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In the week where Democrats announced historic and fully-deserved articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, they also started blowing it and throwing away 2020.

Just as impeachment needs their complete focus, Democrats started talking about how the rest of the year could be devoted to getting things done in Washington. They want to get it over with and move on to passing legislation that improves the lives of everyday Americans.

I put those phrases in quotes, because theyre the usual generic political pablum vomited from the bowels of a hundred focus groups.

In the words of the great American political scientist Lyndon Baines Johnson, Are you fucking kidding me?

Sadly, there's nothing more predictable and pathetic than Washington Democrats biting the bipartisan rube bait. First, they love any chance to spend money. Its the signifier for accomplishment for people who love them some government. Second, they still believe we live in a world where bipartisan comity sells.

For all the skill Nancy Pelosi has displayed as a political opposition leader against Trump, the idea that working with him is a net political positive for the Democrats is scorchingly stupid.

Donald Trump doesn't really want to pass USMCA or family leave or anything else for that matter. He certainly doesnt want to pass anything on Democratic holy-grail issues like health care, gun control, or climate change.

Donald Trump will Lucy them every time, pulling back the football at the last second. Democrats will walk out of Cabinet meetings thinking they can move forward on family leave or infrastructure spending only to see tweeted shit-talk from a president with zero good faith and less intelligence but who does understand that his base wants war, not cooperation. Nothing real will pass, and if it does, theyll get zero credit from Republicans, and nothing but a shrug from their base.

2020 is a referendum on Donald Trump. That is all 2020 is about.

The optics of sitting in the White House pretending to try and work with Donald Trump is like those awkward moments of mommy and daddy playing nice during the holidays while engaged in a horrifying long-running divorce. Everyone is uncomfortable, no one is fooled, and the net result is to simply delay the pain.

Democrats need their base voters fired up and turned out. They need to harness and channel the energy that motivates their most passionate voters to knock on doors, make calls, and show up at the polls in record numbers in 2020. That energy is the natural reaction to Donald Trumps corruption, criminality, and evil. Why squander and dilute it?

The cognitive dissonance in declaring Trump a lawless, reckless criminal who seeks to have foreign powers decide our elections and ride roughshod over our democracy and also declaring we can work with this guy is utterly astounding. What flavor of dumbfuckery inside the Democratic consultant class thinks playing happy families and singing Kumbaya with a president who lacks every moral and political scruple works to motivate their base?

But wait... what about Republicans who want to accomplish something on issue X? you ask.

I assure you, Republican members from swing states who offer up bipartisan legislation right now arent doing it for the good of the country. Theyre doing it because they understand the political poison of Donald Trump in the suburbs. They want to be able to run in 2020 by saying, Well, Trump is what he is, but I partnered with Democrats to help pass the Toilet Seat Standards and Safety Bill.

Speaking of the Senate, the concern isn't simply Pelosi getting wrapped around the axle by this trickery.

Its that Chuck Schumer has absolutely zero margin to work inside the Senate. He can't rely on Joe Manchin and a couple others when push comes to shove, and right now his 2020 operation needs all the help it can get.

Schumer must provide a contrast for Democratic voters. If Republicansespecially those running in purple states like Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, and Susan Collinscan go home and say, I'm trying to work across the aisle! I co-sponsored a child-care bill! Pay no attention to the Trumpstank wafting off of me! it's a net political deficit for the Democrats. Normalizing Trump doesnt help.

Trump richly deserves impeachment. That wont move the Republicans in the Senate, and the battle to hold this president to account is far, far from over. The idea that Democrats need to race through impeachment and that it will stain Trump permanently flies in the face of todays short-attention span politics. This is a war that doesnt end in a single House vote. It doesnt end by shrugging and saying, Oh, it was too hard to sue everyone to get testimony from the White House.

Trump gets this joke. He understands it perfectly.

This president is a con man, and hes sold various pigs in various pokes to various rubes for a long time. He conned people into believing he was rich. He conned people into buying overpriced condos and mid-tier golf resort memberships. He conned the American people into believing he was a god-tier business genius and paragon of negotiation skill and leadership. He conned the GOP out of its entire portfolio of political beliefs and turned it into a cult devoted to worshipping him.

How the actual hell do Democrats fall for the same scam?

It boggles the mind that the Democrats havent learned the tricks of the GOP. The purpose of the Benghazi hearings wasnt to get to the bottom of the attack, but to torture Hillary Clinton for a year. The dilatory pranks of the GOP in the current hearings arent to get to the truth, but to raise the level of pain and confusion in the process. The Republicans understand that this game is cynical, ugly, and purely based on political, not policy, outcomes.

Democrats are poised to lose the impeachment fight because they dont.

Jesus. Do I have to do all of this for you?

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The Democrats Are Blowing Trump's Impeachment - The Daily Beast

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Democrats fretted openly about the possibility that Donald Trump, being a rather poor sport, might refuse to acknowledge an election loss. To be fair, Trump refused to state that hewouldaccept election results, depending on the circumstances: "I'll keep you in suspense," he stated in his Oct. 19, 2016, debate with Hillary Clinton. Clinton, for her part, called his statement "horrifying," adding that he was harming American democracy.

Trump, of course, won. And Clinton spent the next couple of years suggesting openly that she had been robbed in the election. Democrats blamed Clinton's election loss on Russian interference, on voter suppression, on anything but Clinton's campaign performance.

That wasn't a particular shock: After George W. Bush won the 2000 election, many Democrats continued to maintain that he was an illegitimate president. And not much changed in the nearly two decades since: In 2018, Democrats insisted that Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams had actually defeated Brian Kemp, despite having lost by approximately 55,000 votes. To this day, Democratic presidential candidates repeat the lie that Kemp stole the election from Abrams.

MICHAEL GOODWIN: PELOSI'S TRUMP IMPEACHMENT QUEST THIS IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE DUTIFUL CON JOB

Now in the run-up to 2020, Democrats are already suggesting that if President Trump wins, the election will have been illegitimate. This time, they're pointing to Trump's supposed attempt to gather information from the Ukrainian government on potential 2020 rival Joe Biden in return for release of much-needed military aid. In fact, Democrats state that if Trump is not impeached, the 2020 results will inevitably be deemed improper.

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Last Sunday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who suggested way back in 2017 that though Trump was "legally elected," he was "not legitimate," doubled down: "The president, based on his past performance, will do everything he can to make it not a fair election. And this is part of what gives us the urgency to proceed with this impeachment."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit."

Things are already ugly in American politics. A republic can only be maintained when the people have faith that even if their side loses an election, that election was legitimate -- and only when people believe that there is a tomorrow

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, told CNN's Jake Tapper, "If you have a corrupt executive who is willing to maintain power by corrupting our election, there's an urgency there."

Former federal prosecutor Anne Milgram wrote in The New York Times, "Who gets to pick the next president of the United States -- President Trump, Ukraine, Russia or us?"

Impeachment, then, must be usedwithout proper evidence of a crimein order to prevent Trump from stealing the election. By this logic, any suspicion of illegitimacy in an upcoming election becomes an excuse for ousting a legitimately elected president.

This is a vicious cycle: illegitimate impeachments based on perception of illegitimate elections. And with Pelosi promising that our very civilization is at stake over the outcome of the next election, we can be sure that the pressure will continue to rise.

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Things are already ugly in American politics. A republic can only be maintained when the people have faith that even if their side loses an election, that election was legitimate -- and only when people believe that there is a tomorrow.

With Democrats openly claiming that they can run an end-around with the electoral process because they don't trust the results, and stating that any future loss is evidence of corruption and a representation of the end of the country, things are about to get a lot uglier.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM BEN SHAPIRO

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Ben Shapiro: Will Democrats accept the results of the 2020 elections -- Even if Trump wins? - Fox News

Some people may be surprised to see Democrats fighting to expand a tax deduction for the wealthy. We are not.

It makes perfect sense, if you think about it.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted nearly along party lines to repeal a part of the 2017 Republican tax cut. But it wasnt the corporate-rate cut Democrats were targeting. It wasnt some imagined tax cut for corporate jets. Rather, Democrats passed a bill to scrap the cap on very-high-income individuals ability to deduct their state and local taxes on their federal tax returns.

The deduction for state and local taxes, or SALT, still exists. Republicans merely capped the deduction at $10,000. Since Republicans also doubled the standard deduction, this cap really only affects the uberwealthy. To repeat, after more than a decade of campaigning against "tax cuts for the rich," Democrats are now fighting tooth and nail for a special interest deduction that helps only the wealthy.

Democrats call their bill the Restoring Tax Fairness for States and Localities Act, but it should be titled, Expanding Tax Breaks for Wealthy White Suburban Democratic Voters Act. Expanding the deduction wont help most taxpayers in New York, California, or New Jersey. It will help only those whose incomes or property values are very high.

It is too simple to say that the deduction only benefits high-tax states, Nicole Kaeding at the Tax Foundation recently testified. It is better understood as benefiting high-income individuals, many of whom reside in high-tax jurisdictions with high housing values.

If the Democratic bill becomes law, it would not cut taxes for any families whose total deductible expenses, including state and local taxes, are below $24,000; those taxpayers will still take the standard deduction as current law allows. The Democratic bill would not cut taxes for anyone whose state and local income taxes add up to less than $10,000. In other words, this can in no way be mistaken for a middle-class tax cut.

Nearly all the benefit of repealing the SALT deduction cap goes to the wealthy. To be sure, Democrats plan to offset the revenue reduction by raising tax rates on the rich. But that is an odd one-two punch from the perspective of tax reform. To advocate for more tax loopholes but higher tax rates on everyone makes sense if you view the tax code as a way of forcing peoples behavior to change. On the other hand, lower rates and fewer loopholes are desirable if you want people to make decisions based on their personal preferences and economic reality.

There are politics at play here, of course. Democrats took the House in 2018 largely on the strength of places such as Orange County, California wealthy, high-tax suburbs with plenty of million-dollar homes. The Democrats feel they have to pay off the white-bread vote with some special tax breaks.

Its all very surprising if you believe the Democrats rhetoric. Its not surprising at all if you have been following their behavior.

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Democrats try to restore a tax cut for the rich - Washington Examiner

Updated at 7:10 p.m.: Revised to include statement from Houston Rep. Lizzie Fletcher backing impeachment.

WASHINGTON Dallas Rep. Colin Allred on Friday announced that he will vote to impeach President Donald Trump, saying it is clear the president engaged in an abuse of his authority, putting himself above the law, and his personal interests above the nations.

These uncontroverted facts are an unacceptable violation of his oath of office and constitute an impeachable abuse of power, he said in a news release. This is a somber moment for our nation, and I have not reached this decision lightly.

Allred, a freshman lawmaker, had been one of three Texas Democrats to not yet make clear their position on impeachment.

His announcement came shortly after the House Judiciary Committee on Friday voted along party lines to approve two articles of impeachment against Trump over his Ukraine dealings. One article covers abuse of power, while the other covers obstruction of Congress.

Later Friday another Texas Democrat, Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Houston, also announced that she will vote to impeach Trump.

As a member of Congress, I also swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, she said in a news release. And that is why, when the articles of impeachment are presented in the House, I will vote yes on both.

That leaves Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo as the only one of the 13 Texas Democrats in Congress who has not said how hell vote next week, when the Democrat-run House is expected to take up and pass the impeachment articles.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the Democrats impeachment push a scam and a witch hunt. Its widely expected that he will be acquitted in the GOP-run Senate, which is poised to take up the matter early next year.

While the outcome in the House is considered a foregone conclusion, theres been some question about how so-called frontline Democrats would vote.

Allred last year helped Democrats win back the House for the first time in years by upsetting a longtime GOP congressman. That standing has made him a top 2020 target for Republicans, who have kept close tabs on where the Democrat stands on impeachment.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOPs campaign arm, was quick to criticize Allreds decision.

Colin Allred ran on a promise to get results for Texans, but all hes focused on in Washington is his deranged quest to remove President Trump from office, said Bob Salera, an NRCC spokesman. Allred is a partisan hack and will be voted out next November.

But Allred, perhaps anticipating that jab, said he will not allow this process to distract me from the important work of delivering real results for North Texas families. The Democrat, just on Thursday, attended a White House event to promote the need for expanded paid parental leave.

This is not about partisan politics, Allred said, referring to impeachment. It is about protecting our democracy.

Many other Texas Democrats have long been vocal advocates for impeaching Trump, particularly since the controversy emerged over Ukraine. Even before that, Houston Rep. Al Green was among the first Democrats in the House to advocate for impeachment.

But Allred had been in the noncommittal camp with Fletcher, another freshman who last year toppled a GOP incumbent, and Cuellar, a centrist with a GOP-friendly voting record.

Fletcher had kept open her options earlier this week. She issued a statement then that said Trump engaged in certain conduct. But she only went so far to say that she would review and consider the proposed articles of impeachment when they are presented to Congress.

That position drew the attention of the Trump campaign, which accused Fletcher of backing down from her position in September that the House should act swiftly to investigate and should be prepared to use the remedy exclusively in its power: impeachment.

What has happened between then and now? Trump Victory spokeswoman Samantha Cotten said. Could it be the dwindling support for impeachment among Americans?

But Fletcher on Friday was blunt, saying that Trump used the power of the Office of the President to solicit a personal, political benefit."

Cuellar, meanwhile, said earlier this week that he was going to wait til everything is brought in and then once everythings brought in, Ill make a decision based on the evidence. He said to expect a definitive answer next week.

His deliberations have earned him attacks from his primary opponent Jessica Cisneros, a progressive activist who accused Cuellar of being Trumps favorite Democrat.

Texas Republicans, in turn, have been some of Trumps most passionate defenders, and the states GOP delegation is expected to vote in unison against the impeachment articles. Some political handicappers are predicting that not a single House Republican will buck Trump.

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Texas Reps. Allred and Fletcher, Democrats facing tough 2020 race, will vote to impeach Trump - The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON The White House and House Democrats reached an agreement to strengthen labor, environmental, pharmaceutical and enforcement provisions in President Trumps North American trade pact, a significant development that made it all but certain that the signature trade deal would become law.

The agreement on a revised United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was announced on Tuesday by Speaker Nancy Pelosi after months of negotiations, handing Mr. Trump one of his biggest legislative victories less than an hour after she unveiled articles of impeachment.

Ms. Pelosi went from a news conference on impeachment to another on the trade deal, where she and top Democrats, including Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, pointed to concessions they had secured in closed-door negotiations with the administration.

Were declaring victory for the American worker, Ms. Pelosi said. It is infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration.

The timing of the handshake agreement offers Mr. Trump a crucial victory to promote on the campaign trail during his re-election bid and House Democrats tangible proof that they are able to legislate while preparing to vote on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against the president.

Mr. Trump, who spent weeks blaming Ms. Pelosi for standing in the way of a trade deal that he said would help workers, played up the progress and suggested the House speaker did so to smother the impeachment crap.

Weve been waiting a long time for Nancy Pelosi to announce U.S.M.C.A., he said at a rally on Tuesday night in Hershey, Pa. And she did it on the same day that they announced that they are going to impeach the 45th president of the United States, and your favorite president.

In a statement, Mr. Trumps top trade adviser, Robert E. Lighthizer, called the announcement a victory for Mr. Trump.

After working with Republicans, Democrats, and many other stakeholders for the past two years, we have created a deal that will benefit American workers, farmers and ranchers for years to come, he said.

Ms. Pelosi repeatedly rebuffed Republican suggestions that Democrats had timed the announcement to try to minimize any negative fallout from the impeachment proceedings.

Not any one of us is important enough to hold up a trade agreement that is important for American workers, she said.

The administration agreed with Canada and Mexico on revisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement one year ago, but the deal requires the approval of Congress, including the Democratic-controlled House. Ms. Pelosi and her colleagues have used that vote as leverage to secure long-sought policy changes to a long-maligned trade deal.

Make no mistake, Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon, said Tuesday. This is a Democrats agreement that we fought for, and its going to be the template going forward for writing new trade agreements.

Ms. Pelosi was more candid in a private meeting with her caucus on Tuesday morning. These have been the fights, she said, referring to the changes they secured. And we stayed on this and we ate their lunch.

Mr. Neal, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he remained hopeful that the House could vote on the agreement before the end of the year. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said that the Senate would not bring the deal for a vote before Dec. 20, when lawmakers are scheduled to leave for a holiday break.

Thatll have to come up, in all likelihood, after a trial is finished in the Senate, he said, referring to the impeachment proceedings.

Among the biggest victories was an agreement to remove intellectual property protections for the pharmaceutical industry, which Democrats warned could undermine efforts to make health care more affordable. Democrats also persuaded the White House to strengthen the deals enforcement provisions, and obtained commitments to ensure Mexico is adhering to labor reforms.

Those changes were critical to winning the support of labor unions, including the influential AFL-CIO, which endorsed the revised pact just moments before Ms. Pelosis announcement.

In fact, the deal addressed so many of the Democrats concerns that some Republicans appeared skeptical of the final agreement and suggested that Mr. Lighthizer had given away too much.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, voiced concern that Mr. Lighthizer had potentially spent more time talking with House Democrats than Republicans on the final product. And Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania and one of the most ardent critics of the deal, railed against both the original deal and the new changes, including the removal of the pharmaceutical provision.

Its clearly moved way to the left, Mr. Toomey told reporters. It seemed to be just a one-way direction in the direction of Democrats.

The changes must now be woven into implementing legislation that the House and Senate will both vote on. The pact will also need to secure the presidents signature and the final approval of the Mexican and Canadian legislatures.

In Mexico City, President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador attended a signing agreement at the National Palace. The event was attended by Mr. Lighthizer and Jared Kushner, the presidents senior adviser and son-in-law, as well as Chrystia Freeland, who negotiated the pact on behalf of Canada.

Mr. Lighthizer called the agreement the first truly bipartisan agreement, saying it was nothing short of a miracle that we have all come together.

Mr. Lighthizer on Tuesday briefed groups of House and Senate Republicans by phone on the changes. While some expressed concern, most Republicans appeared to maintain their support for the new trade pact, even with the new changes negotiated by Democrats.

Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, declared relief in an interview, and noted that such a compromise in a divided government is a rare feat around here, and we should celebrate it.

And as Mr. Neal left the news conference, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican whip, shook his hand. A spokeswoman said Mr. Scalise had promised Mr. Lighthizer strong Republican support for the deal.

Theres a Republican leader saying it was good, Mr. Neal said as he entered an elevator. That wasnt staged.

The agreement came as a huge relief to industries that have grown up around NAFTA and rely on tariff-free trade across Canada, Mexico and the United States. The lack of movement in Congress, combined with Mr. Trumps threats to walk away from the original NAFTA pact, had created crippling uncertainty among businesses.

This is finally good news on the trade front after a long, hard year, said Rufus H. Yerxa, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents major exporters. We believe this agreement will further strengthen the North American region, bringing about the commercial stability and certainty that our companies need to remain competitive in the global economy.

The administration and Republicans in both chambers have hammered Ms. Pelosi and her caucus to take action. Even within Ms. Pelosis majority, several moderate members and a number of the freshmen who flipped Republican-held seats in 2018 had begun pressuring leadership for a vote on the pact before the end of the year.

The deal announced Tuesday offered Ms. Pelosi and her core allies justification for the delay by establishing what she said would be a legacy agreement that set the standard for future trade deals.

In addition to updating rules for digital commerce, Mr. Trumps U.S.M.C.A. raised the threshold for the proportion of a cars value that must be made in North America in order to qualify for the pacts zero tariffs. It also rolls back a special system of arbitration for corporations long opposed by Democrats.

One of the most significant revisions will roll back protections for new pharmaceutical products, in particular an advanced class of drugs called biologics, which were initially given 10 years of protection from cheaper alternatives. It also removed language that would ensure patent protections when drug companies find new uses for their existing products, a process known as evergreening.

Those changes are a big departure from past trade agreements, which sought to lock in stronger protections for intellectual property, long seen as a competitive advantage for the American economy.

Just three years ago, Republicans blocked the progress of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country trade deal negotiated by President Barack Obama, over complaints that similar protections for drug companies were not strong enough. The pact never gained enough support for a congressional vote under Mr. Obama, and Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the deal during his first week in office.

Mr. Blumenauer said the pharmaceutical revisions would change the landscape on trade agreements. If we go back and review the other trade agreements weve had, they are replete with pharmaceutical protections, he said. This is a very significant shift.

The drug industry was not pleased.

The announcement made today puts politics over patients, Stephen J. Ubl, the president and chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in a statement. The only winners today are foreign governments who want to steal American intellectual property and free ride on Americas global leadership in biopharmaceutical research and development.

The revisions also beefed up labor protections, especially in Mexico. While Mexican negotiators succeeded in rebuffing Democrats demand for American inspections of Mexican factories, they agreed to additional funding and oversight to ensure that Mexico proceeds with strengthening its labor laws and unions. The United States will also be allowed to block goods from specific Mexican factories if companies are found in violation of labor rules.

Democrats also said they had succeeded in bolstering enforcement of the trade pact by stripping out a provision added by Mr. Lighthizer which had curbed the ability of countries to bring disputes against one another.

In a loss for Ms. Pelosi, the pact will still contain certain legal protections that may shield online platforms like Facebook and Twitter from some lawsuits over content posted by their users.

Ms. Pelosi acknowledged the inclusion of those provisions was a disappointment, adding, I mean, I lost.

Catie Edmondson and David McCabe contributed reporting from Washington, and Elisabeth Malkin from Mexico City.

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Trump Aides and Democrats Agree on Trade Pact With Mexico and Canada - The New York Times