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There are all these attempts to get the focus on 2020 and we just had New Years for 2019 but yesterday-January 3, 2019 was literally the day I’ve been waiting for the last 27 months-ever since the night the election was stolen from Hillary Clinton.

Say it Laura Marlin:

The coup against Pelosi ended toothlessly with Seth Moulton himself voting for her.

https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1080893988155150343

For those who think that Nancy Pelosi is too old just like Hillary Clinton is allegedly too old-though in a total coincidence Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump are not too old-there is now a new generation of Nancy Pelosi fans:

A big girl like Maxine Waters was pretty excited herself:

So we have a whole new generation interested in Madame Speaker buttons:

Yep-we are all down with NDP:

https://twitter.com/ProudResister/status/1080888499870490624

So this is what I-and so many in the #Resistance-dreamed of the last two years-and three months: the #AccountabilityCongress aka the 116th-after the worst, most shameless. and least patriotic ‘Congress’ in American history and Congress who saw it’s job as carrying water for a ‘President’ of dubious legitimacy to the point of criminal obstruction. Perhaps the House Intel Committee will have to investigate Devin Nunes himself-now that would be Poetic Justice.

UPDATE: Alas little accountability so far. A few weeks ago, Nadler-who is for impeachment and insists the Dem are currently in the middle of an inquiry-argued such such in  federal court-assured us that no one wants the ‘President’ held accountable more than the Speaker. Hope that’s true though her actions and words suggest the opposite.

They could steal the election from Hillary Clinton-like the Reverend Jesse Jackson says: Hillary Clinton wasn’t upset she was setup-but they utterly failed to take down Nancy Pelosi and her rise is a-partial-compensation for Hillary as Pelosi would have retired had they not ripped off Hillary.

But why is that? Because the MSM doesn’t care about facts unless it confirms their silly narrative. While Ryan is much more unpopular than Ryan their narrative is that Pelosi is the unlikeable one while Ryan is a well liked policy wonk. But how does the not so ‘smart set’ decide on its narrative? PACE Jay Rosen whatever take seems to them to be the most savvy. With the Beltway what matters far more than if you’re right is that you’re savvy-better to be savvy and wrong than right but unsavvy. Then there’s the matter of the MSM’s pack mentality-the better to escape accountability for how badly their savvy takes are refuted by reality.

Say it Krug:

As Jennifer Rubin says, yesterday afternoon was a new beginning for the People’s House:

There was brightness and even joy in the House of Representatives from the new Democratic caucus and those looking for some relief from the fear, nastiness and anger of the Trump presidency. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) beamed as she was nominated, declared the winner and welcomed to the podium, as well as throughout her opening address to the House she now leads — one with a record number of female representatives. One cannot help but contrast it with that rainy inaugural day when the new president gave what was probably the darkest and meanest inaugural address in history. (“That was some weird s—,” former president George W. Bush allegedly said.)

While President Trump spoke of “American carnage” and “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation,” Pelosi spoke of the majesty of democracy, and with optimism. “We enter this new Congress with a sense of great hope and confidence for the future, and deep humility and prayerfulness in the face of the challenges ahead,” she said. “Our nation is at an historic moment. Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn. They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the president and judiciary.”

A new dawn after a really turbulent night. This was a vote for decency, for the rule of law, for accountability to make #AmericaLegitimateAgain.

In many ways, it was a Reaganesque speech — and not merely because Pelosi quoted him (“As President Reagan said in his last speech as President: ‘If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost’ “) and saluted his vice president, George H.W. Bush (“a cherished former Member of this body, who rose to become a beloved President, and who, last month, returned once more to lie in state”).

As Lawrence O’Donnell noted yesterday it is very interesting how the Republicans never talk about Reagan anymore. For two decades it’s the only thing they would talk about-to the point of absurdity, it’s true. It seems that with the rise of the Tea Party you heard less about Saint Reagan-wether he came by his Sainthood legitimately is another question… But with Trump. Reagan talk among the GOP has simply disappeared.

But the dream walking started to-skip and even do a few cartwheels in light of Pelosi’ interview:

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wouldn’t rule out President Trump being indicted while in office, describing the topic as “an open discussion.”

During an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie, the House Democratic leader said it’s possible that special counsel Robert Mueller could seek an indictment against the sitting president, despite Justice Department guidelines against such action.

“I do not think that that is conclusive,” Pelosi said about the guidance.

“I think that that is an open discussion. I think that is an open discussion in terms of the law,” she said, on the eve of reclaiming her former title as speaker of the House. Pelosi will become the first lawmaker in recent history to hold that office twice when the 116th Congress convenes Thursday.

As she correctly pointed out there is no law that the President much less ‘President’ can’t be indicted. Indeed, the thing you have to remember about this ‘guidance’ from the DOJ is that it was written by partisan appointees of the Presidents being investigated-both the Nixon and Clinton DOJ believed that Nixon and Clinton respectively couldn’t be indicted. There’s no reason why a DOJ opinion would be binding on a federal investigator. Now it’s true that the belief is that Mueller sees it as binding-though it’s quite possible the SDNY or NY AG investigative offices see it differently.

 

Good for Nancy not to allow herself to be pigeonholed right out of the gate. She also refused to rule out impeachment:’

Although Democrats have discussed the idea of impeaching the president, Pelosi said it would not benefit the country to pursue one. But she wouldn’t rule the idea out either.

“We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report. We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason. So we’ll just have to see how it comes,” she said.

UPDATE: In retrospect I was clearly trying to see the glass half full on that first day of the new Congress. It would be clear in retrospect this was a mistake.

Still Greg Sargent managed to write something that got me nervous again:

This quote from Pelosi today on the impeachment question is worth clipping and saving:

“We have to wait and see what happens with the Mueller report,” Pelosi said, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. “We shouldn’t be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn’t avoid impeachment for a political reason.”

This is generally right, but one suspects that it won’t hold — that Democrats will be reluctant to impeach for political reasons even if it turns out to be justifiable.”

Sargent was prophetic here-though he himself has chosen to too push the Dems too hard in his Plum Line column and on Twitter-he does advocate an inquiry but isn’t obnoxious about it-making it easier for Pelosi and Friends to ignore.

So basically Trump was right-he can shoot someone and get away with it? I sure hope this is not where things go-that despite what she said, there is this bias against impeachment even if we find he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

If Sargent is right there are two big problems with this:

1. It’s wrong to allow Trump to be above the law because  of politics. And I’m sorry there’s the Clinton precedent. If a Democratic President can be impeached over lying about a BJ and a GOP President can’t even be impeached over conspiring with the Russian government to rig an American Presidential election then I give up. As a life long Democrat, I quit the party.  The GOP impeached Clinton who polled in the high 60s/low 70s, now the Dems rule out impeachment  with Trump in the low 40s-and perhaps low 20s within the next year or two?

2. But I’m not sure where this presumption that impeachment would be bad politically comes from? A poll late last year showed a plurality and near majority of 49% supporting impeachment already and a more recent poll showed 60% desire Trump to be impeached or censured today. 

How are the Dems so sure that the politics of not impeaching Trump even if that’s where the facts lead wouldn’t hurt them? Allan Litchman argues it will. 

As usual, it’s recovering Republicans like David Jolly who see things most clearly:

https://twitter.com/DavidJollyFL/status/1081207771276722176

https://twitter.com/DavidJollyFL/status/1081210775761575937

I mean I’m a progressive-really prefer liberal but progressive is today’s fad; certainly when I ran for Congress last year my platform was as progressive as anyone’s-to the Left of St. Bernie-but for me it’s about the oversight and investigations rather than only talking about pursuing the progressive policies I fully agree with but aren’t going to be enacted.

UPDATE: In retrospect Jolly was totally right to read this as an ominous sign, It may have just been Day 2 but it foreshadowed the way they-failed to-hold Trump accountable in the first eight months.

At this point maybe my 2020 choice is Rashida Tlaib

 

“At a reception Thursday night for the progressive group MoveOn.org, Tlaib vowed that the new Democrat-controlled House would be focusing on ousting President Trump from office.”

“Don’t you ever, ever, let anybody take away your roots, your culture, who you are. Ever,” Tlaib told the crowd in the packed space. “Because when you [hang onto those things], people love you and you win. And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look. You won. Bullies don’t win.’

“And I said, ‘Baby, they don’t,’ because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the motherf—–.”

FN: Turns out it wasn’t too early to be concerned-Neal would dither so much that now we’re hearing he may not get them at all before the 2020 election-they’re no use after.

Anyway, at the end of the festive day, Pelosi and the Dems voted to reopen the government-that it was closed the first day of a new Congress says it all about GOP leadership the last two years-and GOP House leadership the last eight. Mitch McConnell dismissed it as ‘political theater’ as ‘the bill will never pass the Senate.

As usual the GOP is engaged in pure projection-it’s McConnell engaging in political theater as a bill very much like the Dem House bill passed two weeks ago with unanimous support. Yet he’s refusing to pass it again because it would ’embarrass President Trump’-at least he has a good reason to withhold paychecks from 800,000 American government workers.

Kind of reminds Americans yet again why they gave the Democrats a bigger mandate than the Watergate Dems of 1974. What was interesting and notable was that there were actually some House Republicans who voted for the Democrat’s bill.

The six-bill package passed the House 241-190 on Thursday night, and the short-term Homeland Security spending bill passed 239-192. A handful of Republicans broke ranks on each measure to vote “yes” with the Democrats.

This is pretty much unprecedented-a bipartisan bill-usually the GOP is able to achieve absolute lockstep party discipline. While obviously the six to eight GOPers weren’t needed the fact that they peeled off perhaps is a harbinger of Trump’s influence among his party starting to wane.

As for McConnell he continues to be the most shameful man in politics-though why should it be surprising by now? He was willing to tank the economy in 2009 for partisan gain and look the other way on Russian interference to gain the Presidency so why should we be surprised that the thinks that denying 800,000 American workers their paychecks is too high a price to pay in exchange for protecting ‘President Trump?’

But the media commentary on #TrumpShutdown has missed the mark with MSM pundits furrowing their brows over what if anything could get Trump to change his mind. That’s the wrong question-what will make Mitch McConnell change his mind and allow the Senate to pass the same bill it just passed 100-0 a few weeks ago? Perhaps more GOP Senators will push him on this:

“But two Senate Republicans who are up for reelection in 2020 broke with Trump and party leaders on their shutdown strategy, saying it was time to end the impasse even if Democrats won’t give Trump the more than $5 billion in border wall funding he is demanding.”

“The comments from Sens. Cory Gardner (Colo.) and Susan Collins (Maine) — the only Senate Republicans running for reelection in states Trump lost — pointed to cracks within the GOP that could grow as the shutdown nears the two-week mark. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reiterated Thursday that the Senate will take up only spending legislation that Trump supports.

This cynical fiasco is a fitting conclusion two united GOP rule. Americans want their government to work again so it makes sense they elected Democrats-the party of government

UPDATE: Suffice it to say I feel pretty ambivalent about this over eight months later. Often I wonder if my strong advocacy for her was completely wrongheaded-particularly as all her opponents in the Speaker fight have endorsed impeachment. If Trump escapes impeachment clearly it was a big mistake. She may turn out to be the perfect woman for the job just at the wrong time.

While I talked about the #AccountabiltyCongress there’s been little accountability so far. A few weeks ago, Nadler-who is for impeachment and insists the Dem are currently in the middle of an inquiry-argued such such in  federal court-assured us that no one wants the ‘President’ held accountable more than the Speaker. Hope that’s true though her actions and words suggest the opposite.

Was she the perfect woman at the wrong time? We will know if Trump is impeached before the 2020 election-if he’s not then she was wrong for this time. History is watching Speaker how can you say it’s not worth it?

Or would we have been better off with #RashidaTlaibDay?

I made this caustic comment on Twitter and got a response that Tlaib doesn’t have any experience. Don’t care-all I know is she wants to protect the Rule of Law-something that Pelosi with all her experience perhaps sees as an abstraction.

 

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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