Over the holidays the Times ran a Ukraine scandal story which mainly stitched together the broader storyline but also broke some significant news. In late August the Secretaries of Defense and State and the National Security Advisor met together with the President in the Oval Office to try to persuade him to release the contested military aid to Ukraine. This news only confirms what has always been the most ominous dimension of the Ukraine scandal.
JoinHappy New Year, folks!
So several people wrote in yesterday to say that, like many others, I had erred in saying that yesterday was the last decade of a whole decade. Technically, this is incorrect. In practice, it is correct. As I asked one reader, do you think 1980 was a year in the seventies or the eighties? I rest my case. Have a wonderful day, everyone.
We’ve come down to the final day of 2019 and the last day of the second decade of the 21st century. At TPM this was a challenging year – a lot of change, negotiating our first collective bargaining agreement, some substantial management reorganization of how the operation runs and a lot of grinding work (batting out single after single) to secure the financial basis of the organization.
But it was also a good year, really a very good year. Because we managed to accomplish the key things we needed to accomplish, which is really all that matters. Indeed, key accomplishments were ones that not only worked for us this year but laid the groundwork for vitality for years to come.
Lev Parnas is a crook and (one imagines) a liar. But there’s little doubt he did things, witnessed things and knows about things that are highly relevant both to the upcoming impeachment trial and the actions and criminal activity of Rudy Giuliani and President Trump. It is also highly, highly likely that his electronic devices contain evidence that can confirm a significant amount of that and put it beyond Parnas’ say-so, which is of limited value. So Parnas’s efforts to share these records with the House is one of many reasons why President Trump, Mitch McConnell and basically all Republicans want a Senate whitewash trial absolutely as soon as possible.
It’s the lucky 13th anniversary of the Golden Duke Awards. And the winners are in!
We return with an especially august panel of judges for 2019: Erin Ryan, Talia Lavin, Susie Bright, Jeet Heer, Jim Newell. And in a new innovation, 2,477 TPM members have cast their ballots for a new Members’ Choice award. Big surprise for 2019: Members voted overwhelmingly (59.7%) for President Trump and his shakedown of Ukraine for Best Scandal General Interest. But, surprisingly, the Golden Duke actually went to Duncan Hunter, the now disgraced, soon to be resigned and inevitably to be incarcerated crooked bro-rep from Greater San Diego. So that and many other surprises which you can read here in the results announcement.
The latest news about the attack on a Rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York is that the alleged assailant, Grafton Thomas has, according to his family and lawyer, no known history of ties to hate groups and a long history of schizophrenia. If we take those claims at face value that puts the incident in a somewhat different light and suggests the possibility that the attack was the product of delusion or psychosis more than ideology or bias. But even if we assume all this, it’s probably wrong not to see the connection to the mass shooting in Jersey City early this month and the string of anti-Jewish attacks over the last week.
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After the poisonous response I got to my book, Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origin of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, I vowed to stay out of discussions about Jews and Israel, but I keep breaking my resolution. Most recently it is over the coincidence of the anti-Semitic attacks in New Jersey and New York and New York Times’ columnist Bret Stephen’s column on Jews and anti-Semitism, in which he manages simultaneously to reinforce one of the historic tropes of anti-Semitism — that Jews are a superior race — and blame critics of Israel’s rightwing government for the outbreak of anti-Semitism.
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One of the interesting side effects of a major scandal is all you learn about the details about how the government actually works, or is supposed to work. This is the case even if you’re broadly knowledgeable about the functioning of the federal bureaucracy. So for instance, one of the career officials in the pipeline for the Ukraine aide was a guy named Mark Sandy.
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While there is life there is hope. As for statistics, I will spare us any thoughts on the meaning of a Stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis, which Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) announced this afternoon. For decades Lewis has been one of history’s immortals who is yet still walking among us. Elected to Congress in 1986, Lewis has now served almost 34 years as a member of the Georgia congressional delegation. But at 46, when he came to Congress, he had already accomplished enough for several lifetimes. Indeed, one could say the same by the time he turned 26.