Without it, we're lost." - Adam Schiff
Interested in watching tomorrow's testimony. But it will be difficult.
Love Schiff and that was a great speech but please, somebody point out the last time the truth mattered? Did it matter during the 2016 election? Did it matter during the vote for the Iraq war? Has it mattered with climate change? Does it matter with voter security and gerrymandering? The list goes on. Power and money is all that there is.
How can we, individually, make “truth matter”? I often ask people, “What are you certain of?” Thoughtful people are not certain of much beyond their own experience, or are “certain” only to the extent that the evidence suggests. I guess we need to be truthful with ourselves first, and with others in our lives, and hope that helps us see truth in others. It’s a long road.
John Roberts Comes Face to Face with the Mess he Made The Roberts Court’s decisions led to this moment in indirect ways, as well. The court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County gutted the Voting Rights Act and spurred a new wave of voter suppression. The decision in 2014′s McCutcheon further surrendered campaign finance to the wealthiest. The 2018 Janus decision hobbled the ability of labor unions to counter wealthy donors, while the 2019 Rucho ruling blessed partisan gerrymandering, expanding anti-democratic tendencies. The consequences? Falling confidence in government, and a growing perception that Washington had become a “swamp” corrupted by political money, fueled Trump’s victory. The Republican Party, weakened by the new dominance of outside money, couldn’t stop Trump’s hostile takeover of the party or the takeover of the congressional GOP ranks by far-right candidates. The new dominance of ideologically extreme outside groups and donors led lawmakers on both sides to give their patrons what they wanted: conflict over collaboration and purity at the cost of paralysis. The various decisions also suppress the influence of poorer and non-white Americans and extend the electoral power of Republicans in disproportion to the popular vote.Ten years to the day before Trump’s impeachment trial began, the Supreme Court released its Citizens United decision, plunging the country into the era of super PACs and unlimited, unregulated, secret campaign money from billionaires and foreign interests. Citizens United, and the resulting rise of the super PAC, led directly to this impeachment. The two Rudy Giuliani associates engaged in key abuses — the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the attempts to force Ukraine’s president to announce investigations into Trump’s political opponents — gained access to Trump by funneling money from a Ukrainian oligarch to the president’s super PAC.