New York State of Mind

Although New York State had gubernatorial and senatorial primaries last week, the focus was mostly on U.S. House primaries, particularly Democratic primaries, where competition was fierce.  (Senator Schumer and Governor Hochul won their primaries easily.)

Representative Carolyn Maloney, above, was pitted against Representative Jerrold Nadler in the same U.S. House district in New York City thanks to redistricting.  It turns out that the two Democratic House members can't stand each other ,and the fight was bitter between the two powerful Democrats, Maloney chair of the House Oversight Committee and Nadler chair of the House Judiciary Committee.  Nalder won, and many of Maloney's supporters blame her loss on sexism.  Right. And if Nadler had lost, someone would blame it on anti-Semitism.

While one Maloney lost, another Maloney won. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democratic congressman representing an upstate district and the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, fended off a challenge from Alessandra Biaggi, a progressive Democrat backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who decided that the gay Maloney wasn't "woke enough" and wanted an outsider to replace him. Outsider, hell: Alessandra Biaggi's grandfather was a New York congressman.  

In the 19th U.S, House district, Democratic Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan won a special election to complete an unexpired term running on the need to preserve legal abortion, which suggests that abortion my be a really big issue in the midterms after all.  Ryan's hometown of Kingston, however, will be shifted to the 18th U.S. House District come January; he won the primary to run for that seat in November. 

It'll be very interesting to see how things work out in the midterms.  One thing we don't have to worry about as far as the Republican side is concerned: Noted fascist Carl Paladino lost his bid for the House seat of the 23rd House district.  

No Holds Barred

Attorney General William Barr (below) testified before the House Judiciary Committee this past Tuesday, and I'll give him this much - despite fears to the contrary, he showed up.

But as to the question of whether the Democrats or Barr and his fellow Republicans made the case for Barr's heavy-handed response to people demonstrating against racial injustice,  his recommendation against a seven-to-nine year jail sentence for Roger Stone, or the Russia probe investigation, I fear that Barr and his congressional allies may have made the better arguments - mainly by lying and obfuscating at loud volumes and with righteous indignation.  Barr defended his recommendation on Stone's prison sentence, citing his age, and he maintained that force from the civilian government agents in Portland was necessary to protect the courthouse from the more violent elements of the demonstrations, whose rights to free speech he supported so long as they were peaceful.  And GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee backed him up with their spins on the issues, as well as displaying  eager anticipation of the report on the Russia probe investigation. 

The Democrats landed some effective punches, such as Representative Jerrold Nadler (NY) citing the mothers, veterans and public officials that make up many of the peaceful demonstrators against racial injustice, as well as Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (TX) going after Barr for not hiring any black aides while trying to sound sanctimonious in invoking the recently deceased John Lewis (still lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda during the hearing).  Democratic Representative Joe Neguse (CO) even got Barr to suggest that former New York District Attorney Geoffrey Berman resigned without knowing it, a preposterous idea.  But Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his opening salvo in the form of an eight-minute montage video that contrasted TV news reporters and commentators talking about "peaceful demonstrators" with scenes of violent confrontations seemed to overshadow all that.  And why not?  It had more noise and chaos than another famous eight-minute montage, "Revolution 9."

Take this, brother, may it serve you well.

Democratic Representative David Cicilline (RI) countered Jordan's video montage with one of his own, showing still pictures from the same demonstrations featuring peaceful protesters.  Too bad one of those still pictures - which aren't as effective as videos - showed one demonstrator holding up a sing with an obscenity on it.

It was left to CNN's Jake Tapper to point out that Jordan had marshaled and edited clips for his video selectively without offering the comments from reporters and commentators about peaceful demonstrators in their proper context, with Tapper showed the original news clips to illustrate that these reporters and commentators, some of whom were Tapper's coworkers, were saying that the demonstrations mostly peaceful but turned violent when provoked by federal agents.  Yes, but how many people are going to pay attention to Jake Tapper? Jordan's' tactic was slimy propaganda but smart politics.

Hopefully, a few days or so will shed more light on how evasive and arrogant Barr and his Republican defenders were and make them look more preposterous than they already do.  But for Trump supporters - still comprising two-fifths of the electorate, making them a dangerous, large minority - evasion and arrogance are badges of honor. 

Impeachment

Get it?

Now that Trump has been impeached, the Democrats have won the battle but have not yet won the war.  The might find the end of this war to be like Waterloo, and not from Wellington's perspective.  They have history and duty on their side, with House leaders Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler convinced they have Trump dead to rights, but the Senate's Republican majority is already trying to figure out how to concoct a show trial that will allow Trump to be acquitted while Trump and his minions on his campaign and at the Republican National Committee figure out how to destroy the Democratic Party once and for all in 2020 and consign it Whig-like extinction.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already anticipating that, and she's reportedly holding back on referring the indictment to the Senate, where Mitch McConnell is already planning to strike the final blow against the Democratic opposition.  Mitch is already planning how to decimate Amy McGrath, his likely Democratic opponent in Kentucky's Senate election next year, and he must relish the idea of doing the same to Pelosi simultaneously.  The Speaker has been known to outwit many an opponent, but McConnell is not an opponent.  He's a mortal enemy, and in him she may yet meet her match.        

Meanwhile, the Republicans are sure to raise money over the impeachment vote, giving them more  dough than they need.  Democrats are likely to get money from their biggest supporters, which means they'll get checks in figures without a lot of zeroes at the end, thus pointing to a financial disadvantage.  Joe Biden is already campaigning against Trump as if he's already the nominee-in-waiting, not because he's convinced he's going to win the nomination but because he wants to frame the argument against Trump early, whether he's the nominee or not.  Biden is showing how dangerous to democracy and the rule of law Trump is.  That said, how many people will really care if we continue to have a booming stock market and low unemployment, even if the Dow numbers and job statistics are grossly misleading?  This, sadly, is nothing new for the majority of voters in These States, who continue to vote their pocketbooks for leaders who take their oaths on Bibles. :-(  

Impeachment Ho? Impeachment, WHOA!

The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Representative Jerold Nadler (D-NY), below, begins its hearings on impeaching Trump, in the hope of drawing up articles of impeachment that center on abuse of power and bribing foreign nationals.  This will put the Trump trail on a very fast track.

Except for one thing- the House Intelligence Committee still has a lot of work to do, because new leads point toward more corruption.

New details are emerging about more shady deals to help Trump, including calls from Rudolph Giuliani to the Office and Management and Budget and connections between Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, and the key players in the Ukraine scandal.  But the Intelligence Committee, while promising to continue further investigations, doesn't seem to want to hold more hearings for the time being, preferring instead to let the Judiciary Committee take the lead.  MSNBCs Howard Fineman compared what the Democrats are doing to catching a whale instead of a big fish and being reluctant to reel it in.  Instead of finishing the job, the House Intelligence Committee seems to be closing the case without exposing more corruption that could get more Americans to side with their pursuit of impeachment  - because of political concerns over the 2020 election campaign.  Meanwhile, the Republicans relentlessly campaign against impeachment with a message of a witch hunt base on a disagreement with Trump's Ukraine policy . . . with the powerful and persuasive marketing savvy that got Reagan elected President twice and Al Gore deposed after being elected President fairly.  Not only are the Democrats' chances of winning the Presidency and the Senate in doubt, so are their chances of holding the House.   

The Democrats are among the most pathetic bunch of Keystone Kops I've ever seen. Damaging Trump and possibly destroying him going forward into 2020 should be easy as 1, 2, 3, but by looking at it as a political rather than as a constitutional matter, they've already managed to screw it up to the point of making it as complex as πr².  The American people are now less enamored with impeachment, and if the Democrats blow the 2020 election, I'll be much less enamored with them.

If that's possible.  

Tell Me I'm Not Dreaming!

My, oh my, oh my, what have we here?

Donald John Trump, the man currently calling 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington his home, called the president of Ukraine to say that he could get the missiles he wanted for the Ukrainian armed forces provided he try to . . . dig up dirt on a political opponent?  And Trump's bragging about it?

In case you have been under a rock lately, Trump did just that, and a whistleblower who remains anonymous filed a compliant that the Trumpster was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" by trying to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings of Joe Biden's son and especially as to whether the former Vice President inappropriately intervened in Hunter Biden's affairs on his behalf.  Instead of getting Biden in hot water - who was in trouble already because of Elizabeth Warren's surge in Democratic presidential primary polls - Trump got himself into deep rhymes-with-voodoo.  This story was all Nancy Patricia Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, needed to allow a for an impeachment inquiry to go forward.  And although this allows House Democrats to get information they'd tried to obtain before on semi-unrelated matters, Pelosi is keeping the focus squarely on Trump's attempts to have Ukraine influence the 2020 presidential election - because the American people can understand that!

You know Trump is in trouble when even House Democrats from vulnerable swing districts - including my congresswoman, Mikie Sherrill - support an impeachment inquiry.  Thanks to Trump's brazenness, a majority of House members - not just a majority of House Democrats, a majority of House members (though all but one of them are Democrats) - now support the inquiry.  House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler's investigation into Trump is no longer a sideline.  It's his main business. However, Adam Schiff, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, will be doing a good deal of heavy lifting, with this involving national security and all . . .

And we've already found out this much - Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr tried to lock down the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call and remove it from the computer file where transcripts to calls to foreign leaders are stored.

And what does this all mean for Joe Biden?

Well, it depends on how he handles it.  Given that the American people are in no mood for a bold liberal experiment to make the United States more like a European country, with all of the nice things such a country has, Biden, whose most radical policy proposal is to modernize Amtrak, is likely still the best shot the Democrats have to beat Trump.  The stiff challenge he currently faces from Elizabeth Warren is less about his son's business dealings than it is about his own mistakes and missteps.  Bear in mind, though, that there is no evidence that Hunter Biden did anything wrong or that his dad tried to help him or obstruct justice in any way.  It's just a rumor.  And if it is in fact the case that there's nothing to see here, Biden should just come out and say so and then move on.

He didn't do so well, though, when a Fox News reporter asked him about Hunter and the former Vice President tried to do what Trump always does - change the subject.  I winced when he dodged the question, recalling Gary Hart's arrogant attempt to dodge the question as to whether he committed infidelity when reporter Paul Taylor asked it.  And if Biden wants to nip this in the bud, the last thing he should do is respond with a carefully crafted, lawyerly statement - as Hart had done with his sex scandal - because first of all, Biden is incapable of doing that anyway, and second of all, there'll likely be reporters who can find an opening to go after him on, as Paul Taylor did after Hart denied having done anything "immoral" with the future Trump supporter who went into his Washington townhouse.  ("Do you think adultery is immoral?"  "Yes."  "Have you ever committed adultery?"  You know the rest.)

My guess is that Biden will be fine.  After all, there's more evidence against Trump trying to get a foreign government to look into an alleged illegality on the Bidens' part than there is of the allegation.  Just as long as Biden's denial, whatever form it may take, isn't plagiarized from someone else.

Yes, I went there . . .

Oh, was there a United Nations General Assembly this week?

This Is Big!

U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, is going ahead with an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump.

Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, confirmed that, despite what Nancy Pelosi says, his committee is looking into evidence and information regarding Trump's finances and his possible (likely?) ties with Russia to see if any articles of impeachment ought to be brought to the House floor.

"This is formal impeachment proceedings," Nadler told CNN.  "We are investigating all the evidence, we're gathering the evidence. And we will at the conclusion of this - hopefully by the end of the year - vote to vote articles of impeachment to the House floor. Or we won't. That’s a decision that we'll have to make. But that's exactly the process we're in right now."

And the House Judiciary Committee already has access to some of Trump's financial records, despite Trump's attempt to keep them under lock and key.  Further information could come from testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn, whom the House Judiciary Committee is aggressively pursuing for an appearance to answer questions.  Nadler has made it clear that his probe may not lead to a recommendation of impeachment, but with a majority of House Democrats favoring impeachment and with unforeseen information on Trump yet to come out, don't count on Trump getting off scot-free.  Something has to give. 

Abandon All Hope

Hope Hicks, the former aide to Donald Trump, used to be a model, and she was not one of those famous star models who stand out as unique icons of fashion and beauty.  Hope Hicks was one of those small-time models you see in a magazine or on a book cover who come across as nameless, lifeless faces.  You don't know who they are or what they're like; they're just ciphers who stare back blankly from the page, have no identity and communicate nothing.

Which is exactly how she proved to be in real life when she testified before the House Judiciary  Committee about Trump in a closed-door session.

Backed by White House lawyers and advisers, Hicks refused to say anything that Trump didn't want out in official testimony.  She proved to be just as mute when she entered and left the committee room, reporters failing to get much out of her.  Calvin Coolidge said more when, replying to a woman at a White House dinner who said she'd bet a friend she could get the President to say at least three words, said, "You lose!"   

As did the House Judiciary Committee, which was unable to get Hicks on record or on camera refusing to go on record.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler sees a blessing in disguise, though, because he thinks that Hicks' stonewalling will make it easier for a judge to force the White House to comply. Maybe.  But perhaps that's the reason why Trump is packing the courts - to make sure there are judges who do not allow that to happen.

And, like Hope Hicks, they're probably not going to say much.      

81 and It's On

Donald Trump will have to give up being President in peace for Lent.  House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has asked for documents from 81 individuals and entities related to Trump's business interests, and the White House is already calling it a fishing expedition.  In fact, Nadler is only doing in 2019 what the House Republican majority should have been doing in 2017 and 2018 - looking at suspicious, alert-causing behavior that may or may not lead to evidence of wrongdoing and obstruction of justice.  In other words, congressional oversight.

Nadler, in other words, is making up for lost time.  This means that he's going to have to do four years' worth of oversight in two years' time, and if he doesn't find anything explosive - and maybe even if he does find something explosive - it's going to look like an excessive, vindictive campaign against Trump by the Democrats . . . that is, a witch hunt.  The Democrats can inoculate themselves from such charges if they do this right.  All Nadler has to say is, "We're making up for lost time."

And then they have to talk about health care.