Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
AP’s Today in History for December 22nd
Uprising topples Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu; Richard Reid tries to set off explosives in his shoes on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami; French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of treason; Pop star Madonna marries film director Guy Ritchie.
Breakfast Tune That Gal with the Run Down Shoe – Clawhammer banjo
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
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The A to Z of Things Trump Could and Should Have Been Impeached For
Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept
HURRAH! On Wednesday evening, Donald Trump became the third president of the United States to be impeached. The House of Representatives voted 230-197 to charge Trump with abuse of power and 229-198 to charge him with obstruction of Congress.
It was a major moment in this car crash of a presidency — and a major achievement for House Democrats. Still, I couldn’t help but be disappointed that there were only two articles of impeachment passed against the president. Two? That’s it? Why were other Trumpian offenses not included? For context, it’s worth recalling that there were a whopping 11 articles of impeachment passed against Andrew Johnson in 1868. With Richard Nixon in 1974, the House Judiciary Committee considered five articles of impeachment, before passing three of them. With Bill Clinton in 1998, the House of Representatives voted on four articles and approved two of them.
Are we expected to believe that House Democrats really think Trump has only committed two impeachable offenses? Even the president himself seems to have been caught off guard by the Democrats’ very narrow approach to impeachment. “Frankly, I think he’s a little surprised it’s the Ukraine thing that’s done it,” a White House official told CNN.
The harsh reality, of course, is that Trump commits impeachable offenses on nearly a weekly basis. So here is an A to Z of such offenses — by issue and/or by crime — that were inexplicably overlooked or ignored by the House of Representatives.
AMAZON
Trump has personally and repeatedly instructed the Postmaster General to double shipping rates for Amazon, in an attempt to inflict billions of dollars of new costs on founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post. “Some administration officials,” reported the Post in May 2018, “say several of Trump’s attacks aimed at Amazon have come in response to articles in The Post that he didn’t like.”BIGOTRY
This is a president who has referred to African countries as “shitholes;” to Mexicans as “rapists;” to neo-Nazis as “very fine people.” To be clear: bigotry, racism, and white nationalism are impeachable offenses. Ask Andrew Johnson.CNN
In the summer of 2017, Trump personally intervened to try and block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner — in order to try and punish CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, for its unfavorable coverage of him. Per the New Yorker, Trump told aides, “I’ve been telling [then-National Economic Council Director Gary] Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”…
YEMEN
In Syria, Trump dropped bombs without congressional approval. In Yemen, the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Trump has helped Saudi Arabia to continue to drop bombs despite explicit opposition from both chambers of Congress. As an analyst in The Guardian argued, Trump’s decision to veto a bipartisan bill calling for an end to U.S. military involvement in the Saudi air war amounted to “flagrant defiance of the 1973 War Powers Act that checks a president’s ability to engage in armed conflict without express consent of Congress.”ZELENSKY
The president of the United States didn’t just abuse his power in attempting to pressure the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden; he tried to bribe him. Pelosi accused Trump of bribery and so, too, did the House Democrats’ 169-page impeachment report. Yet, as Vox noted, “When Democrats actually unveiled their articles of impeachment last week, bribery was MIA.” Why?
- Where Trump and the Deep State are in Lockstep: Torture
JEFFERSON MORLEY
- Deluge Of New Leaks Further Shreds The Establishment Syria Narrative
Caitlin Johnstone
- How America broke up with the Democratic Party
Thom Hartmann
- The Radical Underuse of Impeachment
DAVID SWANSON
Something to think about over coffee prozac
Newsweek reporter quits after editors block coverage of OPCW Syria scandal
PUSHBACK WITH AARON MATÉ
Journalist Tareq Haddad explains his decision to resign from Newsweek over its refusal to cover the OPCW’s unfolding Syria scandal.
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad’s editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. “If I don’t find another position in journalism because of this, I’m perfectly happy to accept that consequence,” Haddad says. “It’s not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn’t report something like this.”
Guest: Tareq Haddad, journalist who recently resigned from Newsweek over its refusal to cover the OPCW’s Syria scandal.
Read Tareq Haddad’s article: “Lies, Newsweek And Control Of The Media Narrative: First-Hand Account.”