What is the crime?

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos has her summary of Wednesday’s Republican presidential candidate debate:

The individual performances, though, were secondary to the dynamics of the primary. Trump has a huge lead in polls. Changing that would require both dragging Trump down somehow and a major breakout performance by one candidate. Neither of those things is happening. You look at the group on that stage, frantically talking over each other in an effort to be heard and then doing nothing useful with the time they get, and understand why Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party and in this primary.

Republicans began their impeachment inquiry into Biden today. Mark Sumner of Kos did liveblogging of the event. That may be of interest if you really care what the Republicans lied about. I’ll stick to Sumner’s preliminary comments:

Appropriately enough, they’re bringing in three “witnesses” who haven’t witnessed anything.

Sumner names and describes them, but that doesn’t make any difference, because...

None of these three have any connection to Hunter Biden or President Joe Biden. They have no knowledge of the events, no involvement in any investigation, no special knowledge, and no reason to appear. So, if nothing else, this is going to be a perfect illustration of just what this “inquiry” is about.

Sumner wrote about the press conference before the actual inquiry. NBC reported Ryan Nobles had a question for Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO). It seems that Smith confuses asking for sources and not believing what Smith is saying. On to the actual inquiry. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Rep. Jamie Raskin had aids hold up posters of Republicans saying the inquiry has no evidence and is a waste of time. Then he explained:

Trump's convinced that if we shut the government down, his four criminal prosecutions on 91 different charges will be defunded and delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election. And like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump's followers in the House now carry messages out to the world: Shut down the government. Shut down the prosecutions.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. Einenkel reported on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ turn at the mic. She asked the three witnesses whether they had any firsthand accounts of crimes committed. They did not. However, there are two witnesses with firsthand accounts who were blocked from testifying.

“And I want to explain why this is important,” she continued. “Members of Congress, all of us in this hearing, are not under oath, as we are presently covered by the speech and debate clause.” Having explained that it wasn’t illegal for Republicans on the panel to lie or mislead during these hearings, Ocasio-Cortez went on to show how misleading some of the “evidence” Republicans on the committee were presenting was.

One is a screenshot of a text message that was fabricated and excluded critical context. Why would Republicans want to block witnesses with firsthand accounts? Because the ones who have testified so far have contradicted Republican talking points. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a black woman, made the most of her five minutes, as reported by Einenkel. She reminded the crowd one particular bit of “evidence” is not evidence of anything and had been debunked by a US attorney picked by the nasty guy. She said, “Repeating the same lies will not somehow turn them into truths.” – like the lie the nasty guy won his last election. Then she talked about the nasty guy’s financial ties to China. She reviewed all his indictments. She asked how many times Republicans used the word “if” when describing what Hunter Biden had supposedly done. The answer was 35. So she asked the important question of this impeachment inquiry: “What is the crime?”

But I will tell you what the president has been guilty of: He has, unfortunately, been guilty of loving his child unconditionally. And that is the only evidence that they have brought forward. And honestly, I hope and pray that my parents love me half as much as he loves his child. Until they find some evidence, we need to get back to the people's work, which means keeping this government open so that people don't go hungry in the streets of the United States.

Einenkel reported that Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida also made good use of his time. He had been the director of FEMA and began with, “Listen, as a former director of emergency management, I know a disaster when I see one.” Moskowitz went on to say we know it isn’t about the evidence. That’s because articles of impeachment began to be filed almost immediately after Biden was inaugurated. He concluded with:

We're here because of math. That's what this is about. They can't save Donald Trump. They can't take away the two impeachments and the four indictments. But they can try to put some numbers on the board for Joe Biden. But the problem is, when you sling mud, you’ve got to have mud. And they just don't have anything, Mr. Chairman. So, look, we get it. We know why we're here. That's why they say ‘the Biden family,’ ‘the Bidens,’ ‘James Biden,’ Joe Biden's dog Commander’—but not ‘Joe Biden.’ Never Joe Biden. So when are you going to have the vote on impeachment, Mr. Chairman? What are you scared of? Call the vote. Come on. If you all think there's so much evidence, we're here. Call the vote on impeachment. Impeach him right now! I dare you!

As a summary Sumner wrote about the five best moments in the hearing. Before getting into that he wrote:

Even so, the hearing was extremely revealing—only that most of what it revealed was how ready Republicans were to manufacture false claims and wheel out conspiracy theories that have been widely debunked for years. This was partly because they had nothing else. Mostly, it was because every single Republican treated their five minutes of camera time as if they were doing a one-person play for Newsmax. Through the course of the day, not only did Republicans showcase their lack of interest in facts, they also demonstrated that they are absolutely terrified of anything that looks like a fact witness.

In fifth place was AOC’s testimony. Sumner added that the forged images were from Rep. Byron Donalds. A photo shows him looking pretty smug. Wrote Sumner:

Why wasn’t he concerned? As Ocasio-Cortez pointed out, everyone in the room other than the witnesses were protected by the “speech and debate clause” of the Constitution. That allows members of Congress to lie with impunity, and Republicans put that ability into heavy rotation during this hearing.

In fourth place was Raskin’s testimony. In third was Rep. Robert Garcia’s time at the mic to note Republicans talked about the “Biden brand” and not Joe Biden. Then he talked about actual corruption in the nasty guy White House. In second place was the testimony by Moskowitz and Crockett. And the best moment was when Rep. Greg Casar summed it up quite directly:

Casar: “Will members of the Oversight Committee please raise your hand if you believe both Hunter and Trump should be held accountable for any of the indictments against them if convicted by a jury of their peers?” Casar’s hand went up. The other Democrats on the committee raised their hands. Not one single Republican joined them.

After the hearing closed for today Hunter of Kos began:

Fox News tries very, very hard to parrot Republican talking points, but there are a few things that even they can’t make themselves say. Host Neil Cavuto drew the short straw of having to tell his viewers that the House impeachment inquiry hearings—the "breaking news" that viewers were seeing on their screen—turned out to be a Grade-A nothingburger. "I don't know what was achieved over these last six-plus hours," he confessed.

As part of Cavuto’s report he said:

In other words, that this—the way this was built up, where there's smoke, there would be fire. Again, I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to be talking to some darn smart ones in a moment, but where there's smoke today, we just got a lot more smoke.

An Associated Press article posted to Kos reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California has died. She was 90 and had served as a senator for 31 years. The article then surveyed her career, which I won’t repeat here. That article didn’t answer my most important question. What happens to her seat? The Democratic majority is only 51-49. Jeff Singer for Kos Elections gives an answer. Calif. Governor Gavin Newsom will appoint a successor to serve out her term, which ends in just over a year from now. He has pledged that he would fill the seat with a black woman. Feinstein had already announced her retirement, so three people are already campaigning for the seat. Newsom has said he will not appoint one of those currently running to be the interim senator because he does not want them to be able to claim incumbent status with him changing the balance of the race. Last Monday Einenkel reported on a Senate subcommittee hearing on child care in post-pandemic America. Experts discussed “how little is being done to protect children from hunger, poverty, crime, poor health outcomes, and death.” Sen John Kennedy of Louisiana did the usual Republican trick – Love to help, but how will we pay for it? Kathryn Anne Edwards, labor economist, replied: Need more money? Raise taxes. In the last 20 years there were two trillion-dollar tax cuts that did nothing to make child care more affordable.

They have not been invested in children. We have not seen that return. I mean, the 2001 tax cuts have now had 22 years to prove that they could solve the social issues that you and your fellow senators say are a priority. And I don't think we could point to evidence to say that they have worked. I would love for you to give child care 20 years. I would love for you to say, ‘Let's take two decades of runway, invest it in young children, and see what kind of return that I could get.’ But we've never given children or the child care sector as much runway as we've given taxes.

Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Tristan Young, a transgender teen, was voted homecoming queen in Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Missouri. She feels quite blessed and supported to receive the honor. Both the school and school district congratulated her without mentioning her gender identity. This is Oak Park’s second transgender homecoming queen. The first was Landon Patterson back in 2015. Patterson faced a bit of hatred – Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka was still active and protested her win – but Young faced a great deal more. But Young is going to focus on the support from family, classmates, and the community. And she’s not going to waste time fighting against the haters because she knows she won’t change minds. She wants her memories of being the homecoming queen to be happy. Kansas City has defied the rest of Missouri by declaring itself to be a sanctuary city for people seeking gender-affirming care.