NY Times:
Republicans Argue Impeachment Case Falls Short of Proving Trump Misconduct
The release of House Republicans’ witness list signaled that the president’s favorite unsubstantiated theories will be a centerpiece of their strategy.
“Once again, the Democrats have overstated the case against the president,” Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, who has listened to hours of private depositions, said in an interview on Saturday. “They have led with their best witnesses and their best evidence, and it won’t stand the test of other evidence and cross-examination.”
The Republican optimism is certain to be tested as Democrats marshal the power of their majority to potentially impeach a sitting president for only the third time in the nation’s 243-year history. And with many Republican senators vowing to withhold judgment, that confidence may fade if the president faces a trial in the Senate early next year.
Despite claims by the Republicans to the contrary, there is already a mountain of evidence against the president: The reconstructed transcript of a call suggests Mr. Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to begin politically beneficial investigations into the Bidens and an unsubstantiated theory of Democratic collusion in 2016, and thousands of pages of testimony document efforts to hold up military aid and a White House meeting unless Ukraine announced investigations into Mr. Trump’s political rivals.
When the public impeachment hearings get started Wednesday, it'd be helpful for media to remember that fact finding by Ds and bullshit conspiracy theories by Rs do not have to be given equal weight.That's not a matter of fairness, it's a matter of journalism.
Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg:
What’s the Real Goal of Impeachment Hearings?
As the House begins public hearings this week, it helps to think about the intended audience.
Marginal Democrats and their constituents. The biggest disaster for Democrats would be if Republicans are united on an impeachment vote, and then, after a Senate trial, Democrats end up divided. For the most part, they’ve already done what they needed to do: Polls show that impeachment is almost as popular as President Donald Trump is unpopular, and there’s been no apparent backlash against Democrats or surge in support for Trump over the impeachment drive.
Representative Will Hurd. The Texas Republican and sometime Trump opponent, who is retiring after this term, is on the intelligence committee. He opposed formalizing the impeachment inquiry, as did every other House Republican. But he’s asked serious questions in previous hearings on Trump scandals, is one of a handful of Republicans most likely to vote for impeachment and may well carry some clout with other Trump skeptics. Winning his votes, and those of similarly situated Republicans, won’t get anywhere close to what’s needed to remove Trump, but it would probably produce a Senate majority for conviction. That’s important because it would force a serious trial; it’s also likely to harm Trump in terms of public opinion more than a majority vote to acquit would.
The next tier of Republicans. Removal is only possible if the bulk of the Republican Party turns on Trump. That would have to include a lot of people — both voters and party actors — who have chosen to support Trump despite having serious reservations about him. We can’t really know how many of those exist. Although stories often circulate about members of Congress who support Trump in public but brutally criticize him off the record, it’s always hard to tell how seriously to take such things.
The neutral media….
WaPo:
Republicans attempt to move impeachment inquiry away from Trump
House Republicans on Saturday pressed ahead with their efforts to move the impeachment inquiry away from President Trump, calling on Democrats to add witnesses to the probe including former vice president Joe Biden’s son and the whistleblower whose initial complaint kicked off the investigation.
WaPo:
Mulvaney’s move to join impeachment testimony lawsuit rankles Bolton allies
White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s last-minute effort to join a lawsuit that could determine whether senior administration officials testify in the impeachment inquiry was an unwelcome surprise to former top national security aides, highlighting internal divisions among President Trump’s advisers in the face of the probe.
Former national security adviser John Bolton’s advisers and allies were taken aback to learn late Friday that Mulvaney had gone to court seeking to join a separation-of-powers lawsuit filed against Trump and the House leadership, according to people familiar with their views, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry.
The suit was filed by Bolton’s former deputy, Charles Kupperman, who is asking a federal judge to determine whether a congressional subpoena takes precedence over a White House order not to comply with the inquiry. Bolton is willing to testify if the judge rules in favor of the House, The Washingon Post previously reported.
Republicans in disarray™.
David Rothkopf/twitter:
Russia's plan to infiltrate & influence right wing parties in Western democracies has turned out to be one of the greatest intelligence successes in modern history-a sweeping, shocking, enduring success. We need to view everything from the 2016 election to the Ukraine scandal as part of this one massive attack on our system. The Brexit vote and the current positioning of the UK Tory party is part of it. So too are political shifts in France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary and Poland. Not viewing it in its totality is a huge mistake.
It minimizes the effort. Not recognizing the effort is underway and producing daily victories for the Russians is another big mistake. Because it leaves us vulnerable to Russian successes to come. Journalists need to frame this as what it is. Legislators and investigators do too. For what it is worth, there is also room for a big book on how it started, how it is a successor to decades old Russian efforts (see Fiona Hill's testimony),who was most vulnerable to it, why the right wing everywhere fell for it, embraced it, continues to be part of it.
WaPo:
In Virginia, Republicans confront a fearful electoral future
As Virginia election returns rolled in Tuesday night, Republican campaign manager Daniella Propati quickly realized two things: Her candidate for the House of Delegates, GayDonna Vandergriff, would lose, and calling their opponent a “socialist” hadn’t worked.
North Richmond and the tony suburbs of Henrico County had once been a dependable backstop for the GOP, a place where statewide candidates found votes to offset Arlington and Alexandria. But the suburbs have undergone a metamorphosis in recent years — growing more socially liberal, more diverse, less interested in the red meat of the tea party and Donald Trump.
“Republicans — we’ve been running campaigns in Virginia the same way for 20 years,” Propati said. “We need to come together and say, ‘What do we need to do next time?’ ”
David Frum/Atlantic:
America After Trump
Even if he loses the next election, the damage he’s done to our political system will be lasting.
Even on the verge of an impeachment inquiry, in September, Trump enjoyed the familiar joke once more, this time with the head of the soccer association FIFA. “We’re going to have to extend my second term because [of] 2026,” the year the World Cup will return to North America, he said. “I’m going to have to extend it for a couple of years.”
Meanwhile, the president’s hopes of retaining office by legal means for even four more years seem to be dwindling. The impeachment process points toward a removal trial in 2020. The economy softened midway through 2019. As of early fall, the president’s net approval rating was deep underwater in the three states decisive to his Electoral College victory in 2016: negative eight points in Pennsylvania, negative 10 points in Michigan, and negative 11 points in Wisconsin.
WSJ:
Farmers in Crisis Turn to High-Interest Loans as Banks Pull Back
Alternative lenders extend reach during steep agricultural downturn; ‘They keep their finger on you.’
For collateral, alternative farm lenders rely on crop-insurance policies, government payments and crop-sale proceeds rather than real estate, equipment and other assets. Lenders said that allows them to lend to farmers who don’t own much land or are working their way out of bankruptcy.
“We can keep the grower farming,” said Billy Moore, president of insurance and field operations at ARM. The 10-year-old firm, backed by private equity, lends to 1,600 farmers in 19 states. Mr. Moore said the firm’s loan volume has grown at a 40% rate over the past three years.
David Kohl, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at Virginia Tech, estimated such firms supply about 2% of financing to U.S. farms. They can provide a financial bridge to struggling farmers, but their looser regulation allows the firms more control over rates and terms, he said.
Not good, and especially not good when a lot of the farm bailout money goes to international crooks like the Batista brothers.
The unsure are the prime audience for the public hearings.
John F Harris/Politico:
One Big Thing the Dems Get Wrong About Warren
The political establishment loves the center. But it’s the radicals who end up writing history.
The right has been fulminating for decades about liberal bias in the media. More recently the left, including Bernie Sanders, has inveighed against capitalist bias caused by corporate ownership of news organizations.
Meanwhile, a quarter-century covering national politics has convinced me that the more pervasive force shaping coverage of Washington and elections is what might be thought of as centrist bias, flowing from reporters and sources alike. It is a headwind for Warren, Sanders, the “squad” on Capitol Hill, even for Trump. This bias is marked by an instinctual suspicion of anything suggesting ideological zealotry, an admiration for difference-splitting, a conviction that politics should be a tidier and more rational process than it usually is.
A confession: I’ve got it. A pretty strong bout, actually.
I am not terribly self-conscious about my predispositions to see politics and governance a certain way. These wouldn’t be my predispositions if I didn’t think they had something going for them. But the recognition of bias imposes an obligation to push against default thinking and explore the possibility that it is wrong.
Here’s the main reason it might be wrong: The most consequential history is usually not driven by the center.
Points for self-awareness, all too rare in media.