Mail-in election the only humane response to coronavirus

Politicians in both parties claim that Americans’ safety during the coronavirus pandemic is their top priority. Unfortunately, their actions indicate just the opposite.

Donald Trump, true to form, is more interested in protecting his brand and deflecting blame than anything else. His first concern is his own political survival. And he’s not alone. Politicians in both parties are showing their true colors — and their hypocrisy — in calling for businesses to close, events to be canceled and people to stay home. Except, of course, when it comes to political events. And voting.

Neither political party has, as of this writing, canceled its national convention. This is the height of irresponsibility, and more than that, it’s a thumb in the eye of ordinary Americans who’ve been put out of work and are facing fines if they don’t stay at home.

The Democrats deserve more blame that the Republicans, in this case, because its convention is set for July, more than a month before the GOP gathering. The Dems say they’ve got a backup plan, but won’t say what it is. Trump, meanwhile, says there’s “no way” he’d cancel the Republican con. He doesn’t give a flying you-know-what about anyone but himself. Neither, it seems, do a lot of other people in Washington.

Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio threatened to force representatives to fly back to Washington so they could vote in person on the massive virus relief package. Republican Thomas Massie actually did so. Because a roll-call vote was more important than being safe — even though it was entirely unnecessary.

Or at least not nearly as necessary as earning a paycheck to pay the bills, so families can stay fed and housed. It won’t do any good to have a “shelter in place” order if you’ve got no shelter in which to place yourself.

It’s yet another example of the clueless Beltway mentality: Politicos consider themselves a privileged class, and rich politicos (which is most of them), even more so. While the rest of us are stuck at home, many of us out of work and dealing with monthly bills, the parties are hell-bent on having their parties. To “protect democracy.” In their minds, democracy is synonymous with their own re-election, not with a fair and honest vote count. Read on for the details.

Speaking of voting, they’re telling people to go to the polls and cast their ballots, even though poll workers are contracting COVID-19. That happened in Florida, which (along with Illinois and Arizona) went ahead with their in-person primaries March 17 despite the spread of the virus. That was two weeks ago, and it’s spread a lot more since then. But even with 80% of the nation on orders to stay home, Wisconsin is vowing to forge ahead with its April 7 vote.

Republicans are largely to blame on this one: The GOP leader of the state Assembly called the Democratic governor’s request for a mail-in election “logistically impossible and incredibly flawed.” In other words, it wouldn’t benefit them. I guess people dying of a virus doesn’t rise to the level of “logistically impossible and incredibly flawed” in their book.

And it’s funny, because somehow, Ohio managed to make the switch to an all-mail-in primary on short notice. So it’s not impossible at all. In fact, it’s the only rational, humane way forward.

Resisting mail-in voting for political reasons is nothing new. Doing so when people’s health is at risk is. It’s a time-honored (and shameful) tradition: The party in power rejects mail-in voting because it recognizes that such an option will increase the number of votes for the opposition. Party leaders and incumbents don’t want to relinquish power, pure and simple. They do it for the same reason they draw “safe” districts, resist motor-voter laws — and for the same reason they supported poll taxes, literacy tests and other anti-democratic measures in the past. They’d do it again if they could get away with it.

They say they want to protect democracy? Their actions, historically speaking, say the exact opposite. And how about protecting people for a change?

The political parties should both cancel their self-congratulatory conventions; they’re little more than exercises in free advertising (propaganda) anyway. And, more importantly, the federal government should immediately institute a fully mail-in general election. If Ohio can do it on short notice, the feds can do it eight months out. If the virus abates, they can reopen the polls, but it’s time to plan for the worst-case scenario. If the government really believes 100,000 to 240,000 people could die of this thing, holding an in-person election amounts to a death sentence for some of the people who’ll show up at the polls.

A mail-in vote is feasible this far out. But the more they put off planning, the harder it will get. It must be done now.

Failure to act will prove one thing: Our supposed representatives care more about their own power than people’s lives.

I already knew that anyway.

It’s up to them to prove me wrong.

Photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by eagle.dawg

Why Democrats care more about stopping Sanders than beating Trump

It’s Super Tuesday. This is why I’m not a Democrat. It’s not about the issues, it’s about the way the Democratic Party treats people who don’t kowtow to its leaders. Like we don’t matter and we need to get in line. We need to “unite” for the common good.

“Unite.” I cringe when I hear that word. When politicians use it, they really mean this: “Do it my way, or else.”

It doesn’t mean getting together and solving problems in an actual give-and-take. It doesn’t mean collaboration or even compromise. It means either you get with the program set by our corporate donors, or you’ll be labeled a troublemaker or worse: a poser or a backstabber or a spy.

Oh, Democrats don’t come out and use these words the way, say, Donald Trump does. But they exert the same kind of political pressure under the table to make sure you don’t rock the boat. They badmouth you on social media and blame you for elections they lost through their own incompetence – because taking personal responsibility has never been their strong suit.

Whenever Trump talks about unity, what he really means is loyalty. Blind loyalty. And the events of the past few days show that Democrats, for all their talk of openness and inclusivity, operate by exactly the same code.

We know where blind loyalty got the Republicans: It got them Trump, a president who’s made a mockery of our nation in the eyes of the world and more than half our own citizens. But not only that, he’s also run roughshod over ideals the Republican Party itself once held sacred, whether you agree with them or not, like free trade and fiscal conservatism.

And now, the Democratic Party is doing precisely the same thing. It’s easy to think of Democrats as the party wrought by the Clintons and, to a lesser extent, Barack Obama – a party of caution that teeters on the verge on paranoia about the mere possibility of offending anyone. Don’t offend the PC police on the left, but don’t offend your corporate donors on the right, either, by daring to defend people who are being forced to choose between the cost of their prescriptions and bankruptcy. Or death.

The idea of free healthcare isn’t “revolutionary.” Every other civilized country does it (or perhaps I should say every civilized country does it and omit the “other,” because any country that puts profits over people isn’t civilized in my book).

The media labels Democrats who hold this position as “moderate,” but that’s a relative term. You’d probably consider the coronavirus as moderate when compared to ebola on the one hand and a common cold on the other, but that doesn’t mean you wan’t to catch it. Letting people die for lack of healthcare isn’t a “moderate” position, it’s an inhumane one.

Democratic devolution

We forget that it wasn’t always this way. The Democratic Party wasn’t always a creature of Super PACs and safe spaces. Once upon a time, it was the party of bold ideas that shone a spotlight on inequity and dared to dream of a better world – and not just dream of it, demand it! Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson fought for the kind of programs today’s Democrats are fighting against. Hell, Republican icon Teddy Roosevelt fought harder for equality and social justice than any of today’s “neoliberals.” These are men and women who give lip service to such ideals ... while taking money under the table to maintain the status quo.

Correction: Not under the table. The rules now make it perfectly legal to pursue financial conflicts of interest. This is the world we live in.

I remember a time when a gay politician named Harvey Milk died fighting for equality. Today, a gay politician named Pete Buttigieg would let Americans die to protect insurance company profits.

And he’s not alone.

In fact, the “neoliberals” spawned by Bill Clinton’s shift to the right a quarter-century ago are fighting harder against the idea of universal healthcare than they are against Donald Trump’s corporate giveaways.

Want to talk about unity? Why is the Democratic Party uniting against Bernie Sanders – a candidate whose platform builds on the bold social and economic ideas of FDR and LBJ? And why are they willing to do so on behalf of a two-time loser known for verbal gaffes who hadn’t won a primary in 32 years of trying before Saturday? A candidate who voted in favor of the Iraq War and didn’t stand up for Anita Hill?

Protecting their turf

There’s an easy answer to that.

But first, I’ll tell you why they’re not doing it. They’re not doing it for “Uncle Joe.” They’re not even doing it because they think it’s their best chance of defeating Trump. Oh, that’s their excuse, but it doesn’t hold up against polls that show Sanders does just as well against Trump as anyone else in the field.

Lately, they’re also saying it will hurt down-ballot candidates to have Sanders at the top of the ticket. Of course, they have zero proof of this, and it fails to take into account that the Sanders’ base is far more energized than the Biden base could ever dream of being.

Energized voters drive turnout. Democrats saw what that did for Trump, but they don’t care about that, either.

Nor do they care about the “next generation.” If they did, they’d be fighting for free education (something we’ve managed to provide at the primary and secondary levels for more than a century) and the forgiveness of student debt. No, to them, the younger generation is a nuisance, just as it was in the 1960s when they were protesting Vietnam and demanding equality for minority citizens. Back then, they said young people should be seen and not heard. They were too loud and cared too much, just like Sanders’ supporters today.

That’s why the old-guard Democratic leaders don’t like them. They like them even less than they like Trump.

They may say they’re fighting against Sanders because they want to beat Trump, but that just doesn’t pass the smell test. Otherwise they wouldn’t be following the exact same losing strategy they did in 2016, when they nominated the least popular Democratic candidate in history because she was the darling of the donor class. Like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden the kind of candidate that loses every time – establishment hacks who rely on big-money donations and believe they should inherit the presidency because it’s “their turn.”

Hubert Humphrey. Walter Mondale. Al Gore. John Kerry. Hillary Clinton. What do they have in common? They were all career politicians. And they all lost.

The candidates who’ve won for the Democrats in the last half-century have all been outsiders who galvanized the youth vote: Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama. Bernie Sanders fits far better into that tradition of winners than does Joe Biden, but it scarcely matters, because, again, Democrats don’t want to win. (Remember, they wanted Hillary Clinton in 2008, too.) They’d rather keep the younger generation in its place and keep the money flowing in.

Incidentally, that’s another reason Sanders scares them: He’s a heretic who relies on small donors rather than super PACs. He’s cut the purse strings. And to make matters worse he’s not even a Democrat.

Oh, the humanity!

What scares Democrats

If Democrats really wanted to beat Trump, they’d be attacking Trump, not Sanders. But the fact is, they view Sanders as a bigger threat to their power than Trump is. And it’s their power, not the country, that matters most to them. Of course, this is the exact same approach taken by Republicans in remaining loyal to Trump – despite the fact that he’s a blithering idiot and a con man. They do so because they see Republican “Never Trumpers” as a bigger threat to them than Democrats. Trump himself referred to them as “human scum.”

Again, the Democrats aren’t as blunt about expressing themselves. They may not say Sanders is human scum, they just treat him like he is. Because they’re scared of him the same way Trump and his minions are scared of the “Never Trumpers.” They back Trump, not because they like him, but because they’re afraid what will happen to them if they don’t.

Democrats are backing Joe Biden for the same reason. These are the same Democrats who railed against GOP senators for their lack of courage during the impeachment proceedings. And they’re showing the very same kind of cowardice now.

Why? It’s not because they’re afraid Sanders will lose. It’s because they’re afraid he’ll win and remake the party the same way Trump has. Except he wouldn’t remake it as a protection racket with a two-bit mob boss at the top of a shrinking pyramid. He’d remake it as a party that values health, the environment and education as human rights, rather than as commodities to be exploited for profit or denied to those who can’t afford them.

The ones who are doing the exploiting are the same corporate control freaks donating to the Democratic establishment. They cover their bets by contributing to both sides: Dems and Republicans alike. It’s not that they care whether one side or the other wins: They couldn’t care less. They merely want to keep both sides in their pockets, so they win regardless of the outcome.

Democrats used to believe in things like bold social and economic reform, the programs championed by FDR, LBJ and, now, Bernie Sanders. It doesn’t anymore, and that’s why I’m not a Democrat. I agree with many of the ideals Democrats claim to espouse, I just happen to believe those ideals are more important than labels or tribal loyalty. Those are things Trump promotes, which is one of the reasons I’m not a Republican, either. I can’t speak for Bernie Sanders, but maybe that’s why he, too, is not a Democrat.

If the Democrats succeed in foisting off a status quo candidate on the electorate this fall, I won’t forget it, and neither will a lot of other people. They can talk about “unity” until they’re blue in the face, but all I’ll hear is a bunch of rich, bought-and-paid-for puppets trying to tell me what to do. Sorry, I’m not buying it. And I will never forgive the Democrats for forcing me to choose between two parties that have utterly abandoned their principles: one led by a corrupt corporate class and the other by a two-bit wannabe dictator.

If they lose, the Democrats won’t blame their own shortsighted, sellout strategy. They’ll blame voters who stayed home because they weren’t excited about the guy they nominated. Or they’ll try. If they do, most of the people they try to blame will probably just shrug and continue staying home. They’ll have had enough of the bullshit, and they’ll figure they just can’t make a difference – which is a shame, because that’s supposed to be the purpose of democracy: making a difference.

Even if the Democrats win, the damage to the party will be incalculable in the long run. Disillusioned young people will become more disillusioned and less engaged. But then again, I don’t think the donor Democrats really care as long as the money keeps rolling in. A New York Times headline said it all: “Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Sanders.”

It’s not a risk. It’s a guarantee.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, used under Creative Commons 2.0 license

Trump laughs as Democrats do his dirty work for him

Someone needs to tell the Democrats running for president to watch Independence Day. Or maybe brush up on their history of World War II.

See, there’s this concept of banding together against a common enemy that they just don’t seem to understand.

For all the hand-wringing about Donald Trump and how he’s changed the game — and the stakes — in this year’s presidential election, Democrats this primary season are operating as though it’s business as usual.

Instead of focusing their fire on that common enemy, they’ve circled the wagons ... and set their sights on one another. Joe Biden mocks Pete Buttigieg’s inexperience. Buttigieg, Biden, Bloomberg and Klobuchar seek to undermine Bernie Sanders by saying he can’t get elected (even though polls show him running just as well, or better, against Trump than his Democratic rivals).

Candidates spar over universal healthcare, minority rights and other issues — all worthy considerations. But instead of targeting Trump, with whom they vehemently disagree, they’re nitpicking each one another to death. They’re so concerned that maybe “a socialist can’t beat Trump” or “a woman can’t beat Trump” or “a gay man can’t beat Trump” or “a mayor can’t beat Trump” or “an old guy can’t beat Trump” that they’re trying to kill each other off with elephant guns that will be out of ammunition by the time November rolls around.

By that time, Trump will have all these sound bites showing Democrats blasting each other other, and he’ll use them against whoever wins the nomination.

My father, a political science professor, called this phenomenon, “Your own guy says so.” If Buttigieg says Sanders’ talk of universal healthcare is dangerous, Trump can use that. If Biden says Buttigieg lacks the experience to be president, he’ll use that, too. It’s all right there on videotape.

The complicit media

The media, of course, feed into all this, not because it’s in the public interest, but because bare-knuckle brawls make good theater (and ratings!). Forget all the hoopla about CNN or MSNBC carrying water for the Democrats. They’re not out to get Democrats elected. They’re out for ratings ... which is, in fact, the same reason Fox echoes Trumpian talking points. They don’t care about Trump. Not really. They care about their bottom line. Viewers tune in, advertisers buy spots, the network makes money.

Anyone who thinks any network’s foremost mission is to elect this or that candidate is fooling themselves. They’re in it for the Benjamins, plain and simple.

Which is why CNN and MSNBC are helping to destroy the Democrats’ chances of winning, whether they’re willing to admit it or not. Four more years of Trump is the best thing that could happen to them. It perpetuates outrage, which perpetuates viewers, which perpetuates ratings, which keeps the cash flowing.

All those town halls and debates aren’t any kind of public service. They’re aired for the same reason pay-per-view is showing the Wilder-Fury heavyweight rematch this weekend. For the same reason car crashes and fires lead the local evening news. Conflict sells. Brutality raises ratings. They don’t want to see Elizabeth Warren try to play peacemaker among her fellow Democrats, or hear Sanders say he doesn’t care about Hillary Clinton’s damn emails. They want to see Democrats going for the throat. They want to see an embittered Clinton lashing out at Sanders four years after the fact, and they want to see Sanders react.

They absolutely loved the Iowa caucus debacle, because viewers stayed tuned to find out the delayed results, and because it created still more conflict. Then they could pontificate and hand-wring as though they’re above it all. Yeah, right.

And they don’t want Trump out of office. They love the guy, because he’s the archvillain everyone (on the left, anyway) loves to hate. Who are the Avengers without a Thanos? Who’s Batman without the Joker? Trump knows they need him, and he goads them with it, and the Democrats respond with...

Business as usual. Distract one another from the real opponent by getting into a family food fight, while the other guy goes around selling bogus promises of filet mignon dinners at the steakhouse down the street — which is really just a front for a two-bit mob operation.

Democrats are fiddling around while what used to be America burns. The media bring it all right into our living rooms. And Trump’s just laughing all the way to a second term.

10 ways Trump and Dershowitz are kindred souls

It’s no wonder Donald Trump chose Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz to represent him at his impeachment trial.

These men are two peas in a pod. Trump personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, is more of an attack dog in the Trump mold, but beyond that surface similarity, Trump and Dershowitz have far more in common, and it runs to the core of who both men are.

It turns out, Trump and Dershowitz have quite a lot in common. Consider the following:

1.

They both trample on the truth. Trump has done so more than 15,000 times since taking office, according to The Washington Post. And Dershowitz? Consider this gem: “The courtroom oath — to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — is applicable only to witnesses... because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth.” When Dershowitz said this, he basically admitting he has no obligation to tell the whole truth. Which pretty much shoots his credibility. Of course, lawyers and politicians are both notorious for spinning the facts to benefit their own interests. In a list of 15 professions in a 2018 Gallup poll ranked lawyers 12th and members of Congress 15th (politicians) sandwiched around business executives and car dealers. But that’s just the beginning of the common ground between Trump and Dershowitz.

2.

They don’t care what the experts think. Trump thinks he knows more about war than four-star generals and doesn’t believe climate change is a problem, even though nearly every scientist says it is. Dershowitz, meanwhile, disagrees with the overwhelming majority of legal scholars who say impeachment does not require a statutory crime. His response, when confronted with this fact? “Most of the scholars disagree with me. I think they’re wrong.”

3.

They hate admitting mistakes. Or apologizing. Trump hardly ever does (the rare exception being his televised apology for disgusting remarks made on an Access Hollywood tape). When confronted about his own record, Dershowitz tries to dance around the subject like, well, a lawyer. In 1998, he argued that abuse of trust was impeachable; in 2020, he said it wasn’t. When Anderson Cooper asked him if he’d been wrong before, he answered, “No, I wasn’t wrong.” He would say he was “much more correct right now.” People averse to admitting mistakes have one thing in common: egos. The big kind. The fragile kind.

4.

They love the spotlight. Most presidents do, to be sure. But most presidents don’t put their names on hotels. And while we’re at it, can you name another chief executive who has used $60,000 donated for charity to buy a portrait of himself? Dershowitz’s actions speak louder than his words. He’s drawn to cable news broadcasts like the Mothman to a disaster waiting to happen. Like Trump, a former reality TV host, Dershowitz loves those cameras. And he also loves those high-profile clients that ensure he stays in the headlines:  O.J. Simpson. Jim Bakker. Michael Milken. Jeffrey Epstein. ’Nuff said.

5.

They associate with shady characters. In Trump’s case, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Rick Gates... In the case of Dershowitz, see the list directly above (which actually makes Trump’s bunch seem tame by comparison). These were, of course, not personal friends, but clients. Still, lawyers such as Dershowitz don’t have to take such cases. Why choose clients like these? Why not let the public defender do it? Because... see above: Ego. Spotlight.

6.

They defy common sense. Trump uses a mix of intimidation, media marketing and hot-button topics like immigration, religious issues and gun rights. Dershowitz does it through legal arguments that make no sense. According to Dershowitz, a mixed motive is not corrupt. But that’s what “corrupt” means! If you put arsenic in a glass of milk, you’ve corrupted it. The milk is still there, but the whole mixture is toxic because you’ve added the poison. Put it another way: Dershowitz and the president’s legal team argued that a president can’t be impeached if he has a mixed motive. So, if someone steals a car because his mom needs a ride to the supermarket... that must be OK.

7.

They shatter norms. Trump’s all about doing things his way: traditional standards be damned. (This is ironic when you think about it, since the Constitution is the ultimate traditional standard in American secular life.) Trump pulls out of treaties, sends unappointed cronies to foreign countries to dig up bullshit on political opponents, and governs by Twitter. You get the idea. Dershowitz, meanwhile, suggests that it’s impossible to impeach a president who does something underhanded to get elected. Why? Because the president thinks his election is in the public interest! And if he thinks so, it must be true, right?

8.

They love to fight. And not just fight, but fight for extreme positions. As Laurence Tribe, another Harvard legal mind, said of Dershowitz: “He revels in taking positions that ultimately are not just controversial but pretty close to indefensible.” Sound like someone else you know? Former Trump publicist Alan Marcus told Politico: “If he’s not in a fight, he looks for one. He can’t stop.” And the more outrageous Trump’s position, the more people will criticize him, and the more he can...

9.

They play the victim. Trump is the all-time champ in this department, with his absurd claim that “no politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly” than he has. By playing the victim, he gains sympathy from his followers, and suggests any attack on him is an attack on them, too. It’s been an effective strategy. And Dershowitz? When Anderson Cooper and Jeffrey Toobin dared to challenge his “great and unmatched wisdom” (oops, sorry, that’s Trump’s phrase, not Dershowitz’s) on CNN, he accused them of being “two bullies.” Or maybe they were doing their job.

10.

They claim to be something they’re not. Trump, a billionaire, the champion of the common man? This is a guy who spent $25 million to settle a lawsuit alleging he’d defrauded students who signed up for his non-accredited Trump University. A guy who violated the National Labor Relations Act by refusing to bargain with union workers at his Las Vegas hotel. I could go on. Trump the champion of churches? Yes, Trump belonged to a church New York City church in the mid-2000s, but the pastor didn’t see him there once in five years. Dershowitz, for his part, calls himself “a Hillary Clinton liberal Democrat.” Yet he’s called gun-control advocates “foolish liberals” and used a nonsensical argument to immunize presidents from oversight. Unchecked power is seldom, if ever, any friend of liberalism. I doubt anyone would have called King George’s lawyers liberals if they’d sued the rebellions colonies for breach of contract.

14 bad Republican arguments against impeachment

The accusation is simple and direct: Donald Trump, in his role as president, held up military aid to Ukraine – which had already been approved by Congress – “asking” that the nation first commit to investigating Trump’s political opponent, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son. Republicans’ arguments against impeachment, by contrast, have been all over the map. If they can’t seem to settle on one, it may be because they’re all so flimsy. I decided to address each in turn, exposing each for the fallacy it is.

1. There was no quid pro quo

Actually, there was. Trump’s own words (“I want you to do me a favor, though”) linked military aid to a preconditioned investigation of the Bidens, along with a conspiracy theory involving the 2016 election. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff, that the money was held up in part because of Trump’s demand for an investigation into 2016. When a reporter pointed out that “what you just described is a quid pro quo,” Mulvaney responded: “We do that all the time in foreign policy.” He later tried to retract that statement, but it was already out there.

2. It’s perfectly normal

“Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.” – Mulvaney

On the contrary, most commentators can’t remember a president ever withholding taxpayer funds in exchange for an investigation into a political opponent.

3. It’s all being done in secret

The Democrats are taking depositions behind closed doors, and not allowing Republicans to know what’s happening.

Except that 1) Republicans were present for the depositions, which were subsequently released in their entirety and 2) public hearings are being held. Predictably, this argument was largely abandoned about the time the public hearings were announced.

4. Democrats haven’t taken a formal vote

Then they did. And they abandoned this argument, too.

5. The whistleblower must be identified

Never mind the law that protects whistle4blowers from being identified.

“I consider any impeachment in the House that doesn’t allow us to know who the whistleblower is to be invalid.” – S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham

This, despite the fact that the substance of the whistleblower’s statement has been affirmed by several other sources.

NFL referees are literal whistleblowers. They’re relatively anonymous; fans tend to focus on the players, unless the refs make a mistake. As with politics, those fans are inherently biased in favor of their own teams. But imagine the following scenario:

A referee makes a call against the home team. The coach is unhappy with it, and decides to challenge it. This triggers a video review of the play, based on a number of camera angles. Each of these angles, however, clearly affirms that the referee’s call was correct. But the fans aren’t satisfied. Even after the game is over, they keep calling for the referee to be brought forward in publicly questioned about why he made the call. And the coach, unwilling to admit his own mistake in calling the wrong play, encourages them. Never mind the video evidence. It doesn’t matter. What matters is publicly shaming the referee for making the proper call.

This is what the Republicans want to do with the whistleblower. If the NFL were in charge of the impeachment hearings, such an action would result in nothing – except that the coach would get a hefty fine for questioning the officiating. But Donald Trump has poisoned the water by smearing the officials (career diplomats and other civil servants) as “Deep State Never-Trumpers,” that even the most absurd arguments seem credible to his fans, who are all too willing to blame the ref.

6. The right to face your accuser

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and other Republicans have suggested that the president has this right, based on the Sixth Amendment. There’s just one problem with this rationale: The amendment makes clear that it applies to “all criminal prosecutions.” And impeachment is not a criminal prosecution.

7. It will cause a “Civil War like fracture”

Trump himself said this. But it isn’t an argument, it’s a threat thinly disguised as a prediction. It’s also not the only time he’s used this tactic: He also warned that the economy will tank if he isn’t re-elected.

8. The money was eventually released

“You’re going to impeach a president for asking a favor that didn’t happen – and giving money and it wasn’t withheld?” – Nikki Haley

Yes, the same way we indict people for attempted murder that wasn’t successful and attempted bribes that weren’t accepted.

9. Trump’s Ukraine policy is inept

“What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward Ukraine: It was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to, they seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.” – Graham

Graham seems to be suggesting that negligence is just fine. But people go to jail for negligent manslaughter all the time. Graham’s a lawyer; he should know this. How many Ukrainian soldiers died because Trump held up aid to that nation? Even if it were “only” negligent, the cost was counted in human lives.

10. Let the voters decide

The argument has been made that “it’s too close to the election” to impeach a president. But this ignores one important point: The crux of the accusation is that Trump was trying to interfere in that election. If he’s not checked now, who’s to say he won’t do so again?

11. Trump had a right to ask

Trump “honestly believes that there may have been corruption in Ukraine, and before he turns over $400 million of American taxpayer money, he’s entitled to ask.” – La. Sen. John Kennedy

“Asking” about corruption is quite different than insisting that a country investigate alleged corruption as a condition for receiving money. Alleged corruption on the part of a political opponent. Alleged corruption that had already been debunked. For money that had already been appropriated by Congress.  

12. Zelensky didn’t feel pressured

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t feel pressure to comply with Trump’s request. He said so himself!

But if Zelensky didn’t feel pressured, why was he preparing to comply? Out of the goodness of his heart?

Ask a shop owner who’s paying money to a mobster in a protection racket whether he feels pressured. He’ll tell you that, of course, he does not. Because if he admits it, his “benefactor” will withdraw his protection. In withholding military aid, that’s exactly what Trump was doing. It should be pointed out that a traditional protection racket is different, in that the “protection” is from the mob’s own “enforcers.” But the result is the same.

And it’s not as though Trump hasn’t made veiled threats to those supposedly under his protection, such as Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who was removed from her post by Trump. In a conversation with Zelensky, Trump called her “bad news” and saying, in vague but ominous terns that “she’s going to go through some things.”

13. Inappropriate, not impeachable

“I believe it was inappropriate, I do not believe it was impeachable.” – Texas Rep. Mac Thornberry

Wrong. One of two explicit grounds for impeachment named in the Constitution is bribery (the other being treason). Offering something of value in exchange for dirt on a political opponent is bribery. Threatening to withhold it is extortion.

Even Trump doesn’t like this argument, calling it a “fool’s trap,” but for a different reason: He maintains the phone call was “perfect.”

14. It was a perfect call

This is Trump’s favorite argument, because he sees himself as perfect.

But even most Republicans won’t go this far. Perhaps because it comes from an egotist who has made more than 14,000 false and misleading statements since taking office. Still, Trump appears to actually believe this one. That’s even more troubling when one considers this quote from Chinonye J. Chidolue: “Perfection is a lie, and lying to others is explicable, but lying to oneself is the highest form of deceit.”

Trump seems to be doing both.