Standing O

As Republicans were objecting at the end of the session, Marie Yovanovitch got up to leave the floor after her impeachment inquiry testimony when this happened:

I don’t know what it means but it isn’t good for someone.

Impeachment Day 2: Amb. Maria Yovanovich and Special Guests

Today, “the woman” is testifying before the impeachment inquiry committee along with one or maybe both of the foreign service officers who were present when Sondlund had a regular cell phone conversation with President Trump in a Kyev restaurant.

Here is the link to the C-Span feed.

Keep me informed in the comments. I’ll check back around lunch.

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Roger Stone found guilty of lying to Congress about his Wikileaks connections, witness tampering, and some other damn thing.

About his prison time, the Post writes:

The charge of witness tampering against Stone carries a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and the other counts up to five-year terms, although a first offender would face far less time under federal sentencing guidelines.

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I think we have a name for this “gate”. I keep hearing pundits refer to it as “the drug deal”, as John Bolton is reported to have called it.

So, why not The Ukrainian Drug Deal? It sounds like just the right amount of unsavory and illegal.

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Pathetic Whip Kissers

That’s it. You figure it out.

K.I.S.S.

KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s a corollary of Occam’s Razor, which can be summarized as “The simplest solution is most likely the right one.”

You could apply the above to the first day of the Impeachment hearings as well. Let’s take a look at they arguments:

1.) Bill Taylor and George Kent: These two career diplomats were alarmed to find that Donald Trump had created a shadow state department in Ukraine. This shadow state was tasked with putting pressure on the new government of Ukraine to get damaging information on Hunter Biden in exchange for Congressionally allocated funds to Ukraine for arms and other non-combat aid.

The result of this bribe was to put Ukraine in a weakened position with respect to peace negotiations with Russia, which had invaded and taken possession of approximately 7% of Ukraine’s territory. That doesn’t sound like a lot of land but as real estate experts say, “location, location, location”. Crimean ports on the Black Sea are crucial to a largely land locked Russia.

Annnnnnd that’s it! Trump withheld money that was already allocated to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on his political opponents, resulting in damaging the security of the region and, by extension, Western Europe.

2.) The Nunes narrative. Ok, I listened to it and I still have no idea what the f#%* he’s talking about. Judging by the expressions on the witnesses’ faces, neither did they. The story is complex and improbable. Take for example the proposition that all these insane machinations on Ukraine’s part were to help Hillary Clinton and hurt Donald Trump. Well, that didn’t work out so well even if any of this actually happened the way Republicans say it did.

When I was a kid, there was a joke that went like this:

Q. If you’re flying in a canoe and the wheels drop off, how many pancakes does it take to cover a house?

A. None, because there are no bones in ice cream.

That’s how Devin Nunes sounds. It’s worse than a Chewbacca Defense because that we acknowledge does not make sense. But the Nunes defense not only doesn’t make sense it’s supposed to confuse you. If you’re confused and can’t follow what your Republican congressman is saying, you’re less likely to watch the hearing. And if you’re less likely to watch, you’ll miss how simple this all is.

The president bribed a foreign government asking for damaging information on his political rival in exchange for desperately needed arms that the Congress allocated for it. Trump put our national security at risk by not thinking this through.

And here’s the cherry on top: The whistleblower was very effective because as soon as the jig was up, the money to Ukraine was released – and not a second sooner. So, Trump et al were perfectly fine to have Ukraine twisting in the wind, until they were caught.

At some point, Nunes and friends are going to have to tell us why Trump couldn’t use the American intelligence agencies to look into corruption in Ukraine if he was so adamant about getting rid of it.

So, there it is Niles. The simplest explanation is that Trump committed an impeachable offense. There’s no real counter argument that makes sense, and there are additional witnesses coming up who will make Trump look very, very bad. These are people with first hand knowledge.

But if you don’t want to watch it’s because you really don’t want to know.

Impeachment Hearings Day 1

Here is the link to the C-Span live feed.

You can also check the Canadian CBC feed. It starts at 10:00am.

These two feeds are suggested to avoid biased commentary that we might hear on CNN, MSNBC or FOX.

I’ll be working so please keep me up to date with your comments. I’ll check them at lunch.

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Highlight du Jour (so far):

2/ "…in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about 'the investigations.'…

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 13, 2019

4/"…Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for…

"It is my understanding that the Committee is following up on this matter."

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 13, 2019

What to expect when you’re impeaching.

Vox gives us an overview of the witnesses and procedures.

Today’s first witness is Ambassador William Taylor. He’s the career diplomat who was called out of retirement after Maria Yovanovich was dismissed by Trump.

Did anyone else cringe when reading the transcript of the July 25 call where Trump trashed her reputation, said she was “bad” and called her “the woman”? He could have just as easily called her “the ottoman” or “the cat figurine” or some other inanimate object that displeased him. It made my stomach lurch.

I would expect Taylor to be accomplished, experienced, and from all we’ve heard and read of him, steely. This man does not seem easily intimidated. That may have been Trump’s mistake. It would have been much easier to replace Yovanovich with a Trump lackey if he didn’t have to put up the pretense of having a professional and visible US embassy in Kiev.

But if I were Taylor, I would be surprised and uncomfortable to realize that I replaced Yovanovich because why? Because I was a man who might be more easily compromised? That I was retired anyway so what would I care? I’m not a real diplomat anyway? I would just look the other way? My Y chromosome would make it easier to sympathize with the Trump contingent?

His deposition was powerful. He cares about our reputation, moral authority and our national security. He’s not a Never Trumper, he’s the anti-Trump.

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The fact checker at WaPo has compiled a list of spin, that the Republicans have tried in the last couple of weeks, and then systematically debunks them.

This is not difficult to do because the evidence is so overwhelming and primary witnesses abundant. It doesn’t leave Republicans much to work with except that the witnesses are Never Trumpers, like that makes any sense at all.

But I’m sure the unaware will fall for some of these tropes. Don’t let it happen to you.

All the lies told to people who want so desperately to believe in their president remind me of this every time I hear them:

You’re a mean one, Mr. Trump.

Following the Impeachment.

There are some people I trust to cover the public impeachment hearings and subsequent vote. These would include Preet Bharara, the legal specialists on MSNBC, including Neil Katyal, Jill Wine-Banks and Barbara McQuade, Susan Simpson @theViewfromLL2, and Heidi Li Feldman, law professor at Georgetown U.

Susan Simpson is hilarious as well as incisive so I’m looking forward to her take. Preet and his Cafe Insider co-host Anne Milgram, former NJ AG, could be possibly the best legal pair podcasting.

I’m open to other suggestions, as well as a format.

For example, what TV channel should we link to in the morning? I tend to like CSpan and PBS for as much “objectivity” and fewest commercial breaks. I tend to steer away from CNN because in their attempts to look fair to both sides, their commentary sections devolve into a bait ball frenzy, loud and noisy voices spouting the latest talking points, and usually no new information.

We know how Fox News will cover this but does anyone want to take one for the team and watch it for trending memes so we can try to get out ahead of them? Maybe we can take turns.

How about an evening summary? Could we include the day’s most revealing moment? How the witness narrative is developing? Is it coherent? What are the ways the other side is attempting to obfuscate? Nightly poll of how likely Trump is to being impeached in the senate based on what has been revealed?

Resources. Should we have a section on resources, depositions, relevant news articles, significant contemporaneous tweets, letters, emails?

Put your suggestions in the comments below.

The panic before the storm

Republicans seem to be in full blown panic mode over the upcoming impeachment hearings. It appears that the Democrats have been taking notes about how Republicans act in their natural habitat and have adapted accordingly.

For example, the schedule for the impeachment inquiry and subsequent vote has been compressed. This gives Republicans less time to cover their asses and drag things out. Extending time has been one of their most valuable weapons. They’ve used it before with Iran Contra and the Valerie Plame-Scooter Libby affair. Extending the time frame gives them an opportunity to confuse the public by misdirection. It’s much harder to obfuscate when the explanation is so simple and attention is focused in a couple of weeks instead of months and months. The phone calls happened in July, we discovered them in September, the inquiry gathered facts outside of public scrutiny, which gives Republicans fewer opportunities to twist the testimony, and the vote will come before Christmas, which gives everyone time to think it over during Christmas break.

The timeframe is relentless and short. It’s causing some Republicans to do and say silly things.

Lindsay Graham now says that the impeachment isn’t legit unless we hear from the whistleblower. But the whistleblower was only one of a cast of dozens apparently who all saw the crime from different angles. (Bribery is a crime by the way AND it also happens to be an impeachable offense.) All these witnesses corroborate what the whistleblower reported to the CIA IG. Some of their testimony is primary source so the hearsay defense doesn’t apply. There are notes, text messages and meetings with third parties. The whistleblower provided more of a summary of what happened. The public testimony will lay things out on almost a minute to minute basis told by the people who were actually there.

Notice who is testifying. The people who are giving depositions are the ones who have nothing to lose but their careers right now. Except for Gordon Sondlund, none of them have done anything wrong. They aren’t going to jail. They aren’t being impeached.

The ones who are defying subpoenas are the people who will either need to tell about their actions in an unsavory bribery scheme or declare their 5th amendment rights to prevent self-incrimination. Declaring the fifth is never a good look. Did you notice that no one has been offered immunity?

In any case, the lineup is striking. Not one of those who have been implicated in this scheme are testifying when the overwhelming evidence is against them. Not one will defend themselves or others. It’s like one gigantic taking the fifth.

There are a couple of court hearings pending that were filed to compel those who have been subpoenaed to testify. One was filed against Charles Kupperman, one of former NSC advisor John Bolton’s deputies. Bolton himself says that he will abide by this court decision. If Kupperman has to testify, so will he. That was the default “let’s drag this out, add extraneous details and confuse the public” strategy I mentioned before.

But now, Mick Mulvaney, who has already admitted publicly that bribery happened, has joined the Kupperman lawsuit. That puts pressure on Bolton to either voluntarily testify or tie his fortunes to the rest of Trump’s henchmen. Bolton is no fan of Mulvaney. Bolton knows where bodies are buried. But he thought he could separate himself from Trump et al and at the same time poke a Democratic House committee in the eye. Looks like he can’t do both. He’s going to have to choose.

Meanwhile, AG Barr is meeting with Lindsey Graham to construct talking points of the public testimony before it even starts. Yes, that’s right, if you’re getting your news from Fox or your favorite right wing radio show host, you are going to be subjected to a bunch of misleading “alternate facts”, whatever that means. Your brain will be lead down conspiracy theory mazes with hidden Chewbaccas at every dead end, while the characters of some truly stellar public servants will be smeared with irrelevant details from their personal lives. This is the way the right wing works. It swift boats, it mocks parents of a dead Iraqi war veteran, it shamelessly calls women sluts. We can expect more of the same. I mean, YOU can expect more of the same, the rest of us will be focusing on the testimony.

By the way, YES, we want Trump gone. But It’s too late to overturn the election so we will remove him using the Constitution with the gifts of his own misdeeds against him. And he can take the whole corrupt Republican Party with him. Bipartisanship is impossible at this point in time. They’ve proven it time and again. It’s not a coup. It’s the Constitution. Trump and his aides didn’t have to commit impeachable offenses. They chose to do it because they thought (still think) that AG Barr will cover their asses. They simply can’t help themselves.

This is where we were headed back in the summer of 2016. It’s just that we figured it out and you guys let your emotions be manipulated. They will appeal to your tendency to respect and not question authority figures to get away with it. And YES, it will eventually affect you. A country can’t go down this road without the public eventually suffering some pretty severe consequences.

Anyway, someone noticed yesterday that Trump tweets a lot when he’s nervous about something. Yesterday, he had tweeted 84 times in a 24 hour period. The only time he did more than that was when Robert Mueller publicly disagreed with AG Barr’s summary of his report. You know, the one where Barr loosely interpreted it to say that there’s nothing to see here? Yeah, Mueller said he didn’t say that. There was plenty to see there. Trump tweeted like crazy on 5/1/19 when that happened. Yesterday, the number of his tweets nearly surpassed that of Mueller’s disagreement.

I can’t wait to see what they’re up to by tomorrow. Commence meltdown mode.

As I keep repeating, this ends with Trump demanding that Republicans fully and unequivocally defend what he *actually did* do, as shamelessly as he does.

Here Trump is saying exactly this, as clearly as anyone could expect him to: https://t.co/u11fy917So

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) November 10, 2019

This isn’t going to be pretty. But if we’re lucky, it will be brief.

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One more thing: If our country wants to rehabilitate its reputation and regain its pre-eminence in the world as fighting against tyranny and injustice, then impeachment of Trump and his removal from office is the best thing that we Americans can do. It will reassure the rest of the world that we do live by the rule of law and we can enforce that law.

If we don’t, we’ll be no better than a country ruled by a dictator and our fortunes globally will be tied to him.

Ok, enuf zen, I’m pissed.

There are many things making me angry these days. I could write a book.

At this point, it’s not so much that I’m newly angry about something. It’s that I’ve been sitting on my anger for such a long time when it comes to Trump.

I’ve been angry about his heartless and expensive policies for three years now. That’s a given. We’ve all been angry about that. But this anger I’m talking about is bubbling up to the surface from some other place.

It’s not that I expect Republicans to grow a pair and stand up to him. Oh, no, we’ve been told explicitly to never expect such a thing. You almost get the sense that Moscow Mitch wouldn’t stop Trump from nuking San Francisco.

It’s irritating to read Trump and his mouthpieces whining about due process when they’ve separated families seeking asylum and allowed toddlers who don’t speak English and don’t have a lawyer represent themselves in immigration court.

No, this anger has to do with Trump escaping accountability time after time and now, finally, having to face the truth in public impeachment hearings. I’d like to take that truth and methaphorically ram it down his throat and make him eat it.

This time, he and all the like minded ethics challenged people he works with ARE going to be damaged. After this is over, everyone will finally know what he is.

What they do with this information is up to them. But they would have to be the most pathetic whip-kissers alive to allow him to crow in triumph that his pals in the Senate let him off the hook.

Let them whine that they can’t use the Chewbacca Defense to confuse Americans. Let them blame Never Trumpers as if Trump should be allowed to abuse his office without objection. I really don’t care, do you?

All I’m interested in is hearing Fiona Hill, Bill Taylor, Alex Vindman and clueless weasel Gordon Sondlund tell their truths once and for all and exposing the orange excrement in the White House.

He didn’t make America great again. He made us a global laughing stock and put many lives in danger.

And this is just foreign policy we’re talking about. We still have no idea how he is manipulating domestic policy to benefit his own financial interests.

Finally, we’re going to get some incontrovertible truth not about some wild, right wing conspiracy theory but a simple case of bribery on an international scale with global repercussions and all fingers will point to Trump.

Before the election 2016, I and 65,000,000 other voters made up our minds based on what we observed that Trump was a walking talking disaster. He has exceeded our expectations. What makes me angry is it took us this long to force the other 62,000,000 to see it too.

My ears are deaf to all of the chest beating and cries of unfairness from the other side. They’ve been given a better process than the Republicans ever had during the Nixon hearings and they’ve got Fox News cheering them mindlessly. Let’s not forget that they’re busily violating voting rights around the country while simultaneously sitting on a bill that would tighten election security in 2020. They’re doing it because they don’t think the rest of us have any right to vote them out of power, electoral college or not.

In these hearings, we’re the good guys and we’ll try to create rules and make everyone follow them after what has been a lawless three years of government controlled by the other side that has snubbed its nose at any norm that wasn’t memorialized in the Constitution, and some that were.

They deserve a lot less mercy than they’re going to get even if, by some miracle, Trump gets impeached and the Republicans get burned in the 2020 elections. That is what makes me the angriest.

What to do in the meantime.

Preet Bharara made a good point the other day about our obsession with what has been going on in Washington in the last three years. The building anger can be exhausting. There are other things going on in your world. You don’t have to pump cortisol into your bloodstream 24/7. Find something else to do.

With Wednesday’s hearings coming upon us at breakneck speed, and the anticipation of wall to wall coverage by network and cable news, I’m taking some time to clear the politics out of my head.

In the past year, I’ve found a few things that help me relax. Here they are in no particular order:

1.) Japji Sahib, recited by Snatam Kaur. The Japji Sahib is a prayer from the beginning of the Sikh holy book, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The prayer is made up of pauris, or stanzas, that describe the nature of god. The language is Gurbani. I have read some English translations. If you’re into Spinoza, you’ll like this one. I used to queue this up on my iPhone during my chemo sessions. It goes especially well with benedryl. You will awaken very well rested.

2.) Any video by Li Ziqi. It has occurred to me that maybe these videos are all a big Chinese communist plot to seduce us with Chinese culture. Ok, I surrender. Li Ziqi is a lifestyle blogger from China who lives on a farm in the countryside with her grandmother. She cooks, she sews, she makes her own sinks out of stone and furniture out of bamboo. She even made her oven out of clay that she dug herself. She’s like Martha Stewart on steroids. Some of her creations take a year in planning. The videos are beautifully produced and edited. The visuals are stunning. Ten minutes of Li Ziqi will lower your blood pressure for the rest of the day. In Chinese with occasional English subtitles but dialog is unnecessary.

3.) Restored by the Fords is an HGTV design show featuring an eccentric pair of siblings, Leanne and Steve Ford. There are a couple of reasons why I love this show. The Fords restore homes in Pittsburgh. They’re natives, without the heavy Pittsburgh accent. (Though Steve does tend to pronounce “colors” as “kellers” like my Dad used to do.) Leanne is the designer. She’s got that weird look in her eyes like so many gifted people who see around corners. But it would be wrong to underestimate the contributions of her brother who has very practical and ingenious solutions to carry out Leanne’s crazy ideas. The dialog between them is definitely not cheery Fixer Upper style. The Fords are edgy and sardonic, almost uncomfortably so. But Leanne’s designs are breathtaking. She has a way of carving up rooms that is unnatural. Her style is minimal with a palette of black, cream and grey. But none of her interiors are cold. They’re soft and curated. Every item that goes in a room is a work of art and all of the materials shine. Bingeworthy.

4.) Audible. This isn’t an ad for audible. It’s just that you can get stuff done while you’re reading. It can be very relaxing.

5.) Vinyl. You never know what you’ll find in a box of old albums. Music is so, so good.

6.) My back yard. It’s beautiful, no matter the season.

How do you relax and take your mind off politics?

Ukrainian Rashomon

Philip Bump at WaPo constructs a narrative about the Ukrainian Bribery Scandal from the transcripts of the depositions from key players that have already been released.

This exchange from the depositions is interesting. This occurred on July 10 when Sondlund dropped the bomb to the NSC staff that there was a deal going on that if Ukraine would open investigations, Zelensky would get a meeting with Trump at the White House. This was in the presence of Ukrainian envoys of Zelensky:

SONDLAND: “There was a difference of opinion between [Perry’s chief of staff] Brian McCormack, Secretary Perry, Volker, myself, Vindman, and Fiona. Everyone sort of had a different take on it. And it was sort of a, you know, typical discussion where not everyone is in 100 percent agreement. We were sort of going back and forth.”

HILL: “I said: Look, we cannot discuss this in front of our colleagues. You know, we have to talk about, you know, the details of this.”

“And he said: Okay, okay, I get it. And he asked the Ukrainians to basically leave the room. So they basically moved out into the corridor. …”

“When he pushed them also out of [the Ward Room], they were basically standing in a space between the Navy Mess and the White House [Situation] Room. So this was an awkward setup, to say the least. So I also expressed those concerns to John, that then foreign nationals, you know, are just standing around in the corridor outside the Ward Room by the doors into the Sit Room.”

SONDLAND: “It was a typical policy discussion where people disagree on policy.”

HILL: “I said: Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but Ambassador Bolton wants to make it very clear that we have to talk about, you know, how are we going to set up this meeting. It has to go through proper procedures.”

SONDLAND: “I don’t remember anybody being upset, dismayed, alarmed, concerned at any point in this whole — in this whole process about — about the July 10th meeting.”

Just 5 minutes before this exchange, the NSC staff realized it had no idea what Trump, Mulvaney and Sondland were doing behind its backs.

I repeat, the NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL was completely blind sided by the what was going on between the US and Ukraine.

Who needs a book by Anonymous when you can read what chaos one clueless Trump donor turned Ambassador to the EU can cause to put national security at risk?