Blue Mass Group

My favorite arguments against impeachment:

1. The Dems can’t defeat Trump in 2020 so they have to resort to impeachment. REALITY: All of the leading Democrats currently lead Trump by nearly TEN POINTS.

2. There is no direct evidence against Trump; it’s all hearsay. REALITY: There are multiple testimonies of direct evidence witnesses from Sondland to Vindman and many others. In addition, there are multiple corroborating and contemporaneous documents that also are direct evidence. Finally, this argument is absurd, since Trump confessed publicly (legally, an ‘admission’), and also released the call notes, which show an obvious act of extortion.

3. Trump was just concerned about corruption in Ukraine. REALITY: Trump showed no interest in corruption in Ukraine in 2017-18, but of all countries and people on earth, it’s a coincidence that he happened to focus on his domestic political opponent. ABSURD. Finally, Trump and Giuliani are aligned with the forces in Ukraine that are aligned with Russia and are corrupt. Anyone with any knowledge of the region knows this. Read More…

In an ideal world, people evolve and grow. Our actions are based on the historical period and political climate in which we live, and I don’t think we should punish politicians who take in new data, and change their minds. But hypocrisy is among the characteristics I find most loathsome, and when we hold ourselves out to a be a paragon of virtue (or, progressive ideals), while failing to mention our own limitations, it irks me no end. That is why I’m left shaking my head at the fundraising duo of Schumer and Markey.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is scheduled to be in Boston on Thursday to help Senator Ed Markey at a fundraising event. On the surface I don’t like it – just as many progressives were up in arms about the Democratic Party allegedly favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Presidential Primary, I don’t like to see party leadership put their thumb on the scale like that. But when I paused to consider their histories, it made me even more unhappy.

In 1994, then-Representative Ed Markey voted for the now-infamous Crime Bill. Worse yet, then-Representative Chuck Schumer championed it. He fought for it. As Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice, Chuck Schumer wrangled Republicans and liberal Democrats alike to get the 1994 Crime Bill passed. Democrats at the time were accused of “rushing to the right” on crime. Then-called “liberal Democrats” (aka “progressives”) felt that the heavy emphasis on punishment was a problem. The ACLU was appropriately outraged at the implications for communities of color and social justice. This was the law that created the 3-strike rule (mandating life imprisonment for federal crimes), expanded the number of crimes punishable by death from 2 to more than 60, elevated drug-related crimes to warrant more severe punishments, increased funding to build more prisons by billions of dollars, and eliminated higher education for incarcerated individuals, among other things. It fueled mass incarceration in this country, an issue most affecting communities of color (and black men, in particular). At the time, Chuck Schumer said, “Those on the left are wringing their hands, but they’re going to wind up voting for the bill.” (In fairness, he also noted that Republicans were unhappy, for the opposite reason.)

Then-Representative Schumer was right – the progressive (then-“liberal”) wing of the party voted for it, including the full MA delegation. This is not an issue specific to only Senator Schumer or Markey. But it is an issue that warrants more careful shading of Senator Markey’s progressive record.  It is a reason for him to speak out about it now. And it is a reason to stop pretending that Senator Markey is a progressive angel, who is alone in his ability to deliver on progressive ideals. I’d like to hear a lot more (anything?) from Senator Markey on this issue, the sooner the better.

 

Worth reading on the topic:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-mass-incarceration-crisis

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/25/nyregion/schumer-and-d-amato-try-to-out-tough-each-other-on-crime.html

Full disclosure: I am a volunteer for Joe Kennedy and have voted for Ed Markey.

With sycophantic senators like Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Senator Richard Burr (disgracefully) of North Carolina, running around parroting Russian propaganda about Ukraine interfering in the American election of 2016 – an absurd theory that has been debunked repeatedly by our own intelligence agencies – it is more apparent than ever that the Democrats are going to be far more electable if they nominate Joe Biden.

I put my own keister on the line spending over a year in Central Asia working for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs on elections, civil society, media, and women’s programs, as well as conducting later trainings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Colombia.

Among other challenges in Central Asia, an Al-Qaeda allied group was leafleting my street in Dushanbe regularly. Much more importantly, President Putin was already putting pressure on the various Central Asian presidents to crack down on any foreign organizations that had been invited in by the small Central Asian governments if they were running any kind of trainings explaining how government worked in the West. The only candidate who would be fully prepared to understand such an experience and run US foreign policy on his first day is Joe Biden.

Unlike virtually all of the other Democrats running, Joe Biden has deep first-hand experience and knowledge about not only the modern foreign policy of the United States, but also of the historical antecedents that led to it.

For many years, Joe Biden was an innovative thinker in foreign policy matters, not at all the rubber stamp for US foreign intervention that some on the left caricature him as.

For example, while others were just advocating withdrawal from Iraq – which ultimately resulted in the emergence of ISIS/Daesh – by contrast Joe Biden was trying to find ways to strengthen local governments in Iraq such as increasing federalism so that local Sunni chieftains in Anbar province would have more of a say in what happened to the oil underneath their tribal lands, thereby giving them a natural incentive to oppose ISIS.

Most of the other candidates who would stand on a debate stage with Donald Trump just don’t have that depth of experience in many parts of the world beyond the Middle East, and it will show.

So beyond the importance of uniting the Democratic Party and bringing together the African-American community with white liberals and progressives, as well as working class Democrats and independents of all races, the unexpected emerging primacy of foreign policy is just one more reason why we need Joe Biden, a perennially underestimated candidate, to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

I am disgusted by my party this morning.

After years of investigation and mountains of compelling evidence, the Democrats offer just two articles of impeachment, one about Ukraine and the other about obstruction. Does anybody anywhere believe that ANY GOP senators will care even a little bit about the latter?

No mention of emoluments. No mention of ANYTHING from the Mueller report or investigation.

Most significantly to me, no mention of the enormous stinking carcass of a dead and rotting elephant in the room — the pervasive pattern of doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding on virtually EVERY decision made by this administration and enthusiastically supported by its GOP collaborators. We betrayed South Korea. We betrayed the Kurds. We are dismantling NATO. This week, we learn that this administration is dismantling the WTO, so that it can continue to destroy the economy of the west with self-destructive trade wars. Who benefits? Vladimir Putin. Who loses? Each and every one of us.

What happened to elected officials who actually care about national security? What happened to an electorate who valued law and order? How much more obvious does betrayal have to be?

We are watching in slow motion as the great American experiment crashes and burns. Our government, judicial and political systems are proving themselves utterly powerless to stop or slow this Russian takeover of our government.

The silence of the Democrats on the multitude of presidential abuses means that the constraints that kept the power of the presidency in check have been removed. The treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors of Donald Trump, his administration, and the GOP will be viewed as normal and acceptable behavior from here on. How can ANY Democrat object to any future abuses those abuses aren’t even mentioned in the impeachment articles?

This is a tragic day for America.

The two front runners in the Dem primary asked each other to be forthcoming about work they did as corporate consultants many years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/memo-in-1990s-pollution-case-shows-elizabeth-warren-in-action-as-corporate-consultant/2019/12/09/6a6fade0-1a9b-11ea-b4c1-fd0d91b60d9e_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/buttigieg-releases-summary-of-his-work-for-consulting-firm-mckinsey/2019/12/06/d1f10bd6-1897-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html

This was a purity test Buttigieg and Warren could have done without. Obviously, with these revelations, nothing changes – not even the disdain felt, in some far corners of the party, for the evils of corporatism.

Democrats are at their best when they protect, preserve and promote the social safety net. Many struggling people, forced to work multiple part time jobs to barely make ends meet, however, need a strong economy and seek opportunities for good jobs.

Where are these jobs? Sometimes at small businesses, and, yes, sometimes, at corporations.

This spat between Warren and Buttigieg has achieved nothing. It hurt both candidates, and projected an anti-business image that hands Republicans ammunition for the general election.

Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in modern history, but he will not run boasting how corrupt he is. Trump will instead run on the strength of the economy, and will promise jobs.

The task of Warren and Buttigieg, in this election, whoever wins, is not just to show who is more immaculate. It is to demonstrate voters will be better off, economically, with a Democrat in the White House.

“It’s the economy, stupid” was Bill Clinton’s mantra. That, of course, was expressed at a time when the economy was hurting in George H. W. Bush’s first term.

We often think of elections as being high minded affairs, where philosophical arguments have primacy. What if, instead, politics is but a thin veneer on top of the real driver -which are the economic interests.