The Commentariat -- January 29, 2020
Afternoon Update:
Maia de la Baume & David Herszenhorn of Politico: "The European Parliament on Wednesday ratified the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and bid farewell to its British members, capping a two-hour-long debate and more than three-and-a-half years of tortured negotiations between Brussels and the first country to ever quit the EU. It was a strange and emotional day -- one that an overwhelming majority of the Parliament had hoped would never come -- with a profusion of farewell parties that involved bagpipes, EU flags and various versions of the song 'Auld Lang Syne.' One rendition was by MEPs, many in tears, who held hands and linked arms as they sang in the plenary immediately after casting their historic vote. The tally was 621 to 49 with 13 abstentions, and it provided certainty -- finally -- that the U.K. would make an orderly departure from the EU at the stroke of midnight (Brussels time) on Friday." The New York Times story is here.
This Is Rich. Justine Coleman of the Hill: "Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said Tuesday that Palestinians have a 'big opportunity' with President Trump's Middle East peace plan, saying if they reject the plan 'they're going to screw up another opportunity.'... 'It's a big opportunity for the Palestinians,' he said. 'And they have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity they've had in their past.'... Palestinian leaders were not included in the negotiations after cutting off contact with the U.S. in 2017." Mrs. McC: Opinions I've scanned say the plan is heavily-weighted against Palestinian interests. ~~~
~~~ Juan Cole, for instance, after writing unflattering descriptions of the plan's authors, goes on to lay out the "Top 5 ways Trump plan for Palestinians is a Crime against Humanity." So, uh, not so good.
More below:
Meredith McGraw of Politico: "The White House sent a letter last week to John Bolton's attorney informing him that Bolton's forthcoming book revealing sensitive details about his conversations with ... Donald Trump could not be published because it contained classified information. An official with the National Security Council sent the letter on Jan. 23 to Charles Cooper, shortly before The New York Times published an explosive article detailing how Bolton planned to reveal that Trump directly tied the withholding of foreign aid to Ukraine as he pressured the country to launch investigations into his political rivals.... 'Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed as a condition for gaining access to classified information, the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information,' Ellen Knight of the National Security Council Records Management Division wrote to Cooper."
The New York Times' live update page for today's developments is here. ~~~
~~~ Patricia Mazzei: "Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman who worked with the president's personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to pressure Ukraine's government to investigate political rivals of President Trump, had hoped to watch the impeachment trial up close. But he could not get around the special security restrictions at the Capitol because Mr. Parnas, who is under house arrest, wears an electronic ankle monitor. Still, his arrival created a tizzy at the office of Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, when Mr. Parnas and his lawyers arrived to pick up their Senate gallery passes."
L'état, C'est Moi. Alan Smith of NBC News (from the liveblog @3:41 pm ET): "Alan Dershowitz argued that a quid pro quo involving a president's political benefit was fine because all presidents believe their elections are in the public's interest." Mrs. McC: No wonder Trump thinks he's king. He listens to idiots like Dershowitz who tell him he is.
Mrs. McCrabbie: Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) has said John Bolton telephoned him on September 23, 2019, asking Engel to have his committee investigate the recall of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch because Bolton felt "something improper had occurred." I overheard heard this on MSNBC News while I was doing something else so I may have part of the story wrong; nothing in print yet. Update:
BREAKING: Rep. ENGEL reveals that BOLTON called him in September and told him to look into the Marie Yovanovitch ouster.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 29, 2020
The committees had already started an investigation into Ukraine matters, but Bolton appears to have supported their effort. >>> pic.twitter.com/a54uwGKkaL
~~~ Bolton's Revenge. Josh Marshall of TPM: "... this news really confirms what has long been suspected without public proof: that Bolton has had a clear hand driving this whole scandal forward from the beginning. Or at least since his ouster or resignation on Sept. 10."
~~~~~~~~~~
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? -- Donald Trump, in tweets this morning
Includes "sir" tell. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie ~~~
~~~ Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "Trump also tweeted about Bolton, impeachment and the witness issue a handful of times overnight on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, suggesting the issue is at the forefront of his mind."
Daniel Strauss & Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "Lawyers for Donald Trump concluded their opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday, dismissing objections to Trump's conduct towards Ukraine as 'policy disagreements' and warning senators not to 'lower the bar of impeachment' by voting to convict the president. The defense team briefly grappled with charges reportedly appearing in an unpublished manuscript written by former national security adviser John Bolton that Trump had conditioned security aid for Ukraine on the delivery of personal political favors. Even if Trump did that, his lawyers said, it would not be impeachable. But reports about the Bolton book were in any case 'inadmissible' as evidence, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow argued, owing to the secondhand nature of those reports." ~~~
~~~ The story has been updated. New Lede: "Republicans do not yet have the needed votes to block witnesses from appearing at the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told his caucus in a meeting on Tuesday night, according to multiple reports." ~~~
~~~ Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "In a closed-door meeting after closing remarks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told colleagues he doesn't have the votes to block witnesses, according to people familiar with his remarks.... Just four GOP senators would have to join with Democrats to produce the majority needed to call witnesses.... An initial vote to allow witnesses, expected Friday, does not ensure witnesses would actually be called, since the Senate would have to subsequently hold separate votes on summoning each individual witness And Trump's ultimate acquittal still remains all but assured, since a two-thirds vote in the GOP-run Senate would be required to remove him."
~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "President Trump's defense team ended an extended opening argument Tuesday in which it laid out that Trump had legitimate reasons to ask Ukraine for specific investigations. But it spent almost no time vouching for the actual investigations he wanted. To the extent that Trump's team tried to argue that the investigations were legitimate, it focused mostly on the idea that Hunter Biden' employment at a Ukrainian gas company was problematic. It spent considerably less time arguing for the theory that Trump actually raised with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on their phone call: that then-Vice President Joe Biden sought to help his son by pushing out Ukraine's top prosecutor.... Trump's legal team spent literally zero time talking about the one involving CrowdStrike and a server that was supposedly in Ukraine. Trump's team didn't utter the word 'CrowdStrike' once in three days, in fact, nor did it even mention a 'server' in Ukraine. It instead more broadly defended the idea that Ukraine might have interfered in the 2016 election." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The Trump attorneys' lie that has bugged me the most is that in their July 25 phone call, Zelensky had no idea Trump wanted "deliverables" in exchange for military aid & a meeting. Trump could not have asked for a quid pro quo, the lawyers (falsely) argue, because Zelensky was completely unaware of the ask. It's as if Trump never said, "I would like you to do us a favor, though." It's clear from the phone call itself, as well as from earlier text messages among Sondland, Volker & and Taylor (verified in House testimony) that Zelensky was deeply concerned about the political favors Trump was asking for before the July 25 call. In addition, Zelensky's aides were calling the Pentagon July 25, hours after the big phone call, asking where the military aid was. Was that an amazing coincidence? BTW, if Trump -- unbeknownst to Zelensky -- was withholding funding until Zelensky did something Trump wanted, that would still be a quid pro quo. It's still this for that.
Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Perhaps no claim is more ridiculous -- and more revealing -- than this: Senate Republicans are lamenting that they were blindsided by the news that Bolton's new book will reveal that Trump withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to extort an announcement that would help him politically.... The real story here is that Senate Republicans knew for months that such explosive revelations from Bolton were a very likely possibility -- and that this is precisely why they have resisted hearing Bolton's testimony so aggressively.... Way back in mid-November, the New York Times reported that Bolton privately met with Trump in August and urged him to release the military aid to Ukraine, but that Trump was 'unmoved.' This was amplified by testimony from Tim Morrison, a senior National Security Council official.... What actually blindsided Senate Republicans was ... this terribly inconvenient timing, which upended their coverup."
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a staunch ally of President Trump, on Tuesday urged former national security adviser John Bolton to speak out publicly about what he knows about efforts to hold up military assistance to Ukraine.... 'I spoke with John Bolton on Jan. 7 when I heard that he wanted to testify,' Johnson said, recalling his conversation with Bolton in connection with his own committee's investigation into possible corruption in Ukraine. 'I said "John, if you've got something to say, I'd rather have you say it sooner rather than later. We're calling in a bunch of witnesses, why don't you come into our committee?" John at that time said, "I'd only respond to a Senate subpoena,"' he said."
Never the Sharpest Tack on the Board. KTLA Los Angeles: "Just after President Trump's defense lawyers ended arguments in their Senate trial Tuesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California became the first Democrat to suggest that she could vote to acquit him despite serious concerns about his character. 'Nine months left to go, the people should judge. We are a republic, we are based on the will of the people -- the people should judge,' Feinstein said Tuesday, after the president's team finished a three-day presentation in his defense." ~~~
~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$: "Apparently that whole 'impeachment' thing is some sort of insult to the very concept of democracy -- unlike, say, the Senate, which gives a voter in Wyoming 67 times more representation than a voter in Feinstein's home state[.]... Feinstein is richer than Croesus and 117 years old, plus Trump has an approval rating in California of -28, so this obviously isn't strategic behavior on her part -- it's her genuine, considered opinion!' Later Feinstein tweeted, 'The LA Times [-- the original source of the story --] misunderstood what I said today. Before the trial I said I'd keep an open mind. Now that both sides made their cases, it's clear the president's actions were wrong. He withheld vital foreign assistance for personal political gain. That can't be allowed to stand.'" Campos: "It's hard to square this tweet with her statement earlier today that with nine months left before the election 'the people should judge,' but my guess is that her office got some rather pointed feedback very quickly." ~~~
~~~ Burgess Everett of Politico: "A trio of moderate Senate Democrats is wrestling with whether to vote to convict Donald Trump in his impeachment trial -- or give the president the bipartisan acquittal he's eagerly seeking. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Doug Jones of Alabama are undecided on whether to vote to remove the president from office and agonizing over where to land."
The New York Times' live updates of Tuesday's impeachment proceedings are here. Michael Shear: "John F. Kelly, the former chief of staff to President Trump, told an audience in Florida on Monday night that he believed the revelations in an upcoming book by John R. Bolton, the president's former national security adviser, and thought the Senate should call witnesses in the impeachment trial." Mrs. McC: It's sorta like the captain tossed the rats off his sinking ship, and the rats were waving & laughing from the shore as they watched the ship go down. (Also linked yesterday.) The Hill's report on Kelly's remarks is here.~~~
~~~ The Guardian liveblogged impeachment developments and other stuff. Lindsey Graham says he supports allowing senators to read the Bolton ms. in a classified setting, raising the question as to why a book scheduled to be published in March must be read in secret room. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Chris Casteel of the Oklahoman: "U.S. Sen. James Lankford [R-Okla.] said Monday that senators should be given access to a manuscript written by former national security advisor John Bolton that reportedly bolsters the argument that ... Donald Trump withheld aid to Ukraine to force an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden." Mrs. McC: Say, Jim, you know who can get you a copy of that manuscript right now? The Impeached Guy. (Also linked yesterday.)
Thomas Kaplan & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "After sitting through hours of arguments in the impeachment trial of President Trump on Monday, where his legal team focused on how Mr. Biden's son, Hunter, had nabbed a lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, [Sen. Joni] Ernst [R-Iowa] addressed reporters in the basement of the Capitol. 'Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening,' she said. 'And I'm really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucusgoers. Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point?' At an event in Muscatine on Tuesday..., Mr. Biden responded to Ms. Ernst's comments head-on, presenting them as proof that Mr. Trump's team was using the impeachment trial to try to hobble his candidacy. 'She spilled the beans,' Mr. Biden told the crowd.... 'She just came out and flat said it. You know, the whole impeachment trial for Trump is just a political hit job to try to smear me, because he is scared to death to run against me, and he has good reason to be concerned.'"
Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "... in the weeks and months that followed [Volodymyr Zelensky's election to the Ukraine presidency], 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' National Security and Defense Council, who said the requests 'rattled' Zelensky's team.... Danylyuk left the Zelensky administration in September, citing multiple 'triggers' that pushed him to quit, including the ongoing struggles with the Trump administration.... 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." (Also linked yesterday.)
Betsy Swan & Erin Banco of the Daily Beast: "Lev Parnas' attorney Joseph Bondy is set to attend the Senate impeachment trial [Wednesday] during the first day of the question-answer period. His co-counsel Stephanie Schuman is also expected to appear.... 'Like many other New York constituents, Mr. Bondy reached out and asked for gallery tickets, and we said yes,' said Justin Goodman, a spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Senate Minority Leader. Bondy told The Daily Beast that his client was also trying to attend [Wednesday]'s proceedings in the Senate trial but is unlikely to be able to enter the chamber because he wears an ankle monitor. Senate rules bar individuals from bringing any electronics into the chamber during the trial."
Ann Marimow, et al., of the Washington Post: "As President Trump faces mounting legal bills from his impeachment trial, he is drawing on national party coffers flush with donations from energized supporters -- unlike the last president to be impeached who left the White House 'dead broke.' The Republican National Committee is picking up the tab for at least two of Trump's private attorneys in the ongoing trial, an arrangement that differs from the legal fund then-president Bill Clinton set up, only to see it fail to raise enough to cover his millions of dollars in bills before he left office.... Because Trump is on trial as a result of his status as an officeholder or candidate, election law allows him to dip into campaign or party funds for his legal bills.... Donors to the RNC and Trump's reelection campaign have already covered millions of dollars in attorney fees stemming from the president's other legal travails: former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, court battles over the president's tax returns, and a now-withdrawn defamation lawsuit filed by a former campaign staffer." (Also linked yesterday.)
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "Looking from the perspective of now -- one week into the impeachment trial -- it's striking to see how, without knowledge of political parties or partisan factionalism, [the antifederalists of yore] captured the exact dynamic that will keep a corrupt president in office.... The antifederalists looked to impeachment as a prime example of everything that was wrong with the Senate.... The antifederalists did not think the Senate would ever remove the president.... The trial against our corrupt chief executive is clearly slanted in his favor. If the antifederalist opponents of the Constitution could see us struggling now, they might just say, 'We told you so.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
This Should Work! Michael Crowley, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan with a flourish on Tuesday, outlining a proposal that would give Israel most of what it has sought over decades of conflict while creating what he called a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty. Mr. Trump's plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the outside world. He promised to provide $50 billion in international investment to build the new Palestinian entity and open an embassy in its new state.... Rather than a serious blueprint for peace, analysts called it a political document by a president in the middle of an impeachment trial working in tandem with a prime minister under criminal indictment and about to face his third election in the span of a year." A USA Today story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, Back Home.... BBC News: "Israel's attorney general has filed a formal indictment in court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It came after Mr Netanyahu withdrew a request for parliamentary immunity from prosecution on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in connection with three separate cases. He has denied any wrongdoing. The Israeli parliament had been due to open a debate on the immunity request on Tuesday. But Mr Netanyahu said he would not have got a fair hearing. He also criticised opponents for going ahead with the debate when ... Donald Trump was due to unveil his long-awaited Middle East peace plan." (Also linked yesterday.)
Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump took a moment from presenting his plan for peace in the Middle East on Tuesday to praise his secretary of state -- for blasting an NPR reporter. 'That reporter couldn't have done too good a job on you yesterday. I think you did a good job on her, actually,' Trump told a chuckling Mike Pompeo during his speech at the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." Mrs. McC: I would like to see a report from the White House doctor into whether Trump & Pompeo were separated at birth or were joined at the hip later in life. What a disgusting pair of lying, bullying pricks. (Also linked yesterday.) The whole room thought bullying a female reporter was hilarious. A roomful of bullies & cowards. ~~~
~~~ Marty Johnson of the Hill: "The White House Correspondents' Association (WCHA) on Tuesday criticized the State Department for removing an NPR reporter from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia, and called for it to reverse the decision. 'The State Department's apparent attempt to take punitive action against a news outlet for its reporting is outrageous and contrary to American values,' WCHA president Jonathan Karl said in a statement." ~~~
~~~ Mary Kelly of NPR writes an op-ed in today's New York Times, and the scariest part, as she points out, is the part where she asks Pompeo what his plan is to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. He doesn't have a plan, it would appear, so he snaps at her. No wonder he swore at Kelly. Pompeo does not think girls should ask straightforward, but vital, questions to which he has no answers.
Mosheh Gains & Phil Helsel of NBC News: "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.... Last week, the Pentagon said 34 service members had been diagnosed with concussions and other traumatic brain injuries. Of the 16 newly diagnosed patients, 15 have returned to duty in Iraq, [a Pentagon spokesperson] said."
Jeff Cox of CNBC: "The U.S. budget deficit likely will break the $1 trillion barrier in 2020, the first time that has happened since 2012, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday. After passing that mark this year, the deficit is expected to average $1.3 trillion between 2021-30, rising from 4.6% of GDP to 5.4% over the period. That's well above the long-term average since around the end of World War II. The deficit since then has not topped 4% of GDP for more than five consecutive years, averaging just 1.5% over the period. As part of a spending pattern that the CBO deemed unsustainable, the national debt is expected to hit $31.4 trillion by 2030. Tuesday's projections reflect a slight increase from the estimates presented in August 2019."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Joe Concha of the Hill: "The Washington Post reinstated political reporter Felicia Sonmez on Tuesday after determining that her tweets regarding the Kobe Bryant rape case posted shortly after his death were 'ill-timed' but 'not in clear and direct violation' of the publication's social media policy. The conclusion by Post managing editor Tracy Grant comes one day after the paper suspended Sonmez for the tweets. The reporter said the vitriolic reaction to the tweets was so intense -- with emotions running high following the news that Bryant and his daughter, along with seven others, died in a helicopter crash outside of Los Angeles -- that she received death threats on Twitter." See yesterday's Commentariat for links to related stories. Update: The Washington Post's story is here.
Presidential Race
William Saletan of Slate: "Bernie Sanders is on the rise. Less than a week before the first contest of the Democratic primary, polls give the Vermont senator, on average, a 3-point lead in Iowa and an 8-point lead in New Hampshire. Nationally, he has climbed to within 5 percentage points of former Vice President Joe Biden. If Sanders wins the first two states, he has a strong chance of winning the nomination. That sounds like good news for progressives. But it isn't. Sanders has major liabilities that haven't been exploited in the primaries. If he's the nominee, those liabilities could hand the election to ... Donald Trump." ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Chait: "... the totality of the evidence suggests [Bernie] Sanders is an extremely, perhaps uniquely, risky nominee. His vulnerabilities are enormous and untested. No party nomination, with the possible exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, has put forth a presidential nominee with the level of downside risk exposure as a Sanders-led ticket would bring. To nominate Sanders would be insane." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Dear Misbegotten Democrats: A vote for Bernie is a vote for Donnie. I love Bernie. I love Pete Buttigieg, too. And even Dear Old Joe. But there are a lot of people I love whom I wouldn't pick for president. My children, my neighbors, my old friends. (Okay, they would all be better presidents* than Donald Fucking Trump.)
Senate Race
Georgia. Greg Blustein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "U.S. Rep. Doug Collins will soon announce a challenge to U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, setting up a bitter Republican showdown in November that pits one of ... Donald Trump's most vocal defenders against a wealthy former executive backed by Gov. Brian Kemp." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mark Niesse of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "A bill that would force U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler into a Republican primary election against U.S. Rep. Doug Collins passed a committee Tuesday, clearing a path for a full vote in the Georgia House of Representatives. The House Governmental Affairs Committee approved the legislation that would replace a planned free-for-all special election in November with a partisan primary election in May. Then the Republican and Democratic nominees would compete head-to-head in a November election. The Republican-led committee and its Democratic minority joined forces in support of the proposal, with only one no vote from Republican representative." (Also linked yesterday.)
The New York Times is live-updating developments in the growing coronavirus epidemic. "The outbreak of the mysterious new coronavirus is rapidly spreading, the Chinese authorities said on Tuesday, as the official account of known cases jumped nearly 60 percent overnight and the death toll exceeded 100 for the first time. China said on Tuesday that 106 people had died from the virus, which is believed to have originated in the central city of Wuhan and is spreading across the country. The previous death toll, on Monday, was 81. The number of confirmed cases increased to 4,515 on Tuesday, from 2,835 on Monday, according to the National Health Commission." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ UPDATE. Here's the NYT's live updates page for today's developments. "British Airways became the first international carrier to suspend all flights to and from China."
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Reader Comments (21)
At the risk of being labeled an ageist and a social democrat, I'm thinking age and too much money might have prompted Feinstein's cowardly remarks.
BTW, I'd likely cop to one of those labels.
@Ken Winkes: I'll go along with you on all counts. The most amazing part of her remarks is that the House managers spent hours explaining the founders' reasoning for including impeachment in the Constitution, yet Sen. Dimwit still thinks the fact that there's an election coming up this year is a valid reason not to impeach. Maybe the old girl needs a hearing aid.
Another related, fake argument Trump's "team" makes that drives me crazy is the false claim that impeachment "overturns an election" and "overturns the will of the people" (the majority of whom voted for Hillary, BTW).
Of course it doesn't, though I wish it did. If impeachment overturned an election, that would mean the new prez could fire all those right-wing judges, wipe out the Trump tax cuts for the rich & corporations, reinstall all those regs Trump eliminated, rejoin the international climate accord, etc., etc. It also means Clinton or Pelosi would become president because mike pence, you know, got elected.
Since Mitch doesn't have the votes "at this time" to block witnesses I'm sure he's getting a copy of "Waterboarding for Dummies" and having The Donald limbering up the "thumbs of Fury".
There's some hope, but he isn't down for the count yet.
It grieved me no end to watch yesterday BIBI & the BABY play the great game of Middle East peace plans as though this was monumental and significant. Both these corrupt Meshugeners standing there with big smiles on their pusses, as though both had some kind of real purchase. Here's what Nour Odeh, a political analyst and former spokesperson for the Palestinian Government had to say:
"What we saw presented today was an agreement between Trump, who wants to combat the impeachment hearings, and Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who is struggling from corruption charges...
Both have a vested interest in surviving politically and speaking to their base. And that's exactly what they did with this plan...
But they certainly didn't speak to peace, nor did they speak to the foundations and requirements of that peace...
What Trump presented is an assault on the very foundations of relations between states which have regulated peace and security for over 70 years. It flouts international law. It legitimizes annexation. It legitimizes settlements, all of which are crimes under international law."
Marie's "maybe the old girl needs a hearing aid" referring to Feinstein, is quite probable but just to remind that she already has a heart aid which was inserted the same day that she was at a hearing, which she left midway for the procedure only to appear the very next day to continue with the hearing. So I'd reckon she's not ready to call it a day. Her reasoning re: the impeachment and removal is, indeed, surprising, but she has always struck me as someone who weighs everything so carefully that sometimes it's overwhelming. How does this stack up with her appearance in "The Report"–-wasn't she reluctant at first to pursue? and I think you're right––the angry calls coming in her office made her change her stance.
Last night Warren was on PBS news and Judy says: You've been slipping in the polls, how do you explain that? Really Judy? what the hell! Too bad the answer couldn't have been––"yeah, Judy, thanks a lot for bringing that up, always good to have someone remind one of how they are slipping. Thanks.
Should be an interesting day––question and answer time––such fun!
Trumpy Tudor
Having just finished Hilary Mantel's monumental "Wolf Hall" (and diving in posthaste to its sequel "Bring Up the Bodies"), I am struck by comparisons between the Tudor tyrant Henry VIII and our own bloated, would-be dictator, Trumpy I. Trump does not come out on the better end of the equation.
Like Henry, Fatty is willful, capricious, and arbitrary. But Henry was not ignorant of either his world or his responsibilities. Yes, he gave in with little thought to his own appetites (and both have roving eyes where women are concerned), but he was fully cognizant of his duties to England in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.
Consider, for a moment, what it might be like were Trump really the king he believes himself to be. During Henry's reign, the executioners and royal torturers never wanted for work. But even a despot like Henry realized the importance of at least attempting to abide by something that looks like a legal proceeding (and was occasionally stymied by poorly prosecuted cases, which allowed those in his sights to escape the royal block). Trump has no such compunctions. He truly believes that no laws constrain him. And neither do his royal vassals (or is that assholes?).
Were Trump handed the monarchical powers he feels he deserves, no concerns such as the appearance of legality or justice would stay his appetite for vengeance against any and all who displease his royal person in flicking the thin skin. Axes would fall and entrails be yanked out and set aflame on a daily basis. Trump's recent threat to Republicans who would opt for the appearance of a fair trial, that their heads would adorn a pike, is reminiscent of Tudor England's thirst for finding and punishing (often inventing) traitors, treason being a crime as simple as any stated or even implied quip which Henry and his delicate sensibility might take as an insult. Trump is no different in that regard.
Charles Dickens, no stranger to the wiles of reprehensible toads, once referred to Henry VIII was "...a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the History of England".
A more apt description of the Orange Menace I would not presume to contrive.
(Oh, and a big thanks to PD, who recommended "Wolf Hall" a couple of years ago. My "To be read" piles have taken over several rooms in the house and I'm just now getting to it, but what a getting it has turned out to be!)
PD,
I couldn't stomach watching the two crooks patting each other on the back and listen to the fat one bleat about "my vision" for the Middle East. His vision? You mean whatever Bibi's far-right Likud guys cooked up? The one that completely obliterates Palestinians? The one he couldn't explain in five hours even with notes and handlers whispering in his ear? That "vision"? And don't try to hand me any crap about Jared's Plan. That guy is a complete fraud, a nepotism hire who would be lucky to be cleaning out toilets in a Motel 6 were he not born into a wealthy (and criminal) family. Just like Fatty.
And please to tell me how a "peace plan" has been put together without the tiniest input from one of the two sides? That's not a peace plan. That's a piece of shit, not worth the paper to wipe it off.
How these guys, both in the box for abuse of power, and other assorted crimes, can get up before the cameras and pose and preen and strut and talk about their "vision"...
Words fail.
And while I'm on about the British monarchy, let me repeat, for the R's who are too slow to catch on, who whine that abuse of power is not a satisfactory reason for impeachment.
Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and George Washington beg to differ.
For them, it was the abuse of power by George III that brought them to decide that revolution was the only answer; revolution, which required them to acknowledge that George's abuses were indeed impeachable.
Not rise to the level of impeachment?
By my lights (and those of the Founders), abuse of power is second only to outright treason (a crime of which Trump is also guilty), on the list of impeachable crimes.
Please pay attention. Schmucks.
So here is my mark in arithmetic for young Marie Burns.
Marie, on her 2nd grade arithmetic paper, finished the following equation:
Bernie=Donnie.
Correct. A+, Miss Burns!
Now, Democrats, see if you can be as smart as a second grader.
Do your fucking homework. Bernie ain't the guy. (Neither is Joe!)
"It is a wan morning, low unbroken clouds; the light filtering sparely through glass, is the color of tarnished pewter. How brightly colored the King is, like the King in a new pack of cards: how small his flat blue eye:" From Wolf Hall
AK: so glad you finally got to it; the language blew me away. I sometimes had to stop and just savor it for many moments.
Interesting piece by Nahal Toosi of Politico about planning for the potential transition a year from now. By law incumbent administrations must prepare even though they plan on winning re-election.
When Fatty loses I think they're going to have to call in the exterminators to delouse the WH. A hazmat team too. Rather than leave a letter to his successor, he'll probably leave a yuge McD-and-KFC turd in the bottom drawer of the Resolute Desk.
PD,
Quite. And such exemplary writing and exhaustive research remind us that the universe offers wonderment and intelligence far above the fetid, stinking, stoopid swamps inhabited by the Trump Monster and his simpering toadies.
A bit of advice, from Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell, serves us all well in these unstable times:
“It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.”
Are you listening Sen. Feinstein? You might be planning re-election, but what you do tomorrow could make that impossible.
The one argument the Trump team didn't make -- and I think it's the only viable one -- is related to the "overturn an election" feint. That argument is, "Hey, everybody knew Trump was a bully and a crook and a cheater and a scoundrel and a liar and a narcissistic pig. They knew he would continue to break the rules and the laws just as he has done all his life. So it would be wrong to get rid of him just because he did all of those things voters anticipated he would do. As Mick Mulvaney would say, 'Get over it!'"
Bea, But I don't think they knew just how ignorant he actually was
(is) about everything a president should know at least a little about.
On the job training hasn't worked out very well for this one.
Forrest-- there has been no OJT since everyone is a coward, terrified of him. The description of the meeting with the military kinkajous simply describes how UNable the UNstable moron is. But there is no excuse for the way supposed intelligent Dems voted for him, for a "change something something?"because there was plenty of info out there, and if his appearances in "debates" didn't show them the real idiot, they were as dumb as he is.
By the way, Michael Steele said this morning that the meme that McConnell did not have the votes is pure baloney, put out by McConnell himself. Within that mumbling, scornful, dumpy physique beats the "heart" of a domineering, powermad scumbag who would NEVER let that get out if it were true. No one has heard tell of a fourth vote, not a whisper, so there probably still is not one. Cowards, all of them.
And I am still furious about those bloated monsters' dumping on and slandering Mary Louise Kelly. Now another NPR person was kicked off Pompousasseo's plane today. That doesn't mean I LIKE NPR: this morning Steve Inskeep (sp?) tried to mess up Warren but she just kept talking. It's like open season on women...
@Forrest Morris: Good point. I am sure beyond a shadow of a doubt if either you or I got plopped down in the Oval Office knowing what little we may know now, we might start out as pretty useless and shaky, but by a year in, we would know how to do the job well, partly because our "helpers" were nothing like Betsy DeVos & Mick Mulvaney.
Michele Kelemen is the NPR reporter who was removed from the Pompeo flight manifest. Mary Louise Kelly is the NPR reporter who Pompeo tried to intimidate during and aftr her interview with him.
I'd bet dollars to donuts the State Spox lined out Kelemen thinking she was Kelly. Never attribute to purposefulness that which can be explained by stupidity.
A corollary to the "overturning the election" canard is the "OMG! If we allow the Dear Leader to be impeached for something as inconsequential as abuse of power and obstruction of justice, the Democrats will impeach EVERYONE! Why, they might even try to impeach someone for something as frivolous as lying about a blowjob!"
This is as ridiculous as it is insulting. The fact is that Democrats could have (should have) brought articles of impeachment against the Decider for lying in order to drag us into an unnecessary war. They didn't. And I don't want to hear any more about how Democrats were ready to impeach Fatty the moment he was inaugurated. Well, McTurtle decided BEFORE the inauguration of Barack Obama that he would do everything in his power to shiv him in the back. But I guess that was okay, because Democrat. And black.
Here's the deal. If you were at the circus and saw a clown ride into the ring, you'd expect him to spray some seltzer down the pants of some other clown. Right? You'd be rather idiotic if you expected him to recite a Shakespeare soliloquy or declaim on the legacy of the gold standard. Reasonable people saw a chiseling grifter who has never heard about a law he couldn't break ride into the
Washington big top. There was every expectation that he would continue to be a law-breaking chiseling grifter. They were 100% right. So boo-fucking-hoo, asshats.
Furthermore, the contention that if Trump gets impeached, that impeachment will be trotted out for every Republican caught crossing the street when they lights were against them sounds like paranoid frenzy. It's not. It's just another confederate lie, but they got nothin' else.
So let's impugn the intentions and abilities of Democrats and scare the rubes.
What else is new?
And once again, leave us not forget that if any party can be assumed to use impeachment against their political enemies for astoundingly picayune reasons, it's the Party of Traitors. They're the only ones who have done so.
(Oh, and I heard a snippet of some R fraud--didn't get the name--go all the way back to Nixon yesterday, crying that Democrats were wrong to try to impeach him as well, asserting that he did nothing impeachable, just like Trump, but that it's in the nature of Democrats to try to overturn elections of Republicans. It's like saying that a judge who repeatedly sentences proven criminals, is unfairly prejudiced against criminals.)
The White House has issued a "formal threat" to Bolton-do not
publish that book. What the hell is a formal threat? Won't just a
threat work fine?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/politics/donald-trump-john-bolton-
white-house-book/index.html
The Republicans will be back to trying to "overturn the will of the people" soon enough if a Democrat gets back into the Oval Office whether they can find a blowjob or not. And stopping policies supported by the majority of the people is about all they do these days.
@Victoria, I think you're the current mental health expert here. What do you think of Fatty trying to pronounce "criminal" so badly (@ ~33 sec) that even the Faux hosts had to chuckle about it?
I think Fatty's repeated incidences of inability to say a word correctly are not due to one specific deteriorating brain process alone. One can make a paraphasic error (oranges instead of origin), one can slur a word so it's not clear what the word is(he does this a lot), or one can have a nonsense repetition of a syllable (criminimals), or a variety of other things. The bottom line is that he's gradually forgetting how to speak, just like someone with advancing dementia may forget how to put a sweater on. One can see that he sometimes loses coherent speech in the middle of a sentence; sometime he loses a sentence before he's finished and he doesn't recognize that this is happening. Speaking clearly, creating complete sentences, using a vocabulary appropriate to one's surroundings, remembering words, all are the job of different specific areas of the brain. The fact that so many areas are affected is the concern.
Bottom line: this is dementia. Once he starts wetting his pants, or doing something outre like that, then maybe - only maybe - people will notice something is dreadfully wrong.
I believe that the smart republicans in the senate can see this perfectly well, and have probably consulted neurologists to get some sense of how much time they have before he has to be replaced. Right now, it looks like they're betting on him being presentable until at least early next year.