In Case You Missed It (v9)

Here's a recap of this week's posts, in case you were too busy to read 'em when they came out.

Our Sunday School classroom visit brought us another chat with Minnesota's Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who's running to be the Democratic presidential nominee. She spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. One of the topics? Whether or not the whistleblower should talk with the impeachment investigators. She could go either way on that, but noted

That Ambassador Taylor testimony was devastating. It showed that this was not just one phone call, that this had been a plan for a long time, for the president to put the interests of America behind his own personal interests to get dirt on an opponent. It's a pattern. He does it for his business. He does it for his partisan interests. He does it every single day.

You will deserve Extra Credit for this one.  Because the president delivered some 8,000 words on the raid that led to the suicide of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he got himself his own post. It would have been impossible for me to have commented on the the entire thing; it was hard enough to pull together this loose conglomeration of his truly bizarre comments, like this one about the Kurds.

They’re going to have to make their own decision. The Kurds have worked along incredibly with us, but in all fairness, it was much easier dealing with the Kurds after they went through three days of fighting, because that was a brutal three days... 

That's right:  the American president just bald-faced mocked the Kurds. You literally can't make this stuff up, nor can you make up the rest of his comments.

Our first Update of the week was a look at the outside income limits on New York's legislators, which have been quashed by the courts. Good government groups are looking for the Leg and the governor to try again in January. They reminded Albany leaders of  "too many instances of corruptions and conflicts of interest" stemming from legislators seeking personal gain related to their other jobs or jobs held by family members.

This is why the Commission concluded that restricting outside income “will eliminate both the perception of and any actual conflicts of interest” and “eliminates the possibility for the public to question whether the citizens of this State are being properly served.” 

Wondering on Wednesday took a look at issues that the NRA is facing, with excerpts from documents in a lawsuit the group is fighting with its former ad agency, and what that might mean for efforts to improve gun safety laws.

...with the messy lawsuits, and if things in this August Mother Jones article are still true, and we continue to see polling showing  the majority of Americans  - including Republicans - favor universal background checks, red flag laws, and more, I'm wondering how long politicians will continue to fear the NRA at election time, and if they stop being afraid, will we be able to get these very popular measures passed and signed into law?

Thursday's update was our weekly feature on the Democratic presidential candidates and their emails. Here's just a small part of a thing I made up, using (bolded) subject lines from one candidate's emails. 

I'm so vulnerably asking, I really am vulnerably asking.  It can't end like this. I don't say this lightly, but we could be on the verge of a TRAGIC mistake!!! This could be the end. It might be time to pack up. go home. it's dire.

Surprisingly, the candidate that sent me those emails is NOT the one who just dropped out of the race.

In Friday's Poll Watch, I took a look at new data from a Washington Post/ABC News poll, showing (among other things) that

49% of us (44% strongly) believe Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 47% (37% strongly) think he shouldn't. This is reflective of results from an October WaPo/Schar School poll, where the same percentage believed he should be impeached and removed. For comparison, only 33% thought Bill Clinton should suffer the same fate. 

And, earlier today, we had a Quick Take on the candidate that did drop out of the Democratic race -- Beto O'Rourke.

He had issues getting traction in the 'moderate' lane of the race, running along with Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar in that space. Biden came in with an advantage there, and both Mayor Pete and Klobuchar had done much better in the debates, significantly overshadowing O'Rourke (and in some respects, overshadowing Biden as well). And it seems, his shift to the left may hurt him going forward.

Dive in -- comment freely -- and come back for more next week!

Sunday School 10/27/19

Today's classrooms were all abuzz with the announcement from the president that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed (well, committed suicide) last night during a raid in Idlib province in northwest Syria.

We'll get to that, but as always, I look first to see if any of the 2020 presidential candidates are making the rounds. Andrew Yang was supposed to have been on with Chuck Todd, but that's been postponed until next week, but Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was on with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. Let's look in.

They started the conversation with the takedown of al-Baghdadi, and Klobuchar was grateful for the  folks who "put themselves in danger" in the mission, and that it was a good decision to go after him. She reminded us, however, that this doesn't mean that ISIS is dead. First of all, there are 100 or so of them who escaped during Turkey's raid on the Kurds, and that it's unclear who's going to be guarding the ones who are still being held. And she noted that the Kurds helped with this, even though we left them "for slaughter."

Calling the raid a political win for the president, Brennan wondered, "Isn't this going to make it harder to run against him when he can say he's the guy who got Baghdadi?"

Look, I have in the past, for instance, when the president made the decision to respond to Assad's use of Sarin gas, I commended him for that decision. But just because you make some decisions for the security of this country doesn't - doesn't mean that his foreign policy overall hasn't been a disaster.  

Mentioning as examples of Trump's disastrous policies the decision to get out of the Iranian nuclear agreement, the Russian nuclear weapons agreement, and the climate change agreement, Klobuchar said those were "very bad decisions." Brennan asked if Klobuchar, "unlike other Democratic candidates," would pledge to keep the US military in Syria. The Senator would not have removed them, she would have kept them there. And now, she said, we have to use whatever leverage we have left to continue the fight against ISIS, for humanitarian aid, and to help the Kurds.

Next question: should the ISIS leaders be extradited here for prosecution? Yes, she said, we should go after them,

But the point of this is not really exactly what we're going to do now. The question is what do we do going forward when the American people have a decision to make? Do they want to keep a president in that has been so divisive in this moment - where this morning, we are unified behind getting rid of terrorists, that's for sure, but every morning, probably tomorrow and the next day he wakes up and he starts...dividing people... So I think the American people can come together say, "yes we want to defeat a terrorist," but then they look at what he does every single day to this country and they want new leadership.

They moved to education and paying for stuff like her plan for free two-year college and technical schools, which will cost $500B. She's focused on those issues specifically because "those are the fastest rising degrees right now in terms of number of jobs we're gonna have," citing a need for 74K electricians and similar numbers for plumbers, med techs, home care workers and so on.

Here's how she'd pay for it (and yes, she admitted, taxes are going to go up for folks making around $400K a year).

...by taking the capital gains rate, which (has) been a ripoff for average Americans, and changing that to the personal income rate. I have shown everything, Margaret, how I'm going to pay for it...I want to make college more affordable. Double the Pell Grants, and do this in a smart way, instead of paying for rich kids to go to college, which is sadly what my opponents' plans do. 

They shifted gears to impeachment, with Brennan questioning whether Klobuchar thinks the whistleblower should testify. It would be good, she said, but maybe not necessary, because people with first-hand knowledge are testifying.

I think what's most important, is to keep getting the testimony of people that were actually there on the scene. That Ambassador Taylor testimony was devastating. It showed that this was not just one phone call, that this had been a plan for a long time, for the president to put the interests of America behind his own personal interests to get dirt on an opponent. It's a pattern. He does it for his business. He does it for his partisan interests. He does it every single day.

And that's where they left it, as they were out of time.

Sunday School 10/13/19

Two of the candidates running to be the blue party's nominee were in the classrooms today - Democrat Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who talked with Jake Tapper for CNN's State of the Union, and Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who chatted with Jonathan Karl for This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Earlier, I guessed that chances were less than 10% that either of the candidates would be asked about anything other than president Trump, impeachment, and Ukraine.  Let's see what happened - Mayor Pete's up first.

First question? Tapper wondered how Buttigieg would handle getting our troops out of Syria, if it were up to him, and how we would also protect our allies, such as the Kurds. He responded that ending endless wards doesn't mean we stop participating and engaging. 

Look at what's happened here. This isn't even a strategy or a policy, it is the president systematically destroying American alliances and American values. And that makes America worse off. 

He went on to say "these kinds of messy, asymmetric conflicts" are going to be going on, and we need to not only defend our interests but also to "live up to our obligations to our allies." And of course, we're not doing that now, he said. And when he hears our soldiers saying they've "lost their honor over this" and they can't look our allies in the eye, it's disturbing to him as a veteran.

And if you take away a soldier's honor, you might as well go after their body armor next. That's what the commander in chief is doing right now.

So, yes, if we need to keep US personnel in Syria, that's what he'd do. Tapper wondered if he'd be willing to threaten or use force against Turkey, a NATO ally, to protect the Kurds. Buttigieg said if he was president, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place; we would use our leverage as an ally, and we could have stopped this, absent Trump's "reckless choice."

Under this president, America is being turned in to just another country, just another country out there scrapping for advantage, not showing leadership, not in an exceptional position to shape outcomes around the world. 

Enough of that, let's go to impeachment. Tapper mentioned a poll showing nearly 6 in 10 Trump's fate should be left up to voters, and wondered why they shouldn't be the ones to decide. Buttigieg pointed out that a majority of Americans in other polls think he should not only be impeached but removed from office, but that polls are not the way to decide this. And, he added.

It's not just about holding Donald Trump accountable... It's about making sure that a future president, 10 years or 100 years from now looks back at this moment and draws the lesson that nobody is above the law. And in a moment like that, public opinion is just going to have to follow the lead of the Constitution, instead of the other way around.

And then, moving to the Biden Issue. And Tapper wondered if Hunter Biden's announcement that he would end foreign business activities if Joe got elected was an acknowledgement of at least an appearance of a conflict of interest. And while I wish Mayor Pete had refused to answer the question,  here's what he said:

I think it demonstrates the difference in standards relative to the White House. I mean... the president of the United States is a walking conflict of interest. You've got family members - you want to talk about family members? In the White House right now, you've got Ivanka Trump benefiting from patents from the Chinese. You've got the president's son-in-law texting with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, while, meanwhile, the president's sons go around the world pretending like the fact that their father is the president of the United States has no impact on the international business dealings that they do.

We don't even know whether Trump financial interests in Turkey contributed to the decision to betray American allies and American values. And they want to talk about conflicts of interest? It's a radically different standard.

Honestly, if you've got to answer the question because the talking heads can't help asking Candidate A about Candidate B's singular problem, I really like that answer.

Moving quickly to LGBTQ issues, he was asked if he agreed with Beto O'Rourke's statement that religious institutions should lose their tax exempt status if they refuse to hire or provide services to LGBTQ folks.  Again, not his position, but what the heck, might as well answer, I guess. He agreed that the anti-discrimination laws should be applied to all institutions, but added

...the idea that you're going to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they haven't found their way toward blessing same-sex marriage, I'm not sure he understood the implication of what he was saying. I mean, that means going to war, not only with churches but I would think with mosques and a lot of organizations that may not have the same view of various religious principles that I do...

 He believes this kind of approach

is just going to deepen the divisions that we're already experiencing, at moment when we're actually seeing more and more people, motivated often by compassion and by people they love, moving in the right direction on LGBTQ rights, which is obviously extremely important to me personally. 

And, that was it - interview over.

Meanwhile, back in Vermont, here's what Sanders and Jon Karl were talking about, starting with his health and his return to the campaign trail. He said he looks forward to going back to a "very vigorous campaign." Karl asked if his docs were good with that. 

Well, let me be very clear and backtrack, and tell you that, probably, there’s nobody who has run a more vigorous campaign than I did. And we’re talking about three or four rallies a day and town meetings and so forth and so on, but I think after a short period of time, we’ll probably be able to return to that. Not the first day back.

And yes, the doctors are OK with that, and yes, he's going to release his medical records, "as soon as we can." Which led Karl to as if  all of the candidates should release theirs. Sanders said it should be the standard that all candidates do that (although I'm sure he's referring to legitimate records, not ones that the candidate may write on their own.)

There were several other questions on his health, and Sanders noted that having stents put in is a fairly common procedure, one that's done hundreds of thousands of times a year, and that he should have put two and two together and realized that he wasn't just tired from campaigning, but that something more serious was wrong. And now, he's ready to get back to work.

Karl wondered if he' drop out if something significant occurred; Sanders didn't bite, refusing to speculate on that but hey, he had good insurance and lots of people don't, so don't go to the hospital when they should or leave with tons of medical debt.

So maybe one of the lessons that I have to tell you I learned is that I'm going to fight even harder than I have for Medicare for All. I am more committed to the struggle than I was a few weeks ago. 

Next, Karl moved to talk about Elizabeth Warren, who's a few years younger than Bernie, and has "pretty close to identical positions" as Sanders. Karl wondered how Sanders would respond to people who would pick her because she didn't just have a heart attack.

Well look, everybody, every American is going to make his or her own choice about the candidate that they want... Elizabeth I think, as you know, has said that she is a capitalist through her bones. I’m not. I think the situation today that we face in this country of the greed and the corruption that is existing in Washington, that is existing at the corporate elite level...

He referenced drug companies, no guarantee of healthcare to all, fossil fuel companies destroying the planet, before continuing

And I think business as usual, and doing it the old fashioned way is not good enough. It’s not regulation. Now what we need is, in fact, I don't want to get people too nervous, we need a political revolution. I am, I believe, the only candidate who's going to say to the ruling class of this country, the corporate elite, enough, enough with your greed and with your corruption. We need real change in this country.

And when Karl pushed on whether that was what Warren was saying, Sanders basically told him to ask her what her position is, he's here to talk about his position, reiterating that he is not a capitalist -  and she is.

Karl then talked about Warren having a plan for everything, but not yet one for healthcare.

Again, Elizabeth is a friend of mine. Talk to her. I have put out a healthcare plan. It's called Medicare for All. We're going to tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that we will not continue this current dysfunctional and cruel system. 

Moving to Syria, Karl noted that Sanders was "very critical" of Trump's decision to pull out troops.

It's an outrage...what does it say to the entire world that you have a president who gets off the phone with Erdogan of Turkey... We're deserting these people who have put their lives on the line to work with us in fighting against some of the worst terrorists in the world, Send a message to the entire world, you cannot trust the United States of America anymore in foreign affairs.

Doesn't matter what the president says, because tomorrow he may reverse himself. It is outrageous. 

He also noted that figuring out how to deal with Turkey is a whole nother issue, and that he is a "strong opponent" of endless wars.  Karl noted that Trump, too, is not a fan of endless wars.

Yes...But the difference between Trump and me is he lies. And, again, you don't turn your back on an ally that lost 11,000 troops fighting against terrorism through a tweet and a discussion with Erdogan.

Moving to impeachment, Sanders is not concerned that Nancy Pelosi didn't have a vote before moving ahead, and he's glad that the inquiry is moving forward. And?

And I think it's proper that it's going forward. I want it to go forward as expeditiously as it possibly can. I think at the end of the day the evidence is there to impeach Trump. 

And that's not all. Sanders is concerned about what happens if the House sends articles of impeachment to the Senate.  Mitch McConnell is an unknown, it seems.

Will Mitch McConnell do the right thing? Will he have a full trial, where the American people, and Senators...can hear the evidence regarding what Trump did? I am nervous that McConnell will put party in front of country and not do that. 

Either way, if it does get that far, Trump will have strong support for an innocent path and strong evidence for a guilty path in the Senate, Sanders says.

And the Senate will make its decision. It will make its decision as will the American people. That has to take place. 

Yes - that has to take place.

See you around campus.