I’ve hinted at this in a few posts. It’s time to confront it head on. The White House isn’t doing the standard tussling with Congress about oversight: some stonewalling, some negotiation, taking some questions of privilege to court. It’s more accurately characterized as massive resistance. The Congress has a constitutionally mandated responsibility to oversee the executive branch. They are flatly refusing to comply with ordinary document production and testimonial requests across the board. It’s not a difference of degree but of kind. In itself it is an impeachment worthy refusal to follow the constitutionally mandated framework of American government. It’s up to Democrats to make this clear. Read More
“Projected warming over the next century will likely place global temperatures in a range not seen in millions of years of geologic history,” according to a newly issued summary by the American Meteorological Society of the current state of play on climate change:
Before border militia leader Larry Mitchell Hopkins was arrested over the weekend after detaining migrants trying to cross the border (he was arrested on a firearms charge) the FBI learned that Hopkins was telling people he and his militia “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, because of these individuals’ support of Antifa.”
I’ve been exchanging emails with various TPM Readers over the course of the day. If anything it’s tending to confirm my sense that the intra-Democratic acrimony over impeachment is driven less by disagreement than the understandable intensity of people’s feelings and anger over President Trump.
For example I’ve had a number of readers take issue with my viewpoint on this or ‘Democratic leaders’ (I scare quote only to make clear it usually isn’t specific to an individual) say, “No one is saying he should be impeached right away!” Read More
In the rush of debate and intra-Democratic acrimony about impeachment over the weekend, I wanted to link back to this post from last August. Some of the details are different. But the gist is really the same. Many people who are furious at the President’s crimes and coverups want him impeached right now and think anything short of immediate of articles of impeachment amounts to some kind of civility fetish or refusal to fight his lawlessness. That’s not true. The problem with immediate impeachment is that it takes focus away from investigations which can actually have an effect. I would add that if you want to take the existing and on-going investigations and rebrand the Judiciary committee’s probe as an impeachment inquiry, fine, whatever — as long as it is truly open-ended and can run indefinitely. In any case, I encourage you to read this post.
Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jewish comedian who plays the President of Ukraine on TV, has been elected President of Ukraine by a landslide margin of 73% of the vote, according to a just released exit poll.
The simple takeaway from the Mueller Report is the President betrayed his country and spent two years lying and breaking the law to try to hide that fact. He should resign and be tried for his crimes.
Unsurprisingly, President Trump is stewing and angry about the Mueller Report. This report from CNN notes that Trump is angry about the picture of a lying President and chaotic White House. But what really gets to him apparently is the image of a President whose staff routinely ignores his orders.
Here’s one noteworthy paragraph … Read More
If you care about Congressional oversight of President Trump and you’re going to be in the DC area on the evening of May 9th, join us for a special TPM Event on congressional oversight in the Trump Era. Details after the jump. Read More
If you’re an Inside member and you missed yesterday’s briefing and Q&A on the Mueller Report with me and Allegra Kirkland, the recording is now online in your account portal on the upper right.