Democrats' Impeachment Panic is Endangering the Country →

Brian Beutler, in Crooked:

At some point soon, Democratic leaders will have to reckon with the fact that the founders created the impeachment power for precisely this moment. That impeachment is their basic obligation. On a practical level, there’s simply too much time between now and the election for them to avoid the confrontation altogether with stalling tactics. But more importantly if they try to run out the clock, or settle on the claim that impeachment just isn’t worth it, they will do incalculable damage to themselves and the country.

This is not principally an argument about what constitutes sound political strategy—about what approach will galvanize whose base more. My biases tell me that impeaching Trump would inspire Democratic voters, and bog Republicans down with endless recitations of their party’s hideous corruption. My biases tells me that running scared from the impeachment question would deflate many Democratic activists, by signaling to them that the party doesn’t really consider Trump’s presidency to be an emergency after all, and will refuse to hold his regime accountable for its crimes even if the next election goes well. But that could be wrong.

The real importance of impeachment at this point is to shelter the country from what Trump and his allies will do if Democrats remain aimless. Democrats aren’t really buying time for themselves. They are buying time for Trump to get the GOP back on its horribly dishonest but unified message that he has been exonerated and that the investigation itself was criminal. If Democrats don’t pull the country into a debate about impeachment, we won’t get a draw. We will get a debate about investigating the investigators and jailing Trump’s critics. Cowardice creates a void that Trump will fill with autocratic ambition, and his crooked attorney general will be there to help.

William Barr has already threatened the FBI officials who launched the Russia investigation with recriminations. Two of Trump’s most clownish but ubiquitous propagandists told the White House counsel in a semi-public forum that they should counteract the Mueller report by charging Hillary Clinton with a crime.

The combination of impunity from prosecution, a faithless attorney general, and a Congress that says impeachment isn’t worth it is a bit like hanging a flashing sign outside Trump’s bedroom window that screams “YOU ARE ABOVE THE LAW.” It tells him that no one with any power will discourage him from colluding with Russia (or the Saudis or his new best friend Kim Jong Un) to win the election just as he did in 2016. The “politically cautious” move is actually an invitation to him—to work in tandem with the next authoritarian regime that’s willing to criminally sabotage the Democrats’ eventual nominee.

"The Time for Impeachment Is Here" →

Jamil Smith, in Rolling Stone:

Think about what happened here, about what is described in that report. The country’s elections were attacked by a foreign power. Russia is a vote suppressor. Understanding that, what motivation would this President have to move a finger to stop them? Or the Republican Party, for that matter? The only hope for accountability, perhaps before a court of law after Trump is no longer President, is the Democratic Party that has the power to start impeachment proceedings. 

Should Democrats take impeachment off the table, they would let Trump get away with it. It is that elementary. There is no guarantee that he will not repeat the very same encouragement of those Russian efforts, all the while playing dumb so as to avoid legal culpability.

If Democrats were smarter, they would understand that initiating the impeachment of Trump might actually galvanize their base because it would demonstrate that leadership was willing to take the obvious, the logical and the constitutional step once presented with such an abundance of evidence. They would grasp that the visual of their party standing up to a president wedded equally to corruption and to his assortment of bigotries would be appealing to an electorate where black voters are increasingly driving the conversation. Democrats would seize upon the Mueller Report as a flashpoint for organization and recruitment, rather than take the task of prosecution that the Constitution assigned to Congress, hand it off to voters and call that “democracy.”…

A stake in childbirth...

How the IRS Gave Up Fighting Political Dark Money Groups →

Another way that money is slowly taking greater control of politics and eroding the rule of law. What is the point of laws if Congress doesn’t fund enforcement?

In the past decade, people, companies and unions have dispensed more than $1 billion in dark money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics…

Such spending is legal because of a massive loophole. Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code allows organizations to make independent expenditures on politics while concealing their donors’ names — as long as politics isn’t the organization’s “primary activity.” The Internal Revenue Service has the daunting task of trying to determine when nonprofits in that category, known colloquially as C4s, violate that vague standard.

But the IRS’ attempts to police this class of nonprofits have almost completely broken down, a ProPublica investigation reveals. Since 2015, thousands of complaints have streamed in — from citizens, public interest groups, IRS agents, government officials and more — that C4s are abusing the rules…

…

But how does one define an organization’s “primary activity”? For decades, the point was largely moot. Big funders used other means to funnel money to campaigns. Then came a series of Supreme Court rulings, the best known of which was the Citizens United decision in 2010, that loosened restrictions on political contributions. In that case, the court concluded that, like people, corporations and unions could spend unlimited funds for elections.

The Citizens United decision was followed by a surge in the formation of politically focused organizations seeking IRS approval as C4s. In 2012, at least $250 million passed through such groups and into efforts to elect candidates, an 80-fold increase from eight years prior.

That boom occurred at the same time that Congress began chipping away at the IRS budget. The combination left Lerner’s exempt organization unit overwhelmed…

…

…the inspector general had proposed fixing the way it scrutinizes nonprofits. “We believe [the targeting] could be due to the lack of specific guidance on how to determine the ‘primary activity’” of a social welfare nonprofit, the report stated.

The IRS responded by advocating a restrictive approach: C4s should be barred from any campaign-related activity. Those guidelines, released in late 2013, prompted 150,000 comments, the most public feedback in IRS history. Several Republican members of Congress circulated bills to block such a change.

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Ultimately, Congress disagreed. In December 2015, 17 lines were inserted into an 888-page appropriations bill: “None of the funds made available in this or any other Act may be used ... to issue, revise, or finalize any regulation, revenue ruling, or other guidance … to determine whether an organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.”

The House leadership, under then-Speaker Paul Ryan, inserted the ban in the final rounds of the bill’s negotiations, according to six people familiar with the rider. (Ryan did not respond to a request for comment.)…

Koskinen told ProPublica he was surprised and disappointed. “The goal wasn’t to hamper anybody, but to help,” he said. “Leaving the situation murky is not doing any nonprofits any favors, and in fact is leaving more room for IRS employees to use their discretion and judgment.”

Since 2015, the lines have been carried over in each new appropriations bill. They remain in effect today.

A "tell"

And the Acosta dustup was from him asking Trump about the “caravan.” Trump ignored him. He’s moved on to the next lie.

Remain skeptical of everything in the news

…And doubly so if it’s from the White House. Nearly everything Trump or his spokespeople say is a lie or designed to mislead.

Because this doctored video of Jim Acosta blocking the White House press aid from taking the microphone has been making the rounds, and taking up way too much time we could spend talking about bigger issues…