Thoughts After the First Day…
I’m fighting off a case of caught-on-an-airliner-wintertime-creeping-crud, so spent most of the day consuming bourbon and lemon and watching the impeachment hearing. I’m actually glad I did. Some takeaways:
- My faith in loyal, non-partisan, professional career public servants was restored. Ambassador Taylor and Secretary Kent were pitch perfect. They showed deep knowledge and experience, took no sides, resisted efforts by both sides to do that, and simply stated cold hard facts. With impeccable credentials and reputations, their testimony was powerful and, pardon the pun, unimpeachable. It was refreshing to witness that.
- Ambassador Taylor dropped a bombshell of new evidence testifying that since his testimony, it has been reported to him that one of his staff overhear a cell phone conversation between Sondland and Trump (in a Kiev restaurant, no less) where Sondland told Trump that Zelensky was going to play ball.
- Schiff did a reasonably good job laying out the case. He has said that his goal is to get all the major news in during the first hour, and he did that, taking into account frivolous interruptions from the other side.
- The Republicans have nothing. NOTHING; zip, nada, zilch, zero. Nunes and Jordan, the Trump’s chief ass lickers, only repeated the same threadbare tropes, and it seemed their ONLY strategy was to confuse. It was pitiful, and he even floated one those ridiculous conspiracy theories that the Ukrainians were “out to get Trump”.
- The Republicans demanded their be a vote on subpoenaing the Whistleblower, even though that’s against Federal law. They also wailed about how the Whistleblower “started all this” and should be forced to appear.
- We know how this is going to go…Schiff could show body cam footage of Trump clubbing a person to death on fifth avenue and Nunedan would say “What? That happens every day.” The only thing that will swing this is getting a secret ballot in the Senate when it comes to the vote so Republican senators would do their goddam jobs without paying a price.
Oh, and one last detail. One of the best moments of the day was after one of Jordan’s diatribe’s about “the most important witness” not being produced, Peter Welch, Dem from Vermont retorted, “I’d be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify. President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there.” Have a look:
I’ll be following along again tomorrow. Should be interesting. It’s certainly historic.
The lemon is good for you, Jefe.
1Bourbon?? El Jefe is swilling bourbon?
Don’t you know most of that kerosene-flavored dreck comes from Moscow Mitch’s Kentucky? Bourbon sales bring in more than $8 Billion a year to Kentuck’s economy, and those bourbon distillers all contribute $$$ to Mitch-tRump-Rethugs.
A while back I was tempted to buy a fifth of bourbon and decided to boycott it, screw ’em until they ‘Ditch Mitch’.
And now to repeat myself [since it fits here too]:
The Rethugs were pathetic WATBs.
One lame comparison most of them kept trying to make was that the Obama admin withheld some serious armament from the Ukrainians for their fight against the Russians, and sent them MREs and blankets instead.
But that ‘heroic’ Dear Comrade Donnei sent the Ukes a bunch of heavy stuff to blast the Russkis with [like those Javelin missiles mentioned over and over].
What nobody mentioned, and this was a seriously missed opportunity for the Democrats, is that during most of the Obama admin the Ukrainians had a very unreliable and corrupt heavily Russian-influenced client/puppet government in control [sort of like us, ehhh?]; and that holding back with it was actually a wise move.
Obama and Biden were instrumental in finally toppling that old corrupt Ukrainian regime [its’ President fled to refuge in Russia] and getting it replaced with a more open, democratic, reliable, and less corrupt government. Which was superseded by an even better one this year.
Those recent Ukrainian admins are far better US allies, much more trustworthy and deserving of military assistance, than the Russian puppets that the Obama admin held back the heavy arms from.
A delicately balanced Ukrainian government and military under active Russian siege, which the bottom-feeding crimeboss Dear Leader Donnei promptly and predatorily put the “Arms For Dirt” extortion bite on as long as he could.
Rep. Joaquin Castro did pretty good near the end, setting up a good analogy about “attempted” criminal endeavors being actual crimes; but he didn’t get Amb. Taylor, after a long pause, to quite bite for “attempted extortion”.
2Over the last few months Republicans claimed any second or third hand information about Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president was worthless. Not to be trusted. Nothing there.
Today, when Republicans had the opportunity to ask questions of two people who had first hand knowledge of the call, instead, those Republicans wove fictional stories about what they wished would have taken place. Fictional stories voiced by people who had no first hand information about the call.
Didn’t they tell us that kind of info is irrelevant and meaningless?
3I mistakenly put a comment for this post on the comments for the November is Fundraising Month.
4Posted on behalf of PP – Im repeating someone else, not sure who.
5But Jordan and others made a huge deal out of Dems relying on hearsay and second hand testimony.
UNAMERICAN! FACIST!
While conveniently neglecting to mention that the people with first-hand knowledge have been illegally and unconstitutionally forbidden to testify.
Funny how that works.
@sandridge – Bourbon came before Mitch and will come after Mitch, so I drink it. I also burn gasoline in my car, and I eat steak. I fly on airliners. I even buy tasso and andouille from Lousisana, shoot quail in Georgia as well as South Texas. If you boycott every state with politicians you disagree with your world gets awfully small. I choose not to do that, but that’s just me.
6So, why does going back to correct a posting error erase the entire post? As best I can reconstruct it:
Peter Welch’s takedown of Jim Jordan was a thing of beauty. The Republicans have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Today’s witnesses have more honor and integrity than the entire Republican contingent in Congress. I still don’t think that the Senate will vote to remove Trump from office, but more witnesses like Kent and Taylor will make it clear that they’re voting party over country when they don’t.
7Forgive my laziness but I can only repeat a comment I left elsewhere:
Why do y’all bother? As seen from ‘over here’ the result is obvious – the House will convict and Congress will not – end of!
In the end, the dreaded ‘Peeps’ will make the final decision next year!
8@Duff – You being a non-American I’ll overlook your lack of understanding of the US. We do this because it is the RIGHT thing to do, and is the system within which we live. Trump is an aberration, but a precursor of much worse should we not at least limit his ability to burn down the planet for his own self interest. The key is documenting his criminality and forcing his supporters to go on public record. Those who ignore his criminality in favor of political expedience will eventually pay their own price. That’s how the system works.
9Good summary, EJ. I hope you feel better soon. (Great response to Duff, too.)
10Meanwhile the pundit class is saying it was “boring”. More jazz hands! Theme music! Scantily clad presenters! Let’s get the plebes excited about this new reality show.
11Count on Peter Welch
12To provide the perfect squelch