Midnight Mitch

This morning, on CBS This Morning, former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said of Señor Trumpanzee: "He'll either be gone by this time next year or four years from now. Then what happens to the Republican Party? My fear is people out there know that, even if this is not an impeachable offense, that the president did something wrong, and for Republicans to maintain that he didn't is just wrong, and this has long-term ramifications for the party if we act as if we are just devoted to the president no matter what, and this cult of personality that we've seen, we certainly saw it in the House... We have separation of powers, and Congress needs to stand up for its principles. Individual members do as well. It doesn't mean that they won't agree with the president. Often if you're Republican, you typically agree with a Republican president more often [than with a Democratic president]. But not all the time. Not to the extent particularly that the House Republicans did to say that the president did nothing wrong here."

Also this morning, conservative Democrat Claire McCaskill, who was kicked out of office by Missouri voters in 2018, predicted that Susan Collins would be the only senator to break with Moscow Mitch over allowing witnesses in the impeachment trial. Meanwhile, the 7 impeachment managers, led by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, sent a letter to corrupt Trump attorney Pat Cipollone informing him that as a material fact witness in the trial he risks disqualification if he "assumes the role of both advocate and witness" blurring the line between argument and evidence. They inform him that the only way around this is for him to disclose all the evidence before the start of the trial." John Roberts will have to decide that.

Into this mix, stepped Nancy Pelosi, in many ways the ringmaster. She laid out the case this morning, against... MoscowMitch. "Leader McConnell’s plan for a dark of night impeachment trial," she wrote, "confirms what the American people have seen since Day One: the Senate GOP Leader has chosen a cover-up for the President, rather than honor his oath to the Constitution.  Below are key examples of how McConnell’s resolution deviates from the Clinton precedent in an effort to prevent the full truth about President Trump’s efforts to corrupt the 2020 election from coming to light. 

Unfairly Delays and Limits Possible Witnesses and Documentary Evidence

• Under the Clinton Rules, the Managers had received all of the documents and testimony through the Starr Report and accompanying evidence, all they did was additional depositions.  Here, President Trump has denied the House access to a dozen witnesses and has not provided a single document, so delaying the decision unfairly hampers the trial.
• The Clinton resolution guaranteed the parties 6 hours to actually make motions for subpoenas for new documentary evidence and present arguments on those motions.  In contrast, the McConnell resolution only permits the Senate to hear argument for 4 hours and vote on a very narrow question-- namely, the question of whether to consider and debate witness subpoenas.  If the Senate votes no at that point, no party or Senator will be permitted to move to subpoena any witness or documents.  If the Senate votes yes, both sides will be free to make motions to subpoena witnesses, and the Senate can debate and vote on them.  Even then the Senate will need to approve an additional resolution to provide for the actual delivery of the subpoena by the Sergeant at Arms, among other things.

Places Unreasonable Time Limits on the House Managers in an Unprecedented Rush to Cover-Up Trump’s Corruption

• The McConnell resolution places unreasonable time restrictions on critical phases of the trial.
• Pre-Trial Motions: For example, under the McConnell resolution, deadlines are dramatically compressed.  The Clinton rules gave the parties more than 72 hours to prepare motions and more than 40 hours to respond to the motions that were filed.  In contrast, under the McConnell resolution, the parties have less than 24 hours to prepare motions and just 2 hours to respond to any motions filed.
• Opening Arguments: The McConnell resolution also places an unreasonable limit of 2 session days for each side to present their case.  In contrast, the Clinton rules did not place any artificial limits on the number of session days the parties could present their opening arguments. The resolution simply placed a generalized 24 hour limit and, in practice, the parties each presented their opening arguments over the course of 3 session days. The McConnell resolution forces each side to squeeze 24 hours of presentations into 2 session days.
• Evidentiary Motions: In Clinton, the parties were given 6 hours under S.Res.16 to present arguments on 3 motions to subpoena witnesses. Under the McConnell resolution, the parties have 4 hours to present arguments on the question of “whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses and documents.” And the impeachment rules would only allow a total of 2 hours for debate on any subpoena that the parties are ultimately permitted to make a motion for (under the impeachment rules).  

Excludes the Entire House Record and Paves the Way for Ceaseless Evidentiary Objections

• Under the McConnell resolution, there is no guarantee the House record will be entered into evidence at all.  And the first opportunity that it could be admitted into evidence would be after all of the following key trial events have taken place, including: 4 session days/48 hours of opening statements; 16 hours of Senator questions; and 4 hours of argument by the parties on the question of whether it is in order to consider any debate on a motion to subpoena witnesses or documents.  Under the Clinton rules, the record was immediately admitted into evidence and made available to all Senators.
• The upshot is that under the McConnell resolution, arguments that rely upon any piece of evidence in the House record may be subject to an objection by any Senator.

In a separate press release, she added that "McConnell's process is deliberately designed to hide the truth from the Senate and from the American people, because he knows that the President’s wrongdoing is indefensible and demands removal. No jury would be asked to operate on McConnell’s absurdly compressed schedule, and it is obvious that no Senator who votes for it is intending to truly weigh the damning evidence of the President’s attacks on our Constitution. The public now knows why Leader McConnell has been hiding his resolution: the Clinton comparison was a lie. Clearly and sadly, Leader McConnell has misled the American people. For weeks, he has insisted that he will adhere to the rules used during the Clinton impeachment trial and that 'fair is fair'-- but his proposal rejects the need for witnesses and documents during the trial itself. In contrast, for the Clinton trial, witnesses were deposed and the President provided more than 90,000 documents. President Trump undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution all for his own personal, political gain. He has repeatedly said that he would do so again. Duty, honor and country are at stake. Every Senator who supports this sham process must be held accountable to the American people."

UPDATE: Adam Schiff Gets The Ball Rolling

Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, and counsel for the President, the House Managers on behalf of the House of Representatives rise in opposition to Leader McConnell’s resolution.

Before I begin, Mr. Chief Justice, the House Managers will be reserving the balance of our time to respond to the argument of the counsel for the President.

Let me summarize why we oppose Leader McConnell’s resolution:

Last week, we came before you to present the Articles of Impeachment against a president of the United States for only the third time in our history. Those articles charge President Donald John Trump with Abuse of Power and with Obstruction of Congress. The misconduct set out in those articles is the most serious ever charged against a president.

The first article, Abuse of Power, charges the President with soliciting a foreign power to help him cheat in the next U.S. presidential election. Moreover, it alleges and we will prove that he sought to coerce Ukraine into helping him cheat by withholding two official acts-- a meeting the new President of Ukraine desperately sought with President Trump at the White House to show the world, and the Russians in particular, that the Ukrainian president had a good relationship with his most important patron, the President of the United States.

And even more perniciously, President Trump illegally withheld almost $400 million in taxpayer funded military assistance to Ukraine, a nation at war with our Russian adversary, to compel Ukraine to help him cheat in the election. Astonishingly, the President’s trial brief, filed yesterday, contends that even if this conduct is proved, that there is nothing the House or this Senate may do about it.It is the President’s apparent belief that under Article II he can do whatever he wants, no matter how corrupt, outfitted in gaudy legal clothing.

And yet, when the Founders wrote the impeachment clause, they had precisely this type of conduct in mind, conduct that abuses the power of office for a personal benefit, that undermines our national security, and that invites foreign interference in the democratic process of an election. It is the trifecta of constitutional misconduct justifying impeachment.

In Article II, the President is charged with other misconduct that would likewise have alarmed the Founders: the full, complete, and absolute obstruction of a co-equal branch of government-- the Congress-- during the course of its impeachment investigation into the President’s own misconduct. This is every bit as destructive of our constitutional order as the misconduct charged in the first article.

If a President can obstruct his own investigation, if he can effectively nullify a power the Constitution gives solely to the Congress — indeed the ultimate power the Constitution gives-- to prevent Presidential misconduct, then the President places himself beyond accountability and above the law. Cannot be indicted, cannot be impeached. It makes him a monarch, the very evil against which our Constitution and the balance of powers it carefully laid out, was designed to guard against.

Shortly, the trial on these charges will begin, and when it has concluded, you will be asked to make several determinations:

Did the House prove that the President abused his power by seeking to coerce a foreign nation to help him cheat in the next election?

And did he obstruct the Congress in its investigation into his own misconduct by ordering his agencies and officers to refuse to cooperate in any away, to refuse to testify, to refuse to answer subpoenas for documents, and through every other means?

And if the House has proved its case, and we believe the evidence will not be seriously contested, you will have to answer at least one other critical question: Does the commission of these high crimes and misdemeanors require the conviction and removal of the President?

We believe that it does, and that the constitution requires that it be so, or the power of impeachment must be deemed a relic, or a casualty to partisan times, and the American people left unprotected against a president who would abuse his power for the very purpose of corrupting the only other method of accountability: our elections themselves.

And so, you will vote, to find the President guilty or not guilty, to find his conduct impeachable or not impeachable.

But I would submit to you that these are not the most important decisions you will make. How can that be? How can any decision you will make, be more important than guilt or innocence, than removing the President or not removing him?

I believe the most important decision is the one you will make today. The most important question is the question you must answer today: Will the President and the American people get a fair trial? Will there be a fair trial?

I submit that this is an even more important question than how you vote on guilt or innocence because whether we have a fair trial will determine whether you have a basis to render a fair and impartial verdict. It is foundational, the structure upon which every other decision you make will rest.

If you only get to see part of the evidence, if you only allow one side or the other a chance to present their full case, your verdict will be predetermined by the bias in the proceeding. If the defendant is not allowed to introduce evidence of his innocence, it’s not a fair trial. So too for the prosecution. If the House cannot call witnesses or introduce documents and evidence, it’s not a fair trial. It’s not really a trial at all.

Americans all over the country are watching us right now. Imagine they’re on jury duty. And imagine the judge tells the jury that she’s been talking to the defendant and at the defendant’s request, the judge has agreed not to let the prosecution call any witnesses. Or introduce any documents. The judge and the defendant have agreed that the prosecutor may only read to the jury the dry transcripts of testimony before the grand jury. That’s it. Has anyone ever heard a judge describe such a proceeding and call it a fair trial-- of course not. Of course not. That is not a trial, that is a mockery of a trial.

Under the Constitution, this proceeding, the one we are in right now, is the trial. This is not the appeal from a trial. You are not appellate court judges; ok, one of you is.

And unless this trial is going to be different from every other impeachment trial-- or any other kind of trial for that matter-- you must allow the prosecution and defense, the House Managers and the President’s lawyers, to call relevant witnesses. You must subpoena documents the President has blocked, but which bear on his guilt or innocence. You must impartially do justice as your oath requires.

So what does a fair trial look like in the context of impeachment? The short answer is, it looks like every other trial.

First, the resolution should allow the House Managers to obtain the documents that have been withheld. First, not last. Because the documents will inform the decision about which witnesses are most important to call. And when witnesses are called, the documentary evidence will be and must be available to question them with. Any other order makes no sense.

Next, the resolution should allow the House Managers to call their witnesses, then the President should be allowed to do the same and any rebuttal witnesses, and when the evidentiary portion of the trial ends, the parties argue the case. You deliberate and render a verdict. If there is a dispute as to whether a particular witness is relevant or material to the charges brought, under the Senate rules, the Chief Justice would rule on the issue of materiality.

Why should this trial be different from every other trial? The short answer is, it shouldn’t. But Leader McConnell’s resolution would turn the trial process on its head. His resolution requires the House to prove its case without witnesses, without documents, and only after its done, will such questions be entertained with no guarantee that any witnesses or any documents will be allowed even then. That process makes no sense.

So what is the harm of waiting until the end of the trial, of kicking the can down the road, on the question of documents and witnesses, besides the fact it is completely backwards, trial first, then evidence, and besides the fact that the documents will help inform the decision on witnesses, and help in their questioning?

The harm is this: you will not have any of the evidence the President continues to conceal throughout most-- or all-- of the trial and although the evidence against the President is already overwhelming you may never know the full scope of the President’s misconduct or that of those around him. And neither will the American people.

The charges here involve the sacrifice of our national security at home and abroad, and a threat to the integrity of our next election. If there are additional remedial steps that need to be taken after the President’s conviction, the American people need to know about it.

But if, as a public already jaded by experience has come to suspect, this resolution is merely the first step of an effort orchestrated by the White House to rush the trial, hide the evidence, and render a fast verdict or worse, a fast dismissal, to make the President’s problems go away as quickly as possible, to cover up his misdeeds, then the American people will be deprived of a fair trial and may never learn just how deep the corruption of the Administration goes or what other risks to our security and elections remain hidden.

The harm will also endure for this body. If the Senate allows the President to get away with such extensive obstruction, it will affect the Senate’s power of subpoena and oversight just as much as the House. The Senate’s ability to conduct oversight will be beholden to the desires of this President and future presidents—whether he or she decides they want to cooperate with a Senate investigation, or even another impeachment inquiry and trial. Our system of checks and balances will be broken. Presidents will become accountable to no one.

Now, it has been reported that Leader McConnell has already got the votes to pass this resolution, the text of which we did not see until last night. And they say Leader McConnell is a very good vote counter. Nonetheless, I hope that he is wrong. And not just because I think the process this resolution contemplates is backwards and designed with a result in mind, and that result is not a fair trial. I hope that he is wrong, because whatever Senators may have said, or pledged or committed, has been superseded by an event of constitutional dimension.

You have all now sworn an oath, not to each other, not to your legislative leadership, not to the Managers or even to the Chief Justice. You have sworn an oath to impartially administer justice. That oath binds you. That oath supersedes all else.

Many of you in the Senate and many of us in the House have made statements about the President’s conduct, or this trial, or this motion, or our expectations; none of that matters now. That is all in the past. Nothing matters now but the oath. Nothing matters now, but the impartial administration of justice. And that oath requires a fair trial, fair to the President and fair to the American people.

But is that really possible? Or, as the Founders feared, has factionalism, or an excess of partisanship made that impossible? One way to find out what a fair trial should look like devoid of partisan consideration, if to ask yourself how you would structure the trial if you did not know what party you were affiliated with, or whether the President was from your party or the other? Would it make sense to you to have the trial first and only then decide on witnesses and evidence? Would that be fair to both sides? I have to think that your answer would be no.

Let me be blunt, very blunt. Right now, a great many, perhaps even most Americans do not believe there will be a fair trial. They don’t believe the Senate will be impartial. They believe the result is pre-cooked.

The President will be acquitted, not because he is innocent, he is not, but because the Senators will vote by party and he has the votes. The votes to prevent the evidence from coming out, and the votes to make sure the public never sees it.

The American people want a fair trial, they want to believe their system of government is still capable of rising to the occasion.

They want to believe we can rise above party and do what’s best for the country, but a great many Americans don’t believe that will happen. Let’s prove them wrong. Let’s prove them wrong.

How? By convicting the President? No, not by conviction alone. By convicting him if the House proves its case, and only if the House proves its case. But by letting the House prove its case. By letting the House call witnesses. By letting the House obtain documents. By letting the House decide how to present its own case, and not deciding it for us.

In sum, by agreeing to a fair trial.

Trump Democrats Generally Lose-- Which Is A VERY Good Thing

A few days ago, defeated conservaDem, Claire McCaskill, was on Chris Hayes' show trying to wish upon a star that she could take back her vote confirming Alex Acosta after the Senate examined his qualifications. There isn't much new information that's come out since McCaskill and 5 other Democrats decided he should be the country's Secretary of Labor. It's just in the public eye now, enough for McCaskill to wish she hadn't been such a Trump kiss ass. Her Trump adhesion score was 45.8%, about double the average Senate Democrat. She voted to confirm Kirstjen Nielsen as Secretary of Homeland Security. Does she wish that had never happened too? She voted to roll-back parts of Dodd-Frank. Do we need an economic collapse before she appears on Hayes' show and commits seppuku? How many Yemeni children have to die before she regrets that she voted against opposing Saudi arm sales? She also voted to confirm Sonny Perdue as Secretary of Agriculture, Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy. Ryan Zinke as Secretary of the Interior, Wilbur Ross as Secretary of Commerce, Linda McMahon as Small Business Administrator, Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation, Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, John Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security... How many of those does she wish she could do over?

When it came to Pompeo, you know who voted NO? Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris-- the presidential contenders. The only contender to vote with McCaskill was Amy Klobuchar, currently sitting at 1.2% national polling average-- and lower than that in all 4 of the newest polls.

Yesterday, Reid Wilson, reporting for The Hill noted that the senators who have been most steadfastly rejecting Trumpanzee's catastrophic nominees are the ones who want to challenge him in 2020.

Trump's picks to fill positions in his administration and the judiciary illustrate an increasingly partisan divide in the Senate between Republicans who vote to confirm almost every nominee and Democrats who reject the vast majority.

The average Democrat has voted to confirm just 38 percent of Trump's nominees... [T]he average GOP senator backed 99 percent of his picks, and the one who went rogue most often-- Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)-- still voted to confirm 93 percent of his nominees.

...Warren and Gillibrand have voted in favor of just 11 percent of Trump's nominees over the last 2 ½ years. The two Democrats have voted to confirm only six of his judicial nominees-- all in the 115th Congress. This year, they have voted to confirm just three of Trump's nominees, including two members of the Export-Import Bank and a member of the Federal Highway Administration.

Sanders has voted to confirm only 12 percent of Trump's nominees, but he has not voted to confirm a single Trump nominee this year. Sanders even opposed the three nominees Warren and Gillibrand voted to confirm.

Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have voted in favor of 17 percent and 15 percent of Trump's nominees, respectively. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has voted to confirm 38 percent of those nominees, putting her in line with the average Senate Democrat.

But in what may be a sign of just how important opposing Trump is to the Democratic base, Klobuchar's voting record changed noticeably in the run-up to her decision to enter the presidential field. In the 115th Congress, she voted to confirm 84 of Trump's 180 nominees, or about 47 percent. In this Congress, she has voted to confirm fewer than one in 10 nominees.

"For people who seek the nomination, opposing Trump and in particular conservative judges will be a positive for party activists," said Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), another 2020 contender, has voted to confirm half of Trump's nominees, more than all but seven other members of the Democratic caucus.

Those seven members who have voted to confirm more than half of Trump's nominees reflect the centrist flank, whose ranks were thinned in 2018 when former Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) all lost their reelection bids.

Ironically, red state Democrats like McCaskill, Heitkamp and Donnelly were encouraged to take GOP-lite positions and vote across the aisle as often as possible because the self-loathing elderly Democratic leaders have long ago lost touch with the Democratic and don't understand that crap senators were defeated because they didn't convince any Republicans tp vote for them and instead discouraged Democratic turnout. These are the worst Trump adhesion scores among Democratic senators and former senators:

• Joe Manchin (WV)- 56.4%- REELECTED
• Heidi Heitkamp (ND)- 54.8%- DEFEATED
• Joe Donnelly (IN)- 54.2%- DEFEATED
• Bill Nelson (FL)- 43.4%- DEFEATED
• Claire McCaskill (MO)- 45.8- DEFEATED
• John Tester (MT)- 31.7%- REELECTED

That was some blue wave, huh?

Trump Says He And Kim Jung Un "Fell In Love" And Status Quo Joe Says Mike Pence Is "Decent"-- They're Both Screwed Up

A couple of years ago, when The Blade asked Mayor Pete about the experience of being openly gay in a state where Pence was governor, Buttigieg called Pence a "super-nice guy," immediately adding that he pursues "divisive and backward-looking policies... The thing about Mike Pence is, he’s a super-nice guy, who just genuinely believes this stuff. He operates from a different reality than the rest of us operate from. He’s written that cigarettes don’t kill, he thinks climate change is made up. He must assume that people get up in the morning one day and decide to be gay. And so, as nice as he’ll be to you in person, when it comes to policy, like a moth to a flame, he goes in for these divisive and backward-looking policies and I think is having the same influence in the White House right now that he did as governor." Pence has a long history in the public arena. He's always been a corrupt scam artist, a self-serving backstabber, self-righteous hypocrite and an embarrassing opportunist. "Nice" is the wrong word.

Last Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal’s Reid Epstein noticed that Status Quo Joe Biden, at an event in Omaha, called Pence a "decent guy." That's Biden's instinct-- institutionalized, back to normalcy hypocrisy in an age where people want straight talk, not bullshit. Even Chris Cillizza seems to have noticed:

Biden is a political anachronism. He's been in politics for almost 50 years; he was first elected to the Senate in 1972! Politics back then (and all the way through the mid- to late-1990s) was far more genteel and polite than it is now. Biden is a hail-fellow-well-met sort of guy. My guess is he has called roughly 200,000 people (NOTE: This is an estimate) a "decent guy" over the course of his political life. That doesn't mean he agrees with them. Or that he even likes them. Rather, it's a reflection of the general collegiality that reigned in politics when Biden came up in the game.

Things have changed drastically since then, however. And this kerfuffle is a sign of things to come for Biden. He is a benefit-of-the-doubt guy running to lead a party who views the other side as not just dumb and incompetent, but evil. This may be the first time who Biden is as a politician runs directly into the new governing reality of the Democratic Party.

Calling a dangerous monster "a decent guy" will just be another item on the long list for Biden to explain on his national apology tour-- AKA, presidential campaign, which already includes his anti-integration politics, his decades of full-blown corporate corruption, his lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key posture on criminal justice, his myriad women problems (that go way beyond his treatment of Anita Hill). Status Quo Joe was the wrong guy for the Democrats to nominate for president every time he's tried running for president-- and he's more the wrong guy now than he was decades ago, back when his Beltway buddies like Joe Lieberman, Max Baucus and Richard Shelby (still a Democrat at the time) were pushing him to.

It's not just Biden still walking among us. Just when you thought Claire McCaskill had finally left the national stage, MSNBC dragged her into their increasingly conservative ring of paid guests. And, sure, she "counts" as a Democrat, even though she said that said she'll "fight anyone" who looks down on the people from her state of Missouri who voted for Señor Trumpanzee. Televised Mud-wresting, I hope. The recently defeated conservative Democrat, who alienated her base with her voting record, told David Axelrod onthe Axe Files that "[Trump] tapped that vein of frustration and anger. And if somebody is frustrated and angry that they don't think the world is giving them a fair shot based on their hard work, you need to listen to that and understand it, and not look down your nose at it and call them names and say they're all racists or they're all this or they're all that, because it's just not true... I know these people that voted for Donald Trump, and some of them I don't care much for and don't like much, but a whole bunch of them I get. And I hate it when people in Washington, especially people from bright blue states just said, 'Well, the only people voting for Trump are stupid people.' No that's not true."

As a senator, McCaskill never worked to bring these people along in a progressive direction, not only because that's way too hard a task for someone as intellectually lazy and disinterested as she is, but also because she doesn't believe in the progressive agenda herself. McCaskill found it far easier to make political hay by demonizing Alexandria Ocasio Cortez than to explain why Medicare-For-All would be a godsend to her constituents, something she doesn't even believe. It's fine to be supportive and respectful of non-racist Trump voters in a red state like Missouri but... what next? Can you do what Bernie does and show these folks why real populism is what will save them and their families? Not if you're a corporate conservative like McCaskill... or Status Quo Joe. Conservatives don't think like progressives. And they're in the wrong party... if they're Democrats.

Warren G. Harding was a very successful candidate and his "Back To Normalcy" platform had great appeal. He won handily and started out as a popular president. It's almost impossible to find a credible list of the three worst presidents in American history that doesn't include Harding. Let's not make the same mistake again.

Who's Your Favorite Freshman? America's Sweetheart, Part IV

If Fox keeps it up, AOC is going to be president when she turns 35

I mentioned earlier that not all the freshmen are like AOC. A number of people seemed offended and asked me what I meant. I was thinking about independence, smarts, solidarity, relatability, dedication... that kind of thing, which holds up well against... well, careerism. Yesterday Matt Taibbi was tackling the same kind of criticism on Twitter because of an essay Rolling Stone had just published, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crusher of Sacred Cows. He agreed that many of the politicians are morons, but he put it more gently than I usually do: "One of the first things you learn covering American politicians is that they’re not terribly bright." No 4 dimensional chess players. "The average American politician," he wrote, "would lose at checkers to a zoo gorilla. They’re usually in office for one reason: someone with money sent them there, often to vote yes on a key appropriation bill or two. On the other 364 days of the year, their job is to shut their yaps and approximate gravitas anytime they’re in range of C-SPAN cameras. Too many hacks float to the capital on beds of national committee money and other donor largesse, but then-- once they get behind that desk and sit between those big flags-- start thinking they’re actually beloved tribunes of the people, whose opinions on all things are eagerly desired."

Excellent definition, although he forgot to mention most of them are drunk all the time. His concern with the stupidity of so many members-- he doesn't mention the corporate media shills, basically stenographers, who cover them-- is because the "political establishment is once again revealing its blindness to its own unpopularity with its silly swipes at AOC," and reminds us of what they're all painfully aware, namely that "she won in spite of the party and big donors, not because of them."

AOC: "When so many others have abdicated their responsibility, it's on all of us to breathe fire"

That doesn’t make anything she says inherently more or less correct. But it changes the dynamic a bit. All of AOC’s supporters sent her to Washington precisely to make noise. There isn’t a cabal of key donors standing behind her, cringing every time she talks about the Pentagon budget. She is there to be a pain in the ass, and it’s working. Virtually the entire spectrum of Washington officialdom has responded to her with horror and anguish.

The mortification on the Republican side has come more from media figures than actual elected officials. Still, there are plenty of people like Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) doing things like denouncing “this girl, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whatever she is” for preaching “socialism wrapped in ignorance.” A group of GOP House members booed her on the floor, to which she replied, “Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me, fellas.”

The Beltway press mostly can’t stand her. A common theme is that, as a self-proclaimed socialist, she should be roaming the halls of Rayburn and Cannon in rags or a barrel. Washington Examiner reporter Eddie Scarry tweeted a photo of her in a suit, saying she didn’t look like “a girl who struggles.”

High priest of conventional wisdom Chris Cillizza, with breathtaking predictability, penned a column comparing her to Donald Trump. He noted the social media profiles of both allow them to “end-run the so-called ‘media filter’ and deliver their preferred message… directly to supporters.”

The latter issue, of course, is the real problem most of Washington has with “AOC”: her self-generated popularity and large social media presence means she doesn’t need to ask anyone’s permission to say anything.

She doesn’t have to run things by donors and she doesn’t need the assent of thinkfluencers like Cillizza or Max Boot (who similarly compared her to both Trump and Sarah Palin), because she almost certainly gains popularity every time one of those nitwits takes a swipe at her.

Which brings us to elected Democrats, who if anything have been most demonstrative in their AOC freakout. We had Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) saying, “We don’t need your sniping in our Democratic caucus.” Recently ousted Senator [and new Republican-lite MSNBC thing] Claire McCaskill expressed alarm that she’s “the thing” and a “bright shiny new object.”

This is in addition to the litany of anonymous complaints from fellow caucus members, some of whom felt she jumped the line in an attempt to get a Ways and Means committee assignment. There were whispers she did this through some online-pressure sorcery she alone could avail herself of thanks to her massive Twitter following (nearly every news story about Ocasio-Cortez mentions her 2.47 million 2.56 million Twitter followers).

“It totally pissed off everyone,” one senior House Democrat said about the Ways and Means campaign. “You don’t get picked for committees by who your grass-roots [supporters] are.”

“She needs to decide: Does she want to be an effective legislator or just continue being a Twitter star?” said another Democrat, whom Politico described as being “in lockstep” with AOC’s ideology.

[Maybe her policies, but absolutely not her ideology, which goes way beyond a bag of policies. Let me just add that one high-ranking, clawing member who had attached his own star to Crowley-"the-next-speaker" and was already whipping for him, has described AOC with far more venom than anything he ever uses towards Trump or any other Republican. He's out "to get" her and her allies. "In lockstep" with AOC's ideology? I don't think so-- just another pompous blowhard, but this one a proud "liberal."]

This is what they hate her for most of all

All of which brings us back to the issue of Washington’s would-be 4-D chess players. Time and again, they reveal how little they understand about the extent of their own influence, or anti-influence, as it were.

They all think the pronouncements of their own party leaders, and donors, and high-profile commentators at the Times and the Post or CNN, have extraordinary importance. They think this for the obvious reason that most of them owe their political careers to such people.

Ocasio-Cortez does not. In this one narrow sense, her story does indeed have something in common with the story of Trump. As did Trump, Ocasio-Cortez probably picks up a dozen future votes every time a party hack or hurrumphing pundit or ossifying ex-officeholder like McCaskill or Scott Walker or Joe Lieberman throws a tantrum over her.

Somehow, three years after the 2016 election, which was as graphic a demonstration of the public’s well-documented disgust with Washington as we’ve ever seen, these waxen functionaries of the political class still don’t understand that their disapproval more often than not counts as an endorsement to most voters.



The Lieberman example is the most amazing. Here’s a person who was explicitly rejected by his own party in 2006 and had to run as an Independent against the Democratic nominee to keep his seat. Yet he somehow still has the stones to opine that if Ocasio-Cortez is the “new face” of the Democrats, the party does not have a “bright future.”

How many Democrats, do you think, heard that and immediately thought the opposite-- that if Joe Lieberman disapproves, Ocasio-Cortez must be on the right track? Sixty percent? Seventy?

I have no idea if Ocasio-Cortez will or will not end up being a great politician. But it’s abundantly clear that her mere presence is unmasking many, if not most, of the worst and most tired Shibboleths of the capital.

Moreover, she’s laying bare the long-concealed fact that many of their core policies are wildly unpopular, and would be overturned in a heartbeat if we could somehow put them all to direct national referendum.

Take the tax proposal offered by Ocasio-Cortez, which would ding the top bracket for 70 percent taxes on all income above $10 million.

The idea inspired howls of outrage, with wrongest-human-in-history Alan Greenspan peeking out of his crypt to call it a “terrible idea,” Wisconsin’s ex-somebody Walker saying a 5th grader would know it was “unfair,” and human anti-weathervane Harry Reid saying “you have to be careful” because voters don’t want “radical change quickly.”

Except polls show the exact opposite. Almost everyone wants to soak the rich. A joint survey by The Hill and Harris X showed 71 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of Independents, and even 45 percent of Republicans endorse the Ocasio-Cortez plan.

Is it feasible? It turns out it might very well be, as even Paul Krugman, who admits AOC’s rise makes him “uneasy,” said in a recent column. He noted the head of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers estimated the top rate should be even higher, perhaps even 80 percent.

We’ve been living for decades in a universe where the basic tenets of supply-side economics-- that there’s a massive and obvious benefit for all in dumping piles of money in the hands of very rich people-- have gone more or less unquestioned.

Now we see: once a popular, media-savvy politician who doesn’t owe rich donors starts asking such questions, the Potemkin justifications for these policies can tumble quickly.

There is a whole range of popular policy ideas the Washington political consensus has been beating back for decades with smoke and mirrors, from universal health care to legalized weed to free tuition to expanded Social Security to those higher taxes on the rich.

As we’ve seen over and over with these swipes on Ocasio-Cortez, the people defending those ideas don’t realize how powerful a stimulant for change is their own negative attention. If they were smart, they’d ignore her.

Then again, if politicians were smart, they’d also already be representing people, not donors. And they wouldn’t have this problem.

Last night I had a long talk with a member of Congress who wanted to compare notes about how the new freshmen members are shaping up. I said, OK, you start-- who's the best? "I love Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," he said. He was the second member who told me that yesterday! He agreed that Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan (D-MN) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) are all off to a great start and he added Deb Haaland (D-NM), Mike Levin (D-CA) and Joe Neguse (D-CO) as well. Jury's still out on most of the others but he agreed with me that early action doesn't bode well if we expect anything from Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI), Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA), Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ), Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY). They're already exerting pressure to pull to Democratic caucus right on core issues. We'd be better off without these corrupt zombies in Congress.

On Her Way To Retirement And Obscurity All McCaskill Can Do Is Whine About Progressive Policies And Deride Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Claire McCaskill is on a media tour denouncing not-yet-sworn-in Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. the soon-to-be ex-Senator from Missouri has been all over the radio and in the press denouncing the millennial progressive from New York. McCaskill seems enraged that Ocasio will be in Congress and she won't. And enraged that people love and respect Ocasio and she McCaskill as a used up and worthless old gasbag. Ocasio's twitter feed has more followers than anyone in Congress save Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi-- 1.64 million-- while far fewer people want to read anything the conservative, whiny McCaskill has too say-- just 440,000 people, even though she represents an entire state and Ocasio just a tiny district and even though McCaskill has been a politician longer than Ocasio has been alive.

Daniel Chaitin's piece in the Washington Examiner helps to explain why Senator Claire McCaskill was beaten so badly. McCaskill spent over 3 times more than her weak opponent (mostly in shady corporate bribes)-- $38,493,167 to $11,226,806-- only to be trounced, taking only 5 of Missouri's 114 counties and winning just 45.6% of the vote-- a horrible rejection for someone who has been in office since 1983 and in statewide office since 1999. Chaitin starts his piece, "McCaskill throws shade at Ocasio-Cortez," with this sentence:

Outgoing Sen. Claire McCaskill says she's unsure why Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has become so popular among Democrats.

In a gigantic anti-red wave election, the biggest since Nixon's impeachment, McCaskill might not have lost, or at least not lost so badly, if she did understand why Ocasio-Cortez has become so popular among Democrats (nationally).

McCaskill was on CNN running her mouth about about AOC again-- as she's been doing, obsessively, ever since her defeat. Manu Raju for CNN:

McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who's in her final days in office after losing her bid for a third Senate term, told CNN in a wide-ranging interview that her party must begin to focus and deliver on real issues to attract independent and white working class voters-- not pie-in-the-sky policy ideas, such as tuition-free college, that have little chance of becoming law. Her concern: Voters grow cynical after hearing campaign promises that never go anywhere, empowering forces like President Donald Trump to rail against Washington for failed promises, as he did in 2016.

Democrats, she suggested, should be cautious about the rise of politicians like the 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, who vanquished a Democratic leader, Joe Crowley, in her primary, and have vowed sweeping changes in policy.

"I don't know her," McCaskill said when asked if she'd consider Ocasio-Cortez a "crazy Democrat" like the ones she decried on the campaign trail. "I'm a little confused why she's the thing. But it's a good example of what I'm talking about, a bright shiny new object, came out of nowhere and surprised people when she beat a very experienced congressman."

McCaskill added, "And so she's now talked about a lot. I'm not sure what she's done yet to generate that kind of enthusiasm, but I wish her well. I hope she hangs the moon.

"But I hope she also realizes that the parts of the country that are rejecting the Democratic Party, like a whole lot of white working class voters, need to hear about how their work is going to be respected, and the dignity of their jobs, and how we can really stick to issues that we can actually accomplish something on."

And she concluded: "The rhetoric is cheap. Getting results is a lot harder."

The "pie-in-the-sky policy ideas" the worthless and corrupted old senator was whining about-- $15 minimum wage, Medicare-for-All, free state college educations, the Green New Deal, none of which are supported by McCaskill-- are exactly the kinds of policies that have made the Democrats loved and respected for decades, policies corrupt conservatives like McCaskill have always derided as pie-in-the sky:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Perhaps the sugar in all that pie McCaskill is always shoving into her face has warped her mind and that's why she calls Ocasio's popular ideas "pie-in-the-sky." McCaskill has accomplished exactly nothing in all her years in Washington except tamping down on the kinds of policies that would help working families. He 67.43 lifetime crucial vote score from ProgressivePunch is one of the worst of any Democrat's in Congress. The only senators with worse scores are Joe Donnelly (also defeated this year), Heidi Heitkamp (also defeated this year), Joe Manchin and Doug Jones (who was not up for reelection).

McCaskill can compare her own twitter feed with Ocasio's if she wants to understand why she's "a thing." Ocasio's is filled with inspiration and ideas for looking forward. McCaskill's is like a cementery. This was the top one on Ocasio's page as I was writing this post:

The top one on Grandma McCaskill's page, was a Christmas card of "my 11 perfect grandchildren," very beautiful and sweet but perhaps more suitable for a family scrapbook than for a U.S.Senator's twitter page. Or fine for a senator, as long as she doesn't expect to be "a thing"... with this kind of thing. Ocasio isn't even in Congress yet and she's already inspired THIS:

All McCaskill will be remembered for is having her ass kissed on Rachel Maddow's show while she puffed herself up and whined about progressive policies and conservative policies and about everyone but herself. What an utter  waste of a U.S. Senate seat she's been all these years-- not to mention a stain on the Democratic Part brand!

The 10 Reddest Seats Won By Democrats Last Month

In 2016 Hillary scored 32.4% in UT-04. Last month, McAdams took 50.1%

Last week, the National Journal's politics editor, Josh Kraushaar, tweeted about the DCCC' post-election analysis by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The report-- which, remember, is written by a firm with it's head so far up the DCCC's ass that there is almost not differentiation between the two organizations-- attributes a great deal of the anti-red wave that netted the Democrats at least 40 seats and the biggest national House vote ever to 3 factors:

• Late Deciders- Democrats outperformed partisanship markedly among the 16% of voters who made their decision in the final week. These voters identified as Republicans by a substantial margin (R+16), yet Democrats won this group 48-45%.
• "Persuadables"- Similarly, Democrats did extraordinarily well among the 27% of voters who changed their mind (or considered doing so) over the course of the campaign-- another sign of the strength of Democratic candidates and campaigns. These 'persuadables' leaned Republican in party identification by a 14-point margin, yet ended up voting for the Democrat 52-48%.
• Ticket-splitters- Eleven percent of voters report splitting their votes evenly between the two parties in major elections over the past few years. Trump won them by 12-points in 2016, but they went for Democrats 50-39%.

The report also attributes the success of the DCCC to "incredibly strong candidates who fit their districts and brought character and compelling narratives to their races;" candidates with disciplined and broadly appealing messages;" and claims "Democratic candidates and the DCCC ran extremely effective field efforts that produced greater engagement in their base, while also persuading the swing blocs of voters in the middle of the electorate." Very pleasing to the ears of the organization that writes millions of dollars in checks to... Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Still, despite all self-congratulatory the ass-kissing, the data points noted by Krashaar, are worth keeping in mind.

Also keeping in mind that the DCCC theory of the race was to go for the lowest-hanging fruit-- putting all their resources into the swing seats where Hillary had beaten Trump in 2016-- I put together what I believe is a list of the 10 reddest districts (by PVI) won by a Democrat last month. Hillary had won in only two and those were both places with significant DCCC/House Majority PAC investment

• UT-04- R+13- Blue Dog Ben McAdams beat Mia Love
• Trump beat Hillary 39.1% to 32.4%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $213,334

• OK-05- R+10- Democrat Kendra Horn beat Steve Russell
• Trump beat Hillary 53.2% to 39.8%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent ZERO

• SC-01- R+10- Democrat Joe Cunningham won an open seat
• Trump beat Hillary 53.5% to 40.4%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent ZERO

• GA-06 R+8- Democrat Lucy McBath beat Karen Handel
• Trump beat Hillary 48.3% to 46.8%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $135,000

• TX-07- R+7- New Dem Lizzie Fletcher beat John Culberson
• Hillary beat Trump 48.5% to 47.1%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $2,451,863

• NM-02- R+6- Blue Dog Xochitl Small won an open seat
• Trump beat Hillary 50.1%to 39.9%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $1,912,649

• NY-22- R+6- Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi beat Claudia Tenney
• Trump beat Hillary 54.8% to 39.3%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $4,694,462

• VA-07- R+6- Blue Dog Abigail Spanberger beat Dave Brat
• Trump beat Hillary 50.5% to 44.0%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $1,453,491

• TX-32- R+5 New Dem Colin Allred beat Pete Sessions
• Hillary beat Trump 48.5% to 46.6%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $4,345,183

• IL-14 R+5- Democrat Lauren Underwood beat Randy Hultgren
• Trump beat Hillary 48.7% to 44.8%
• DCCC + House Majority PAC spent $1,605,162

Bitter and nasty in her well-deserved and fairly massive defeat, right-of-center Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has been on an anti-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez media tour, ranting and raving like a rabid animal that the future of the Democratic Party is with conservatives like herself, not with progressives like Ocasio-Cortez, whose forward-looking ideas McCaskill dismisses contemptuously, the same way vision-free conservatives of the past dismissed Social Security, Medicare, free education, emancipation of the slaves, independence from England, etc. Oddly, McCaskill has been offering as proof of her case the defeats of conservative Democratic senators Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and herself, while not mentioning the powerful victories of Trump-state Democrats of a more progressive bent--  Tammy Baldwin (WI), Sherrod Brown (OH), Bob Casey (PA) and Debbie Stabenow (MI). McCaskill is living in a bygone era with a political vision more akin to Eisenhower Republicans than to Franklin Roosevelt and Bernie Sanders. Senate Democrats are lucky to be rid of her and her personal self-righteousness and reactionary ideas. On NPR this week, she insisted Democrats pay no heed to the Alexandria Ocasios and Rashida Tlaibs of the new Congress and instead follow backward and defensive freshmen like Ben McAdams and Abigail Spanberger, each of whom is likely to disappoint their districts' Democratic bases and disappear onto the trash heap of history-- as McCaskill is about to-- in 2022.

2018 Senate Election Scorecard

Click to enlarge

by Gaius Publius

The chart above represents my best guess about the future split of the Senate, using only races that seem contested. Note:

• The Senate is currently divided 51-49 in favor of the Republicans, so the Democrats (and the two independents who caucus with them) are down two already.

• The column labeled "Change 1" shows a best-case result for Democrats. The column labeled "Change 2" shows a worst case result based on my read of the possibilities and probabilities.

The First Ten Races

Races in the above chart are numbered 1 through 15. The first ten all have clear leaders.

• Races 1–6 are all contests with Democratic incumbents where the Democrat is leading and expected to win, if only by single digits. Though there could be some surprises, they are not widely expected. Let's call those races for the Democrats. Net change: zero.

• The next four races, numbered 7 through 10, are more in doubt. They feature two Democratic incumbents and two Republican incumbents. In all four, the Republican is leading. Though things could change, I expect a Republican winner in each of them.

This means that Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp will lose, and Ted Cruz will keep his seat despite a strong challenge by Beto O'Roarke. Polls in the Texas race range from Tossup to Likely Republican, with Leans Republican the mean result, implying a mid-single-digit win for Cruz. We'll see.

If the predictions for races 1–10 hold, Democrats have lost two seats already.

Races Considered "Even"

Let's treat the next six races, numbered 11 through 16, as three groups of pairs. All of these races are scored "even" by polling.

• In the first pair of "even" races, the outcome is a little more predictable than the others. These feature two Democratic incumbents, Joe Donnelly (IN) and Joe Manchin (WV). If those outcomes are split — if Democrats win one and Republicans win the other — the Democrats lose another seat, for a net loss of –3.

It appears now that Donnelly will lose and Manchin will win, so I'm counting these outcomes as likely in the best case column (Change 1) for a net no-change on the two races. In the worse case column (Change 2), both lose, and Democrats are now –4 seats so far. 

• The second pair of "even" races are much harder to predict. These feature incumbents Democrat Nelson (FL), who's running against former governor Rick Scott, and Republican Dean Heller (NV), who's running against Democrat Jacky Rosen. If those two races are split, the composition of the Senate will depend on which way the split goes.

The Change 1 column shows both Democrats winning, in which case Democrats pick up one seat (NV). In the worse case column, both Democrats lose, and Democrats are down –5 seats so far.

I think it's slightly more likely that Heller will lose (Nevada is home to the Harry Reid machine) and that Scott will beat Nelson., so a middle outcome would have the two races split — Democrats taking NV and Republicans taking FL — for a net no change on the pair.

• The final pair of races are for two open seats (AZ and TN), both of which were held by Republicans. I expect a split to be the most likely outcome, and if I had to guess, Democrats will win in Arizona with Kyrsten Sinema and Republicans will win in Tennessee.

That's the best case; if so, Democrats pick up a seat from this pair. In the worst case, Republicans hold both seats, for a net of no change.

Summary

In the best case scenario (Change 1 column), the first ten races go as expected (for a loss of –2), and in the "even" races, Democrats lose Indiana but pick up Nevada and Arizona. The total change is a loss of one seat, and the new Senate is split 52-48 in favor of Republicans.

In the worst case scenario (Change 2 column), the first ten races go as expected (for a loss of –2), and of the "even" races, Democrats lose all of them, for a total change of –5 seats. In that scenario, the new Senate split is 56-44.

A middle case: The worst case scenario plays out, except that Sinema wins in AZ and Manchin wins in WV. That's still a net loss of three seats, and the new Senate is split 54-46.

In all of these cases, Democrats lose ground in the Senate — in some of them quite a lot — and Chuck Schumer, I have to say, has presided over a failure, primarily because of his candidate selection and his dogged defense of people like Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly.

The Bright Side

Democrats were never going to take the Senate anyway, not with this set of candidates doing what they've been doing.

Claire McCaskill is closing out the 2018 campaign with a call for "civility" and also immigrant-bashing caravan paranoia https://t.co/yCNmijWFul

— Zach Carter (@zachdcarter) November 2, 2018

On the bright side, with this house-cleaning Democrats can build back up from a base set of senators that excludes Heitkamp, Donnelly, McCaskill, and maybe even Manchin and Sinema.

GP