Well put.
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“Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man. He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!”
Talk about frightening dog whistles. Yikes!
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“If we had waited for three or four years, the election would be over,” Lofgren said. “The issue would be almost moot.”
It would be a moo point.
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According to some legal posters on various reputable blogs, the Senate does not have to go to court. Their subpoenas are apparently not subject to judicial review. The Senate is claiming that now they have to go to court to enforce the subpoenas, but this is apparently not true. If the President refuses to honor the subpoenas then the Senate has the option of removing him for that action.
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That was my understanding too from the start.
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Let’s not forget the reality of the situation: it has long been obvious that Trump and the GOP both expected to be able to prolong their misrule by pressing spurious lawsuits, not because they expected to prevail in court, but because it would buy time.
Yes, the House was well within its rights to pursue every one of these cases in court, but to make the impeachment hostage to that effort would have amounted to not only surrender but cooperation with criminals and royalists.
I have sympathy for this concern, but the fact is that it’s unserious because the House has already obtained sufficient evidence on its own to eliminate all doubt of Trump’s guilt. We already have 500% of the evidence needed to remove anyone from office for these crimes. I think the burden of proof rests with anyone who would assert that much evidence does not itself create an obligation to prosecute immediately.
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When you elect to stop pursuing a long war of attrition and chose to follow an alternate path … that is not a “surrender”
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Lofgren wasn’t quite ready for this stupid question by Tapper, but she did get the right points out, so the headline does stink. The answer is, it would take years, as she said, and there’s not time for the courts, and we consider the Senate as being quite capable of calling witnesses now, with a far shorter timeline.
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I NEVER thought I would read an article in TPM that would sensationalize a tiny snippet of an interview. The headline does not accurately reflect the facts. I’m very disappointed with the editor.
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" I mean, he really ought to get a grip and be a little more presidential.”
We have a new President ?
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the problem of course is that Tapper’s point is correct… when dealing with someone like Trump, the failure to respond to aggression is surrender.
unfortunately, there is a tendency to refuse to question (let alone object to) any decisions made by the Democratic leadership – to refuse to acknowledge that Trump being wrong doesn’t make every decision made by the Dems the right one.
Tapper is playing his part in the reality show. At this point the role of journalists should be to warn about the danger the country is in. The proof is there. But TV stars still gotta keep on TV starrin. So down we go.
Fuck the phrasing of the title.
And people suckered by it
And people using it to hammer Democrats
She was right: to stop an ongoing crime you don’t have the luxury of theoretical best moves.
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Seems like ongoing, indisputable proof of the obstruction article, doesn’t it?
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Maybe the press is unfair to Lofgren, but I still think two things:
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The House dragged its feet on issuing subpoenas generally, and then dragged its feet on trying to enforce them. There should have been staff drafting subpoenas from the moment it became clear that the Dems. would take the House after the 2018 elections, and SIMULTANEOUSLY with that, there should have been lawsuits drafted and ready to go when the inevitable stonewalling manifested itself. There should have been no pussy-footing around on this. But there was.
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Going forward, there needs to be some sort of very fundamental and far-reaching reform in how Congressional subpoenas are enforced. Obviously it can no longer be left to the Injustice Department or the regular Federal court system. I have two proposals:
A: Amend the Criminal Contempt statute to permit EITHER house to appoint its own Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Contempt of Congress.
and/or
B: Constitute a special federal court to hear civil Contempt of Congress cases. This could by statute be made the court of last resort, so its decisions would be quick and final.