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Newley's Notes

NN193: Impeachment Must-Reads Edition; Also: Singing Beagles

2019 09 30washington

Photo by Matt 📸 on Unsplash

👋 Hi, friends. Welcome to the latest edition of Newley’s Notes, a weekly newsletter containing my recent Wall Street Journal stories, must-read links on tech and life, and funny dog videos.

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I try to keep NN focused on technology and its intersection with business and culture. (And dog videos. There’s always room for dog videos.)

But this was an unusual week. (Though there’s still a dog video!)

🇺🇸 🚨 Two words: impeachment inquiry.

Read on…

Here are ten items worth your time this week:

⚖️ 1) The latest from my WSJ colleagues in Washington: Democrats Set Rapid Timetable for Trump Impeachment Probe [WSJ]

“House Democrats have settled on a narrow impeachment inquiry into President Trump centered on his campaign to enlist Ukraine to hurt a political rival, a rapid strategy that will produce hearings within a few weeks and build to a possible vote by November.”

🐻 2) Analysis from The WSJ’s Peggy Noonan: Democrats Set a Bear Trap [WSJ]

“Everything, the entire outcome, will depend on public opinion.”

And:

“What is immediately striking is that no one who has spoken in defense of the president, including his spokesmen, has said these words: ‘Donald Trump would never do that!’ Or, ‘That would be unlike him!’ That will be the president’s problem as public opinion develops: everyone knows he would do it, everyone knows it is like him. There’s no mystique of goodness to be destroyed.”

🇺🇦 3) Politico’s legal affairs columnist Renato Mariotti: Trump Didn’t Bribe Ukraine. It’s Actually Worse Than That [Politico] (Thanks, Anasuya!)

“What Trump is alleged to have done is not a garden variety crime; it’s worse. It involved misusing $250 million in aid appropriated by Congress for his benefit – the kind of gross misconduct that easily clears the bar of high crimes and misdemeanors set by the Constitution when impeaching a president. Which means the best way to hold Trump accountable for that misconduct isn’t a criminal trial; it’s for Congress to impeach him.”

❓ 4) 14 Answers to the Impeachment Inquiry, and What May Come Next [New York Times]

“Our journalists in Washington responded to readers’ questions about the Ukraine dispute and the impeachment process.”

🌐 5) Brace Yourself for the Internet Impeachment [New York Times]

“As impeachment looms, disinformation experts are bracing for a fresh cyclone of chaos, complete with fast-twitch media manipulation, droves of false and misleading claims, and hyper-polarized audiences fiercely clinging to their side’s version of reality.”

⌛ 6) “Do Us a Favor”: The Forty-eight Hours That Sealed Trump’s Impeachment [New Yorker]

“The most interesting moments to be in Washington are when the conventional wisdom is shifting and not everyone knows it yet, or when an old certainty has been shredded and nothing has emerged to replace it.”

📅 7) A Timeline of the Trump-Ukraine Scandal [Lawfare]

To help sort through the story, we have put together a timeline of how allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine percolated up through right-wing news circles to the president’s desk, what the president and his lawyer have said and done about it, what the Ukrainian government has said about the situation, and how Congress has reacted.”

➡️ 8) The process of impeachment [Axios]

“Below is a graphic that explains the typical procedures for impeachment and removal from office.”

📰 9) When Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine resigned, a student newspaper beat everyone to the story [Washington Post]

“They were trying to find a local angle to a national story. Instead, journalists at Arizona State University’s student newspaper beat every news outlet in the country to the latest twist in the burgeoning controversy over President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.”

🐕 🎤 10) The perfect video does not exi— [Twitter: @chadloder]

📖 Book I’m Currently Reading

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age,” by James Crabtree. It’s excellent. Stat of the week: “In 2010 Forbes ranked two Indians…among the five richest men in the world. Four years later India’s billionaire total crossed the one hundred mark…”

💡 Quote of the week:

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

👊 Fist bump from New Delhi,

Newley

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