WARFREEZONE

Bookman: If you base your defense of Trump on the facts, you are doomed - Georgia Recorder : "Perdue is arguing that what Trump has done doesn’t justify impeachment, which is astonishing. At any other time in U.S. history, with any other president, impeachment would be automatic under these circumstances, but not under Trump rules. Under Trump rules there are no rules. "Under Trump rules, it’s OK to use U.S. taxpayer money as leverage to force allies to give you partisan political help. It’s OK to halt military aid to an ally that is fighting for its freedom if by doing so you can force them to interfere on your behalf in an election. These things and a whole lot more once deemed unimaginably bad are 'nothing that rises to the level of impeachment.' "And if that becomes true, think about where that leaves us as a country. If that’s OK to win an election, what isn’t OK? "They may save themselves a president, but cost themselves a republic."

In Praise of Sean Duffy - The Bulwark : "But then—amazingly—something snapped. The attack on Vindman seemed to cross some sort of invisible line and he blowback was quick, intense, and brutal. "Duffy’s CNN colleagues were the first to throw him under the bus. Anchor Brianna Keillor denounced what she called Duffy’s 'anti-immigrant bigotry,' and noted pointedly that 'it’s an odd questioning of patriotism coming from Sean Duffy, the guy who spent part of his 20s on MTV’s The Real World . . . while Alexander Vindman spent his on foreign deployments.' "By the middle of the day, Duffy found himself deserted by Republicans, too, who rushed to defend Vindman’s patriotism. The harshest pushback came from Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, who called attacks on Vindman’s patriotism, 'shameful.'"

L.A. Street Sellers Outlawed No More - The New York Times : "Adriana Morales, 33, sells atole, a Mexican hot drink made of corn, sugar and cinnamon, near MacArthur Park. Nearby, Sergio Rodriguez sells flan. For years, he said, there was 'a lot of humiliation from the police.' Now that his profession is legal, he says he feels a sense of 'security and tranquility.'"

Trump needs Republicans to defend him. Revelations about the Ukraine call will make that harder. - The Washington Post : "President Trump’s explicitly stated position on the Ukraine scandal is that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with the conduct detailed in the White House summary of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. "What Trump needs right now is for as many Republicans as possible to voice this position as well. He needs them to also state unequivocally that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with that conduct, as opposed to merely attacking Democrats and the process. "Yet two new revelations underscore why this will only grow harder for Republicans: A diplomat will testify to new details about the freeze in military aid to Ukraine, and it’s now clear the 'transcript' of Trump’s call is incomplete. Both will worsen the basic dynamic for Trump."

Twitter will stop running political ads ahead of 2020 election - CNN : "'We've made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,' Dorsey tweeted. "'A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money,' he added."

PG&E diverted safety money for profit, bonuses - SFGate : "Pacific Gas and Electric Co. diverted more than $100 million in gas safety and operations money collected from customers over a 15-year period and spent it for other purposes, including profit for stockholders and bonuses for executives, according to a pair of state-ordered reports released Thursday."

Opinion | The Luxury of Political Moderation - The New York Times : "As Dr. King understood, the problem he was facing — and that we now face again — is the problem of moral imagination. Moderates might have the 'good will' that leads them to acknowledge injustice, but their very moderation is indicative of a 'shallow understanding' that is emptied of the pain of those who currently suffer. For these moderates, injustice is a foreign affair, an abstract problem to be solved. Their response then lacks the urgency that a true understanding would bring. . . . "To much of 1960s America, white moderates certainly appeared to be acting ethically. But in Dr. King’s view, they were betraying their fellow human beings by choosing obedience to social norms above a higher form of justice, informed by love. If only these moderates could find the love that would authentically bind them to their fellow human beings, it would reveal to them 'the deep groans and passion...

The latest Ukraine witness is a big one - The Washington Post : "The problem for people like Yoo, Ingraham and Duffy is that, even if you set aside the optics of attacking a Purple Heart recipient, Vindman is merely the latest to testify to a direct link between these specific investigations and official favors for the Ukrainian government — whether the favor was a meeting or the release of hundreds of million of dollars in military aid. There appear to be lots and lots of people who were at least tangentially aware of this, and now we have firsthand witnesses testifying to it as well."

Slandering Alexander Vindman, an American war hero, must have consequences - The Washington Post : "Trump’s defenders have no facts or law on their side. They have only calumny."

Ted Yoho Admits He Didn't Go to Impeachment Hearings | Law & Crime : "One of the complaints you’ll hear the most from Republican lawmakers is that the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is behind closed doors and not accessible to all of them (recall the storming of the SCIF). But one of the GOP lawmakers who actually is eligible to be in the room for depositions, as he is a Foreign Affairs committee member, simply didn’t go to hearings and hasn’t read testimony."

Facebook allows prominent right-wing website to break the rules  : "[E]arlier this month, a former employee of Facebook's DC office told Popular Information that Joel Kaplan, Facebook's head of global public policy, acts to protect the interest of right-wing websites. Kaplan is a Republican operative who worked in the George W. Bush administration. "'Any time there was an issue with Breitbart or Daily Caller, Joel made the decision, and he always acted to protect them,' the former Facebook employee said."

Bolton could have this wrapped up by the end of the year - The Washington Post : "Bolton has every reason to testify. As a lawyer himself, he knows the White House claims of absolute immunity are frivolous. When presented with a subpoena, I am confident he would appear, if only to appear as candid and patriotic as former subordinates Dr. Fiona Hill and Tim Morrison (due to testify next week) have been."

Trump’s War on the ‘Deep State’ Turns Against Him - The New York Times : "The parade of witnesses marching to Capitol Hill culminated this week with the dramatic testimony of William B. Taylor Jr., a military officer and diplomat who has served his country for 50 years. Undaunted by White House pressure, he came forward to accuse the same president who sent him to Ukraine a few months ago of abusing his power to advance his own political interests. "The House impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to force Ukraine to investigate Democrats is the climax of a 33-month scorched-earth struggle between a president with no record of public service and the government he inherited but never trusted. If Mr. Trump is impeached by the House, it will be in part because of some of the same career professionals he has derided as 'absolute scum' or compared to Nazis."

Impeachment Diary: Republicans fight impeachment — with extra cheese - The Washington Post : "By rights, Democrats could have had the House sergeant at arms evict the invaders, but they declined to reward the stunt with that visual. Instead, they left the occupiers alone in the SCIF until boredom ended the rebellion. And, sure enough, soon after the pizza and Chick-fil-A had been eaten, the hooligans filed out. With a final protest for the cameras, the rebels hurried away to vote on the floor."

Trump likely saw Pelosi’s overseas trip as a slap in the face. But someone had to do it. - The Washington Post : "In an administration that operates like a television reality show, Pelosi’s trip was effective counterprogramming. For Trump, this may be the most unsettling development of all: He’s not the only one in town who knows how to steal the spotlight with a well-timed surprise. "With Pelosi’s dressing-down of Trump at last Wednesday’s White House meeting, her weekend trip abroad and her highly visible oversight of the impeachment process in the House, a first-time visitor to the capital might conclude that she is shaping events while Trump just thrashes around."

Link: Medicaid Now Covers a Million Fewer Children - The New York Times : "Nationwide, more than a million children disappeared from the rolls of the two main state-federal health programs for lower-income children, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, between December 2017 and June, the most recent month with complete data. . . . "An analysis of new census data by The New York Times shows the number of children in the United States without any kind of insurance rose by more than 400,000 between 2016 and 2018 after decades of progress toward universal coverage for children. "Some of the states that saw the largest increases in uninsured children — like Tennessee and Texas — were those that created rules to check the eligibility of families more frequently or that reset their lists with new computer systems. In some states with large immigrant populations like Florida, doctors and patient advocates report growing concern among parents that signing up th...

Link: Four critical consequences of former Trump aides’ testimony - The Washington Post : "[T]he whistleblower has become essentially irrelevant. The investigators have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to witnesses with firsthand knowledge of events. The old talking points that the whistleblower was biased and relating hearsay have become moot. This is especially problematic for Trump, who thrives on identifying a single villain."

Link: Opinion | Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President - The New York Times : "If our promises are meaningless, how will our allies ever trust us? If we can’t have faith in our nation’s principles, why would the men and women of this nation join the military? And if they don’t join, who will protect us? If we are not the champions of the good and the right, then who will follow us? And if no one follows us — where will the world end up?"

Link: FOP loses decision over PPD's tattoo policy - WHYY “The City has an interest in its officers, as representatives of the City, having an appearance of providing fair, balanced and non-prejudicial law enforcement. Offensive tattoos undermine the public perception of the integrity and credibility of the officer and the City thereby losing the public’s trust.”

Link: U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings dies; longtime Baltimore advocate was key figure in Trump impeachment inquiry – Baltimore Sun "Cummings said he had just a single one-on-one conversation with the president. It was in 2017 when both were working on plans to lower drug prices. "The Democrat recalled saying: 'Mr. President, you’re now 70-something, I’m 60-something. Very soon you and I will be dancing with the angels. The thing that you and I need to do is figure out what we can do — what present can we bring to generations unborn?' "Cummings said he then told Trump that 'we don’t need to be doing mean things. We don’t need to be just representing 30-something percent of the people that like us. You need to represent all the people.'"