As impeached rolls forward, Rudy Giuliani rolls out an entirely new Ukraine/Biden/Obama conspiracy theory and Trump and Rudy squeeze Ukraine to get on board.
Here are some observations from an outsider about Labour’s crushing defeat in Britain’s election. There are some lessons here for the American left and liberals in the upcoming American elections.
The Brexit Factor: Labour lost — leave aside the margin for a moment — because leftwing parties cannot deal with secession crises. Leftwing parties base their appeal on class conflict (however ill defined); secession crises create conflicting cleavages around national identity. Those cleavages split Labour’s constituencies and pretty much insured the party’s defeat. Read More
Happy Friday, December 13. After an eleventh-hour recess, the House Judiciary Committee will reconvene to vote Friday morning on the articles of impeachment. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.
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Over the last three days we’ve witnessed a furious debate over just how and why the Russia probe (“Crossfire Hurricane”) began and whether political “bias” played a role in that decision. You will note that even in his statements and report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz stated that while he found no evidence of political or anti-Trump bias he could not rule out that it had played a role. Meanwhile Bill Barr suggested that Horowitz simply didn’t have the tools or perhaps sufficient aggressiveness to unearth it. Like the force of gravity that remains unseen but clearly forces all matter to fall downward, not finding any visible evidence doesn’t mean it’s not there. But the whole conversation assumes that there is a problem or deficiency that must be explained when in fact that whole premise is simply absurd.
What was eventually proven about the Trump campaign’s actions may remain a matter of controversy. But the idea that there wasn’t enough evidence or “predicate” to start the probe is simply bizarre and only makes any sense in a climate of long-term distortion, gaslighting and organized lying. It is important to shake those off and see the matter in a clear light.
At several moments during Thursday’s impeachment inquiry, Republicans relied on a misleading reading of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to defend President Trump’s conduct towards Ukraine.
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Happy Thursday, December 12. The House Judiciary Committee is poised to vote the articles of impeachment out of committee today, after which a full House vote will probably take place late next week. Here’s more on that and the other stories we’re watching.
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Today federal prosecutors asked a judge to revoke the bail of Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. A main reason was that he had not disclosed to prosecutors that in September he received a million dollars from a bank account in Russia. This is certainly enough to make your ears prick up. But it’s a mystery at this point just what this money represents.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said several times during his testimony Wednesday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee that his comments there could not go farther than what he looked at in his new report on the 2016 Trump-Russia probe.
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As I noted earlier this morning, three years on Michael Horowitz still claims he’s going to get around to the probe that predates any of these other investigations he’s released to great fanfare. This is the probe into whether anti-Clinton agents at the New York City FBI field office forced James Comey’s hands in sending that possibly election turning letter in the final days of the campaign. Well, he got asked and he says, yep, he’s still working on it. Just seemingly taking a super long time. It’s the Horowitz pattern, don’t ask any questions or push any probes that could yield findings that will make President Trump mad.
One thing I hear from many of you is that while you understand that we now restrict some of our posts to members only you’d still like to share them with friends or colleagues who are not members. That totally makes sense – both for you and also for us since we want to bring new readers into the TPM world. We hope to make it one of the features we add to your membership next year. Let me explain some of our thinking.