The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released the fifth and final volume of their multipart report on Russia’s Active Measures Campaign and Interference in the 2016 presidential election yesterday. You can find the first four volumes at this link. This fifth volume is entitled Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities and despite that title it really ties together all the pieces from the previous four reports. … Read More
COVID-19: Not An April Fool’s Joke
World: U.S. [UPDATE – 2:30 pm — US has 203,608 cases and 4,476 deaths North Carolina has 1,584 cases and nine deaths [UPDATE: 2:30 pm — 1,627 cases and 14 deaths]. Forsyth County has 57 cases and 1 death. Still dire. The top government scientists battling the coronavirus estimated Tuesday that the deadly pathogen could kill between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans, in … Read More
Retaliation In Full Swing
Taking swift and harsh action against those who crossed him, Trump on Friday ousted two government officials who had delivered damaging testimony during his impeachment hearings. Trump made the moves just two days after his acquittal by the Senate. First came news that Trump had ousted Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, the decorated soldier and national security aide who played a … Read More
Trump’s Victory Lap Speeches Show He Is Unstable
At the National Prayer Breakfast this morning: President Trump, a day after being acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial, used a National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday to lash out at his political opponents, accusing them of being “very dishonest and corrupt people” who are trying to destroy him and the country. Explicitly rejecting the message of tolerance offered at the … Read More
Trump’s Latest Viral Attack On Romney Exposes Trumpism’s Ugly Core
Greg Sargant: The retribution has been swift and severe. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who heretically placed his oath of office before his higher duty to defend President Trump, is now taking brutal incoming from all corners, including GOP elected officials and leading figures in Trump’s propaganda network. This enforcement of loyalty will also have an important purpose going forward, in ways that might not … Read More
What If He Does It Again?
If Trump wakes up tomorrow and decides to condition military aid to Saudi Arabia or Egypt in exchange for those foreign regimes agreeing to damage his political rivals, what will happen? The answer is now clear: absolutely nothing. As they prepare to acquit Trump without even so much as a single witness, Senate Republicans have legitimized presidential abuse of power. … Read More
Impeachment Of Trump: It’s Over But For The Actual Acquittal
No witnesses. That is the incredible decision of the Senate on mostly partisan lines. Only Mitt Romney and Susan Collins had the backbone to vote to hear John Bolton, whose manuscript indicates much more about Trump’s attempt to coerce Ukraine into investigating Biden. It’s a pathetic commentary on the state of American civics that the biggest issue of the Senate … Read More
No Witnesses And Yes, The Next Trump Crisis Is Already Here
Republicans voted down a measure to call witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and are moving to acquittal in a hell-for-leather dash to put the crisis behind them. It’s a doomed errand. With Trump, the next crisis is always just ahead. Actually, the first “next crisis” has already arrived. The New York Times reported Friday that, in his forthcoming book, former … Read More
Impeachment Q&A Day 2
I obviously didn’t cover all eight hours of the Q&A yesterday, and I won’t again today. But I did catch the big thing, where Alan Dershowitz argued that if the president does something in the public interest that he believes will help him get re-elected, that is not impeachable unless it is an articulated crime. They characterized my argument as … Read More
Impeachment Q&A
The questioning phase will take place on today and tomorrow, for up to 16 hours total. A vote on whether to hear witnesses in the trial is expected on Friday. With the critical vote looming, Senate Republicans are coalescing around the idea that it is better to risk looking like they ignored relevant evidence than to plunge the Senate into … Read More
Impeachment, Kobe, Middle East Non-Peace, And We’re All Gonna Die From A Virus
I was hospitalized for a few days with colon issues. Nothing major and nothing I care to discuss. But boy did I miss a lot. It kind of seems pointless to talk about most of it. Just some small reflections. I’m not much of a basketball fan, but this Kobe Bryant death even shook me. He seemed like one of … Read More
Impeachment Day Two Recap
The impeachment trial is hard for me to sit through because the evidence is so overwhelming and the corruption of Republicans so complete, that it’s just agonizing. Suffice it to say, Democrats unleashed the flood. One by one, the seven House impeachment prosecutors seeking President Donald Trump’s removal from office reconstructed a case against the president so dense — at … Read More
McConnell’s Impeachment Rules Ensure Quick Acquittal
So here’s the bottom line: The evidence, records, and documents sent over by the House will not automatically be made part of the Senate’s trial proceedings. It may, at such time as Senator McConnell brings up a subsequent motion to allow it and that motion passes with 51 votes. And this will be done on an individual basis for each … Read More
Trial Memorandum of President Donald J. Trump
It is hard to take seriously President Donald Trump’s lawyers’ Trial Memorandum submitted in response to the House Managers’ brief setting forth the grounds and arguments for convicting and removing the President from office. It is a lot of things, but brief it is not. It is 109 pages, with four appendices, written by no less than 12 lawyers. Yet, … Read More