It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters

Woo-hoo, another trip around the sun with Mrs. Noz.

(Days of Yore: 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7...)

Sure high crimes, but where is the misdemeanor?!?!?!

Josh Marshall notes that Trump has a new legal theory for avoiding impeachment, the claim that it takes both a high crime and a misdemeanor to impeach.

LOL. Trump thinks to be impeached Congress has to find a crime AND a misdemeanor. No misdemeanor, he says. pic.twitter.com/Ort9aSYV0R

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 30, 2019

It is true the Constitution says "high crimes and misdemeanors." But what is the larger context? Let's look at the whole sentence:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Did you see that? There is actually an "or" in there. The sentence says that the President can be impeached for Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." The "and" between "crimes" and "misdemeanors" doesn't mean you need both. Because it is part of a larger disjunctive clause, it means that any single high crime, high misdemeanor, instance of bribery, or treason would be enough to impeach.

So what legal yahoo told him this legal theory? I bet his name rhymes with Judy Rooliani.

If impeachment is so clearly toxic to the American voter, why are so many Presidential candidates jumping on the impeachment bandwagon?

The Pelosi theory that impeaching Trump will only help him in the 2020 election is contradicted by the behavior of most of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Are all these candidates completely wrong? Or is Pelosi the one who is wrong about how impeachment would play out as an electoral strategy?

I guess there is a third option: that the candidates all know that Pelosi is right but that demanding impeachment when Pelosi won't pull the trigger is the best electoral strategy of all. But frankly, I don't buy it. Running against your own party is a really stupid strategy in a year when you need to take both the White House and the Senate (not to mention winning thousands of State elections to stop GOP Gerrymander efforts following the 2020 census).

I just keep coming back to the idea that Pelosi's theory makes little sense. It doesn't seem to be anything more than her reaching the wrong conclusion following the Clinton impeachment. I guess she thinks that impeaching an extremely unpopular president and holding hearings about multiple instances of clear abuse of power (from Obstruction of Justice, to ignoring Congressional subpoenas, to violations of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution, and so on) will play out exactly like the impeachment of a popular president for a sexual affair.

the punchline: it's different John McCains

Our president is a dum-dum who blows a gasket whenever he sees the words "John" and "McCain" next to each other, but it is worth noting that the ship the Navy tried to hide from Trump is not named after St. Senator John McCain, it is named after his father and grandfather.

(After the Senator died, they did hold a ceremony adding him to the list of honorees. Maybe the ship should be in honor of all John McCains, wherever and whoever they are. Every John McCain is a goddamn hero, after all.)

The President won't understand what China is threatening

This would be a really effective threat if we had a President who knows what rare earths are. Our tech economy is dependent on the rare earths, but unless the Chinese are talking in terms of coal or steel, the President will neither understand why those other things are important nor care.

Maybe some adviser can sit him down and explain that China has these magic rocks that make his twitter machine work.

President Deals is making it impossible for the U.S. to enter into actual deals

I've said it before, but Iran has really no incentive to enter into any kind of deal with the U.S.

Trump doesn't honor deals, that was made evident when he broke the JCPOA. As long as he is in office, there is absolutely no reason for Iran to offer anything to get a deal with the U.S. And after Trump is out of office, Iran will have less incentive than it had before to offer anything to the U.S. because there will always be a chance that some new Trump-like president will come into office and tear up whatever deal Iran made.

This was so much easier when the Israeli right could unite around their common goal of treating Palestinians like shit

It is fascinating to see the religious/secular division become the main stumbling block to Bibi's new government. That tension has been there forever. I just always thought it was remarkable that the Israeli right has managed to paper over such fundamental differences when forming a government. Now that the Oslo process, and any pretense that Israel will entertain any other similar process, is definitively six feet under, the different factions of the right can start fighting over God stuff.

Rule of Thumb

If you make a bunch of people who work for you tell the news media that you are not a crazy person, you probably are a crazy person.

Impeachment now

One thing the Republican leadership in Congress like to do is schedule votes on things that have no hope of passing just to get Democrats to make what is perceived to be an unpopular vote. That's why McConnell recently scheduled a vote on the Green New Deal. He didn't want it to pass. He knew it would never pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. But he wanted to force Democrats to either vote against a proposal that is popular with a motivated core of Democratic voters, or vote for it and have that vote used against them in their next reelection fight.

In other words, Republicans know that a vote in Congress is not just a way to get legislation passed. It can also have a strategic purpose even if the legislation at issue has no hope of passage.

I don't understand why more Democrats don't view impeachment the same way. Among Democrats, the main objection to impeaching Trump is not that he did not commit an impeachable offense, it is that there is no chance of getting a conviction in the current Senate. While I think it is true the Republican Senator will not convict Trump no matter what evidence of wrongdoing is presented, the impeachment process will force McConnell to schedule a vote on each count of the impeachment question. Thus each Senator will have to go on record that they think it is okay for Trump to violate the emoluments clause, take numerous actions that would be obstruction of justice if anyone else did it, ignore Congressional oversight, etc. Every count of the articles of impeachment would have to be voted upon, All 22 Republican Senators who are facing reelection next year would be forced to go on the record on each of those issues, all would have to endorse lawlessness to defend an extremely unpopular president who a majority of the American public believes committed crimes.

I agree that unless there is a dramatic unforeseen change, Trump will not be removed from office through impeachment. I also agree that if Trump is acquitted after an impeachment trial it would set a horrible precedent. But I think that not impeaching Trump creates just as bad of a precedent. And I think there is a real political benefit for using impeachment to force Senate Republicans to vote about the crimes of this president in an election year.

If anyone needs to be milkshaked...

I can't be the only one who hopes that someone milkshakes Trump during his upcoming trip to the UK.

On the other hand, I don't want anyone to get shot. I'm not sure the secret service wouldn't if someone charged close enough to the President to dump a milkshake on his suit.

Vote for Henry Sias

If you are a Philadelphian, vote for Henry Sias today! It won't only get a smart guy on the bench, it will make history.

Senate Republicans are scared and don't care about the future of the country

It is pretty crazy that Senate Republicans are completely giving up on Congressional oversight just for the short-term gain of not having embarrassing testimony about the current president.

I am sure they will magically rediscover the merits of Congressional oversight as soon as the next Democrat becomes president. But in the meantime they are going on record as not caring (thus weakening their argument later). And while the Trump Administration's stonewalling will be challenged in Court, there is a small but real chance that the current Trump-packed judiciary would buy at least some of Trump's arguments, which will create a precedent to severely weaken all member's of Congress' ability to check the executive branch in the future.

I suspect most Republicans are hoping the Courts enforce the House subpoenas and issue a bunch of decisions upholding Congressional oversight. That way Congressional Republicans won't have to grow a spine and risk the wrath of the hordes of stupid trumpers. But at least for the Senate Republicans who were just reelected last year and won't have to face a primary challenge until this is all a distant memory (e.g. Ted Cruz), they are risking the future of the country just to avoid some constituents yelling at them. It is hard to imagine a more craven unpatriotic group than that.

unlike most other issues, there is not much of a gender gap on abortion

I've always wondered about this. Many people I speak to seem to assume that women are more pro-choice than men. There is some evidence for that among political figures (e.g. the only pro-choice Republicans in the Senate are both women), but in my own experience, the people I know personally who are most vocally anti-abortion are women.

Those anecdotes don't resolve the issue, but it did always seem a little odd that the prevailing wisdom in politics was so at odds with what I experienced. Now I know which is more wrong.

Where is my favorite vampyre?

This is an old blog, almost old enough to drive! In the early-ish days I was obsessed with Jonathon "the Impailer" Sharkey, a self-proclaimed vampyre who also ran for political office. I particularly was fond of his 2008 presidential campaign, centered on the promise of universal health care and a promise to personally impale President George W. Bush. There is a good overview of Sharkey's history here (unfortunately, the links all all dead so you'll just have to take my word for it about my tip-top sourcing). A few more things happened after that 2008 recap. In 2010, he did a creepy YouTube proposal to his underage girlfriend, which caused her to run away from home to marry him, prompting an intervention by the authorities.

Sharkey mostly disappeared after that, except that he did have a small (less covered) and brief presidential run for the Republican nomination in 2011. In his August 17, 2011 letter to the FEC stating that he was ending his campaign, Sharkey noted that he had "all intentions of running in 2020."

Am I the only one who remembers this stuff? While we don't need more Democratic candidates, Sharkey usually ran as a Republican (and if not, under the Reform Party or as an independent). We could certainly use someone to make the GOP primary more interesting.

Hey Sharkey, when are you going to declare?

The price of a president who is a complete ignoramus

Of course the Trump Administration’s conditions for a nuclear deal with Iran look a lot like Obama’s nuclear deal that he rejected. The reason Trump called that agreement a “disaster” is because Obama made it. He could not cite specific problems with the details of the agreement, because he had no idea what those details were. So now that his war monger if aides are pushing him to attack Iran and the Administration is forced to articulate what Iran has to do to avoid confrontation, those conditions are going to be dictated by the same realities that produced the JCPOA. Except now Iran has even less incentive to believe the US would honor any new deal.

This is similar to what happened with NAFTA and the TPP. Trump also referee to those trade agreements as “terrible”. He backed out of the TPP and negotiated a replacement deal for NAFTA, the USMCA, that he bragged was much better.  Except the ways that the USMCA differs from NAFTA are largely lifted from the text of the TPP  Both Mexico and Canada are in the TPP. It looked like they took advantage of the President’s ignorance to get the US to abide by the TPP rules (at least as they pertain to those two countries).

our corporate overlords will protect us

The Mueller Report documented a foreign government's campaign to disrupt America's last presidential election, but the powers that be can't be bothered to do anything to stop it from happening in our next one. Luckily, Facebook is stepping in to stop it!

At least until we have a candidate who FB doesn't like, in which case ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Trump makes a call to stupid people to let him use their social media account for his own purposes

I think my favorite thing about Trump's new snitch line is that in order to tell on social media, the snitch needs to enter his or her contact information, citizenship status, and social media accounts. Plus, by submitting the form, the rube snitch must consent to, among other things, allowing the government to edit the submitting party's social media posts.

The other reason that Trump's bluster won't bring Iran to the bargaining table

Aside from what Benen says, why would Iran ever enter into a deal with the U.S. about anything? The leadership took a risk with hardliners to enter into the nuclear deal, and then they upheld their side of the bargain only to have the U.S. abruptly withdraw from the agreement and punish Iran for no clear reason. The Trump Administration is a serial violator of international agreements. Why would any other country trust that we will do whatever we agree to do ever?

Even after Trump is out of office, I don't see how that will fix the problem. From now on whenever anyone enters into negotiations with the U.S. they will be thinking "sure, we trust the current leadership. But in less than 4-8 years they will be gone. How do we know the Americans won't elect another buffoon line Trump who will come in and rip up the deal?" America is simply not a credible negotiating partner anymore.

Unpopular mayor with no national following runs for president

I continue to be baffled by candidacies like this one. de Blasio's approval is underwater in his own city. Most of the rest of the country barely knows his name. We have an extremely crowded field in the democratic primary with several candidates that have a much higher national profile struggling to get their name out.

So what the frack is de Blasio thinking? Is he just trying to raise his national profile to maybe get himself a cabinet position later on? But how profile-raising can this contest be with so many candidates all hogging an increasingly small slice of the attention pie?

The quarter-century long honeymoon of Nazarbayev is finally ending with his exit from the Presidency

The problem with managed transition, is that they cannot be fully managed. Nazarbayev was popular because he brought perceived stability and economic growth (largely driven by oil prices). with growth stalled and a new generation of Kazakh's who are not craving stability like their parents who watched the Soviet Union collapse around them, a seat-warmer who promises more of the same doesn't have much of an appeal. That only makes the "managed" part of the managed transition seem all the more galling.

Trump will not invade Iran

I have no doubt that John Bolton is relentlessly pushing Trump to go to war with Iran. War with Iran is what Bolton has wanted for decades. I just don't think the Trump administration is competent enough to pull a war off.

Look at how the Bush administration got the U.S. to go to war in Iraq. They were trying to convince the American public to invade Iraq a year before the war started (the "Axis of Evil speech was delivered on January 29, 2002, 14 months before the U.S. invaded Iraq). The Congressional vote authorizing the war was passed in October 2002, five months before the shooting started. In the run-up to the Congressional vote and then the war itself, the Bush Administration was laser-focused on selling the war to the American public and its allies.

The Trump Administration has none of that focus. A confrontation with Iran has not been the top story. It is not even in the top five on most days. Trump doesn't seem to be building an international coalition to attack Iran (although there are several countries in the Middle East who would welcome a U.S. invasion). Plus, the Administration is also threatening to attack Venezuela.

Selling a war is harder than most people assume, even against a country as thoroughly demonized as Iran. I would not be surprised if Trump authorized an attack against Iran. But it is not going to invade and topple the government. No matter what Trump's inner circle might want, I don't think they are capable of pulling something like that off.

gateway drug

I have no strong feelings about legalizing magic mushrooms. But if your priority is drug decriminalization as a whole, this will probably just end up being used as an argument against marijuana legalization elsewhere in the country.

should the we impeach Thanos?

Click image to embiggen, or go here.

The posts that weren't

This happens to me fairly often. Sometimes I think I have some stunning point to make, then I start getting my links to support my point, only to discovery I am completely wrong after all. Other times just writing out a post will make it clear that my argument doesn't hold up, or I decide that, even if I am right, my point is dumb or pointless. For most of the history of this blog (as long as blogger has had that "save as draft" function) when I decide to abort a post I would not just delete it. Instead, I would save it as draft in case I change my mind about whether it is postable, or maybe because I wondered if some line or link in the unposted post might come in handy later. In the first almost decade of this blog, I accumulated more than a hundred saved but unpublished drafts. At one point I thought about making a 10th a blogiversary post about my decade of half-baked ideas. But instead, I just cleaned house and deleted all of them.

But old habits die hard. After I cleaned them out,.I went back to saving all my half written failed ideas as draft. so they have started to build up again, although I don't have nearly as many as I used to (I don't post as much as I used to either). I currently have 29 of those drafts. The oldest one was saved on July 19, 2013 and is titled "trapped." It refers to something that happened to me on that day, but I have no clue what it is. Clearly that's still a keeper.

think of the children!

When I was in middle school and first learned about Watergate (this was in the 1980s, about 10 years after-the-fact) the basic lesson was that not even the president is above the law.

The lesson for today’s kids: The president is totally above the law.

Trains of thought

I think Democrats are split between:

(1) People who see Trump as an unmitigated disaster who must not win a second term at all costs. So they feel threatened by any candidate who appears to be too far left to appeal to hypothetical moderates who they believe will decide the election.

(2) People who see Trump as such an unmitigated disaster that the 2020 election will be a referendum on his terrible presidency no matter who is the Democratic nominee. So next year presents the rare opportunity to get a real progressive in the oval office rather than the usual milquetoast moderate who will tack right as soon as he or she is sworn in.

I'm definitely in the second camp. Also, I have no faith in people's ability to make accurate prediction about "electability." So the entire premise of #1 is fatally flawed, IMHO.

Get it, they're saying that Barr is scared to come!

The chicken is a nice touch, but I remain suspicious that the empty chair bit is an effective way to make a point.

Issue the subpoenas and hold him in contempt. If Democrats don't play hardball with this administration, it means the effective end of Congressional oversight of the executive branch.

The new normal

A high-level official in the State Department explained that discussions about human rights are "not really possible with China" because China is "not Caucasian."

Under any other administration, an admission that America's diplomatic policy is based on expressly racist assumptions would be a bit of a scandal. Under Trump, it is just another Thursday.

(via Raw Story)