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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[NeedsAdjustments]

Just how corrupt is Bill Barr?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/26/opinion/trump-william-barr.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Answer:  Very corrupt.

The whistle-blower’s complaint was deemed credible and urgent by Michael Atkinson, Trump’s own intelligence community inspector general, but Bill Barr’s Justice Department suppressed it. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion saying that the complaint needn’t be turned over to Congress, as the whistle-blower statute instructs. When Atkinson made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, it reportedly didn’t even open an investigation. And all the time, Barr was named in the complaint that his office was covering up.

Under any conceivable ethical standard, Barr should have recused himself. But ethical standards, perhaps needless to say, mean nothing in this administration...

In the reconstruction of Trump’s call with Zelensky that was released by the White House, Trump repeatedly said that he wanted Ukraine’s government to work with Barr on investigating the Bidens. Barr’s office insists that the president hasn’t spoken to Barr about the subject, but given the attorney general’s record of flagrant dishonesty — including his attempts to mislead the public about the contents of the Mueller report — there’s no reason to believe him. Besides, said Representative Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional law professor who now sits on the House Judiciary Committee, “the effort to suppress the existence of the phone conversation itself is an obvious obstruction of justice.”

...But Barr’s refusal to recuse creates a sort of legal cul-de-sac. It’s only the Justice Department, ultimately, that can prosecute potential federal crimes arising from this scandal. Barr’s ethical nihilism, his utter indifference to ordinary norms of professional behavior, means that he’s retaining the authority to stop investigations into crimes he may have participated in.

“Just as the president is not above the law, the attorney general is not above the law,” said Raskin. “The president’s betrayal of his oath of office and the Constitution is the primary offense here, and we need to stay focused on that, but the attorney general’s prostitution of the Department of Justice for the president’s political agenda has been necessary to the president’s schemes and he will face his own reckoning.”

[NeedsAdjustments]

Trump stands next to Vladmir Putin, smiling while he publicly contradicts his own intelligence community regarding Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
Trump brags about the "beautiful letters" he gets from Kim Jong-un.
Trump's son-in-law chats with Mohammad Bin Salman via Whats-App while the Administration shrugs when MbS has a US Journalist choked to death and cut up into pieces with a bone saw.
Trump called and praised Turkey's Erdogan after his election "victory" despite aides recommending he not do so.
Trump sits smiling while he is serenaded by the Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, singing "You are the light in my world, a half of this heart of mine."

But Trump was holding back from meeting or even calling Volodymyr Zelensky because he was really, really worried about corruption, you guys.

[NeedsAdjustments]

Public support for impeachment on the rise:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/26/poll-support-impeachment-trump-1515012

[NeedsAdjustments]

Beware individuals or organizations that cover themselves in patriotism and its mission.  There is a very good chance that they are and are doing the exact opposite.  And I'm not just talking about Trump and his administration:

The National Rifle Association acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon.

Drawing on contemporaneous emails and private interviews, an 18-month probe by the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals

[Hairy Lime]

Beware individuals or organizations that cover themselves in patriotism and its mission.  There is a very good chance that they are and are doing the exact opposite.

In the immortal words of Ambrose Bierce, "With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer [note: Samuel Johnson] I beg to submit it is the first."

[josh]

Whether the NRA, the president, or the Attorney General, the pattern of corruption is well enough established that to watch as the likes of Kid and Ward continue to support them, either through their active words or through their silence on the issues and attempts to distract from the serious problems is to be in awe of their lack of integrity.

The GOP represents them fairly and fully.

[barton]

“But there is something even worse: it is the first, last, and middle range of fools.”

  - Mencken (addressing Johnson's definition)


The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.  - Greek adage, endlessly paraphrased

I think it's time for talcum powder or pastry flour, but not getting my hopes too aroused.

[NeedsAdjustments]

Shep's a total punk.

How bout Chris Wallace?

"The spinning that's been done by the president's defenders over the last 24 hours since this very damaging whistleblower complaint came out ... [is] not surprising but it is astonishing and I think deeply misleading."

[Hairy Lime]

“But there is something even worse: it is the first, last, and middle range of fools.”

  - Mencken (addressing Johnson's definition)


The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.  - Greek adage, endlessly paraphrased

I think it's time for talcum powder or pastry flour, but not getting my hopes too aroused.

Talcum powder and pastry flour.arouse you? Do tell.

Actually, no, don't tell.

[oilcan]

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.

Paul Krugman suggests that impeachment will be good for the economy....

To be fair, legislation isn’t the only way presidents can make policy, and the prospect of impeachment will probably exert a chilling effect on Trump’s ability to pursue policy through executive fiat. But here’s the thing: Since most of what Trump is trying to do is bad for America, whatever paralysis impeachment may induce is all to the good.

For Trump has, in effect, been waging a war on competence.

In Trump’s vision of government, career diplomats who do actual diplomacy, experienced regulators who actually try to enforce regulations, researchers who produce objective data — up to and including weather forecasters whose predictions he doesn’t like — are all part of a deep state that’s out to get him. So Trump officials have been engaged in a systematic campaign to degrade America’s Civil Service, driving out people who know what they’re doing and replacing them with political hacks.

Consider the case of the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, a respected, heretofore apolitical unit that produces highly useful reports — reports that farmers and businesses rely on — on various trends affecting rural America. After the agency produced reports documenting the obvious — that the 2017 tax cut disproportionately benefited well-off farmers — and refused to cook up studies justifying other administration policies, it was summarily told to relocate from Washington to Kansas City.

The obvious and successful purpose of this move was to induce mass resignations by the unit’s experts, and it’s very unlikely that if and when the agency is reconstituted it will be nearly as good at doing its job.

A similar process of hackification has been going on throughout the federal government. And let’s be clear: This degradation of government is bad for business. Businesses may not always like government regulations, but they do like government that is predictable, is competent and makes decisions based on clear criteria, not political connections....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/opinion/trump-economy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[NeedsAdjustments]

Per Trump's "Liddle'" Tweet:

There have been two main arguments re: the political effect of impeachment.  One camp says that Trump is a historically unpopular President seen as unfit for office and saying that impeaching him will make him more popular is absurd.  The other camp says that impeachment doesn't poll well, Democrats will be painted as circumventing the democratic process, and look at all the money the GOP is banking off of this!

I see both arguments.  I think I know where I stand on it, but that's not the point.  What is missing from this discussion is how Trump himself will react to impeachment, and how that might tip public opinion. 

His reaction will certainly be to get more extreme and divisive, brood in the shadows, rail against his perceived enemies in the press and the IC, spout whacky conspiracy theories, and more and more just seem off his rocker.  Already, two days into this, he has implied that the whistleblower and those that talked to him should be killed, put in a desultory and unremarked on appearance at the UN Assembly, and posted a series of tweets that even by his standards are batshit.

None of this goes over well with independents.  Its exactly the kind of shit that has kept his approval ratings down despite a (once) thriving economy.  If Trump pivoted toward the middle and moderated his language he could try to look like a sympathetic figure who has been unfairly attacked.  But there is NO WAY he will do this.  Just the opposite. 

Which is all only one more reason I think impeachment does not carry the political risk some says it does.

[Hairy Lime]

“But there is something even worse: it is the first, last, and middle range of fools.”

  - Mencken (addressing Johnson's definition)


The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.  - Greek adage, endlessly paraphrased

I think it's time for talcum powder or pastry flour, but not getting my hopes too aroused.

Talcum powder and pastry flour.arouse you? Do tell.

Actually, no, don't tell.

That reminds me, for some odd, inexplicable reason, that Tulsi Gabbard now supports impeachment.

[barton]

Better to show than to tell.

[barton]

His reaction will certainly be to get more extreme and divisive, brood in the shadows, rail against his perceived enemies in the press and the IC, spout whacky conspiracy theories, and more and more just seem off his rocker.  Already, two days into this, he has implied that the whistleblower and those that talked to him should be killed, put in a desultory and unremarked on appearance at the UN Assembly, and posted a series of tweets that even by his standards are batshit.

None of this goes over well with independents.  Its exactly the kind of shit that has kept his approval ratings down despite a (once) thriving economy.  If Trump pivoted toward the middle and moderated his language he could try to look like a sympathetic figure who has been unfairly attacked.  But there is NO WAY he will do this.  Just the opposite. 

Which is all only one more reason I think impeachment does not carry the political risk some says it does.

thumb up thingy

At worst, we end up with Mark Sanford running against the Democratic nominee.

[barton]

So I keep hearing this rumor, most recently from Jeff Flake, that there are 35 (or 30 in some tellings) GOP Senators who would vote for impeachment if there were a private vote.  That's lovely, but since the US Senate doesn't have any such thing as a private vote on resolutions of this type, I'm not sure what to make of all this secret harboring of a conscience deep down inside where the sun never shines.