Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

We've known for some time now that Rudy Giuliani was most likely under investigation for criminal wrongdoing involving his role in Trump's Ukraine bribery and extortion scandal, now we know he definitely is under investigation.

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, is being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible campaign finance violations and a failure to register as a foreign agent as part of an active investigation into his financial dealings, according to three U.S. officials.

The probe of Giuliani, which one official said could also include possible charges on violating laws against bribing foreign officials or conspiracy, presents a serious threat to Trump’s presidency from a man that former national security adviser John Bolton has called a “hand grenade.”

A second official said Giuliani’s activities raise counterintelligence concerns as well, although there probably wouldn’t be a criminal charge related to that. The officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, provided the first indication of the potential charges under investigation.

Giuliani is a central figure in the U.S. House impeachment inquiry, which focuses on an effort led by the former New York City mayor to pressure Ukraine’s government to investigate the president’s political rivals. If Giuliani is charged or indicted, he could expose Trump to a new level of legal and political jeopardy, especially if he’s accused of committing a crime on the president’s behalf.

“I would not be surprised if he gets indicted,” said Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. “It’s clear Giuliani is up to his ears in shady stuff and there’s tons of smoke.” 

Witnesses in the impeachment inquiry have described how Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting for the country’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to force him to investigate a company connected to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Biden is a Democratic frontrunner to challenge Trump in 2020.

Democrats have called Trump activities with Giuliani’s assistance as a potential abuse of presidential power, while some Republicans have argued that Trump’s conduct doesn’t merit his removal from office.

Giuliani is under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which he once led. The office began to scrutinize his activities in Ukraine as prosecutors investigated two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The two were subsequently charged in the U.S. with illegally funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to U.S. officials and a political action committee that backed Trump.

Parnas and Fruman were working for Giuliani on matters related to Trump. It’s not clear, however, whether the investigation of Giuliani is focusing on the work he did for the president.

Giuliani, his lawyers and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Two observations: first, so far, not even Bill Barr has been able to make this investigation disappear.  A trial set for next year would be devastating for anyone related to the Trump regime and everyone knows it.

Second,  the case against Giuliani must be devastating.  We know Lev Parnas, one of the two Ukranian associates of his, is now cooperating and says Trump contacted him last year about Ukraine and how Ambassador Marie Yovanovich had to be fired.  Things are moving quickly here on this front.

The April 2018 dinner was designed to be an intimate affair, an opportunity for a handful of big donors to a super PAC allied with President Trump to personally interact with the president and his eldest son.

In an exclusive suite known as the Trump Townhouse at Trump’s Washington hotel, the group — including Jack Nicklaus III, the grandson of the famous golfer, and a New York developer — snapped photos, dined and chatted about their pet issues with the president for about 90 minutes.

Among those in attendance were two Florida business executives who had little history with Republican politics but had snagged a spot at the dinner with the promise of a major contribution to the America First super PAC. They turned the conversation to Ukraine, according to people familiar with the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private dinner.

One of the men, Lev Parnas, has described to associates that he and his business partner, Igor Fruman, told Trump at the dinner that they thought the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was unfriendly to the president and his interests.

According to Parnas, the president reacted strongly to the news: Trump immediately suggested that then-Ambassador Marie ­Yovanovitch, who had been in the Foreign Service for 32 years and served under Democratic and Republican presidents, should be fired, people familiar with his account said.

Parnas declined to comment. Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Fruman, declined to comment.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Parnas’s account of personally discussing Ukraine with Trump more than 18 months ago suggests that he and Fruman had more personal interaction with the president — and potentially more influence over his views on that country — than the White House has acknowledged.

The Rudy factor is about to explode this wide open.

StupidiNews!

• Two students are dead and three more injured as a 16-year-old gunman opened fire at a high school in California on Thursday, the suspect is in critical condition.
• Ohio Republicans are trying to pass legislation that could force teachers to accept student religious reasons as correct answers in science classes.
• German lawmakers are moving forward with a bill to require the country reduces carbon emissions to 55% of 1990 levels by the end of the next decade.
• British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is promising that broadband internet access will be nationalized if elected as Prime Minister next month.
• Multiple cities and counties are suing the FCC over implementation of an August vote to limit local regulation of cable TV and broadband services.

Last Call For Trump State TV, Con't

Zandardad texted me yesterday about the impeachment hearings and mentioned he thought that the case against Trump was going to be distorted into sound bites of Republicans yelling and claiming victory over the "dismantled" Democratic argument.

On Fox News Trump State TV, he was right.  CNN's Brian Stetler waded into the crazy weeds.

I wanted to know what President Trump was hearing about day one of the televised impeachment hearings. So I decided to mute all my other TVs and just watch Fox News on Wednesday night. 

I heard White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham say that "today was a joke." I heard Donald Trump Jr. say "it's insanity." I heard Jeff Sessions ask, "Where's the beef?" 

Here's how I would sum up everything I heard from Fox's prime time hosts: Wednesday's hearing was a bust. It was all just hearsay. It was a "disaster" for the Democrats and a "great day" for the Republicans. Impeachment is "stupid." Impeachment is "fake." There's nothing impeachable here. There's no reason to hold hearings. This inquiry needs to stop right now. 

The message was one-sided and overwhelming. Every host and practically every guest said the Republican tribe is winning and the Democrat tribe is losing. I'm sure the president loved watching every minute of it. That's one of the reasons why this right-wing rhetoric matters so much -- because it is reassuring and emboldening Trump. 

I decided to write it all down because of something that CNN's Oliver Darcy wrote earlier in the day. "Don't expect viewers, listeners, and readers of right-wing media to walk away from Wednesday's impeachment hearings with a different opinion of President Trump's behavior," Darcy said. "In fact, it's possible they might be more convinced than ever that Trump did nothing wrong. Why? Because right-wing media has largely -- and unsurprisingly -- focused on the moments in the hearing favorable to its preferred narrative." 

He was right.

If Fox News had existed during Watergate, Nixon would have been re-elected in 1976 in a landslide.

Oliver Darcy writes: All day long, pro-Trump websites hyped clips of GOP stars like Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes "eviscerating" or "destroying" their opponents. THOSE were the moments that generated focus -- not the instances when Taylor or Kent shed new light on the Ukraine scandal. And after the hearings wrapped, Trump's defenders in media dismissed the hearings as "boring" and a bust for the Democrats. If you were watching the hearing through the lens of the right-wing media, you probably didn't see a case against the president being built. You probably walked away thinking the Democrats' case collapsed... 

Which is the point.  Fox News is the last line of defense for Donald Trump's ongoing years of criminality.  He would have never been elected without them, let alone survived the last three years in office without being tossed out on his ass.  Meanwhile the rest of our media was just as broken, as Alternet's Joshua Holland observes.

Yes, the first day of testimony was “consequential.” There was “substance”–new evidence that the President of the United States* personally directed that security aid to a vulnerable ally in the middle of a war be blocked in order to coerce them to pursue widely debunked conspiracy theories about his political rivals–but where was the pizzazz?

Impeachment week featured no sharks whatsoever. No nubile young women bared their breasts during the hearing and nobody in the chamber was injured in an amusing accident like on America’s Funniest Home Videos. No Republican was forced by the overwhelming weight of the evidence to halt his questioning and concede that the leader of their party really is a narcissistic charlatan. Jim Jordan didn’t have a sudden epiphany and tearfully apologize for turning his back on the abused wrestlers he used to coach. It was just some more boring details of high crimes in the Oval Office revealed during the fourth presidential impeachment process in the nation’s history. At least Clinton’s impeachment had some sex to spice up the proceedings.

These kinds of analyses are born of a deep cynicism that pervades so much of the media (I’m often guilty of it myself). It stems from the sense that, in a society as polarized as ours, nothing really matters. Opinions are locked in. Motivated reasoning leads readers and viewers to reject reporting that doesn’t support their worldviews.

The Republican base won’t abandon Trump and Senate Republicans fear primaries more than they do a slide into authoritarianism. Trump isn’t going to be escorted kicking and screaming from the Oval Office by the Marshal of the Supreme Court, so what’s the point? Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Secretary of State George Kent offered gripping some really testimony–there was substance–but we all knew how Tucker Carlson would cover it at 8 pm. Same shit, different day when you really think about it.

That’s not entirely wrong. Investigative reporters sometimes unearth damning stories that bring down a politician or drive an effort for some new legislation, but most reporting doesn’t change people’s minds and won’t change the world. But even if there’s a kernel of truth to it, that cynicism blinds one to the importance of crucial moments in history like the one we’re living through now, and renders one incapable of covering it with the appropriate gravity.

It’s also, at least to a degree, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most people worked yesterday and didn’t catch the hearings live. They rely on the media not only for the facts, but also for cues about how to interpret them. Some of those people woke up this morning to the message that while there was some sort of substance to yesterday’s, nothing interesting happened. There’s nothing to see here. Move along.

Which is exactly what Zandardad feared.

Republicans in the Senate enable Trump.  But Fox News enables them, and it's even more dangerous.  They are going to kill the hearings any way they can for their viewers, and take the country down with them.

But what's worse is our own cynicism about a "doomed" process.

Another Hat Enters The Ring, Con't

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is entering the Democratic primary today, and Steve M. has the right of the situation.

On the subject of Patrick's Bain Capital ties, Axios's Dan Primack writes: 

There is unconfirmed speculation that Patrick was awakened in his suburban Boston home last night, by the sounds of champagne corks popping at Elizabeth Warren's campaign headquarters. 

Really, plutocrats? You're terrified that Warren might be the nominee, so you urge Mike Bloomberg and Deval Patrick to get in the race -- and you're probably among the "many, many, many people" urging Hillary Clinton to jump in as well? 

This is crazy. It reminds me of the streaming wars -- company after company is announcing a big new video streaming service, and while some are going to thrive, others are sure to bomb. (Will there really be a market for Peacock or Quibi?) 

But this is how top executives think: Why not jump into a crowded field? What's the downside of oversaturating the market? If you're the executive responsible for one of the flops, the worst-case scenario is that you'll lose your job and get an eight-figure golden parachute. So why not? 

That kind of thinking seems to be making the fat cats want to urge every business-friendly Democrat into the race. Good luck with that, guys.

There's no real punishment for spending other people's money on ego runs like this, even for people like Bloomberg who have billions of their own to spend.  I know we talk about the right-wing gravy train, but the left version of it exists as well.  Yeah, some people fall off the tracks or get run over completely (talking to you, Moose Lady) but for the most part, politicians go on to sinecures and rake in big money.

The people out there with 10, 11 figures in their net worth?  They make things happen in politics.

BREAKING The Battle For Bevinstan Is Behind Us

After today's recanvass of the votes from last week didn't change voting totals more than a few ticks, Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin is picking up his ball and going home.

JUST IN: @GovMattBevin says he won't contest #kygov election outcome, @AndyBeshearKY will be next governor: https://t.co/2SJnosKfjB via @courierjournal

— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) November 14, 2019

And that's the ball game for Bevinstan.

Governor Andy Beshear, you're up.

A Taxing Explanation, Con't

The Trump tax return fight is now headed for SCOTUS on both the House Democratic subpoena and the New York state fronts.

Congress can seek eight years of President Trump’s tax records, according to a federal appeals court order Wednesday that moves the separation-of-powers conflict one step closer to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit let stand an earlier ruling against the president that affirmed Congress’s investigative authority on a day when the House was holding its first public impeachment inquiry hearing.

Trump’s lawyers have said they are prepared to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in this case and in several other legal battles between the president and Congress.
The D.C. Circuit was responding Wednesday to Trump’s request to have a full panel of judges rehear a three-judge decision from October that rejected the president’s request to block lawmakers from subpoenaing his longtime accounting firm.

The order does not mean Trump’s taxes will be turned over to Congress immediately. The D.C. Circuit previously said it would put any ruling against the president on hold for seven days to give Trump’s attorneys time to ask the Supreme Court to step in.

Trump’s attorneys also are planning to ask the high court as soon as this week to block a similar subpoena for the president’s tax records from the Manhattan district attorney, who is investigating hush-money payments in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The New York-based appeals court ruled against Trump this month and refused to block the subpoena to his accounting firm, Mazars USA.

The D.C. Circuit case centers on a House Oversight Committee subpoena from March for the president’s accounting firm records — issued months before the beginning of its impeachment inquiry, related to Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden.

I'm not 100% sure if SCOTUS will take up both cases, one of the two, or neither.  It's possible SCOTUS will not want to interfere, but I could almost guarantee you that there's four conservative justices who want to take up these cases in order to give Trump blanket immunity, and that means it could be June before we have a decision.

That could be a double-bladed sword however.  Trump's returns would almost certainly be leaked to the press, and Trump would go on a rampage after whoever printed it, right in time for summer campaign season.

Of course, an impeached and removed Trump could make all of this moot, so.

StupidiNews!

• Some 26 dead, including nine civilians, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since fighting ignited Tuesday over Islamic Jihad activity in the Palestinian territories.
• Donald Trump hosted Turkish President Recep Erdogan at the White House on Wednesday as the Turkish leader blasted French President Emmanuel Macron's comments on NATO.
• Ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales vows he will return to La Paz from asylum in Mexico as clashes between police and demonstrators continue over the interim government of Jeanine Añez.
• British politicians are braving the cold and the rain to campaign as the nation's first December elections in nearly a century are scheduled next month.
• The FTC is suing a Utah IT provider over multiple hacker breaches discovered only after a server ran out of hard drive space compiling a list of user data to be stolen.

Last Call For Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

The big news from today's opening salvo in the impeachment of Donald Trump, the news that Trump himself absolutely tried to bribe Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with pressure to smear Joe Biden.

In a nationally televised hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee room across from the Capitol, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, brought to life Democrats’ allegations that Mr. Trump has abused his office by trying to enlist a foreign power to help him in an election. Mr. Taylor testified to the House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the inquiry, that he was told in July that Mr. Trump cared more about “investigations of Biden” than he did about Ukraine.
The revelation, as Congress embarked on only the third set of presidential impeachment hearings in modern times, tied Mr. Trump more directly into what Mr. Taylor described in vivid detail as a “highly irregular” effort to place the president’s political interests at the center of American policy toward Ukraine.

“I don’t think President Trump was trying to end corruption in Ukraine,” said Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, encapsulating Democrats’ case. “I think he was trying to aim corruption in Ukraine at Vice President Biden and at the 2020 election.”

The proceedings pushed into the public gaze an epic clash between Mr. Trump and Democrats over impeachment that has shifted into high gear less than a year before the presidential election. In the first impeachment hearing on Capitol Hill in more than two decades, Mr. Taylor and another veteran diplomat, George P. Kent, sketched out, in testimony by turns cinematic and dry, a tale of foreign policymaking distorted by a president’s political vendettas with a small country facing Russian aggression caught in the middle.

“If this is not impeachable conduct,” demanded Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the committee, “what is?”

Bill Taylor was the star of the show today, and Trump is livid.

Even as the public recitation of facts unfolded in the hearing room, there were signs that Democrats’ investigation was still expanding. Investigators scheduled depositions with David Holmes, an official in the United States Embassy in Kiev, and Mark Sandy of the Office of Management and Budget for Friday and Saturday. According to an official involved in the inquiry, Mr. Holmes was the aide Mr. Taylor referred to in his new testimony, who informed Mr. Taylor about Mr. Trump’s singular interest in investigating the Bidens.

Mr. Taylor said a member of his staff overheard a telephone conversation in which the president mentioned “the investigations” to Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, who told Mr. Trump “that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.” The conversation took place just one day after Mr. Trump personally pressed Ukraine’s new president in a phone call to investigate the Bidens and unproven allegations that Ukraine conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 election.

The reason why David Holmes is being questioned over the weekend?  He's the staff member Bill Taylor mentioned in today's hearing that overheard the phone call from Sondland to Trump about "the investigations".

It's about to get hot in here this week.

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Senate Republicans are making it clear already that the inevitable motion to dismiss impeachment charges from the House outright will not have the votes in the Senate.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Senate Republican leadership, says there are not enough votes in the Senate to immediately dismiss any articles of impeachment passed by the House against President Trump.

Republicans have discussed the possibility of quickly dismissing charges against Trump, which would just require 51 votes. But Cornyn said that would be a difficult hurdle for the GOP, which holds 53 seats in the Senate.

“There’s some people talking about trying to stop the bill, dismiss charges basically as soon as they get over here. I think that’s not going to happen. That would require 51 votes,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday.

“I think it would be hard to find 51 votes to cut the case off before the evidence is presented,” he added.

Cornyn also said it would be better to have a trial in the Senate if the House impeaches Trump.

The veteran GOP senator said “the better course would be to let each side have their say and then have the Senate vote and see if they can meet the two-thirds threshold” to convict the president on impeachment articles.

If Cornyn is saying the votes don't exist for a summary dismissal of the charges, then we're going to have that Senate trial, for better or worse, with Mitch McConnell setting the rules.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

The twin Trump regime Justice Department "reports" on the origins of the Russia probe and the FISA warrants into Carter Page are now being rolled into one giant pile of bullshit to use against Democrats right in the middle of impeachment hearings.

The Justice Department’s watchdog is nearing the release of its report on the early stages of the FBI’s Russia investigation, a document likely to revive debate about a politically charged probe that shadowed President Donald Trump’s administration from the outset.

The inspector general in recent days has invited witnesses and their lawyers who were interviewed for the report to review portions of a draft this week and next, a critical final step toward making the document public, according to multiple people familiar with the process who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.
As part of that process, the people will have opportunities to raise concerns or suggest potential edits, making it unclear precisely when in the coming weeks a final version could be ready for release. Inspector General Michael Horowitz told Congress in a letter last month that he did not expect a lengthy review period and that he intended to make as much of the report public as possible, with minimal redactions.

The release of the report is likely to coincide with House impeachment proceedings scrutinizing the Trump administration’s efforts to press Ukraine into investigating Democratic rival Joe Biden. Any finding of problems by the inspector general in how the FBI gathered and collected evidence in investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia could at least temporarily buoy Trump and other Republican supporters eager to turn the page from the congressional scrutiny now imperiling his White House.

Trump has long insisted that the investigation into his campaign was a “hoax” and “witch hunt,” asserting without evidence or elaboration as recently as last month that law enforcement officials had done “really bad things.”

A key question examined by the inspector general has been the FBI’s process for applying for, and receiving, a secret warrant to monitor the communications of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The warrant was renewed multiple times by judges, but Republican critics of the Russia probe have decried the fact that the FBI relied in part in its application on uncorroborated information obtained by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who had been paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to conduct opposition research.

The government did disclose to the court the political loyalties of the people who hired Steele, according to Democrats on the House intelligence committee who released their own memo last year aimed at countering Republican allegations of law enforcement misconduct.

The FBI opened its investigation in July 2016 after receiving information that a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, had disclosed to an Australian diplomat that Russia had thousands of stolen emails that would be potentially damaging to Clinton, an election opponent. U.S. officials have said the emails were hacked by Russian intelligence operatives and given to WikiLeaks, which released them ahead of the election.

Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, had learned from a Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud, that Russia had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of the stolen emails. Papadopoulos later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Mifsud.

A spokeswoman for Horowitz declined to comment on Tuesday. Horowitz himself refused to answer questions about the report and its timing at an unrelated news conference last week. The inspector general provided a draft copy to Attorney General William Barr in September, and the Justice Department has since been conducting a classification review.

They've been sitting on it to try to unleash both for maximum effect, probably just after Thanksgiving.  It's going to be the major attack in order to derail impeachment.  We'll see how well it works.

StupidiNews!

• House Democrats have scheduled impeachment hearings next week for eight more witnesses, including EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland and NSC Ukraine expert Alexander Vindland.
• Indicted former Trump adviser Roger Stone has rested his defense without calling witnesses, the trial could go to jury by the end of the week.
• The Department of Health and Human Services is looking into possible massive HIPAA violations by Google in its medical record sharing deal with hospital chain Ascension.
• The Trump regime is threatening "substantial" new China tariffs unless Beijing reaches a trade deal with the US soon.
• A federal judge has ruled ICE and Customs random search and seizure of international travelers' electronic devices is unconstitutional, the Trump regime plans to appeal the ruling.

Last Call For Race To The Bottom, Con't

And here we have Trump regime immigration adviser Stephen Miller's own words, proving beyond a doubt that he is a white supremacist who wants to remove all non-white people from America, period, and is willing to use the power of the federal government in order to accomplish turning America into a white nation through any means necessary.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.

In this, the first of what will be a series about those emails, Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a “white genocide”-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in “Mein Kampf.”

Hatewatch reviewed more than 900 previously private emails Miller sent to Breitbart editors from March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016. Miller does not converse along a wide range of topics in the emails. His focus is strikingly narrow – more than 80 percent of the emails Hatewatch reviewed relate to or appear on threads relating to the subjects of race or immigration. Hatewatch made multiple attempts to reach the White House for a comment from Miller about the content of his emails but did not receive any reply.

Miller’s perspective on race and immigration across the emails is repetitious. When discussing crime, which he does scores of times, Miller focuses on offenses committed by nonwhites. On immigration, he touches solely on the perspective of severely limiting or ending nonwhite immigration to the United States. Hatewatch was unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.

Miller has gained a reputation for attempting to keep his communications secret: The Washington Post reported in August that Miller “rarely puts anything in writing, eschewing email in favor of phone calls.” The Daily Beast noted in July that Miller has recently “cut off regular contact with most of his allies” outside the Trump administration to limit leaks.

Miller used his government email address as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions in the emails Hatewatch reviewed. He sent the majority of the emails Hatewatch examined before he joined Trump’s campaign in January 2016 and while he was still working for Sessions. Miller also used a personal Hotmail.com address in the emails and did so both before and after he started working for Trump. Hatewatch confirmed the authenticity of Miller’s Hotmail.com address through an email sent from his government address in which he lists it as his future point of contact:

“I am excited to announce that I am beginning a new job as Senior Policy Advisor to presidential candidate Donald J. Trump,” Miller wrote from his government email on Jan. 26, 2016, to an undisclosed group of recipients. “Should you need to reach me, my personal email address is [redacted].”

Katie McHugh, who was an editor for Breitbart from April 2014 to June 2017, leaked the emails to Hatewatch in June to review, analyze and disseminate to the public. McHugh was 23 when she started at Breitbart and also became active in the anti-immigrant movement, frequently rubbing shoulders with white nationalists. McHugh was fired from Breitbart in 2017 after posting anti-Muslim tweets. She has since renounced the far right.

McHugh told Hatewatch that Breitbart editors introduced her to Miller in 2015 with an understanding he would influence the direction of her reporting. For that reason, and because Miller would have regarded her as a fellow traveler of the anti-immigrant movement, McHugh sometimes starts conversations with Miller in the emails, seeking his opinion on news stories. Other times, Miller directly suggests story ideas to McHugh, or tells her how to shape Breitbart’s coverage. Periodically, Miller asks McHugh if he can speak to her by phone, taking conversations offline.

“What Stephen Miller sent to me in those emails has become policy at the Trump administration,” McHugh told Hatewatch.

Your friends and neighbors and even some family are planning to vote for Trump. Show them this.  Show them this is what's going to happen to America in a second Trump term.

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

The latest Republican "defense" of Donald Trump is now "He can't be impeached because bribery and extortion require intent" and I'm too busy laughing to care.

Confronted with a mountain of damaging facts heading into tomorrow's opening of the public phase of impeachment, House Republicans plan to argue that "the President's state of mind" was exculpatory.

The state of play: "To appropriately understand the events in question — and most importantly, assess the President's state of mind during his interaction with [Ukrainian] President Zelensky — context is necessary," says the 18-page staff memo, circulated to committee members last night.

"The evidence gathered does not establish an impeachable offense," the memo concludes.

Why it matters: By focusing their defense on intangibles like impeachability and President Trump's mindset, House Republicans don't depend on undercutting a narrative that has been bolstered by witness after witness. 

Republican senators, who would vote on whether to remove President Trump if the House impeached him, are also thinking this way. 

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told the WashPost 10 days ago: "To me, it all turns on intent, motive. ... Did the president have a culpable state of mind?"
The memo points to "four key pieces of evidence" to try to undermine Democrats' arguments for why the president should be impeached: 

"The July 25 call summary — the best evidence of the conversation — shows no conditionality or evidence of pressure." 

"President Zelensky and President Trump have both said there was no pressure on the call." 

"The Ukrainian government was not aware of a hold on U.S. security assistance at the time of the July 25 call." 

"President Trump met with President Zelensky and U.S. security assistance flowed to Ukraine in September 2019 — both of which occurred without Ukraine investigating President Trump's political rivals."

Between the lines: The memo fails to consider counterarguments that Democratic members have been making for weeks.

And that's the idea.  Republicans are simply going to gaslight this and pretend that Trump's already been exonerated by the evidence, and that Democrats are wasting America's time with a partisan witch hunt.

Sadly, it's the 52 Republican senators who can simply cite that and acquit Trump or even dismiss the charges outright, regardless of evidence.  They only need 34 to acquit, and any Republican senator who does cross Trump will certainly be removed from committees, face credible death threats from crazed Trump voters, be brutally attacked by Trump for months on Twitter, risk their career via immediate primary challenger, or all of the above.

No Republican will do it.  Not a one.  They're all cowards.

Another Hat In The Ring Against Mitch

Amy McGrath isn't the only name running against Mitch McConnell.  Louisville state Representative Charles Booker is considering entering the race and says he'll make a decision by the end of the month.

Booker, 35, a first-term state legislator, told The Courier Journal he filed the paperwork for his committee Monday and plans to launch a statewide listening tour by the end of November before he makes a final decision on whether to run.

"It's clear that Kentuckians are ready for a change and they're ready for a movement," Booker said. "My goal with this process is to make sure that we can build the infrastructure needed to catalyze that."

He said he's tired of McConnell using Kentucky as a "poker chip" to gain power while the Bluegrass State suffers.

"The fact of the matter is: (McConnell) knows how to do something about it. He has the power to and chooses not to," said Booker, who was born a few weeks before McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984. "And that's the part that pisses me off, because while he jokes about calling himself the Grim Reaper, we're literally dying."

Booker, who has Type 1 diabetes, said he's had to ration insulin before and "nearly died myself" doing so. McConnell is blocking a bill that House Democrats say would lower drug prices.

"(McConnell) has the tools, he has the ability to help Kentucky. He chooses not to and mocks us while he doesn't," Booker added.

Booker's decision to form an exploratory committee marks a significant step toward potentially running for U.S. Senate. But the state representative previously said that he had an eye on Washington, D.C.

Here's Booker's announcement ad, and it's a good one.



Booker has a real future. We'll see if it goes through McConnell's seat.

StupidiNews!

• Former Bolivian President Evo Morales has accepted political asylum in Mexico, Morales was ousted over the weekend as a military coup rose against his socialist government.
• Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, chair of Maryland's Democratic Party and widow of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings will run for her husband's House seat in 2020.
• Hong Kong police fired tear gas at protesters Tuesday as commuters dealt with disrupted subway lines and roads for a second day after two demonstrators were killed over the weekend.
• Former President Jimmy Carter has been hospitalized for surgery to deal with fluid on the brain after a series of falls in the last several weeks.
• Google may already have access to the medical records of tens of millions of Americans as part of a partnership with the nation's largest Catholic medical network, Ascension.