I often tweet images of the little lake outside my window, usually when passing along an above average sunset. But your’re getting a picture of it this morning mostly as a way of explaining why this APR may be shorter than most. That explanation is that just about everything in this picture is already gone.
On Thursday the dead hickory trees, though much beloved of local woodpeckers, came down because they had started to drop some seriously large limbs. At this point they’re cut into sections, still waiting for me to split the good wood and heap up the bad.
On Friday the little sailboat, mostly hidden in this picture, had its mast, keel, and daggerboard removed and stored for the season. Then the whole boat got dragged up into the grass, flipped onto its deck, and given a final washing before winter. The kayak also came ashore and snuggled in at its side.
On Saturday, a rubber mallet was applied to the four long posts that held the floating dock in place until they could be convinced to let go of the mud they’ve been buried in the last six years. Then the whole dock was towed slowly out into deep water, anchored by a set of concrete blocks, and the paddleboat made a final trip back to shore where it was mostly dragged onto the bank. Mostly, because somewhere around there is when I ran out of steam.
And the reason behind all this is that on Monday … the water goes away. Years before we even moved to the lake, a new highway was built nearby and the silt, sand, gravel, and cobbles that wash down from the highway’s steep shoulders have been piling up in the lake, filling in bays, and turning islands into peninsulas. So next week a team is going to pump much of the water from the lake, leaving the bay behind me (which includes all the water you can see here) dry, as they get set to muck out all the stuff that has washed in. It’s going to be months, at least, before they are done, the water is back, and I can tow my sad old dock home again.
In the meantime, just getting ready for the temporary ruin of my favorite thing is exhausting me. Anyway … let’s go read some pundits.
Jonathan Chait and the first name on the GOP’s list of sacrifices.
New York Magazine
The Washington Post reports House Republicans are formulating a new impeachment defense of President Trump. Rather than deny that the extortion scheme took place, or defend the extortion as a legitimate exercise in foreign policy, they plan to make the case that his deputies “could have acted on their own to influence Ukraine policy.” So the whole scheme was going on right under Trump’s nose, without his knowledge or participation?
This line of defense’s advantage, such as it is, is the relative dearth of direct evidence of Trump’s orders to his subordinates. “There is no direct linkage to the president of the United States,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) told reporters.
It is true that the president has developed a lifelong aversion, honed through years of directing shady and outright criminal schemes, to any of his advisers taking notes in a meeting with him. Several accounts have depicted Trump lashing out at lawyers for taking notes, and insisting that Roy Cohn — an attorney Trump shared with several leading Mafia dons — never took notes. The new book by an anonymous senior Trump official has another scene of the president berating an aide: “Are you [expletive] taking notes?”
And so, while European Union envoy Gordon Sondland has testified that Trump directed him to withhold diplomatic favors from Ukraine to compel investigations of Trump’s domestic enemies, he has no physical evidence. That makes it Sondland’s word against Trump’s. And Trump can then run his usual play of denying everything, calling Sondland a Never Trumper — any person who opposes Trump is either a Democrat or, by Trump’s definition, a Never Trumper — who is bitter and resentful.
There is no doubt that Sondland is caught in this thing to his neck and likely to be the first under the bus. But there’s equally no doubt that others were around most of the time when Sondland got his marching orders. And when they were not around, it was because Sondland was talking directly to Trump.
Will Bunch actually has a newer column, but I’ve been saving this one.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Rick Gates, the veteran high-level political operative who served as Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016, told investigators he remembers exactly where he was — aboard Trump’s campaign jet — when he heard the candidate’s desires and frustrations over a scheme to defeat Hillary Clinton with hacked, stolen emails boil over. And he also remembered the future president’s exact words that day in summer 2016.
“Get the emails."
In one sense, Gates’ confirmation of Trump’s obsession with a conspiracy theory — that 33,000 of his Democratic rival’s emails had been stolen and could reveal damning information — isn’t a total shock. After all, the 2016 candidate famously blurted the quiet part out loud during a public appearance that July, when he famously said “Russia, if you’re listening …”
Somewhere along the line, Trump became convinced that these 33,000 emails were on a “secret DNC server.” He also became convinced that the server was to be found in Ukraine, and that it the tracks to this server were carefully covered over by cyber-security firm Crowdstrike, which helped Ukraine fake the DNC break-in and blame Russia. Why does Trump believe all this? Why is he asking Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigation something this ridiculous? Because notorious bull-s#!ter Roger Stone told this story to Trump. And Trump believed him.
Gates’ disclosure to investigators was a key insight into the state of mind of a campaign that was willing and eager to work with electronic thieves — even with powerful foreign adversaries like Russia, if need be — to win a presidential election. Yet that critical information was buried in Mueller’s 440-page report and ignored by the media in a moment that was supposed to tell the American public everything we needed to know about what the president knew and when he knew it, regarding Russia’s election hacking.
Bunch’s point is that, despite his supposed thoroughness, it’s now clear that Mueller missed a lot of things, failed to connect some pretty obvious dots, and in general failed the American public.
Charles Pierce on the Republican defense through nonsense.
Esquire
Friday’s Transcripts of the Day were those of Fiona Hill and Colonel Alexander Vindland, and, yes, they pretty much prove that the president* is as guilty as sin, even as his own sins, which are considerable. But the most entertaining parts of the new transcripts, and the sections that give us some kind of indication as to where the open hearings might go, are those featuring the floundering attempts by various Republicans to derail the proceedings in one way or another. And when it comes to Republican Flounders, there’s no flounder more floundering than Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Breathalyzer), Republican of Florida.
You may recall that Gaetz was one of the leaders of the pack of Republican congresscritters who bum-rushed the secure area in which the depositions were held. In the latest transcripts, the actual moment of Gaetz’s triumph, which occurred during Hill’s time before the committee, is captured. Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff was having none of this, and pretty plainly wanted Gaetz to get up off of his last nerve.
Oh, come on. After that opening you know you want to go read the rest. So just go.
Nancy LeTourneau on America’s impeachment holiday season.
Washington Monthly
As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we’ll start to see the kind of advice columns that pop up every year about this time on how to survive family discussions about politics over the holidays. My favorite comes full of snark from the Onion.
This year the advice-givers are going to have their hands full, because the temperature is about to heat up several notches. According to CNN, this is the timetable House Democrats have planned for the impeachment inquiry.
- November 11-22 House Intelligence Committee holds public hearings
- November 25-29 Thanksgiving break, during which House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs Committees prepare their report to the Judiciary Committee
- December 2-6 House Judiciary Committee holds public hearings
- December 9-13 House Judiciary Committee votes on articles of impeachment
- December 16-20 Full House votes on impeachment
That may seem fast, because it is. But it’s also much more effective than waiting around for a report that’s months getting done. And not to be contrary, but I suspect if an impeachment with a similar scheduled had been launched in 2017 instead of having Mueller begin his stint as special counsel (which yes, I celebrated at the time), Trump would have been impeached before the summer.
It is possible, however, that your crazy uncle will have his own fodder for the discussions over the holiday get-together. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz completed his investigation into possible FISA abuse by the FBI back in mid-September and sent his report to the Justice Department for classification review. Since then, there have been a series of breathless reports on right wing media that it is about to be made public. Just this week Senator Lindsey Graham said that it was coming soon and added, “I think his report is going to be stunning. I think it is going to be damning. I think it’s going to prove that the system got off the rails.”
Since Barr has swallowed up the Horowitz report and is rushing to add his own fresh-from-the-conspiracy-theory additions, “stunning” is likely an understatement. They’re not bringing in Rpublican senators to give them advanced peeks at this report because it says “nothing to see here.” Forget all the finagling in the House, this is where the real action is in terms of Trump’s “defense” against impeachment.
Art Cullen has his eye on the same people who are now topping every Iowa poll.
Storm Lake Times
The Iowa Democratic presidential field appears narrowing to four candidates in the top tier: Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders. With the holidays fast approaching, the Feb. 3 caucuses are surprisingly close. Candidates hoping for a breakthrough need to make their move as caucus-goers begin to make up their minds. The most recent opportunity, the Liberty and Justice supper in Des Moines last Friday, did not provide that moment as it did in 2007 when Barack Obama electrified the hall.
It will be more difficult every day for a dark-horse campaign to oust one of those front-runners. Anything can happen. Amy Klobuchar spoke well at the supper and could be that person, but … Warren and Buttigieg are raising money furiously, Bernie Sanders is organizing for a revolution, and Biden’s presence in the race remains formidable if fading.
Cullen also has some local insight that may not be completely reflected in the polls.
Warren and Buttigieg have been gaining, and that was evident in front of the 13,000 Democrats packed into Wells Fargo arena. They exchanged jabs in what might be turning into a joust between those two, with the beefiest organizations tracking even the tiniest precincts in Democrat-sparse Calhoun and Sac counties.
Warren remains in the best position to win the caucuses, where the ground game is everything. Speeches, chants and TV ads all play their part. In the end, it is organization that turns out an Iowan on a cold February night to sit in a gym for three hours listening to surrogates argue for their candidates.
Michael Tomasky sees the same people … and pretty much the same winner.
Daily Beast
So the moderates have started to unload on the lefties. That’s the story line in the wake of Elizabeth Warren’s bumpy rollout of her Medicare for All funding plan last week. They smell a chance to arrest her momentum.
Joe Biden took a swipe at Warren on Medium.com without naming her: “Some call it the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to politics. But it’s worse than that. It’s condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view. It’s representative of an elitism that working- and middle-class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing.’ ‘If you were only as smart as I am you would agree with me.’ This is no way to get anything done.”
Pete Buttigieg bought a ticket for the Bash Warren Express, too. “We will fight when we must fight, but I will never allow us to get so wrapped up in the fighting that we start to think fighting is the point,” he said at last Friday’s Iowa Liberty & Justice Celebration, just hours after Warren released her plan.
But Tomasky does not feel this blows are hurting the person who is supposed to be on the recieving end.
They’re understandable, but I don’t think flicking jabs at Warren is going to get them very far. No. If the “moderates”—a word I don’t like, because their programs are pretty liberal; to the left of what Barack Obama ran on in 2008—want to steal a march on Warren, they need to do something else. They need to talk about themselves, not her.
Specifically, they need to say: Look, my plan isn’t moderate! My plan is big and bold and powerful! Are you kidding me? Ten years ago, a public option was considered too radical for the Democratic Party to pass. Now it’s some gutless sellout position? Give me a break.
Except the response to Warren’s rise has been to attack Warren rather than promote their own plans. While Warren has gone up by … promoting her own plan. That one with the “rocky” start.
Joan Walsh on the Democratic wins in the Virginia state legislature.
The Nation
Winning 15 House of Delegates seats in 2017 changed everything for Virginia Democrats, and the people they represent: They finally expanded Medicaid (to 320,000 people and counting) and hiked education funding, even while Republicans held a narrow majority. Now, flipping five more seats to take the General Assembly while also winning control of the state Senate, they’re poised to enact an inspiring roster of progressive priorities: expanding voting rights, passing the Equal Rights Amendment, enacting commonsense gun laws and drawing the state’s legislative boundaries—fairly—after the 2020 Census. With a Democratic governor—the flawed moderate Ralph Northam, grateful to progressives and voters of color for letting him survive his blackface scandal—not quite anything is possible. But almost.
Maybe most important, on Tuesday night Virginia became the first Southern state to entirely flip back to Democratic control in the post–civil rights movement era. As victorious Virginia Beach house challenger Nancy Guy said campaigning in late October: “Virginia has the chance to lead the nation again. We can join the 21st Century from the 19th.” On Tuesday night, it did.
The big win was made possible by a local and national web of women-powered resistance activism and a phenomenally diverse and mostly progressive roster of Democratic candidates. But as we observe the civil rights victory the Virginia statehouse flip represents, let’s remember that Democrats were buoyed by a court-ordered redrawn map of legislative districts that finally, in the words of National Democratic Redistricting Committee chair (and former attorney general) Eric Holder, “was not drawn to dilute the voting power of African Americans.” In other words, a fair election.
This is one of the biggest, and best, election outcomes of the last four years. Don’t dismiss this because it’s “just” a state legislature.
Leonard Pitts on how to block the people trying to block voting.
Miami Herald
I’m here to offer you an action list.
With last week’s balloting behind us, we now have just less than a year before one of the most momentous elections in American history. As voters in 1860 had to decide between Union and secession, we face a stark choice of our own: America or Trump. There is no middle ground. This is democracy at its Armageddon.
The good news is, there are far more of us who believe in America than those who believe in Trump. It’s not incidental that he lost the popular vote three years ago or that his party has only won it once since 1992. Nor is it incidental that the nation sides against him and them on hot-button issues like guns, abortion and healthcare.
But here’s the bad news. Trump’s party knows all too well that the numbers are against them, that they cannot win nationally without cheating. So they do. Behind a fig leaf of concern over imaginary voter fraud, Republicans have imposed photo I.D. laws, voter purges and polling-place closures that disproportionately disenfranchise those who don’t vote GOP. Meaning, pretty much everyone who’s not a straight, white, angry, older male lacking a college diploma.
Read it all. Take notes.