Dan Balz/WaPo:
For Pelosi, the biggest test awaits: Impeach or not impeach?
But for Democrats, there is no guarantee of victory in the 2020 election. For all his vulnerabilities, Trump presides over a strong economy and enjoys the power of incumbency, which he is prepared to use to the fullest. Few Democrats are unduly optimistic about victory in 2020, despite the party’s strong performance in the 2018 midterm elections and signs of continued energy by the same kinds of voters who helped deliver that election outcome. The Democrats remain scarred by what happened in 2016.
Pelosi knows that public opinion overall is not on the side of the Democrats. A majority of Americans continue to oppose impeachment. But public opinion among Democrats is in a different place. That’s why a number of candidates for the Democratic nomination have expressed their support for at least the opening of an inquiry. It’s a popular position with the base.
Pelosi can play both sides only for so long. At some point, she and her committee chairs will have to make a decision. That may not be for months, given the legal machinery clanking along. She will try to keep deferring an ultimate decision, but the consequences of acting or not acting become more pressing as time passes.
Renato Mariotti/Politico magazine:
Why Trump’s Stonewalling Legal Strategy Will Keep Failing
If he’s trying to run out the clock on the subpoenas, the weakness of his strategy might actually be speeding things up
Trump’s argument is doomed to fail in the courts because the constitution gives the House the “full Power of Impeachment” and it could not exercise that authority without investigating presidential wrongdoing. Judge Mehta found that it is “simply not fathomable” that “a constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a president for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct—past or present—even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry.”
Wednesday’s ruling by Judge Edgardo Ramos made equally quick work of Trump’s argument that subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capitol One for his records lacked a “legitimate legislative purpose.” He found that argument “unpersuasive,” finding that it was “not the role of the judicial branch to question [Congress’s] motives.” He denied every one of Trump’s requests.
What is remarkable about these sweeping rulings is not the results, which were expected, but the speed with which they were issued. Judge Mehta issued his 41-page ruling just seven days after hearing arguments.
WaPo with an interesting piece on why we can’t have nice things:
Some Republicans saw a setup.
Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said earlier this month that Democrats’ approach to their initial meeting with the president — especially their decision to put the onus on Trump to develop a financing mechanism — betrayed their political motives. Any Trump-proposed tax increase to fund a $2 trillion infrastructure deal would amount to “fingerprints on the murder weapon” that would be used to convict Republicans in the next election, Norquist said.
“They think they could trick the president into agreeing to a stimulus package that they would call infrastructure, and then the president would, in their view, be stupid enough to stand by them while he signed their bill,” he said. “The president would have simultaneously turned himself into George Herbert Walker Bush — he would have raised taxes on the middle class, he would have raised taxes on the American people, and he would have been crushed in the next election.”
See, only Democratic proposals need to be paid for. But if you do, Democrats are raising taxes. And that idiocy, which predates Trump, is how gridlock happens.
Yuval Noah Harari/NY times:
We humans know more truths than any species on earth. Yet we also believe the most falsehoods.
If political loyalty is signaled by believing a true story, anyone can fake it. But believing ridiculous and outlandish stories exacts greater cost, and is therefore a better signal of loyalty. If you believe your leader only when he or she tells the truth, what does that prove? In contrast, if you believe your leader even when he or she builds castles in the air, that’s loyalty! Shrewd leaders might sometimes deliberately say nonsensical things as a way to distinguish reliable devotees from fair-weather supporters.
Third, and most important, the truth is often painful and disturbing. Hence if you stick to unalloyed reality, few people will follow you. An American presidential candidate who tells the American public the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about American history has a 100 percent guarantee of losing the elections. The same goes for candidates in all other countries. How many Israelis, Italians or Indians can stomach the unblemished truth about their nations? An uncompromising adherence to the truth is an admirable spiritual practice, but it is not a winning political strategy.
What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019
The idea of economic amends for past injustices and persistent disparities is getting renewed attention. Here are some formulas for achieving the aim.
If this latest revival has excited supporters, it has worried some party moderates who fear that such an effort would alienate many voters. Polls have shown a big deficit in popular support. While a majority of black Americans in a 2016 Marist poll supported reparations, whites rejected it by an overwhelming margin.
The reparations issue raises profound moral, social and political considerations. Still, the economic nuts and bolts of such a program have gotten scant public attention: Who would be paid? How much? Where would the money come from?
Through the decades, a handful of scholars have taken a shot at creating a road map. Here’s what has to be reckoned with.
Will Bunch/Philly.com:
Trump bullies Dems, other foes into cowardice. Without courage, America may be lost
The reason why we have an anti-bullying movement in this country is not just because bullying tactics are cruel and morally abhorrent, but also because bullying is ruthlessly effective. A total narcissist in the White House – who plays to win with no sense of embarrassment, let alone ethics – will not only plow through the guardrails that have mostly kept America on a bumpy path of democracy for 243 years, but run over anyone who insists on playing by the old rules like a 40-ton truck.
What President Trump is doing to American democracy right now is the outrageous political equivalent of suing Deutsche Bank for $3 billion – except the stakes are much, much higher. Confronted with the long-awaited report of special counsel Robert Mueller that demanded further investigation by Congress, Trump has finally built his wall – a stonewalling approach of new obstruction to block the old obstruction.
Elizabeth Williamson/NY Times:
A Lesson of Sandy Hook: ‘Err on the Side of the Victims’
A tidal wave of aid bore witness to the power of human kindness, but the money that engulfed Newtown, Conn., also sowed division.
At the heart of the trouble was a question: Should donations in the aftermath of tragedy go to the victims’ families or be shared with the entire community?…
But Newtown remains a lesson in the unintended consequences of well-intended generosity. Part of its legacy has been a shift in approach by other communities grappling with the fallout from mass shootings and attacks. Starting with the Boston Marathon bombings the year after Sandy Hook, civic leaders began bypassing established charities to set up independent, special-purpose funds devoted solely to helping the victims and the families of the dead.
“The American people have an incredible charitable impulse,” said Kenneth Feinberg, who administered the victim compensation funds after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and volunteered to adjudicate in Newtown. “But nobody knows exactly what to do when the money comes in.”
For those following, from BBC:
European Election 2019: Results in maps and charts