Impeachment and misogyny

Carl Albert. Name ring a bell?

In 1973-74, during Watergate, he was a Democratic congressman from Oklahoma. He was also the Speaker of the House. There are two other things you should know about the guy:

1. Nobody hated him. At least, he received no more than the usual amount of hatred directed against any politician.

2. He did NOT convene hearings into the impeachment of Richard Nixon, even though much of the country was screaming for Dick removal.

The anti-Nixon activists did not make Albert a prime target of their ire, even though, as far as Albert was concerned, impeachment was off the table. At least, off his table.

Why? Because he knew, and the country knew, that impeachment properly belonged on the table of Pete Rodino, the Chair -- or Chairman, as folks then said -- of the House Judiciary Committee. If you're old enough, that name should have a Quasimodo-esque ability to ring bells. Rodino's the one who held hearings looking into the crimes of Richard Nixon. When Nixon realized that Rodino's committee would recommend his impeachment, and when six Republican senators warned the President that the votes for removal existed, the Trickster caught a plane for California.

Perhaps my memory is failing, and perhaps my fellow Ancient Ones can improve my recollection. But I do not recall Carl Albert ever making any noteworthy anti-Nixon noises. In fact, he said that if the presidency should fall to him (he was the proverbial "heartbeat away" not once but twice), he would immediately resign in favor of a quickly-chosen Republican Vice President.

Can you imagine the reaction against any Democratic Speaker who made such an announcement nowadays?

Nevertheless, Democrats of that era did not hate Albert. Sure, a lot of people got pissed off at him later, when his name cropped up in the Tongsun Park scandal. But during Watergate, his televised image did not set Democrats screaming "Hate! Hate! Hate!" Nobody considered him a traitor to any "cause," nobody gave him any condescending lectures on the Constitution, nobody threatened to run against him unless he put impeachment on the table.

So why is the situation so different with Nancy Pelosi?

Why does she arouse such antipathy? Why does a widely-circulated petition scream that Pelosi has "actively blocked" the impeachment of Cheney and Bush? Can someone please tell me what action -- I'm looking for actions here, not mere verbiage -- she has taken to impede the impeachment movement?

Can anyone explain to me how her actions have differed in any truly significant way from Carl Albert's?

What I'm about to say will outrage many of you. But I think I know why so many progressives despise Pelosi with a rage more intense than their antipathy for Bush. It's the same reason why so many Republicans in the 1990s loathed Hillary with a deep-down volcanic hatred they never felt for Bill.

The Speaker ain't got no penis.

You say you're no misogynist? I say the same thing about myself, but I'm also honest enough to confess that the unconscious mind and the conscious mind play by different rules.

If my suggestion makes you furious, consider this: John Conyers now sits in Pete Rodino's chair. What stops Conyers from opening up impeachment hearings against Cheney or Bush?

Not a damned thing, as far as I can see.

Yet do you see a firestorm of Conyers-hate comparable to the Pelosi-hate raging through blogostan left? No, you do not.

I can certainly see why Pelosi would leave the job to the Judiciary Committee. First, there's the matter of precedent: That Committee got the I-ball rolling in 1973. Same thing in 1998. (I'm too lazy to look up the Andrew Johnson case.) The Judiciary Committee is where impeachment starts.

Also -- yes, I'm going to say it again -- we must consider the all-important fact of the line of succession. If Pelosi endorses impeachment, the national dialog will shift away from the administration's misdeeds to her perceived ambition. That's why I insist that everyone except Nancy Pelosi should screech to impeach. I want her to shut up about that topic until the last possible second, precisely because I want to see her sit in the oval office.

As I see it, the worst tactical blunder Pelosi could commit would be to make the announcement so many of you want to hear: "Let's hold hearings; let's get rid of these guys." The moment those words spill from her mouth, everyone from Leno to Limbaugh to Letterman will portray her as America's answer to Lady MacBeth.

But if Big John were to say the same words -- well, that idea makes a hell of a lot more sense to me, from both a tactical and a historical standpoint.

So why don't you people hate John Conyers the way you hate the Speaker?

And why do progressives hate her in a way they never hated Carl Albert?

You may insist that the answer has nothing to do with who owns which type of genitalia. You may so insist -- but don't expect me to believe you.

Lying to Congress

Does the CIA lie to Congress? That question is at the heart of the Pelosi matter.

New CIA head Leon Panetta insists that the Agency does no such thing, and that he has the records to prove it. Of course, Panetta is an outsider trying to run an organization that does not cotton to outsiders, and he surely is aware of the resentment, and even death threats, leveled against his predecessors William Colby and Stansfield Turner. His rah-rah company boosterism is a natural reaction.

Let's not pretend that no official hornswoggling occurred during the Bush years. The very phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques," or EIT, should be considered a form of hornswoggling, because it is a euphemism for something nasty and unpalatable. The initials EIT appear in the document allegedly proving Pelosi a liar. But that phrase is anachronistic; the term was not in use then, or at least it did not have a widely-agreed-upon definition.

Given that problem, no-one outside the room can pretend to know just what was said to Pelosi on September 4, 2002, the single occasion on which she was, allegedly, briefed on waterboarding. John Boehner asks Pelosi to "present the evidence" for her version of events -- but how can she? She is not allowed to make a secret tape recording of intelligence briefings. Only the Agency took notes. And looky looky...

She has asked that the CIA release the notes from that briefing, a request the agency has not granted.

Why doesn't Boehner demand that the CIA release the evidence? The fact that he does not do so proves that this imbroglio is just another GOP witch hunt.

If Pelosi is fibbing, then why is she the one asking for the notes?

A further question. Even if Panetta is right -- even if the CIA's records confirm that the Speaker was informed -- do those records tell the full truth and nothing but?

Some Republicans pretend that anyone who asks that question must lack patriotism. In my view, anyone who doesn't ask is unpatriotic. If you read fairly deeply into the Agency's history, you'll find many instances of Agency personnel creating a paper trail which presents a "truth" at a remove from the real truth.

To cite an historical example: I have seen with my own peepers a letter written by then CIA head Allen Dulles to Sidney Gottlieb (head of the Technical Services Section -- or Q Division, in Bond-ian terms) in which Dulles formally castigated Gottlieb in the wake of the Frank Olson affair. At the time, Dulles had no reason to believe that either Congress or the public would ever learn of the suicide. Nevertheless, he got that letter on the record, purely as a matter of what we would now call CYA. Gottlieb, of course, continued on as before and remained a trusted Dulles ally. The paper trail conveyed a "truth" which was not true.

That sort of thing happens all the time -- inside the CIA and inside many other organizations. I can easily see a situation in which a briefer "informed" Pelosi without really informing her. Clever wording can accomplish miracles.

Newt Gingrich's editorial calling for Pelosi to step down has firmly placed me in the pro-Pelosi camp (even though, not long ago, I was sick of the woman):

But Speaker Pelosi did not confine the question to the reliability of memory. Instead, she made the allegation last week that the CIA intentionally misled her - misled Congress - and not just once, but routinely.

“They mislead us all the time,” she said.

She charged that the CIA, deliberately and as a matter of policy, violated the law by lying to Congress.

And with that allegation, Speaker Pelosi disqualified herself from the office she holds.

I admire Pelosi's courage in speaking the truth. Of course the Agency misleads Congress. Has done for decades.

If you want to see a good recent example, head on over to TPM, which has a great scoop (credit where due, and all that...) on a separate instance. A CIA Inspector General's report concluded that the Agency misinformed Congress regarding the downing of a plane (carrying missionaries) over Peru in 2001. Incidentally, the report was released by Rep. Hoekstra, a Republican. For some strange reason, Newt has not complained about Hoekstra.

Perhaps we should ask not "Did the CIA fib to Nancy?" but "When has the CIA not manipulated Congress?" Even this in-house CIA review of a book about the Agency's historical relations with Congress includes the following passage:

And, even when Congress was told about Agency activities, there were limits, at times, on what they were told.

During the Reagan era, one congressional Democrat complained that the CIA treats Congress "like mushrooms" because "they keep us in the dark and feed us manure." One member of the Senate intelligence committee said that getting information out of CIA briefers is like pulling teeth -- "and sometimes the dentist can't see all the teeth."

In every major spook-related congressional inquiry that I can think of -- the Church Committee, the Rockefeller Commission, the Pike Committee, Watergate, the HSCA, the MKULTRA hearings, inquiries pursuant to Gary Webb's journalism, and a host of other occasions -- the Agency has either hid the truth or slanted it or (and this is what happens most often) remained silent when silence was tantamount to lying.

For a classic example of the last-mentioned technique, simply review George Tenet's actions, or lack of actions, in the run-up to the Iraq war. He could have told Congress that Iraq had no WMDs -- instead, he took personal responsibility for false statements made by Colin Powell before the UN.

Pelosi's attackers seem to have forgotten the Niger yellowcake affair:

The Niger uranium story becomes a matter of contention within the CIA; By early 2002, the intelligence—still unverified—had begun to play a role in the Administration’s warnings about the Iraqi nuclear threat. On January 30th, the C.I.A. published an unclassified report to Congress that stated, “Baghdad may be attempting to acquire materials that could aid in reconstituting its nuclear-weapons program.”

We now know that this assessment was based on a document that was not only a forgery but an obvious forgery.

I don't like Nancy Pelosi. Coming to her defense is not easy. But the Republican attack machine is making that job a whole lot easier. Some of the conservative commentary actually tries to blame the Iraq war on the Democrats!

The mere fact that there is now a blog-wide astroturf assault on Nancy -- similar to the blog-wide astroturf assault on Hillary in 2008 -- tells me that something big is afoot. The attacks are popping up all over, on sites both right and left. This is a classic hate campaign, an exercise in the manipulation of public perception. But why? What's the motive? Is Obama behind it? The Republicans? Both?

Incidentally, Senator Bob Graham also says that the CIA has not been telling the truth.

Those who think that the CIA never lies should consider the following:

Still, claims that Democrats were fully briefed on the Bush administration's torture program have been leveled as recently as last December by Vice President Dick Cheney and in books by former Bush officials such as John Yoo, the former deputy assistant attorney general at the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), who helped draft one of the four memos released last week.

But the veracity of those assertions have been called into question by former CIA official Mary O. McCarthy, who said senior agency officials lied to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing in 2005 when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.

"A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading," The Washington Post reported.

"In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA's detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (California), the senior Democrat," The Washington Post reported.

No doubt the attack machine will now try to portray McCarthy as a liberal activist.

Kucinich on impeachment

Heretofore, my big problem with Dennis Kucinich's call for the impeachment of Dick Cheney was that his "bill of particulars" did not go far enough. Now, that insufficiency appears to be a blessing.

Dennis Kuicnich just said that he is considering introducing a "privileged resolution" for impeachment on the floor of the House. He was on the Ed Schultz Show.

So sayeth Afterdowningstreet; I did not hear the whole of Schultz' program and thus am in the dark as to whether this resolution targets Cheney or Bush. I will presume that Dennis is menacing Dick.

Special rules govern a privileged resolution:

Once having submitted an impeachment resolution against a civil officer, then that member's high privilege has expired. Id. at pp. 769-70 (Section 469). This rule apparently does not apply if the member files an amended impeachment resolution containing new charges or other new matters. Id. at 767-69 (Section 468).

So even if the thing dies, it may live anew. Cheney has more sins on his head than Kucinich has mentioned. And that, it turns out, is a good thing.

So what will happen? Here's a roadmap. You won't read it, but here it is anyways:

Even when an impeachment resolution does not contain within it a referral to a committee for inquiry or investigation, it appears to be the normal procedure for such a resolution to be referred to an appropriate committee -- even when the resolution clearly has absolutely no support in the full House. IMPEACHMENT: Selected Materials pp. 769-70 (Section 469).

According to Jerome Zeifman, however, it is possible that such a resolution could be called up for an immediate vote; but that option appears to be within the control of the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader. See Zeifman, Without Honor: The Impeachment of Richard Nixon and the Crimes of Camelot pp. 46-47 (1995). Hence, Congressman Robert Drinan's Resolution impeaching Richard Nixon -- filed on July 31, 1973 when there was absolutely no sentiment for impeachment was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Later, on October 23 and 24, 1973, when 84 such resolutions were introduced, all were referred to the Judiciary Committee.

What does this mean on a practical level? My prediction: Pelosi, like her Watergate-era predecessor Carl Allen, will pass. There will be no immediate vote. Cue the Progressive Purists:

"Pelosi has sold us out! Form a new party! Don't give one dime to Democrats! They're all in it together! Something something Bush and Kerry something something Skull and Bones!"

Yes, the responses will be all very predictable -- even though Pelosi will have done precisely what Allen did.

But: The matter will go to the Judiciary Committee -- and that is when the real work begins. Investigations, witnesses, reports... Watergate redux.

One presumes, or hopes, that we will then get the sorts of revelations that can actually change minds, both within Congress and within the population as a whole.

Yes, I know all about that July poll by the American Research Group, which had a 54% majority favoring the impeachment of Dick Cheney (with a three percent margin of error). However, that figure is almost certainly wrong. A more recent September poll by Zogby places support for Cheney's impeachment at 32%, roughly consistent with earlier findings. That number is not too distant from the percentage favoring the impeachment of Clinton back in 1998 -- an effort which failed to remove him from office.

(These poll numbers puncture the Purist hallucination that the rest of the country shares their purity. Check out the "progressive" idiot who posted response 12, here: "most folks support impeachment - by huge margins..." And he's talking about the impeachment of W, who is more popular than Cheney!)

Obviously, support needs to be shored up, and that is a task best done by the Judiciary Committee.

Only one factor can louse up the scenario I have just outlined: The Progressive Purists -- who, as always, can be counted on to act in the Republican Party's best interests.

Firebrands will demand that Pelosi call for an immediate floor vote on Kucinich's privileged resolution. Such a vote will fail. The support for impeachment simply is not there. A majority of the folks back home, God help us, still want Darth Cheney in command of the Death Star.

Here, we encounter a paradox: The Purists who scream loudest for impeachment -- and who mistakenly think that theirs is the majority position -- may pressure the Speaker to try the one tactic which will doom the effort.

The wisest thing Pelosi can do is to mutter something along the lines of "Impeachment is still off the table" -- mere words, mere meaningless words -- and then refer the matter to Conyers. But the firebrands will never forgive her if she does that.

I'd love to play chess against one of those ninnies. They have a chronic inability to see more than one move ahead.

As I said before, I support the idea of impeachment -- and removal. Hell, I would love to see George and Dick tried at the Hague. But I do not support the impeachment movement, which has become an anti-Democratic party movement.

(And why do I have the creepy premonition that those who hate me will respond to what they think I have said, not what I have actually said?)

Holy hand grenade!

We still don't know much about what Fiona Hill said in her testimony. But we now have this.

Former national security advisor John Bolton is, God help us, the good guy in this story. He saw that Giuliani was up to something. He saw that Giuliani, who had no White House role, was skulking and scheming with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff. He saw that the scheme had something to do with Ukraine. And Bolton did not like the reek of it.

“I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Mr. Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to two people at the deposition.

That quote will outlive both Trump and Bolton.

It was not the first time Mr. Bolton expressed grave concerns to Ms. Hill about the campaign being run by Mr. Giuliani. “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” Ms. Hill quoted Mr. Bolton as saying during an earlier conversation.

That quote, too, will live. One of these days, someone will write a bio of Rudy titled "Hand Grenade."

The lawyer she spoke to was John Eisenberg. Apparently, he was the guy notified by the CIA when Whistleblower Numero Uno emitted his first, tentative peep. Moreover, it is said that Eisenberg played a role in the decision to place the official (full) transcript of that phone call (the Trump/Zelensky chat) onto a super-secret code-word computer.

I remind you: That decision was against the law. Under 28 CFR § 17.22, you're not allowed to classify information "in order to conceal inefficiency, violations of law, or administrative error; to prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency."

Trump keeps telling us that the call was "perfect" and innocent. Then why was it so highly classified? Why won't he release the unexpurgated transcript?

Looks to me as though a certain lawyer could have some legal troubles. Perhaps he might be willing to identify the BARRbarian who helped him reach that decision?

John Oliver refers to this scandal as "Stupider Watergate." My suggestion: "Moran-contra."

Elsewhere...

Giuliani denies any Firtash link. In a previous post, we noted news reports that Dmitry Firtash -- the notorious Ukrainian oligarch/accused criminal/Putin crony -- was paying Lev and Igor, who were paying Rudy. (I feel as though we're all on a first-name basis by this point.) We also noted that the legal team of diGenova and Toensing -- that lovely couple from teevee -- are now representing Firtash.

I also pointed out that, back when  Firtash had a Democratic lawyer, Giuliani screamed about the Ukrainian's many sins. Specifically, Giuliani (correctly) called Firtash an associate of Semion Mogilevich, who may be the worst gangster in the history of the world. There are many Mogilevich ties to the various Trump scandals, as we've outlined in previous posts. (See the tweet embedded at the bottom of this post.)

Now we learn that Rudy got a cool half-million from Fraud Guarantee, Lev and Igor's company. Have you seen any evidence that the firm did real business? I haven't.

Giuliani said he was confident that the money he received was from “a domestic source,” but he would not say where it came from.

“I know beyond any doubt the source of the money is not any questionable source,” he told Reuters in an interview. “The money did not come from foreigners. I can rule that out 100%,” he said.

Of course, Rudy. Of course.

I mean, if we can't trust the guy whom John Bolton called a drug dealer, who can we trust? I'm sure Bolton used that term poetically.

Rudy also insists that when he, Lev and Igor all decided to take a holiday in Vienna, they had no intention of paying a call on Firtash, who lives there -- in fact, he's kinda stuck there, thanks to his legal problems.

"I wasn't planning to go see him," Giuliani said. "That was the last thing from my mind on why I was going to Vienna. There was a very important reason I was going that I'm not at liberty to disclose right now that will make it quite clear [Parnas and Fruman] were not fleeing.

Of course, Rudy. Of course.

I really think that Rudy should go with the story that they were in that town to hear Christian Thielemann conduct Bruckner's Eighth Symphony (which he did on October 12). "Thielmann conveys the spirituality of the third movement with a profundity reminiscent of the late Sergiu Celibidache." Rudy, if you're listening, just memorize those words and try to say them with a straight face. For a price, I could teach you to be a persuasive bogus Bruckner buff.

Did you know that Gordon Sondland runs a haunted hotel? He owns the venerable Heathman Hotel in Portland, considered one of the most-ghosted establishments in America. According to lore, someone fell out of room 703 many years ago -- and ever since, all rooms ending with "03" have been active. It'd be nice if someone could provide a newsclip proving that the Great Plunge actually happened, but so far, I've not seen any documentation. Maybe one of our congressfolk can ask Mr. Sondland about that?

You can stay in the Warhol suite for around $450. For that price, Sondland should toss in some free Campbell's soup.

Unrelated but important: I've bitched about Nancy Pelosi a lot, especially after she allowed the Lewandowski hearing to devolve into insanity. Frankly, she should have gone for impeachment after the Mueller report. But let us give credit where it is due.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bill to lower prescription drug prices would save Medicare $345 billion over 10 years, according to a preliminary analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Our final word goes to Seth Abramson...

Hey, did you know Trump's 2016 campaign manager Manafort has been a business associate of Parnas/Fruman's boss, Firtash, since 2008? And Parnas/Fruman have worked for Firtash for years, Trump has known Manafort for years, pics of Trump with Parnas go back years, and... you get it https://t.co/2hCrTSFMA9

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) October 15, 2019

The triumph of the right

If Obama were to invite Paul Krugman to another dinner, Krugman might decline.

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment.

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view...

And perhaps the most important element of that world-view is this: The only jobs-creation program which our political culture now permits is a program involving weaponry. The economists who (rightly) castigate Obama's plan as a failed attempt at budget-balancing may be missing the point.

Obama may try to slash agricultural subsidies, and that attempt probably won't succeed, but he'll come out of it looking like a deficit hawk. In reality, the lion's share of the budget goes to the military, Social Security, Medicare and interest payments on the debt. Only military spending can create jobs. The ballyhooed spending freeze is nothing but political cover.

In short and in sum: Barack Obama is Ronald Reagan without the whimsy. The Reagan boom was ascribed -- rightly, I think -- to what was called "military Keynesianism." Today, only 40 percent of the citizenry wants to see increased military spending, yet increase it will -- because any other form of stimulus would face crippling right-wing opposition, and the right still controls the country.

All we need is a trigger. An incident. Watch it happen.

Looks like the psy-warriors are prepping us for a WMD attack in the U.S....

Health care reform: Bye bye!

Mr. Reid said that he and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, were working to map out a way to complete a health care overhaul in coming months. “There are a number of options being discussed,” Mr. Reid said, emphasizing “procedural aspects” of the issue.

They're passing it further down the line. In an election year, that means they are doing nothing. Looks like there's no hope of the Dems going down the filibuster-busting reconciliation route.

Of course, I did not like this reform package. But I did want to see a true filibuster take place.

Nipped! The young right-wing twerps who set-up ACORN were caught infiltrating Senator Mary Landrieu's office. They posed as telephone repairmen to set up wiretaps. Naturally, the conserva-bloggers are hailing these neo-Watergaters as heroes.

The Watergate advice remains sound: Follow the money. Who was paying these guys?

Who killed liberalism?

John O’Sullivan's piece in the American Conservative -- "What Jackie Did Next" -- bears some points of striking resemblance to Paul Krugman's analysis in The Conscience of a Liberal. In his review of James Piereson's Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, O'Sullivan argues that conservatives should have been flattened after JFK's death and LBJ's sweep.

But something odd happened:

Instead, they made impressive gains in the 1966 midterm elections, won the presidency in 1968 and, delayed only briefly by Watergate, placed Reagan in the White House a decade later. Why had the seemingly inevitable gone into reverse?

Conservatives prospered, writes O'Sullivan, because liberals "picked up Oswald’s gun and turned it upon themselves."

In the age of Reid and Pelosi, it’s hard to remember that the liberalism of those days was the reigning public philosophy of American life. It dominated the universities, the media, the great foundations, business corporations, labor unions, and (until Goldwater) both political parties. This governing philosophy was very different from today’s querulous utopianism. Though it had already drunk deep of statism, it was also meliorist, pragmatic, patriotic, and problem-solving. It embodied the grand compromises of American politics. It believed in containing the Soviet Union but not in rolling it back. It advocated a moderate welfare state resting on a relatively free economy (relative, that is, to Western Europe). It supported the advance of civil rights through federal intervention, but was nervously ambivalent about the “freedom riders.” And because it dominated both parties—it was Eisenhower who had sent troops into Little Rock to enforce desegregation—liberalism seemed to be the immovable center of American politics.

Paul Krugman would agree with this view. Most reactionaries -- and most hard-core "progressives" -- would not.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

Reactionaries love their idealized view of a conservative American past. They refuse to acknowledge that this country was, in its post-war days of ascent and command, liberal to the core. Progressive purists would agree that the Republican and Democratic parties were, and are, indistinguishable, but they would never use the word "liberal" to describe that shared philosophy. Cue up the SIBPATS speech.

So how did the liberal behemoth commit suicide? O'Sullivan goes off the rails when he blames the liberal establishment's reaction to the Kennedy assassination. Not the assassination itself: The reaction.

Before anyone knew the identity of Kennedy’s assassin, his death was at once and widely attributed in media speculations to “extremists” and “bigots” on the Right.

This is silly. The period of confusion lasted hours, not days. Oswald was identified as a communist with unnerving rapidity. Oswald's radio debate with Carlos Bringuier received a nationwide broadcast even before Jack Ruby enacted his role in the drama.

Krugman, by contrast, has the guts to point to the actual cause of liberalism's demise: Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act. At a stroke, Johnson signed away the South. But more than that -- he jolted life into the conservative movement of William F. Buckley. Eventually, that movement gave us Ronnie and Dubya.

Before the Civil Rights Act, Americans understood that FDR's legacy of liberalism benefited all. But after the Act, conservatives could -- using euphemism and code words -- play on racial fears. Any government program to help the poor became framed as an unfair hand-out to lazy blacks. In Europe, a piece of social welfare legislation might cause the average person to nod in approval: "This helps me." In America, a similar law might cause a citizen to sneer: "This helps them." Not us; the Other. Black people.

An argument over history thus segues into current events, since the stir over Hillary's reference to LBJ and the Civil Rights Act has not yet ended. I consider it wrong and unjust to denigrate the political courage showed by the Democrats who enacted that legislation. They legislated away the southern part of the Democratic coalition. More than that: They mortally wounded the New Deal itself. They did the right thing, but let's not pretend that it was easy.

Like most conservatives, O'Sullivan refuses to confess that the growth of his movement in the 1960s, '70s and '80s owes a massive debt to racism. He foolishly prefers to blame the Warren Report critics, who viewed (and still view) Oswald as a tool of reactionary schemers within the intelligence community.

If Amerika had killed Kennedy, then liberalism was merely a smiley face painted on a System of racist and sexist oppression. Liberals could best atone for their participation in such a charade by supporting the revolution in all its exotic incoherence.

Ridiculous.

The "revolution," born of the reaction to Vietnam, was not embraced by the liberal establishment of the 1960s, and the youthful revolutionaries were more likely to view the Kennedys as pigs than as martyrs. I never let my readers forget about the radicals who shouted "Sirhan power!" in 1968.

O'Sullivan cites Norman Mailer as an exemplar of the New Left. But Mailer and his crowd never really befriended the Warren Commission critics -- in fact, Mailer went on to write an "Oswald diddit" book with the help of a partner who despised the critics and acted as an FBI informant.

Who killed the liberal consensus in America? Sorry, but we cannot blame Mark Lane, Peter Dale Scott or Jim Garrison. Neither can we point to Norman Mailer, Abby Hoffman, Gore Vidal, Jerry Rubin, or any number of other '60s era "progressive purists," although their picturesque antics did alienate many.

Who killed liberalism? Put LBJ, Bill Buckley and the televangelists in the line-up of suspects, and maybe we'll get somewhere.

Is the whistleblower scandal about Ukraine/Biden? Plus: Epstein, Bannon, cryptocurrency and more

The whistleblower's complaint involved multiple acts, not just one promise made by Trump to a world leader. Or so says the NYT.

The complaint was related to multiple acts, Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for American spy agencies, told lawmakers during a private briefing, two officials familiar with it said. But he declined to discuss specifics, including whether the complaint involved the president, according to committee members.

Separately, a person familiar with the whistle-blower’s complaint said it involves in part a commitment that Mr. Trump made in a communication with another world leader. The Washington Post first reported the nature of that discussion. But no single communication was at the root of the complaint, another person familiar with it said.

Laura Rozen points to a very disturbing possibility. This scenario seems very credible -- so much so, it goes right to the top of our list of theories.

But the $250m (£280m) of arms for Ukrainian forces, which are confronting Russian backed separatists, has been enmeshed in a bitter battle between the US president and his opponents over accusations that he has tried to manipulate it for underhand political reasons.

The Trump administration had in fact suspended the “Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative”, only agreeing to unblock it after rising bipartisan clamour from congress.

The ostensible reason for the hold-up was to ensure that it tallied with US interests.

The real reason, claim critics, was to pressure the Ukrainian government to target Joe Biden – the possible Democrat candidate for next year’s election – through an investigation into corruption allegations against his son.

In other words, Ukraine needs money to fight Russians. Trump says he'll give the money -- but only if the current leader of Ukraine cooks up "evidence" to frame Biden's kid.

Now, the Independent article quoted above does not mention the whistleblower controversy. But the two scandals seem to be awfully congruent -- so much so, one can't help but suspect that the two are, in fact, one.

This goes way beyond Watergate. Dick Nixon would never have dared. If this Ukraine/Biden theory turns out to be true, and if Pelosi doesn't immediately move into full-out impeachment mode, she should be considered as crooked as Trump himself.

Epstein, Bannon, cryptocurrency. Here's the thing about living in the Trump era: There's always some HUGE scandal which draws attention away from a half-dozen other HUGE scandals. No-one can keep up.

The Hollywood Reporter has published a very bizarre tale involving Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein. On any other day, everyone would be discussing this yarn. It has everything: A child star, underaged sex (homosexual sex, this time around), cryptocurrency skullduggery, Jeffrey Epstein -- and dear old Steve Bannon, former Trumper and head honcho of the international fascist traditionalist movement.

The star of this story is a former child actor named Brock Pierce...

...who as a teenager co-founded the eventually infamous Digital Entertainment Network and who, in the mid- to late ‘90s, was associated with an alleged sex-abuse ring — this one involving young men. Several later contended in court filings that Pierce and two associates had drugged and assaulted them at parties in their Encino mansion. Pierce was never charged with any crime and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. He settled with one plaintiff, and two others dismissed their cases against him.

At some point, he decided to get in on the cryptocurrency racket (which really is a racket, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise). So did Epstein, who, in 2011, invited Pierce (not a scientist) to attend a conference for top-flight scientists. The confab was called Mindshift.

How did Epstein and Pierce first get together? Dunno. But both were involved with underaged prostitution. In both cases, there have been allegations that rich people were blackmailed.

After the conference, Pierce somehow became a multi-millionaire -- perhaps a billionaire -- playing the crypto game, which was just a-borning in 2011.

It's unclear what, if anything, Epstein expected to get from Pierce, who was unlikely to add to the prestige of the conference. Epstein’s activities in the area of cryptocurrency remain mysterious. In 2017, he gave an interview to website The Next Web in which he expressed a vague interest in the area, and The Wall Street Journal has reported that Epstein claimed that he worked for the U.S. Treasury Department on cryptocurrency.

Say what? The freakin' Treasury Department? This, on top of his claimed work for the spooks?

I've long held the suspicion that, when we finally learn what Bitcoin was all about, we'll learn that it was a scam perpetrated by guys like Epstein.

A side note: We've all seen how a series of financial fads -- gold buggery, pump-and-dump schemes, ponzi schemes, MLM schemes -- turned out to be scams. In fact, Epstein first became rich via a ponzi scheme involving a swindler named Steve Hofenberg, who now peddles stories about Epstein. (Do not trust that guy.) The scammers behind these operations often target working-class and middle-class libertarians -- naive young guys who've read Atlas Shrugged and emerged with delusions of supermanhood. Libertarians of that sort are eternally convinced that they are the hippest of the hip, which means, of course, that they born suckers.

"Pride," says Satan at the close of The Devil's Advocate. "It's my favorite sin."

Cryptocurrency mania, I believe, is just the latest scam targeting libertarians. No doubt some ground-floor insiders have benefited, but the whole edifice is predicated on the false notion that an ultra-volatile currency, unbacked by any state, has value as a means of exchange. The only people who would ever buy into that goofy premise are the dummies who injected the works of Ayn Rand straight into their veins.

Back to our story:

Pierce was also in business starting in the mid-2000s with former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, who had his own ties to Epstein. Bannon did not respond to requests for comment but he apparently remains a fan of Pierce, who has popped up lately as an unlikely presence in Trump world.

Pierce and partners set up a company called IGE, which facilitated the use of real currency to purchase online gaming goods. Since I'm not a gamer, I can't claim to understand how this world works (and I'm uninterested in learning). The bottom line is that Bannon and Pierce got together on the IGE operation; Bannon brought in Goldman Sachs and hired a bunch of poor schlubs in China to do the scut work.

At some point, Bannon developed his own connection to Epstein, although it’s unknown when or how the relationship began.

I'm willing to guess that Pierce was the go-between.

It was not long after Pierce’s ejection from IGE that he emerged as a player in the world of cryptocurrency. (Bannon also became involved in cryptocurrency.) Pierce founded a number of companies including Blockchain Capital, where his bio identified him as “a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.” (Bill Clinton, of course, also had a relationship with Epstein, though he has denied knowledge of Epstein’s wrongdoing.)

Don't read too much into Pierce's boast about the Clinton Global Initiative, which was all about ending childhood obesity and improving the nation's health. The Initiative wasn't a way to make money, and it had nothing to do with any of the stuff that truly interested Pierce.

Another wheeler-dealer named Al Seckel arranged that Mindshift conference.

Presumably Seckel met Epstein through his sort-of wife, Isabel Maxwell — the sister of alleged Epstein enabler Ghislaine Maxwell — whom he had married in 2007, while apparently still married to someone else.

Now that's interesting.

Indeed, in July 2015 Seckel’s body supposedly was found at the bottom of a cliff in France. He was 56. (The echoes of the fate of Isabel Maxwell’s father Robert, found floating in the sea near his yacht in 1991, are hard to miss.) Seckel died, it seems, just as Tablet magazine was preparing an article that alleged a litany of dubious business dealings as well as exposed Seckel’s phony academic credentials and double marriage.

That's more interesting. Apparently, there is good reason to suspect that Seckel faked his death.

Something's going on here. This is yet another one of those occasions when we seem to have about 50 pieces of a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Pierce's wheeler-dealer lifestyle went sotto after John Oliver discussed him on Last Week Tonight. There's much more tot his story; I strongly recommend you check out the article referenced above.

The case for Impeachment #2

The House should begin the process of impeaching Donald Trump. Yes, again.

After lying under oath to protect Donald Trump, Stone clearly signaled that one day in prison might force him to turn rat. And so the president commuted his crony's sentence -- arguably the most corrupt act in the history of the office. If that's not impeachable, nothing is impeachable.

(Lindsey Graham justified the commutation on the grounds that Roger Stone committed a "nonviolent" offense. Actually, Stone threatened a witness with death -- and someone threatened the jurors.)

How would a new impeachment probe affect the election? I don't know. Perhaps a second attempt will convince the majority of America that nothing will be normal as long as Trump remains in office. Conversely, the majority may conclude that nothing will be normal as long as Dems have power. I'd bet on the first scenario, but nothing is certain.

Bottom line: Impeachment is simply right. The facts certainly justify this course of action.

But the predictable nature of Trump’s action should not obscure its rank corruption. In fact, the predictability makes the commutation all the more corrupt, the capstone of an all-but-open attempt on the president’s part to obstruct justice in a self-protective fashion over a protracted period of time. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s actually not. Trump publicly encouraged Stone not to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s investigation, he publicly dangled clemency as a reward for silence, and he has now delivered. The act is predictable precisely because the corrupt action is so naked.

In a normal world, this pattern of conduct would constitute an almost prototypical impeachable offense.

If you want a normal world, do normal things. 

Now let's look at the tactical arguments in favor of Impeachment II.

A new impeachment investigation will give the House a forum to interview witnesses -- including Roger Stone. Marcy Wheeler points to an impeachment-worthy line of inquiry:

Also, Stone may fuck Trump anyway, or even may already have.

For those asking how Stone might fuck Trump -- Stone kept a notebook recording all his conversations with Trump. It's unclear whether Mueller got it in the raid of Stone's house (that's, in significant point, WHY they raided his house).

FWIW, I have an operative theory that Stone pawned off the notebook onto one of his Proud Boys and then bribed him to keep it safe. But that's just a WAG based off something Stone did in 2018.

A secret notebook? Ahhh. That's sexy. That's the sort of thing likely to capture the public's attention -- a classic Hollywood Maguffin.

This little-discussed notebook was referenced in this warrant. Apparently, investigators learned about it while interviewing one of Stone's employees.

[redacted] provided information about a meeting at Trump Tower between Trump and Stone during the time [redacted] worked for him, to which Sterne carried a “file booklet” with him. Stone told [redacted] the file booklet was important and that no one should touch it. [redacted] also said Stone maintained the file booklet in his closet.

Anyone else remember J. Edgar's fabled blackmail files?

A new impeachment inquiry could determine whether the FBI got hold of this important piece of evidence -- and if not, why not. (I doubt that Mueller nabbed it. If he had, we'd know.)

On the witness stand, Stone would of course deny that this notebook contains evidence of criminality. But Stone isn't that good a liar: He always says more than he should, as he demonstrated during the interview he gave just before the commutation was announced. He is cocky,  intemperate, loquacious, and aging. Being an old hedonist, he may be a former or current user of drugs.

(I'm not saying that I know one way or the other. But I've met a few hedonists in my time, and drug usage took its usual toll on their cognitive functions.)

All of these factors lead me to suspect that Stone just might entertain us with an outrageous and revelatory witness stand outburst. Deep down, Roger Stone wants to shout "Goddamn right I ordered the Code Red! Cocksucker!"

Look at the way Stone threatened Randy Credico. Would a prudent man have done such a thing?

A new impeachment inquiry would have other benefits. Hearings could serve as a daily reminder of Trump's various corruptions. I mean, there's a new Watergate every week or two, right? If the Whitewater probe could morph into the Monica scandal (by way of Ken Starr's bullshit rationalizations), then Impeachment II could morph into a probe of whatever new Watergates pop up in August, September and October.

Not only that. Trump and Barr are going to launch massive, incredibly brazen smears against the Democrats -- and those smears will be backed by "evidence" which may seem, at first, persuasive. Impeachment hearings offer a way to counterpunch.

Let me explain how that would work.

At some point before the election, the John Durham investigation into the origins of the Russia probe will dominate the headlines. Of course, Durham is just the figurehead: Barr's toadies are doing the actual work.

Why is John Durham, previously a respected figure, lending his name to this exercise in mendacity? Does Barr have something on Durham? Lots of people suspect as much, but so far, nobody has offered any informed speculation as to what that "something" might be. Here's a cute fact: Durham's investigation of the investigation has lasted much longer than the original investigation.

Right now, most rank-and-file Dems aren't thinking about Durham, but they should. I predict that someone big will be charged -- possibly Comey, possibly Brennan. Hell, maybe Obama.

Of course, the whole thing will be pure propaganda. The FBI and the intelligence community had all sorts of excellent reasons to investigate the Trump campaign in 2016. The Durham probe is founded on the proposition that the Bureau swarms with liberals desperate to prevent a Republican presidency -- a ludicrous notion that only the most wormy-brained Alex Jonesian would find credible. If Jim Comey had wanted to prevent a Republican victory, he would have revealed before the election that Trump was under investigation.

Expect the Durham smear to hit hard -- at the worst possible moment. It's always best to prepare for disaster. Optimism is the gravest of sins.

The Dems need a mechanism to investigate the investigators of the investigators. An ongoing impeachment probe would serve that purpose perfectly.

If such a probe is in place throughout the rest of Trump's term, the Dems will have a seasoned team of professional investigators at their disposal each and every day. House probers can demand interviews and unredacted copies of raw materials. Sure, Barr can stonewall and refuse subpoenas, but doing so will make him look guilty, and the reek of bullshit will scent John Durham for the rest of his life.

There are many more reasons why a new impeachment inquiry would help the greater cause, but the ones I've listed should suffice. 

Contact Pelosi. Don't let her tell you that Trump's fate should be left up to the voters in November. The voters may make the wrong decision if they don't have all the facts. An impeachment investigation will make the facts known. 

This corrupt Senate probably won't convict, but so what?

Impeachment NOW!