Trump is leaving Democrats no choice but to impeach. And that's just fine

Kerry Eleveld  

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday May 07, 2019 · 2:56 PM PDT

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Attorney General William Barr chickened out on Thursday's House Judiciary Committee hearing because he had no good public case to make, especially in a venue that wasn't being controlled by a Donald Trump sycophant like Sen. Lindsey Graham. Barr got shredded by Senate Democrats Wednesday. As Vanity Fair put it: “Kamala Harris guts Barr like a fish, leaves him flopping on the deck.” Barr's complete collapse was due in part to the fact that he didn't have a leg to stand on: He engaged in a cover-up without even knowing the facts of the case, let alone reading the full Mueller report.

By the end of the hearing, Barr had simply stopped trying to justify his actions.

Asked if he would provide certain notes taken on a conversation between himself and special counsel Robert Mueller, Barr responded curtly, "No." Asked why not, he offered, "Why should you have them?" In other words, Barr dropped any pretense whatsoever of being cooperative, instead suggesting, Yeah, I'm obstructing, what are ya going to do about it? 

It's no wonder Barr dropped out of hearings before the House Judiciary. His lies had been exposed, it would have been nothing but a browbeating. And besides that, Donald Trump seems to believe impeachment would be a political win for him.

He adores being the victim, he's got no agenda other than inhumanely targeting migrants at the border, and it would provide exactly the type of political drama he generally thrives on. It makes sense that his White House and administration are doing everything possible to force the Democrats’ hand. On top of Barr skipping the hearings and refusing to comply with the panel's subpoena for the full Mueller report, the White House publicized a letter Thursday bashing Mueller’s report and asserting executive privilege over almost every inch of it.

The White House is batting a thousand on obstructing Congress' investigatory powers. They haven't supplied a single document or made a single witness available, and they appear to be laying the groundwork for trying to block Mueller's testimony as well. Impeachment is a place that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has strenuously tried to avoid, but frankly, the White House is leaving House Democrats no choice. In fact, Rep. Ted Lieu called it a "unifying force" in an interview with CNN.

"We want to first gather facts to decide if we should impeach. If we can't gather facts, we're going to launch an Article III impeachment," Lieu observed. "If we can't gather facts, that may be the only tool we have left and we're going to use it.”

Originally, it seemed like the onus would be on Democrats to build the case for impeachment, but Trump is zealously making the case for them, obstructive act by obstructive act. That will give Democrats enhanced investigative powers along with a lot of political cover. Careful what you wish for, Trump.

Unlikely, Untested, Unprecedented

fcvaguy  

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Thursday May 02, 2019 · 6:13 AM PDT

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Unlikely, Untested, Unprecedented. Those are three words Time Magazine uses to describe Pete Buttigieg’s courageous campaign.

Time reminds us that Obergefell was a mere four years ago; the landmark ruling that gave me the right to marry my longtime partner in life. A right taken for granted by almost everyone except us. Because, we’re gay. Time’s piece is also a shocking reminder that there is no time to relish our totally unexpected and joyous victory.

Its time to remind ourselves that the battle is not over. Time tells us of the taunting cruelty of Randall Terry in a devil costume at a Buttigieg rally in Iowa and reminds us of Franklin Grahams’ hateful remarks “being gay is “something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized” and Jacob Wohl’s despicable attempt to frame Pete Buttigieg as a homosexual rapist. The mere accusation of such a heinous crime has caused the murder of more than a few innocent gay men. 

And its not just out there, its here at DailyKos. From being called a “joke of a candidate”, “just another white guy”, to false claims he’s a trust fund baby, to a bizarre accusation of “lacking self-awareness” to claims that his 3 years working at McKinsey analyzing grocery store prices for a Canadian company was somehow an endorsement of violent dictators and everything that is wrong with the world. Clearly, he’s a major threat. 

Breathtaking. As a gay man, thats my one word description of Buttigieg’s campaign. Time accurately describes his rise from total obscurity to ahead of a pack of better known, more established candidates. The two frontrunners are more than twice Pete’s age. 

Time points out one of the reasons why he has strong appeal. His ability to eloquently speak with total simplicity and honesty and in a way that resounds with voters:

Buttigieg tells TIME, sitting on his living-room couch in South Bend. He roots his campaign in an effort to reframe progressive ideas in conservative language. “If the substance of your ideas is progressive but there’s mistrust about them among conservatives, you have three choices,” Buttigieg tells TIME, sitting on his living-room couch in South Bend. “One is to just change your ideas and make them more conservative. The second is to sort of be sneaky and try to make it seem like your ideas are more conservative than they are. And the third, the approach that I favor, is to stick to your ideas, but explain why conservatives shouldn’t be afraid of them.”

Time does an excellent job going through Pete’s extraordinary resume and he and his partner, Chasten’s coming out experience in the socially conservative midwest.

It tells an all too familiar story of their coming out experience; the good, the bad and the ugly. Mayor Pete thought for sure that he would not win reelection as Mayor of South Bend after coming out in a newspaper editorial. He won reelection with 80% of the vote.

When reflecting his coming out experience, once again speaks with incredible eloquence and in a way that strikes a strong chord with many:

All this informs his belief that it’s still possible to reach across America’s political divide. “We’ve got to get away from this kill-switch mentality that we see on Twitter,” he says. He has seen once disapproving parents dance at their gay son’s wedding and homophobic military officers take back their words, and so he believes in the power of redemption and forgiveness. “This idea that we just sort people into baskets of good and evil ignores the central fact of human existence, which is that each of us is a basket of good and evil,” he says. “The job of politics is to summon the good and beat back the evil.”

Time lays out a very fair and accurate narrative about Pete’s tenure as mayor including his signature issue — urban renewal. Time points out that not a single person was evicted from their home in the process. They fairly present the views of South Bend African American residents; both pro and con. Time talks about his lack of policy, especially compared to Elizabeth Warren, a real policy wonk, and his preference for narrative over policy:

“Maybe I’m saying the narrative is policy,” he responds, in a typical attempt at reframing. “Narrative is how you get people to embrace the policies you’re putting forward.” His campaign plans to release more detailed policies this week.

There’s more discussion about the privilege Buttigieg enjoys as a white male while acknowledging the challenges he has as an out, married gay man.

Its a great piece and I encourage you to read it.

Pete’s campaign is a reminder that the LGBT community won a major battle with Obergefell, but that the war is far from over. With his campaign, he’s at the tip of the spear as we continue to work towards righteous victory against those that hate us. He’s exposing them for what they are and shedding a powerful light on their own darkness. For that, for Pete and his campaign, I’m eternally grateful. Go Pete Go.

William Barr Is Orchestrating a Slow-Rolling Coup

Jolly Bill Barr, Trump's toady AG. (photo: Getty Images)

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

05 May 19

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Jerry Nadler threw down the gauntlet after the attorney general flouted congressional subpoenas, but he's dead wrong about what the future might hold.

o, the Attorney General of the United States, having presumably reassembled his gizzard after Senator Kamala Harris took it apart for him on live television, spit in the eye of the constitutional order by refusing to honor a pair of subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee—one for an unredacted copy of Robert Mueller's report on the Russian ratfcking of the 2016 election, and one for his own sorry ass to sit in another chair in another committee room. This was a remarkable moment, and one that none of us ever should forget. This is a tiny, slow-rolling coup against the constitutional design.

As HJC chairman Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, put it:

Every member of this Committee—Democrat and Republican alike—should understand the consequences when the executive branch tells us that they will simply ignore a lawful subpoena. If left unchecked, this act of obstruction will make it that much harder for us to hold the Executive Branch accountable for waste, fraud, and abuse, or to enact legislation to curb that kind of misconduct—no matter which party holds this chamber or the White House at a given moment. The challenge we face is also bigger than the Mueller report.

If all we knew about President Trump were contained in the four corners of that report, there would be good reason to question his fitness for office. But the report is not where the story ends. In the days since the Department of Justice released a redacted version of the report, President Trump has told Congress that he plans to fight all of our subpoenas. The average person is not free to ignore a congressional subpoena—and neither is the President. His promise to obstruct our work extends far beyond his contacts with the Russian government and allegations of obstruction of justice. The President has also prevented us from obtaining information about voting rights, ACA litigation, and his cruel family separation policy, among other matters.

The challenge we face is also not limited to this Committee. In recent weeks, Administration witnesses have simply failed to show for properly noticed depositions. The Secretary of the Treasury continues to ignore his clear statutory obligation to produce the President’s tax returns. The President’s private attorneys sued Chairman Cummings in his personal capacity in an attempt to block the release of certain financial documents.

Ladies and gentlemen, the challenge we face is that the President of the United States wants desperately to prevent Congress—a coequal branch of government—from providing any check whatsoever to even his most reckless decisions. The challenge we face is that if we don’t stand up to him together, today, then we risk forever losing the power to stand up to any President in the future.

Nadler is correct in his assessment of the current situation, and he is certainly right on the law. Legally, given an unbiased court, Barr and the White House he serves don't have legs to waddle on. However, and alas, he's dead wrong on what the future may hold.

Let us assume, for the moment, that one of the Democrats wins the presidency in 2020, but that the Republicans retain their hold on the Senate and, somehow, regain their majority in the House. You just watch how fast that Congress recaptures its ability to "stand up" to President Biden, or President Warren. You just watch those subpoenas fly. There will be leaks and hearings and grand juries until hell won't have them. No precedent based on their absurd truckling to a criminal president will be deemed valid. In fact, they will turn it back on the Democrats. Look, they will say. Look at how y'all tormented poor El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago. All of this will have the full weight of the wingnut media apparatus behind it, and there will be more than a few respectable journalists and onetime Never Trumpers who will chime in to blame the Democrats for "overreaching."

Watch it happen. Call me Kreskin.

So, I'm not that exercised when Nadler says he's going to make "one more good faith attempt" to get Barr to do what he is constitutionally required to do. This is all going to wind up in court anyway, and the more good faith attempts that Nadler can demonstrate to a judge that were made, the better. In the meantime, we'll always have Congressman Steve Cohen and his chicken. Nothing says we can't have a little fun with this.

Biodiversity Crisis Is About to Put Humanity at Risk, UN Scientists to Warn

Students protest in Adelaide. UN experts warned people alive today are at risk unless urgent action is taken. (photo: Kelly Barnes/EPA)

By Jonathan Watts, Guardian UK

03 May 19
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‘We are in trouble if we don’t act,’ say experts, with up to 1m species at risk of annihilation

he world’s leading scientists will warn the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken.

Up to 1m species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades, according to a leaked draft of the global assessment report, which has been compiled over three years by the UN’s leading research body on nature.

The 1,800-page study will show people living today, as well as wildlife and future generations, are at risk unless urgent action is taken to reverse the loss of plants, insects and other creatures on which humanity depends for food, pollination, clean water and a stable climate.

The final wording of the summary for policymakers is being finalised in Paris by a gathering of experts and government representatives before the launch on Monday, but the overall message is already clear, according to Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

“There is no question we are losing biodiversity at a truly unsustainable rate that will affect human wellbeing both for current and future generations,” he said. “We are in trouble if we don’t act, but there are a range of actions that can be taken to protect nature and meet human goals for health and development.”

The authors hope the first global assessment of biodiversity in almost 15 years will push the nature crisis into the global spotlight in the same way climate breakdown has surged up the political agenda since the 1.5C report last year by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Like its predecessor, the report is a compilation of reams of academic studies, in this case on subjects ranging from ocean plankton and subterranean bacteria to honey bees and Amazonian botany. Following previous findings on the decimation of wildlife, the overview of the state of the world’s nature is expected to provide evidence that the world is facing a sixth wave of extinction. Unlike the past five, this one is human-driven.

Mike Barrett, WWF’s executive director of conservation and science, said: “All of our ecosystems are in trouble. This is the most comprehensive report on the state of the environment. It irrefutably confirms that nature is in steep decline.”

Barrett said this posed an environmental emergency for humanity, which is threatened by a triple challenge of climate, nature and food production. “There is no time to despair,” he said. “We should be hopeful that we have a window of opportunity to do something about it over these two years.”

The report will sketch out possible future scenarios that will vary depending on the decisions taken by governments, businesses and individuals. The next year and a half is likely to be crucial because world leaders will agree rescue plans for nature and the climate at two big conferences at the end of 2020.

That is when China will host the UN framework convention on biodiversity gathering in Kunming, which will establish new 20-year targets to replace those agreed in Aichi, Japan, in 2010. Soon after, the UN framework convention on climate change will revise Paris agreement commitments at a meeting in either the UK, Italy, Belgium or Turkey.

Watson, a British professor who has headed both of the UN’s leading scientific panels, said the forthcoming report will delve more deeply than anything before into the causes of nature collapse, chief among which is the conversion of forests, wetlands and other wild landscapes into ploughed fields, dam reservoirs and concrete cities. Three-quarters of the world’s land surface has been severely altered, according to the leaked draft. Humanity is also decimating the living systems on which we depend by emitting carbon dioxide and spreading invasive species.

Watson said the authors have learned from attribution science, which has transformed the debate on the climate crisis by showing how much more likely hurricanes, droughts and floods have become as a result of global heating.

The goal is to persuade an audience beyond the usual green NGOs and government departments. “We need to appeal not just to environment ministers, but to those in charge of agriculture, transport and energy because they are the ones responsible for the drivers of biodiversity loss,” he said.

A focus will be to move away from protection of individual species and areas, and to look at systemic drivers of change, including consumption and trade.

The political environment is changing in some countries due to overwhelming scientific evidence and increasing public concern about the twin crises of nature and climate, which have prompted more than 1 million students to strike from school and led to street protests by Extinction Rebellion activists in more than a dozen countries. 

The UK parliament declared a climate emergency this week and the government’s chief climate advisory body recommended an accelerated plan to cut carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Until now, however, the nature crisis has been treated as far less of a priority. “Where are the headlines? Where are the emergency meetings?” asked the school strike founder, Greta Thunberg, in a recent tweet on the subject.

Extinction Rebellion activists said protests that blocked several London streets last month were as much aimed at the defence of nature as stabilising the climate. “They are two sides of the same destructive coin,” said Farhana Yamin, a coordinator of the movement who is also an environmental lawyer and formerly a lead author of the IPCC report.

“The work of IPBES is as crucial as the work done by the IPCC on the 1.5-degree report. That is why Extinction Rebellion is demanding an end [to] biodiversity loss and a net-zero phaseout by 2025. We can’t save humanity by only tackling climate change or only caring about biodiversity.”

Republican bills supposed to be protecting people with pre-existing conditions don't do that—at all

Sen. Thom Tillis, hard at work figuring how to to pretend to protect your healthcare.

 

Joan McCarter 
Daily Kos Staff 
Friday, May 3, 2019 · 2:46 PM PDT

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There's a lot of ass-covering in the latest Republican plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions, but not necessarily a whole lot of actual covering of those people. The plans from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon aren't what they claim to be: affordable coverage for people who need it most.

The 2019 plans have done away with the most glaring problem they included in 2018. While insurers couldn't deny plans to people with pre-existing conditions, they could refuse to cover the treatment of those conditions. That glaring hole has been closed, but the plans still fall far, far short of the comprehensive Affordable Care Act provisions. For example, they don't include benefits that must be provided, as the ACA does with essential health benefits like maternity or mental health care, or prescription drugs. By leaving out these benefits or making policies that do allow them to be prohibitively expensive, insurers could de facto deny that care while still complying with the law.

The Republican bills also don't ban insurers from charging more for women than men (the "pro-life" party is fine with adding even more of a financial burden to their forced birth plans). They would also not ban insurance companies from putting caps on how much they pay out in either annual or lifetime benefits. That means someone with a serious illness or accident could blow through their allowed coverage in a matter of months, and be left hanging to pay for care on their own. Both bills have provisions "prohibiting discrimination" based on a person's health status for either eligibility for coverage or for premium costs, but an expert in writing legislation—a former lawyer in the House Office of the Legislative Counsel, the staff that helps write legislation—says that there are other provisions in these two bills that "could be read as undermining those protections against discriminatory premiums." For example, the legislation says insurers can't charge one individual more than another "on the basis of any health status-related factor," but it is qualified by language saying that this provision shall not be interpreted as restricting how much an employer or individual could be charged.

That's known as a loophole.

A group of 33 patient groups, including the American Heart Association, have written to Senate leaders saying the Tillis bill and its supposed protections "fall far short of the patient protections" that exist under the ACA. It's also getting panned by Democrats. "The Republican bill does not include critical A.C.A. consumer protections, including community rating, essential health benefits requirements and annual or lifetime prohibitions," Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. tells the Times. The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee continued by saying, "you could theoretically buy insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, but it is very deceptive because the bill will still allow insurers to set premiums based on health status."

The voting public is a lot more sophisticated when it comes to health care after several years of living with the ACA. After nearly a decade of Republicans doing nothing but trying to destroy it—including with the lawsuit they're now pursuing—they're not going to blindly believe Republicans' promises that now, they care.

Congress Should be Ready to Arrest Barr if He Defies Subpoena

Robert Reich. (photo: unknown)

By Robert Reich, Newsweek

01 May 19
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n Sunday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee threatened to subpoena Attorney General William P. Barr if he refuses to testify this week about the Mueller report.

But a subpoena is unlikely to elicit Barr’s cooperation. “We’re fighting all the subpoenas,” says the President of the United States.

In other words, there is to be no congressional oversight of this administration: No questioning the Attorney General about the Mueller Report. No questioning a Trump adviser about immigration policy.

No questioning a former White House security director about issuances of security clearances. No questioning anyone about presidential tax returns.

Such a blanket edict fits a dictator of a banana republic, not the president of a constitutional republic founded on separation of powers.

If Congress cannot question the people who are making policy, or obtain critical documents, Congress cannot function as a coequal branch of government.

If Congress cannot get information about the executive branch, there is no longer any separation of powers, as sanctified in the US constitution.

There is only one power—the power of the president to rule as he wishes. Which is what Donald Trump has sought all along.

The only relevant question is how stop this dictatorial move.

Presidents before Trump occasionally have argued that complying with a particular subpoena for a particular person or document would infringe upon confidential deliberations within the executive branch.

But no president before Trump has used “executive privilege” as a blanket refusal to cooperate.

“If Mr. Barr does not show up,” the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Sunday,  “we will have to use whatever means we can to enforce the subpoena.”

What could the Committee do? Hold Barr in contempt of Congress—under Congress's inherent power to get the information it needs to carry out its constitutional duties. Congress cannot function without this power.

Under this inherent power, the House can order its own sergeant-at-arms to arrest the offender, subject him to a trial before the full House, and, if judged to be in contempt, jail that person until he appears before the House and brings whatever documentation the House has subpoenaed.

dWhen President Richard Nixon tried to stop key aides from testifying in the Senate Watergate hearings, in 1973, Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the Watergate select committee, threatened to jail anyone who refused to appear.

Congress hasn’t actually carried through on the threat since 1935—but it could.

Would America really be subject to the wild spectacle of the sergeant-at-arms of the House arresting an Attorney General and possibly placing him in jail?

Probably not. Before that ever occurred, the Trump administration would take the matter to the Supreme Court on an expedited basis.

Sadly, there seems no other way to get Trump to move. Putting the onus on the Trump administration to get the issue to the court as soon as possible is the only way to force Trump into action, and not simply seek to run out the clock before the next election.

What would the court decide? With two Trump appointees now filling nine of the seats, it’s hardly a certainty.

But in a case that grew out of the Teapot Dome scandal in 1927, the court held that the investigative power of Congress is at its peak  when lawmakers look into fraud or maladministration in another government department.

Decades later, when Richard Nixon tried to block the release of incriminating recordings of his discussions with aides, the Supreme Court decided that a claim of executive privilege did not protect information relevant to the investigation of potential crimes.

Trump’s contempt for the inherent power of Congress cannot stand. It is the most dictatorial move he has initiated since becoming president.

Congress has a constitutional duty to respond forcefully, using its own inherent power of contempt.

AG Barr's 3 strikes: lying about Mueller's report, lying to Congress, lying at his press conference

Kerry Eleveld  

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday April 30, 2019 · 6:33 PM PDT

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Attorney General William Barr lied, lied, and lied again about the findings of Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Not only did we think that, but Mueller himself thought it too, sending a letter to Barr objecting to his characterization of the special counsel's principal findings. Barr wrote his initial "summarization" letter on March 24. On March 27, Mueller reportedly wrote back to effectively say, You lied and you're ruining our country.

“The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller wrote. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

Right. You lied. But after that first infraction and a follow-up warning shot from Mueller, Barr just kept lying. At a Senate hearing on April 10, Barr suggested he had no earthly idea what Mueller thought of his original summarization.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen: "Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion?"

Barr: "I don’t know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion."

Van Hollen has now called on Barr to resign. That was Barr's second lie. Then, just before releasing the redacted report on April 18, Barr brazenly held a press conference where he once again doubled down on his original lies. He said that Mueller's report found "no collusion" between Team Trump and the Kremlin, that Mueller did not take into consideration the Justice Department's standing policy of not indicting sitting presidents when declining to charge Trump with obstruction, and that Trump was incredibly cooperative with Mueller's investigation despite the fact that Mueller outlined multiple instances when Trump tried to shut it down.

At that pre-release press conference, Barr was asked if Mueller had invited him to make a final determination on whether Trump obstructed justice. "I didn't talk to [Mueller] directly about the fact that we were making the decision but I am told that his reaction to that was that it was my prerogative as AG to make that decision," he responded. File that away for now.

Barr also got very pissy when asked why Mueller wasn't standing alongside him during the press conference, since it was Mueller's report, after all.

"No, it’s not," Barr retorted. "It’s a report he did for me, as the attorney general. He is required under the regulation to — to provide me with a confidential report. I’m here to discuss my response to that report and my decision — entirely discretionary — to make it public, since these reports are not supposed to be made public." He then ended the press conference pretty abruptly.