Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Impeachment Trial Could Give Biden and Buttigieg a Leg Up On Sanders and Warren

Well, it’s finally happening. The House of Representatives voted 230-197 to charge President Trump with abuse of power over his communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and 229-198 to charge him with obstructing Congress by ignoring subpoenas for documents and testimony from other executive branch agencies.

This means that an impeachment trial will be held by the Senate. Because Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delayed delivering articles of impeachment to the Senate, questioning whether the GOP will hold a fair trial, it seems likeliest that a trial will happen in January.

Some on the Left have debatedwhether impeachment is a distraction from more pressing political issues. Others have criticized the Democrats’ handling of a matter: In a Tweet, Jamelle Bouie, an opinion writer for The New York Times, referred to the timing of the impeachment during the primaries and the narrow focus on Ukraine as “absolute political malpractice.”

What’s sure is that a Senate trial will be a major problem for the five sitting Senators running for the Democratic nomination for president, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Senators’ schedules would be occupied—possibly for six days a week—just as the presidential primaries take off.

The senators are not required to be present at the trial, but given that the Senate is majority Republican, Democratic senators will likely feel an obligation to attend. In response to the release of the articles of impeachment on December 10, Sanders issued a statement denouncing Trump as “the most corrupt president in history” and pledging to “uphold [his] constitutional responsibility as a juror.”

Sanders and Warren have been on the march around the country, holding town halls, rallies and other campaign events. Sanders has appeared in 102 events in Iowa alone between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 19, 2019, while Warren appeared in 77 events in Iowa during that period. A Senate impeachment trial, expected to start in January and possibly extend into February, would put a near-halt to that travel.  With Iowa’s caucus February 3 and New Hampshire’s primary soon after, this could prove advantageous to the campaigns of the other two frontrunners, former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In Politico, journalist Marc Caputo quotes a Biden campaign advisor who says that if Sanders and Warren have to be in Washington for impeachment hearings “while we’re in Dubuque[, Iowa], that’s their problem.”

But it appears the candidates have some workarounds in mind. Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democratic Party in Iowa, told Politico that candidates do not have to remain on the campaign trail every day to remain relevant. He argues that if Warren and Sanders could make their way to the living rooms of Iowans through TV coverage of impeachment, it would be a net positive for their campaigns.

The Sanders and Warren campaigns, as well as the organizations that have endorsed them, are beginning to develop plans themselves.

Even if Sanders stops his campaign travels, his supporters will still be on the road. According to the Washington Post, Sanders campaign advisers hope that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) could stand in for Senator Sanders’ visits to Iowa. She already made waves in Iowa campaigning for Sanders in November.

Jack Reardon of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund (Iowa CCI Action Fund), which recently endorsed Sanders, believes his grassroots support can keep the campaign alive.

“His campaigning has knocked on the most doors in Iowa and made the most calls,” says Reardon, “[Bernie] believes in the power of movement politics and organizing everyday to make that change.”

The Warren campaign is also planning for impeachment hearings. In an interview with the Washington Post, Warren communications director Kristen Orthman suggested several options the campaign could take, including “travel by Warren’s husband, Bruce Mann, and remote appearances by Warren.”

Reardon emphasizes that regardless of the timing of the hearings, the Democratic nominating contests will be decided by turnout. “Get out there and organize!” he tells Sanders supporters. “Change happens from the bottom up. The only way the people’s candidate wins on caucus night is when people get out there and organize their family, friends and neighbors and build a people/planet first movement.”

Starship Trumpers

The Senate gave Trump his Space Force. A truly great use of the budget!

Fashion Victim

RIP to Ben Passmore, never got it quite right.

Nothing To Be Done

There are problems, sure. But what’s the US to do, fix them?

Joe Biden Promises to Die in His First Term

Confronting concerns that he may be too old, Joe Biden is privately floating the promise that he would only be a one-term president if elected and would not present himself for reelection. But that doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe it’s time for him to step up his game.

"Christmas, time of contemplativeness and calm"

Fuck me if this isn't the most stressful time of the entire year.

@CarlMuckenhoupt
tbh "if we changed X then who would do Y" is a rly strange way of phrasing "we currently force people to do Y against their will AND this is actually preferable to like, not doing that"

i just
wonder how people have these types of opinions sometimes

Q: If we instituted Universal Basic Income, who would clean the toilets?

A: Highly paid professionals.

Q: How highly paid?

A: The market will decide, but you can get an upper bound by thinking of how much you'd have to be paid to quit your job and switch to cleaning toilets.

Q: That's quite a lot. Wouldn't that result in a drain from other jobs?

A: It would mostly attract people strongly motivated by money. Draining the jobs mainly occupied by people like that sounds like an improvement.

A Nasty Christmas Gift from the LA Court of Appeal

The California Court of Appeal on Los Angeles has decided that I deserved a lump of coal this holiday season. You may recall that the California state Supreme Court remanded my case against the LA Times to the Court of Appeal earlier this year. That decision resulted in part from the state Supreme Court’s decision […]

Could We Have a Global Green New Deal?
https://earther.gizmodo.com/could-we-have-a-global-green-new-deal-1840535860 #climatechange #climatecrisis

In ‘Strongest’ Climate Ruling Yet, Dutch Court Orders Leaders to Take Action
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/climate/netherlands-climate-lawsuit.html #climatechange #climatecrisis

Fox News, Trump’s Ministry of Propaganda

How prepared are President Donald Trump’s adversaries to deal with the reality of a lavishly produced state media operation? This, the most-watched cable news network, functions in its fealty to Trump like a real-world Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s 1984, where bureaucrats “rectify” the historical record to conform to Big Brother’s decrees.

I am referring, of course, to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. Having unsuccessfully tried to sell itself as “Fair and Balanced,” Fox News debuted a new brand in March 2018: “Real News. Real Honest Opinion.” Network executives apparently chose this slogan to differentiate themselves from “fake news” outlets—and, no doubt, to dog-whistle a pledge of allegiance to their commander-in-chief, who since being sworn into office has decried fake news in at least 630 tweets (as of Dec. 4, 2019).

Sean Hannity, the host of Fox’s weeknight flagship Hannity, regularly rails against the “media mob” and its “fake news,” terms he has used on more than 100 of his shows since Feb. 20, 2019. On Feb. 21, 2019, for example, he said, “The mainstream media, they devour, you know, any story that just fits their radical, extreme extension of the Democratic socialist party agenda. If it advances the narrative that Donald Trump is evil and his supporters are bad and America is scary and racist and sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, the media mob will shift into full gear without ... any kind of investigation.”

It seems Hannity and Trump have studied the texts of the 20th century’s master of indoctrination, who wrote in his 1925 autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly—it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

Over and over, indeed. With its fantastical reporting on Ukraine, Fox News is doing just that. Evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Trump refused to release military aid to Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly opened a corruption investigation into the Bidens and into allegations (for which there is no credible evidence) that Ukrainian actors interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Hillary Clinton.

In the topsy-turvy world of Fox News, this bribe attempt is “fake news” spread by the “media mob”—while the “real news,” Fox would have you believe, is the invented story of Ukrainian election interference.

At Fox, where Hannity et al. make a nightly ritual of burying the truth in “memory holes” and spinning a new version of reality, the spirit of 1984 is alive and well.

The ascendancy of this Trumpist propaganda mill, more blatant in its contempt for the truth than even the pro-war corporate press in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, should give progressives pause. For nearly a quarter of American adults, Fox News is the sole cable news source. It behooves us to soberly assess how our prospects for liberty, equality and solidarity are dependent on the existence of an independent, critical press.

Here at In These Times, we are excavating those “memory holes”—but we can only keep digging if we first fill the holes in our own budget. We must raise an additional $52,000 before Dec. 31, 2019 to keep from falling short.

Fox News relies on corporate sponsors. At In These Times, we are proud to rely on readers like you. Please, consider our fundraising appeals. A strong and independent press has never been needed more than it is today. We are all in this together.

The Discourse Strikes Back

Computer, delete “Star Wars.”

Mozilla is switching to #matrix! Great news for both projects :D

https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/synchronous-messaging-at-mozilla-the-decision/50620

The Anatomy of a Public Health Crisis

An LA councimlan wants to pin the outbreak on the city’s homeless – but that just blames a vulnerable group for systemic issues.

What Is Joe Biden Thinking When He Uses Words like Malarkey?

Joe Biden’s age has become a major issue in the 2020 presidential campaign. Partly this is because he has been showing signs of early dementia while he talks. But it’s also the fact that he uses outdated expressions. Recently the Internet went crazy when he showed off his new campaign bus with its new “no […]

Over 267 million Facebook users reportedly had data exposed online
https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/19/facebook-data-exposed-online/ #privacy #security #libremone #bigtech

Holy Shit, Reportedly
https://gizmodo.com/holy-shit-reportedly-1840537332 #privacy #security #librem5 #bigtech

This is just wrong...

US government is entitled to all Snowden book proceeds, judge rules | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/us-government-is-entitled-to-all-snowden-book-proceeds-judge-rules/