Author: Burr Deming

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An Unprecedented Effort to Obstruct an Impeachment Inquiry

Constitutional Authority for Congressional Oversight and Impeachment

The President’s Categorical Refusal to Comply

The President’s Refusal to Produce Any and All Subpoenaed Documents

The President’s Refusal to Allow Top Aides to Testify

The President’s Unsuccessful Attempts to Block Other Key Witnesses

The President’s Intimidation of Witnesses

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From the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report

The impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election. As described in this executive summary and the report that follows, President Trump’s scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign. The President demanded that the newly-elected Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly announce investigations into a political rival that he apparently feared the most, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into a discredited theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election. To compel the Ukrainian President to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.

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• Jon Perr at PERRspectives may have figured out why my president is trying so hard to block a Russian oil pipeline through Europe.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger runs through original documents and subsequent writings to determine whether US founders would impeach Donald Trump.
   
• Scotties Toy Box looks over the shoulder of President Obama, then over the shoulder of President Trump, reads what they are reading, and makes a decision about contrasting intelligence. We report, you decide.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit notices that my president does not understand why we wait a hundred years to celebrate a centennial.
   
• In MadMikesAmerica, Michael John Scott researches a lot, then speculates a bit on how things would, or could, happen if a president went rogue and tried to nuke a country.
   
• PZ Myers hears Rick Perry declare Donald Trump to be the Chosen One, annointed by God. Professor Myers seems skeptical.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors recounts President Trump’s Thanksgiving phone call to members of media and military. He expressed gratitude on behalf of the nation to … well … himself.

Continue reading “Trump Oil, Founders Impeach, Peek at Intelligence, Centennial, Nukes”

 

The Haldeman maneuver didn’t really work for Nixon.

Trump has a more fanatic following.
Maybe they’ll fall into line.

As if I needed another reminder of my age, Donald Trump brings Bob Haldeman to my mind.

Haldeman was indignant 46 years ago during the Watergate hearings. John Dean had not lied, exactly, but he had misled the world by leaving out something important.

Dean had remembered talking with President Nixon about Watergate burglars. They had been caught and put in jail. They were being pressured to name names. They were about to tell an angry Judge John Sirica just who had ordered them to break into Democratic headquarters.

And they were demanding money from the Nixon people to keep quiet.

John Dean had discussed that demand with his boss, the President of the United States. And he told the Senate Committee on Watergate how that talk had gone:

I told the president about the fact there was no money to pay these individuals, to meet their demands. He asked me how much it would cost. I told him I could only make an estimate, that it might be as high as a million dollars or more.

He told me that that was no problem. He also looked over at Haldeman and repeated the same statement.

Well, that wraps it, I thought at the time. I was young.

Then it was Haldeman’s turn at the witness table. He denied being in that conversation at all.

President Nixon had been secretly recording conversations and this one was on tape. The President refused to let the Senate listen to the tapes, and he refused to let special investigators listen to them.

But Haldeman had been allowed. Even though he wasn’t there – he explained Dean was lying about that – he had heard everything in that conversation on tape and he could let the committee and the world know precisely what Dean had left out.
Continue reading “Nixon and Haldeman Explain How to Save Trump”

• After a stroke that disabled him for a month, Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post is back, comparing our current president with well-respected presidents in our history. Guess who falls short!
   
• Scotties Toy Box has discovered the subversive underground document containing treasonous anti-Trump words, and exposed the very first never-Trumper.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein counts the ways Trump insider Gordon Sondland just made it harder for Republicans to duck.
   
• Green Eagle admits it will be impossible to get 20 Republican senators to vote their conscience and remove Mr. Trump from office with two thirds of the Senate. So he helps out with a way to get impeachment done anyway; with the help of a military parade.

Continue reading “Jack Back, 1st Never-Trumper, 50 min Call, War & Oil, Sondland Sings”

• Iron Knee at Political Irony uses a cartoon, a bank robbery, and compelling logic to make fun of Trump defenders.
   
• Infidel753 dives into the deep right wing bubble and emerges back into the light with a thoughtful, as always, conclusion. The impeachment hearings will change no minds. We should finish them and get back to the reality of electoral politics. Largely true, I suspect. Still, I won’t be surprised at a profound political effect. There were many problems in 2016 – Putin subterranean interference, Comey mountaintop interference, the Electoral College. The biggest anti-democracy influence was resigned apathy. The hearings may, without changing minds, get democracy back to work.
   
• Marie Yovanovitch served for thirty years for presidents of both parties, sometimes in highly dangerous situations. She is a hero. tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors covers my president’s smear attacks on her during her testimony and the stunned reaction of some at Fox News.
   
• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged brings us a 27 second video of Nancy Pelosi explaining how exculpatory evidence could work for Donald Trump while gently burning his lack of intelligence. He’ll get angry. As soon as someone explains it.
   
• Andy Borowitz reports as angry Republicans address a long simmering injustice, demanding that everyone in the federal witness protection program appear on national television. It’s only fair.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz points out that my president’s impeachable offenses have filled up any standard of illegality and overflowed into inhumanity.
   
• Dreamers are Americans who were brought here as kids, average age 6, and who grew up in the United States. Most do not even remember any other country. News Corpse reports as Donald Trump attacks Dreamers themselves, and President Obama for letting them stay. NC points out the high number of falsehoods in a single Donald tweet and refutes each lie.
   
• Oh my. Tommy Christopher quotes the recently discovered white nationalism communications of Trump advisor Stephen Miller. Conservative MSNBC co-host Joe Scarborough blasts the GOP for silent complicity with racism.
   
• In Scotties Toy Box Donald Trump throws sand at anti-Trump George Conway for embarrassing his Trumper wife Kellyanne. George issues a blowtorch burn in response.
   
• Ah, a competition! Max’s Dad may be the world’s best ranter. If you ever tick this guy off, you’ll want to apologize RIGHT away. Turns out he doesn’t much care for former Ambassador to the UN and former Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley. And he doesn’t much care for US Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. He runs a comparison to figure out which of these two Trumpers is worse.
   
• So Donald Trump, Jr. toured Arlington National Cemetery. As he listened to the slow, mournful, notes of “Taps”, his thoughts, according to his own words, went to horrific, heroic sacrifices. No, not the sacrifice of life for freedom – the sacrifice made by those in final rest at each marked grave.
   
  Rather he was thinking of the sacrifices he, his siblings, in fact the entire Trump family, made to install Donald Trump in the White House. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit reads those words and manages to express a calm bit of disapproval.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara saluted veterans this past week, but reserved his highest praise for those most responsible for supporting the military, productive, wealth producing, wealthy Americans. This anti-government ideologue embraces a case study: the astonishing production of weaponry during World War II. An interesting illustration, since the mobilization was organized and carried out by government.
   
• Dave Dubya also commemorated Veterans Day, adding quotes from military officers to those of past and current Republicans. A post of quotes works for me.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks at the numbers. A non-trivial proportion of Americans know someone who died because they were unable to pay for medical care.
   
• There is good news here in St. Louis. The Onion reports that an outbreak of influenza has reduced class sizes to a level appropriate for learning.
   
• Ant Farmer’s Almanac apologizes in advance to Rodgers and Hammerstein, offering anti-boomer lyrics to the tune of Oklahoma. Okay, so we’ve attacked the climate, the seas, the economy, the society, and simple morality in the treatment of refugees and their children. But we should at least be allowed to scream at kids to get off our lawns.
   
• After six decades of the pure joy and relief of being too young to be a boomer, nojo is outraged to find his generation grouped with mine. So now he’s as guilty of OK-boomer-itis as am I. You know this piece will be good. For one thing, it’s by nojo, who seems congenitally unable to write anything that isn’t golden. For another, the first sentence is: We’ve hated our generation since Disco.
   
• The Propaganda Professor looks through various arguments, logic, and evidence to consider whether we need religion to make us moral.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, an evangelical Christian implores former pastor Bruce to be quiet about his eventual embrace of atheism. Bruce issues a thoughtful reply.
   
• Some of the best posts online are devoid of words. M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is an amateur photographer. He captures an eerie, beautiful image of paper pumpkins floating in a twilight urban setting.
   

This gets tiresome.
 
Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is a genuinely good writer. His thoughts are insightful. He presents those thoughts crisply and clearly.
 
But he’s not perfect, a fact he illustrates while complaining about a Republican passed state law that says a state commission is required to use a disreputable method that has a history of disenfranchising legitimate voters. James is not complaining about an unjust, anti-democratic law. His beef is with a state election commission that is not using the law as it was intended. Instead, members voted to add safeguards to be sure valid voters are still allowed to vote.
 
The practice is known as voter caging. When used unethically, a mail piece is sent to voters. The piece is non-forwardable. Non-wealthy, non-owners are more likely to move short distances away. Those pieces will be returned as non-deliverable. Around the country, Republicans have used the method to file legal complaints against voter registrations. When voters show up to vote, they are told they are no longer registered. When used aggressively, tens of thousands of legitimate voters are told they are no longer voters. Some don’t show up, since reminders are sent only to those still on file.
 
The national Republican Party eventually signed a consent agreement that has the force of law. They agreed never to use voter caging again, because … well … the rights of voters should be protected.
 
Sometimes, today’s Republicans use state governments to get around the consent agreement. When they get control of a state legislature they use the state itself to perform voter caging. The consent agreement only keeps the Republican Party from unfairly keeping voters from voting. It doesn’t keep state governments from doing the disfranchising.
 
In Wisconsin, the Election Board is using caging, but they are taking additional steps, like giving voters more time to show they are still state residents.
 
James is pretty upset. He approves of a lawsuit by a conservative organization that seeks to force the commission to cancel voter rights within 30 days after a mailing is returned. After all, the law is the law, right?
 
There could be reasoned arguments against additional safeguards. Perhaps the national Republican consent agreement against caging was a bridge too far. Maybe, if done carefully, caging is okay. Perhaps a call or visit could ensure that only folks who move out-of-state are purged. Or perhaps there are other arguments for what otherwise would look like a naked attempt to undermine democracy.
 
If a voter shows up to vote and is unexpectedly barred from voting, Wisconsin does allow that voter to go home and dig up hospital birth papers, marriage licenses, and other documents, then to return and re-register on the spot, and vote. Many forms of ID are not allowed. This is a bit of a burden, especially for non-drivers who rely on bus schedules to commute to work, to shop, and to vote. James argues that the Wisconsin same-day home trip document provision is absolute proof that caging presents no burden on low income voters.
 
Aside from that, James relies primarily on accusation. He charges that a failure to purge these voters will cause voter fraud. In reality, when elections are stolen, it is by behind-the-scenes fiddling with vote totals, not illegal voters showing up to vote. An amazing number of studies have shown voter fraud is vanishingly rare, while the denial of voting rights is alarmingly common.
 
James does not document his discredited accusation. He does not bother to defend his stance from well-known arguments against it. In fact, he does not mention those arguments.
 
He neglects the Republican history of abuse, and the Republican consent agreement, and the danger of purging valid voters and making it impractical for them to re-register.
 
To be fair, James has, over his writing career, repeatedly proven he can do better than this.

• Infidel753 is happy with Tuesday’s election results. It is a cautious glee. We should curb our enthusiasm a little and apply three useful lessons for 2020 and beyond.
   
• Science fiction writer John Scalzi is mildly happy with Tuesday’s results but warns not to read too much into it. Off year, local, and so on.
   
• Jonathan Bernstein looks at Tuesday’s numbers and finds the real winners: Medicaid expansion and education.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass warns that, while the Democrat won the governorship in Kentucky, Republicans won two important offices that may be even more important, and may overturn the election result for Governor as well. Seems there is a little known election provision that will let them do it.
   
• Tommy Christopher watches as Fox News host Laura Ingraham twists into a human pretzel explaining how Republican Governor Matt Bevin lost but Donald Trump was actually the winner in Kentucky.

Continue reading “Not So Ruby Tuesday, Lies, Fraud, RasPutin, Shutdown, Sean Melts”

A different sport in many ways.

The concussive violence of football, the long term damage to players, was never in the national consciousness in those days. Back when I was a kid, such thoughts never intruded. We had no idea.

There is something about football crowds. I’m not sure exactly what it is. But if most of us were blindfolded and put into the middle of a crowd at a professional game, we’d be able to tell if it was football or some other sport. The raucousness of the crowd, maybe? The yelling of the vendors? The play-by-play enthusiasm? Hard to say what the rhythm is, exactly, but it is unmistakable.

The Redskins vs Eagles game at Franklin Field in Philadelphia had been billed as a big deal. The stadium itself seemed like the setting for it. It was the oldest stadium in the country. The Eagles had been there only a few years.

By the time the coin was tossed that Sunday, there were over 60,000 fans in the stadium. But, on that Sunday, you would not have recognized the sound as happening during a football event. In fact, there was an eerie silence during the entire game.
Continue reading “No Booing, No Cheers:
Seven Silent Stadiums”

• Max’s Dad listens to the reaction of a rare non-rally crowd to our beloved president and remembers sports boos from decades past.
   
• Dave Dubya describes his own reaction to my President’s reaction to the reaction of a non-MAGA-hat crowd to seeing his image: baseball booing.
   
• In The Borowitz Report, President Trump has an explanation. World Series fans wanted to lock him up in the White House for doing an excellent job.
   
• About that World Series:
   
  Tommy Christopher reports on how Nationals team member Sean Doolittle seems to have wanted to join his teammates on a celebratory trip to the White house to meet the President. Doolittle spent some time thinking over his own efforts and experiences and decided, “I just can’t do it.”
   
• Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged shows us a tweet from Pastor Robert Jeffress, “The effort to impeach President Trump is really an effort to impeach our own deeply held faith values”, then breaks the ethereal bubble with a penetrating question: When did extortion become a deeply held faith value?
   
• So now Republicans are reverting to Mulvaney-lite: that quid pro quo is, by definition, attaching eligibility requirements to assistance. It happens all the time in foreign aid. Totally legal and appropriate.
   
  Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit takes a moment to teach our conservative friends how extorting for political smears is not the same.

Continue reading “World Series Boos and Blues, God, Gaetz, Overconfidence, Balance”