ABC:
The country now has a likely start date to the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. And Democrats likely have one Republican who will vote with them to call witnesses before the trial's end.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn told reporters on Monday that he thinks the Senate trial will begin Jan. 21, first with opening arguments from both sides.
Then both sides will likely have an opportunity to call witnesses -- for the full chamber to vote on -- but only after opening arguments are wrapped up and senators have had a chance ask questions.
Though the president now appears to be supporting an outright dismissal of the articles, Senate Republicans are signaling that they have no intention of going this route.
Not that the Democratic side isn’t important, but this election will be a referendum on Donald Trump, whoever the nominee is. And by the way, so clear that Trump wants to cheat in 2020 like he did in 2016. That's the kind of thing that seeps in deeply, so when folks need to decide who to vote for, it's part of the narrative. And it’s part of the stench of corruption.
Robert F Hyde is mentioned in the newly released Lev Parnas documents. Here’s who he is:
Hartford Courant:
Robert F. Hyde, get out of the race. The Republican party deserves better
Robert F. Hyde, a Simsbury resident and currently a Republican candidate for the 5th U.S. House District, is confused. He apparently thinks it is OK, perfectly fine, to tweet gross and misogynistic insults. Here’s a clarifying thought: He needs to step out of the race.
Maybe he thought he was running for president.
But he is not, and the Trumpian approach of being as crass as possible doesn’t work here in Connecticut.
In early December, Mr. Hyde tweeted a few hardly subtle phrases about Kamala Harris’ departure from the race for the Democratic nomination for president. They are too crude to be published here. Mr. Hyde should be embarrassed — but, to judge from his subsequent tweets, he is not.
LA Times:
Tight polls, impeachment, billionaire wild cards: Uncertainty reigns in the 2020 Democratic race
A key audience for the nationally televised debate will be local: the many Iowa Democrats who have not firmly made up their minds.
The Iowa Poll by the Des Moines Register and CNN released Friday found that some 60% of likely caucusgoers were undecided or only lightly committed to their preferred candidate. Sanders came in first as the choice of 20% of likely caucusgoers, followed by Warren, Buttigieg and Biden, but the gap between first and fourth was smaller than the survey’s margin of error, meaning the poll can’t say who is truly on top.
My candidate is whoever the Democrats nominate. I am voting for that person.
The stated and publicly announced plan is to assist the Democratic nominee no matter who it is, should Bloomberg lose the primary.
Jon Favreau/Crooked:
WHAT VOTERS WANT IN 2020
In case you’re wondering, these voters were not the old-white-guy-in-a-diner variety who are always getting interviewed for pieces that continually break the surprising news about Trump supporters in Pennsylvania who still support Trump. It feels like we have a pretty good handle on what those ballots will look like, so I decided to sit down with people who will most likely be targets for both the Democratic nominee and the Trump campaign in 2020:
- Voters outside of Philadelphia, PA, who don’t follow the news very closely and don’t always vote Democrat
- Voters in the Phoenix, AZ, suburbs who supported Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016
- Voters outside of Milwaukee, WI, who supported Barack Obama in 2012, Donald Trump in 2016, and a Democrat in 2018
- Voters in Miami, FL, who supported Barack Obama in 2012, and then either stayed home or supported a third-party candidate in 2016
Yes, there are voters up for grabs. Yes, persuasion still matters.
Margot Sanger-Katz/NY Times:
To the Contrary, Trump Has Tried to Weaken Protections for Pre-existing Conditions
His tweets Monday morning misrepresent his record on health care.
Has he tried to weaken pre-existing conditions protections as president?
Yes. President Trump’s first legislative priority after his election was to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Republicans in Congress voted on several different bills, but each of them had provisions that would have substantially eroded the current protections for Americans with prior health conditions, by weakening the regulations that make such insurance available, affordable and useful.
The bills would have weakened rules that require insurance to cover a standard set of health benefits, for example, and would have established policies that would have raised prices for people with a history of health problems.
Bruce Udolf/USA Today:
House Democrats should subpoena Bolton to testify on Trump and Ukraine. It's not too late.
Republicans are Trump enablers and Democrats have been timid. Pelosi has the judgment and courage to change that, starting with a Bolton subpoena.
Trump has been enabled by a cowardly class of Republican legislators who shamelessly stand mute as he and his minions allow foreign adversaries to corrupt our electoral process and to obstruct lawful investigations and congressional oversight. And rather than moving aggressively to hold the president accountable for his daily assault on our democracy and feeding off of racism in this country (if not out-and-out fomenting it), the Democrats have largely responded with timidity….
Bolton now says he's "prepared to testify" in a Senate trial if he is subpoenaed. There is a way to give him that opportunity, even without his Senate testimony. House committees can continue their investigations and can subpoena other witnesses, including Bolton. Like a grand jury, the House can, if warranted, add other charges or co-conspirators in the equivalent of a superseding indictment.
It would be hard for Bolton to refuse to comply with a House subpoena, given his public expression of willingness to testify before the Senate.
Amanda Marcotte/Salon:
Right-wing hawk attack tactics aren't working this time — and here's why
Republicans used their old Iraq tricks to quash critics of Trump's Iran adventure. But this time nobody's buying
This time around, however, the tactic ... simply didn't work. [Doug] Collins found himself forced to explicitly apologize. There was absolutely no reason to believe his apology, however, as he's still fundraising off this "Democrats love terrorists" sentiment — and was still making this outrageous claim on Fox News only two hours before his supposed apology. But even the fact that Collins had to pretend to be sorry shows that the current political environment is no longer so friendly to this strategy.
Similarly, [Nikki] Haley is now playing a bizarre game of clean-up, trying to pretend she was using some other, more obscure definition of the word "mourning" to justify saying what she did. As with Collins, it's utter nonsense, but the fact that she's scrambling demonstrates that casually equating criticism of a president's actions with treason isn't working quite as well as it used to.
Washington Monthly (book review):
The Mistake Democrats Risk Making
Progressives and moderates, argues E. J. Dionne, need to settle their differences and focus on Trump.
But as the veteran progressive thinker and journalist E. J. Dionne Jr. argues in his highly engaging, intellectually sound, and morally grounded new book, Code Red, this year’s primaries reflect serious intellectual and coalitional differences. The Democratic Party contains an increasingly restless left, which wants the party to be far more aggressive in attacking economic and racial inequality, and believes that the last two Democratic presidents did far too little to combat either. The left is locked in a battle with a broad group of moderates who believe that measured steps are the best, and likely the only, way to bring about progressive change given the realities of the American political system.
Code Red argues that these two camps must come together if the country is to defeat Trump. Dionne implores Democrats to recognize their divisions, debate them honestly, be more flexible, and ultimately forge some strategic consensus around a progressive but not extreme vision. From there, they can begin the long and difficult process of tackling America’s biggest challenges on inequality, racial divisions, climate change, security, and engagement with the rest of the world.
I’m in with this.
Yep.