Amy Klobuchar isn’t as flashy as poor Winehouse was, but Klobuchar gets shit done. Here’s an example from Mother Jones:
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) released evidence on Tuesday that the Justice Department buried the whistleblower complaint about President Donald Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president by failing to refer the matter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Klobuchar suggested the Justice Department violated a longstanding agreement between the agencies to share information about possible campaign finance violations for potential enforcement action…
This is clever because while everyone else was understandably focused on Barr hiding the whistleblower complaint from House Democrats, Klobuchar laid the groundwork to expose further wrongdoing by verifying that Barr hadn’t notified the Federal Election Commission either. Turns out that is required!
[U]nder a 1978 memorandum of understanding between the [Justice D]epartment and the FEC—which, like Justice is authorized to penalize campaign finance violations—the complaint should have been passed onto the FEC even if the department declined to launch a criminal investigation, so the election watchdog can determine whether a civil penalty is called for.Earlier this month, Klobuchar set out to uncover whether the Justice Department had honored this agreement, sending two letters to the FEC inquiring whether it had received any such referral. On October 18, the commission’s Democratic chair, Ellen Weintraub, confirmed to Klobuchar that the FEC had not been notified. “The refusal to inform the FEC and refer the matter regarding the President’s call to the FEC as required to do, as the Justice Department is required, undermines our campaign finance system and is unacceptable in a democracy,” Klobuchar said in Tuesday statement.
I haven’t watched much news coverage of the shit-show this week because disgust and baseball. That said, I doubt Klobuchar’s revelation got a lot of attention, what with the SS Trumptanic taking shots below the waterline. But this week, Klobuchar produced further hard evidence that Barr is a crook.
Thanks to the courage of the whistleblower, Barr’s attempt to make the complaint go away by fiat didn’t succeed, but Barr was sticking to the original lie/rationale (“it was a nothingburger!”) to protect Trump from Congress. Notifying the FEC isn’t optional, even if it’s deemed a “nothingburger,” according to the longstanding agreement between the federal agencies. That Barr failed to provide the notification is more evidence of a cover up. Way to go, Klobuchar!
laura
Good on the good Senator from Minnesota!
Barr has got to be the scuzziest AG since John Mitchell and I pray he ends up doing serious hard time.
MattF
Winehouse stood out, our Contralto of Sorrow. Every time I hear her, everything else stops.
Irony Abounds
It’s unfortunate we live in a world where a very competent and intelligent woman polls in low single digits simply because she is height and charisma-challenged and has a funny last name. She may well be closest to me in where she stands on the political spectrum, and I think she’d do well in the general election, but she just isn’t engendering much enthusiasm.
immanentize
Didn’t Republicans in a past life hate “THE WALL!!1!!” that prevented the DOJ from sharing information with other agencies?
Mary G
I would be happy if the next president was a mean girl who gets things done. I’d rather have Kamala, though.
Yutsano
@Mary G: It’s not going to be Amy for a whole host of reasons. But I’m totally content on her staying in the Senate for as long as she wishes.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Winehouse was an incredible talent. Such a shame her demons got the best of her, and so young.
SFAW
@Mary G:
I would be happy if the next President — who I fervently hope will be a Dem with an all-Dem Congress — has her DoJ file criminal charges, up to and including Treason (where appropriate), against every member of the current Rethug leadership. And I’d extend it to anti-American motherfuckers like Parking-Lot-Attendant Gaetz, and quite a few others. I want to see ALL those motherfuckers jailed until I pass from this mortal coil (which I hope will not be for many years).
Oh, and I’d impeach Kavanaugh for lying under oath.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
My daily bread. I’ll bring the cheladas, and we’ll have a complete, balanced meal.
germy
Women working quietly and effectively reminds me of Tina Smith and her non-celebrity status.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
That memorandum was written during a Democrat Party administration so doesn’t count, neh neh
/Republicans that show their faces on the Sunday shows
Emerald
Laurence Tribe tweeted: “By declining to investigate as a crime what Taylor is now reporting, Barr thought he was protecting his boss. In fact, he gave up the chance to say Congress can’t look into this stuff because DOJ is doing so! If he had half a brain, Trump would be pissed!”
rikyrah
Well done, Senator.
IMPEACH BARR TOO!!
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
I would love to hear the words “Senate Majority Leader Klobuchar” in the near future, and for many years after that.
Chetan Murthy
@Mnemosyne:
If she’s only half the brute she’s reputed to be, yeah, that’d be fine, fine, fine. 100% agree.
gratuitous
Oh puh-leeze! You can’t expect the Attorney General to know every last rule or law or legal thing! Why, to know all that, he’d have to be some kind of super-lawyer-knowing-stuff kind of guy, and that’s just unpossible.
rikyrah
Why the House GOP is pretending to care about the impeachment process
10/23/19 02:58 PM—UPDATED 10/23/19 03:03 PM
By Steve Benen
……………………………………………….
These House Republicans know the rules, but they broke them anyway as part of a little stunt.
According to Bloomberg News, Donald Trump knew in advance about these far-right members’ plan to barge into a secure hearing room – and the president supported the scheme. In fact, The Daily Beast reported that Trump effectively encouraged them to obstruct the impeachment inquiry.
To hear the White House’s more ridiculous congressional allies tell it, they’re justified in launching stunts like these because hearings related to the impeachment inquiry are being held in secret. At first blush, I imagine some Americans might even think guys like Matt Gaetz and his cohorts have a point: given the importance of the process and the outcome, why is so much work being done behind closed doors?
The truth is, even the most unhinged members of Congress know the answer. They’re only pretending to be dumb. The New York Times recently explained why witnesses are testifying in private:
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: People who favor other candidates have said that of Warren (who is my preferred candidate so far), but Warren doesn’t strike me as a process wonk. I mean, maybe she is, but I haven’t seen that demonstrated, and it seems like procedural mastery (and a safe seat!) would be the chief requirements for SML. We definitely need a new one!
Klobuchar does seem like a process wonk. Is her seat safe enough? I don’t know. As for her presidential primary prospects, I agree with Kay — it would be great if Klobuchar could wrest the “centrist” lane from Biden. This primary might boil down to centrist vs. progressive, and Klobuchar would be preferable to Biden in the centrist role (IMO). We’ll see what happens.
Jess
@rikyrah:
Can we bust them all for obstruction of justice? ;-)
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I mean this in the best possible way: I think Klobuchar is mean enough to keep the caucus together. I don’t think that Warren is sufficiently interested in all of the various levers in the Senate.
Klobuchar seems like a great legislator — isn’t she also the senator who’s had the most number of bills passed? I’d be more reluctant to lose her in the Senate than to lose Warren.
germy
@Jess:
Witness intimidation?
Mandalay
@Batty Cracker:
She does. From her web site (from 2016): U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar ranks first on a list of all 100 senators with the most bills that have been enacted into law during the current Congress.
And from 2019:
I’m not sure she ever completely overcame some former employees bad mouthing her bedside manner at the start of her campaign, and she’s not getting the nomination. But if a Democrat becomes president they will surely consider her for a Cabinet position.
gene108
Amy K. is currently my mom’s favorite Dem candidate
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mnemosyne:
Are you saying that Warren isn’t interested in becoming a Senate majority leader?
Martin
@rikyrah:
I think a referral to DOJ for conspiracy to obstruct justice for these individuals would be a worthy effort. Barr won’t do anything with it, of course, but it allows Democrats to lay out that some House Republicans are now actively participating in the obstruction effort.
the Conster
Amy and Kamala are my first choices – 1 and 1a, in either order.
I respect the fact that she has no interest in blowing smoke up anyone’s ass, and won’t sit by while others do *cough*Warren and Sanders*cough*.
Also, like Kamala, she’s a prosecutor, but I wonder if she gets more traction whether she’ll be subjected by the Kremlin left to the same bullshit about it as Harris gets.
MattF
@Jess: You have to find a way to do it and ‘own the fascists’. They do seem to be sensitive about the prospect of Trump being driven out of office.
VOR
@Betty Cracker: Klobuchar won by 24 points in 2018. She won by 35 points in 2012. Her father was a widely known and beloved columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune so she actually has good name recognition in Minnesota. I think her Senate seat is pretty safe.
rikyrah
Diplomat worried Trump would stiff Ukraine after leveraging favor
Rachel Maddow reads highlights from the opening statement of former Ambassador Bill Taylor to the House impeachment inquiry in which he describes Donald Trump’s scheme to put Ukrainian President Zelenskyy “in a public box,” which he worried still might not move Trump to release aid to Ukraine to fight Russia.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: You cite evidence that she is a good senator. Why should that mean she should on anyone’s list for a cabinet position?
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Why would she want the job?
Mnemosyne
@the Conster:
A huge part of the “Kamala is a cop!” thing is an effort by racists to damage her campaign and divide Democrats. It wouldn’t get nearly as much traction with Klobuchar.
oatler.
@laura: The 1% never do hard time. See Kissinger and Cheney.
gene108
@Mnemosyne:
Most of the “Kamala is a cop” stuff I’ve seen are from white leftist, and some AA’s Twitter feeds.
More to divide possible AA support
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
As they demonstrated in 2016, a whole lot of online “leftists” are racist and sexist as hell, so we’re saying the same thing.
the Conster
@Mnemosyne:
That’s my take on the whole Kamala is a cop thing too. I’m sure if Amy starts climbing, we’ll hear way more about how she’s a terrible boss, unlike that nice Sanders fella who ran a catch and kill operation to silence harassed and underpaid women from his last campaign and has a reputation for being an unrelenting asshole to everyone around him.
Using a comb as a salad utensil is probably my most favorite thing about her, so far. I want a woman president to be resourceful, tough and FEARED.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Omnes Omnibus:
No idea tbh. I’ve just always seen it suggested around these parts. Plus, I was actually just curious about why she wouldn’t be, aside from wanting to be president
Betty Cracker
@VOR: Good to know! I’ve never trusted the state since it elected that idiot wrestler a while back. (Not that I have room to talk, being from Florida and all…)
lee
Barr is sooooooo going to prison.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: I read somewhere that a Klobuchar anecdote was the inspiration for a VEEP bit in which Selena forced one of her hapless aides to crawl under her desk and dry-shave her legs. Heh!
Omnes Omnibus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: As you may have guessed from the other part of my comment, I not a fan of the idea that because someone is good at one job, they should be on a list to be AG, a Supreme Court Justice, Senate Majority Leader, etc., without some explanation they would be good at the second thing. Skill sets are different.
Shana
@SFAW: From your mouth to your choice of deity’s ear.
I’d also like there to be a permanent ban on any member of this administration in any decision-making position to be in government ever again. I thought such a ban should have been instituted over the Nixon administration. Think of all the crap we could have avoided.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s one of my pet peeves too, and it’s so pervasive. I worked in corporate settings for the first part of my career, and I was really good at my job, so my managers kept trying to drag me into supervisory roles. But I suck at management! I’m really, truly, deeply terrible at it! Completely different skill set!
Ben Cisco
@gene108:
Anywhere division is being sown in the cesspool* that is Twitter, bots are right in the middle of it.
*The author acknowledges that the above statement may be interpreted to be highly insulting to and dismissive of actual cesspools
Jess
@germy: Both/and? Works for me!
dogwood
@Betty Cracker:
There’s no doubt that the skill set for being an effective legislator is different than the attributes of an effective executive. What has frustrated me for decades is watching Democratic candidates run as legislators with detailed plans for solving all problems as if there won’t be a Congress standing in the way a good share of the time. And whoever has the most detail policy papers gets the the biggest seal of approval from the potential caucus and primary voters. Harris and Klobuchar are interesting to me because being a prosecutor, and in Harris’s case an Attorney General as well, requires the ability to make tough executive decisions. Decisions that sometimes involve life and death that no one else wants to make, and decisions that aren’t always popular. This is where I find Warren lacking. It’s not her fault. As a professor and a liberal Senator in a pretty safe seat, she hasn’t had to make any final decisions. We always mock W for calling himself the “decider”, but he was correct. In the end all tough decisions wind up on the desk of the POTUS.
Betty Cracker
@dogwood: Good points, but that Obama fella was a pretty darn good decider, and he was a community organizer, academic and legislator before he became president, while the aforementioned GWB had executive experience where he also made life and death decisions, but he was a shit president, as was Reagan and Bush I before him.
I support Warren because I think she gets the magnitude of what needs to change if we’re to remain a viable democracy instead of turning into a Putin-style oligarchy. She’s right when she says the wealthy have captured our government so they can channel all its wealth into their own pockets. She’s right when she points out that American oligarchs have stood up a propaganda network to foment bigotry and keep us divided so they can steal from us unabated.
Can she fix it? I don’t know if anyone can, to be honest. But at least Warren understands the problem.
debbie
@Mary G:
Mean as in throwing things at your staff?
Tehanu
There are Republican representatives on the impeachment committees (Judiciary, etc.) too, right? They’re actually supposed to be attending the hearings? What possible excuse can these showboating fascist lawbreakers and traitors — who may well be getting Russian money to boot — have for not asking those Republican committee members about what’s going on in “Adam Schiff’s illegitimate, witch hunt, double-secret probation” hearings?