Bombshell Lev Parnas Interview

Here are just four segments from Rachel Maddow's bombshell interview with Rudy "You Have a Fool For a Lawyer" Giuliani's "associate" Lev Parnas on MSNBC last night.

"Trump knew exactly what was going on."



Vice President Mike "Dense" Pence was tasked with getting the Ukrainian President to announce an investigation into the Bidens.



Attorney General Trump attorney William "Low" Barr was also in the loop.



Surprise not surprised!  Festering weasel Rep. Devin Nunes and his aide Derek Harvey were involved with Giuliani's "drug deal," too.



The Republican Party, and specifically the Trump regime, is a crime organization, pure and simple. Which is why this is also true:

This Lev Parnas interview with @maddow is kinda like if one of the Watergate burglars had gone on the MacNeil Lehrer Report in '74 and directly implicated Nixon and his staff, at least if you imagine that interview would be ignored and change no one's mind.

— Orin Kerr (@OrinKerr) January 16, 2020

NOTE:  The interview continues tonight on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC at 9 p.m. Eastern time.

QOTD -- Impeachment Day

On the day the House of Representatives is expected to impeach malignant moron Donald "Rump" Trump, this is an excerpt from a letter signed by more than 1,500 American historians:

President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what the Framers had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president. Among those most hurtful to the Constitution have been his attempts to coerce the country of Ukraine, under attack from Russia, an adversary power to the United States, by withholding essential military assistance in exchange for the fabrication and legitimization of false information in order to advance his own re-election.

President Trump’s lawless obstruction of the House of Representatives, which is rightly seeking documents and witness testimony in pursuit of its constitutionally-mandated oversight role, has demonstrated brazen contempt for representative government. So have his attempts to justify that obstruction on the grounds that the executive enjoys absolute immunity, a fictitious doctrine that, if tolerated, would turn the president into an elected monarch above the law.

 No need to wait for the judgement of history;  it's already here.

QOTD -- Fighting For Truth

"It’s easy to play the political odds and avoid taking action on Trump’s lawlessness because doing so won’t add to the 53 percent who’ve known the president is unfit from Day One but will rile up Trump voters in Michigan and Wisconsin, by reminding them to hate the law professors and the journalists and the liberals. Such thinking is easy ... but wrong. Do we want to be a people liberated by the truth or imprisoned by fear of telling it?

"The fix is in regarding Trump’s political verdict in the Senate, but the verdict of the history books — if history books and science and colleges can survive the coming (bleep) storm — is still undetermined. Did we acquiesce to the slaughter of the truth that’s currently taking place in Washington, or did we fight back? Only the courageous will be remembered by our great-grandchildren." -- Will Bunch in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer, on the impeachment and the fight for truth.

Forget Republican Spin: Why They'll Vote To Impeach Obama In 2015

Michael Tomasky on why he wouldn't be surprised if Republicans mount an impeachment effort after the November elections, even if they know they would not get the necessary votes to convict in the Senate:

... The question here is, what’s the point in their minds of impeaching him? If it is a rational point—to remove the high misdemeanant from office—then the above scenario holds water. But I think the point isn’t rational; it’s emotional. To punish him for daring to act like the president. Hoist that big historical asterisk skyward and place it next to his name. Try to ensure that future generations see his as a less-than-legitimate presidency. And, not least, get their right-wing kum-ba-yah-yah’s out, give the base a song they can really dance to.  [snip] 

I can hear the rationalistas: no way they’d do it. They’re too smart for that. They know it didn’t work last time. They’ll be too mindful that it might hurt them in 2016. I say nonsense to all that. They’ll do it because it’s who they are. They keep showing us who they are. Someday, Washington might actually believe them.  (our emphasis)

Tomasky addresses the problem with the Republican- wired Beltway media buying the Republican spin, people like Politic-hos' Mike "Payola" Allen,  NBC's Chuck "Not My Job" Todd, and the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle's "politics- is- only- a- horse- race" tout Chris "The Lizard" Cillizza. These are some of the clowns who willfully and regularly catapult right-wing talking points into the "mainstream media," the latest one being that "Democrats are the only ones talking about impeachment!"  Bullshit.

Come next February or so, let's see who's right about the intent of the Republican crazy caucus:  the blinkered,  Republican- wired Beltway political "ho's" "pros" or Tomasky and the rest of us.

Today's Cartoons - Impeachment Twofer

(click to enlarge)

(Jim Morin, The Miami Herald)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Lust For Impeachment"

E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes today that, given the madness gripping the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party, talk of President Obama's impeachment cannot be taken lightly:

Yes, Democrats are happy to use the danger that the House will go there, by way of dramatizing the GOP’s refusal to work with Obama on issue after issue and the right wing’s open hatred for a president they cast simultaneously as a power-hungry lawbreaker and a weak steward of the nation’s interests. But the underlying cause is a breakdown among conservatives of the norms and habits that governing requires in a system of separated powers.  

The last time the country reelected a Democratic president, House Republicans impeached him despite strong public opposition. With many in the ranks already clamoring for a replay of those glory days, it’s fair to wonder if Boehner will hold fast and resist the impeachment crowd this time. His record in facing down his right wing is not encouraging.  (our emphasis)

Between their utter ignorance of Constitutional law and the din from their lizard-brained, tea bagger base, Republicans have already demonstrated the capacity for making the most outrageous threats and taking the most extreme actions when it comes to this President, as Dionne demonstrates in his op/ed (including their lawsuit stunt, see posting below).

Salon's Kim Messick does a good job of analyzing the forces that have led the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party, and especially its most rabid purists, to this point:

Because the Tea Party — really just the most feverish and obdurate part of the Republican “base” — has decided that there are worse things than losing elections. Having been told for years that its resentments are righteous and that the righteous must give no quarter to the wicked — no compromises! no negotiations! — it has quite reasonably opted to stand on “principle” ( as Ted Cruz puts it) even if this means coming up short at the ballot box. To put this point just a bit differently, it no longer thinks of governing as its primary purpose. It would like to govern, of course; it has an agenda, one it longs to enact; but its principal concern is to preserve its identity as the last redoubt of “pure” Americanism.

Messick notes the forces at play:

The party is now riven into three parts: a donor class that, like the rank-and-file, mainly wants to win elections and to govern the country in a (relatively) responsibly conservative way; a ferocious cell of right-wing fabulists that prefers defeat to the slightest modulation in its hatred of the modern world; and a network of entertainers and “journalists” with an entrepreneurial investment in promoting the second group at the expense of the first. 

That's why Dionne and many of us remain dubious that this impeachment contagion can be isolated; there are just too many carriers, too many interested in keeping the rhetoric amped up for these yahoos to be satisfied with a lawsuit that's not likely to do any damage to the President.

Today's Dispatches From The Stupid Party - Platform Edition

'Tis  the season for crafting party platforms, with an eye toward local, State and Federal elections coming up this fall.  Two such platforms, by the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party in Texas and South Dakota, have some provisions worth noting.

What's Texas, home of creepy Open Carry gun fondlers and "do- these-glasses- make- me- look- smart?" Gov. Rick "Oops" Perry, thinkin'?

The latest platform calls for securing the border with Mexico, offering no amnesty for anyone in the country illegally and ending in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants.  [snip] 

The Texas Republican Party, which says "homosexuality tears at the fabric of society," also approved a policy of "reparative therapy" for gays that seek to change sexual orientation through counseling.  (our emphasis)

They seem nice.  If only there was "reparative therapy" for Republicans to restore their humanity.

How about South Dakota Republicans?  What are you resolvin' out there?

"Therefore, be it resolved that the South Dakota Republican Party calls on our U.S. Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States," the resolution reads, according to the Argus Leader. 

Allen Unruh, the delegate who sponsored the resolution, said he had a "thick book on impeachable offenses of the president." He called on South Dakota to "send a symbolic message that liberty shall be the law of the land."  (our emphasis)

Wethinks that "thick book" may have landed on Mr. Unruh's head at least a couple of times.  We have a message for the heretofore unheralded Constitutional scholar Unruh and his fellow dimbulbs:  Please proceed!

The "New Normal" In The Republican Party

Charles P. Pierce on the "new normal" in the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party -- impeaching President Obama (or, more accurately, pretending to be serious about impeaching President Obama):

So, anyway, this happened. [impeachment chatter among House Rethuglicans]

Be advised. The United States House of Representatives -- one-half of the national legislature, which is one third-of the national government, if you're keeping score in civics class -- exists now solely to gin up enthusiasm in, and to raise money from, the increasingly demented political base of the Republican party. It is a campaign mechanism, not a governing institution. If it were a governing institution, it would have actual leaders who would tell the more demented members of firm to knock this pointless shit off and get on with the business of proposing policy alternatives as part of the business of running the country.

Lest there be any doubt in your mind that this is a cottage industry grifting the bitter, low-information wingnut population, just type in "Impeach Obama" in Google Images and check out the plethora of bumper stickers, mugs, etc., available for sale to these yahoos.  Once you get past that, consider the fundraising going on now in the looniest precincts of America using the meme of "Obama The Tyrant," or some feverish variation on that theme.  Sic transit gloria, America.

(Photo:  Question - if combined, do these two make one wit?)

Sunday Reads

Today's WaPo has several items worth noting: a front page article "The Rise of Jeri Thompson," which profiles Leghorn's "trophy" second wife; and "The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make," an op/ed by Michael Tomasky on the politics of impeachment.

First, the article on Mrs. Leghorn reveals a few tasty tidbits that should endear her to the "true conservatives" that ex-Sen. Leghorn hopes to rally to him. Following her 2002 marriage to the then-59-year-old Leghorn, 35-year-old Jeri Kehn returned to her hometown, Naperville, IL:

"It was a triumphal return for Kehn, who had left Naperville for college and spent most of her 20s biding her time in Nashville without a clear career path, living with a boyfriend whose main claim to fame was getting arrested in Red Square for unfurling a pizza-parlor banner in the last days of the Cold War. Kehn left three court judgments behind her in Nashville, one of which remains unpaid today, and a court twice garnished her wages."

Whooo-eee! A would-be Rethug First Lady scofflaw, fornicatin' an' all! Love them Republican values!

The Tomasky piece lays out the case that attempting to impeach Chimpy and President Dead-Eye Dick would not only fail, but be far more damaging to the progressive movement:

"Bush and Cheney -- and conservatism in general -- have wrecked our civic institutions and darkened our civic impulses. Nothing is beyond politicization...When everything is subordinate to politics, civic institutions and impulses suffer. But impeachment isn't the way to rebuild civic culture; indeed, it would do its own kind of harm...It would damage liberalism's prospects in the long run because unlike conservatism, liberalism depends on and is predicated on civic trust."

It's an op/ed well worth reading and for Democrats to seriously consider when talk of impeachment arises.