Of course the big news this week centered on impeachment: The trial in the Senate formally started, we got a bunch of new evidence from Lev Parnas (who I still don’t trust), and the Government Accounting Office officially stated that Trump’s hold on the Ukraine aid was illegal.
What I decided to write about this week, though, was inspired by the Democratic debate on Tuesday — not any particular point made in the debate itself, but the general impression it left: If you were a low-information voter who happened to tune into this event, you would probably not grasp just how many things Democrats agree on, and how sharply that consensus differs from what the Trump administration and Republicans across the country are trying to do. By emphasizing differences, the debate format creates the false impression that the various Democratic candidates represent wildly different points of view.
So I decided to counter that with a piece I’m calling “Ten Principles that Unify Democrats (and most of the country)”. That should be out, let’s say, around 10 EST.
The weekly summary will cover the impeachment developments, what the Democrats actually did debate about, and a few other things, before closing with an extremely odd Dutch bicycle race. That should appear sometime after noon.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Why don’t you trust Lev Parnas? In addition to his interviews, he’s provided a mountain of evidence that backs up both his own stories as well as the sworn testimony of others.
What does he, or Giuliani, or Trump, have to gain from what he’s doing actually being some sort of multimedia disinformation campaign? And what has ever occured by this cabal that remotely suggests anyone in it is sophisticated enough to plan and pull one off?
Lev Parnas’ motivations seem simple enough. He’s angry that he’s been discarded and thrown into the US legal system, and he’s worried that he knows enough of what actually happened, and is taking (finally) Trump down politically if not in actuality, that if he doesn’t broadcast what he knows far and wide, he’ll wind up like Jeffrey Epstein, someone who knew way too much about too many self-important people to risk that he might trade that for his own benefit.
Lev Parnas is simply connecting the dots and filling in some blank spaces. He’s confirmation, not revelation. Let’s not be so cynical about the farce going on in the Senate that we decline to recognize this.