The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from...
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) opined recently how “surreal” it is to begin the Senate impeachment trial “on a day when major news continues to break.” Surreptitious might better describe these proceedings, which Mitch McConnell has designed as a means to sprint through the procedure of a trial, while getting to it’s preordained end, that of an acquittal as quickly as possible, before even more damning evidence is uncovered or Trump manages to upset the apple cart somehow. Daily Beast: The tension between a group of Republican lawmakers who publicly make clear they want no “circus” and a president with a penchant for creating them will be just one factor that will make Trump’s impeachment trial unlike the other two trials in U.S. history—or any other event in U.S. history, for that matter. Another unique factor: the steady flow of fresh facts and revelations directly related to the charges laid out in articles of impeachment. Last Thursday, as senators were sworn in as jurors, they were struggling to keep up with incendiary, breaking allegations about Trumpworld’s conduct on Ukraine from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. On top of that, a federal government watchdog had just found that the White House violated the law in withholding appropriated funds from Ukraine. Now, what’s also historical here, is that it’s not just Trump who is on trial. It’s the GOP. Former Senator Jeff Flake wrote an op/ed the other day, saying,“President Trump is on trial. But in a very real sense, so are you. And so is the political party to which we belong.” Washington Post: Mindful of the base human instincts that we all possess, the founders of our constitutional system designed its very architecture to curb excesses of power. Those curbs are especially important when the power is wielded by a president who denies reality itself and calls his behavior not what it is, but “perfect.” Personally, I have never met anyone whose behavior can be described as perfect, but so often has the president repeated this obvious untruth that it has become a form of dogma in our party. And sure enough, as dogma demands, there are members of our party denying objective reality by repeating the line that “the president did nothing wrong.” My colleagues, the danger of an untruthful president is compounded when an equal branch follows that president off the cliff, into the abyss of unreality and untruth. […] Nearly all of you condemned the president’s behavior during the 2016 campaign. Nearly all of you refused to campaign with him. You knew then that doing so would be wrong — would be a stain on your reputation and the standing of the Republican Party, and would do lasting damage to the conservative cause. Ask yourself today: Has the president changed his behavior? Has he grown in office? Has the mantle of the presidency altered his conduct? The answer is obvious. In fact, if the president’s political rally in Michigan on Wednesday is any measure, his language has only become more vulgar, his performance cruder, his behavior more boorish and unstable. Flake states the obvious, that Trump is a mess and that siding with him isn’t exactly good optics. If the ultimate judgment of the trial may not be in doubt, the way it […]
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs. All the bulldogs there have rubber teeth, and the hens lay soft boiled eggs The Big Rock Candy Mountains It was always a standard pap line of Trump media creepy-crawlies like KellyAnne Con-way and Sarah Slanders to respond to the latest Trumper tantrum by saying, “When this president gets hit, he hits back 10 times harder.” Well, Trumpenstein is backed into the corner now, and this ain’t no rope-a-dope we’re seeing. He’s gettinf the shit kicked out of him. Take the whistle blower for instance. All of the little Trombies, at least the ones who will still appear on camera to get cuffed around by reporters, slam the whistle blower complaint as “second hand knowledge,” based on “hearsay.” Yet Trump’s own hand picked acting Director of Intelligence appeared before the House Intelligence committee, and testified that the complaint was valid, and urgent, his only reason for stonewalling it was procedural as defined by the DOJ. Trump’s hand picked Inspector General not only found the claim had merit, he investigated the claim, and found corroboration. And the release of the phone call transcript matches the whistle blowers complaint word for word. Trump and his misfit minions then haul off on the whistle blower instead, claiming that he or she is a “spy,” and a “traitor,” who is lawless, and should be “dealt with the old fashioned way.” Yet Trump’s acting DNI said that the whistle blower acted in faith, followed the guidelines, and must be protected. Ditto for Trump’s own IC IG, who dealt with the whistle blower, and handled the initial complaint. And then today, in a rather stunning rebuke to Trump, GOP Senator Chuck Grassley, who wrote the Senate whistle blowers bill, stated that the whistle blower had complied with all guidelines, should be thanked for coming forward, and must be protected. I have been waiting three long years for this moment, and it has finally happened. This is what happens when Trump loses control of the narrative. Up until now, Trump has found a patsy, whacked away at said patsy, and everybody else runs around with their hair on fire, trying to respond to Trump. The shoe is finally on the other foot. Now it’s everybody else who’s taking pot shots at Trump, while he runs around with his hair on fire, trying to keep up with all of them. And hes doing a piss poor job of it. For example, former milquetoast GOP Senator Jeff Flake came out with an op-ed, warning his Senate brethren that time was short, but that there was still time to save their eternal souls. Even if they couldn’t convict Trump, they knew that Trump didn’t deserve a second term, and must oppose him. Flake was one of His Lowness’ favorite chew toys when he was a Senator, but Trump is so distracted that he couldn’t spare even one outraged tweet at Flakes “treason!” But I’ll bet a couple of incumbent GOP Senators read that and thoughtfully stroked their own chins. And it gets even worse. In the last couple of days, a small handful of incumbent GOP House members have gently slapped back at Trump, rebuking him both for his treatment of the whistle blower, as well as rebuking him for his comments and retweeting the insane nonsense of […]
Senate Republicans, with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence, put a judge that the American Bar Association rated as "not qualified" on...
