BANNER DAY for Democrats:
1) Dropped richly proven Article of Impeachment for bribery;
2) abandoned Mueller Report;
3) put forward two broad, mushy Articles of Impeachment;
4) stepped on impeachment news by announcing Trump will get his signature policy achievement.
*tiny yay*
1) Dropped richly proven Article of Impeachment for bribery;
2) abandoned Mueller Report;
3) put forward two broad, mushy Articles of Impeachment;
4) stepped on impeachment news by announcing Trump will get his signature policy achievement.
*tiny yay*
PS/ If it's possible to fumble on the one-inch line, this was that
PS2/ There is—of course—still time to fix it:
1) Bring additional Articles of Impeachment for bribery and obstruction of justice by the end of the month (senate trial doesn't start until early/mid-January anyway); and
2) Pass silly USMCA right now so that it's forgotten by 2020.
1) Bring additional Articles of Impeachment for bribery and obstruction of justice by the end of the month (senate trial doesn't start until early/mid-January anyway); and
2) Pass silly USMCA right now so that it's forgotten by 2020.
PS3/ What I really don't get is this—why not just do the right thing and face the consequences? The *worst* that happens is that you bring four Articles of Impeachment and two pass easily, one (obstruction of justice) narrowly, and one (bribery) narrowly *doesn't* pass the House.
PS4/ In other words—why negotiate with *yourself*? Democrats basically decided to put themselves through *three* rounds of negotiations: one with cowardly moderates in the party, *then* one with a full House vote, *then* one in the Senate. Why not do the *right thing* up *front*?
PS5/ "Abuse of power" is a noncriminal offense, so those saying, "But it includes bribery!"—you're wrong. "Abuse of power" can include facts *related* to bribery, but it is *not* alleging a criminal offense. Wait... people *do* realize Democrats dropped all the *crimes*, right?
PS6/ The Democrats had four potential articles [that they were willing to even consider]: 2 criminal, 2 noncriminal. They *dropped* the criminal ones and *still* will lose the cowardly moderates in the party who are only worried about re-election—they bargained with *themselves*.
PS7/ As I said, they still have time to save this. They can bring the criminal Articles in a week or two and explain—and it would be a reasonable expectation—that more time was needed to prepare the *most* serious Articles. But I'm not sure anyone expects that the Democrats will.
PS8/ Every single statement we hear from House/Senate Republicans over the next few weeks will confirm that Democrats are wrong to do anything but push as hard as possible for justice to be done here. Solicitation of bribery is covered by the bribery statute and it occurred here.
PS9/ Democrats made the mistake of believing that politicians will be voting for or against these Articles based on what they say rather than based on whether voting for *any* Article is politically dangerous for them. That was Argument #1 for bringing *all* appropriate articles.
PS10/ As for the Mueller Report, Democrats fell for a trick inadvertently played on them by the media: moving at the pace of cable news, not reality. Media convinced Democrats the Mueller Report was old news, though Mueller testified just weeks before the Ukraine scandal started.
