The Update Desk: Who Loves Me, Baby? (v10)

Regular readers know that I've subscribed to emails from the leading Democratic presidential candidates - or, at least, the ones that have been consistently qualifying for the debates. The others, including Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer, have not been in the mix.

This week, I got 140 emails, as follows: Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, and Elizabeth Warren each sent 18; Amy Klobuchar sent 17; Joe Biden sent 15; Kamala Harris sent 14, Andrew Yang sent 12, and Bernie Sanders sent 10. 

Here's what the candidates are talking about:

• Biden: they're talking about Joe's birthday, which is the day of the Atlanta debate; a donation would be a nice present. We're less than 100 days from the first votes- not only that, but the Republicans are going to spend a billion dollars beating up on Joe, according to someone on Fox News. 

•  Booker: there's concern about the December debate, for sure. He also supports the impeachment effort that's underway, and he's not a fan of Tom Steyer who's spent $35,000,000 of his own money so far in his bid to become president. No surprise he's not excited about Michael Bloomberg's fooling around with this, either. 

• Mayor Pete: they're talking about their Marathon States Fund,, the plan to compete in all of the early states including on Super Tuesday and beyond. His contest to go to a Notre Dame game is still running, and he's got new TV ads on the air in Iowa and New Hampshire. He dropped a new economic plan for American families, 'rules of the road' for the campaign, and a solid message on Veterans Day, with a link to his policies for vets.

• Castro: there continues to be a sense of desperation here, with frequent message about Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer qualifying for the next debates, Bloomberg jumping into the race, and so on. He also announced a policy on expanding diversity and inclusion to all Americans, including the disabled, and he talked again about changing the order of primaries. 

• Harris: her campaign is struggling in the polls and in fundraising, and you can tell. Emails were all about money, and how she's not using super PACs and stuff. And she had one about 'electability' which was interesting.

• Klobuchar: She'll go anywhere she needs to go, and wants to have ads on in the early states; this costs money, of course. She also  asked us to support two senatorial candidates, Doug Jones in Alabama and Amy McGrath, who's running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. She had a Veterans Day message, too. 

• Sanders: not surprisingly, he attacked Mike Bloomberg and his billions, he attacked Joe Biden and his super PACS,  and he attacked big dollar donors; he talked about being 12 weeks away from the first votes, November being a tough month for fundraising, and his great rallies in Iowa - he had three with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

• Warren: lots of attacks on Bloomberg, and she's angry and not afraid to show it,  and people in my state are tired of the status quo. She wanted 607 grassroots donors, one for each of the 607 billionaires in America;  and like Sanders, her average contribution has gone down, which is bad. 

• Yang: he was all about money this time, with a huge goal and lots of work to get to it. he's got a new ad, which we need to keep on TV - and, he hit 1,000,00 followers on Twitter!

Finally, for our email of the week, I was torn. I got one from Kamala Harris comparing the morning we woke up with Donald Trump having been elected, and the morning we woke up and Barack Obama had been elected. It's a powerful comparison, for sure. 

The winner, though? It's the one from Julian Castro on juggling the primaries. Here's the message, titled "Listen to the black women who power our victories." I've heard the schedule discussed before, but I don't remember the argument being made like this.

On Sunday, I took a bold stance and became the first Presidential candidate in 50 years to advocate that we change the order of states that begin our Democratic nominating process. 

While there has been blow back among some party faithful in Iowa and New Hampshire, folks across the country have rallied behind this simple truth—black women have empowered our Democratic victories and their voices deserve to be heard right from the beginning. 

I understand for many folks in both states this is a tradition that they hold very dear, and I have learned first hand that they take their role in vetting candidates seriously. But “this is how it’s always been done” isn’t ever a good reason to keep doing it.The current system does not give enough of a voice to people of color and it's long past time that we as Democrats practice what we preach and fix it. 

To be clear, this isn’t about which candidates voters in these states may choose, or have chosen in the past. This is about who gets to do the choosing. 

Some of my opponents have dismissed this suggestion. I’m not surprised. If I am the only candidate who is willing to highlight this disparity and advocate for change, so be it.

The Democratic nominating process needs to reflect America. We can’t say that black women are the backbone of our party, then support starting our nominating process in two states with such a low representation of black folks in them. 

We can’t say that we are the party that will fight against voter suppression and structural racism in our political system and then turn around and effectively exclude black and brown voices from the first portion of our nominating process. 

During my ten months on the campaign trail, I visited Iowa and New Hampshire numerous times, and I met many wonderful people who take their duties as voters in the first in the nation contests very seriously. I appreciate how hard they work to make the best, most informed decision possible. 

Castro might not last much longer - although, I've thought that for a few weeks now - but if he does drop out, I hope people will consider his thoughts on the primaries.

Next week's the debate - going to be fun, I'm sure. And, we had Deval Patrick enter the race today, and we have Hillary Clinton inexplicably saying she never says never. This is likely to get ugly before it gets pretty, don't you think?

Wondering on Wednesday (v190) Part 2

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA), of whom I am not fond, and Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA), of whom I'm even less fond, presented their opening statements in the first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry. Let the wondering begin.

Schiff's statement is in Part 1. And now, the Republican. Seat belts on, I hope?

In a July open hearing of this committee following publication of the Mueller report, the Democrats engaged in a last-ditch effort to convince the American people that president Trump is a Russian agent. That hearing was the pitiful finale of a three-year-long operation by the Democrats, the corrupt media, and partisan bureaucrats to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. 

After the spectacular implosion of their Russia hoax on July 24, in which they spent years denouncing any Republican who ever shook hands with a Russian, on July 25 they turned on a dime and now claim the real malfeasance is Republicans' dealings with Ukraine. 

Years, they spent, he said - on July 24th! Time-travelling, I wonder? And then there was this traveling, through the personal insulted memory banks of Nunes:

In the blink of an eye, we're asked to simply:

• forget about Democrats on this committee falsely claiming they had "more than circumstantial evidence" of collusion between president Trump and the Russians;

• forget about them reading fabrications of Trump-Russia collusion from the Steele dossier into the Congressional Record; 

• forget about them trying to obtain nude pictures of Trump from Russian pranksters who pretended to be Ukrainian officials; 

• forget about them leaking a false story to CNN, while he was testifying to our committee, claiming Donald Trump, Jr. had colluded with Wikileaks; 

• and forget about countless other deceptions, large and small, that make them the last people on earth with the credibility to hurl more preposterous accusations at their political opponents.

'Hurl' - an interesting choice of words; wonder if Nunes was trying to be funny on purpose?

And yet we're now supposed to take these people at face value when they trot out a new batch of allegations. But anyone familiar with the Democrats' scorched-earth war against president Trump would not be surprised to see all the typical signs that this is just a carefully orchestrated media smear campaign. For example:

• After vowing publicly that impeachment requires bipartisan support, Democrats are pushing impeachment forward without the backing of a single House Republican;

• The witnesses deemed suitable for television by the Democrats were put through a closed-door audition process in a cult-like atmosphere in the basement of the Capitol, where the Democrats conducted secret depositions, released a flood of misleading and one-sided leaks, and later selectively released transcripts in a highly staged manner.

• Violating their own guidelines, the Democrats repeatedly redacted from the transcripts the name of Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor for the Democratic National Committee who worked with Ukrainian officials to collect dirt on the Trump campaign, which she provided to the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

• The Democrats rejected most of the Republicans' witness requests, resulting in a horrifically one-sided process where crucial witnesses are denied a platform if their testimony doesn't support the Democrats' absurd accusations. Notably, they are trying to impeach the president for inquiring about Hunter Biden's activities, yet they refused our request to hear from Biden himself.

Because, Devin, Hunter Biden's actions are not relevant to the president's attempt to extort Zelensky into investigating Hunter's father - you do understand that, don't you? And you do know that, if you win back the House in 2020, you can investigate the Bidens to your heart's content?

• The whistleblower was acknowledged to have a bias against president trump, and his attorney touted a "coup" against the president and called for impeachment just weeks after his election.

Nunes is carefully ignoring the fact that the Intelligence Committee Inspector General acknowledge a potential bias  but still thought that the complaint was urgent and needed attention. See, the ICIG apparently can walk and chew gum at the same time...

• At a prior hearing, Democrats on this committee read out a purely fictitious rendition of the president's phone call with President Zelensky. They clearly found the real conversation to be insufficient for their impeachment narrative, so they just made up a new one.

On this point, no wondering needed: Schiff was an idiot to do this. He knows it, you know it, I know it - everyone knows it.

And most egregiously, the staff of Democrats on this committee had direct discussions with the whistleblower before his or her complaint was submitted to the Inspector General, and Republicans cannot get a full account of these contacts because the Democrats broke their promise to have the whistleblower testify to this committee. Democrat members hid these contacts from Republicans and lied about them to the American people on national television.

Yes, it's true, we were told, the whistleblower reached out to the committee, and yes, it's true, we were told, that the staff member advised that whistleblower to become a whistleblower and report their concerns to the ICIG.  And yes, we were told, Schiff was aware of the conversation.  And yes, he was not forthcoming about it, and still hasn't been forthcoming, I believe.

And yes, it's true that the Dems tried to get testimony from the whistleblower behind closed doors, which the Republicans refused to do. And yes, the whistleblower made an offer to answer written questions for Republicans only - just them - which the Republicans refused.  And yes, the Republicans have said there was no need to talk to the whistleblower because she or he had no first-hand knowledge and so any testimony would be irrelevant.

I've noted before that the Democrats have a long habit of accusing of Republicans of offenses they themselves are committing. Recall that:

• For years they accused the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia when they themselves were colluding with Russia by funding and spreading the Steele dossier, which relied on Russian sources.

• And now they accuse president Trump of malfeasance in Ukraine when they themselves are culpable. The Democrats cooperated in Ukrainian election  meddling and they defend Hunter Biden's securing of a lavishly paid position with a corrupt Ukrainian company, all while his father served as vice president.

Saying that Hunter Biden's behavior is irrelevant is not the same as defending it. It's simply, honestly, irrelevant.

This last part is the best, though, from a wondering perspective.

Despite this hypocrisy, the Democrats are advancing their impeachment sham. But we should not hold any hearings at all until we get answers to three crucial questions the Democrats are determined to avoid asking: 

• First, what is the full extent of Democrats' prior coordination with the whistleblower and who else did the whistleblower coordinate this effort with?

The actions of the whistleblower are not relevant, really, because what was reported in the complaint has been pretty much corroborated by other people with first hand knowledge. So, I wonder, what is there to gain from attacking questioning the whistleblower about anything other than the complaint?

•  Second, what is the full extent of Ukraine's election meddling against the Trump campaign?

Again, I wonder, what does this discounted theory have to do with the president's attempted extortion?

• And third, why did Burisma hire Hunter Biden, what did he do for them, and did his position affect any US government actions in the Obama administration?

Which witness, I wonder, will shed light on that? Did Nunes suggest that Ukrainian energy executives testify?  Did they ask to have Joe Biden testify? Barack Obama? Charley Burisma?

These questions will remain outstanding because Republicans were denied the right to call witnesses who know the answers. 

What we will witness today is a televised theatrical performance staged by the Democrats. Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kent—I’d like to welcome you here, and congratulate you for passing the Democrats’ Star Chamber auditions held for the last six weeks in the basement of the Capitol. It seems you agreed, wittingly or unwittingly, to participate in a drama. But the main performance—the Russia hoax—has ended, and you’ve been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel.

I can't even wonder what he was thinking, attacking these two witnesses, in this way. And then, suffering the same fate as practically every commencement speaker ever, he moves to his next closing argument. 

I’ll conclude by noting the immense damage the politicized bureaucracy has done to Americans’ faith in government. Though executive branch employees are charged with implementing the policy set by our President, who is elected by and responsible to the American people, elements of the civil service have decided that they, not the President, are really in charge.

Thus, as we’ll learn in these hearings:

• After expressing skepticism of foreign aid and concern about foreign corruption on the campaign trail, President Trump outraged the bureaucracy by acting skeptically about foreign aid and expressing concerns about foreign corruption.

• Officials’ alarm at the President’s actions was typically based on second-hand, third-hand, and even fourth-hand rumors and innuendo.

• They believed it was an outrage for President Trump to fire an ambassador, even though the President has full authority to retain or remove diplomats for any reason at any time.

• Officials showed a surprising lack of interest in the indications of Ukrainian election meddling that deeply concerned the President at whose pleasure they serve.

• Despite all their dissatisfaction with President Trump’s Ukraine policy, the President approved the supply of weapons to Ukraine, unlike the previous administration, which provided blankets as defense against invading Russians.

By undermining the President who they are supposed to be serving, elements of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and now the State Department, have lost the confidence of millions of Americans who believe that their vote should count for something. It will take years, if not decades, to restore faith in these institutions.

This spectacle is doing great damage to our country. It’s nothing more than an impeachment process in search of a crime.

Nunes, and Schiff before him, did not do themselves any favors today. It's hard to imagine that I like either of them less than I did before, but I do.  No wondering on that, at all.

And I'm very glad we have tomorrow off. In the meantime, I'm a blogger in search of a drink.

Wondering on Wednesday (v190) Part 1

House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA), of whom I am not fond, and Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA), of whom I'm even less fond, presented their opening statements in the first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry. Let the wondering begin.

First, the Democrat; I recommend having at least a six-pack of 5-Hour Energy available.

In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire. In the following years, thirteen thousand Ukrainians died as they battled superior Russian forces.

Earlier this year Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine on a platform of ending the conflict and of tackling corruption. He was a newcomer to politics and immediately sought to establish a relationship with Ukraine's most powerful patron, the United States. The questions presented by this impeachment inquiry are whether president Trump sought to exploit that ally's vulnerability and invite Ukraine's interference in our elections? Whether president Trump sought to condition official acts, such as a White House meeting or US military assistance, on Ukraine's willingness to assist with two political investigations that would help his reelection campaign? And if President Trump did either whether such an abuse of his power is compatible with the office of the presidency? 

The matter is as simple, and as terrible as that. Our answer to these questions will affect not only the future of this presidency, but the future of the presidency itself, and what kind of conduct or misconduct the American people may come to expect from their Commander-in-Chief.

The president is not the Commander-in-Chief of the American people - he is the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military. I wonder why Schiff doesn't know that?

There are few actions as consequential as the impeachment of a President. While the Founders did not intend that impeachment be employed for mere differences over policy, they also made impeachment a constitutional process that the Congress must utilize when necessary.

The facts in the present inquiry are not seriously contested. Beginning in January of this year,  the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, pressed Ukrainian authorities to investigate Burisma, the country's largest natural gas producer, and the Bidens, since Vice-President was seen as a strong potential challenger to Trump.

Giuliani also promoted a debunked conspiracy that it was Ukraine, not Russia that hacked the 2016 election. The nation's intelligence agencies have stated unequivocally that it was Russia, not Ukraine, that interfered in our election. But Giuliani believed this conspiracy theory, referred to as "Crowdstrike," shorthand for the company that discovered the Russian hack, would aid his client's reelection.

Giuliani also conducted a smear campaign against the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. On April 29, as a senior State Department official told her that although she had "done nothing wrong," president Trump had "lost confidence in her." With the sidelining of Yovanovitch, the stage was set for the establishment of an irregular channel in which Giuliani and later others, including Gordon Sondland -- an influential donor to the president's inauguration now serving as Ambassador to the European Union  - could advance the president's personal and political interests. 

As noted in testimony today, ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president. Whether he independently decides he no longer has confidence in his diplomats, or he's told by a crazed minion that he no longer has confidence isn't really the issue, as far as I can see.

Yovanovitch's replacement in Kyiv, Ambassador Bill Taylor, is a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran. As he began to better understand the scheme through the summer of 2019, he pushed back, informing Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent and others about a plan to condition US government actions and funding on the performance of political favors by the Ukrainian government, favors intended for president Trump that would undermine our security and our elections. 

Several key events in this scheme took place in the month of July. On July 10th, Ambassador Sondland informed a group of US and Ukrainian officials meeting at the White House that, according to Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, a White House meeting desperately sought by the Ukrainian president with Trump would happen only if Ukraine undertook an investigation into "the energy sector," which was understood to mean Burisma, and specifically, the Bidens. National Security Advisor Bolton abruptly ended the meeting and said afterwards that he would not be - quote - "part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this" - end quote. 

At least so far, Bolton is not scheduled to appear before the committee, his attorney's dangling of tantalizing teases notwithstanding. And I wonder about that. I'm guessing that Bolton is behind the foreplay, or at least supportive of it, otherwise why would his attorney be doing it? And Bolton's first-hand telling of the "drug deal" story would be significantly more impressive than Schiff's.

A week later, on July 18, a representative from OMB, the White House agency that oversees federal spending, announced on a video conference call that Mulvaney, at the direction of the president, was freezing nearly $400 million in security assistance authorized and appropriated by Congress and which the entirety of the US national security establishment supported. 

This next part comes from the alleged 'transcript' the White House released, the one that clearly states is not a transcript. The real transcript of the call? That's on the Donny Dearest server, where White House types put the stuff Trump says that is way more scary than what we hear him say with our own two ears.

One week after that, Donald Trump would have the now infamous July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. During that call, Trump complained that the US relationship with Ukraine had not been "reciprocal." Later, Zelensky thanks Trump for his support "in the area of defense" and says that Ukraine was ready to purchase more Javelins, an antitank weapon that was among the most important deterrents of further Russian military action. Trump's immediate response: "I would like you to do us a favor, though."

Trump then requested that Zelensky investigate the discredited 2016 "Crowdstrike" conspiracy theory, and even more ominously, look into the Bidens. Neither of these investigations were in the US national interest, and neither as part of the official preparatory material for the call. Both, however, were in Donald Trump's personal interest, and in the interest of his 2020 re-election campaign. And the Ukrainian president knew about both in advance - because Sondland and others had been pressing Ukraine for weeks about investigations into the 2016 election, Burisma and the Bidens. 

Anyone still awake? How's that 5-Hour Energy stuff working for you? Hope it's holding out, because Schiff is going to recite more testimony for us.

After the call, multiple individuals were concerned enough to report it to the National Security Council's top lawyer. The White House would then take the extraordinary step of moving the call record to a highly classified server exclusively reserved for the most sensitive intelligence matters. 

In the following weeks, Ambassador Taylor learned new facts about a scheme that even Sondland would describe as becoming more insidious. Taylor texted Sondland, "are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?"  

And now, let's all sit back and wonder about simpler things -- summer turning to fall, with a dose of insidiocity.

 As summer turned to fall, "[i]t kept getting more insidious," Mr. Sondland testified. Mr. Taylor, who took notes of his conversations, said the ambassador told him in a September 1 phone call that "everything was dependent" on the public announcement of investigations "including security assistance." President Trump wanted Mr. Zelensky "in a public box." "President Trump is a businessman," Sondland said later. "When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check"

 In a sworn declaration after Taylor's testimony, Sondland would admit to telling the Ukrainians at a September 1st meeting in Warsaw, "that resumption of US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks?"

As I read this next part, the "get over it" part from Mick Mulvaney, part of me wonders if Schiff will ever get over any of this?

The president's chief of staff confirmed Trump's efforts to coerce Ukraine by withholding aid. When Mick Mulvaney was asked publicly about it, his answer was breathtaking; "We do that all the time with foreign policy... I have news for everybody: get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy. That is going to happen." The video of that confession is plain for all to see.  

Some have argued in the president's defense that the aid was ultimately released. That is true. But only after Congress began an investigation; only after the president's lawyers learned of a whistleblower complaint about quid pro quos. A scheme to condition official acts or taxpayer funding to obtain personal political benefit does not become less odious because it is discovered before it is fully consummated. In fact, the security assistance had been delayed so long it would take another act of Congress to ensure that it would still go out. And that Oval Office meeting that Zelensky desperately sought - it still hasn't happened. 

And, I read somewhere, the White House was basically backed into a corner as the money needed to be released before the end of the fiscal year on September 30th; the money was released on the 11th. I wonder why Schiff didn't mention that, if it's true?

Now, I think we're getting to the meat of the issue (I think):

Although we have learned a great deal about these events in the last several weeks, there are still missing pieces. The president has instructed the State Department and other agencies to ignore Congressional subpoenas for documents. He has instructed witnesses to defy subpoenas and refuse to appear. And he has suggested that those who do expose wrongdoing should be treated like traitors and spies.   

And, in this part, he makes it clear that the investigation is not just about attempted extortion of Ukraine, it now includes Trump's obstruction of Congress.

These actions will force Congress to consider, as it did with President Nixon, whether Trump's obstruction of the constitutional duties of Congress constitute additional grounds for impeachment. If the President can simply refuse all oversight, particularly in the context of an impeachment proceeding, the balance of power between our two branches of government will be irrevocably altered. That is not what the Founders intended. And the prospects for further corruption and abuse of power, in this administration or another, will be exponentially increased.

This is what we believe the testimony will show - both as to the president's conduct and as to his obstruction of Congress. The issue that we confront is the one posted by the president's Acting Chief of Staff when he challenged Americans to  "get over it." If we find that the president of the United States abused his power and invited foreign interference in our elections, or if he sought to condition, coerce, extort, or bribe an ally into conduction investigations to aid his reelection campaign and did so by withholding official acts - a White House meeting or hundreds of millions of dollars of needed military aid - must we simply "get over it?" Is that what Americans should now expect from their president? If this not impeachable conduct, what is? Does the oath of office itself - requiring that our laws be faithfully executed, that our president defend a constitution that balances the powers of its branches, setting ambition against ambition so that we become no monarch - still have meaning? 

These are the questions we must ask and answer. Without rancor if we can, without delay regardless, and without party favor or prejudice if we are true to our responsibilities. Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of a country American was to become, "A Republic," he answered, "if you can keep it." The fundamental issue raised by the impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump is: Can we, keep it?

Our sanity: can we, keep it?

Nunes is in Part 2.

Grains of Salt (v51): Fair Redistricting Matters

Grains of Salt

Last Tuesday, voters in the city of Syracuse approved a proposition that will lead to creation of an independent commission of city residents to handle the Common Council redistricting after the 2020 census.

Many folks are at least tangentially aware of issues with redistricting around the country; for example, the Supreme Court has heard a number of cases over the years, dealing with issues of race, population, who gets to do the redistricting, and whether partisanship is good or bad.

Personally, I'm not a fan of having politicians do their own redistricting; we've seen too, too many times how this works to benefit them and not us. That doesn't mean that all politicians are bad, or self-serving, or more interested in their own longevity - but there's so many examples of exactly that,  like this battle in Pennsylvania, or this one in North Carolina, that I'd rather someone like me tried to figure out. 

The rules for Syracuse that our vote amended say that if any of the five districts falls below 15% or above 25% of the total population, the districts must be redrawn, and any new district must contain between 17% and 23 of the population. The Common Council voted earlier this year to amend the charter to allow for the independent commission, as long as voters agreed.

The Council's decision came after the County Legislature voted against making the same change.  Here's County Legislator Chris Ryan, a member of the Democratic minority, talking to WRVO about the lines drawn years ago:

Our finished product, when we redid the legislative districts almost a decade ago, was seriously flawed, and probably should have been challenged legally. We should lean on our community leaders, our civic groups, academia and people who do this kind of thing, and consult with them, so we can put forth a better product.

Here's what he's talking about, from WRVO's report:

The lines were drawn  to fit more than 27,000 people in a district. 

But the result is a hodgepodge of meandering lines, dividing up the city of Syracuse into nine out of 17 county districts, located completely or partly within the city. Republicans hold a 12 to 5 advantage in the legislature, despite there being more registered Democrats in the County.  

Legislature Chairman David Knapp, while saying the Republicans are "looking at opening up the redistricting process" sometime in the future (and maybe even holding a public meeting), expressed some concerns with having a commission now instead of waiting until after the census.

We just felt it was adding another bureaucratic commission that really didn't have any teeth, to advise a commission that's already in place. In this really highly charged political environment we're in, finding nonpartisan groups is pretty tough these days. 

He's right - we are in a "highly charged political environment " - in part because of things like how district lines are drawn, how that dissuades many voters from participating (at best), and disenfranchises them (at worst). It's also in part because of the distrust of the elected in those who elect them (and conversely); it's also in part because of the assumption that finding nonpartisan people is impossible. I'd say it probably is, if your premise is that you won't.   

We know that redistricting shenanigans have happened here in NY, because former State Senator John DeFrancisco told us so, about not only protecting a political party, but protecting a specific potential future candidate for state office. Take a look at these excerpts from DeFrancisco's book, as reported by Teri K. Weaver of Syracuse.com | The Post Standard.

When it was time to redraw state political districts nearly a decade ago, former state Sen. John DeFrancisco rejected an early version of proposed changes to the district he represented.

Why? It left out the town of Onondaga, DeFrancisco writes in his new memoir.

Bob Antonacci, another Republican, lives in Onondaga.

And DeFrancisco, a veteran senator who was then in his mid-60s, was already thinking about who might run for the district when he retired.

“I objected, since Bob Antonacci lived in the town of Onondaga,” DeFrancisco writes in his book, “Never Say Never: Adventures in NY Politics.”

“I wanted to keep open the possibility that he could run for my seat if he was interested when the time came,” DeFrancisco writes.

And that’s just what happened.

Yep -- a proud moment for the double-dipping former Senator, don't you think? The guy who said we needed him more than he needed us?

Granted, I could simply retire and not serve any longer. However, now that Republicans have regained control of the State Senate, Central New York would be better served by my returning to my Senate seat, as a majority member and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (emphasis added).

And apparently we'd be better served by having a district map drawn to help get someone somewhere off in the distant future get elected? 

If we needed a reason why we need impartial redistricting in New York, and in Onondaga County, and in the city of Syracuse, I'm not sure we'll find one better than this. Oh -- eventually, Antonacci did run, did win by a narrow margin, and then after less than a year in office, rn for and win a seat on the State Supreme Court bench. So much for DeFrancisco's plan.

Fair Maps CNY obtained commitments from most incumbents and candidates running for city and county 'district' seats to support fair and nonpartisan redistricting, which sets us up well for getting this right after the 2020 census.  

Among the folks signing the pledge? Legislature Chairman David Knapp. 

The Update Desk: Grains of Salt (v50)

Back in September, I did a Grains of Salt post on an audit done by Matt Beadnell, then the Onondaga County Comptroller, on the work habits of the County's Democratic Elections Commissioner. The gist of the audit was that Dustin Czarny, the commish, was in effect stealing from county taxpayers by working as an Uber or Lyft driver on our dime.

Beadnell says the Elections Commissioner job calls for at least 35 hours a week; Czarny is paid $98,753 per year, so the 94 hours of driving he's accused of doing during work hours in the past 18 months would have been worth around $5100 in county pay - and those hours would have been credited towards his pension.

Czarny had a difference of opinion, as might be expected, noting that he worked well over the required hours, that his part-time work didn't impact his county work, and he maintained that he had done nothing wrong.

Beadnell, for his part, made of mess of things, by letting the cat out of the bag about a big press conference, involving a "high level County Official" and making sure that folks had all weekend to play a guessing game on which official might be in trouble.  Well, most people were playing the guessing game, but not all.

Beadnell inexplicably briefed the Onondaga County GOP Chair, Tom Dadey, before making his announcement.

Fast forward to October, when we heard from DA-for-Life Bill Fitzpatrick on the result of his criminal investigation into the matter. There was no collusion, there was no obstruction... 

No, what he said was that Czarny would not be charged; he really only worked about 14 hours, not 94; Czarny often works more hours than required, and under the law, he's not required to work set hours anyway; and most of the rides were late in the day or on Czarny's way home from work. In the end, 

This is not an elected position. There’s no set 9-5. He doesn’t punch a time card. He felt in light of the disclosures that it looked bad and he already indicated that so there’s just no thievery there. Things that don’t look good aren’t crimes.

Czarny issued a statement saying, in part,

I have maintained throughout this process that I did not do anything wrong and that Mr. Beadnell was mistaken in both his reading of the law and analysis of the data. I am grateful to District Attorney Fitzpatrick and his team for doing this investigation and uncovering the truth. Mr. Beadnell’s gross exaggeration of the hours spent ride-sharing, whether on purpose or through incompetence, was a direct result of him never truly investigating the matter...

Czarny was correct in stating there was a gross exaggeration of his hours: they were based on estimates, some of which were doubled; Beadnell did not understand how ride-sharing works; he didn't speak with either company; and, as noted, did not talk to Czarny either. In a nutshell, it was a mess. 

Beadnell admitted to the editorial board of the local paper that he was wrong to have notified the party boss about the audit, and said he's "gone back and forth" on whether he erred by not talking to Czarny - but making it look political was worse. He got the endorsement of the paper anyway, but Syracuse City Auditor Marty Masterpole won, becoming "the first Democrat elected to a major countywide office since 1991."

This is all behind us now - fortunately - and I hope that during his tenure, Masterpole will manage the Comptroller's office in a non-partisan way. That's as it should be, and we should accept nothing less. 

Sunday School 11/10/19

Looks like Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was the only 2020 Dem presidential candidate making the rounds today. She's gotten plenty of Sunday School time recently, so I opted not to sit in with her and instead visit with some other folks in the classrooms.

Let's listen in as Chuck Todd talks with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Connecticut's Rep. Jim Himes on Meet the Press.

First, the Senator Paul what-about, what-about segment. In response to a question on whether he's been reading the deposition transcripts, the senator said he's been reading reports but not the actual transcripts. He went on to sa (with my emphasis added)

But I guess my impression so far is, I think the American people want fairness. And I don't think they're going to judge fairness, when they're accusing President Trump of the same thing Joe Biden did, threatening the aid, if some kind of corruption's not investigated. And it seems like everybody, both parties, have been threatening aid, if some kind of investigation either doesn't happen or is ended. And so I think, really, what's going to happen is people are going to say, "Oh, they're impeaching President Trump for exactly the same thing that Joe Biden did."

He threatened the aid, if they didn't fire someone. And supposedly, the president did, if they didn't investigate someone. So it sounds exactly like what Joe Biden did. And if they weren't going to impeach Joe Biden, they look like, you know, hypocrites, in a way, for going only after President Trump and having not a word to say about what Joe Biden did.

Todd did not push back on the "Trump and Biden did the same thing" point, but he did try to pin the senator down on whether Trump should have done what's alleged, that he sought a quid pro quo from Ukraine. Paul's response, with some emphasis added:

I think there's a real question whether you think the president should specifically go after one person. But there's a real question whether Joe Biden should've gone after one prosecutor. It's exactly the same scenario. So I think there is a question --  There is a question about that. But if it were me, I wouldn't give them the aid, because we don't have the money. We have to actually borrow the money from China to send it to Ukraine. So I'm against the aid. And I think it's a mistake to do the aid. So I wouldn't have played any of these games. But I think the American people think it's unfair to treat Trump under one standard and Joe Biden under a different standard.

And so, Todd went back again, asking

But is that really -- I understand trying to go back. I go back to, do two wrongs make a right? I want to set that aside because I don't understand why that's always used as a deflection. Does that mean you think it's now okay for the president to act this way? It doesn't matter what we think of Joe Biden, at this point. If it's wrong for this to be done, then it's wrong period. No?

And here's how the senator responded.

Well, it kind of does, it kind of does. But I'll approach it from a different way. Fairness is one angle. And I don't think people are going to think this is fair. But I think the second angle is this. Foreign aid, by law, can only go out to countries that are not corrupt. So if you think that a country is acting in a corrupt way, a president can always withhold aid, until the corruption is fixed. So you're going to have to get into the mind of Trump and his advisers and say, "Well, he didn't really believe that the Bidens were corrupt." I think he absolutely does. I think you could give him a lie detector test and say, "Do you think the Bidens were corrupt? And do you think you were investigating corruption, and that corruption is in the law, that you can't give aid to a country that has corruption?" So there's no way. This ends up being a policy debate and a partisan debate. And it has nothing to do with legality or illegality or impeachment. It's purely a partisan way of trying to overturn the election.

So, fairness is the issue, except that it's not the issue,  it's getting into the head of the president, unless it's not that, it's a partisan attack on the results of the election. OK - fine -- let's go there, then, right Chuck Todd?

Negative on that; the next question had nothing to do with Paul's answer, it had everything to do with giving the president cover. That's right - the question was whether a distinction should be made between Trump asking for a quid pro quo and his administration asking for one. You know, Mulvaney maybe?

You know, I think we've gotten lost in this whole idea of quid pro quo. And I think Senator Kennedy kind of hit the nail on the head. It's that, if you're not allowed to give aid to people who are corrupt, there's always contingencies on aid. Even, even President Obama withheld aid. You know, he was supposed to give lethal aid. Congress said, "Give them $300 million in lethal aid." And he sent them blankets.

So presidents, since the beginning of time, have resisted Congress. And there's been this sort of back-and-forth jockeying over what is sent. But also, presidents have withheld aid before for corruption. So the thing is is I think it's a mistake to say, "Oh, he withheld aid, until he got what he wanted." Well, if it's corruption, and he believes there to be corruption, he has every right to withhold aid. So I think it's a big mistake for anybody to argue quid pro quo. He didn't have quid pro quo.

And then, knowing that he'll be a juror, should articles of impeachment come to the Senate, Paul offered the president a new defense.

And I know that's what the administration's arguing. I wouldn't make that argument. I would make the argument that every politician in Washington, other than me, virtually, is trying to manipulate Ukraine to their purposes. Menendez tried it. Murphy tried it. Biden tried it. Trump's tried it. They're all doing it. They are all trying to manipulate Ukraine to get some kind of investigation, either to end an investigation or start an investigation.

No follow-up on that, no probing on what Paul said, even the part about "every politician" trying to manipulate Ukraine, except Rand Paul. Nope; back to whether an average American should be concerned about the president asking a foreign country to investigate a political rival, and does Paul "understand why some people think...that that is, basically, abusing the office for political gain, to mess with the election?" More from the Senator, more emphasis from me.

I think you're right, Chuck. But I think an equal number of people are upset that Hillary Clinton hired a British spy to hire Russians to get dirt called the Steele Dossier. So here's Hillary Clinton, in the middle of a campaign, hiring a foreign spy agency or a foreign spy-

So, it's not about Joe Biden, now it's about Hillary Clinton? This time, Todd came back.

Alright, you did it again to me. You did it again. You went back and said, "Okay, there's behavior that's bad over here. There's behavior that's bad over there." All that does is condition us for more bad behavior. When do we put a stop to this?

Paul denied the 'what-aboutism, even though that's exactly what it was.

No, but what it says is — no, what I'm asking for is that they be treated equally. And I think the American public's going to say, "If you didn't do anything to Hillary Clinton for hiring a foreign spy, why is it, all of a sudden, wrong for President Trump --

Todd, interrupting: "So two wrongs make a right?"

And Paul:

--to have a country investigate somebody-- well, what I would say is that people want them to be treated fairly. I'm not saying, two wrongs make a right. I'm not even saying I would've done it that way. All I'm saying is, is that you're going to impeach President Trump, and you're going to give Hillary Clinton, you know, let her skate? So then I think people see that as unfair. And so it becomes partisan. That's why no Republicans voted for impeachment.

And, no follow up on that. Which one is it? Is it Biden? Clinton? The Elf on the Shelf?

Final question: Are you an open-minded juror? 

I'm very open minded and fair minded. You'll not meet a person who is more fair than I am. I really do believe that justice should be colorblind, gender blind, you name it. I think justice should. But you know, one of our traditions about justice, about finding justice, is a defense should be able to present their witnesses. So if you can't call Hunter Biden, and you can't call the whistleblower, that's not -- that’s sort of a sham. That's not even really a trial. So I am fair minded. But the trial has to be fair.

So now, we have to call two people, one who has never been involved with Trump in any way, and one with no first-hand knowledge of anything, according to Republicans?  My head spins - it Joe Biden literally spins.

But that's OK, because I'm going to share one bit of the interview Todd had with Rep. Himes, who addresses that point nicely.  Todd asked if there's going to be new information learned once the public hearings kick off on Wednesday.

Himes said there will be new info, and that he suspects "most of the public" hasn't read the transcripts that have been released.  And, he said, we'll hear from "immensely patriotic... articulate people" who'll tell us about a president who "extorted a vulnerable country." And then, he said this.

And Chuck, if you'll, if you’ll grant me one second here, my head is only now decombusting from the exchange you had with Rand Paul. I've spent 11 years in public service defending the press, and when Senator Rand Paul comes on and says that what Donald Trump did -- and the transcript is there -- extorting a foreign government for his personal political gain, and that's exactly the same thing as Joe Biden, "Exactly the same thing," is what he said, as Joe Biden saying that this prosecutor should be released. When Joe Biden is acting in consistency with American foreign policy and back then we had a whole list of things that had to be done and this was American foreign policy, it was European Union policy, it was IMF policy that this prosecutor needed to go.

When Rand Paul says that that's exactly the same thing as the president of the United States saying, "You need to find dirt on my political opponent," and with all due respect, Chuck, when you say, "Well, do two wrongs make a right?" Let's be very clear. The president of the United States demanding, extorting a vulnerable country to do his political bidding, to go after his opponent, has nothing to do with Joe Biden executing the foreign policy of the United States or Hillary Clinton, who is a private citizen, doing opposition research on her - on her presidential opponent. Those are radically different things. What the President did is wrong and impeachable.

See you around campus.  

In Case You Missed It (v10)

In case you missed any of this week's posts, here's a recap for you.

In Sunday School,  I sat in on two classrooms with 2020 Dem presidential candidates, catching Andrew Yang and Mayor Pete, who was asked about policies, and polls, and, well, take a look.

About how his being gay impacts black voters and others, "What can you do about that, if anything?"  he said the biggest thing voters think about when trying to decide who to vote for is

How will my life be different if you're president vs. one of your competitors? That's the question we have got to answer. And when we have the best answer to that question, I think a lot of prejudices and a lot of those other considerations fall away, and it comes down to vision and results.

It was an interesting question, for sure, and I'm not sure there's a better answer. I'd like to think that there are fewer people who wouldn't consider voting for a gay man than there used to be. I mean, we've had a black president, for Pete's sake; now we've got The Apprentice. And as he once said, "what have you got to lose?"

I frequently encourage folks to listen to both sides of an argument, and in that spirit I dropped a Sunday School Extra Credit post, in which the pundits hosted some of the Republicans who were willing to chat. Here's House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy complaining to Margaret Brennan about secret depositions, transcripts and that vote the House took to formalize their impeachment inquiry:

You have members of Congress who just voted to justify what has already happened without ever reading one word of what's gone on.

My thoughts on that?

Brennan did not remind him that we have members of Congress who just voted against what has already happened without ever reading one word of what's gone on, and that the vote that was passed allows all of them to see what's gone on. And, of course, that Republican members of Congress are in the room listening to or participating in the depositions and it defies credulity that the Rs don't know exactly what's been said in those traditionally secret depositions.

Tuesday was Election Day, and that meant it was time to update my annual Election Eve post, which is full of rebuttals for not voting, and encouragement for doing so. This year, I was also thinking about New York's entry into early voting, and what the impact of that would be.

Hopefully, now that New York has added early voting, we'll see new voters participating, not just the same folks who vote every year. Overall, we're told, less than 2% of all registered voters cast their ballots early, but in my area, 20% of the early voters did not vote in 2018. Maybe there's hope after all?

There was some chatter in the Twitterverse about there not being a proclamation for Native American History Month this year; that turned out not to be true, but it did get me looking at Trump proclamations, and as with some of the ones he's issued in the past, it inspired me to drag out my Irony Board. 

This year, in addition to celebrating our Native American heritage, we are celebrating several other things, including National Veterans and Military Families Month, with a proclamation noting that

Each warrior who fights for our Nation, along with their families, has earned our eternal gratitude, and I ask that all Americans thank and support them.  Together, we remain committed to fostering a national community of support for these brave heroes and their families.

If you think about all the "fostering a national community of support" this particular president has done, you'll wonder, as I did, how he can put his signature on this with a straight face.

On Wednesday, I wondered about impeachment, mostly, but also about the election results from around the country, and from Trump country, and what they might mean in the larger picture.

Moving on to yesterday's election results: Virginia turned blue last night, for the first time in a generation. and the lady who flipped Trump off won a seat. Not because she flipped him off, mind you, but because her message resonated with voters and because she worked her fanny off. In Pennsylvania, Republicans lost in Delaware County where they've held seats since the Civil War; Democrats flipped several seats in Central Ohio, and may have narrowly won the Kentucky gubernatorial contest, although a re-canvass has been requested by the Republican incumbent Matt Bevin.

I was at the Update Desk again on Thursday, reviewing emails from the Dems. It's still about money, for the most part - no surprise there - and about both the November and December debates. They're all in for November, but December's going to be much harder for some.  Here's a taste of what one of them is talking about in campaign emails.

Andrew Yang: he's got his first ad on TV, he's worried about qualifying for the December debate; he offered a split donation to Virginia Dems and his campaign,  he's got new merch, including a new hat that will give $1 to the USO for every purchase, and we heard from his wife Evelyn for the first time.

And on Friday, instead of our usual 'good week/bad week' TGIF entry, I tossed out a Knock Knock post on all of the different ways the president's defenders are making fools of themselves on the impeachment stuff. It's really getting embarrassing. I have a suggestion for them, his defenders and, frankly, his accusers, too.

It's time to stop talking and start listening. Hear the evidence, read the evidence (and, can I ask, have you read the Mueller Report yet?), and listen to the official arguments when they are presented. 

And then, stop embarrassing yourselves, all of you.

I have no idea what next week will bring, but I know I'll be here trying to make sense of it. Join me?

Knock Knock. Who's There? Presidential Defenders

Presidential defenders who?

Presidential defenders who are making complete fools of themselves, that's who.

Take Senator Lindsey Graham (R-White House).  The senator, who also serves as acting Secretary of Defense for Impeachment, has suggested that the Trump Administration is so incompetent and hopeless that they couldn't possibly have pulled off a quid pro quo.

Seriously, the Administration's Ukraine policy, if you could even call it that, was incoherent and nobody was in charge, or everyone was in charge and what a mess and these people couldn't 'policy' their way out of a paper bag if their ability to avoid a Congressional subpoena depended on it, or something.

Yep - in this case, the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts, and because of that, no impeachable offense has occurred. So he's writing the whole thing off, Graham is; he's not interested in looking at actual transcripts of actual depositions or anything, he's just going to play golf with the president and let it go at that.

This is a new and interesting twist on the administration, which is the one we deserve (also according to Graham) and is also the political equivalent of the Keystone Cops. Or maybe of Wile E. Coyote, not sure.

As I said, this is only the latest in a string of 'defenses' the president, his advisers, family members, and scaredycat politicians who do what he says under fear of losing their jobs, have shared with us.

Other lines of defense may or may not include:

• It didn't happen, but if it did happen, it's OK because it's not a crime (a consistent theme with Trump and his minions). 
• And even if it IS a crime, he can't be investigated or charged with anything. But impeachment isn't about crimes, it's a political remedy. (Keep reading...) 
• And even if Congress has oversight responsibility expressly defined in the Constitution, it doesn't matter, because the economy. You know, the black unemployment rate, something that not a SINGLE Republican (and not more than probably a handful of Democrats) ever cared to mention before? Yeah, that's why none of this impeachment stuff matters.
• Impeachment is a sham, just like those phony emoluments.
• The president is not being allowed to face his accuser like he's entitled to in a court of law. I love this one, coming from folks who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, but aren't embarrassed to pretend they don't know the difference between impeachment and a criminal proceeding. 
• They had depositions in secret (a common procedure, as these folks know) to hide what was going on from us (no, not really) and we had to STORM THE GATES to get in the room (because most of us aren't on the Committee handing the depositions) and the Democrats are acting like a bunch of Soviets.
• Well, now that this is PUBLIC we're going to refuse to participate because this is a PARTISAN WITCH HUNT and a HOAX!
• Read the transcript (which is what they call the document clearly noted THIS IS NOT A TRANSCRIPT) it was a beautiful call and nothing that's pretty can be evil, right?
• The president is the Commander in Chief of the country, (which, of course, he is absolutely NOT) and he can do what he wants, and he didn't do anything wrong.
• And even if something did happen, it wasn't Trump.  It was Giuliani. 
• No, wait it was Mulvaney.
• No wait, it was Sondland.
• No, wait, it was Vindman. He's a never-Trumper. He speaks UKRAINIAN!
• It was (fill in the blank).
• But Joe Biden... 
• But Hunter Biden... 
• But Biden the golden!
• But the whistleblower once worked for a Democrat. No wait he worked with Joe Biden. That  completely negates the fact that multiple have corroborated what the whistleblower said (and more).
• But the whistleblower's attorney's tweets!
• But even if the House comes up with articles of impeachment, Senate Republicans won't go along with it.

Just stop. 

Everyone says they want the facts, except when it comes to actually getting the facts. In the face of that, the Republicans are literally - not just Joe Biden literally, but literally throwing everything at this that they can get their hands on.  

It's time to stop talking and start listening. Hear the evidence, read the evidence (and, can I ask, have you read the Mueller Report yet?), and listen to the official arguments when they are presented. 

And then, stop embarrassing yourselves, all of you.

This is not about why someone's nickname is Masha, for Pete's sake.  This is not about political parties. It's not about who is the biggest loser, or the sorest loser.

It's about whether the president of the United States used his office to attack a US citizen who happens to be a political rival, or in any way abused his office for personal gain. That's what this is about.

No one should be afraid of the facts. 

The Update Desk: Who Loves Me, Baby? (9)

Time to update my social experiment with the top nine Dems running for the 2020 nomination.  As you know Beto O'Rourke dropped out last week, leaving me with one less bell to answer. This is the 9th update I've done since signing up for emails from the leading candidates; you can read the history of all this in last week's edition.

So -- let's get the numbers out of the way first: things have sort of levelled off with the gang, it seems. I got a total of 146 emails, with four candidates - Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Julian Castro and Kamala Harris - each sending 18. The rest of them weren't far behind: Amy Klobuchar (17), Pete Buttigieg (16), Elizabeth Warren (15), Bernie Sanders (14) and Andrew Yang (12).

There were a lot of emails around the end-of-October fundraising deadline, and how they did; there were emails about it being 100 days from the New Hampshire primary (we saw the same for Iowa) and November 3rd being 365 days from the 2020 vote.

Here's what else the candidates wanted me to know:

• Joe Biden: good polls showing him ahead of the other Dems (and Trump); Trump  joking about asking Ukraine for help beating Joe; attacks from Sanders and Warren (the latter suggested he was running "in the wrong primary") and being worried about how much money those two have, and that Trump raised $3M the day the impeachment vote was taken. 

• Cory Booker: the November debate, hosting a debate watch party, and the tightening of requirements for the one in December; finding unity as a party and country to win the election; the impeachment vote being a sad day for America; pictures from Iowa, and a message about what people really want. 

• Pete Buttigieg: lots of info from Iowa, the Liberty and Justice celebration, and the resonating message he's been sharing; a chance to win a trip to a Notre Dame football game; a message from a disabled supporter; his new ad, and the 'fishbowl' video. 

• Julian Castro: continuing to be the most desperate of the remaining candidates, the emails were very similar to last time. He did have two mentions about his new criminal justice plan and spending time with prisoners, but other that that and the debates, it's money money money. 

• Kamala Harris: a couple of emails from "Kamala's husband (Doug)" this time, don't remember seeing those before. Kamala is focused on Iowa Iowa Iowa and the upcoming debates (she's qualified for December); Tom Steyer's folks stole her data; Jeff Sessions is in the race in Alabama. and you can split a donation between Kamala and Doug Jones if you want, and there's some new fall merch. 

• Amy Klobuchar: Iowa, the November and December debates (she's qualified for both, one of ten for November and six, so far, for December); she reminded me of her record of winning, including in 2018 when she won more than 40 counties won by the president in 2016. 

• Bernie Sanders: AOC is all over the place - there was an email from her asking me to join her in endorsing him, one from him sharing her earlier email, and one letting me know that AOC and Sanders would be appearing together in Iowa. He's got some new merch, including a shirt bearing the picture of him being arrested back in the 60s. 

• Elizabeth Warren: I could get a phone call from one of the 'Queer Eye' guys for donating; several mentions of her Medicare for All plan; negative press from rich people; new merch, and a story from her 2012 campaign about a poor college student donating to her campaign each month. 

• Andrew Yang: he's got his first ad on TV, he's worried about qualifying for the December debate; he offered a split donation to Virginia Dems and his campaign,  he's got new merch, including a new hat that will give $1 to the USO for every purchase, and we heard from his wife Evelyn for the first time.

There weren't a lot of outstanding candidates for email of the week, but I'm choosing the one from Cory Booker about his friend and mentor, a guy named Frank. Here's an excerpt talking about time he and Frank spent doing tenants' rights work, which often involved gathering information from families living in less than optimal conditions.

Sometimes, the meetings would go on for hours. I would grow restless and impatient -- most folks were saying much of the same things, and I already had all the information I needed for our case.

But Frank never rushed anyone. He sat and he listened.

After one especially long meeting, I said something to Frank about how long it was. And without judgment or pride, he told me that the meetings were about more than just fixing the buildings. The meetings were about more than sharing information.

They were about making people feel seen and heard and understood. They were about giving people a platform and a place to know that they were not alone.

They were about healing.

The email goes on with Booker asking us to do more than just beating Donald Trump (that's the floor, not the ceiling, he says), he wants us to believe in an America

• where we come together to take on our biggest challenges -- from the epidemic of gun violence to the disease of addiction.
• that leads the world because we invest in people. In good jobs in every community. In a high quality public education for every child.
• that doesn’t shrink into isolation in the face of the world’s biggest challenges, but leads and unites the world’s great democracies to take it on.
• where you can turn on the news and see our leaders and feel pride and not shame.
• where we revive civic grace, where we extend a more courageous empathy to one another and where nobody gets left on the sidelines and nobody gets left behind.

Onward we go.