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Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris ruffled West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s feathers when she sat down with local television stations in his state to chat about Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill without first giving him a heads up. On today’s episode, our hosts break down why these sorts of intra-party kerfuffles matter and how they might shape the Biden administration’s relationship with the Senate moving forward. Also in the hopper for today, Sarah and David put their trial lawyer skills on full display when they explain the former president’s best defense against impeachment.
Show Notes:
-“The Senate’s impeachment trial is illegal and a sham” by Rand Paul in the Washington Examiner.
-Explainer on bills of attainder and House Resolution 24 - Impeaching Donald John Trump, president of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
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A long time ago, in an era known as the early-90s, I lived in St. Joseph, MO for a time. I owned an old Chevrolet station wagon that had gotten me through College and I made the mistake of advertising a $250obo car in the local classifieds. I had a steady stream of, shall we say, colorful characters come look at it including the ultimate buyers who did not want the car but wanted the engine because it would fit in their dump truck. We commenced negotiations on the $250. Primary communications were handled by a younger man with backup provided by grandpa. A few minutes in, the dump-truck-with-no-engine younger man offered me $225.50. The older man slapped him on the back of the head and said, "You're arguin' over quarters boy!" That is how all of the current punditry feels to me. We're arguing over quarters. Conservatism lost. The Republican party is irredeemable. R Presidents have spent like drunken sailors and now the minority R's in Congress want to claim fiscal restraint. I can't summon the energy anymore to quote Friedman or Hayek. The words of Sowell offer no solace. The ideas I held dear lost. We're arguing over quarters.
Not directly related to the AO, but since so much of this impeachment fight seems to revolve around Republicans saying some variation of "its wrong, but its not X as stated in the articles", settle this for me:
A lefty friend of mine says that capitalism sucks and she wants the socialism of Denmark. I said Denmark isn't socialist and we got into a back and forth argument about definitions. Now I have no problem with Denmark's system and by many metrics it does seem to work quite well, so I could just as well say "I want the capitalism of Denmark." So does it really matter if she thinks that's socialism? Like if a Christian went to a foreign country and everyone was a "Follower of Thanos" and someone gives you "The Book of Thanos" but it its actually just the Bible but for some reason the word Jesus was changed with Thanos, are you both functionally Christians? If the locals are really stubborn about their lord and savior 'Thanos', is it worth trying to tell them that it's a mistranslation and that the guy's real name is Jesus?