Kinda interesting to see a report not mishandled by AG Barr hit the airwaves.
NBC News:
The Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee released a report Tuesday containing a summary of the evidence it has collected in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
The report cited two instances of improper conduct: obstruction of the House inquiry and withholding the aid from Ukraine on the condition of investigating a Trump political rival.
Read the full 300-page report here:
NY Times:
Impeachment Report Says Trump Solicited Foreign Election Interference
The House Intelligence Committee concluded that President Trump tried to “use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.”
Kamala Harris suspends her campaign. It’s swallowed by impeachment news, but that’s a big deal. She, and others like Julian Castro and Corey Booker, deserve better. Kamala will be back in the Senate where she is needed. But it is what it is. And what’s dominating the news is the impeachment report.
There seems to be an all white debate stage next time around. That’s... not great.
RJ Lyman/Bulwark:
This Is the Single Best Argument For Why Trump Should Be Impeached and Removed
He tried to meddle in the 2020 election. It's crazy to say that you have to let him participate in the 2020 election in order to render a verdict on his attempt to cheat in it.
Put another way, Donald Trump likes how he can line his and his family’s pockets with emoluments—at his D.C. hotel, his far-flung golf resorts, Mar-a-Lago. Now, with the potential of election loss next year, he makes “recourse to the most corrupt expedients.” He is indeed “violently tempted” to every effort to prolong his power.
Our Framers expected, our Constitution allows, and our national ideals demand that Donald Trump be prevented from cheating in the next election. Other than denying him the Republican party nomination, impeachment by the House and removal and disqualification by the Senate is the only remedy.
Matt Lewis/Daily Beast:
The GOP Is the Russian Propaganda Party Now
I’m so old, I remember when the Republican Party proudly stood up against Russian aggression and interference.
During her testimony before Congress last month, former top White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill threw a shocking assertion at Republicans: “Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps Ukraine did,” she said. “This is a fictional narrative perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
Actually, it wasn’t that shocking. We have become inured to it. What is more, her words fell on deaf ears.
Since then, one of the GOP’s top Putin water-carriers has been Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, who continues to advance disinformation that matches Russian talking points.
Will Bunch/Philly.com:
Reagan’s forgotten Iran-Contra escape may reveal more about Trump’s fate than Watergate
“I had hoped there would not be discovery of an impeachable offense,” the Speaker of the House said at one point. “I didn’t want to focus on such a divisive subject.”
If that scenario sounds familiar, it sounds doubly familiar to those of us who were around and plugged into politics around 1986-87, when a scandal called the Iran-Contra affair nearly toppled the 40th presidency of Ronald Reagan — until abruptly, it didn’t.
John Sides and Lynn Vavrek/waPo:
The surprising second choices of Democratic primary voters upend political cliches
A war between ‘progressives’ and ‘moderates’? Voters don’t see things the way pundits do.
To many observers, the Democratic presidential primary has highlighted the “profound ideological divides between the Democratic Party’s moderate and progressive wings,” as an Associated Press article put it — two wings locked in a bitter fight for control. The division supposedly shapes the race in profound ways. The New York Times has written that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg “are running in different ideological lanes,” for instance, and suggested that if voters sour on former vice president Joe Biden, they would mostly turn to Buttigieg, a fellow moderate.
Perhaps that’s how Democratic leaders and activists see the primary. But there’s just one problem: Someone forgot to tell Democratic voters.
In a large-scale project called Nationscape that we’re conducting with our colleague Chris Tausanovitch at the University of California at Los Angeles, we have queried more than 6,000 voters weekly since July. Using these data, we find a surprising amount of agreement among Democrats on major policy issues. Contradicting the conventional wisdom, clearly defined ideological “lanes” don’t seem to exist in the minds of most voters.
And finally, give back to your community:
Rex Huppke/Chicago Tribune:
Had it with this Trump critic? Show your dislike, douse a columnist and help feed people in need!
Before we get to the details on how I’m upping the ante for this year’s food drive, let me explain what the Greater Chicago Food Depository does and why your donations are so necessary.
The organization was formed about 40 years ago as a way to take leftover food from grocery stores and restaurants and get it to people in need. It has grown into a huge operation that spans Cook County and works with more than 700 other groups and programs, from food pantries to soup kitchens to shelters.
In fiscal year 2019, the Food Depository’s network of food pantries saw 1.5 million visits, including more than 14,300 veterans who accessed food pantries at the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Affair Hospital.