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 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) 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.

Start of Operation Desert Storm; Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off; Prohibition takes effect; Shah of Iran flees into exile; musical “Hello Dolly” opens.

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

Dian Fossey

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Evidently Lev Parnas (tonight’s guest on Rachel) really does have receipts and there’s a lot of ‘smoking gun’ talk as the Articles, all two of them unfortunately, proceed to the Senate.

Oh, Shiff, Nadler, Lofgren, Jeffries, Demings, Crow, and Garcia.

Bolton’s Ghost Writer is apparently putting the finishing touches on his book which at least leaves him free for a Media tour to highlight the most salacious details and hype sales.

So the good news never stops for Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio. Couldn’t happen to a bigger asshole I’d say except they’re all pretty big assholes and this is not a pissing contest.

Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani have demolished Trump’s claims of innocence
By Neal Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer, Washington Post
Jan. 15, 2020

Americans who have been wondering why President Trump has taken the extraordinary step of trying to block every document from being released to Congress in his impeachment inquiry need wonder no longer. The new documents released Tuesday evening by the House Intelligence Committee were devastating to Trump’s continuing — if shifting — defense of his Ukraine extortion scandal, just days before his impeachment trial is likely to begin in the Senate. These new documents demolish at least three key defenses to which Trump and his allies have been clinging: that he was really fighting corruption when he pressured Ukraine on matters related to the Biden family; that Hunter Biden should be called as a witness at the Senate impeachment trial; and that there’s no need for a real, honest-to-goodness trial in the Senate.

The most basic principles of constitutional law require relevant information, including documents and executive branch witnesses, to be turned over to Congress in an impeachment proceeding. Particularly because sitting presidents cannot be indicted, impeachment is the only immediate remedy we the people have against a lawless president. For that remedy to have any teeth, relevant information has to be provided. That’s why President James Polk said that, during impeachment, Congress could “penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Executive Departments … command the attendance of any and every agent of the Government, and compel them to produce all papers, public or private, official or unofficial.” No president, not even Richard Nixon, thought he could just say “no” to impeachment. That’s why the House added Article II to Trump’s impeachment: “Obstruction of Congress.” It was a response to an unprecedented attempt by a president to hide the truth.

The documents released Tuesday show what Trump has been so afraid of. For starters, they prove that his already-eyebrow-raising claim to have been fighting corruption in Ukraine was bogus. Notes taken by Lev Parnas — who is an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and is now facing federal criminal charges — show what his and Giuliani’s mission was when they got in touch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “get Zalensky to Announce that the Biden case will Be Investigated.” Look hard at the real goal here: not to prompt an investigation of Hunter Biden, but to score an announcement of a Biden investigation. Pursuing an announcement, rather than an investigation, makes sense only if Trump’s objective was to dirty the reputation of Joe Biden, a leading political rival.

Both of us served in high-ranking Justice Department positions; we’ve never heard of an investigation that is kept from the Justice Department, given to a private lawyer and then publicly announced — investigations work best when done in secret. If Trump, as he has long claimed, was truly interested in pursuing anti-corruption efforts in the bizarrely specific form of a single investigation of a single American citizen, then he would have wanted an actual investigation. Instead, he was fixated on the public announcement of one — which, if anything, would have harmed the investigation by tipping off its subject. The public announcement would have helped only one thing: Trump’s personal political prospects.

And if Trump wasn’t really pursuing corruption in Ukraine, then his demand that Hunter Biden be called as a witness at the upcoming Senate impeachment trial also crumbles. This effort by Trump and his allies to shift attention away from Trump and toward the Bidens makes no sense on its own terms — after all, the president is the one being accused of impeachable offenses, not Joe or Hunter Biden. But the effort defies logic entirely, because Parnas’s notes make clear that his and Giuliani’s marching orders from Trump were to provoke a Ukrainian announcement of a Biden investigation, rather than an investigation itself. What could Hunter Biden possibly tell the Senate about that?

Trump’s push had nothing to do with what Hunter Biden did or didn’t do, and everything to do with whether Trump could extort and bully the Ukrainian leadership into casting aspersions on Biden regardless of what he did or didn’t do. That leaves Biden with nothing of relevance to say at a Senate impeachment trial — the final word on Trump’s preposterous effort to refocus scrutiny on the Biden family. That was, of course, the very push that got Trump into this mess in the first place, so to allow him to succeed now through the mechanism of impeachment would be irony bordering on tragedy.

But that’s not to say there’s nothing to learn at a genuine Senate impeachment trial — which, as the word “trial” suggests, features actual evidence and witnesses. That’s the third point emerging from the documents released Tuesday night. One of those documents shows how important it might be to have such witnesses testify before the Senate. The document is a letter from Giuliani to Zelensky when he was Ukraine’s president-elect. It begins: “I am private counsel to President Donald J. Trump. Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as President of the United States.” The letter then requested a meeting with Zelensky. This letter is a devastating indication of what has been clear to many all along: that Trump’s pursuit of an announcement that Ukraine was looking into Biden was an abuse of his public office for personal gain. That’s what this letter sure seems to be saying. And it makes clear that what was afoot had nothing to do with law enforcement or Biden’s possible corruption — it wasn’t a request from the official “President of the United States” but from a “private citizen.”

The letter is so damning to Trump that we can foresee the president claiming during an impeachment trial that Giuliani was lying — back then, and even still today. That’s where Senate testimony can prove crucial. There’s a reason the Supreme Court has called live testimony, including cross-examination, “the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” Put Giuliani on the witness stand — and Trump, too, if he has the guts. And let the truth come out.

All told, the documents help explain Trump’s consistent push to bury the evidence against him. Every week, it becomes clearer why Trump has withheld documents from Congress, blocked executive branch officials and even private citizens from testifying before Congress, and overall, well, obstructed Congress, as the second article of impeachment rightly describes it. It’s because Trump is a man with something to hide. Let’s see what else he’s hiding — in front of the Senate next week, in a good, old-fashioned American trial for all to see.

I might tack on the Maddow interview later if it’s available, but I think it and the fall out will deserve its own piece.

‘Bama Bound

Hey, I do things, I go places, I know people.

And people know me, I’ve been to some Netroots (“My name is Roger Murdock. I’m an Airline Pilot.”) and among the pleasures of that experience is that I’ve had a chance to chat with some fairly prominent folks who are not instantly recognizable.

I swear if I meet Scarlett Johansson I’m going to get her to autograph my forehead with a Sharpie and have it permanently tattooed. I’ve bumped into Pheobe Cates on the streets of Manhattan and it both took me a few seconds to really believe it and another moment to decide I’d be super cool about it and pretend not to notice but this was not like that-

Wendell Potter is a perfectly nice guy but he looks exactly like you would expect an insurance executive to look. I think he worked in Hartford at one point, certainly knew enough about it.

He was part of a panel on reforming Health Insurance (it’s not really care, you get that from Doctors and Nurses with the permission of your Insurance Company which my sister works for, not kidding about any of it). TMC, my web partner who of course accompanied me to a Left Web Conference, has a considerable background in Public Health with a CV that leaves most Doctors in stammering submission. Certainly worked on the Department Head of a pretty prominent Hospital who only tried to kill me twice.

She kind of dominated the discussion and afterward Wendell was anxious to chat and I mostly stood around and listened but I’m good at that and don’t mind it. He seemed knowledgeable, smart, a decent sort.

So, he has a level of credibility with me.

How the Health Insurance Industry (and I) Invented the ‘Choice’ Talking Point
By Wendell Potter, The New York Times
Jan. 14, 2020

There’s a dangerous talking point being repeated in the Democratic primary for president that could affect the survival of millions of people, and the finances of even more. This is partly my fault.

When the candidates discuss health care, you’re bound to hear some of them talk about consumer “choice.” If the nation adopts systemic health reform, this idea goes, it would restrict the ability of Americans to choose their plans or doctors, or have a say in their care.

It’s a good little talking point, in that it makes the idea of changing the current system sound scary and limiting. The problem? It’s a P.R. concoction. And right now, somewhere in their plush corporate offices, some health care industry executives are probably beside themselves with glee, drinking a toast to their public relations triumph.

I should know: I was one of them.

To my everlasting regret, I played a hand in devising this deceptive talking point about choice when I worked in various communications roles for a leading health insurer between 1993 and 2008, ultimately serving as vice president for corporate communications. Now I want to come clean by explaining its origin story, and why it’s both factually inaccurate and a political ploy.

Those of us in the insurance industry constantly hustled to prevent significant reforms because changes threatened to eat into our companies’ enormous profits. We were told by our opinion research firms and messaging consultants that when we promoted the purported benefits of the status quo that we should talk about the concept of “choice”: It polled well in focus groups of average Americans (and was encouraged by the work of Frank Luntz, the P.R. guru who literally wrote the book on how the Republican Party should communicate with Americans). As instructed, I used the word “choice” frequently when drafting talking points.

But those of us who held senior positions for the big insurers knew that one of the huge vulnerabilities of the system is its lack of choice. In the current system, Americans cannot, in fact, pick their own doctors, specialists or hospitals — at least, not without incurring huge “out of network” bills.

Not only does the current health care system deny you choice within the details of your plans, it also fails to provide many options for the plan itself. Most working Americans must select from a limited list made by their company’s chosen insurance provider (usually a high-deductible plan or a higher-deductible plan). What’s more, once that choice is made, there are many restrictions around keeping it. You can lose coverage if your company changes its plan, or if you change jobs, or if you turn 26 and leave your parents’ plan, among other scenarios.

This presented a real problem for us in the industry. Well aware that we were losing the “choice” argument, my industry colleagues spent millions on lobbying, advertising and spin doctors — all intended to muddy the issue so Americans might believe that reform would somehow provide “less choice.” Recently, the industry launched a campaign called “My Care, My Choice” aimed in part at convincing Americans that they have choice now — and that government reform would restrict their freedom. That group has been spending large sums on advertising in Iowa during this presidential race.

This isn’t the first time the industry has made “choice” a big talking point as it fights health reform. Soon after the Affordable Care Act was passed a decade ago, insurers formed the Choice and Competition Coalition and pushed states not to create insurance exchanges with better plans.

What’s different now is that it’s the Democrats parroting the misleading “choice” talking point — and even using it as a weapon against one another. Back in my days working in insurance P.R., this would have stunned me. It’s why I believe my former colleagues are celebrating today.

The truth, of course, is that Americans now have little “choice” when it comes to managing their health care. Most can’t choose their own plan or how long they retain it, or even use it to select the doctor or hospital they prefer. But some reforms being discussed this election, such as “Medicare for all,” would provide these basic freedoms to users. In other words, the proposed reforms offer more choice than the status quo, not less.

My advice to voters is that if politicians tell you they oppose reforming the health care system because they want to preserve your “choice” as a consumer, they don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re willfully ignoring the truth. Either way, the insurance industry is delighted.

I would know.

Cigna. Yeah, Bloomfield. Close enough.

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 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) 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.

Martin Luther King, Junior born;Richard Nixon suspends U.S. offensive in Vietnam;Queen Elizabeth the First crowned;Work completed on Pentagon;first Super Bowl takes place.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Normally I wouldn’t touch this topic with a ten foot pole (Available from your local D & D outfitter at a mere 10 Coppers per for touching objects you wouldn’t otherwise. Experienced explorers go for the premium collapsible model at 10 GP. How did I make my money? Selling Picks, Shovels, and Pans to Suckers.) but it makes me angry to see the so-called “Progressive” Left baited into an intramural conflict.

Paul Waldman explains this “Centerist” Media manufactured controversy-

On Monday, CNN reported that in a private meeting in 2018, Sanders told Warren that a woman couldn’t win the presidency. Sanders then vehemently denied he had said any such thing. Warren released a statement in response saying that in the conversation, “I thought a woman could win; he disagreed” but emphasizing their friendship and common cause.

As a conflict between two candidates, this is all but meaningless. My guess is that Sanders said something he thought was innocuous about the higher odds a woman would face, but Warren didn’t like what it implied, so she remembered it and he forgot about it. Whether that’s what happened or not, nobody actually thinks Sanders is some kind of secret sexist.

As Sanders says now, “Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016,” which is a good point. But you can believe that a woman can win and still think that she’ll face challenges a male candidate wouldn’t. She might have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition and respect, a problem that would sound familiar to pretty much anyone who isn’t a white man.

I’m actually angrier on behalf of Liz than I am Bernie because this has all the earmarks of the “Native American” ancestry crap. All she said was that her Grandmother told her she had some First People heritage. Well, Grandmas tell you all kinds of crazy lies but in this case IT’S TRUE! Five generations removed mind you, but still true.

What controversy?

People are idiots.

“Yeah son. That’s called a Full House.”

Really? Is it good?

Trevor

Stephen

Seth

If you only watch one…

For the record a Full House is the 3rd highest ranked hand in Poker (without wild cards which I advise using in copious quantities if you want to make money off of rubes because it creates a false sense of hopey changeiness) and wins 99% of the time beating both a Flush and a Straight and losing only to a Straight Flush (A Royal Flush is just another Straight Flush) or 4 of a Kind which if your opponent isn’t showing they don’t have either of.

What? You play Poker for fun?

* A Racist! I’m not sure that I want that turning up at the top of the Google but it’s true enough and you are now free to justifiably accuse me of cowardice in this instance.

He grew up an Alex Keaton Reaganaut in about the whitest town in Connecticut (which is saying quite a lot actually, we have many very White Towns including Stars Hollow which is 97% White).

I’ve chosen to highlight certain statements, but included the whole context so you should really judge for yourself and if I get SLAPPed it’s because I’m being fair and balanced and allowing Matt to speak in his very own voice.

Democrats seem to be mistaking progress for prejudice
By Matt Bai, Washington Post
Jan. 13, 2020

There’s a very early, very funny Bob Dylan song about a guy who joins the John Birch Society so he can expose all the Communists hiding in plain sight. Eventually, he runs out of places to search and declares: “Now I’m sitting home investigatin’ myself!”

Now wait. I have to stop right there and say Matt Bai is not of an age to have experienced any but “Jews for Jesus” Dylan and according to my source hated everything except Top Ten Pop.

I was reminded of that song after nine of the Democratic presidential candidates signed a letter last month protesting the party’s handling of its latest debates, because no candidate of color — other than businessman Andrew Yang — had made the cut. There’s been yet more consternation in the run-up to Tuesday’s debate in Iowa, which will feature six white candidates. (After New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s withdrawal Monday, Yang and former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick are the only nonwhite hopefuls remaining.)

It seems that this year’s candidates, having gone to great oratorical lengths to outdo one another when it comes to being the most woke in the bunch, have concluded that their own party — a party whose chairman, by the way, is Latino, and whose last successful nominee was African American — is itself the instrument of racial oppression.

Umm… Two things. Number One. Two Words. Michael Steele? Number Two. So electing Barack Obama, a Black man, was enough to erase centuries of racial oppression?

You’re an asshole Matt. To continue-

That’s one way to look at it. Another is that, in their zeal to root out racial injustice, Democrats are actually mistaking progress for prejudice.

Yup, all the way down.

I’ll be the first to stipulate that the party’s criteria for allowing candidates to debate are boneheaded and not terribly democratic (small “d”) in spirit. If you’re going to choose your field based on polling and fundraising data, turning presidential politics into a fantasy football league, then you should create a third metric to recognize service in statewide or federal office.

It’s insane to create a process where voters get the chance to hear from billionaire Tom Steyer, who talks like an audible encyclopedia of every political cliche from the past 20 years, but not from the likes of Patrick or Sen. Michael F. Bennet (Colo.), who’ve actually won multiple elections and governed. Especially when you hold yourself out as the party that values public service.

But shallow and arbitrary as that process may be, it’s hard to see how it’s been any shallower or more arbitrary for candidates of color than for anyone else. It certainly wasn’t any kinder to John Hickenlooper or Beto O’Rourke (you remember: tall guy, big teeth, breaks into Spanish for no reason) than it was to Booker or Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.).

No, the whiteness of the debate field isn’t telling us that the process is somehow stacked against other candidates. What it’s telling us is that simply being nonwhite isn’t enough to propel your candidacy anymore.

Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I think Identity Politics is ultimately a dead end compared to Class Warfare but yeesh, “simply being nonwhite isn’t enough”?

Do you see the implicit assumption of “Whiteness” as normal? I keep telling people I’m Ben Franklin, that’s how I know.

About privilege that is, and I’m also a Class Traitor which is really far more important.

Oh look, he’s not finished digging yet.

When Barack Obama ran in 2008 on a theme of “hope and change,” identity was the thing that made him possible. Obama’s governing philosophy was as squishy then as it remained for most of his presidency; what mattered to his supporters was that he embodied a turning of the page, racially and generationally.

Ok, get it through your head Barack Obama governed as a Conservative Republican. He bragged about it publicly about 10% as often as Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio has lied.

So naturally a bunch of this year’s candidates seemed to think they could re-create that magic by putting identity front and center.

Harris made race the theme of the first debate, jumping at the chance to lecture Joe Biden on busing. Except it turned out that Harris didn’t really have anything new to say on the issue — or any issue, really — and she squandered huge crowds and fawning coverage in about two weeks.

Former housing secretary Julián Castro talked endlessly about growing up Latino in Texas, but his actual plan on immigration was too extreme to be taken seriously. Booker has long been an inspiring figure in his party, but his campaign left you wondering what it was he’d inspire anyone to do.

On the contrary, I could offer you a one-sentence argument for every candidate who made the debate stage in Iowa this week. I might not agree with them, but at least I know what they’re about.

I’m not saying candidates such as Harris, Castro and Booker didn’t have the experience or the intellectual heft to advance a more thoughtful idea for how to govern. They just didn’t seem to think it mattered very much.

Actually, you are.

And after Obama, just showing up and offering to break barriers are not enough. Voters now tend to see nonwhite candidates as candidates, period. That’s a step forward.

Unproven, and how is this a step forward?

In fact, the most damaging thing about this posturing over debates is that the candidates who complained have advanced an oddly retro idea of social justice. They’ve argued that fairness is defined not by equality of opportunity, but by equality of outcomes — something the last two Democratic nominees explicitly rejected.

They’re saying that there ought to be a place onstage for a candidate who diversifies the field, whether that candidate has been disadvantaged in any way or not.

So the fact that 40% of people are Racists and don’t think you’re a human being who qualifies for the same rights as “White Folk” is not a disadvantage. In your Ayn Rand Libertarian dreams.

That’s not the way most American voters — white, black or otherwise — think about racial equity. And if you want to lose another election, it’s not a bad place to start.

Instructional on what an asshole Jennifer Rubin can be also if you click through. That Bai chooses these links displays his deep, deep Conservatism though he likes to troll as a “Pragmatist”.

Comrades.

The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых Сил Росси́йской Федера́ции) have taken control of your so called “elections” in the name of our glorious Fatherland- Rodina.

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 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) 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.

George Wallace is sworn in;United States ratifies a peace treaty with Britain;, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet; Joe DiMaggio and actress Marilyn Monroe get married;Today Show debuts.

There is a thin line between politics and theatricals.

Julian Bond

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