Impeach President Donald Trump? Forever and a day, that seemed the mantra and plan, right? Now? CNBC reports:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday on CNBC that he takes Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments about not looking to impeach President Donald Trump as a sign that Democrats realize there's no case for it.
"I think what Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi was trying to do, is tell her conference this is the wrong path to take — I believe it's wrong to do — and to try to slow the train down because they have no basis for impeachment," the California Republican told "Squawk Box."
McCarthy was reacting to remarks Pelosi made in a Washington Post interview published Monday. She said Trump is "ethically" and "intellectually unfit" to be president. But she added she's "not for impeachment" because Trump is "just not worth" the divisiveness that the country would suffer.
If history is any indication, that divisiveness could work against the party that seeks impeachment as Republicans learned two decades ago in Bill Clinton's second term.
C.I. covered that in the snapshot this morning (and she has covered it before) how Speaker Pelosi has long believed that impeachment can rally the base on the other side.
But if there was collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia, you better believe that she would be pushing impeachment. Her decision to step away from that pose goes to the reality that there was no collusion. Two years wasted on that nonsense. I know people who lost friends over it. One group was skeptical, the other addicted to MSNBC and its daily lies.
In fact, MSNBC has become as damaging as FOX NEWS, if not more so. Bill Clinton was right when he said, about eight years ago, that MSNBC was the equivalent of FOX NEWS. How sad. We never got a left channel. We get pro-corporation channels that care about social issues -- or the social issues of identity politics. I am not knocking identity politics. I think it is valid but I do also believe that we need to group together in larger groupings. Fight for these important issues of identity politics absolutely but also come together as a body unified. Sadly, all MSNBC can do is splinter us.
Marianne Williamson is running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. From Forbes:
Williamson – whose first book A Return to Love shot her to prominence in 1992 – may not share Oprah’s celebrity, yet her deeply entrenched spiritual value system and maxim to ‘choose love over fear’ is one that will likely appeal to many Oprah loyalists.
This is not Williamson’s first foray into politics. In 2014, she raised $2 million as an Independent candidate in a bid to fill a seat in California’s 33rd congressional district. Despite support from prominent Democrats and celebrities she finished fourth in a field of sixteen. She later shared in an interview with Oprah that the experience taught her to trust her own judgement more and rely less on that of others. Good advice for most folks.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, March 12, 2019. The Iraq War continues -- and Tulsi Gabbard brings some reality to late night TV.
NEW: Speaker Pelosi on impeachment: "They wanted me to impeach President Bush for the Iraq War. I didn’t believe in it then, I don’t believe in it now. It divides the country. Unless there is some conclusive evidence that takes us to that place."
Nancy Pelosi didn't end the Iraq War. She didn't impeach Bully Boy Bush, She didn't do much of anything. She spoke a lot in front of the media. Most of the time, the media covered for her. Even in 2007, she had huge cognitive problems (we covered the time Rahm Emanuel had to rescue her publicly). Adam Schiff and others are wasting time with investigations and wasting tax payer monies. Impeachment will not happen under Nancy.
She didn't want accountability for the Iraq War and if something that monumental goes unanswered for, nothing else will be.
Part of Nancy's reasoning, as we've explained before, is the timeline issue. Impeachment attempts will take you right into an election cycle at this point. And an impeachment attempt, she fears, will energize the Republicans (not just the base) where as it will alienate swing voters and some Democrats.
War is never questioned, apparently, just used to turn out votes for both of the two major political parties. Jason Ditz (ANTIWAR.COM) reports:
As had been previously reported late last week, President Trump has unveiled a budget plan which, in addition to cutting social spending across the board, would seek a huge increase in military spending, centered almost entirely on war funding.
US military spending is always by far the largest on the planet, several times the amount of the next highest spending, China. But while other nations like China and Russia are scaling back their budgets, the Pentagon’s budget, as ever, continues to rise.
Trump’s proposal would bring the overall defense budget for 2020 to $750 billion. This includes a $544 billion base-line defense budget, which is not in and of itself a huge increase. But on top of that will be a nearly $100 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) Fund, and a $9 billion “emergency” funding request meant to make up for the money already taken from the military to build the border wall.
And it goes beyond just the US.
What Wikileaks reveals about the Blair and Brown governments – next 3 tweets.
1/ Wikileaks file show how the UK govt made promises to the US to “protect your interests” in the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq war. bit.ly/2TBVBHx
2/ Wikileaks file shows how US and UK rigged the International Criminal Court to stop it being able to hold Blair and Bush accountable for the crime of aggression over Iraq bit.ly/2TBVBHx
3/ Wikileaks file shows UK International Development Secretary under Brown and soon-to-be-appointed MI6 chief working with the US to prevent reform of the world financial system. bit.ly/2TBVBHx
WIKILEAKS crime, never forget, was reporting the truth.
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: "I served in a war in Iraq, a war that was launched based on lies and a war that was launched without evidence."
Some are supporting Tulsi because they believe she would be a great president. Some are supporting her to get her onstage at the debates because they know she will expand the conversation.
She expanded it for late night comedy talk shows last night.
Stephen Colbert: Why do you want to be president of the United States?
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard: Because as a soldier I know the cost of war and the most important job the president has is to be commander in chief.
Stephen Colbert: Do you think that the Iraq War was worth it?
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard: No.
Stephen Colbert: Do you think that our -- Do you think that our involvement in Syria has been worth it?
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard: No.
Stephen Colbert: Do you believe that -- Do you believe that ISIS could have been defeated without our involvement and support of the local troops there?
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard: There are two things we need to address in Syria. One is a regime change war that was first launched by the United States in 2011, covertly led by the CIA. That is a regime change war that has continued over the years that has increased the suffering of the Syrian people and strengthened terrorist groups like al Qaeda and ISIS because the CIA was using American tax payer dollars to provide arms and training equipment to these terrorist groups to get them to overthrow the government. So that is a regime change war that we should not have been waging --
Stephen Colbert: So but if --
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard: The second --
Stephen Colbert: -- someone like Bashar Assad [cross talk] or engages in War Crimes against his own people, should the United States not be involved.
US House Rep Tulsi Gabbard: The United States should not be intervening to overthrow these dictators and these regimes that we don't like, like Assad, like Saddam Hussein, like Qaddafi and like Kim Jong Un. There are bad people in the world but history has shown us that every time the United States goes in and topples these dictators we don't like, trying to act as the world's police, we end up increasing the suffering of the people in these countries, we end up causing a loss of life -- both American lives and the lives of people in these countries, we end up undermining our own security. [. . .] to speak of the trillions of dollars spent on these wars that we need to be using right here at home.
In Iraq, Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, continues his visit (it's expected to be a three day visit).
Iraq and Iran signed several preliminary trade deals as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held his first visit to Iraq, @SaskiaODonoghue reports reut.rs/2F4zeSW
Iran-Iraq Summit, Day 1:
Met Pres, PM, Speaker+political & business leaders
Agreed on:
-Inclusive regional security
-No-fee visas
-Connecting railways
-Dredging border river after 43 yrs
-Joint industrial zones
-Energy cooperation
-$20B in trade
-PTA
2 more days; 2 more cities
Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) notes of yesterday's violence, "At least four people were killed, and six were wounded; 15 bodies were found."
AP has changed their headline on yesterdy's trash so we're ignoring it.
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