Surely he was describing one Donald J. Trump to a T?
On the contrary, Nunes applied these Trumpian signatures to Democrats. “What we’re seeing among Democrats on the Intelligence Committee,” he said, “is like a cult. These are a group of people loyally following their leader as he bounces from one outlandish conspiracy to another.”
View the complete October 31 commentary by Dana Milback on The Washington Post website here.
Attorney Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, warned on Thursday that President Donald Trump appeared to be committing “felony bribery” by giving Republican senators fundraising cash ahead of an increasingly likely impeachment trial in the Senate.
The lawyer shared an article published by Politico on Thursday morning. Titled “Trump lures GOP senators on impeachment with cold cash,” the article outlined how the president is turning to his large network of donors to raise funds for a few senators facing difficult re-election campaigns in 2020. All of those senators have also signed a resolution condemning the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.
“This is a bribe. Any other American who offered cash to the jury before a trial would go to prison for felony bribery. But he can get away with it?” Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, wrote on Twitter. “Criminal.
View the complete October 31 article by Jason Lemon on the Newsweek website here.
Political scientists have studied what our democracy is going through. It usually doesn’t end well.For decades, Republicans and Democrats fought over the same things: whose values and policies work best for American democracy. But now, those age-old fights are changing. What was once run-of-the-mill partisan competition is being replaced by a disagreement over democracy itself.
This is particularly evident as the president and many of his allies crow about the illegitimacy of the House impeachment inquiry, calling it an attempted coup, and as the White House refuses to comply with multiple congressional subpoenas as part of the probe.
This marks a new phase in American politics. Democrats and Republicans might still disagree about policy, but they are increasingly also at odds over the very foundations of our constitutional order.
View the complete October 31 article by Thomas Pepinsky on the Politico website here.
Conservative writer Charlie Sykes is a passionate critic of President Donald Trump, but he remains deeply immersed in the world of right-wing ideology and media. In a segment on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” with host Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday, he pointed out that as Trump’s impeachment crisis expands, his usual defenders are growing desperate.
“You do get the sense … among Republicans that they’re back on their heels,” he said. “I’m reading a lot of conservative media, and they’re flailing angrily because it is more and more difficult. They’re raging about the process, but that has an expiration date on it. That fig leaf is going to be torn off, and then they have to confront the reality.”
In his view, it will only go downhill from here on out for the president’s supporters.
View the complete October 31 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.
A clickbait headline in The Bulwark reads, “In Praise of Sean Duffy.” Because the publication is The Bulwark — which anti-Trump conservatives Bill Kristol and Charles Sykes founded in December 2018 — and former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy is stridently pro-Trump, one naturally assumes that the headline is being used ironically. And sure enough, it is: although the article, written by Sykes, chastises Duffy for shamelessly smearing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, it also stresses that the far-right Republican and Trump sycophant did the political world a favor by exposing how morally bankrupt Trumpism is.
On Tuesday, Vindman, who served on the National Security Council, testified on Capitol Hill at a closed-door hearing held in connection with House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Duffy, a former reality television star and CNN contributor, followed the lead of Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and reflexively smeared Vindman.
This week on CNN, Duffy said of Vindman, “it seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense. I don’t know that he’s concerned about American policy…. We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from…. He has an affinity for the Ukraine.”
View the complete October 30 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.
SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, Representative Jeremy Munson hosted a mock legislative debate for a class of 65 6th grade students from St Clair Elementary School, all while dressed as a “fake news reporter.”
Ken Martin, Chairman of the Minnesota DFL, released the following statement:
“It is crucial that we teach young Minnesotans about the importance of democracy, and part of those lessons must include the role a free and independent press plays in educating the American electorate and holding our leaders accountable.
Continue reading “DFL Condemns Rep. Munson’s “Fake News” Civics Lesson”
A long list of Never Trump conservatives, from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to veteran columnist George Will to Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, have expressed their disdain for Donald Trump’s presidency by leaving the Republican Party — and on Monday, Bush-era economist Greg Mankiw announced that he has left as well.
Mankiw, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, announced in an October 28 blog post that he had “switched my voter registration from Republican to unenrolled, a.k.a. independent.” While some former Republicans have joined the Libertarian Party — former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, for example — or the Constitution Party, Mankiw now lacks a party affiliation. And Mankiw, in his post, offers two main reasons why he has departed the GOP.
“First,” Mankiw explains, “the Republican Party has largely become the party of Trump. Too many Republicans in Congress are willing, in the interest of protecting their jobs, to overlook Trump’s misdeeds — just as too many Democrats were for (President Bill) Clinton during his impeachment. I have no interest in associating myself with that behavior.”
View the complete October 29 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.
Now I understand that all the best stories have sharp edges of tragedy and danger. Even so, the story of Noah is an odd curricular choice for young children. Fresh off the boat, according to the biblical account, he plants a vineyard, gets drunk and lies naked in his tent. This is a source of consternation to Noah’s sons, who don’t want to see the dark side, much less the backside, of their father. So they cover him with a handy duvet.
Rabbinic and early Christian scholars — figuring that there must be more to the story than meets the eye — postulated that adultery, rape or castration were somehow involved. But there is an application closer at hand.
View the complete commentary by Michael Gerson on The Washington Post website here.
The Republicans have refrained during hearings from explicitly accusing the individual of filing the explosive complaint with the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general two months ago, officials said.
Republicans are vowing more action after they stormed the secure impeachment hearing room last week, disrupting a deposition and grabbing headlines that were cheered by President Trump.
The problem is they just don’t know what to do next.
Republicans could continue to protest and disrupt future closed-door hearings, but that move has undermined their own complaints about the Democrats’ impeachment process and raised concerns about the GOP violating security protocols.
View the complete October 27 article by Scott Wong and Juliegrace Brufke on The Hill website here.
That Rep. Devin Nunes serves as the ranking member on something called the Intelligence Committee has always been a contradiction in terms. The California Republican displayed his intellectual heft earlier this year by suing a fictitious dairy cow that was mean to him on Twitter.