This is serious stuff. Our media after the 2003 Iraq screw-up needs to get this one right. No jingoism this time. Don’t hold your breath on that one.
Stuart Stevens/WaPo:
Wake up, Republicans. Your party stands for all the wrong things now.
Here’s a question: Does anybody have any idea what the Republican Party stands for in 2020?
One way to find out: As you are out and about marking the new year, it is likely you will come across a Republican to whom you can pose the question, preferably after a drink or two, as that tends to work as truth serum: “Look, I was just wondering: What’s the Republican Party all about these days? What does it, well, stand for?”
I’m betting the answer is going to involve a noun, a verb and either “socialism” or “Democrats.” Republicans now partly define their party simply as an alternative to that other party, as in “I’m a Republican because I’m not a Democrat.”
In a long-forgotten era — say, four years ago — such a question would have elicited a very different answer. Though there was disagreement over specific issues, most Republicans would have said the party stood for some basic principles: fiscal sanity, free trade, strong on Russia, and that character and personal responsibility count. Today it’s not that the Republican Party has forgotten these issues and values; instead, it actively opposes all of them.
Without question, foreign policy and foreign policy experience are now on the table for Democrats in the primary. Helps Biden and possibly Amy Klobuchar, hurts Buttegieg for certain and possibly Bernie and Warren.
Neal Katyal/twitter:
THREAD ON IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVAL IN THE NEW YEAR. The conventional wisdom is that the Republicans in the Senate will rush to acquit Trump. I outline here why I think that overstates the case, and that the process has any number of variables in which things may change.
1.Trump wants you to believe that the outcome is preordained. But it’s not. Particularly when he acts the way he does. In short, he acts like a guilty man.
2. First, the facts. Trump has done something no one has done, not even Nixon. Categorically blocked all witnesses&documents in impeachment. That’s how a guilty man behaves. Nixon’s support looked strong through the start of impeachment, but it crumbled.
James Wallner/Legislative Procedure:
Senate Trial Can Proceed Without McConnell-Schumer Deal
The Senate’s 26 Impeachment Rules will regulate how the trial unfolds if senators cannot agree on a supplementary rules package. Among their provisions, the Impeachment Rules detail how the Senate organizes itself for trials. They also limit debate and prohibit dilatory tactics that senators could otherwise use to postpone a verdict.
The Impeachment Rules also regulate the process by which senators question witnesses. Rule XVII stipulates, "Witnesses shall be examined by one person on behalf of the party producing them, and then cross-examined by one person on the other side." Rule XIX details the process senators must follow if they want to ask a question of a witness, a House manager, or the president's counsel. And Rule XVIII clarifies that senators can be called as witnesses.
In addition to the prohibition on debate in open session (senators are permitted to engage in limited debate in closed session), the Impeachment Rules include many provisions that are designed to ensure that senators reach a verdict expeditiously. For example, Rule XXI limits arguments on "all preliminary and interlocutory questions, and all motions" to one hour on each side.
Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:
Susan Collins sounds like she’s covering for Trump
To understand just how preposterous is Collins’s plan to delay deciding on bringing forth critical evidence, imagine the Senate does put off the decision on new witnesses until the trial. Collins would apparently ask: “Mr. Chief Justice, please ask the House manager what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify.” The obvious answer — “How the heck should I know?!” — proves the point. The Senate needs key witnesses and key documents, whose existence is now known, to render a fair trial. Collins’s effort to put off the moment of reckoning is yet another in a series of spineless capitulations to her party.
NY Times:
Julián Castro Ends Presidential Run: ‘It Simply Isn’t Our Time’
Mr. Castro, the former housing secretary and mayor of San Antonio, was the only Latino candidate in the race. He championed progressive policies but did not find his footing in polls.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Castro, 45, a native of San Antonio who spent five years as its mayor, portrayed himself as an unapologetic liberal who was shaped by his humble beginnings and had been overlooked by the press. Though he created some memorable moments as he championed progressive policy and challenged his rivals on the campaign trail, Mr. Castro did not catch on with voters and was unable to break into the upper tier of a crowded primary field. His exit is the latest departure of a candidate of color from a field that began as the most racially diverse ever in a Democratic primary.
“I’ve determined that it simply isn’t our time,” Mr. Castro said in a nearly four-minute video message released by his campaign, which included a montage from his year on the trail, including visits to the border and a homeless encampment in Oakland. “Today it’s with a heavy heart, and profound gratitude, that I will suspend my campaign for president.”
Castro joins Kamala Harris as part of a talented Democratic bench who nonetheless were forced to compete with self funders Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg and non-serious contenders who polled better (Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard). It is what it is and good look to them all — I don’t decide these things, voters do. And for now, they’ve decided it’s Biden, Bernie, Buttegieg, Klobuchar and Warren.