Wintry Tuesday Reads: Impeachment News
Posted: December 17, 2019 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: impeachment 36 Comments
John Singer Sargent, Country Road in Winter
Good Morning!!
Tomorrow the House votes on articles of impeachment; today there will be demonstrations in support of impeachment around the country.
What will come next is still up in the air. Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee released their impeachment report. On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released a letter to Mitch McConnell, requesting witnesses at the impeachment trial.
Senate Minority Leader Schumer wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday evening, calling for at least four witnesses to testify in a Senate impeachment trial. Those witnesses include: acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton, senior adviser to the acting White House chief of staff Robert Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
Read the letter at the CNN link above. McConnell has already rejected the request. All he wants is a fake “trial” and a quick dismissal of the charges.
Paul Gauguin – Winter Landscape
Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post: Schumer has these five advantages in impeachment.
The first is that the Senate is not the House. Not yet. There is a reason Schumer focused on potential Republican objectors to McConnell’s rush to a verdict…He essentially said that if senators do not support a real trial, they leave themselves open to the charge that they (like Trump) are part of a “coverup.” Unlike the House, the Senate might contain a small number of Republicans who care about such things, or at least worry they might lose independent voters in swing states by advancing outrageous arguments on process/fairness and then voting to let Trump off the hook.
Another advantage for Schumer is Republicans’ own propensity to overreach as they play to an audience of one (Trump). Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) took a surprising amount of heat for snubbing his role as an impartial juror, as did McConnell for openly assuring the base he was colluding with Trump’s lawyers….
Third, while there are so far only a couple, Republican non-officeholders are beginning to pop up. Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge (“As far as I’m concerned, it is abuse of power”) and former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina (“destructive to the republic”) both have publicly stated that they support impeachment. The less open and fair the trial, the more figures on the right may begin to emerge, however timidly, suggesting the only “hoax” is the Republicans’ fake trial.
Finally, Schumer is also aided by the horribly weak response from Republicans. Their line is that Democrats should have gotten all the facts in the House and, now, it’s effectively too late. This is balderdash. The House effectively indicts; the Senate tries the case. As in every trial in the United States, lots of witnesses might become available between the indictment and the trial. That is normal and appropriate; the “solution” is not to exclude it because the grand jury found enough evidence for an indictment. Republicans really cannot simultaneously claim there is not enough evidence and then refuse to cooperate in getting it.
Edvard Munch, Workers in the Snow
Professor Lawrence Tribe weighed in at The Washington Post: Don’t let Mitch McConnell conduct a Potemkin impeachment trial.
For some time now, I have been emphasizing the duty to impeach this president for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress regardless of what the Senate might end up doing. Now that President Trump’s impeachment is inevitable, and now that failing to formally impeach him would invite foreign intervention in the 2020 election and set a dangerous precedent, another option seems vital to consider: voting for articles of impeachment but holding off for the time being on transmitting them to the Senate.
This option needs to be taken seriously now that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has announced his intention to conduct not a real trial but a whitewash, letting the president and his legal team call the shots.
Such an approach could have both tactical and substantive benefits. As a tactical matter, it could strengthen Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) hand in bargaining over trial rules with McConnell because of McConnell’s and Trump’s urgent desire to get this whole business behind them. On a substantive level, it would be justified to withhold going forward with a Senate trial. Under the current circumstances, such a proceeding would fail to render a meaningful verdict of acquittal. It would also fail to inform the public, which has the right to know the truth about the conduct of its president.
Read the rest of Tribe’s argument at the link.
Sacre Coer in Winter, Maurice Utrillo
At Politico, Edward B. Foley offers another suggestion: Here’s One Surprising Way Congress Could Avoid an Impeachment Disaster.
If the process plays out as everyone believes it will, impeachment will end with an acquittal in the Senate, and the House’s efforts to protect the integrity of the 2020 election will have proved counterproductive: President Donald Trump, claiming a “ full exoneration,” could be emboldened to engage in misconduct similar to or even worse than his interactions with Ukraine.
But there is a way out of this mess that would let the House impeach him—while allowing the Senate only to censure Trump, rather than having to vote to convict or acquit him. The House could express its disapproval of Trump through an impeachment vote, and the Senate, through censure rather than a trial, could embrace, even enhance, the House’s message. Yes, Trump would stay in office. But because both chambers of Congress would be on the record in officially condemning his conduct, there is a decent chance this approach might deter Trump from similar elections abuse.
This might work with normal president, but does anyone really think this would deter Trump? I don’t. Still, here’s more of Foley’s argument:
We can call this strategy “conditional impeachment.” Here’s how it would work: The House adopts its articles of impeachment, as it is planning to do. But it also adopts a separate resolution saying that the House will deliver the impeachment articles to the Senate only if the Senate fails to censure the president for his Ukraine-related misconduct by a specified date. If the Senate does censure Trump, the House could refrain from delivering the articles of impeachment to the Senate at all.
Pablo Picasso, Winter Landscape
This scheme might seem ambitious. But, as the House prepares for its floor vote on Wednesday, the plans relating to the handoff of impeachment to the Senate seem to be fluid, and there is growing sentiment that Speaker Nancy Pelosi should avoid sending articles to a quick Senate demise….
The idea of “conditional impeachment” is not in the Constitution, but the Constitution clearly allows it. There is no constitutional obligation for the House to deliver articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial—only that if there is to be an impeachment trial, then the authority to conduct that trial is exclusively lodged in the Senate. If the House wants to adopt its articles of impeachment but never send them to the Senate for trial, that is within the House’s “sole power of impeachment,” as granted in the Constitution (Article I, Section 2). That “sole power” also means the House has the authority to predicate its withholding of the articles of impeachment on a specific condition.
The problem with this is that nothing short of a vote for removal is likely to stop Trump. Even then, he might fight to stay in the White House.
Another point of view from Jonah B. Gelbach at The Los Angeles Times: Opinion: How Democrats can call the Republicans’ bluff on impeachment.
In the weeks since the House impeachment hearings started, Republicans have flitted from one argument to the next to try to convince Americans that the process lacks validity. One point they have made repeatedly is that the evidence is largely hearsay, and therefore invalid.
Claude Monet – Boulevard Saint Denis
I teach federal evidence law, and that argument doesn’t hold water. Much of the testimony in the record wouldn’t be hearsay at all under federal court rules, and other statements would be admissible under one or another hearsay exception. Moreover, as Senate Republicans have made obvious with their recent proclamations about how the Senate should proceed, an impeachment trial isn’t a federal court proceeding.
It’s an absurd situation. Republicans say the evidence isn’t up to snuff. Yet the very man under investigation, President Trump, is the one who has blocked the testimony of witnesses who might strengthen the case.
The time has come for congressional Democrats to call the Republicans’ bluff: They should go to court to compel testimony from key members of Trump’s inner circle who have firsthand knowledge of the president’s dealings with Ukraine, including former national security advisor John Bolton and White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. These witnesses should tell the House what they know, under oath, even if that means delaying a vote on the articles of impeachment.
Click on the link to read the rest.
One more from CNN: Disparate group of Republican senators worry White House and GOP leaders ahead of impeachment trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s high-profile push for witnesses to testify in the Senate’s expected impeachment trial of President Donald Trump shifted attention and political pressure on Monday to a handful of Republican senators who have worked diligently to avoid the spotlight.
Winter scene by Bato Dugarzhapov
The disparate group’s views on the trial are a concern to the White House and GOP leaders, who are worried some could break and vote with Democrats on key trial-related issues, sources tell CNN.
If four of them were to buck calls from GOP leaders for a short, witness-free trial, it could upend the process and create the kind of wild uncertainty Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he has been carefully “coordinating” to avoid in ongoing talks with top White House officials.
The group includes moderates up for reelection, like Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who may want to show independence from Trump; seasoned veterans, like Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who are retiring and who may not feel politically bound to support the President; and outright critics of Trump, like Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who have challenged his unorthodox presidency and who may want to learn more about the allegations of a quid pro quo with Ukraine that is at the heart of the impeachment.
The group isn’t big enough to threaten Trump’s presidency — there would have to be at least 20 Republicans break with Trump to provide the 67 votes needed to actually remove him from office and no one is predicting that. But if enough peel off they could provide Democrats with the 51 votes needed for key wins, such as to compel witnesses, demand documents and push through other procedural motions Democrats may seek during a trial.
We have some momentous days ahead. Now what stories are you following today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Send in the Spies
Posted: December 16, 2019 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, impeach trump 33 Comments
The Yellow House, 1888, Vincent van Gogh (Van Gogh lived in a room here once)
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
I’m moving a little slow this morning. New Orleans continues to be the city of dysfunctional infrastructure. One of our Main Turbines at the Sewage and Water Board blew up over the weekend. It appears to mean there is no redundancy in the system now and the West Bank was without potable water for some time. Parts of Uptown are still without drinking water from a main that burst the week before. The Turbine dated from 1958. Most of the historical areas have sewage pipes dated to about 1910. I’m sure we’re not alone on the list of aging cities with infrastructure failures but I’m sure tired of it being our city. We have yet to have a bridge collapse in the Mississippi though which I consider a big deal still for the state of Minnesota.
As for my neighborhood, we lost electricity again for no apparent reason. In the word of the sage, “I’m too old for this shit” and have made arrangements with eldest daughter to expedite my ass towards the Puget Sound. I love this city but going from the number 50 state in which one could live to the number 1 is going to be a relief. Now, if I can only convince some one to buy the kathouse which will need a good cleaning out and some repairs. So, here’s some paintings of famous artists who captured their homes in paintings.
Renoirs House at Essoyes, 1906, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
William Webster has had a checkered history in his tenures of being–at different times–the FBI and CIA Director. He was also a former federal judge. He’s now 90. Webster was first appointed by Jimmy Carter. He is and was a Republican of the 1980s though, and as you know, that would make him a Reagan/Bushie kinda guy. And, you know what kind of crap went down–especially with the CIA–during the tenure of those two Presidents. However, he’s taken the step today of adding his voice in an Op-Ed on the Troublesome Trumpist Regime. It’s odd he’s now concerned with Rule of Law but there it is in today’s NYT.
As F.B.I. director, I served two presidents, one a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, who selected me in part because I was a Republican, and one a Republican, Ronald Reagan, whom I revered. Both of these presidents so respected the bureau’s independence that they went out of their way not to interfere with or sway our activities. I never once felt political pressure.
I know firsthand the professionalism of the men and women of the F.B.I. The aspersions cast upon them by the president and my longtime friend, Attorney General William P. Barr, are troubling in the extreme. Calling F.B.I. professionals “scum,” as the president did, is a slur against people who risk their lives to keep us safe. Mr. Barr’s charges of bias within the F.B.I., made without providing any evidence and in direct dispute of the findings of the nonpartisan inspector general, risk inflicting enduring damage onenduring damage on this critically important institution.
The country can ill afford to have a chief law enforcement officer dispute the Justice Department’s own independent inspector general’s report and claim that an F.B.I. investigation was based on “a completely bogus narrative.” In fact, the report conclusively found that the evidence to initiate the Russia investigation was unassailable. There were more than 100 contacts between members of the Trump campaign and Russian agents during the 2016 campaign, and Russian efforts to undermine our democracy continue to this day. I’m glad the F.B.I. took the threat seriously. It is important, Mr. Wray said last week, that the inspector general found that “the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.”
The Artist’s House at Argenteuil, 1873, Claude Monet.
AG Barr’s obedience to the political demands of the Kremlin’s Potted Plant is just one of our concerns these days as we move towards the House impeachment vote. It has become quite clear that both Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell intend to protect him no matter what. Once again, Russian State TV calls Trump “Their Agent” as outlined by this piece in The Daily Beast as written by Julia Davis.
Sometimes a picture doesn’t have to be worth a thousand words. Just a few will do. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned home from his visit with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week, Russian state media was gloating over the spectacle. TV channel Rossiya 1 aired a segment entitled “Puppet Master and ‘Agent’—How to Understand Lavrov’s Meeting With Trump.”
Vesti Nedeli, a Sunday news show on the same network, pointed out that it was Trump, personally, who asked Lavrov to pose standing near as Trump sat at his desk. It’s almost the literal image of a power behind the throne.
And in the meantime, much to Russia’s satisfaction, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still waiting for that critical White House meeting with the American president: the famous “quid pro quo” for Zelensky announcing an investigation that would smear Democratic challenger Joe Biden. As yet, Zelensky hasn’t done that, and as yet, no meeting has been set.
Russian state television still views the impending impeachment as a bump in the road that won’t lead to Trump’s removal from office. But President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda brigades enjoy watching the heightened divisions in the United States, and how it hurts relations between the U.S. and Ukraine.
They’ve also added a cynical new a narrative filled with half-joking ironies as they look at the American president’s bleak prospects when he does leave office.
Appearing on Sunday Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, Mikhail Gusman, first deputy director general of ITAR-TASS, Russia’s oldest and largest news agency, predicted: “Sooner or later, the Democrats will come back into power. The next term or the term after that, it doesn’t matter… I have an even more unpleasant forecast for Trump. After the White House, he will face a very unhappy period.”
That assumes we can get him out and the McConnell and Graham will allow it.
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1206261619191361536
Houses in Munich, 1908, Wassily Kandinsky
This bit in Lawyers, Guns and Money by Paul Campos is so worth the read. The Sinclair Lewis prescience is just the tip of the iceberg.
The leaders of the Republican party in the Senate have said that the impeachment of Donald Trump is a sham, and therefore they will not respect the process mandated by the Constitution. And they are saying this not because they claim there is no merit to the charges that the House is voting out against Donald Trump, but because they have decided to give Trump impunity to act outside the law without consequence. This is not hypothesis or hyperbole: this is what they are saying, clearly, openly, without ambiguity.
This is also the essence of authoritarianism. It’s not the threat of authoritarianism: it’s the thing itself, now, here, not in Germany in 1933, or Italy in 1922, or whatever other parallel is too hysterical and alarmist to cite, given that it goes without saying that America is so very exceptional that it can’t happen here, because of the Wisdom of the Framers, or because we’re God’s very special extra-favorite country, or because we just can’t bear it so please stop talking that way.
It can happen here. It’s happening now.
Would it be a good idea for the leaders of the Democratic party to at this point simply announce they are not going to participate in this charade any further? Would it be possible to organize some sort of day of mass national protest against the authoritarian overthrow of our legal system? (Because again, that’s what’s actually happening right now).
I don’t know. I do know that talking as if what’s happening isn’t what’s happening is making things worse.
And so is saying nothing at all (Hi Barack. What’s up these days? Para-gliding with Richard Branson in Fiji again? Sounds nice!).
I’m increasingly getting the sense that waiting for next November is like waiting for Godot. Because the enemies of liberal democracy aren’t waiting. They’re here now.
Country House, 1893, Pablo Picasso (signed P. Ruiz)
President Obama was actually out and about this week and said this to the BBC while in Singapore. ” Women are better leaders than men”. Well, thanks for that, but excuse me while I think that may not happen here in my lifetime. Also, it still kinda put us on that pedestal unnecessarily.
Speaking in Singapore, he said women aren’t perfect, but are “indisputably better” than men.
He said most of the problems in the world came from old people, mostly men, holding onto positions of power.
He also spoke about political polarisation and the use of social media to spread falsehoods.
Speaking at a private event on leadership, Mr Obama said while in office he had mused what a world run by women would look like.
“Now women, I just want you to know; you are not perfect, but what I can say pretty indisputably is that you’re better than us [men].
“I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes.”
When asked if he would ever consider going back into political leadership, he said he believed in leaders stepping aside when the time came.
“If you look at the world and look at the problems it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way,” he said.
“It is important for political leaders to try and remind themselves that you are there to do a job, but you are not there for life, you are not there in order to prop up your own sense of self importance or your own power.”
Well, that was also a nice sentiment but I doubt the guy in the white house that really needs to hear it listened at all. And speaking of all that …
House in Provence, 1867, Paul Cezanne
Want to know more about Lutsenko? He’s the former prosecutor general under the old pro-Russian Regime. This New Yorker article is quite interesting and contains an interview.
Initially, Lutsenko and Giuliani seemed a perfect partnership; the meeting between them, Lutsenko told me, offered a “win-win” situation. But by May each man felt that he had been led on by the other. After Giuliani failed to arrange a meeting with Attorney General William Barr, who had succeeded Sessions, and Lutsenko failed to publicly announce a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens, Trump made his fateful July 25th call to the new Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, to request that he announce a probe into the Bidens and the 2016 election. In September, the disclosure of Trump’s request by a whistle-blower led Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, to launch the impeachment inquiry. Three weeks later, F.B.I. agents arrested Parnas and Fruman, who face charges of conspiracy, making false statements, and falsification of records. The F.B.I. has now reportedly turned its attention to Giuliani.
Lutsenko’s miseries were only beginning. On October 3rd, Kurt Volker, Trump’s former special envoy to Ukraine, said in a closed-door deposition, “My opinion of Prosecutor General Lutsenko was that he was acting in a self-serving manner, frankly making things up, in order to appear important to the United States, because he wanted to save his job.” In a closed-door deposition on October 11th, Yovanovitch described Lutsenko as an “opportunist” who “will ally himself, sometimes simultaneously . . . with whatever political or economic forces he believes will suit his interests best at the time.” On the first day of public testimony, Kent accused Lutsenko of “peddling false information in order to exact revenge” against Yovanovitch and his domestic rivals. Lutsenko told me they were all liars. In our conversations, which took place in the course of several weeks, he veered between self-pity and defiance. “I gave my country so many years,” he told me one night, after his third or fourth Scotch. “I had a good story and good results, but I became a bad person. I can’t understand it.”
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Edward Hopper (1882-1967) Railroad Embankment
But, there are a few good men and women standing up for what is right. Here is an example of a newly elected Congresswoman in a swing district that’s taking a stand which elicits a variety of responses from her constituents. Representative Slotkin (Michigan) has an extensive background in National Security including a stint at the CIA. My goodness! We’re just full of spy talk these days aren’t we? Where is John Le Carre when you need him?
“Over the past few days, I have done what I was trained to do as a CIA officer who worked for both Republicans and Democrats: I took a step back, looked at the full body of available information, and tried to make an objective decision on my vote,” Slotkin wrote in Monday’s op-ed, adding that she “read and re-read reports and transcripts. I have gone back and looked at the articles of impeachment that were drafted during the Nixon and Clinton presidencies to get some historical context.”She said the President, “sent out unprecedented guidance to refuse and ignore the requests and subpoenas of the inquiry,” citing her reason for voting in favor of the obstruction of Congress article. “While the President may not have liked the inquiry, he broke with 100 years of tradition by ignoring the subpoenas, and in doing so, obstructed Congress’ authorities.”“I believe that the President illegally solicited the help of foreigners to influence the American political process,” she said on her decision to vote ‘yes’ on the abuse of power article. She added Trump’s admission that he discussed former Vice President Joe Biden in the July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and witness testimonies “paint a clear picture of a president abusing the power of his office for personal political gain.”
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1206637157110210560
So, here we are down the same rabbit hole. Hopefully, we can get him the fuck out of office and the White House sometime in 2020.
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
Saturday Reads: Today is the 7th Anniversary of the Sandy Hook School Schooting
Posted: December 14, 2019 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Newtown CT, Sandy Hook School Shooting, school shootings 14 Comments
Today is the 7th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Looking back, after all the horrendous school shootings that followed and the lack of any serious response by the federal government, we can see clearly how the NRA, along with Russia, has taken control of the Republican Party. We now know that Russia worked with the NRA to elect an evil wannabe dictator to the U.S. presidency.
From Wikipedia:
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members. Wikipedia
Survivors and supporters are posting remembrances on Twitter. Among them is this story that Senator Chris Murphy about one of the lost children, Daniel Barden.
A reminder that Democrats are trying to make changes to our insane gun laws:
From Everytown Research: Gunfire on School Grounds in the United States.
There were at least 100 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in 2019, resulting in:
- 26 deaths, including 3 suicide deaths (where no one else was harmed) and
- 63 injuries, including 0 self-harm injuries (where no one else was harmed)
Everytown for Gun Safety started tracking incidents of gunfire on school grounds in 2013 to gain a better understanding of how often children and teens are affected by gun violence at their schools and colleges, and in response to a lack of research and data on the issue.
Students who walked out of their Montgomery County, Maryland, schools protest against gun violence in front of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 21, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY – RC195C982280
Over six years of tracking, this data has shown us that gunfire on school grounds takes many forms and mirrors the problem of gun violence in America. Gunfire on school grounds occurs most often at schools with a high proportion of students of color—disproportionately affecting Black students. For more information, click here to read the analysis of this data and learn about proven solutions that can make schools in America safer.
When it comes to how American children are exposed to gun violence, gunfire at schools is just the tip of the iceberg–every year, nearly 2,900 children and teens are shot and killed and nearly 15,600 more are shot and injured. An estimated 3 million American children are exposed to shootings per year. Witnessing shootings — whether in their schools, their communities or their homes– can have a devastating impact. Children exposed to violence, crime, and abuse are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol; suffer from depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder; fail or have difficulties in school; and engage in criminal activity.
See a map and a list of the incidents at the link. The most recent was on Dec. 2.
Since Columbine permanently etched horrific images into the national consciousness two decades ago, the scene has played out again and again. And school districts around the country have girded themselves against that dreaded scenario, performing drills, hiring armed guards and preparing safety plans.
According to the FBI, there have been 42 “active shooter” incidents at Pre-K through 12 school grounds from 2000-2018, which the bureau defines as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” These include the high-profile incidents like Parkland and Sandy Hook.
But this definition obscures many school shootings — more than two dozen in 2019 alone, according to an ABC News analysis of incidents at K-12 schools — many of which pass under the radar, but impact the students, teachers and communities where they occur….
During the third week of November alone, officers responded to crime scenes on the East and West coasts: in Pleasantville, New Jersey, where a 10-year-old child was killed during a football game, and in Santa Clarita, California, where a teen opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding several more at Saugus High School.
With no nationally accepted definition, sorting out what constitutes a school shooting is difficult. Everytown, an independent, non-profit group that studies gun violence, reports it has tracked at least 99 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in 2019 alone (through Dec. 11), including three suicides and 63 injuries….
ABC News has reviewed the database from the non-profit Gun Violence Archives, and, for the purposes of this story, defined a school shooting as an incident where an alleged assailant steps onto the property of an educational institution — during school hours or during an extracurricular activity on the property — and fires a gun at another person, in order to present a fuller picture of violence at schools not covered by the FBI “active shooter” rubric.
Based on news reports and data collected by the Gun Violence Archive, ABC News has found 26 such shootings since January — with half occurring on Fridays. The most violent month was in September, where seven shootings were reported at high schools in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. July was the safest month, according to ABC News’ report.
See a list of the school shootings ABC identified in 2019 at the link.
The New York Times: The Yearbook That Victims of School Shootings Never Collected.
The black, hard-bound book with black lettering is meant to look stark. The harsh cover with only “2018” on its top purposely does not resemble the colorful fronts of normal yearbooks, which “should be about commencement, hopes and dreams and what comes next in life,” its website says.
“Unfortunately,” it adds, “this yearbook is about none of those things.”
It’s a yearbook for people killed in school shootings in 2018.
Yearbook of School Shooting Victims
Created by a group that includes a Parkland survivor and a Sandy Hook mother, as well as several nonprofit organizations, the 2018 yearbook memorializing 37 victims who were fatally shot while under the protective mantle of education has one goal: Stop the violence.
The group is shipping copies of the yearbook to all members of the United States Senate, the governors of every state, each of the 2020 presidential candidates, and President Trump.
“When you lose a child, that pain is with you, every day, all day long,” said Scarlett Lewis, one of the yearbook’s organizers and the mother of Jesse Lewis, 6, who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012.
This Saturday will be the seventh anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook, where Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 first-grade students and six staff members before killing himself as police arrived at the school. Earlier in the day, Mr. Lanza shot and killed his mother.Before he was shot, Jesse Lewis saved the lives of several classmates after he urged them to flee from the gunfire as Mr. Lanza reloaded, The Hartford Courant reported in October 2013. His mother, who founded the nonprofit Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, said she tries to embody that courage daily.
“I want this project to spur everyone into action,” she said. “The opposite of anxiety is action.”
The Hartford Courant: After years of planning, ‘The Clearing’ is a memorial that will honor the 26 victims who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
From a bird’s-eye view, the memorial renderings show a web of paths swirling inward from an expansive circle. Looping through gardens, tree groves and ponds, they join at a single point: a sycamore tree, surrounded by a reflecting pool.
Years in the making, “The Clearing” is Newtown’s proposed design for a public memorial honoring the 26 victims murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings on Dec. 14, 2012. Its creators envision a place to remember and respect the deep grief that families here have endured.
Aerial rendering of the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial design. Courtesy of SWA Group.
Budget issues initially halted progress, but the local board of selectmen and the memorial commission are now ready to move forward. If Newtown voters approve funds for the project next year, the memorial could open by December of 2021.
“For me, it’s not so much about the design, but about what it represents,” said Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was one of the children killed in the tragedy.
Lewis was an early member of The Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission before founding the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation to prevent school shootings. Although she is no longer a part of the commission, she continues to support the memorial.
“It’s incredibly important to honor and remember,” she said. “It takes courage to remember, and it’s a great way to learn from past mistakes.”
Survivor stories from AP: As Newtown students grow up, some turn to activism.
NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — They were children themselves when they lost siblings, friends, and schoolmates in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Too young to comprehend the massacre, they spent years in shock and denial.
Seven years later, some young people in Newtown, still struggling with the trauma, are emerging as new voices for school safety and gun violence prevention. The activism, they say, has been a way to turn something horrific into something positive.
Natalie Barden was 10 when her brother, Daniel, 7, was killed. She attended a different school that went into lockdown as word of the shooting spread. She remembers being annoyed that morning as Daniel hugged her while they got ready for school.
Rendering of the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial reflecting pool. Courtesy of SWA Group.
Her favorite memories are of sleeping on Daniel’s bed with Daniel and their older brother, James, because it was the biggest, and watching television, playing board games and wrestling.
Her father, Mark Barden, became an activist with the Sandy Hook Promise group he helped create after the shooting. Natalie disliked the media attention and interviews in their home because they brought back the pain of losing Daniel.
“When you’re that young, it’s really hard to wrap your mind around it,” said Natalie, now a 17-year-old senior at Newtown High School. “Your sibling is such a big part of your life, and to know your brother for only seven years is gone — I still can’t wrap my mind around it. When I got to high school, it really hit me.”
As she entered school, the shock was wearing off. Then 17 people were killed in the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. She was inspired by the Parkland teens who demanded action on gun control….
“That just kind of pushed me to become more involved with the whole youth movement,” Natalie said in an interview.
Her sophomore year, Natalie joined the Junior Newtown Action Alliance, the youth arm of the Newtown Action Alliance, a local group dedicated to promoting gun control measures.
In this Dec. 3, 2019, photo, Mark Barden and his daughter Natalie Barden hold a photograph of Natalie’s late brother, Daniel, at their home in Newtown, Conn. (AP Photo/Dave Collins)
She has called the offices of federal lawmakers, urging them to pass gun control bills, including an assault weapons ban. She began going on speaking engagements with her father.
An article she wrote for Teen Vogue last year sparked positive feedback from others affected by mass shootings, she said. She also wrote about her brother, feelings of loss and hope for the future in a chapter of a book published earlier this year, “If I Don’t Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings.”
“I lost my brother, so I know how life-shattering a gun can be,” she said. “I think it’s just human nature to want to prevent others from feeling that way. We’ve kind of lost our innocence. We can’t sit back and ignore it.”
Read the other stories at the AP link.
One more from The Washington Post: My son survived Sandy Hook. It’s changed me as a parent, by Sarah Walker Caron.
When the first few chords of Jewel’s “You Were Meant for Me” blasted through the loudspeakers, I smiled. But moments later, tears gathered in my eyes, and I fought the urge to break down.
It was a chilly October Saturday afternoon in Maine, when the leaves were a rustling, vibrant array of oranges, reds and magentas. Thousands of people crowded the area, waiting to cheer on the racers.
My son warmed up with his cross-country teammates, readying themselves for their race. Nearby, girls from dozens of high school teams stood at the starting line, waiting for their race to begin.
As the song swirled around all of us — the runners, the parents, the friends — the girls at the starting line broke into song, singing along with loud, strong voices. Dozens of girls, representing dozens of teams, they were brought together in that moment, vibrant, full of life, energetic.
Tears collected in my eyes and dripped down my cheeks. It was a beautiful moment that left me shaken. The camaraderie, the sweetness, the life inside those girls took my breath away. I didn’t even know them. A few deep breaths helped. But the underlying reason I cried can’t be breathed away.
My son — my vibrant, athletic 14-year-old — is a mass shooting survivor.
His life continued because the gunman chose to enter the classroom across the hall, instead of his. It’s a sobering fact that is never far from my consciousness, though I wish it could be. Seven years ago, on Dec. 14, 2012, Will was a 7-year-old second-grader at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Read the rest at the WaPo.
I know there is plenty of other news today; but after I opened Twitter this morning, I decided to focus on the Sandy Hook Anniversary. Please post your thoughts and links on any topic in the comments. This is an open thread.
Frantic Friday Reads: Triggered Republican Snowflakes Scream Sweet Nothings to Trump All Day Long
Posted: December 13, 2019 Filed under: 2020 Elections, impeach trump, morning reads | Tags: articles of impeachment 26 Comments
Pablo Picasso, Acrobat and Young Harlequin, 1905
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
I’m going to borrow something from the Late Great John Lennon near the anniversary of his death by a crazed white guy looking for attention. History is replete with crazed white guys looking for attention and today is no different. So here it is!
“I got blisters on me fingers!”
And why you ask? It’s because I had to punch the mute button so many times yesterday during the Judiciary Committee’s Congressional Debate on Articles of Impeachment that I should also have carpal tunnel. Just as Brett Kavanaugh sneered, cried, and screamed his way into the Kremlin Potted Plant’s favor, so did the Angry White Men on the bottom shelf of the dais all day and evening and night long yesterday.
Yes, the transition of the body that represents the people to an out and out circus is complete. The debate yesterday featured a repetitive attack on “process” from the Republicans vs “what the president did is unconstitutional and against the rule of law” by the Democrats. It came complete with clowns and verbal dagger throwing fit for Fox news sound bites. The Republican part was designed for the Audience of One whose real claim to fame is the role of a fake successful businessman on reality TV.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Send in the Clowns!
Yes. Nearly half of Congress has transitioned to the new reality TV world spewing propaganda goals as parroted by Fox News cut out personalities. The gyrations of logic twisted into pretzel sentences was befitting of circus acrobats.
As a I write, Jerry Nadler is announcing that the House Judiciary passed the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress impeachment charges. He looks exhausted. We’re all exhausted. Trumpist Republicans and their cult leader live in the world of Abusers so, yes, we’re ALL exhausted.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,At the Circus Fernando, the Rider, 1888
Historically and Constitutionally, this act is traditionally somber. Yelling like it’s a sportsball match is inappropriate. Frankly, an entire set of mothers should come get their sons and ground them to their basement bedrooms. Shirtless Gym, Mai tai Matt, and lil Dougie should be first back to the nursery.
Kurt Bardella, NBC News THINK contributor, writes this: ” If there’s one thing we’ve seen consistently from Republicans during the past few weeks of congressional impeachment hearings, it’s yelling.” Yes. This is the new role of Congressional Republican white men in this Reality TV show designed for Fox News Viewers.
Perhaps Democratic Coalition’s Jon Cooper put it best when he tweeted Monday, “Why is Doug Collins always yelling?” CNBC’s Christina Wilkie pointed out a similar phenomenon, noting that Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz was “yelling about whether the rules of the hearing are, in fact, the rules of the hearing.”
Indeed, in observing my former House GOP comrades over the many days of contentious House hearings, I am reminded of a scene from the classic Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman,” where the famed (and fictional) Channel 4 News team angrily confronts its news director over the hiring of a female reporter. In the scene, several of the male journalists take turns yelling their opposition to the addition. Steve Carell’s character, Brick Tamland, isn’t really smart enough to have a critique but wishing to be included, he screams, “I don’t know what we’re yelling about!”
That pretty much sums up Republicans’ defense of their current leader. If they yell loud enough and long enough, what they say about the circumstances of this impeachment inquiry will become truth. Their calculation is that by yelling about anything and everything, the American people will either be convinced or at the very least so annoyed they’ll stop watching. To the GOP, yelling seems to be both a demonstration of strength and a deliberate effort to wear down Democrats and any other Americans who care enough to tune in.
Thus, the outrage that’s been on display these past few weeks hasn’t been spontaneous. This isn’t an indication of passion or righteous anger. It is the manifestation of a decadelong marketing strategy that has kept them in the driving seat of Congress for the better part of the Obama and the Trump administrations.
Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, Edgar Degas,, 1879
So, this morning, the “Judiciary Panel Approves Impeachment Articles and Sends Charges for a House Vote”. This was written by Nicholas Fando at the NYT.
A fiercely divided House Judiciary Committee pushed President Trump to the brink of impeachment on Friday, voting along party lines to approve charges that he abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress.
After a fractious two-day debate steeped in the Constitution and shaped by the realities of a hyperpartisan era in American politics, the Democratic-controlled committee recommended that the House ratify two articles of impeachment against the 45th president. In back-to-back morning votes, they adopted each charge against Mr. Trump by a margin of 23 to 17 over howls of Republican protest.
The partisan result and the contentious debate that preceded it were harbingers of a historic proceeding and vote on the House floor, expected next week, to impeach Mr. Trump, whose nearly three-year tenure has exacerbated the nation’s political divisions. Mr. Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, is now only the fourth American president in history to face impeachment by the House of Representatives for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and possible conviction and removal from office by the Senate.
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Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Les trois acrobates
Check out those adjectives grammar fans!!
These Articles will go to a full floor vote and then into the hands of Mitch McConnell. From Politico: “Republicans try to avoid an impeachment trial civil war.”
The party is uniting around a strategy that could quickly acquit President Donald Trump of articles of impeachment while giving them the opportunity to call witnesses later in the trial if Republicans and the president are not satisfied with how things are going, according to interviews with nearly a dozen Republican senators on Thursday.
Heading into the trial, Republicans’ plan would be to call no witnesses and simply allow House Democrats and then the president’s attorneys to make their case before the public. After that, the Senate would consider calling people either for live testimony or closed-door depositions.
It’s a plan they believe will insulate the Senate GOP from pressure to call a host of controversial witnesses — which the caucus would struggle to do for political and procedural reasons alike — while putting Trump on track to be cleared before the end of January.
“The direction we appear to be headed is to let the House managers present their prima facie case which would mean no witnesses, to let the president’s counsel do the same thing,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of leadership. “And then to decide if there’s a reason to go forward from there.”
House Republicans and Trump have repeatedly urged the Senate GOP and its slim majority to summon the likes of Hunter and Joe Biden before the chamber in a spectacle they believe would bolster the president’s case. Senate Republicans have resisted the idea, warning they couldn’t cobble together the 51 votes needed to do so under Senate rules. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also repeatedly cautioned his members against votes that divide the party ahead of a tough election year.
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Charles Demuth (1883-1935) Acrobats
Indeed, Repubicans think the show must go on when it comes to Joe Biden and the hapless Hunter. The Clintons had plenty of years to work up thick skins but how will it impact Joe? One of the key signals to this future came from Screaming Mimi MattGaetz. This is from Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin.
All this week the House Judiciary Committee has been holding its own hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. As was the case with the the House Intelligence Committee proceedings, Republican lawmakers, lacking any credible defense of the president, have had to resort to floating insane conspiracy theories and taking sad, cheap shots that have immediately blown up in their faces. On Thursday, it was Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida’s turn.
Gaetz, a proud Trump supporter who started the rumor that George Soros was funding migrant caravans and who frequently speaks of the “deep state,” used his time this afternoon to go on a rant about Hunter Biden’s substance abuse problems. Moving to add an amendment to the articles of impeachment mentioning the former vice president’s son, Gaetz read a passage from a New Yorker article detailing an incident in which Hunter was in a crash while driving a rental car; according to the story, the Hertz rental officer on the scene said he found a crack pipe in the car and white powder residue. “I don’t want to make light of anybody’s substance abuse issues,” Gaetz said, convincing no one, “but it’s a little hard to believe that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to resolve their international disputes when he could not resolve his own dispute with Hertz rental car over leaving cocaine and a crack pipe in the car.”
Obviously, it would be slimy under any circumstances to make Hunter Biden’s substance abuse issues part of the conversation. But, incredibly, Gaetz chose to do so despite the fact that he has his own history of…being arrested for driving under the influence. Back in 2008, Gaetz was pulled over driving back from an Okalossa Island nightclub called Swamp after an officer clocked him going 48 in a 35 mile per hour zone. According to the officer, Gaetz, then 26, was driving a BMW SUV registered to his state senator father and fumbled for his license and registration, had bloodshot and watery eyes, and swayed and staggered while getting out of the car. Smelling alcohol, the officer asked Gaetz if he had been drinking, to which Gaetz said no, before admitting minutes later that he had, claiming it was only two beers. The officer reportedly twice conducted an eye test, which Gaetz failed. Gaetz refused field sobriety tests and a breath test and was arrested. Despite the fact that Florida law dictates his license should have been revoked for at least a year for refusing the breath test, Gaetz somehow got to keep his. Ultimately the charges were dismissed, and Gaetz later said that “I made bad decisions that resulted in an arrest, and that is sort of something that we all live with.”
Given his decision to air Biden’s dirty laundry, however, Democrats weren’t just going to let Gaetz shade someone else’s history of allegedly driving under the influence and move on.
Two Acrobats,Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1932-33
This, undoubtedly, will be a taste of our future under the Big Tent.
So, our blog has been around about 10 years now and we’ve been through a lot together. It’s hard to believe that we’d end up watching impeachment hearings together. This is my third time at this rodeo and probably for most of you also and this one just really really feels different.
Nixon was a seriously flawed man with a self esteem problem that caused him to do things he couldn’t do through force of personality or likability. Clinton with his aw shucks who me personality used it to get what he wanted even though it was personal and problematic. Trump is pure, raw, raging ID with more personality disorders than a circus has clowns. Nixon’s chipping away at the rule of law and Clinton’s personal abuses look quite tame by comparison.
Trump has a chorus of screaming, angry white mean and a few tag along women behind his epic meltdowns and complete lack of character and morality. His crimes are orchestrated by feckless enablers and ignored by Machivellian partisans who want to rewrite the Constitution without doing the work through the law making process. No Republican appears to have the probity to bring about an ending that’s best for the country.
As with all things surrounding Trump, I’m not sure any of this will end up well.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: Obedience to Authority and Impeachment
Posted: December 12, 2019 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: authoritarianism, Donald Trump, impeachment, Milgrim experiment, Mitch McConnell, obedience, Stanley Milgrim 27 Comments
Good Morning!!
I haven’t been able to watch much of the impeachment debate last night and today. I just can’t stand to listen to the Republicans shouting nonsense over and over again. Why have these people willingly submitted to an ignorant, dementia-riddled, narcissistic authoritarian “president?” Are we really going to allow our country to become a dictatorship because these cowards refuse to stand up to a pathetic man like Trump? Are there really no Republicans with the courage to defend the Constitution? What is wrong with these people?
Yesterday, I came across an article in Scientific American Mind that is highly relevant to these questions. I’m sure you remember the famous experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgrim that demonstrated that most people will obey an authority figure even if it requires them to physically hurt other human beings. Here’s a brief video explaining the experiment:
Rethinking the Infamous Milgram Experiment in Authoritarian Times, by Jacob M. Appel
In brief, Milgram, at the time a 26-year-old assistant professor at Yale University, recruited subjects to participate “in a study of memory and learning,” which entailed administering an associative learning task to another subject (actually an accomplice in the study) and then administering painful shocks of substantially higher voltage for each incorrect answer. The purported goal was to study human obedience in the wake of the atrocities of Nazi Germany when, as Milgram described it, “millions of innocent persons were systematically slaughtered on command.” The results proved “surprising” in “the sheer strength of obedient tendencies”; in this first reported experiment, 26 of 40 American subjects shocked the victims at the highest level. Twenty variations with more than 600 additional subjects yielded similar outcomes…..
But what should the takeaway be from Milgram’s research? For more than a half century, investigators—most prominently Thomas Blass—have sought to explain why Milgram’s subjects proved so obedient. Although correlates have been found with personality, internal versus external locus of control, underlying belief systems and situational factors, no answer has proven entirely satisfactory.
Instead, the public is generally left with Milgram’s own impression as explained in his book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (1974): “Tyrannies are perpetuated by diffident men who do not possess the courage to act out their beliefs.” Or, even more broadly, in the subtitle of his Harper’s article from the previous year: “A social psychologist’s experiments show that most people will hurt their fellows rather than disobey an authority.”
But some participants in Milgram’s study did refuse to obey.
Blass has noted that there must be “individual differences in obedience … because in most obedience studies, given the same stimulus situation, one finds both obedience and disobedience taking place.” In other words, some people do disobey. Some of Milgram’s subjects did defy the experimenter. Like Jan Rensaleer, a Dutch immigrant who responded to the experiment’s warning that he had no other choice to continue at 255 volts with the following memorable declaration:
“I do have a choice. Why don’t I have a choice? I came here on my own free will. I thought I could help in a research project. But if I have to hurt somebody to do that, or if I was in his place, too, I wouldn’t stay there. I can’t continue. I’m very sorry. I think I’ve gone too far already, probably.”
In some cases, the subject stood up during the experiment and walked away.
So maybe it is a mistake to view Milgram’s work as an “obedience experiment”—although he clearly did. Maybe what he actually conducted was a disobedience experiment, showing that some people will not follow orders no matter how strong the social pressure.
They are out there, waiting the moment when history calls upon them to disobey. We should not lose sight of them in the weeds of social psychology. They are Stanley Milgram’s unheralded legacy—and we may even stand among them.
Will any Republicans find the will to disobey Trump and McConnell? What will we do when the time comes for us fight back against the growing authoritarianism in our government and its institutions?
Here’s the latest on impeachment:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to hold a final vote to acquit President Donald Trump, should he be impeached, when a majority of senators believe his trial has run its course instead of holding a vote on dismissing the articles of impeachment, two Republican senators told CNN on Wednesday.
Republicans want to have a vote on acquittal — to clear the President of the charges against him — not simply rely on a 51-vote threshold procedural motion to dismiss the hotly disputed case.
The Constitution mandates 67 votes are required to convict the President and remove him from office, a barrier widely considered too high to be reached in this case.
One vote McConnell can’t rely on is that of Vice President Mike Pence, who has “no role in impeachment,” according to a GOP leadership aide, despite being president of the Senate with the mandate to break ties….
McConnell hinted at this strategy when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday and said the Senate would have two choices after hearing opening arguments from the House impeachment managers and the President’s defense counsel.
“It could go down the path of calling witnesses and basically having another trial or it could decide — and again, 51 members could make that decision — that they’ve heard enough and believe they know what would happen and could move to vote on the two articles of impeachment,” he said. “Those are the options. No decisions have been made yet.”
The Washington Post: Senate Republicans look to hold short impeachment trial despite Trump’s desire for an aggressive defense.
Senate Republicans are coalescing around a strategy of holding a short impeachment trial early next year that would include no witnesses, a plan that could clash with President Trump’s desire to stage a public defense of his actions toward Ukraine that would include testimony the White House believes would damage its political rivals.
Several GOP senators on Wednesday said it would be better to limit the trial and quickly vote to acquit Trump, rather than engage in what could become a political circus.
“I would say I don’t think the appetite is real high for turning this into a prolonged spectacle,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune (S.D.), the chamber’s second-ranking Republican, told The Washington Post on Wednesday when asked whether Trump will get the witnesses he wants in an impeachment trial. “Members want to deal with the arguments, hear the case and hopefully reach a conclusion.”
The emerging Senate GOP plan would provide sufficient time, possibly two weeks, for both the House impeachment managers and Trump’s attorneys to make their arguments before a vote on the president’s fate, according to 13 senators and aides familiar with the discussions, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talks.
Most notably, a quick, clean trial is broadly perceived to be the preference of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who wants to minimize political distractions in an election year during which Republicans will be working to protect their slim majority in the chamber.
The tension now is over whether to allow witnesses who could turn the trial into an even more contentious affair.
But a lot can happen in two weeks. How will the public react to a sham trial? How horrible will Trump’s behavior become? McConnell has a problem:
McConnell is not sure Republicans have enough votes to only call Trump’s preferred list, the person said. Any agreement to call a witness would require 51 votes, and if Democratic votes were needed to end an impasse among Republicans, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would demand his own list of witnesses as part of any compromise.
Under McConnell’s thinking, this could possibly mean calling Vice President Pence and top White House aides, such as acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, to testify.
“Witnesses would be a double-edged sword,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said.
So McConnell will probably try to avoid calling witnesses? Will there be public outrage? I don’t know. I guess we are going to find out.
More reads, links only:
Kurt Bardella at NBC News: House Republicans’ Trump impeachment strategy was simple: Distract, deceive and yell.
EJ Dionne at The Washington Post: Our country is accepting the unacceptable.
Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg: Abuse of Power? Republicans Seem OK With It.
CNN: FBI agents warn of ‘chilling effect’ from Trump and Barr attacks.
The Washington Post: Eric Holder: William Barr is unfit to be attorney general.
Bloomberg: Giuliani Ally Parnas Got $1 Million From Russia, U.S. Says.
Emma Green at The Atlantic: American Jews Are Terrified.
The Daily Beast: Ukrainians: Trump Just Sent Us ‘a Terrible Signal’
Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic: The False Romance of Russia. American conservatives who find themselves identifying with Putin’s regime refuse to see the country for what it actually is.
John F. Harris at Politico: What if Trump weren’t nuts?
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