after clarified, in unusually blunt terms, that he will not be a candidate. NBC News link
It was painful to watch 51 senators vote away their power to hold the president accountable by rejecting a demand for witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial. The Senate calls itself “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Those words will now provoke only derision and sorrowful laughter.
This was no ordinary roll call. It was a direct assault on American democracy and our core freedoms. Whatever the flaws of our system, we could once believe that a president who tried to bring down a political opponent by conspiring with a foreign government — and using American taxpayer dollars in the process — would be punished. The Trump 51 told us that such faith is for suckers.
The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of a party that once crusaded against slavery and led the fight to amend our Constitution to guarantee equal protection under the law was exposed by the tortured rationalizations offered for its capitulation to absolutism.
Steve Benen chronicled the responses of some other editorial boards:
[…] The Post’s editorial board lamented the “cringing abdication of Senate Republicans.” The New York Times’ editorial board added that Friday’s vote against witness testimony “brings the nation face to face with the reality that the Senate has become nothing more than an arena for the most base and brutal — and stupid — power politics. Faced with credible evidence that a president was abusing his powers, it would not muster the institutional self-respect to even investigate.” […]
More details that reveal the extent of Mitch McConnell’s “total coordination” with Trump’s White House team:
[…] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.), aided by White House liaisons, exercised a behind-the-scenes campaign in the chamber to keep his members from panicking and breaking en masse from Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell’s office even advised the president’s legal team throughout the process on which arguments were important to be made on the floor to resonate with certain undecided senators.
Republicans are planning to impeach Joe Biden … or at least, they are saying that they plan to impeach him.
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst warned Sunday that Republicans would immediately push to impeach Joe Biden over his work in Ukraine as vice president if he win the White House.
“I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened,” Ernst said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him.'”
The grounds for impeachment, the first-term Republican said, would be “for being assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”
More Republicans are now admitting that Trump did something wrong. We already discussed Senator Lamar Alexander’s statement that Trump’s guilt “has already been proven,” but that the “inappropriate” actions were not impeachable.
Now we see somewhat similar statements from other Republicans:
[…] Sen. Rob Portman ([…] said the president’s actions were “wrong and inappropriate.” He, too, nevertheless concluded that Trump’s misdeeds weren’t serious enough to warrant a conviction.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) issued a rather evasive statement that avoided firm conclusions, though he nevertheless said, “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.”
[…] Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) added, “I’ve said from the beginning that it was not a perfect phone call and there are elements that were not appropriate. … It doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) used cautious language yesterday on CNN, but she nevertheless told Jake Tapper the president pursued his goals “maybe in the wrong manner.” The Iowan added that Trump’s actions were “not what I have done,” and that his infamous July 25 phone meeting was “maybe not the perfect call.” Ernst added, however, that she’s sticking with her party anyway.
[…] the political dispute seemed to fall relatively neatly into two camps: those who demanded accountability for a presidential abuse on a historic scale, and those who argued that Trump did not do what all of the evidence showed him doing.
But there was a Door #3 and behind it sat something we probably should’ve seen coming: Republican indifference.
It’s refreshing, to a degree, that so many GOP lawmakers are willing to concede that Trump’s nonsensical “hoax” talking point, repeated obsessively despite its transparent absurdity, is simply too ridiculous to endorse. […]
I’ve heard Rubio and Alexander say in effect that even if what Trump did warranted impeachment, removing him would only aggravate our nation’s already deep partisan and ideological divide.
Guys, I hate to break to you guys, but NOT impeaching Trump is going to the exact same thing! Do you honestly think that Trump’s supporters are going to crow about this and rub it in our faces? Do you think lefties like myself are going to overlook this travesty and won’t shudder at the possible horrors that acquittal will allow him to create without check?
Despite what you tell the press to justify your complicity in Trump’s obvious crimes, this isn’t going to go away. We should not forget, nor we should never forgive.
johnson catmansays
Akira @363: I think what you had in mind is either “and we should never forgive” or “nor should we ever forgive”.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 364
Sorry, I wish we had to ability to edit these damn posts.
Akira MacKenziesays
Ugh… See?
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 362:
It doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.
And what acts DO rise to that level, pray tell? I mean, besides perjuring yourself over a few fucking blowjob?
johnson catmansays
Akira @367: I think Lynna answered that @361. Namely Presidenting while democrat.
Chris Jsays
The grounds for impeachment, the first-term Republican said, would be “for being assigned to take on Ukrainian corruption yet turning a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”
“Oh yeah? You’re gonna impeach our guy now for something we admit he did in the present? Well, we’ll impeach your guy later for something he didn’t do in the past! That’ll show you that you’re destroying our institutions!”
For years I’ve been talking about the phrase, the title of an article by Slate’s Will Saletan: The GOP is a failed state and Trump is its warlord. Like a good poem I’ve come back to it again and again and found new levels to its meaning. The key point Will was getting at was that the fractures in the GOP, its ungovernability, institutional breakdown and extremism had made it possible for an outsider to wrest control of the whole thing by ruling only a chunk of it. […]
Party’s usually function as political filters to exclude or marginalize extremist outsider political figures. This has been true in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world. Far-right and authoritarian impulses are not at all alien to American politics […]. But they have usually been constrained by party’s and party elites. This didn’t happen in 2015-2016. And we’ve seen a more rapid and total replay of the story in the Senate impeachment trial. It’s become the most nail-on-chalkboard cliche of the Trump Era. But over time authoritarian and transgressive behavior really does become ‘normalized’. […]
When they had the chance GOP elites and elected officials didn’t effectively work to isolate and marginalize Donald Trump. There’s a long history of rightwing authoritarian leaders coming to power with the help of conventional right-wing parties. But it isn’t a satisfying explanation. Individuals suffer failures of character or moral cowardice. When whole groups or countries do so there must be some deeper structural explanation.
My own theory […] is that Republican elites cultivated right-wing political movements they had little actual control over but profited greatly from. You can see this in microcosm in the 2011-2019 Republican House. ‘Establishment’ Republicans like Boehner operated as a thin membrane or veneer over a party which was already mostly a Trumpite party. […] they actually had little control or true connection to the motive force of their party, what we later came to call Trump’s ‘base’. Trump didn’t so much overthrow them as expose them as largely powerless.
[…] Once Trump took hold of the apparatus of the Republican party and its role in America’s two party system, all Republicans eventually fell into line and his authoritarianism and transgressive extremism became normal by dint of being continually affirmed by an entire political party.
Trump’s ignorance extends to all things, at all levels:
Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game, and a fantastic comeback, under immense pressure. You represented the Great State of Kansas and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well.
The White House retweeted Trump’s erroneous post. Trump deleted that tweet a little over ten minutes later.
The corrected tweet:
Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game and a fantastic comeback under immense pressure. We are proud of you and the Great State of Missouri.
a_ray_in_dilbert_spacesays
It is interesting to note that many Republicans also did not believe Nixon deserved to be either impeached or convicted. They felt the process was unfair–and that is part of the reason why Bill Clinton was impeached. Alfonse D’Amato was heard to cry out, “It’s payback time.”
My hope is that this will finally and firmly impress on the minds of American voters that the problem is not just one man (e.g. Darth Cheeto). It’s not just a few men (Darth and Moscow Mitch and Leningrad Lindsey…). It is the entire Republican party. They are fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-fair play and anti-reality. They really, honestly see nothing wrong in what the orange shitgibbon did.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 369
They really are invested on the Burisma thing, aren’t they? Every credible source that’s looked into the matter has found absolutely NOTHING, and yet they insist on perpetuating this half-baked conspiracy (along with the CrowdStrike nonsense). So much so that I doubt that isn’t just some sinister ploy to deflect from Trump, but they truly believe that Democrats are so evil the allegation MUST be credible.
Pompeo needs to work with Trump tutoring him with his unlabeled map.
——————–
I’m lying in a dentist’s chair, groggy and recovering from a wisdom tooth extraction, and I’m still more coherent than this dumb motherfucker.
——————–
“It’s Missouri you stone cold idiot.” [that’s from Claire McCaskill.]
———————
I wonder if donnie boy could find Kansas or Missouri on one of Pompeo’s unmarked maps. I am sorry but I am in no mood for giving trump a pass on this small gaff.
——————-
Frank Conniff said on Facebook:
“I’m usually the first to criticize Trump, but come on, his confusing the state of Kansas with the state of Missouri is the kind of simple mistake any authoritarian racist who cages children, rapes women, and defrauds charities would make. Cut him some slack.”
————————
Windmills don’t cause cancer, OK? They don’t rake the forests in Finland. There are literally scores of examples of things he gets wrong that smart people don’t get wrong. And while I hate to spread rumors, the rumors yes they’re rumors of his ongoing, accelerating cognitive decline are nevertheless persistent and based in observable fact. So this matters. The whole pattern of devastating unfitness matters. It is a big deal, actually, when you zoom out.
——————
Missouri Senators Blunt and Hawley has a massive amount of egg on their faces today. Let me smear that around a little before you clowns vote to acquit your Second Coming of God.
———————
The White House used to be a pretty sophisticated communications outlet. You didn’t see mistakes, typos, sloppiness, childish name calling etc. Everything was first rate. Today it’s disgraceful. Any school district PR office is far more professional.
Akira MacKenziesays
@372
It is interesting to note that many Republicans also did not believe Nixon deserved to be either impeached or convicted. They felt the process was unfair–and that is part of the reason why Bill Clinton was impeached. Alfonse D’Amato was heard to cry out, “It’s payback time.”
The founders could not foresee the rise of partisanship in their newly minted republic. They naively believed that reason would prevail. That differences would be put aside in the name of truth and justice and corrupt and despotic leaders would be removed before they did more damage to our nation.
What a bunch of morons.
Akira MacKenziesays
Frank Conniff said on Facebook:
“I’m usually the first to criticize Trump, but come on, his confusing the state of Kansas with the state of Missouri is the kind of simple mistake any authoritarian racist who cages children, rapes women, and defrauds charities would make. Cut him some slack.”
Heh, heh… I’d say “Mic drop” but I think this is more appropriate:
From Julia Louis-Dreyfus and others concerning Trump’s erroneous tweet about the winners of the Super Bowl:
Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Trump’s Kansas tweet: Hard for ‘Veep’ to ‘compete with THAT’
Julia Louis-Dreyfus says “Veep” had a tough time competing with some of President Trump’s real-life tweets.
The actress starred as vice president and later President Selina Meyer on the HBO political satire, which ended its run last year.
In a Monday tweet, Louis-Dreyfus agreed with screenwriter Gary Whitta, who had posted a link to a story in The Hill about Trump deleting a Twitter message congratulating the Kansas City Chiefs for representing the “Great State of Kansas” after the team’s Super Bowl victory on Sunday.
The Chiefs are based in Kansas City, Mo.
“This is why ‘Veep’ had to end,” Whitta wrote. […]
“I think that ‘Veep’ has torn down the wall between comedy and politics. Our show started out as a political satire, but it now feels more like a sobering documentary,” Louis-Dreyfus said at the 2016 Emmy Awards.
Pompeo continues to lie about the interview conducted by NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelley, and about the aftermath:
During a visit to Kazakhstan, one of the many nations Donald Trump can’t find on a map or even pronounce, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained to that plucky little former Soviet republic that a free press is probably a good thing, but that some journalists need to be punished for asking questions they shouldn’t. Fine, not in those words, but he was pretty clear.
In an interview with by Kazakh journamalist Aigerim Toleukhan, Pompeo was asked what the USA plans to do to help improve human rights in Kazakhstan […] Pompeo answered the US would “provide technical assistance,” and added,
As a journalist, I’m sure you know the good work the State Department does to train journalists in press freedoms – all of those things that build out civil society inside of countries are things we’re deeply committed to. We’re here, we’re here to help, and we’ll continue to do that.
Commitments to press freedoms like banning an NPR reporter from the pool for the very trip Pompeo’s on, because another NPR reporter asked Pompeo a tough but polite question about Pompeo’s involvement in Trump’s Ukrainian election fuckery, which prompted him to lose his shit and cuss her out for being uppity.
Turns out the Kazakh press has heard about that! Toleukhan noted that journalists for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have been threatened and physically attacked while working in the former USSR, and asked, in light of Pompeo’s own screamy fit at NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelley and banishment of another, “Did you retaliate against NPR? What kind of message does it send to countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus, whose governments routinely suppress press freedom?”
Pompeo was ready for that, because he may not give a rip about press freedom, but he knows how to deny stuff and then blame people!
Yeah, I didn’t have a confrontational interview with an NPR reporter any more than I have confrontational interviews all the time. In America that’s the greatness of our nation: Reporters like yourself get to ask me any question and all questions. We take hundreds and hundreds of questions. We talk openly. We express our view; they ask their questions. That’s how we proceed in America.
Pompeo said, “I didn’t have a confrontational interview with an NPR reporter.” That’s a LIE!
[…] As for NPR’s Michele Kelemen being kicked off the plane for this trip, Pompeo explained that was just a matter of journalistic ethics, which are enforced by those in power.
And with respect to who travels with me, I always bring a big press contingent, but we ask for certain sets of behaviors, and that’s simply telling the truth and being honest. And when they’ll do that, they get to participate, and if they don’t, it’s just not appropriate – frankly, it’s not fair to the rest of the journalists who are participating alongside of them.
Remember, Pompeo’s the schmuck who lied about Kelly, and there are receipts. But to be fair to other journalists, you need to punish the people who piss you off, lest anyone get any ideas.
And yet the Kazakh reporter lady — who after 30 years of sorting through an autocrat’s lies seems pretty good at recognizing fibs — persisted: But “what kind of message will it send” when you do petty revenge like that? Pompeo was totally ready for that one, too!
It sends a message – it’s a perfect message. It’s a perfect message about press freedoms. They’re free to ask questions. There were – there’s a reporter from that very business who was at a press conference just yesterday. It’s wide open in America. I love it. I hope the rest of the world will follow our press freedoms and the great things we do in the United States.
There’s that word “perfect,” which is so popular these days with Trump.
We didn’t shut down NPR all together, and somewhere, an NPR reporter was even allowed into a presser (we haven’t figured out who Pompeo was referring to), so the message is perfect. Afterward, Toleukhan took to the Twitters to say she found the Pompeo interview “exhausting.” […]
Bossi, who together with Berlusconi contributed to normalize the worst of the worst in Italian politics, has always been a staunch anti fascist (well, except the two times that he allied with them and Berlusconi to govern…) but apparently Salvini’s League went too low even for him.
I’d say “you reap what you sow” if he were actually on the receiving end of anything of what he sowed.
Chris Jsays
I’m seeing a couple news sites saying that the math on the Senate removing Trump is pretty much over, as 34 senators have proclaimed their intent to acquit.
Here’s my question: can McConnell (and maybe some other senators) be impeached and removed on the grounds that they lied in their oath they took at the beginning of the impeachment process? The vow reads:
I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be,) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of [Donald Trump], now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God.
I’m sure most of us have seen the clips of McConnell and Graham saying explicitly that they will not be impartial, but now we additionally have confirmation that McConnell did in fact coordinate with the White House defense team, feeding them information on which arguments to make based on what Republican Senators on the fence needed to hear. Effectively undeniable and enacted (as opposed to just stated).
I don’t know if that Oath actually means anything… if there’s any punishment for violating it legally. Maybe the best we can hope for is the equivalent of a mistrial, but I don’t know what the law says about that. Does it say anything?
tomhsays
@ #380
No, nothing can be done, senators can say what they want and vote however they want, without any legal consequences. And senators can’t be impeached, they can only be expelled by a 2/3 vote of their fellow senators.
See the link for the video, which is 25:43 minutes long.
Excerpts:
We must say enough — enough! He [Trump] has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again. He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.
You are decent. He is not who you are.
Can we be confident that he will not continue to try to cheat in [this] very election? Can we be confident that Americans and not foreign powers will get to decide, and that the president will shun any further foreign interference in our Democratic affairs? The short, plain, sad, incontestable answer is no, you can’t. You can’t trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can’t. He will not change and you know it.
What are the odds if left in office that he will continue trying to cheat? I will tell you: 100 percent. A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way. [….]
Every single vote, even a single vote by a single member can change the course of history. It is said that a single man or woman of courage makes a majority. Is there one among you who will say “enough!”?
A pundit on NBC mentioned that Adam Schiff was a poor choice to present the case to Republicans because Republicans hate Schiff so much that they can’t hear what he is saying.
Nonsense. Are there Democrats the Republicans don’t hate? Is there a better lawyer in the House than Schiff?
Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia (a place that is solidly red, solidly Trump territory), asked his senate colleagues to consider censuring Trump. We’ll have to watch to see if that goes anywhere.
Trump seems to have happily moved on to his revenge phase over impeachment.
Donald Trump is preparing his revenge against everyone who has crossed him. […] Trump will take the success of the Senate Republican impeachment cover-up as license to commit new abuses of power and acts of personal retribution.
[…] Republican sources are also lining up to (anonymously) dish to reporters. “It’s payback time,” one “prominent Republican” told Vanity Fair, while, according to another source, “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day.”
Enemy No. 1 is former national security adviser John Bolton, who it seems is “going to go through some things.” In addition to the White House threatening Bolton’s publisher over the contents of his forthcoming book, Trump wants Bolton himself criminally investigated, a source told Gabriel Sherman. But even if a criminal investigation doesn’t materialize, “Trump has been calling people and telling them to go after Bolton.”
It’s not just Bolton, though. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney dared to vote for witnesses in the impeachment trial, so he’s in trouble. Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler led the impeachment inquiry and the team of House managers at the trial, so they’re on the enemies list.
It’s exactly what you’d expect from Trump. He expects to be free from any consequences for his actions, and anyone who threatens what he sees as his royal prerogative is going to be the target of his unhinged narcissistic rage. Expect the next several months to be even uglier than what we’ve already seen—but nothing compared to what will happen if he manages to cheat his way to a win in November.
Manhattan federal prosecutors expect to crack open the contents of 20 more electronic devices in the prosecution of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said at a Monday status conference that none of the defendants in the case had provided the government with passwords to access their devices, meaning that the FBI is currently trying to hack into their phones, computers, and other hard drives. […]
[Parnas] used discovery received in the case to comply with the subpoena, allowing the House to release conversations between Parnas and key figures in the campaign that led to President Trump’s impeachment one week before his trial.
[…] 197,000 pages of discovery had been produced in the case so far, and that, barring any unexpected reveals from outstanding subpoenas or the uncracked devices, prosecutors expect to finish delivering discovery to defendants by mid-March.
The sheer amount of evidence in the case led to a brief confrontation in the courtroom, with one defense attorney present – Gerald Lefcourt – demanding that the government produce an exhibit list early in the case to provide a “guide” to the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents before them.
Roos replied that each search warrant had a “100-page affidavit” attached, which, he argued, provided enough of a “guide.”
Judge Oetken declined to force the government to provide exhibits early, and set a trial date in the case for Oct. 5.
The New York Times has an article out today about the brave men and women mostly men whose job it is to put somewhat coherent words into Donald Trump’s mouth when he speaks publicly. The (impeached) president is set to deliver his third and preferably final State of the Union address Tuesday night to a stunned nation. The theme is the “Great American Comeback,” but don’t call it a comeback! He’s gonna be here another four years, because it’s in the “national interest” for him to rig the hell out of the upcoming election.
Vince Haley and Ross Worthington are described as “little-known aides” who’ll “assemble” Trump’s address from the robbed graves of abnormal ideas. Haley and Worthington will humbly give the president “all the credit” for his speech (if that was their plan, they shouldn’t have spoken with the New York Times). [Ha! LOL]
[…] Trump believes he’s his “own best communicator,” and White House spokesman Hogan Gidley enables that delusion with this statement about the glorious leader.
The president is a best-selling author and deeply gifted orator who packs arenas and has a meticulous and carefully honed method for writing his speeches, whether it be at a rally, a manufacturing plant opening or the State of the Union. What the American people hear is 100 percent President Trump’s own words.
Of all existing words in the English language, “meticulous” is the last one I’d use to describe anything related to Donald Trump. Writing the mad emperor’s speeches is best done anonymously and right after he’s been measured for invisible clothing. […]
Haley and Worthington currently work for Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior white supremacist. They reportedly add “historical sweep,” along with some “eye of newt and toe of frog” from Miller’s personal stash. Policy advisers and Cabinet officials submit “their top-line achievements and talking points for review.” You can’t expect Trump himself to keep track of what his administration actually did all year. He only monitors his own petty grievances and personal feuds on Twitter. The president, however, is an active participant in this process.
For months Mr. Trump also passed along scraps of paper scribbled with sentences or themes he wanted included in the speech, and had those forwarded to his writers.
“Scraps of paper,” y’all. The president can’t even bother to dictate a single page double-spaced that just repeats the sentence “Make me sound like a mammal.” That’s harder than it looks. […] You’ll recall Trump’s bizarre inauguration speech when he condemned “American carnage.” At least someone should’ve sounded upbeat on the day Trump was sworn in as president.
Worthington, who is 31, resents liberals with the experience of a white man twice his age. He whined about how mean we all were in a 2014 column for the Federalist.
And it turns out that for ideas the privilege police don’t like, we can never check our privilege enough. We’ll never express the thoughts in a way that no longer merits ad hominem appeals to our race, gender, or economic status. Don’t even try.
“Don’t Even Try” is an apt rallying cry for modern conservatism.
Trump is expected to stick to message Tuesday and “compartmentalize” his anger over impeachment. That’s just laughable. Nancy Pelosi is standing right behind him. Adam Schiff is also in the same room. If Trump possessed that degree of self-control, he wouldn’t have been impeached in the first place.
Haley and Worthington can script the part of a staid, conservative champion, but America screwed up on the casting.
John Moralessays
Lynna @382:
Adam Schiff’s closing speech.
You are decent. He is not who you are.
Heh.
Well, one statement out of two correct ain’t the worst.
John Moralessays
I guess the coda is pretty funny too, given the predicate:
“Is there one among you who will say “enough!”?”
(so very decent they are!)
a_ray_in_dilbert_spacesays
Akira MacKenzie: “The founders could not foresee the rise of partisanship in their newly minted republic. They naively believed that reason would prevail.”
Uh, no. The late 1700s and early 1800s were a time of exceptionally bitter political infighting in the new Republic. Remember that no one really knew what a republic should look like, and France was dissolving into the terror and the eventual rise of Bonapartism. Washington and Hamilton actually led troops into Pennsylvania to quell insurrection. Aaron Burr murdered Hamilton and subsequently plotted with the Brits to bring down the government. Benjamin Franklin Bache (Franklin’s nephew) and his Philadelphia Aurora were slandering anyone who didn’t toe the Jeffersonian line (even including Washington). And John Adams had Bache jailed under the Alien and Sedition Acts. An then, during the War of 1812, the nation had to come to grips with the fact that Jefferson had so weakened the military, that the new country couldn’t defend itself–the Brits sacked Washington DC.
There has never been harmony in US politics…only occasional truces so both sides could reload.
The fact that Democratic turnout in Iowa didn’t rise troubles me as much as the clusterfuck around counting the caucus votes.
From the Washington Post:
About 170,000 people participated in the 2016 Iowa Democratic caucuses, far short of the unprecedented 240,000 voters who turned out in 2008 and launched Barack Obama on his way to the White House. What was so exciting a dozen years ago was not only how many Iowans showed up, but who they were: young people, first-time caucusgoers, an ethnically diverse mix of voters in an overwhelmingly white state.
Until recent days, there had been plenty of buzz among Democrats that this year would set a new record. There was even some loose talk that turnout could reach 300,000, which would be incontrovertible evidence of the passion that their party is feeling about the prospect of defeating President Trump in November.
Commentary:
[…] if Iowa Democratic officials are correct, and 2020 turnout merely “kept pace” with the results from 2016, it’s an inauspicious start to the party’s nominating process.
[…] there were similar concerns four years ago. Despite Bernie Sanders’ hopes of bringing new people into the process, voter turnout in each of the first four nominating contests – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina – fell relative to 2008 totals.
Complicating matters, entrance polls found only about a third of Iowa caucus-goers were first time participants, which is quite a bit lower than the numbers from each of the last several Iowa contests, and further raises doubts about the candidates who’ve claimed a unique ability to inspire voters who’ve traditionally steered clear of elections.
[…] it’s entirely possible that Iowa will be a forgotten blip as the process moves forward. It’s just one contest, so it’s best not to draw sweeping conclusions without more data.
But Iowa was a test of sorts at these candidates’ abilities to turn out supporters after months of concerted effort. […]
As the words disaster, chaos and fakakta blare across social media to describe the Iowa caucus, so has a reminder that it’s not the first time those words have been linked to the first-in-the-nation caucus.
Mitt Romney was declared the winner for the Republicans in the 2012 Iowa caucus, but two weeks later, the state’s Republican party said a recount of the votes showed the winner was actually Rick Santorum.
The incident was followed by a chaotic caucus in Nevada the next month, when Romney was declared the winner before votes for the state’s most populous county had been tallied. Together, the incidents prompted a headline in Politico: “Caucus system under fire.”
In 2016, there were frustrations and disappointment about how Democrats in Iowa declared Hillary Clinton the victor, despite a messy, complicated process in a tight race with Bernie Sanders….
(I might not be recalling this correctly, but I think the Sanders campaign was supportive of caucuses, which are always kind of a mess but gave him an advantage because they favor students and highly committed supporters.)
I wasn’t following this debacle as closely as usual due to a cat health emergency (he’s getting better, unhappily sporting a plastic cone, looks like an astronaut), but my immediate conclusions are:
This should be the last year Iowa goes first.
This year should be the end of caucuses.
The cable news coverage of everything yesterday was horrendous – in this case, the breathless reporting from the caucuses, the slippage away from recognizing margins of error and the limitations of anecdotal evidence, the heavy importance placed on an unrepresentative state, the hostility toward the more leftwing candidates and the coddling of Bloomberg (!!!) (who wasn’t even participating), the constant reading of correspondents’ impressions of the “mood” at different campaign events and caucus sites rather than the candidates’ plans and interactions with voters about real issues, the flattering of Iowans, the general hyperventilating and lack of proportion,….
Buttigieg’s victory speech sounds irritating. He’s pretty full of himself.
Seems like Warren and Klobuchar have responded best to the situation.
We should never take anyone’s word for it that any state organization is doing a great job running things or that any candidate has a great ground game.
They should have been testing the reporting app for weeks ahead of yesterday, and been able to run the numbers through the delegate formula on their laptops in an instant.
Conspiracy theorizing on Twitter is out of control, helped in no small part by rightwing trollbots and Trump’s den of scumbags. Once again, Sanders seems content to let his surrogates and supporters engage in it, with frequent references to the DNC or even “the Democrats” as enemies working to sabotage him, while he remains silent.
The Iowa Democratic Party is now saying they’ll be releasing the majority of the results by 5 PM ET today. It was actual people declaring their support openly in large rooms and documenting it on the spot. The IDP is claiming that the written numbers from the caucus locations match what the caucus leaders transmitted, but due to a glitch the app was only transmitting partial results (in some cases?), so that resulted in the inconsistencies they saw last night.
Trump and his campaign are taking advantage of the confusion in Iowa.
Prominent surrogates from Donald Trump’s campaign, including his campaign manager and both of his adult sons, peddled allegations this morning that the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses have been “rigged.” There’s no evidence to support this, the rhetoric reinforces concerns about Republicans trying to undermine public confidence in the electoral system.
With Brad Parscale weighing in also (“Quality control=rigged?) you can be sure that Russian bots and trolls will pick this up and amplify it.
From the readers comments:
There’s a delay in announcing Dem results…why isn’t anyone talking about trump seizing the candidacy from Republicans. No one was allowed to vote for an alternate candidate – he’s seized power as expected of a dictator- shouldn’t this be bigger news?
That reader is referring to the fact that Trump is the only name on Republican ballots in many states. Other Republican candidates are running, but the RNC decided not to include them on primary ballots.
With Senate Republicans on track to acquit Donald Trump on Wednesday, Washington is bracing for what an unshackled Trump does next. Republicans briefed on Trump’s thinking believe that the president is out for revenge against his adversaries. “It’s payback time,” a prominent Republican told me last week. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day,” another source said.
Names that came up in my conversations with Republicans included Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitt Romney, and John Bolton. “Trump’s playbook is simple: go after people who crossed him during impeachment.”
Lynna @ #392, I guess my most positive interpretation would be that it doesn’t necessarily signify anything about the energy around the general election. The caucus is a big commitment, and people who are still undecided – a large percentage in Iowa – might not feel like staking a public claim to any particular candidate just yet, even if they like most or all of them. Even in the regular primaries, I’m not sure I’d expect to see a big spike in participation, at least until it gets down to two or three.
“Post caucus, Mayor Pete declared victory, team Sanders trashed Pete and the DNC, and Elizabeth Warren spent 20 minutes just bodying Trump and kicking him in the teeth repeatedly and then thanked her dog.
Here’s a look at how Trump’s lawyers lied during the impeachment trial. Yes, we know they lied, but just how they go about lying is instructive:
Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s most controversial lawyers, pointed to a three-year-old tweet from Mark Zaid, an attorney representing the intelligence community whistleblower who first helped shine a light on Trump’s illegal extortion scheme. Zaid wrote at the time that a “coup has started,” adding that impeachment would ultimately follow.
To hear Sekulow tell it, Zaid was signaling a years-long plot that he proceeded to execute. As Vox’s Aaron Rupar explained, this wasn’t even close to being true.
[W]hat Sekulow didn’t tell people is that it was actually in response to another tweet from CNN’s Jake Tapper about Trump firing then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Trump, you might recall, fired Yates after she announced she wouldn’t defend court legal challenges to Trump’s executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States, citing concerns about the order’s legality.
Read in that context, Zaid’s tweet is clearly meant as commentary on Trump’s early moves to purge government of any and all officials who wouldn’t carry out his policy directives, not as an announcement of Zaid’s intentions. And, as CNN’s Daniel Dale notes, any lingering doubts should’ve been cleared up by another tweet Zaid posted days later about “the coup [the Trump administration] just perpetrated to take over the country.”
Around the same time, a Washington Post analysis highlighted comments from Mike Purpura, another member of the president’s legal defense team, who “proceeded to offer an untrustworthy presentation of the available evidence and to disclose only partially what is known about the alleged actions by Trump that are at the center of his impeachment trial.”
This came against a backdrop in which, late last week, Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin argued, with a straight face, that his client didn’t “necessarily” push for Biden-related investigations – despite the fact that we all saw Trump do exactly that while on camera, speaking from the White House South Lawn.
[…] The evidence and the facts paint an ugly picture for the president – even many Republicans now concede Trump is guilty – so it stands to reason that his legal defense team would find it necessary to take liberties with reality. The alternative is to remain silent, which isn’t much of an option under the circumstances.
What’s more, while the Senate proceedings are considered a “trial,” it’s not a literal Article III judicial proceeding. In an actual courtroom, lawyers know that lying is likely to lead to court sanctions; on Capitol Hill, Trump’s lawyers know they can lie more or less with impunity.
But for those interested in the truth, what does it tell us about the president’s culpability that his legal team found it necessary to repeatedly try to deceive the Senate and the public?
I know my own investment in the democratic primaries is close to non-existent. I’m going to vote, of course, but the particular candidate matters far less to me than just getting Trump out of office, so I haven’t really bothered watching the debates.
SCHIFF THREATENED… A man in Arizona has been accused by federal authorities of threatening to kill Congressman Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
Court records show that Jan Peter Meister, a 52-year-old registered sex offender, told investigators he drunkenly left the threatening voicemail at Schiff’s Washington, D.C. office after watching Fox News and googling the congressman’s phone number.
“I’m gonna fucking blow your brains out you fucking piece of shit,” Meister allegedly said in part of the obscenity-filled voicemail.
…
From the court filing:
Agents explained that the call was to Congressman Adam Schiff.
MEISTER responded that he watches Fox News and likely was upset at something that he saw on the news. He stated that he strongly dislikes the Democrats, and feels they are to blame for the country’s political issues.
THE GUNS: Federal authorities searched Meister’s home and found an AR-15-style rifle and two pistols as well as more than 700 rounds of ammunition.
THE CHARGES: Meister was charged with making interstate threats and being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition. He faces up to five years in prison on the first count and 10 years on the second.
Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski is about to speak at a conference with far-right figures in Rome
He has just backed far-right leaders Viktor Orban and Matteo Salvini by name, saying they “represent serious ideas and concerns, some of which are shared by many citizens of the UK”
Kawczynski said last week that he would meet with whips before deciding whether to attend… he has attended… so assume that means he was given permission… Tories not saying anything at the moment
The Jewish Labour Movement has written to Tory chief whip Mark Spencer calling on him to suspend the whip
“If Daniel Kawcyznski attends this conference then he must have the whip removed. There can be no place for these hateful views in our parliament.”
Here is the original BuzzFeed News story from last week on the nationalist conference and its far-right attendees:
[link to BuzzFeed article “A Tory MP Is Set To Speak Alongside Far-Right Politicians At A Conference In Italy: Speaking alongside British Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski are Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán, and Marion Maréchal” atl]
NEW: Board of Deputies of British Jews condemns Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski and calls on @CCHQPress @Mark_Spencer to take action:
“We condemn the decision by Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski to speak at a conference alongside some of Europe’s most notorious far-right politicians”
Board of Deputies statement continued:
“If the Conservative Party fails to discipline Mr Kawczynski, it runs the serious risk of the public assuming that they share his views on association with such people.”
And the Campaign Against Antisemitism has also condemned Kawczynski
“It is important that the Conservative Party not be enticed by such views and those who espouse them.”
SC @405, OMG. Rand Paul should be censured. Here is an excerpt from Laura Clawson’s take on that:
Sen. Rand Paul continues to be a flaming heap of whistleblower-outing trash. Whistleblowers are protected for reasons that an alleged libertarian like Paul should appreciate—that protection encourages people to come forward when they see something wrong in government. But after Chief Justice John Roberts refused to read Paul’s question naming the person who Republicans believe to have been the whistleblower on Donald Trump’s impeachable Ukraine call, Paul took matters into his own hands.
He’s already read the question, with the name, to reporters. But apparently he didn’t get enough attention for that, so on Tuesday, Paul brought a large poster of his question up with him as he made a floor speech in the Senate, during which he read the question.
To recap: the chief justice refused to read Paul’s question because it named a rumored whistleblower, possibly endangering that person. Paul then held a news conference to read the same question, and then, as if he hadn’t done enough, read it on the Senate floor while standing before it printed on a large poster, for anyone watching C-SPAN to hear and see.
Paul has insisted that this is all innocent because he doesn’t know that this is the whistleblower, he just happens to be asking lengthy questions about a random person whose name hasn’t come up in the impeachment for … reasons. I think we know the reason, and the reason is that Rand Paul is a terrible piece of human trash and he’s part of a political party that rewards that.
Ha! A little bit of good new—news that is bound to irritate Hair Furor: “Trump’s Super Bowl ad comes in dead last in audience ranking.”
Everyone loved Bill Murray reprising his role as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.
Everyone hated Trump.
USA Today’s Ad Meter, which tabulates consumer ratings, has been running its Super Bowl ad rankings since 1989. This year, Trump’s campaign ad was ranked as the worst.
The second-least favorite? This commercial for pretzel Pop-Tarts. Yes, pretzel Pop-Tarts are more popular than the president of the United States. Not coincidentally, a pretzel Pop-Tart would also be a much better president, because it has more dignity and gravitas and doesn’t necessarily have to be thoroughly toasted before breakfast. (You know, because Trump sprinkles Adderall on his pancakes. Or so I’ve heard.)
Jeep’s Groundhog Day commercial received a 7.01 overall rating, just edging out the second-place finisher, Hyundai’s “Smaht Pahk,” which nabbed a 6.98 rating.
Trump’s “Criminal Justice Reform” — which includes at least one quasi-lie, of course — got a 3.33 ranking.
Michael Bloomberg’s campaign ad “George” came in third last, but nevertheless scored .9 of a point higher than Trump’s ad while garnering 4.4 million YouTube views to Trump’s paltry 148,000.
So Bloomberg is not only far richer and thinner than Trump, people like his ads better. Someone please let Trump know immediately. […]
Mark my words, they are rigging this thing… what a mess. This is why people don’t want the #Dems running our county.
From Donald Junior:
Tens of thousands of ballots all for Joe Biden being shipped to Iowa from Broward County Florida as we speak. “Don’t worry folks we got this covered” DNC operatives.
From Benny Johnson, the disgraced Buzzfeed reporter who is now chief creative officer at Turning Points USA, a right-wing nonprofit:
A Short History Of @DNC:
– Openly rigged elections/delegates against Bernie in ‘16
– Server hacked, *proving* that DNC rigged elections against Bernie
– Paid for foreign interference in 2016 with Russian hoax dossier
– Went bankrupt
– Rigging elections against Bernie in 2020
Russians boosted that particular conspiracy theory in 2016.
From Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA:
Reports are claiming the delay in the Iowa Caucus is being caused by glitches & irregularities in a new voting app being used for the first time this year
Who helped develop the app?
Robby Mook—Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager
What is going on in Iowa?
Fact check for Kirk’s statement, above:
[…] In reality, Mook’s involvement was tenuous at best. The false reports of his involvement stem from an apparent misreading of a Jan. 29 article in the Des Moines Register.
That article stated that both the Democratic and Republican parties and their tech vendors had reached out to a group that Mook runs called Defending Digital Democracy in order “to develop strategies and systems to protect results and deal with any misinformation that’s reported on caucus night.”
That’s a far cry from Kirk’s statement.
From Lindsey Graham:
What are the odds that:
➡️ most anticipated poll of the year (@DMRegister) is cancelled.
➡️ voting system completely crashes.
….and it has nothing to do with a Bernie blowout and a Biden crash?
From Sean Davis: co-founder of The Federalist:
After the debacle in Iowa, WHERE NOT A SINGLE VOTE HAS BEEN REPORTED, it’s abundantly clear that Democrats are the single greatest threat to election security and integrity in this country. Not Trump, not Russia, not Ukraine. Democrats.
Wow, that’s some weapons grade disinformation. “Russian Media Outlets are Blaming the Coronavirus on the United States.”
Conspiracies pushed by Kremlin-linked sites allege the epidemic is an American bioweapon.
When the coronavirus broke out of China to grab global attention, internet trolls and grifters began peddling a conspiracy about how the virus was actually created as a bioweapon.
Now, Russian propaganda outlets associated with the Kremlin have taken that already warped conspiracy theory and bent it to their own ends. Eto Buziashvili, an analyst at the Atlantic Foundation’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, published a report on Thursday documenting how such sites have pushed different versions of conspiracies alleging that the coronavirus is a U.S.-creation, and potentially a bioweapon designed to target China. […]
The non-conspiracy theory explanation that is closer to the truth:
From our NYT story tonight: no indication the app to tally votes in Iowa was hacked/breached.
What happened appears to be much more mundane and commonplace: people didn’t understand how to use the technology, and bugs in internet speed/connectivity led to a lot of malfunctions.
[…] When I woke up this morning, I found the hashtags #CIAPETE and #MAYORCHEAT trending on Twitter. Although the latter is certainly hilarious, they both are irresponsible.
There’s no (as in zero and none) evidence that Pete Buttigieg cheated or engaged in any deliberate skullduggery to perform well in a state that was tailor-made for him. Iowa is 91 percent white, and if you watch “Finding Your Roots,” you’d know that most white people aren’t actually that white. Caucus-goers also skew older. Older white people are naturally going to love the Eddie Haskell candidate. The results, which we might officially learn at some point in this calendar year, don’t seem that surprising. […]
Mike Cernovich is an anti-feminist conspiracy theorist who inexplicably has a Twitter following. He claimed to have discovered a “connection” between Buttigieg and the technology company — “Shadow,” because “COBRA” was already taken by GI Joe — behind the app that imploded last night. I watched enough “X-Files” while not dating in college to know that conspiracy masterminds don’t leave such obvious clues or at least none that someone with Cernovich’s limited intelligence could find. Deleting incriminating texts is pretty low-hanging fruit when you’re “rigging an election.”
Cernovich, of course, is a noted kook. I shouldn’t make too much of him shouting at the rain. It’s not like he’s a sitting senator … and holy crap, Lindsey Graham said something crazy again, didn’t he? [See comment 411]
Yes, I think these two unrelated things are not part of an organized conspiracy to protect Joe Biden from the electoral hurricane that is Bernie Sanders. This is why Jill Biden thinks Graham sucks now. He sounds like Donald Trump, except even Trump’s post-Iowa tweet was less InfoWars-esque.
Last night wasn’t even entirely the app’s fault. It just wasn’t tested for shit. As someone who’s managed operations and major tech releases, your job is to either make sure a new system works or adequately explain why it won’t. It doesn’t appear that either happened. They just ran with it.
The results themselves — with first, second, and final round “alignments” — are maddening and confusing, but somehow part of a “reform” Bernie Sanders spearheaded and supported, but Sanders supporters now condemn because it didn’t help Sanders. This is like a guy convincing his wife to have a threesome and then she runs off with the other woman. You need to accept some responsibility for how things turned out. […]
Donald Trump is not known for his love of data, facts, or evidence to support his ideas. His Agriculture Department is following his lead, Politico reports. The USDA has repeatedly rolled out new policies without data backing them up—Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his underlings make big claims about what they’re doing, only for it to be revealed that they hadn’t bothered to find out what would actually happen.
Case in point: Perdue’s staff originally told members of Congress that 500,000 children would lose automatic access to free school lunches as a result of changes to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility. That’s a big number—except it turned out the real number was 982,000.
That wasn’t the only Trump USDA move to cut food assistance that didn’t have data behind it. When they decided to strip states of flexibility to waive work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents, the USDA didn’t bother to look into how that would affect veterans, the homeless, or teens who aged out of foster care with no support.
Sometimes they have no data, sometimes they have false claims about what the data show, as with the plan to close job-training centers for at-risk youth run by the Forest Service. The USDA claimed that the centers slated for closure were underperforming and wasting money. But government data showed that in reality the Forest Service centers performed in the top quarter of job-training centers.
The Trump administration’s massive farmer bailout—necessitated by his trade war—has left out some types of farmers while sending too much money to others. Perdue claimed that his push to move the Economic Research Service from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City would save $300 million over 15 years, but independent analysts say it would cost $128 million, in addition to forcing veteran employees out and weakening the research the ERS could do … not that Perdue or Trump care about the loss of information about what’s happening with U.S. agriculture.
“The administration has made moves to reduce the amount of evidence that enters into the policymaking process,” Rebecca Boehm, an economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Politico. “It’s obviously political, and special interests come into it. But bottom line is the public loses, farmers lose.”
The loss of free school lunch eligibility not only affects those children’s ability to eat lunch; it also affects supplemental money sent to schools to support instruction for low income children.
With partial results in, it looks like Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are vying for first place in the Iowa delegate count. Elizabeth Warren holds a respectable third place.
Biden is in 4th place, and the results look disappointing for his campaign.
’m having one of those “if Obama did this” moments: “Among the guests at the Trump International Golf Club Super Bowl party Sunday night in West Palm Beach, Fla., its host, President Trump, was an unusually conspicuous presence. In an Instagram video taken by a guest and later discovered and republished by the Miami Herald, other attendees – including members of the first family – are seen standing calmly with hand over heart as ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ plays. The 20-second clip using the front-facing-camera mode shows Trump doing neither. Instead, the president is seen fidgeting, pointing around the room, straightening his jacket and at one point waving his fingers in the air as if conducting an invisible orchestra.”
Rudy Giuliani is still hard at work doing Trump’s bidding. The impeachment trial did not even give Team Trump pause.
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani acknowledged Tuesday that he’s still sniffing around for “more information” on Joe Biden in Ukraine, even as the Senate approaches its vote to acquit President Trump in his impeachment trial.
Witnesses in the impeachment proceedings against Trump described Giuliani’s central role in Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine, in which the former New York mayor and others sought out political dirt from the country on the President’s behalf as Trump withheld military aide and a White House meeting from Ukraine’s president.
On Tuesday, Giuliani told NPR that the hunt for dirt continued — with Trump’s tacit approval.
Yes, Giuliani said that today.
“He hasn’t told me not to do it,” the former New York City mayor said.
Giuliani said separately in the interview, referring to Trump investigating Biden, “I would have no problem with him doing it.”
“In fact, I’d have a problem with him not doing it,” Giuliani said. “I think he would be saying that Joe Biden can get away with selling out the United States, making us a fool in the Ukraine.”
Giuliani has alternately described his efforts in Ukraine as defense work for his client, the President, and as volunteer work done at the request of American diplomatic officials. Various impeachment witnesses said Giuliani acted as a de facto White House representative in his talks with Ukrainian and American officials — while he was also pursuing Trump’s political goals. […]
Five Turkish soldiers and one civilian personnel were killed in Syria on Sunday, Turkey’s first fatalities as a result of direct confrontation between the countries since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.
Nine other troops were also wounded in northwest Syria’s Idlib province after they came under heavy artillery fire from the Syrian government Sunday, according to a Turkey defense department statement which added that the troops were reinforcements.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said up to 35 Syrian government soldiers had been killed Monday in response, and pledged further retaliation.
Erdogan said up to 40 Syrian targets were being considered as part of the operation, and warned Russia — the most powerful backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — to “not stand in our way.”
“We told the Russian authorities you are not party to this it is totally the regime and do not stand in our way. Because we have martyrs, we cannot remain silent. We will continue to respond, including with our F-16s, our howitzers, our artillery, it is all in the field firing on the targets determined by our national intelligence,” Erdogan said.
Russia’s military said Monday that Turkey had not given advance warning of Turkish troop reinforcements in Idlib.
…
Syrian government attacks killed 20 people in opposition-held parts of northwest Syria on Sunday and Monday, according to the volunteer rescue group, the White Helmets.
Nine were killed in an attack on a vehicle carrying members of the same family in the western countryside of Aleppo on Monday. An airstrike on a house in Idlib also killed eight on Sunday, according to the rescue group.
The recent violence has pushed people out of multiple towns. Syria announced the capture of the opposition-held city of Maraat Al Nouman on Thursday.
UNICEF estimates that more than 300,000 people have been displaced since December and that 1.2 million children are in desperate need.
The Syrian government and Russia deny targeting civilians and say they are targeting terrorists, pointing to the dominance of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), a former al Qaeda affiliate, in the area.
Why are Trump, the Russians, and many Republicans always on Bernie Sanders’ side when it comes to pressuring voters?
State Republican leaders in South Carolina are urging GOP voters to vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the state’s Feb. 29 Democratic primary.
The plan – orchestrated by Greenville GOP chairman Nate Leupp and several other prominent Republican Party leaders – revolves around GOP leadership’s belief that Sanders poses the least amount of challenge to President Trump in November’s general election and its goal of getting the Palmetto State’s Democratic lawmakers to agree to close the state’s primaries.
“Bernie Sanders is the most socialistic, liberal candidate running in the Democratic presidential preference primary,” Leupp told The Post and Courier. “So we feel we can make a strong point that our Democratic state legislators need to help work to close our primaries so it protects them as well as the Republican brand.”
Currently, South Carolina has open primaries, meaning voters don’t have to be associated with a political party in order to cast a ballot.
According to the paper, Leupp and company are set to unveil their plan on Thursday at a press conference at the GOP’s headquarters in Greenville.
In the latest Post and Courier poll, Sanders only trailed former Vice President Joe Biden, who has long been the favorite in the state, by five percentage points. […]
I believe that the president has learned from this case. The president has been impeached. That’s a pretty big lesson.
He was impeached. And there has been criticism by both Republican and Democratic senators of his call. I believe that he will be much more cautious in the future.
The president’s call was wrong. He should not have mentioned Joe Biden in it, despite his overall concern about corruption in Ukraine. The president of the United States should not be asking a foreign country to investigate a political rival. That is just improper. It was far from a perfect call.
I’m sure there are going to be people unhappy with me in Maine. All I can do is apply the constitutional standard. And that’s my. My job is not to weigh the political consequences, but to do impartial justice to live up to the oath that I took.
“Sen. @RonWyden’s office asked the DNC three times about details regarding the app during the run up to the Iowa caucuses, but received no reply, an aide to the senator said.”
Sen Wyden: “My warnings about this technology were ignored, and the result is chaos and a loss of confidence in our elections. Unless states step back from using unproven technologies in our elections this will keep happening.”
Judge Lisa Branch is launching a new assault on the Voting Rights Act.
On Monday, Judge Lisa Branch, a Donald Trump appointee to the 11th Circuit, penned a startling dissent launching a novel attack against the Voting Rights Act. The power of the Voting Rights Act hinges on individual voters’ ability to raise the alarm over racially discriminatory election laws. Voters do this by suing the state or locality that is disenfranchising them. But Branch argued that voters cannot sue states to enforce the VRA. Branch’s opinion is, for now, just a dissent. But there is a real possibility that the Supreme Court could transform it into the law of the land and render the landmark civil rights statute toothless.
The VRA describes two kinds of parties who can sue to enforce its guarantees: the Attorney General of the United States, and “an aggrieved person.” Congress added the “aggrieved person” language in 1975 to clarify that private parties could file suit under Section 2 of the VRA, which bars any law that would “deny or abridge” the right to vote on account of race. Since then, the vast majority of VRA lawsuits under Section 2 have been brought by citizens, not the attorney general. The attorney general has filed just four of the 61 enforcement actions under Section 2 since 2013. Trump’s Department of Justice has brought no VRA lawsuits at all. […]
In her dissent, Branch made the bizarre argument that Congress did not limit sovereign immunity because it used the wrong preposition. The VRA, she wrote, allows any “aggrieved person” to “enforce” voting rights “in any State.” But to curb sovereign immunity, Branch insisted, the law had to “authorized proceeding ‘against’ a State.” In short, Branch would overturn decades of precedent because she disagrees with Congress’ grammatical choices.
[…] another, more consequential dispute lurks just beneath the surface of this case. Alabama raised a separate argument that could have ruinous consequences for the VRA: It challenged the constitutionality of Section 2’s results test. This test prohibits election laws that place a disproportionate burden on minorities, even if they were not enacted with discriminatory intent. […]
The conservative effort to sabotage the results test rests on the distinction between disparate impact and discriminatory intent. It is exceedingly difficult to prove that legislators enacted a law with discriminatory intent, because few are foolish enough to leave behind a smoking gun demonstrating their racist goals. By contrast, it’s fairly easy to prove that election laws have a disproportionate effect on non-white voters. The VRA’s results test bars voting restrictions that have a racially discriminatory result, even if they weren’t proved to have a racially discriminatory purpose. Without this test, voters would have little hope of blocking voter ID laws or racial gerrymanders that have an outsized impact on communities of color.
[…] If the full court rehears this case, Trump’s judges may well adopt Branch’s opinion as the law, and consider the broader question she flagged in her dissent: the legality of the results test itself. […]
Lynna @ #424, Schiff demolished these claims in his brilliant speech yesterday, making it clear to these spineless authoritarian-enablers themselves that the world sees what they’re doing and doesn’t believe them for a second. Of course, Ari Melber asked a few minutes later on MSNBC why Schiff was talking about this at all – “Isn’t this irrelevant? Trump’s not being impeached for his character” – failing to recognize that Alexander, Collins, and Murkowski made it relevant with their absurdly disingenuous claims that he would reform after being impeached with no sanction from the Senate and with Senate Republicans voting not to learn, and for the public not to learn, the facts about what he did and continues to do.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 421
Ugh… “Inconsistencies” my ass! The DNC strikes again!
“Scoop: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido will attend tonight’s State of the Union address as a guest of the White House, providing a high-profile platform for him as he seeks to revive support for his bid to oust President Nicolás Maduro.”
Nothing says you’re not a US imperialist stooge like jetting up to Davos to schmooze and then heading to Washington to display your total dependence on Trump.
Screaming that the entire Democratic leadership should resign because the Iowa Democratic Party fucked up?
Come on, man. Get a grip.
Screaming that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should resign right when Trump is about to go ham after being acquitted has got to be the most politically dim suggestion in history.”
Sanders wanted the caucuses to continue and also pushed these three-part reporting requirements, which are contrary to the idea of the caucuses. So he and his supporters get to have the noninclusive caucus they want which favors them, push the party to approve changes that lead to its being even messier, vilify the party and take no responsibility for any of the resulting issues, and then still glom onto the initial-preference numbers like it wasn’t a caucus but a regular primary. Nicely done.
After much deliberation, I have decided that I will not use my presence at a state ceremony to normalize Trump’s lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution.
None of this is normal, and I will not legitimize it.
Consequently, I will not be attending the State of the Union.
This is a deeply personal decision for each member to make, and a choice I did not take lightly.
I will be hopping on Instagram Live later this evening to connect with my constituents and follow up with their questions about #SOTU.
She joins others choosing not to attend this evil farce.
Susan Hennessey: “There was never, ever a world in which Collins was going to support censure. Just like there was never, ever a world in which she was going to vote to convict. Everyone is perfectly clear on who Susan Collins is except for Susan Collins.”
(Part of Susan Collins is perfectly aware. We don’t see the work that goes into her denial of reality and choice to betray the republic, but it’s real, and the worst version of herself, the worst choice of herself, has won.)
Made sure I am still registered to vote, and took a peek at the primary ballot on St. Pattie’s Day. A lot of the dem presidential candidates on the ballot have officially dropped out/suspended campaigning. My top two contenders are still running. Time to practice filling in the ovals with a felt-tip pen. There’s an early voting site close to my house.
President Donald Trump plans to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian award in the U.S. – to conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh after learning of his advanced cancer diagnosis, the president told television anchors at a private lunch.
Limbaugh, 69, revealed his cancer diagnosis on his popular radio program Monday afternoon, telling listeners that his treatment plan likely means “there are going to be days when I’m not able to be here.” A Florida resident himself, Limbaugh has repeatedly been spotted golfing with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago beach club and dining at the clubhouse afterwards.
Trump told network anchors earlier Tuesday that he was saddened by the news of Limbaugh’s diagnosis and had extended a last-minute invitation for him to join the first lady in the gallery at the State of the Union, according to four people familiar with the conversation. The president also said he could award the Medal of Freedom to Limbaugh as soon as next week, adding that his preference would be to do it during the State of the Union, according to two of the people familiar with his comments….
Eventually, every one of these awards will be regarded the same way as those from Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Vichy France, Pinochet, the Confederacy, apartheid South Africa,…
Trump recently claimed that the USMCA will create nearly 80,000 auto jobs. He made it nearly 100,000″ in this speech. Even the nearly-80,000 is the administration’s own estimate. Independent estimates are much lower. [see the link for the fact check on the previous 80,000 claim. The US international’s Trade Commission estimated an increase of 29,700 jobs in auto parts production, but a decline of 1.600 jobs in vehicle production.]
Another false claim in the SOTU excerpts: “Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the #1 producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far.”
The US became #1 in 2012, under Obama, though its advantage has grown under Trump. […]
The cult/crowd of Republicans repetitively standing for ovations, applause and shouts of approval for Trump are starting to depress me. I may have to stop watching this.
More from Daniel Dale:
Trump is correct with most of these claims about unemployment rates reaching an all-time low, but “all-time” is not very long in some cases. For example, the rate for people with disabilities only goes back to 2008.
Trump is correct that he has the lowest average monthly unemployment rate on record, through this point in a presidential term, but the record goes back to the Eisenhower administration, not the history of the country.
So there are false claims even in the *advance excerpts* of Trump’s State of the Union. One big one: “We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions.”
More than actual false claims/lies, what you usually see in Trump speeches like State of the Union addresses is omitted context, cherry-picked data points, and questionable credit-claiming.
Now Trump is dissing “failing government schools,” which sounds like a nod to Betsy DeVos’s goal of promoting private and religious schools over public schools.
“We will never let socialism destroy American health care,” Trump said. He went on to say that providing health care to immigrants would “bankrupt our nation.”
“Traditionally, the Speaker says: ‘Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States’.
Speaker Pelosi said ‘Members of Congress, the President of the United States’.”
Which is already surpassingly gracious, let’s be clear.
Now Trump is talking about his “long, tall and very powerful wall.” He is also lying again about the new number of miles of wall completely built.
Also, there’s this fact check from Daniel Dale:
The trump administration and congressional Republicans have repeatedly put forward bills and filed lawsuits that would weaken Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Trump is currently supporting a Republican lawsuit that is seeking to declare all of Obamacare void. And he has not presented any plan to provide protection to people with pre-existing conditions if the lawsuit succeeds.
Trump trademark exaggeration about drug prices: last year’s decline in the Consumer Price Index for drugs was the first in 46 years, not “51.” (Also, other metrics showed an increase.) And: by the same December-to-December metric, there was a price spike *this* year.
It’s remarkable (though not surprising! I am not surprised!) to me that Trump and/or his team put things like that pointless “51 years” thing in this kind of speech. “46 years” is impressive, and it’s the truth, but Trump is Trump, and here we are.
Here are the latest stats on the wall as of January 31:
– 115 total miles the administration describes as “new,” but…
– Only “approximately 1 mile” built where no barriers existed before
– 104 miles of replacement barriers
– 10 miles of “secondary” reinforcement barriers
Now he wants Congress to ban “late term abortion of babies.”
Akira MacKenziesays
OK, I feel a little better about Iowa now. I take back my previous comment.
Though Petey is till corrupt slime. If Bernie has to be first, then Liz should be centrist.
Pelosi mouths “Not true” twice when Trump asserted Democrats wanted to give taxpayer funded health care to undocumented immigrants
He actually says this. “NO PARENT should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.” Government. School. Fuck you, impeached president. And fuck you more for exploiting a young person of color in this.
Dems are now chanting HR 3 — their drug pricing bill. Trump is trying to talk over them
Cage: Wait WHAT?
Stephen Miller: No, you’re good. He wasn’t talking about brown children.
Cage: Are you sure? Because I think this is kind of…
Miller: NOBODY PAYS YOU TO THINK, CAGE!”
GDP growth under Trump in 2019 was lower than the 2.2% during the 10-year recovery.
He says unemployment rate for vets has reached an all-time low. He doesn’t mention that the suicide rate for veterans has reached a record high.
Consumer Confidence Index was higher in 2000 than the latest claim from Trump that it is highest it has ever been now.
Trump said that illegal crossings are down 75% since May. That’s correct — but May was the high point for illegal crossings for the entire Trump administration. Total illegal crossings under Trump have been higher than the total in the late Obama administration: [more details on Daniel Dale’s Twitter feed]
Excerpt:
[…] The number of apprehensions at the southwest border, used as a proxy for the number of illegal crossings, was 144, 126 in May. […]
If you compare the average for the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years (the first years solely under Trump) and the average for the 2014, 2015 and 2016 fiscal years (solely under Obama), it is a 43% increase under Trump.
I just walked out of the #StateOfTheUnion. I’ve had enough. It’s like watching professional wrestling. It’s all fake.
More from Daily Kos:
Mitch gets a call-out for helping to restore the rule of law. While the motherfucker is being impeached.
We some how went from god to guns to Mars in the space of three sentences. And “radical Islamic terrorism” in the next. This is a total shitshow. And as offensive as anything he’s done.
Manifest Destiny moving on to interplanetary imperialism. Yes, Trump used the phrase “Manifest Destiny.”
From Jelani Cobb:
Interestingly this religious liberty portion of the speech coexists with the expansion of the travel ban — a specific assault on religious freedom.
Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett also walks out.
Most governments celebrate when their citizens are nominated for Academy Awards – but not in Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
In an extraordinary barrage of tweets on Monday, the presidential agency responsible for elevating Brazil’s international profile savaged documentary director Petra Costa, branding her “an anti-Brazil activist” who had “tarnished the country’s image abroad”.
Bolsonaro’s politician son, Eduardo, led the charge, calling Costa a “canalha” – which translates roughly as “scumbag”.
Costa’s Netflix film The Edge of Democracy [available on Netflix! – SC] was nominated for the best documentary Oscar last month, and the 36-year-old filmmaker has become a prominent international critic of Bolsonaro’s far-right administration.
The immediate trigger for the presidential attack – which Brazilian experts called unconstitutional – was an interview Costa gave to the American journalist Hari Sreenivasan last week.
In it, Costa laments Bolsonaro’s fake news-fuelled rise to power and criticises the former army captain’s encouragement of Amazon deforestation and police killings, which she said had risen 20% in Rio de Janeiro state since Bolsonaro’s election.
Bolsonaro loyalists and relatives took exception to those remarks.
“I don’t usually waste time rebutting scumbags like Mrs Petra Costa but the level of her absurdities is criminal,” tweeted Eduardo Bolsonaro, the South American representative of Steve Bannon’s far-right group The Movement, alongside the hashtag #PetraCostaLiar.
Then came a volley of tweets from Secom – Brazil’s supposedly apolitical presidential communication secretariat.
…
Dilma Rousseff, the former leftist president whose controversial impeachment is the focus of Costa’s documentary, was among those who came to the film-maker’s defense, attacking the Bolsonaro government’s “intolerable aggression”.
It was Brazil’s far-right president, not Costa who was an “anti-Brazil activist”, Rousseff tweeted. “There is no-one in our country who is more anti-Brazil and more harmful to our overseas image than Bolsonaro.”
Alluding to Costa’s portrayal of Bolsonaro’s government, Rousseff added: “Petra was even serene in her choice of words, in expressing just a fraction of what Brazilians and the world already know: that Brazil is governed by a sexist, racist, homophobic, enemy of culture, supporter of dictatorships, torture and police violence and a pal of the paramilitaries.”…
About the Democratic response, delivered by Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan:
Whitmer begins by noting that she’s at her daughter’s public school, which is quite the contrast with Trump’s attacks on public education.
Whitmer is going with optimism over Trump’s message of fear, with the importance of potholes and infrastructure and what Democrats like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy are doing about it.
“Bullying people on Twitter doesn’t fix bridges—it burns them.”
Whitmer then turns to health care and her time as a member of the sandwich generation, caring for her own baby and for her mother during her mother’s fight with cancer.
Whitmer goes on to emphasize teens who’ve raised money for medical treatment for themselves or their loved ones. “No one should have to crowdsource their health care. Not in America.”
“Michigan invented the middle class, so we know: if the economy doesn’t work for working people, it just doesn’t work.” Whitmer goes on to tout House Democrats’ legislation to raise the minimum wage and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. She takes that right home to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
On impeachment: “The truth matters. Facts matter. And no one should be above the law.”
Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas delivered the Spanish-language Democratic response:
On August 3rd of last year, El Paso suffered from the deadliest targeted attack against Latinos in American history. A domestic terrorist confessed to driving over 10 hours to target Mexicans and immigrants. Just before he began his killing spree, he posted his views online and used hateful language like the very words used by President Trump to describe immigrants and Latinos.
That day, the killer took 22 innocent lives, injured dozens, and broke all of our hearts.
Incidents of gun violence take place in our schools, places of worship and neighborhoods every single day.”
Rep. Escobar on Trump’s lawlessness and the need to continue fighting for accountability:
“We know that President Trump violated his oath by asking for foreign interference, jeopardizing the integrity of our elections, putting our national security at risk, and then attempting to cover up his wrongdoing.
This is a tragic moment, and Congress must defend our republic.
We Democrats will continue to fight for truth and for what is right.
No one is above the law.”
Rep. Escobar: “From attacks against Dreamers, family separation, the deaths of migrant children, to the Remain in Mexico policy that sends asylum seekers into dangerous situations. These are policies none of us ever imagined would happen in America in our lifetime.
I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island for the first time. I was in awe of Lady Liberty. She stands as the guardian of our ideals—that all people are created equal, that the vulnerable are to be cared for and not shunned, and that America is the shining example of goodness.
It is up to all of us—in the face of one of the most challenging times in history—to reflect the dignity, grace of Lady Liberty and the values of America.
As you listen to Trump dramatically and emotionally tell the sad story of a white soldier who was killed in Iraq, remember also how he smeared the Gold Star parents of a brown soldier who was killed in Iraq.
From Joan McCarter:
It’s SOTU as reality show tonight. The Limbaugh travesty, the little girl’s scholarship, and now the surprise service man return. He thinks he’s some kind of orange Oprah or something.
Members of Congress! if you look under your seats, you all get a copy of John Bolton’s new book — because you’ve already said you don’t give a damn.
LykeX @ #487, he tried every desperate trick and outrageous lie to make a show of it, and Pelosi seized the spotlight and created the moment that would be shared and remembered without saying a word. And drew attention to the lies at the same time.
“Awww, Trumpers were triggered that their beloved sexual predator, white supremacist, apologist for men who abuse women, Muslim hating, LGBTQ discriminating, anti-Semitic trope using, child caging bigot had his speech ripped up. Poor snowflakes. #PelosiRocks #NancytheRipper”
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 486
Which, without removal from office, does what to him. exactly? Oh, it’s a “black mark” on his record? Newsflash: the Republicans and apathetic DON’T CARE IF HE WAS IMPEACHED OF CENSURED!
Trump must be removed now. There are other methods at than the so-called “legal” ones.
Akira MacKenzie @ #490, you need to stop with the violent rhetoric. It has no place here. I know you’re hurting and I sympathize, but please find a productive outlet for your anger.
More evidence for LykeX’s #487: “Trump has now tweeted/retweeted more about Pelosi’s reaction to his speech than about the content of his own speech. Four times more.”
lotharloosays
I really don’t like Pelosi that much but I have to give her credit for having an amazing ability to trigger Trump. While it’s completely pointless and useless in terms of policy implications, it’s nonetheless extremely entertaining.
‘If elections are won by defiant showmanship alone, Donald Trump, the grand political illusionist, will waltz to a second term in November’.”
Link atl. I praise the media when I think they deserve it, and often criticize them. With few exceptions, their coverage of the impeachment trial and the 2020 primaries has been abominable and dangerous. Their response to Trump’s relentless attacks on the free press itself has been embarrassing and indefensible.
…Sanders won 12 of the 18 states and territories that caucused in 2016 — compared with 11 of 39 primaries. In 2008, Barack Obama also outperformed Hillary Clinton in caucus states.
In 2020, four of the caucus states that Sanders won — Nebraska, Idaho, Minnesota, and Colorado — will use primaries to determine how many pledged delegates were allocated to each Democratic candidates.
More could soon follow. Utah has a new law on the books permitting political parties to use presidential primaries, and an official in the state Democratic Party said it expects to opt in. Maine passed a bill in 2016 to establish a presidential primary, but a top state Democrat said it sunsetted and was not immediately funded.
Third Way has called for an end to caucuses, arguing that they suppress voting among the elderly, people with disabilities, and those who work at night or on weekends, when caucuses often take place. The group has also run ads against Sanders online….
“Democratic Senator Doug Jones: ‘I have reluctantly concluded that the evidence is sufficient to convict the President for both abuse of power and obstruction of Congress’.”
I thought he would – Jones is well known for prosecuting the perpetrators of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing – but it’s still courageous.
“If calling for Viktor Shokin to be fired is a sign of corruption, then someone really needs to ask @RonJohnsonWI and @senrobportman why they also called for his ouster.”
Actually uttered: “And you know something else about Vice President Biden…?”
What follows is the same total lie that the Senators already know is a lie.
Josh Marshall: “I see we are on to the constitutionally prescribed portion of the trial in which the defense advances a series of conspiracy theories concocted by the Russian intelligence services.”
Trump tweeted: “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book….”
Jennifer Rodgers: “Publicly engaging on the content of these conversations waives any privilege claims to them.”
It’s unreal.
“I want everybody to take the last hour and a half of Republican presentations, imagine that every individual sentence was pulled out and turned into a full article on the New York Times or Washington Post, and… now you have the ‘but her emails’ campaign that the media fell for.”
John Harwood:
“CJ Roberts could stop this unending stream of bullshit lying with one whack of the gavel. These people are perpetrating a fraud on the Senate as court.”
“Spokesman for Joe Biden campaign swings back at the Pam Bondi impeachment trial speech….”
Statement at the link. I don’t know which member of Trump’s team is the worst. I think the Bolton bombshell has pushed them to go all out, and what a shameful display. It’s reminiscent of the McCarthy era – we’re seeing things happen on the Senate floor, and more broadly in our institutions, that have no business happening there. Makes me queasy.
“State Dept. apparently bars NPR reporter from Pompeo plane”:
“What’s especially ironic about this dumb @StateDept decision to remove @michelekelemen is that it was made on eve of @SecPompeo’s departure on trip that includes stops in Belarus, Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan–3 countries where there are freedom of media concerns. Nice message.”
(It would be ironic if Trump, Pompeo, and the gang shared those concerns, but they don’t. It’s authoritarian.)
“Unbelievable: Sens. @SenJohnBarrasso and @SenJoniErnst openly speculating/bragging that the current focus on Joe Biden from Trump’s team will hurt Biden’s campaign in Iowa. This is basically exactly what Trump wanted from Ukraine in the first place.”
Video at the link. This is what our country’s come to.
“EXCLUSIVE: Bolton privately told Barr last year that he had concerns Trump was effectively granting personal favors to the autocrats of Turkey and China. Barr said he was concerned Trump created appearance he had undue influence on inquiries…”
NYT link atl.
Harry Litman: “Dersh’s rule of lenity argument totally misplaced. The reasons for lenity have everything to do with the imbalance of the power of the state arrayed against the individual. Pres is not a crime D and it’s public, not Pres, whose interests must receive benefit of doubt.”
From the Guardian US-politics liveblog:
@ SC #13
NYT:
Bolton Was Concerned That Trump Did Favors for Autocratic Leaders, Book Says
By Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman
Jan. 27, 2020, 8:30 p.m. ET
Daily Beast – “Behind The Auschwitz Commemorations, A Raw Putin Power Play”:
The Kushner “peace plan” is too stupid to remark upon.
Thanks so much, tomh @ #16! Another bombshell, despite the standard Schmidt/Haberman spin.
It dates at least to 1990: Politico in 2016 – “Trump defends comments on Tiananmen Square, Putin”:
LOL – from the G liveblog:
LOL again.
Emma Loop, BuzzFeed:
Reuters – “Thousands flee northwest Syria as Assad pushes closer to Idlib city”:
More re #20.
In all seriousness, one of Schiff’s best and most pointed lines was when he argued that the Senators all knew that any one of them could be the next target for Trump’s political attacks and abuses. It was a few days ago and Trump and his sycophants and enablers have done their best to prove Schiff’s point.
For some reason today I’m thinking of when Dershowitz lied about Robert Mueller’s actions in relation to Whitey Bulger, and he was informed of the truth and acknowledged the truth and said he would stop telling the lie and then continued to tell the lie, and then the judge in the case published an oped in the NYT explaining in full detail that what Dershowitz was saying was false, and then he continued to tell the lie, and Richard Painter called him out on TV and said he was lying and Mueller was a “good American,” and instead of correcting his lies and apologizing Dershowitz responded “he may be but you’re not.”
southpaw:
“Funny Pam Bondi not mentioning she was making twice as much per month as Hunter from Qatar for no apparent reason. ‘Bondi registered in July under FARA — Foreign Agents Registration Act — as a part-time, $115,000-per-month lobbyist for Qatar’.”
Guardian – “Netanyahu withdraws immunity from prosecution request”:
Heh. Fox is such a con.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been formally indicted on charge of bribery and fraud and breach of trust in three separate corruption cases, @OrenCNN reports.”
When he leaves Washington, he’s heading to Moscow.
CNN – “Pompeo boils over as Ukraine pressure increases”:
re SC @31:
I wonder if Pompouseo could point to all of them on an unmarked map.
“The @WSJ editorial page is says there’s no need for Bolton to testify because everyone already knows that aid to Ukraine was conditioned on a Biden investigation.
But the President and his lawyers are literally arguing the precise opposite to the Senate.”
As predicted @ #24 above… Trump just tweeted:
Comments include:
“We need Trump News Network!”
“Impeach Fox News!”
“FOX IS THE NEW CNN!”
“A flush RNC is paying Trump’s private lawyers defending him at impeachment trial — unlike Bill Clinton, who left the White House with millions of dollars in legal bills and ‘dead broke’.”
WaPo link atl.
Erin Banco in the Daily Beast – “Top Ukraine Official: I Trusted Bolton More Than Anyone”:
Another bombshell.
Elie Mystal in the Nation – “The Trump Team’s Legal Defense Was a Tour de Force of Hypocrisy”:
Much, much more at the link. Great piece.
“Wow. In a video posted to Facebook on Monday, Eddie Gallagher referred to some members of his former platoon as ‘cowards’ and highlighted names, photos and their duty status and current units, potentially putting them in jeopardy.”
“GSA head just admitted she has no idea how much foreign governments/entities spend at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
She also says that GSA has made no attempt to find out the amount of such foreign spending.”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune – “Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly tells Sarasota crowd ‘I believe John Bolton’”:
NYT:
Voting Will Be Easier in a Key State for the Presidential Race
By Michael Wines
Jan. 28, 2020
Tweet o’ the day.
Greg Sargent:
johnson catman @ #32,
George Conway has “A thread for those who think @realDonaldTrump could find Ukraine on a marked map:…”
This and today’s tweet o’ the day refer to this segment: “CNN’s Don Lemon collapses on his desk in laughter as guests Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali dunk on Trump.” (Raw Story link)
“Pres. Trump to Sec. of State Mike Pompeo: ‘That reporter couldn’t have done too good a job on you yesterday, huh? I think you did a good job on her, actually’.”
Video atl, for anyone who can stomach it.
SC @37, thanks for posting that.
This summary section was particularly helpful:
MSNBC hosts have commented that Trump’s lawyers presented their case for impeaching Hunter Biden yesterday.
SC @44, that thread from George Conway is excellent. He brings all the receipts.
From the New York Times:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Some Republicans have decided to question John Bolton’s status as a firsthand witness.
Commentary:
Guardian – “Ivanka Trump attacks ‘smug elites’ of CNN in row over viral clip”:
She was seated in the front row and grinning as Trump made the remarks to Pompeo @ #45, of course, because she’s a complicit clown. As the CNN clip indicates, Wilson was in Tallahassee, which he lives near. It’s…not Palm Beach.
LOL.
Followup to comment 49.
More Republican excuses for not calling John Bolton as a witness:
Ah, the “Trump said it, so it must be true” defense.
Another excuse is that Bolton’s testimony would amount to being mean and cruel to Trump. From Senator Kelly Loeffler:
Ah, the “we must exclude all negative testimony because that would “slander” Trump” defense.
#NepotismBarbie has been trending all day on Twitter.
Elie Mystal is livetweeting the impeachment trial.
“Sekulow reprises his line from Saturday that we should put ourselves in the shoes of the President.
Never has a President whined as much as this one, and now his personal lawyer out here is whining for him.”
Charlie Pierce is also livetweeting:
Seriously. I don’t know how they’re even going to fill a few hours.
Sekulow is now talking about how Ukrainian officials have “repeatedly claimed there was no pressure,” within hours of the publication of the interview @ #36 above.
Mystal:
“Pretty big news: DOJ announced this morning that the chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department was arrested in connection with aiding China. Another Chinese national was arrested & charged w/attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China.”
“No media outlet should run the words ‘peace plan’ while referring to this proposal.
@nytimes, your headline should read more like:
‘Breaking News: Impeached Trump and Indicted Netanyahu outline Israel Annexation Plan’.”
Adam Klasfeld, Courthouse News:
They can also spend months lying to the public about it and engage multiple government agencies in covering it up.
“Likud Spokesman Yonatan Urich: Netanyahu will bring annexation of all settlements to a cabinet vote this coming Sunday.”
“Per @NBCNews Jordan rejects any plan that leaves the Palestinians out and expands Israel’s borders without negotiating.
A serious blow to the plan, coming from Israel’s next door Arab neighbor.”
(The Palestinians’ rejection would also seem to be a blow.)
Sen. Warner: “I’m having a hard time taking this Danger Will Robinson defense seriously. Heaven help us if we buy the notion that putting Mr. Bolton and other witnesses under oath and finding out the truth is somehow a danger to the Republic.”
Charlie Pierce: “Lisa Page! Peter Strzok!!!!! It’s the encore!”
Freebird!!! More cowbell.
“BREAKING: Magnitude of earthquake off Jamaica and Cuba upgraded to 7.7 – USGS”
SC @63, I laughed out loud every time Jay Sekulow shouted “Danger!” during his presentation to Senators today. I don’t know how anyone could keep a straight face. Surely this is prime source material for an SNL sketch.
southpaw:
From Wonkette:
They’ve already adjourned for the day after that laughable but mercifully short performance.
“McConnell says he and Schumer have reached an agreement on how the question period will work. Following Clinton trial practice, majority and minority will alternate questions. 8 hours tomorrow, 8 hours Thursday.
Senators’ questions will be submitted in writing and read by the chief justice.
Roberts cites a comment Rehnquist made during the 1999 trial, saying answers should be limited to 5 minutes. Says he thinks that’s a good time limit, asks both sides to abide by it.”
The Senate Republicans are meeting right now in the Strom Thurmond Room, which is perfect.
Claire McCaskill just made a very good point: Everyone is falling into the trap of talking about a “deal” or “trade” of Hunter Biden for John Bolton or whatever. But Republicans don’t need to make any deals. They have the votes to call whatever witnesses they want. If they want to subpoena Hunter Biden, they can do that. So it’s just a sham for them to claim that they won’t call Bolton if the Democrats don’t agree to Biden. They don’t need that agreement at all. They control which witnesses they call, and then face the consequences themselves.
“According to the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the tsunami threat from this afternoon’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake has passed, there is no further threat.
A small tsunami of 0.4 feet was recorded in the Cayman Islands at George Town.”
That’s fortunate. I wonder why the Pacific center – or is that the only one?
Schumer made the same point: “Schumer notes that Republicans could subpoena Hunter Biden on their own if they had 51 votes for it. ‘Why are they talking about a trade?’ Schumer asks.”
I saw part of his press gaggle – must’ve missed this.
“New Quinnipiac poll:
Registered voters say 75–20% that witnesses should be allowed to testify in the impeachment trial
Support for witness testimony includes 49% of Republicans, 95% of Democrats, and 75% of independents.”
Oliver Willis:
Videos atl. Very healthy party.
“And here’s Dershowitz giving Pompeo an attaboy pat on the back after Trump praises the secretary of state for berating @NPRKelly.”
Video clip atl. More bonding over authoritarianism and misogyny.
Josh Marshall – “A Few Thoughts of a Critical Nature on the Self-Regarding Buffoon Alan Dershowitz.”
I think Harvard should censure him for giving the misleading impression that he’s a constitutional scholar and allowing the others on Trump’s legal team to refer to him as such during the Senate trial when he factually is not. If someone were to be testifying in a regular trial as an expert witness, which is what Dershowitz has portrayed himself as, they would have to submit their CV demonstrating that they are really an expert in the specific field at hand, for obvious reasons. This would be all the more important to know if their claims were contrary to the large consensus of recognized experts. Because this wasn’t required here, he and the rest of the team have been able to pass him off as something he’s not, and Republican Senators have either bought it or gone along with the misrepresentation for their own purposes. But Harvard shouldn’t allow people representing the institution to do this.
Elizabeth Warren:
Bernie Sanders:
“Kushner tells @camanpour that if the Palestinians get on board with plan, they’ll be treated respectfully. ‘If they don’t, they’re going to screw up another opportunity, like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence’.”
fgkjldfghkjghdlghjsdghjsdghjgkjgfjrlndflbnafkafgja
“WH just held a call with a source ‘on the legal team’. Source was asked if WH lawyers had been briefed on the contents of Bolton’s manuscript.
Source said lawyers had not ‘reviewed’ the manuscript.
But have you been briefed?
‘We’re not going to get into further details’.”
“Senate Democratic Leadership swiftly and resoundingly rejects Trump’s ‘one-sided’ Israel/Palestine Plan which they say would ‘disregard international law…and undermine existing U.S. policy regarding…unilateral annexation’, incl. prez contenders Klobuchar, Sanders + @ewarren…”
Letter atl.
Daniel Dale is livetweeting Trump’s NJ rally.
“Trump says ‘we have a more inclusive party’. It’s not clear what he means by ‘inclusive’…”
Of Nazis, probably.
I have to confess here to having read Ayn Rand in order to point out that this echoes one of the few things in her fiction that I found convincing: When a crooked, rabble-rousing publisher decides to go straight and use his immensely influential newspaper to do what the author considers a good thing, his public immediately disowns him and turns against him.
Fox News is getting the treatment now, for the sin of having one or two Democrats come on and say things that aren’t in The Script.
Nailed it, Rand. We’ll politely overlook all the times you were wrong and just honor this one.
I have been following the Sanders/Rogan thing from the margins, but I found this comment interesting:
https://twitter.com/The_Acumen/status/1222153228667645952
On the surface, it seems convincing.
Am I missing something?
“Fox News cut away from Trump’s rally immediately after his brain short-circuited”
Video atl.
Other people think it sounds like a woman on the Fox set laughing as they cut away from Trump, but I think it maybe sounds like Tucker Carlson.
F.O. @ #84, as your opening sentence reflects, this is the “Sanders/Rogan thing.” The Sanders campaign touted an endorsement from Rogan, which in my view was wrong and hypocritical. Rather than acknowledging the error, many of his supporters have twisted themselves into knots claiming that while this is exactly what it appears on the surface, at some invisible political level it has a completely different meaning and effect because Bernie. That tweet takes it to new heights: now Sanders’ promotion of a Rogan endorsement becomes Rogan somehow revealing something about the Democratic Party or (presumably non-Sanders supporting) Democrats. The claim that Sanders’ actions with regard to Rogan “forced the mask…off” the Democratic Party is illogical.
I wish more Sanders fans would step back and recognize that he doesn’t stand outside or beyond the political fray. I don’t mean that as an insult. He’s a human being, he’s a lifelong politician, and he’s right in the mix with everyone else. Some of the people on his campaign, truth be told, are among the nastiest political operatives around, to say nothing of many of his online supporters. It would really be better for all involved if everyone could just acknowledge that he and the other Democratic candidates are all just politicians with their own strengths, flaws, and potential to be mistaken or hypocritical; and try to be fair in our support and in our criticism and not idolize or demonize anyone.
Sen. Wyden responding to the NYT report @ #16 above: “After I opened an investigation into whether Donald Trump meddled in the criminal investigation into Turkish-owned Halkbank, @USTreasury confirmed that Steve Mnuchin was tasked with intervening in the investigation to benefit Pres. Erdogan. AG Barr was given the same direction.”
Courageous and powerful statement from Felicia Sonmez:
Sonmez was suspended by WaPo for tweeting about Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault allegation after his death. While she was receiving death threats and despite the fact that this history was included in WaPo’s own obituary of Bryant, Marty Baron outrageously tried to privately silence and then suspended her. The suspension was lifted last night.
“Alan Dershowitz: ‘Hunter Biden is obviously a relevant witness for the state of mind of the President’.”
Oh, obviously.
re SC @90: So, Hunter Biden can testify about the state of mind of The Orange Toddler-Tyrant? How fucked up do you have to be to take this line of argument?
It’s the Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt that makes it.
@SC #87
Thanks for the answer. I feel I easily lose perspective.
From NBC:
Trump rages at Bolton, says former adviser would have caused ‘World War Six’
While I agree that Bolton is a warmonger, Trump–a man who is on record saying “I love war.” and has been reported to ask why we don’t just nuke countries that vex us–is hardly in a position to play the dove.
Thanks, F.O. @ #93. I feel like we’re all extra vulnerable to losing perspective in this moment.
Akira MacKenzie @ #94 – LOL, I saw World War 6 trending on Twitter and assumed it was a new video game.
southpaw: “I’m super frustrated by the respect afforded to the indolent emotions of Never Trump Republicans. If they want to play in the D primary, they can change parties and have at it. If they had any sand in their own party, they could be challenging Trump’s renomination. They’re not.”
And the attention they’re getting! While voices from the Left are roundly ignored! Infuriating.
Rep. Beyer:
NBC – “Dutch Trump superfan who claimed he surveilled Ambassador Yovanovitch told people he was DEA.”
Too much to summarize.
“Trevor, dying from liver damage and opposed [to] Obamacare, perfectly demos the power of whiteness: ‘I would rather die. We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens’.”
Link atl.
Remember all of Trump’s claims that demonstrators at his various public appearences are “paid?” Well…
From Politico:
Trump allies target African American voters with new tactic: Cash giveaways
Scott, who once called the Democratic Party, “pimps” who “pimped out the inner city” like a “pimp stands next to a prostitute” and claimed that Trump would be “the most pro-black president” in his lifetime, is a Prosperity Gospel huckster.
“WATCH: @HeidiNBC presses Reps. Zeldin, Stefanik and Johnson during a tense exchange about her tough questioning style on a question about corruption in Ukraine as it relates to the Senate impeachment trial.”
Video atl, and more in the responses. Przybyla has been a real standout at NBC.
These Trumpers have painted themselves into a very small corner – lying and furiously spinning, retreating to dishonest talking points, refusing to do town halls, voting to hide evidence (including from themselves, thus unconstitutionally diminishing the power of their own branch), preemptively attacking and seeking to intimidate the press – and personally insulting individual reporters – when they can’t answer basic questions. It should be clear to you when you’re acting like this that you’re in the wrong and your position is indefensible. And Trump would turn on them in the blink of an eye.
@ 100
At the risk of being accused of cruelty: good fucking riddance!
From the link provided by SC in comment 81:
SC @102, Heidi Przybyla posted the extended, more complete video on the NBC Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/NBCPolitics/videos/177426503499831/
re Lynna @104 about The Orange Toddler-Tyrant and republicans in general, taking advice from Joseph Goebbels:
Fadi Quran:
“@mehdirhasan says Trump’s Middle East proposal, announced yesterday, should not be called a “peace plan” by anyone. ‘This is a plan for apartheid. This is a plan for settler colonialism’.”
johnson catman @106, very apt!
In other news, Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, is airing an anti-Biden ad in Iowa. The ad is full of bogus (false) attacks related to Biden’s efforts in Ukraine. This is part of team Trump’s follow up to Pam Bondi’s smear of Biden during the Senate impeachment trial. It is somewhat like the Joseph Goebbels tactic described in comment 106. Lots of repetition. Still, it’s odd to see a Senator from Florida campaigning against Biden in Iowa.
In other election news: A federal appeals court this week struck down voting restrictions in Arizona, and as the New York Times noted, the result is a possible battleground state in which “many voters will find their ballots considerably easier to cast and less likely to be excluded from election-night tallies.”
Video atl @ #108.
The first of two 8-hour question sessions in the Senate trial begins in about 10 minutes (see #69 above).
From Axios:
Well, yes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said, “One witness would probably lead to a lot of witnesses.” Well, yes.
And, as Steve Benen noted:
Well, yes.
This.
Trump’s latest attempt to insult John Bolton so much that he marches up to the Senate and starts testifying in the hallway:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Link
From NBC News:
We have swiftly gone from Trump’s claim of “no injuries,” to Trump’s claim of a few “headaches,” to the Defense Department confirmation of 11 injuries, to the DOD confirmation of 34 injuries, to now, when we have 50 injuries.
Trump has not corrected nor expressed regret for his earlier inaccurate statements.
From New York’s Eric Levitz:
Lou Dobbs shoots himself in the foot … again.
Typical. Predictable.
Link
House Foreign Affairs Committee – Engel Statement on September 23, 2019 Call with John Bolton:
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1219788167898898432
Funny and effective.
Two videos are available at the Twitter link. Trevor Noah shows Trump insulting lots of U.S. Senators. “Jurors are instructed to disregard these insults. Thank you for doing your civic duty.”
Followup to comment 118:
The truck shows the video on a large side panel, while also broadcasting sound.
From Gabe Ortiz:
Link
More at the link.
re Lynna @113:The Orange Toddler-Tyrant about Bolton’s manuscript:
Every word of it. Believe me. We are going to have to redact the whole thing.
Elizabeth Warren:
“One of the more amazing thing[s] about this trial is the refusal of a major segment of the Members/media/public on both sides to understand this basic fact.
The president cannot ‘claim executive privilege’ to suppress voluntary testimony. It’s just not a thing.”
“Purpura’s argument actually seems to be, are you willing to set the precedent that the Senate has to hold a trial?”
Now Philbin is talking about how basically the House impeachment is like a grand jury and the Senate trial, you know, a trial. Which is further making Schiff’s case about the need for witnesses and evidence. Same thing with their references to Mulvaney’s and others’ statements that aren’t under oath, backed up by documents, or subject to further questioning.
I don’t know if this is how it ordinarily goes, but the Republicans are asking each question on behalf of several Senators, and then Trump’s lawyers are drawing out the introduction to their answers. Seems like they’re stalling for time.
Gah – he just claimed again that the Ukrainian officials all said there was no pressure. I don’t get why no one is paying attention to the bombshell Danylyuk interview @ #36.
#WeWantWitnesses has been trending on Twitter for hours.
“Poll published now by Israel TV Ch 11:
61% of those polled (Israeli Jews and Arabs) think the Trump ‘vision’ would not lead to peace. Only 10% think it would.”
re SC @122:
BLASPHEMOUS!!!11!1! No wonder that the DNC and the power structure hate her.
Tweet o’ the day.
“Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz: ‘If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment’.”
“Deranged” is the right word for it. Also absurd. Can’t believe this is a thing that was even said.
I’m not sure whether Sekulow knows what a book manuscript is.
Wow. I missed several questions, but this answer from Sekulow about why they shouldn’t call Bolton is the weakest I have seen yet.
@ 129
The arrogance of these people! However, I’m sure that will play well to bubbas: “In order to keep those dirty, godless, baby-aborting, gun-grabbing, tax-and-spend, race-mixing, border-opening, DEMOCRATS out of the White House, Donald Trump is willing to do anything–bribery, theft, murder–for YOU, the Amerian people! (Singing) Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…!”
The claim by The Orange Toddler-Tyrant that Bolton’s manuscript contains “significant amounts of classified information” is nothing more than another stalling tactic to give the despicable republicans enough time to refuse to call witnesses and end the trial in a sham vote to not convict. I am not a fan of Bolton, but I would be willing to wager everything I own that he knows the difference between classified and not-classified information and would know not to put classified information in a book that would go out to the general public. Have I mentioned lately that I hate republicans?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Portion of new border wall falls in Mexicali https://kyma.com/news/2020/01/29/portion-of-new-border-wall-falls-in-mexicali/
Giuliani tweeted:
One question I’d like a Senator to ask Trump’s defense team:
During the proceedings yesterday, a Trump campaign official retweeted something with the alleged name of the whistleblower. Rand Paul also put a name into his questions hoping Roberts would read it aloud, but he didn’t.
Adam Schiff:
Video of Schiff responding atl.
Jim Sciutto:
(I believe he meant to type “seal” in that last sentence, but I left it because “deal” works here, too.)
Susan Hennessey: “The same Republicans who were claiming to be completely outraged that anyone would accuse them of participating in a cover up are now openly contemplating refusing to call a direct eyewitness who wants to testify against the president. Words fail.”
Neal Katyal:
LOL.
“Prosecutors in Flynn case soften stance but why? First filing was 1/7/20. The second is from a filing today.”
Screenshots atl.
Dershowitz is now lying about what he said on the Senate floor, recorded on tape, viewed by millions of people.
A bit more re #135 above:
I’m just astounded that at no point has Trump’s epistemic responsibility, and utter epistemic incompetence, as someone exercising that much power, been raised as an issue here.
Philbin argued at one point: “If there is something that shows a possible public interest and the president could have that possible public-interest motive, that destroys their case. Once you’re into mixed-motive land, it’s clear that their case fails.”
But Trump’s pretextual motives – burden-sharing, Biden quid pro quo, Yovanovitch sabotage, Ukrainian anti-Trump interference in the 2016 election – are also complete garbage. I recognize that the central point is that since his primary motive was transparently corrupt these are a sideline and a pretext. But that doesn’t mean that we can accept that officials can present not just fake rationales but also ones based on dangerous conspiratorial delusions and/or lies. Would Trump’s counsel argue that a president bombing Israel to corruptly advance their electoral chances wouldn’t be impeachable if they also believed or made claims based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Popehat re #143 above: “It is supremely appropriate that a defense of this President would eventually require the defenders to argue that you didn’t hear them say what they said, that you should not believe your eyes and ears.”
Media Matters – “Nikolas Bowie, professor repeatedly cited by Alan Dershowitz during impeachment trial, tells CNN Dershowitz is wrong.”
Video atl.
Yahoo – “Katie Hopkins suspended from Twitter for violating social network’s anti-hate policy”:
I endorse this tweet.
And this one.
Re: Newly constructed border fence toppling over in wind,
I gather from news reports that the fencing section in question toppled because hard wind hit at an unlucky moment, before the concrete anchors were properly hardened.
AFAIK the issue isn’t that Trump admin lacks the competence to build generally functional fencing. The issue is
a) that the massive barrier is being sold as an impenetrable, cost efficient and necessary means for securing the Mexican border against drugs/human trafficking/illegal immigration
b) that the idea that Mexican border needs to be secured at any cost is really largely just a dogwhistle for excluding Hispanic people from US, while the wall is an inspirational monument for this exclusion.
re lumipuna @150: I did not say that it was due to a faulty wall, and yes it was because the concrete had not cured. I just thought it was hilarious. If not for the trees, it would have been flattened to the ground by the wind.
.
As to the wall being ineffective, a new tunnel was discovered that was about 3/4 mile long and underground 70 feet. No wall could stop that. Authorities find longest Southwest border smuggling tunnel: https://www.wral.com/authorities-find-longest-southwest-border-smuggling-tunnel/18917528/
We’d better be hearing breaking news in the next few hours that Bolton will appear tonight in a television interview.
Evan McMullin: “Republican leaders in Congress believe—and privately say—that they fear the country is quickly changing in ways that may soon deprive them of power, and that they must use the power they have now to delay it as long as possible, even by harming the Republic if necessary.”
“Sen. Burr, whose committee has done a major investigation into Russia’s 2016 meddling, tells me he has ‘no problem’ with the Trump team’s arguments about election interference.”
Business as usual.
NYT:
Trump Administration Moves to Ease Rules Against Killing Birds
By Lisa Friedman
Jan. 30, 2020
The second day of questions in the Senate has begun.
Elie Mystal: “I wonder if McConnell’s statement, assuring the Chief Justice that the Senate will still be respectful to the chief, was his signal that the @RandPaul faithless stunt to out the whistleblower will not be tolerated.”
Paul just presented his question. Roberts: “The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted.”
(See #136 above for background.)
Weak, weak, weak from Sekulow.
Schiff calls the recent arguments from Dershowitz “a descent into Constitutional madness. That way, madness lies.” He’s now bringing up Nixon’s “When the president does it, it’s not illegal.” “Have we learned nothing?” We thought we’d enacted effective reforms post-Watergate, but we’re right back where we were, and even worse off, because now that argument might succeed. “That is the normalization of lawlessness.”
“There is nothing—no law, no regulation, no nondisclosure agreement—that prevents John Bolton from going on camera today and telling us what he knows.”
johnson catman @133,
Correct.
This is so frustrating. Team Trump is trying to give Team McConnell time to wrap up the faux trial and the faux acquittal of Hair Furor (aka, The Orange Toddler).
“REPUBLICAN SENATORS WERE BRIEFED ON THE BIDEN EFFORT TO OUST VIKTOR SHOKIN IN 2016. THEY WERE TOLD THAT IT WAS U.S. POLICY TO USE LOAN GUARANTEES TO UKRAINE AS LEVERAGE. THERE WAS ZERO CONTROVERSY ABOUT THIS.”
AP – “AP Exclusive: Woman who says Trump raped her seeks his DNA”:
Video of #159 above.
johnson catman @121, “We are going to have to redact the whole thing.”
Ha! Unfortunately, your joke is, almost, NOT hyperbole. We have examples of them redacting material that is in no way classified.
Just one example:
Just Security link
“Rand Paul, who should be in the impeachment hearing right now, gives a press conference and names the whistleblower.
Can the Senate Sergeant at Arms please arrest this fool?”
“Pam Bondi responds: ‘I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!'”
Followup to SC’s comment 122.
Some of the disinformation about which Elizabeth Warren warned:
From CNN:
Link
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross thinks that the coronavirus might be good for business.
What a heartless ghoul.
Link
WaPo:
New recording shows access Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman had to Trump at Mar-a-Lago donor event
By Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman
Followup to comment 169.
Let Us Count the Ways the Trump Administration Is Underprepared to Tackle the Coronavirus
Leadership vacuum? Check. Expert hospital scarcity? Check.
Question concerns who’s paying Giuliani’s legal fees, international travel, and so forth.
Schiff: I don’t know. If someone else is paying, it raises profound questions. “I don’t know directly who’s paying the freight for it, but I can tell you the entire country is paying the freight for it.” Sends message to other countries that the “Presidency is open for business.”
Sekulow giving pathetic response focused on lies about Biden. He’s upping the performative outrage. Now he’s reading letter from Democratic Senators about Ukrainian cooperation with Mueller investigation, which I don’t think is really a door they want to be opening (in addition to the obvious fact that it’s not remotely comparable).
“Folks, I do not know what was in @RepValDemings coffee this morning, BUT SHE IS HAVING NONE OF IT.
She is DONE with these feckless Republicans. SHE IS NOT HERE FOR IT.”
Schiff: describing as in the realm of “you can’t make this stuff up,” talks about how the DoJ blocking subpoenas for Trump is in court today, and when the DoJ lawyers were asked if those issuing subpoenas can’t go to court, what’s the remedy, and their answer was “Impeachment.” Laughter ensued.
He’s making plan the distinction between previous aid holds and this corrupt hold.
Can’t make it up:
Restraining the war powers of a president:
Yeah, the White House would say that.
Link
From Wonkette:
Link
Yet another bad idea from the Trump administration: rolling back restrictions on land mine use.
Link
“striking Philbin would not pledge that Trump will refrain from secretly designating private envoys to do foreign political errands for him.
striking because it was about pledging for the future, would not have to concede anything on his past conduct. no pledge”
Schiff catching Philbin in the admission that Giuliani and his henchmen weren’t “conducting policy,” despite their repeated claims that this was about policy differences. They were on what Hill called a “domestic political errand.” “They just undermined their entire argument.”
He just offered Trump’s counsel a deal – that, as in the Clinton case, they limit depositions to one week, during which the Senate can conduct its ordinary business.
“One day after USAO DC mysteriously backs off its sentencing recommendation for Mike Flynn, a new US Attorney is named.”
A Barr pal.
Tweet o’ the day.
Schiff giving a passionate speech about his staffer and about the whistleblower.
Sekulow now saying that the statute protects the whistleblower from retribution but doesn’t provide for complete anonymity. Given that Trump has publicly called for the whistleblower and his sources to be executed, this isn’t the strongest argument. Then he just veered off into irrelevant nonsense.
“One of President Trump’s attorneys, Eric Herschmann, has dispensed with constitutional arguments: ‘The president’s approval ratings … have hit an all-time high’.”
It’s so shameful.
Maddow: “My favorite evidence that President Trump cared strongly about corruption in Ukraine is the fact that when it came time to hire a Chairman for his own campaign, he picked a guy whose last job was running the political shop for this Ukrainian president:…”
Link to article about Yanukovych’s corruption atl.
He really does.
I thought that was a good response from Lofgren – explaining her comments about the Clinton impeachment by pointing out the contrast of Clinton’s actions to those of Nixon, and then describing how Trump’s are like Nixon’s. Turned the question around on them.
Evan McMullin: “We’re witnessing the raw, partisan pursuit of power by Senate Republicans, most of whom appear willing to destroy the Constitution if it serves their personal interests. I never thought I’d see such an unpatriotic display in America, let alone the Senate. Never.”
My honest take: Trump’s team’s arguments are getting progressively weaker as time goes on.
From NBC News:
Also from NBC News:
Trump is doing Putin and his buddies another solid favor:
More details are available at The Daily Beast
From Steve Benen:
From Catherine Rampell:
From NBC News, an update on the ERA:
Murkowski asks why they shouldn’t call Bolton. Philbin has a super weak answer. Something about how it would set a precedent of the Senate accepting “incomplete” impeachments from the House and that shouldn’t be how things are done blah blah blah. If any Republicans claim this was convincing they’re lying through their teeth.
Shimon Prokupecz: “Stay Tuned: Key swing vote Sen. Lamar Alexander says he’s going to announce his decision on witnesses tonight, a decision that will make clear whether the Senate trial will come to a swift conclusion or if it will lead to an unpredictable phase over witnesses and documents.”
LOL.
Steve Vladeck:
“Rubio ‘I understand the President is impeached for following the advice of his advisors, and on article 2 for following the advice of his advisers’
Schiff: That is the dumbest ass read I’ve ever heard. You need to grab yourself a glass of water.
… I’m paraphrasing.”
:D.
“Just a reminder: Republicans are arguing that having witnesses at a trial is a bad idea.”
And they have adjourned.
Maddow reporting on MSNBC that Bolton is at a private event tonight (!) and voiced support for the officials who testified in the House hearings.
“Alan Dershowitz was a hero to the White House and GOP Senators Tuesday night. By Thursday afternoon, he wasn’t allowed to answer questions that mentioned him by name.”
Prokupecz: “Lamar Alexander statement to come within the hour. He has told Mitch McConnell of his decision.”
Collins just released a statement that she’ll vote for witnesses and documents to be subpoenaed. Sen. Whitehouse tells Maddow he suspects a charade in which Collins has been given permission for a bogus safe vote when they know it will be under 51.
No idea.
Alexander statement: no need for more evidence.
Infamy for this coward.
Coward seems to be the consensus, and rightly so.
WHO FUCKING GIVES A SHIT?!
“Lamar Alexander
Trending with: Coward, Senator Alexander, Sen. Lamar Alexander”
I need a fucking drink. In fact, I’ll need several large, strong drinks.
“Just a complete disgrace and an incredibly dark day for American democracy.
No one is going to save us from Trump and his corruption and destruction of the rule of law. Not Mueller. Not 51 Republicans. Not John Roberts. We have to save ourselves.
We have 10 months. Get to work.”
Going to watch an inspiring old Columbo. Goodnight, all.
Hang in there, Akira.
Now that the Senate trail is going to fizzle out without removing this tumor from the Oval Office before he does more damage, it’s time to “make it personal:”
“The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference – the only difference in their eyes – between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
75 years ago the US saved the world from Fascism. Now we are one the verge of taking the first step toward it. We may have lived long enough to be witnesses to the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Imperium. “Oh the times they are a-changin'”.
Rolling Stone – “Watch Elizabeth Warren Corner Chief Justice Roberts, Forcing Him to Question Aloud His Own Legitimacy”:
Video at the link.
Today is Brexit Day.
Here’s a link to the Guardian liveblog.
Tweet o’ the day.
“Contacted Bolton’s people and they say he will not be giving interviews today.”
“Netanyahu cancels weekly cabinet meeting set for this Sunday – same mtg that he promised would vote on annexation.”
“Friday poll: 53% of Israelis believe Netanyahu should not serve as prime minister while indicted.”
Elie Mystal:
I’ll point out that history overwhelmingly demonstrates that their actions now, when they have very little actually to fear, give Trump more power to create conditions in which they and everyone else have far more to fear. Voting to authorize Trump’s abuse of power now sets them further down the road from “I fear estrangement from my friends and less lucrative opportunities after retirement (during which I’ll have to continue my complicity)” to “I fear my arrest.” As Schiff has been at pains to get them to understand, complicity in no way makes them immune from becoming targets themselves at any moment, and they’re handing him more weapons with which to target anyone who stands in his way. Fear-based complicity isn’t just immoral – it’s fucking stupid.
I can’t get over this:
In four months, Alexander will turn 80. He has $14 million.
“EXCLUSIVE: Bolton book contains new, earlier, allegation of Trump’s involvement in pressure campaign. Trump asked Bolton to call Zelensky to ensure he would meet w/Giuliani. Cipollone and Mulvaney were in room.”
NYT link atl.
SC @218, I would use the word “enablers” for Republicans in the Senate, and for most Republicans in general. They are enabling Trump.
I grant that they feel afraid and that they are acting like cowards. In the overall big picture, they are enabling a narcissistic autocrat as he destroys democracy in the U.S.
From Reuters:
From the White House’s Peter Navarro, one of the principal architects of Donald Trump’s trade war, who spoke about a month ago:
From Trump, who spoke last night in Des Moines, Iowa:
And, lastly, this unfortunate news from The Washington Post:
“Sounds like Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel and the president’s lead attorney in the trial, could be a firsthand witness, if the Senate cared to call witnesses.”
Followup to comment 114.
The number of U.S.troops that sustained traumatic brain injuries after the Iranian missile strikes in Iraq has now climbed to 64. That number is in an official announcement from the Defense Department.
“In early May meeting in Oval office that included Pat Cipollone, Rudy Giuliani, and Mick Mulvaney, Trump directed Bolton to call Zelensky to ensure he met with Giuliani.
‘After pushing out Yovanovitch…During the Oval Office conversation, [Giuliani] also mentioned a State Department official with the last name of Kent, whom Bolton wrote he did not know. Giuliani said he was hostile to Trump and sympathetic to George Soros’.”
There are several reports that the Senate trial will now likely go until next week.
“UK foreign secretary suddenly realises that Trump’s Middle East plan may contain hidden threats that go against long-standing British position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”
Raab statement atl.
Followup to SC’s comment 220.
The Hill link
“IMPORTANT: So the CBP lied when they said there was no directive to profile people at the border. Looks like there is indeed a directive asking officers to profile people based on their national origin (Iranian, Lebanese, Palestinian) and their religion and sect (Shia)….”
CBP document atl.
Such bullshit.
Lamar Alexander: “I had not focused on the fact we were being asked not only to remove the president from office, but to tell people they couldn’t vote for him in 2020,” he said. “And when I talked to my colleagues, most of them hadn’t thought about that either. … So we’re tearing up the ballots and telling people basically, as an election is starting, you can’t vote for or against President Trump. I think I hadn’t thought about that … extraordinary action.”
From Wonkette: “The Expected Joyless Depravity Of An Unhinged Trump Rally”
Link
Josh Marshall: “Let me restate that I fully expect a no-witness acquittal today. But we’re now hearing GOPs saying maybe they kick the acquittal to next week? That defies reason unless there’s some major problem.”
From Dahlia Lithwick: “Trump’s Lawyers’ Impeachment Defense Will Reshape the Office of the President.”
Donald Trump has ruled by emotion, rage, and whim. In the Senate, his lawyers’ defense of his actions could enable similar behavior from presidents to come.
Slate link
[head/desk]
LOL – this was me and my mother on the phone a few minutes ago.
Followup to SC @232.
WTF?
“Impeachment trial live updates: Final verdict could be delayed to next week, after Iowa caucuses and Trump’s State of the Union, officials say.”
Washington Post link
Lynna @ #231, what the fuck did I just read?
Neal Katyal: “In light of this massive development, w v serious allegations against Trump (and perhaps also against his lawyer at his trial Cippillone) from his former National Security Adviser, the Senate should take a serious pause and evaluate whether they really want to rush to judgment.”
Matthew Miller: “This puts Cipollone’s letter declaring Trump would not cooperate in a whole new light. He wasn’t just trying to cover up Trump’s wrongdoing, but also his own exposure.”
Analysis from Philip Bump: “Trump’s impeachment defense, distilled: He’s innocent, and his opponents are guilty.”
Attorney Patrick Philbin threw out all of his prior arguments in order to disparage Joe Biden
Washington Post link
SC @236:
Heh. I’m not sure. However, one takeaway is that Democrats are going to kill all the cows in Iowa, and you are next. (According to Trump.)
I’m expecting an explanation from Trump’s press office explaining that Trump didn’t say cows would be killed, he said they would be taken away.
Laurence Tribe: “This exposes a massive and disqualifying conflict that Pat Cipollone has been concealing from the Senate and the Chief Justice.”
Followup to SC @225, 237 and 238.
Link
POTUS statement: “I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky. That meeting never happened”
Claire McCaskill is on MSNBC responding to the tweet thread I linked to @ #219 above: “Oh my god in heaven… Grow a spine.”
The Senate trial has now reconvened.
The opening prayer in the Senate (don’t get me started) today includes: “…for we always reap what we sow.”
Murkowski just announced that she’s voting against witnesses.
Followup to comment 242, regarding Trump’s statement that he never instructed Bolton to set up a meeting between Giuliani and Zelensky.
From Jennifer Rubin: “that would be another waiver of any privilege”
From Eric Schmeltzer: “RUDY CONFIRMED IT TO VOGEL.”
From Ken Vogel:
Additional reader’s comments:
“Schiff is hanging Cipillone out to dry. This is pretty good.”
(Tangent: another A+ for Demings’ suit and jewelry.)
Ken Vogel:
Demings argues something I’ve been thinking about: It was Trump’s choice to contest the facts. He didn’t have to. His choice to do that means the Senate needs to get the evidence to determine who’s telling the truth.
“Portman is also a No.
Portman also believes the president did it, tried to cheat in the election and corruptly squeeze a foreign country, but he won’t remove him for it.
He doesn’t think the Senate can be bothered to take ‘weeks if not months’ to call witnesses.”
Portman statement atl.
“This is a remarkable statement from Murkowski:
‘I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed’.
‘It has also become clear some of my colleagues intend to further politicize this process, and drag the Supreme Court into the fray… We have already degraded this institution for partisan political benefit, and I will not enable those who wish to pull down another’.”
Wut.
Like, I honestly don’t understand what Murkowski is saying.
Video of #245 above.
Crow just quoted from the Danylyuk interview @ #36 above.
“The quid pro quo is ongoing
‘Pompeo did not give Mr Zelensky one thing he has sought since last May…Pompeo’s message that Mr Trump was not ready to receive Mr Zelensky at the White House was a blow to the Ukrainian president’s national security efforts’.”
NYT link atl.
“John Kelly, describing Bolton as a ‘copious note taker’, weighs in again. He says if there are no witnesses in the impeachment trial, ‘they kind of leave themselves open to a lot of criticism’ and ‘it seems it was half a trial’.”
Link atl.
“NEW: Giuliani discussed interests of a former Ukrainian client [Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko] during summer meeting with top Zelensky aide”
WaPo link atl.
SC @ 209
That’s just 10 more months for Trump and his cronies to destroy this country.
No, we can’t wait that long. Trump needs to go NOW.
So long and thanks, for all the Brits.
AP – “Charities steered $65M to Trump lawyer Sekulow and family”:
“There’s a line: ‘Witnesses will continue to tell their stories… in future Congressional hearings’. — @RepAdamSchiff
Good to know.”
John Weaver:
SC @260, I’ve been waiting for more details to emerge concerning how Trump’s lawyers are paid, and who pays them.
This news about Sekulow is what I expected. He’s a scam artist, and he has involved his entire family in the scam. Christians are among his gullible targets.
Also, the huge amounts of cash that the Republican National Committee is required to throw into the black hole of trying to defend Trump should make donors angry.
One thing we know for sure, Trump is not going to use his own personal funds to pay for his defense in any legal fight.
Trending on Twitter: #ImpeachmentTrialSham, #GOPCowards, #RIPGOP, #RIPAmerica
SC @253, Steve Benen agrees with you:
Link
About Susan Collins:
Link
Joseph Bondy, Parnas’ attorney: “Below is the letter Stephanie Schuman @LeafLegal and I sent to Senator McConnell earlier today…summarizing the testimony Lev Parnas would be able to provide, were he called as a witness….”
Letter at the link.
Quite a letter from Bondy. He names as playing roles in the scheme:
Republican Super PAC America First
Trump
Pence
Perry
Pompeo
Barr
Graham
Nunes
Harvey
Solomon
Toensing and DiGenova
“and others”
Says he has more corroborating evidence.
re Akira @258:
Actually he has almost 12 more months. The election is in November, but the president will not be installed until mid-January 2021. If The Orange Toddler-Tyrant loses in November of this year, he will still have two months to do as much damage as he can. And you can bet that he will do so out of spite and rage.
“It’s remarkable the baseline level of bullshit in these arguments from Philbin. I mean, no person can think this argument makes any sense. This is a pure bad faith argument.”
I’m generally muting their arguments, but from what I’m catching in the closed captioning it’s the same with Sekulow. These white dudes walk into a trial heavily rigged in their favor, cough up some hairballs, and leave thinking they’re Clarence Darrow.
Schiff is back to respond because he intelligently reserved the balance of his time. I think Sekulow just waived his, because he’s a dipshit, but I could be mistaken.
I mean, he’s definitely a dipshit, but he might not have waived the time for their whole side.
SC @270, an example of the level of bullshit from Philbin: “It would be unfair to this President to drag out this trial for months.”
I should have made clear in comment 273 that Philbin was making an argument against calling witnesses.
Followup to SC’s comments 267 and 268.
An excerpt from the letter:
OMG. American, the land of assault rifles.
TPM link
You have to see the photos.
https://twitter.com/DrRobDavidson/status/1223056090713161728
Great video of a doctor questioning Vice President Pence about the Trump administration’s “damaging health care cuts.”
Pences come off as ill-informed and/or stupid.
CNN’s version of the video mentioned in 277.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/01/31/pence-medicaid-iowa-doctor-orig-me.cnn
No witnesses or documents, 51-49.
They’re now in recess indefinitely.
“JUST IN: Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, has retired from the State Department.
She was abruptly removed from her post in May 2019 and was a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.”
Hero.
“Great work, John Bolton! Good luck on your book tour.”
“Lamar says it – ‘Whatever you think of his behavior, with the terrific economy, with conservative judges, with fewer regulations, you add in there an inappropriate call with the president of Ukraine, and you decide if your prefer him or Elizabeth Warren’.”
“@SenSchumer says it’s a ‘perfidy’.
‘It’s a grand tragedy, one of the worst tragedies that America has ever overcome. America will remember this day … where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial’.
‘The acquittal will have’ no legitimacy.”
“For a President to go through an entire impeachment inquiry and trial without turning over a single document or witness, defying every subpoena–and then be acquitted of Obstruction of Congress–is Alice in Wonderland stuff.”
And while publicly threatening and seeking to intimidate a whistleblower, witnesses, and the lead House Manager.
Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk (I don’t agree with every word but with the general idea) – “The end of the dream. The start of the resistance.”:
Yup. The sad petty cultishness of it all. They’re basically $c**ntology at this point. Pretty soon they’ll be putting up web sites “The Truth about Mitt Romney,” “The Truth about John Bolton.”
“The anti-corruption president heads to his private resort to spend the weekend with paying customers.”
“Once all the dust settles… Democrats will be able to say that Republicans voted FIVE TIMES to block Bolton from testifying. (This counts two amendments from the initial rules debate, today’s vote against considering witnesses, and now these two Bolton-specific amendments.)”
WaPo – “From the Editorial Board:
Republican senators who voted against witnesses have rendered the trial a farce.”
Link atl.
TPM – “MEANWHILE: Senate Interviews IRS Whistleblower”:
Poor old Mitt Romney, paying the price.
WaPo:
American Conservative Union disinvites Mitt Romney from annual conference
About Trump’s new travel ban:
Link
Nancy doesn’t stop fighting.
From James Comey:
Link
From Dahlia LithwickJan: “Three Branches of Government Conspired to Rig Donald Trump’s Impeachment Trial”
Link
From CNN’s “Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib boos Hillary Clinton at Sanders campaign event in Iowa”:
Khanna continues to come from a place of decency and mutual respect.
John Bolton tweeted: “Brexit is done! Happy first full day of UK Independence as they reclaim their sovereignty from the EU. Brexit reflects deeply held views that the British enjoy governing themselves & are done surrendering their interests to the EU bureaucracy @BorisJohnson”
I have to say that reading references to UK independence, the reclaiming of sovereignty, and British self-government just as I’m finishing Priyamvada Gopal’s Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent is simply headspinning.
Important thread from Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin:
“Trump ‘s new @FEC disclosure shows his re-election campaign spending $1.4+ million on legal consulting & lawyer fees in the 4th quarter of 2019 alone—roughly $12.4 MILLION since @realDonaldTrump became President facing Mueller investigation, Stormy Daniels lawsuit, impeachment…
New @FEC filing: Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign paid $194,247.57 to Trump family members, properties & businesses in the final quarter of last year alone—steering over $1.8 MILLION in donations from presidential campaign donors to @realDonaldTrump’s private interests.”
CNN – “Trump administration reveals it’s blocking dozens of emails about Ukraine aid freeze, including President’s role”:
“BREAKING: Arab League Rejects #Trump plan for Israeli-Palestinian deal. League is 22 countries.
Full Statement (3 pages in AR) below calls it ‘US-Israeli deal of century’:…”
“Huge diplomatic victory for Abbas and the PLO. Even states that attended the Trump/Bibi ceremony (UAE, Oman, Bahrain) are now on record as rejecting. Anything less would’ve allowed the admin to claim some Arab support. That’s no longer possible.”
Ars Technica – “Email release reveals chaos sowed by President Trump’s hurricane tweets”:
Here’s Leopold’s thread from last night with the docs:
Meanwhile, in Miami,… “Just minutes before showtime, Harry Styles’ concert at the Meridian was canceled due to heavy rain, and fans were forced to [t]rudge through the downpour.”
Video atl. Meteorologist John Morales pointed out:
Leopold re #301:
Asked if he ever heard Trump explicitly link aid to Ukraine to investigations into the Bidens, Sec. Mike Pompeo tells @ABC News, “I don’t talk about conversations with the president. I’m telling you what our policy was.”
Yeah, right. I see you dancing around the question and refusing to give a straightforward answer.
Update on Amy Klobuchar’s campaign:
Link
“‘I think there should be a motion on the floor of the Senate to censure the President’, former GOP @RepCharlieDent says as Senate Republicans are poised to acquit President Trump. ‘He can be reprimanded… There should be a sanction of some sort’.”
Followup to comment 178.
From Wonkette:
LOL – “raises eyebrows.”
SC @305, Trump has already used the phrase “impeachment lite.” I think he will shrug off a “reprimand.” But he will still take some kind of revenge on those who suggest it.
Sen. Schatz: “If John Bolton has something to say it needs to be said before Wednesday at 4pm when Republicans vote to acquit the President without conducting a trial.”
From Julián Castro:
From Elizabeth Warren:
From Andrew Yang:
Lynna:
I would like to see the Republicans have to go on record as voting against even a formal censure for an outrageously impeachable set of offenses.
Laurence Tribe re #299 above: “This midnight disclosure would blow most people’s minds if we hadn’t become anesthetized long ago to this administration’s abject lawlessness.”
SC @311, good point.
In other news, recent reports show that Trump’s promises in regard to the economy were/are empty.
Link to a New Yorker article by John Cassidy
CNN link
Christiane Amanpour talks to Jared Kushner about the Middle East plan.
Hmmm. Kushner is certainly arrogant. He even makes an attempt to insult/bully Christiane Amanpour.
Kushner focuses on plans to help Palestinians in an economic way ($50 billion economic plan), without offering them freedom or self-governance. He advises Palestinians to “stop posturing.”
A few excerpts:
From Kushner’s interview on Fox News:
More from Jared Kushner’s arrogant statements and approach to his Middle East “peace” plan:
Link
From Maxine Waters:
An update on Elizabeth Warren’s campaign:
Various dunderheads are trying to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Wonkette link
From Max Boot:
Washington Post link
Eric Lipton from the NYT re #299 above: “Not sure what the news is here and a similar report from CNN. We have known since December there are emails White House has about the aid freeze that have not been released. And that they date back to June 2019….”
Did anyone know there were two dozen, though?
“@ewarren: ‘We will, we must, come together to defeat Donald Trump’.
Implicit here is she’s not getting sucked into the Bernie/establishment feud.”
Obviously a good call.
Lynna @ #319, Bill Kristol also tweeted this morning: “Not presumably forever; not perhaps for a day after Nov. 3, 2020; not on every issue or in every way until then. But for the time being one has to say: We are all Democrats now.”
IIRC I’ve seen both Boot and Kristol on TV refusing to commit to voting for the Democratic candidate regardless of who it is. Weaver’s statement @ #262 above was clear that he would, but Kristol’s sounds vague to me. Does Boot promise in the article to vote for the Democratic candidate?
Walter Dellinger: “Before it fades into history, please note: the efforts to ‘out’ the whistleblower is one of the despicable acts in our public life. It no longer matters who he/she is. The effect is to 1) put his/her life at risk & 2) to chill anyone who would dare expose Trump wrongdoing.”
“Abbas says Palestinians cutting all ties with Israel, US.”
“Overlooked… ISIS envoy Jim Jeffrey: ‘we are seeing ISIS come back as an insurgency, as a terrorist operation, with some 14- to 18,000 terrorists between Syria and Iraq’.”
“Tucker Carlson on the Coronavirus: ‘Maybe this is a warning about globalization […] Maybe one of the reasons that the United States has thrived for all these years is that we are physically distant from a lot of the rest of the world and that’s not a bad thing necessarily’.”
Video atl.
“It would be a shame if this video that exposes Mitch McConnell got tons of retweets and moved from 890,000 views to 1 Million views by tomorrow….”
It’s now at 1.3 million.
This thread is very bad for Joe Biden.
Re #328, here’s a thread challenging King’s credibility, and if he’s a grifter people should know about it, but it doesn’t address the evidence adduced in the Biden thread.
Christian Christensen:
“Warren has been very clear about how she would pay to cancel most student debt and provide universal health care, but Biden is just telling people she doesn’t even know how much it would cost or how to pay for these plans.”
Video atl.
Daniel Dale:
Political tip for Democrats: Your opponent is the Republican.
@ #333
That’s not how American politics works. You have to get the nomination first before the Republican is your opponent, so right now their opponent is every other would-be nominee.
“We have only been out of the EU for 36 hours and already the ‘stab-in-the-back’ conspiracy theories have started. It didn’t work out well for Weimar and it won’t work for UK #Dolchstosslegende ps there isn’t a deal to renege on”
Daily Telegraph headline “Johnson fury as EU reneges on deal” atl.
334: “Democrats” is plural, not singular. The Republican is the opponent of all Democrats, except perhaps Tulsi.
Tom Peck in the Independent – “Parliament Square was a knuckle-dragging carnival of irredeemable stupidity.”
“Here they are, for historians, that diverse bunch that have driven Brexit information warfare. Remember their names. They will be written in the annals of British decline, as a warning to others of the danger to democracy when media is captured by a narrow, ideological clique…”
SC @337, reveling in being small-minded, willfully ignorant … however you want to describe it. Brings to mind the crowds at Trump rallies. It’s fun to be proudly rude in a crowd of likeminded dunderheads.
SC @332, one pundit made the comment that if Bloomberg stood on a pile of his money/assets, he would be about 50 times taller than Trump. Trump’s harping on Bloomberg’s stature is typical. Trump ignores policy difference and/or governing experience in order to insult his opponents on a personal level. Trump as schoolyard bully.
SC @331, yeah. I heard Biden repeat that today. Either he doesn’t understand Warren’s plan, or he hasn’t read it, or he is disseminating disinformation just like a trumpian politician.
Biden can disagree with how Warren plans to pay for her plan, or he can explain how he thinks her plan is really not paid for even though she claims it is, or he should shut up about it.
SC @324, congratulations to Jared Kushner. He has managed to cut off most communication between the U.S. and Palestinians.
Even SNL mentioned Kushner’s arrogance/entitlement last night.
YouTube link
@ #336
What does that mean, “Democrats” is plural, not singular.”? These are individuals in a race for the nomination. They are not in this as a team. And this is politics, which means that any one of them would knife another in the back to advance themselves. That’s just reality.
Sure, once one of them wins out the rest should come around and join forces, but we’re not at that point yet.
SC @322, I think Max Boot is in recovering-Republican mode. It looks like it takes a long time for guys like Boot and Bill Kristol to realize that Trump actually killed their Republican party. David Jolly is a good example for them.
I still expect Boot to have a hard time voting for a Democratic Party candidate.
SC @321, Bernie’s use of the word “establishment” as a lump-them-all-in category that he despises has always bothered me. He is using “establishment” to create an “other” against which he can fight, when he himself is an establishment kind of guy — longterm politician and all that.
The way he uses the term to describe some of his fellow Democrats is a crowd or cult-control mechanism. It’s not right. Bernie has frequently tended to create a supposedly ill-intentioned and evil “other.” That’s a tactic that will lead to bad results.
Also, it’s relatively meaningless when you look at the fundamental policy positions of the candidates.
Tech workers are opting to immigrate to Canada instead of the USA.
Link
Some people are still feeling the bad effects of the shutdown Trump caused a year ago:
Link
From Adam Schiff:
This is such a good idea. The Elizabeth Warren campaign is offering free child care during the Iowa caucuses.
Link
Followup to comments 332 and 339.
From Wonkette:
Link
https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1222851728502153217
Bloomberg’s Super Bowl ad can be viewed on his Twitter feed.
Ah, Republican’s and their interpretations of the Constitution … what can I say?
Montana State Representative Rodney Garcia is way out there on the far right fringe:
The Montana Republican Party wants no part of that particular form of batshit crazy.
Still, my bet is that Rep. Garcia is not alone in Montana. Beware those scary socialists … especially in Montana, where Garcia says, “They’re teaching that [socialism] to kids. Thank God my grandkids know it’s wrong because I teach them. And it’s a very dangerous situation.”
This is a great presentation.
https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1223224310413905921
tomh,
The common opponent of all Democrats is the Republican.
That’s who we should be running against and working to defeat.
This is difficult?
@ #353
What’s difficult to understand is that you don’t seem to realize what the primaries are about. The isn’t the general election, so the candidates are not running against Republicans. They’re running against each other. Obviously. So I don’t get your point.
My point is not to kill each other now. Not to fatally weaken one another so that DFT can just step over the corpses and pick up his crown.
But you’re probably right. The real enemy is The Judean People’s Front, and we should devote all our energy to backstabbing now and developing a base that will refuse to vote for any candidate but their chosen one. Did I “realize” correctly?
@ 353
No, we should be working to defeat capitalism, theism, and general racial/sexual prejudice.
Neither party is willing to do that.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/teenage-climate-activist-greta-thunberg-nominated-nobel-peace-prize-n1128751
.
That should rub The Orange Toddler-Tyrant raw since Thunberg has been nominated two years in a row for the Nobel Peace Prize, and he has been overlooked AGAIN. Especially after his “great” peace plan for Israel.
Bits and pieces of campaign news:
As you’ve probably heard, Iowa’s presidential caucuses are tonight, and if the polls are correct, Bernie Sanders is very well positioned to come out on top. FiveThirtyEight link
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Donald Trump trailing each of the leading Democratic presidential candidates in hypothetical general election match-ups.
In a bit of a surprise, the 200,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union, which supported Sanders’ campaign four years ago, endorsed Biden over the weekend.
Secretary of State John Kerry, a prominent Biden supporter, was overheard by an NBC News reporter yesterday in Des Moines, talking about what he’d have to do to enter the 2020 race and prevent Sanders from “taking down” the party. Kerry soon after clarified, in unusually blunt terms, that he will not be a candidate. NBC News link
From the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne:
Steve Benen chronicled the responses of some other editorial boards:
More details that reveal the extent of Mitch McConnell’s “total coordination” with Trump’s White House team:
Wall Street Journal link
Republicans are planning to impeach Joe Biden … or at least, they are saying that they plan to impeach him.
Bloomberg News link
More Republicans are now admitting that Trump did something wrong. We already discussed Senator Lamar Alexander’s statement that Trump’s guilt “has already been proven,” but that the “inappropriate” actions were not impeachable.
Now we see somewhat similar statements from other Republicans:
Link
I’ve heard Rubio and Alexander say in effect that even if what Trump did warranted impeachment, removing him would only aggravate our nation’s already deep partisan and ideological divide.
Guys, I hate to break to you guys, but NOT impeaching Trump is going to the exact same thing! Do you honestly think that Trump’s supporters are going to crow about this and rub it in our faces? Do you think lefties like myself are going to overlook this travesty and won’t shudder at the possible horrors that acquittal will allow him to create without check?
Despite what you tell the press to justify your complicity in Trump’s obvious crimes, this isn’t going to go away. We should not forget, nor we should never forgive.
Akira @363: I think what you had in mind is either “and we should never forgive” or “nor should we ever forgive”.
@ 364
Sorry, I wish we had to ability to edit these damn posts.
Ugh… See?
@ 362:
And what acts DO rise to that level, pray tell? I mean, besides perjuring yourself over a few fucking blowjob?
Akira @367: I think Lynna answered that @361. Namely Presidenting while democrat.
“Oh yeah? You’re gonna impeach our guy now for something we admit he did in the present? Well, we’ll impeach your guy later for something he didn’t do in the past! That’ll show you that you’re destroying our institutions!”
From Josh Marshall:
Link
Trump’s ignorance extends to all things, at all levels:
The White House retweeted Trump’s erroneous post. Trump deleted that tweet a little over ten minutes later.
The corrected tweet:
It is interesting to note that many Republicans also did not believe Nixon deserved to be either impeached or convicted. They felt the process was unfair–and that is part of the reason why Bill Clinton was impeached. Alfonse D’Amato was heard to cry out, “It’s payback time.”
My hope is that this will finally and firmly impress on the minds of American voters that the problem is not just one man (e.g. Darth Cheeto). It’s not just a few men (Darth and Moscow Mitch and Leningrad Lindsey…). It is the entire Republican party. They are fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-fair play and anti-reality. They really, honestly see nothing wrong in what the orange shitgibbon did.
@ 369
They really are invested on the Burisma thing, aren’t they? Every credible source that’s looked into the matter has found absolutely NOTHING, and yet they insist on perpetuating this half-baked conspiracy (along with the CrowdStrike nonsense). So much so that I doubt that isn’t just some sinister ploy to deflect from Trump, but they truly believe that Democrats are so evil the allegation MUST be credible.
Followup to comment 371.
From the readers comments:
@372
The founders could not foresee the rise of partisanship in their newly minted republic. They naively believed that reason would prevail. That differences would be put aside in the name of truth and justice and corrupt and despotic leaders would be removed before they did more damage to our nation.
What a bunch of morons.
Heh, heh… I’d say “Mic drop” but I think this is more appropriate:
“Push the button, Frank.”
Followup to comment 371 and 374.
From Julia Louis-Dreyfus and others concerning Trump’s erroneous tweet about the winners of the Super Bowl:
Link
Followup to comments 10, 31 and 75.
Pompeo continues to lie about the interview conducted by NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelley, and about the aftermath:
Pompeo said, “I didn’t have a confrontational interview with an NPR reporter.” That’s a LIE!
There’s that word “perfect,” which is so popular these days with Trump.
Wonkette link
Yeah, I recognize that “exhausting” conclusion.
Umberto Bossi, historic leader of the Northern League, will let his membership expire.
“You don’t wink to facists!”
https://twitter.com/nicmax25/status/1224287480452669440
Bossi, who together with Berlusconi contributed to normalize the worst of the worst in Italian politics, has always been a staunch anti fascist (well, except the two times that he allied with them and Berlusconi to govern…) but apparently Salvini’s League went too low even for him.
I’d say “you reap what you sow” if he were actually on the receiving end of anything of what he sowed.
I’m seeing a couple news sites saying that the math on the Senate removing Trump is pretty much over, as 34 senators have proclaimed their intent to acquit.
Here’s my question: can McConnell (and maybe some other senators) be impeached and removed on the grounds that they lied in their oath they took at the beginning of the impeachment process? The vow reads:
I’m sure most of us have seen the clips of McConnell and Graham saying explicitly that they will not be impartial, but now we additionally have confirmation that McConnell did in fact coordinate with the White House defense team, feeding them information on which arguments to make based on what Republican Senators on the fence needed to hear. Effectively undeniable and enacted (as opposed to just stated).
I don’t know if that Oath actually means anything… if there’s any punishment for violating it legally. Maybe the best we can hope for is the equivalent of a mistrial, but I don’t know what the law says about that. Does it say anything?
@ #380
No, nothing can be done, senators can say what they want and vote however they want, without any legal consequences. And senators can’t be impeached, they can only be expelled by a 2/3 vote of their fellow senators.
Adam Schiff’s closing speech.
NBC News link
See the link for the video, which is 25:43 minutes long.
Excerpts:
Followup to comment 382.
A pundit on NBC mentioned that Adam Schiff was a poor choice to present the case to Republicans because Republicans hate Schiff so much that they can’t hear what he is saying.
Nonsense. Are there Democrats the Republicans don’t hate? Is there a better lawyer in the House than Schiff?
Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia (a place that is solidly red, solidly Trump territory), asked his senate colleagues to consider censuring Trump. We’ll have to watch to see if that goes anywhere.
Trump seems to have happily moved on to his revenge phase over impeachment.
Link
Wow, that’s a lot of electronic devices.
TPM link
From Wonkette:
Lynna @382:
Heh.
Well, one statement out of two correct ain’t the worst.
I guess the coda is pretty funny too, given the predicate:
“Is there one among you who will say “enough!”?”
(so very decent they are!)
Akira MacKenzie: “The founders could not foresee the rise of partisanship in their newly minted republic. They naively believed that reason would prevail.”
Uh, no. The late 1700s and early 1800s were a time of exceptionally bitter political infighting in the new Republic. Remember that no one really knew what a republic should look like, and France was dissolving into the terror and the eventual rise of Bonapartism. Washington and Hamilton actually led troops into Pennsylvania to quell insurrection. Aaron Burr murdered Hamilton and subsequently plotted with the Brits to bring down the government. Benjamin Franklin Bache (Franklin’s nephew) and his Philadelphia Aurora were slandering anyone who didn’t toe the Jeffersonian line (even including Washington). And John Adams had Bache jailed under the Alien and Sedition Acts. An then, during the War of 1812, the nation had to come to grips with the fact that Jefferson had so weakened the military, that the new country couldn’t defend itself–the Brits sacked Washington DC.
There has never been harmony in US politics…only occasional truces so both sides could reload.
Compare and contrast.
The fact that Democratic turnout in Iowa didn’t rise troubles me as much as the clusterfuck around counting the caucus votes.
From the Washington Post:
Commentary:
Link
From the Guardian liveblog on Iowtf:
(I might not be recalling this correctly, but I think the Sanders campaign was supportive of caucuses, which are always kind of a mess but gave him an advantage because they favor students and highly committed supporters.)
I wasn’t following this debacle as closely as usual due to a cat health emergency (he’s getting better, unhappily sporting a plastic cone, looks like an astronaut), but my immediate conclusions are:
This should be the last year Iowa goes first.
This year should be the end of caucuses.
The cable news coverage of everything yesterday was horrendous – in this case, the breathless reporting from the caucuses, the slippage away from recognizing margins of error and the limitations of anecdotal evidence, the heavy importance placed on an unrepresentative state, the hostility toward the more leftwing candidates and the coddling of Bloomberg (!!!) (who wasn’t even participating), the constant reading of correspondents’ impressions of the “mood” at different campaign events and caucus sites rather than the candidates’ plans and interactions with voters about real issues, the flattering of Iowans, the general hyperventilating and lack of proportion,….
Buttigieg’s victory speech sounds irritating. He’s pretty full of himself.
Seems like Warren and Klobuchar have responded best to the situation.
We should never take anyone’s word for it that any state organization is doing a great job running things or that any candidate has a great ground game.
They should have been testing the reporting app for weeks ahead of yesterday, and been able to run the numbers through the delegate formula on their laptops in an instant.
Conspiracy theorizing on Twitter is out of control, helped in no small part by rightwing trollbots and Trump’s den of scumbags. Once again, Sanders seems content to let his surrogates and supporters engage in it, with frequent references to the DNC or even “the Democrats” as enemies working to sabotage him, while he remains silent.
The Iowa Democratic Party is now saying they’ll be releasing the majority of the results by 5 PM ET today. It was actual people declaring their support openly in large rooms and documenting it on the spot. The IDP is claiming that the written numbers from the caucus locations match what the caucus leaders transmitted, but due to a glitch the app was only transmitting partial results (in some cases?), so that resulted in the inconsistencies they saw last night.
Trump and his campaign are taking advantage of the confusion in Iowa.
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1224672579023261707
With Brad Parscale weighing in also (“Quality control=rigged?) you can be sure that Russian bots and trolls will pick this up and amplify it.
From the readers comments:
That reader is referring to the fact that Trump is the only name on Republican ballots in many states. Other Republican candidates are running, but the RNC decided not to include them on primary ballots.
From Vanity Fair:
Lynna @ #392, I guess my most positive interpretation would be that it doesn’t necessarily signify anything about the energy around the general election. The caucus is a big commitment, and people who are still undecided – a large percentage in Iowa – might not feel like staking a public claim to any particular candidate just yet, even if they like most or all of them. Even in the regular primaries, I’m not sure I’d expect to see a big spike in participation, at least until it gets down to two or three.
“Post caucus, Mayor Pete declared victory, team Sanders trashed Pete and the DNC, and Elizabeth Warren spent 20 minutes just bodying Trump and kicking him in the teeth repeatedly and then thanked her dog.
Which is why I like Warren.”
Here’s a look at how Trump’s lawyers lied during the impeachment trial. Yes, we know they lied, but just how they go about lying is instructive:
Link
I know my own investment in the democratic primaries is close to non-existent. I’m going to vote, of course, but the particular candidate matters far less to me than just getting Trump out of office, so I haven’t really bothered watching the debates.
Related to Lynna’s #395 – The Informant – “Threat against Adam Schiff”:
On brand.
Chris J @ #399, I think that’s how a lot of people feel.
More re Lynna’s #398: “The president’s misrepresented the facts about Mark to the end. And threw in the mispronunciation of his last name (It’s ‘Zade’ not ‘Zayeed’) to appeal to xenophobes. Pathetic.”
Alex Wickham:
Apologies for the violent imagery @ #397. Realized too late.
“Rand Paul is currently speaking on the Senate floor next to a large placard emblazoned with the [alleged] name of the whistleblower.”
“This is how #Brexit was marked on Friday evening on Place Jo Cox in Brussels”
Video atl.
re SC @405: I don’t understand why these assholes are not being punished for violating the laws protecting whistleblowers.
SC @396, good points. I agree
SC @405, OMG. Rand Paul should be censured. Here is an excerpt from Laura Clawson’s take on that:
Link
Ha! A little bit of good new—news that is bound to irritate Hair Furor: “Trump’s Super Bowl ad comes in dead last in audience ranking.”
Link
THIS!
From Eric Trump:
From Donald Junior:
From Benny Johnson, the disgraced Buzzfeed reporter who is now chief creative officer at Turning Points USA, a right-wing nonprofit:
Russians boosted that particular conspiracy theory in 2016.
From Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA:
Fact check for Kirk’s statement, above:
From Lindsey Graham:
From Sean Davis: co-founder of The Federalist:
Sheesh.
I’m fine with the IDP releasing the remaining caucus results just before or during the State of the Union.
Wow, that’s some weapons grade disinformation. “Russian Media Outlets are Blaming the Coronavirus on the United States.”
Conspiracies pushed by Kremlin-linked sites allege the epidemic is an American bioweapon.
Link
The non-conspiracy theory explanation that is closer to the truth:
https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1224574088917569536
I will note that “coding errors” in the app have also been mentioned.
From Wonkette:
Link
Trump’s USDA puts politics over facts to justify taking food and job training from needy kids.
And needy kids lose.
LOL.
Followup to comment 415.
From the readers comments:
With partial results in, it looks like Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are vying for first place in the Iowa delegate count. Elizabeth Warren holds a respectable third place.
Biden is in 4th place, and the results look disappointing for his campaign.
From Steve Benen:
Rudy Giuliani is still hard at work doing Trump’s bidding. The impeachment trial did not even give Team Trump pause.
Yes, Giuliani said that today.
TPM link
Current news out of Iowa, with 62.27% of precincts reporting:
Buttigieg, 26.9%
Sanders, 25.1%
Warren, 18.3%
Biden, 15.6%
Klobuchar, 12.6%
I think Andrew Yang is coming in at about 1%
“#Syria war and displacement never stopped: thousands leaving #Idlib tonight to escape Assad Gov and Russia bombardment.
UN estimates that 1/2 Million have left NW Syria in last 2 months. 80% are women and children:…”
Video atl.
CNN – “Turkey suffers first deaths in direct combat with Syria since start of war”:
Why are Trump, the Russians, and many Republicans always on Bernie Sanders’ side when it comes to pressuring voters?
Link
Maine Senator Susan Collins is delusional:
“Sen. @RonWyden’s office asked the DNC three times about details regarding the app during the run up to the Iowa caucuses, but received no reply, an aide to the senator said.”
Sen Wyden: “My warnings about this technology were ignored, and the result is chaos and a loss of confidence in our elections. Unless states step back from using unproven technologies in our elections this will keep happening.”
Trump Judge Argues Voters Can’t Sue States Over Voting Rights
Judge Lisa Branch is launching a new assault on the Voting Rights Act.
Lynna @ #424, Schiff demolished these claims in his brilliant speech yesterday, making it clear to these spineless authoritarian-enablers themselves that the world sees what they’re doing and doesn’t believe them for a second. Of course, Ari Melber asked a few minutes later on MSNBC why Schiff was talking about this at all – “Isn’t this irrelevant? Trump’s not being impeached for his character” – failing to recognize that Alexander, Collins, and Murkowski made it relevant with their absurdly disingenuous claims that he would reform after being impeached with no sanction from the Senate and with Senate Republicans voting not to learn, and for the public not to learn, the facts about what he did and continues to do.
@ 421
Ugh… “Inconsistencies” my ass! The DNC strikes again!
Fuck Iowa, and fuck that centrist pile-of-shit Petey while we’re at it.
“Scoop: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido will attend tonight’s State of the Union address as a guest of the White House, providing a high-profile platform for him as he seeks to revive support for his bid to oust President Nicolás Maduro.”
Nothing says you’re not a US imperialist stooge like jetting up to Davos to schmooze and then heading to Washington to display your total dependence on Trump.
“Some of the Bernie surrogates are losing their shit on Twitter today.
It’s wild to watch.
Screaming that the entire Democratic leadership should resign because the Iowa Democratic Party fucked up?
Come on, man. Get a grip.
Screaming that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer should resign right when Trump is about to go ham after being acquitted has got to be the most politically dim suggestion in history.”
Sanders wanted the caucuses to continue and also pushed these three-part reporting requirements, which are contrary to the idea of the caucuses. So he and his supporters get to have the noninclusive caucus they want which favors them, push the party to approve changes that lead to its being even messier, vilify the party and take no responsibility for any of the resulting issues, and then still glom onto the initial-preference numbers like it wasn’t a caucus but a regular primary. Nicely done.
Good god. MSNBC right now: Chris Matthews, Steve Schmidt, Jeh Johnson, and Peggy Noonan.
Joan Walsh in the Nation – “Elizabeth Warren Has a Movement. You Just Don’t See It Yet.: Nobody knows who won the Iowa caucuses—but Warren’s support was powered by the feminist spirit of 2018.”
Hee.
AOC:
She joins others choosing not to attend this evil farce.
Warren on MSNBC right now.
Warren: “Our democracy hangs in the balance, and we’ve got to take this government back from the most corrupt administration in history.”
Good interview.
Susan Hennessey: “There was never, ever a world in which Collins was going to support censure. Just like there was never, ever a world in which she was going to vote to convict. Everyone is perfectly clear on who Susan Collins is except for Susan Collins.”
(Part of Susan Collins is perfectly aware. We don’t see the work that goes into her denial of reality and choice to betray the republic, but it’s real, and the worst version of herself, the worst choice of herself, has won.)
Tweet o’ the day.
Cont’d.
Made sure I am still registered to vote, and took a peek at the primary ballot on St. Pattie’s Day. A lot of the dem presidential candidates on the ballot have officially dropped out/suspended campaigning. My top two contenders are still running. Time to practice filling in the ovals with a felt-tip pen. There’s an early voting site close to my house.
Politico – “Trump to award Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh”:
Eventually, every one of these awards will be regarded the same way as those from Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Vichy France, Pinochet, the Confederacy, apartheid South Africa,…
But enjoy your private lunch media mouthpieces!
Hahahahahaha.
And…scene.
George Conway re #s 405 and 408: “This is utterly disgraceful. And for Rand to blame his own misconduct on the Chief Justice is disgraceful as well.”
In a New Yorker cartoon a woman walks into a liquor store and asks the clerk, “Do you have anything State of the Union-strength?”
“Did Trump commit crimes? Many of his supporters ‘don’t care’.”
Daily Show video atl.
From Daniel Dale’s factchecking Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/ddale8
Hillary Clinton:
The cult/crowd of Republicans repetitively standing for ovations, applause and shouts of approval for Trump are starting to depress me. I may have to stop watching this.
More from Daniel Dale:
Now Trump is dissing “failing government schools,” which sounds like a nod to Betsy DeVos’s goal of promoting private and religious schools over public schools.
The silent majority.
“We will never let socialism destroy American health care,” Trump said. He went on to say that providing health care to immigrants would “bankrupt our nation.”
“Traditionally, the Speaker says: ‘Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States’.
Speaker Pelosi said ‘Members of Congress, the President of the United States’.”
Which is already surpassingly gracious, let’s be clear.
Now Trump is talking about his “long, tall and very powerful wall.” He is also lying again about the new number of miles of wall completely built.
Also, there’s this fact check from Daniel Dale:
More fact checking:
Smurgling FTW.
Now he wants Congress to ban “late term abortion of babies.”
OK, I feel a little better about Iowa now. I take back my previous comment.
Though Petey is till corrupt slime. If Bernie has to be first, then Liz should be centrist.
Daily Kos’s live coverage is good.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/4/1914670/-Live-coverage-of-impeached-president-s-State-of-the-Union-speech-2
Pelosi mouths “Not true” twice when Trump asserted Democrats wanted to give taxpayer funded health care to undocumented immigrants
He actually says this. “NO PARENT should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.” Government. School. Fuck you, impeached president. And fuck you more for exploiting a young person of color in this.
Dems are now chanting HR 3 — their drug pricing bill. Trump is trying to talk over them
“Trump ‘Every human life is a sacred gift from God’.
Cage: Wait WHAT?
Stephen Miller: No, you’re good. He wasn’t talking about brown children.
Cage: Are you sure? Because I think this is kind of…
Miller: NOBODY PAYS YOU TO THINK, CAGE!”
Lynna: “Dems are now chanting HR 3 — their drug pricing bill. Trump is trying to talk over them”
Good for them! Keep chanting!
GDP growth under Trump in 2019 was lower than the 2.2% during the 10-year recovery.
He says unemployment rate for vets has reached an all-time low. He doesn’t mention that the suicide rate for veterans has reached a record high.
Consumer Confidence Index was higher in 2000 than the latest claim from Trump that it is highest it has ever been now.
Trump said that illegal crossings are down 75% since May. That’s correct — but May was the high point for illegal crossings for the entire Trump administration. Total illegal crossings under Trump have been higher than the total in the late Obama administration: [more details on Daniel Dale’s Twitter feed]
Excerpt:
This exactly.
From Congressman Tim Ryan:
More from Daily Kos:
Mitch gets a call-out for helping to restore the rule of law. While the motherfucker is being impeached.
We some how went from god to guns to Mars in the space of three sentences. And “radical Islamic terrorism” in the next. This is a total shitshow. And as offensive as anything he’s done.
Manifest Destiny moving on to interplanetary imperialism. Yes, Trump used the phrase “Manifest Destiny.”
From Jelani Cobb:
Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett also walks out.
Rep. Pascrell: “I just walked out of the #StateOfTheUnion. I can’t stand a liar. This man’s presidency is a national tragedy.”
“<a href="https://twitter.com/SimonMarksFSN/status/1224890222816768000".Pelosi now seems to be catching up on her personal banking.”
Sorry – “Pelosi now seems to be catching up on her personal banking.”
“Wow — Pelosi tore her copy of Trump’s speech in half when he finished.“
Mara Gay: “We are staring down the face of fascism. The differences between the Democrats are nothing.”
HOLY SHIT HERE IT IS.
The tear heard round the world. :)
This is one of the best GIFs I’ve ever seen.
It’s just wonderful.
Watch Pelosi.
Update to #194 on the previous iteration – Guardian – “Bolsonaro government attacks Oscar nominee Petra Costa as ‘anti-Brazil activist'”:
About the Democratic response, delivered by Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan:
Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas delivered the Spanish-language Democratic response:
“Brexit activist Nigel Farage at the State of the Union”
Photo atl. On the hunt for scapegoats and patsies.
From Mehdi Hasan:
From Joan McCarter:
fjgdfgjdflkjghgLZhzdkhzflhzFLHmzFLHzHzhmz
@471
No, a better GIF would be Pelosi, realizing her proximity to both Trump and Pence at once, take a smuggled firearm a do the obvious thing.
Edit: and do
SC, #468
Oh snap! That’ll show him!
JFC, #s 479-481. It was a strong and well-timed symbolic gesture.
“As she left the Capitol tonight @SpeakerPelosi was asked why she tore President Trump’s speech. ‘Because it was a manifesto of mistruths’, she said.”
Video atl. The Trumpers are already raging about it because it’s drawing attention.
Symbolic gestures is all the Democrats (and we) have.
#427 above, in the form of a splendid ad.
Saad @ #484, they just impeached him, FFS.
The nice part about tearing the speech is that Trump must be PISSED that people are now talking about her instead of him.
Small victories.
LykeX @ #487, he tried every desperate trick and outrageous lie to make a show of it, and Pelosi seized the spotlight and created the moment that would be shared and remembered without saying a word. And drew attention to the lies at the same time.
LOL, #NancytheRipper is now trending on Twitter.
“Awww, Trumpers were triggered that their beloved sexual predator, white supremacist, apologist for men who abuse women, Muslim hating, LGBTQ discriminating, anti-Semitic trope using, child caging bigot had his speech ripped up. Poor snowflakes. #PelosiRocks #NancytheRipper”
@ 486
Which, without removal from office, does what to him. exactly? Oh, it’s a “black mark” on his record? Newsflash: the Republicans and apathetic DON’T CARE IF HE WAS IMPEACHED OF CENSURED!
Trump must be removed now. There are other methods at than the so-called “legal” ones.
Akira MacKenzie @ #490, you need to stop with the violent rhetoric. It has no place here. I know you’re hurting and I sympathize, but please find a productive outlet for your anger.
Update: I have now watched the video @ #485 approximately 10 times.
@ 491
I assure you, it’s not just me that’s hurting. It’s human civilization as a whole.
More evidence for LykeX’s #487: “Trump has now tweeted/retweeted more about Pelosi’s reaction to his speech than about the content of his own speech. Four times more.”
I really don’t like Pelosi that much but I have to give her credit for having an amazing ability to trigger Trump. While it’s completely pointless and useless in terms of policy implications, it’s nonetheless extremely entertaining.
Swing and a miss from Pompeo.
“You think they’re ready for what’s coming in 2020? They’re not ready. This is CNN reviewing his SOTU speech.
‘If elections are won by defiant showmanship alone, Donald Trump, the grand political illusionist, will waltz to a second term in November’.”
Link atl. I praise the media when I think they deserve it, and often criticize them. With few exceptions, their coverage of the impeachment trial and the 2020 primaries has been abominable and dangerous. Their response to Trump’s relentless attacks on the free press itself has been embarrassing and indefensible.
Politico last month:
Sorry – wrong thread!
“Democratic Senator Doug Jones: ‘I have reluctantly concluded that the evidence is sufficient to convict the President for both abuse of power and obstruction of Congress’.”
I thought he would – Jones is well known for prosecuting the perpetrators of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing – but it’s still courageous.