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Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson and House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving deliver the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill, January 15, 2020. Following are impeachment managers House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, Rep. Val Demings, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, and Rep. Jason Crow.(Tom Brenner/Reuters)

In a column published at Law.com in December, one commentator argued that senators who refuse to be impartial should be disqualified from participating in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. A few days ago, an ethics lawyer from the George W. Bush administration called Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) a perjurer for taking the oath to do impartial justice in the trial after saying he would not be an impartial juror. They might want to reconsider their position.

If these people really mean what they say, of course, any senator who has taken a position on the presidents guilt would have to bow out. In that case, say goodbye to Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.). On Monday, Jan. 13, she spoke on the Senate floor and stated, as a fact, that Trump pressured a foreign nation to interfere in our elections. Thats an almost word-for-word recitation of the first impeachment article, which states that Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government . . . in the 2020 United States Presidential election.

Harris went on to say that it is unacceptable for a president to shake down a vulnerable foreign nation for personal or political benefit. This too echoes the first impeachment article, which claims that Trump used the power of his office to obtain an improper personal political benefit.

If publicly accusing a defendant of the specific offense for which he has been impeached, in virtually identical language as that impeachment, is not refusing to be impartial, what is? Harris, however, is far from alone.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii), who had rejected the presumption of innocence during the confirmation process for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has said she would vote to convict unless Trump could actually exonerate himself. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) says that the impeachment articles are supported by a wealth of undisputed facts. And Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) was even more direct, say that the case is clear: President Trump tried to trade away our national security for a personal political favor. As if reading directly from the same talking points, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) says that President Trump put our national security at risk in order to obtain political favors. And Senator Christopher Murphy (D., Conn) insists that the bottom line is this: President Trump abused his authority by using taxpayer funded aid to pressure a foreign government to help him win re-election in 2020.

Senate minority leader Charles Schumer, (D., N.Y.) has similarly attacked McConnell, accusing him of refusing to be impartial. Yet, as CNN has reported, leading up to President Bill Clintons impeachment trial, Schumer repeatedly said that the Senate is not like a jury box. Indeed, when running for the Senate in 1998, he asked people to vote for him precisely because he would be a vote to acquit Clinton.

Impartiality, anyone?

House Democrats rigged the rules to guarantee a pre-determined impeachment result. Now Senate Democrats are trying to rig the jury pool by trying to exclude senators not likely to convict. We all know how this is going to end. Try the impeachment and lets move on.

See the article here:
Liberals Keep Using the Word Impartiality, but It May Not Mean What They Think - National Review

Forty years ago, the federal Liberals were keeping their leader inside a bubble that their opponents wanted to burst.

That's because Pierre Trudeau and his party were in the midst of an election campaign, which saw them leading in the polls with a month to go before Election Day.

And the party was employing a so-called "peekaboo campaign" strategy that was seeminglybuilt around limiting Trudeau's exposure something Peter Mansbridge said wasamarked change from the previous election cycle.

"This year, with an apparent big lead, things are a lot different," Mansbridge reportedon The National on Jan. 18, 1980.

"Trudeau quietly reads from a prepared text, he rarely answers questions and his party platform still lacks detail."

Alan Frizzell, a pollster at Carleton University, said the lead the Liberals held did not ensure their eventual victory at the polls.

Noting the shift in thepolls that had then favoured the Liberals, Frizzell said a fickle electorate could easily movein a different direction.

"If it can swing one way, it can swing the other," he said.

The election outcome would all come down to what voters decided, of course, including whether they approved of the Liberals' campaign strategy.

"Surely, leaders can be judged on the basis of their unwillingness to speak to the issues and that's the risk they take if they choose a tactic that doesn't permit the voters to make an informed judgment on the basis of issues," said Fred Fletcher, a political science professor at York University.

The Liberals' strategy had been under some scrutiny before the campaign had reached its mid-point, however.

Earlier in January of 1980,CBC had reported on the Liberals'decision not toparticipate in a televised leaders' debate, leaving PC Leader Joe Clark and New Democrat Leader Ed Broadbent without a platform to square off against Trudeau.

Liberalstrategists had confirmed that doing so was a purposeful part of their campaign strategy.

Broadbent called the decision to skip the debate "the height of arrogance" andClark had then suggested the Liberals were "trying to induce Canadians to forget what Pierre Elliott Trudeau did during the 11 years he was prime minister."

Before 1980, Trudeau had led his party through four elections, winning three of them and serving as Canada's prime minister for almost allof the 1970s.

But the 1979 election saw the Progressive Conservatives take power in Ottawa as a minority government and Trudeau eventually stated plans to step down from politics.

His plans changed when Clark's government was defeated, triggering the 1980 election that returned Trudeau and the Liberals to power.

Excerpt from:
The 'peekaboo campaign' the Liberals hoped would return them to power - CBC.ca

There are always those people.

The people who revel in being the exception to the rule. The women who want everyone to know that they're "not like other girls" and in fact think male chauvinism is super great. The Republicans who hate Trump. Black people who don't believe racism exists. Former liberals who think "something" has just gone "too far."

If you're thirsting for a ton of positive attention, if you want to feel truly valued and special, it's certainly one way to go. If I were to suddenly become a Republican, accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior, declare feminism a societal evil, or oppose abortion, not only would I be endlessly showered with praise, but everything I said would be considered to be extra valid and extra validating to those praising me. I could be used as a weapon against those I used to agree with. People love that shit almost as much as they love unlikely animal friendships.

Yesterday, The New York Times ran an op-ed titled "I'm a Liberal Who Thinks Immigration Must Be Restricted," by one Jerry Kammer, a senior research fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. It was not good.

In this op-ed, Kammer explains that he opposes immigration because of how immigrants drive wages down, which he appears to think is a brand new argument and not a large part of the justification for many of our more embarrassing anti-immigration laws, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and moving forward. The act was a serious blight on the history of the labor movement, as it was supported by nearly every major union, with the notable exception of the Industrial Workers of the World.

He then pointed out that, once upon a time, other Democrats were also shitty on the issue of immigration, thereby justifying his own position today.

In 1970, Senator Walter Mondale warned that "we have a massive poverty population coming into the country" from Mexico. In 1983 a New York Times editorial argued that while the country needed immigrants, "what it does not need is such an uncontrollable flood of illegal migrants that it tries public patience." In 1994, Barbara Jordan, the civil rights icon chosen by President Bill Clinton to direct the Federal Commission on Immigration Reform, told Congress, "As a nation of immigrants committed to the rule of law, this country must set limits on who can enter." In 2003, Hillary Clinton declared that she was "adamantly against illegal immigration."

But by the time Mrs. Clinton was running for president in 2016, she was courting the Latino vote, pledging not to deport unauthorized immigrants who did not have criminal records.

Yeah, see, that's the thing about being a progressive as opposed to a conservative. Your views change over time and you learn and grow and you try to get better. Or at least that's what we all hope to do.

He also danced around suggesting that part of the reason immigration is bad is because it causes, ahem, "anxiety" and "social division" and "societal fracturing."

In Phoenix I spoke with Donna Neill, a volunteer organizer in a working-class neighborhood and the driving force in the construction of a park that was used primarily by immigrant children. Nevertheless, she supported Proposition 200.

She pointed to crowded classrooms, apartments where two or three families crammed into a space meant for one and home additions in violation of housing codes that went unenforced. "We're losing the simple things that make a society a society, but no one wants to step forward because they're afraid of crossing some line and being called a racist," said Ms. Neill.

And what line would that be? Why are these people so anxious? What exactly are the "simple things that make a society a society"? It sure seems like a lot of things have been glossed over here in service of trying to make racist people look like they are not racist.

Which, actually, is not all that surprising given that the Center for Immigration Studies, where Kammer works, is a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group known for promoting the work of white supremacists. In fact, a study conducted by the SPLC found that the CIS had promoted white supremacist material 2,012 times with much of it coming from VDARE, John Derbyshire and American Renaissance, the site owned by white supremacist Jared Taylor.

Now, Kammer can call himself a liberal, or, as he says, a "moderate Democrat," just like I can call myself a banana. He can even vote for Democrats if he likes, who am I to stop him? But despite my distaste for gatekeeping I'm going to say that working for an actual hate group pretty much disqualifies anyone from actually being a liberal in practice.

If he is truly so concerned about labor, if that is his first priority, there are many things he can do and and advocate for that don't involve attacking immigrants or working for a think tank that frequently links race and IQ.

Via the SPLC:

Oh. So if nothing else, all the CIS fellows could get Bret Stephens's job. A free pair of calipers comes with it!

[New York Times]

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More here:
Meet The NYT's 'Anti-Immigration Liberal' (Hint He Works At A Hate Group!) - Wonkette

Trumps allegations are not new he has sporadically claimed for years that the Democratic establishment sought to undermine Sanders in 2016, as have Sanders own supporters but they come as Trump has accelerated his offensive against the Vermont senator, who continues to show strength in early polling.

Earlier this week, Trump sought to play up a feud between Sanders and Warren, who are battling for progressive voters, and his campaign has begun to single Sanders out in press releases and on social media more often rather than focusing more exclusively on Biden.

Trump has also recently stepped up his attacks on former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is pouring money into TV ads attacking Trump to boost his late-start bid.

But Sanders rejected Trump's "attempts to divide Democrats" in a statement Friday evening.

Lets be clear about who is rigging what: it is Donald Trumps action to use the power of the federal government for his own political benefit that is the cause of the impeachment trial," he said. "His transparent attempts to divide Democrats will not work, and we are going to unite to sweep him out of the White House in November.

When the trial begins in earnest on Tuesday, all senators will be required to attend each day of the proceedings for as long as they last.

But Sanders isnt the only 2020 candidate who will be kept off the campaign trail as the impeachment trial drags on.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whom polls have shown is within striking distance in Iowa; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who is hoping for a come-from-behind victory in the Hawkeye State, and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a longshot who has placed more stock in the New Hampshire primaries in less than a month, will all be sidelined by the proceedings.

The trial could be a huge boon to White House hopefuls like Biden and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who are clustered with Sanders and Warren at the top of the field. The senators currently running for president have all expressed disappointment at being kept off the campaign trail while pledging to fulfill their constitutional obligations and sending surrogates to campaign on their behalf.

Go here to read the rest:
Trump accuses Dems of using impeachment trial to hurt Sanders campaign - POLITICO

Winston Churchill supposedly said: Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else. In his new book, Andrew Bacevich goes far towards proving the second half of that sentence and casts doubt on the first, without offering much in the way of alternatives.

In what is mostly a social history of the post-cold war era dont expect to find an analysis of the Balkan wars Bacevich seeks to chronicle how the US wasted little time in squandering the advantage it had gained. Few would disagree.

Yet he defines Americas supposed post-cold war consensus as globalized neoliberalism, global leadership, freedom (as the expansion of personal autonomy, with traditional moral prohibitions declared obsolete and the removal of constraints maximizing choice), and presidential supremacy. The 2016 election, he writes, presented the repudiation of that very consensus.

The villains in this telling are the elites who pushed the consensus heedless of other views or interests expectations raised, but unfulfilled; outraged citizens left with no place to stand to the point where Donald Trump was elected and no one could understand why.

In 2016, he writes, financial impotence was to turn into political outrage, bringing the post-cold war era to an abrupt end. As for the people who shop for produce at Whole Foods, wear vintage jeans and ski in Aspen, they never saw it coming and couldnt believe it when it occurred.

Bacevich argues that the seeds of this failure were present throughout the cold war, notably in Vietnam and Ross Perots insurgent White House run in 1992. But how could there ever have been a consensus if the country were so divided?

We have been here before, both in the history of the US and of ideology. Post-1989 featured the same universal self-congratulation and flinging up of caps that Thomas Carlyle critiqued in The French Revolution. Bacevich is right to criticize it again. But it is surely wrong to claim, for instance, that Reagans entire presidency was a pseudo-event, its achievements based on the masterful creation and manipulation of images. Mikhail Gorbachev, for one, doesnt think so.

Acerbic, even curmudgeonly his catalogue of Americas social ills is harsh but fair Bacevich veers between the commonplace and the sarcastic. The promotion of globalization included a generous element of hucksterism, he writes, the equivalent of labeling a large cup of strong coffee a grande dark roast while referring to the server handing it to you as a barista.

Clearly, for those who favor an expansive role for America and the west, and operating according to the principles of grand statecraft, the post-cold war years were the years the locust has eaten. Social mobility declined. The plight of the poor worsened. But JD Vance wrote more sensitively about this in Hillbilly Elegy and Bacevich adds little on either the wars or the peace.

Even if the Donald Rumsfeld-endorsed, technology-friendly Revolution in Military Affairs only purported to describe the culmination of a long evolutionary march toward perfection, which great power today does not rely on technology for military might? And what, other than isolationism, would preclude the possibility of another Vietnam?

Similarly, even as he chronicles their failures Bacevich is harshly critical of the view that presidents direct history. Abraham Lincoln, call your office. FDR too.

The elites Bacevich chides had many faults, and no president of the period left office fully content. But sometimes the authors strategy, as well as his history, is simply wrong.

The horrors of 9/11 notwithstanding, he writes, terrorism does not pose an existential threat to the United States and never has. As innumerable commentators have noted, terrorism is merely a tactic, and an ancient one at that.

Yet one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day, as the bumper sticker read, and any leader is responsible for maintaining vigilance. Which threats can be ignored? Air piracy? Chemical weapons? Nuclear smuggling? Bacevich never offers what he would do to states harboring terrorists, even while noting failures in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The book starts out critical of Trump but then takes a more nuanced position. Chiding Barack Obama as the one who saved globalized neoliberalism and inadvertently laid the way for a powerful backlash, he says Trumps detractors commit this categorial error. They confuse cause and effect. They charge him with dividing America. Yet which other recent president attacked fellow citizens so harshly and took delight in smashing the norms of political debate?

Bacevich focuses on the neoconservative project in terms of wars but ignores its Burkean focus on domestic policy, not least David Brooks idea of national greatness conservatism, a very different thing than Maga. John McCain, who articulated a similar vision of national purpose, and whose policies were designed to help Joe the Plumber far more than Trump has, gets one brief mention.

Some people saw what was happening and sought to answer the question Rabbit Angstrom asked and Bacevich cites: Without the cold war, whats the point of being an American? They were ignored.

Bacevich now urges Americans to ignore the tweets and focus on events. But the tweets are events, the way in which the old guardrails are broken down and the boundaries of legitimate discourse weakened, which has let loose some very dangerous ideas, not least on race and republican norms. A tweet is not a notification to Congress under the War Powers Act.

Despite Bacevichs call for conversation on issues formerly beyond the pale such as abandoning globalism and militarism, his book has a fatal weakness: he never quite says what or who he is for. He is too good a historian not to know there was a tendency of anti-anti-communism during the cold war. Perhaps his book is about anti-anti-Trumpism. But the pale is there for a reason

One hopes some future historian will find the seeds of success in our present troubles. Meanwhile, Americans must pick up the pieces as best they can.

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The Age of Illusions review: anti-anti-Trump but for what, exactly? - The Guardian