Impeachment season is still in full swing, ripe with Republican plotting to keep America distracted from the fact that their president is rotten. Let gather up a bushel of today’s most nauseating impeachment news.
First, we’ve got Mitch McConnell changing the rules for the impeachment process in hopes that the American people will become so overwhelmed and sick with despair they move on to something else:
“McConnell has proposed allowing each side 24 hours to make its arguments. That’s the same 24 hours allowed for debate during the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton—but for Clinton, those 24 hours were spread out over four days. For Trump, McConnell wants to condense them into two days.” [The Nation]
Next, we’ve got Alan Dershowitz, the man who told a jury with a straight face that O.J. didn’t do it, denying that he ever said a president can be impeached without being found guilty of a crime, despite being confronted by CNN with video of himself saying just that:
“It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime,” he said in a television interview in 1998, during the impeachment controversy surrounding President Bill Clinton. “If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of the president and abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime.”
These days he has changed his opinion completely, but when asked if he was wrong twenty-two years ago, Dershowitz claims to have been right both times:
“I wasn’t wrong,” Dershowitz replied. “I am just far more correct now than I was then. … I think your viewers are entitled to hear my argument without two bullies jumping on everything I say.”
Historically, Dershowitz seems to believe that people who haven’t committed crimes should be punished, while his clients who have clearly done crimes should not, and it does appear that he at least is remaining true to that opinion. [Washington Post]
And while Dershowitz performed those stunning verbal gymnastics on CNN, backstage, Trump’s lawyers and friends are plotting ways to take former national security adviser John Bolton from off the impeachment hearing menu and serve up Hunter Biden instead. [Washington Post]
And finally, the American people are mostly just hungry for a functional government not led by people whose only objectives seem to be power through chaos. According to a CNN poll, 51 percent of Americans are hoping that the Senate will remove Donald Trump from office as a result of the impeachment process. [Politico]
Now that everyone is bloated to bursting with impeachment news, let’s barf:
- An Iranian student legally attending Northeastern University might be booted from the country for absolutely no reason. [Boston Globe]
- And while the Trump administration is proud that they’ve made some travelers miserable, they plan to look into expanding their cruelty in the travel ban arena. [Politico]
- The moms who lived in a vacant Oakland house for two months are allowed to buy it. [Gaurdian]
- After a brief stint bottoming in Iowa, Joe Biden is back on top. [Politico]
- Liz and Bernie are getting the band back together. [Gary Grumbach Twitter]
- President Warren would ask all of Trump’s appointees to resign. [Reuters]
- Candidate Warren is putting together an independent Department of Justice task force to see if there’s anything to be done about all this pesky Trump crime we’ve got lying around everywhere. [Angus Johnson Twitter]
- Mayor Pete, perhaps confusing the presidency with the film Field of Dreams, seems to think that proximity to a cornfield fosters strong leadership abilities. [Dan Merica Twitter]