Other Voices Weigh In On The Impeachment Hearings

Left: Devin Nunes, GOP Counsel Stephen Castor and Jim Jordan confer on first day of impeachment hearings. Right: Marie Yovonavitch enters the House Chamber to testify.

Below please find other voices, bloggers sounding off about this week's hearings:

Donald Trump | Impeachment | Nancy Pelosi | Ukraine

Nancy Pelosi Subtly Mocks Trump — and Sends a Big Hint about a Likely Article of Impeachment

Excerpt:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly pounded home on Thursday the idea that “bribery” is a central charge in the impeachment inquiry surrounding President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal during a briefing with reporters.

“The devastating testimony [on Wednesday] corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry and that the president abused power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival,” she said of the previous day’s pubic hearing. “A clear attempt of the president to give himself the advantage in the 2020 election. Doing so, as I’ve said to the president, jeopardized our national security, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our electoral system.”

She emphasized that “bribery” is listed in the Constitution as one of the two named impeachable offenses.

Donald Trump | Ukraine

Ambassador Yovanovitch, Once a Trump Target, May Become His Nightmare

by William Rivers Pitt | November 15, 2019 - 6:09am | 

Excerpt:

Read the transcript! The phone call was perfect! No quid pro quo!

This has been the deeply misleading and self-serving refrain of Donald Trump and his defenders regarding the now-infamous July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. In deploying this line of nonsense, they seek to convince all who might listen that the July 25 call is the only element of the scandal engulfing the White House.

On Friday, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will have a golden opportunity to put that brazen misrepresentation to bed once and for all. For Yovanovitch, the story of Trump’s Ukraine extortion scheme did not begin when story first broke several weeks ago. It began for her at the end of last year, when she found out that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was taking an active interest in Ukraine, and in her.....

Marie Yovanovitch’s career-spanning professional integrity stood as an impediment to these intentions. If Giuliani was to effectively execute the plan to dragoon Ukraine into doing Trump’s political bidding, it was understood that an individual of Yovanovitch’s reputation would not stand for it. She had to be removed from the board … and so the whispers began....

Was Yovanovitch directly involved in the July 25 phone call, or in any aspect of Trump’s extortion scheme against the government in Ukraine? The answer is a definitive “no.” Yovanovitch, however, is living proof that Trump and his allies were up to some profoundly underhanded shenanigans many long months before that July 25 call, and those shenanigans not only cost Yovanovitch her post, but left her feeling that her own personal safety was in jeopardy

Impeachment | Media | Republicans

Impeachment Hearings Confirm Republican Party Is Detached from Reality. What Does the Press Do Now?

Eric Boehlert

Excerpt:

Republicans proudly advertised their radical ways during Wednesday's impeachment hearings into Donald Trump, wallowing in conspiracies and embracing debunked claims. The question now: How does the Beltway media cover a party that has aggressively removed itself from reality? How does the news business describe and treat a political party that routinely echoes the most unbelievable claims from Fox News and the darkest corners of the right-wing media?

The truth is, this is a decadeslong game of dare that Republicans have been playing with the press, as members of the party uniformly become more radical and more antidemocratic, and basically challenge the press to call them out, knowing full well it won't happen. That's because the Beltway press basically revolves around the central idea that there are two major competing parties in this country and that they are mirror opposites of each other. Republicans are just as conservative as Democrats are liberal. 

Republicans are just as serious as Democrats are. Republicans are just as fact-based and honorable as Democrats are. That false equivalency drives political coverage in this country, and has for decades.

Why this obsession? Because to concede that one party operates under a radically different set of guidelines (or no guidelines at all, in the case of the GOP), journalists have to do two things. They have to defend themselves against allegations of "liberal media bias," and they have to throw out the old, dependable rule book that allowed the press to lazily suggest that Republicans and Democrats function on the same plane, and therefore had to be treated similarly. 

Cody Fenwick

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Donald Trump | Impeachment | Ukraine

Here Are 5 Stunning Details from New Witness Testimony about Trump’s Damning Phone Call

Excerpt:

New testimony from State Department employee David Holmes given to the House Intelligence Committee on Friday in closed session confirmed a previous revelation that he had overheard President Donald Trump on a phone call discussing Ukrainian investigations, CNN reported.

Here are five stunning details about Holmes’ opening testimony, as revealed by CNN:

1. “Loves your ass”

Sondland reportedly told Trump that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “loves your ass” — a sign of just how self-obsessed the president is and how he expects those around him to be sycophantic.

2. “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?”

“So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Trump then reportedly asked Sondland. Sondland replied “He’s gonna do it” and that Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to,” according to the CNN report.

This ties Trump directly to Sondland’s work pushing for the investigations in Ukraine. Existing evidence already showed that Trump was deeply involved in the effort, but Republicans have nevertheless tried to raise doubts about this claim. This testimony seems to undercut that argument even more.

3.”Give a shit about Ukraine”

CNN reported:

Holmes also confirmed Taylor’s testimony about the President’s thoughts on Ukraine, saying he asked Sondland “if it was true that the President did not ‘give a shit about Ukraine.’”
Holmes said Sondland responded Trump only cares about “big stuff.”

4. “The Bidens investigations”

In response to a question from Holmes, Sondland reportedly said that the “big stuff” was stuff that benefits Trump, “like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.”

This testimony is bad for both Sondland and Trump. Sondland previously testified that he didn’t realize the investigations he was pushing for in Ukraine would have involved the Bidens, which these claims seem to contradict. And it also bolsters the already strong case that Trump had no interest in corruption in Ukraine, as his defenders claim, but only in taking down a potential political opponent.

5. “I could hear the president’s voice through the earpiece of the phone.”

Holmes reportedly said he didn’t take notes on the conversation, but he remembered it clearly. And he also reported that Trump’s voice on the phone call was so loud he could hear what the president said, even though it wasn’t on speakerphone — which raises even more questions about the operational security of the call, which is already highly dubious.

Watch CNN’s Manu Raju report on the testimony:

Joan McCarter

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Donald Trump | Ukraine

New Witness Says Loudmouth Trump Asked about Zelensky, 'So, He's Gonna Do the Investigation?'

Excerpt:

David Holmes, a career foreign service officer serving in Ukraine, told a congressional panel behind closed doors that he was present when Donald Trump spoke on the phone with U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland about Sondland’s efforts to make Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky announce an investigation to Hunter Biden. Holmes opening statement, obtained by CNN, discloses that there are as many as three other witnesses to the call.

Sondland, Holmes and a few others were at a restaurant in Kyiv when the ambassador made the call to Trump. Trump apparently spoke so loudly that Sondland held the phone away from his ear and Holmes, and presumably the others, heard the conversation. In the call, Sondland told Trump that President Zelensky “loves your ass.”

Adam Schiff & House Dems Must Ensure Impeachment Hearings Don't Descend Into A Circus

The main Reepo  ape,  Jim Jordan, left  - already under investigation for his role in ignoring Ohio State students' complaints of sexual attacks,  has been appointed to disrupt the impeachment hearings. This cannot be allowed.

"Republicans appointing Jordan to the Intel committee signals that they will not fight this on the facts.  They'll not fight other than rhetorically, using demonization of these witnesses, trying to impugn their character and their motives.  This is to be a political fire fight and they are bringing in one of their political fire fighters with a rhetorical flame thrower."  - John Heilemann last night on 'Last Word'

"What we will hear from Republicans is not an argument about the facts or about the Founders' view of impeachment. It will be geared towards a Republican reelection strategy in 2020.  This grievance politics that Republicans are victims. This will be about keeping their base and ensuring there's no erosion of Republican voters."  - David Jolly last night on 'Last Word'

Let us accept as a proposition the Trump ass lickers and enablers - also known as House Republicans - have nothing to offer in the way of the impeachment hearings. Nothing other than to try to trot out their usual half-baked conspiracy theories about the Bidens in Ukraine and trying to out the whistle blower.  At the top of this classless, nefarious bunch of reprobates is Jim Jordan, already facing new accusations he ignored warnings of sexual transgressions at Ohio State. But what would you expect of this toadie ape? Well, what you'd expect of all the Trumpie -serving cabal? Subservience and sycophancy to their master and the total absence of any moral center or compass.

That is why Jordan has been appointed as top disruptor for the impeachment public hearings,  to try to turn them into a clown show or circus.  As long as a week ago, Axios and other sources reported that Republicans formally made Rep. Jim Jordan a member of the House Intelligence Committee, a move that will allow him  to lead the party's specious PR  "defender" of Trump during public impeachment hearings tomorrow.

In case you're wondering why I employ scare quotes, it's because there is no genuine defense possible at all. Dotard the traitor committed impeachable offenses out in the open and even openly admitted to them in his released transcript.   This was by way of his extortion- shakedown of the Ukrainian president , Volodymyr Zelensky. 

As former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal wrote in a TIME essay ('The Case For Impeachment', Nov. 18, p. 39 ):

"If  Trump's efforts to coerce Ukraine into interfering with American democracy had stayed a secret until the 2020 election - if a whistle blower hadn't spoken out - we would have fundamentally, perhaps irrevocably, lost faith in the legitimacy of our republic. 

That is why there is no choice but to impeach and remove Trump: because he was willing to undermine our democracy to help his prospects of re-election; because he has stated unapologetically that he wold do it again; and most important, because he wielded the powers of his office for personal benefit instead of for the benefit of the people."


So, no, Jordan's alleged defense  will merely be a side show of distractions, non sequitur fake arguments and misdirection.  Basically,a spiel of spurious claims designed to  try to get Americans (any who watch the hearings) to take their eye off the ball of Trump the traitor's guilt.   Jordan's mission then is not to be a fair arbiter and questioner- but rather one of sabotage - to undermine our democracy and the constitutional process as badly as Trump has.

We know he will also try to resort to the usual bullshit  process arguments, i.e. that the Dems holding the witness depositions in secret makes them "illegitimate" and "unconstitutional"..  Never mind these were the actual rules drawn up by the Repukes themselves in 2015.  But since these maggots lack any sense of irony, and are stoked with hypocrisy on steroids, they believe they can get away with this codswallop.

While it's true Jordan is basically a clown primed for disruption, it is also true, as Axios notes:

• Jordan has quickly become House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff's counterpart as the face of Republicans' defense so far. Unlike Devin Nunes, Jordan has been present at every deposition, according to transcripts he has already actively participated in questioning witnesses, and is among the first to speak in front of the cameras when the committees emerge from closed-door hearings.
• Jordan’s general counsel Steve Castor is now shared staff with the House Intelligence Committee, and will be leading the 45 minutes of staff questions Republicans get next week during public hearings..

Let me quickly point out here that the actual ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is Devin Nunes, not Jordan.  In other words, the proper GOP role in these impeachment hearings ought to have gone to Nunes. So why isn't he involved in that role, allowing Jordan (a refugee from the House Oversight and Reform committee) to supersede him?

A key clue here is that to snatch 'brownie points'  Jordan appeared  on “Fox & Friends” last Tuesday, when he bellowed: “I want to help the country see the truth here, that President Trump didn’t do anything wrong. And what the Democrats are doing is partisan, it’s unfair and frankly, it’s ridiculous.”

Nunes, meanwhile, has been up to his eyeballs trying to tamp down a farcical clown show that erupted after he filed a   $250 million lawsuit against Twitter for allowing two fake accounts: Devin Nunes' Cow and Devin Nunes' Mom.   Rather than seeing the accounts as  raw forms of humor and free speech, Nunes lost it and pressed ahead despite being lampooned  across social media for taking them so seriously.  In effect, he  filed the lawsuit against the social media company and three individual users in Virginia state court in March, and is seeking a quarter billion in damages for defamation.

Also, in effect, Nunes showed himself to be too much damaged goods to lead any impeachment charge against  Adam Schiiff, or the star witnesses (e.g. William Taylor), or the other House Dems on the Intel committee overseeing the hearings.

When you watch the hearings tomorrow pay attention to the distracting diversions Jordan will attempt to use in trying to turn the proceedings into a sham investigation into Hunter Biden and the whistle blower.  An 18-page memo on "strategy" disclosed on CBS this morning exposes the balderdash these imps will try to use to snooker the American public - hoping its critical thinking skills don't pass muster. This includes:

1) The evidence does not prove that Trump "pressured Ukraine, covered up misconduct or obstructed justice".

2) The evidence only shows Trump was interested in combating legitimate corruption in the Ukraine, a "concern that stemmed from his deep seated, reasonable and genuine skepticism about the country."

All of which is irrelevant claptrap, of course. Indeed, no 'quid pro quo' is really required for the impeachable offense, only the solicitation - which Trump clearly did. As Lawrence O'Donnell observed last night it might be best for the Dems to drop the quid pro quo emphasis entirely as an unnecessary euphemism (apart from which those 3 Latin words are merely obscuring more than they're saying, according to many political commenters, e.g. David  Jolly last night on O'Donnell's program)  Bear in mind the simpler the case made the easier it will be to get the majority of citizens on board, to impeach and remove Trump.

In any case,  as CBS' reporter on the issue - Nancy Cortes- even noted after dispensing these two gems:

"However, according to the testimony of two diplomatic aides released on Monday, the president actually bought into some conspiracy theories about Ukraine, insisting at one White House meeting that Ukraine tried to take him down. One aide said they worried that if these theories- pushed by Giuliani - took hold, i.e. that the Ukrainian government was an enemy of Trump, it would be very hard to have high level engagement with that country."

Adding:

"Another diplomatic aide, Catherine Croft, testified it was Mick Mulvaney - the acting White House chief of staff, who placed the temporary hold on Ukraine military aid this summer at the direction of the president, just before the president's July phone call with the president of the Ukraine- where he told him he 'wanted him to do him a favor, though'. 

And in the first testimony by a military  official, Laura Cooper - the assistance Secretary of Defense, testified that even the Pentagon was in the dark about why this aid was being held up. She said her understanding was the Ukrainians did know the aid was being held up this summer. And that's important because it runs counter to the GOP argument that the president couldn't have been pressuring the Ukrainians to investigate Biden because they didn't even know that their aid had been held up."

So in other words, all we're going to get from Jordan and the House Reeps are lies, subterfuge and smokescreens, to try to protect the Traitor - in -chief.

The job of Adam Schiff is to play the role of referee and ensure: a) nothing that doesn't pass the basic facts smell test is allowed at any time, say to distract viewers from the core issue of Trump's extortion, and b) firm control is kept over the whole proceedings to make sure it doesn't devolve into a circus side show. If that means   - after the nth Reeptard irrelevant "point of order" -  sending in the Sergeant-at-arms to frog march Jordan and his imps out, so be it.

  This is particularly critical as more and more media buy into the false narrative pumped by FOX News, Dotard and his GOP quislings and enablers.  (See last link below).  The sad fact is the corporate media are in over their head in covering most of what the GOP and Trump cabal are up to. In particular, my main beef is allotting their talking points way too much air play and credibility - as opposed to dismissing them as the irrelevant malarkey they are.  The result is saddling too many  fellow citizens with skewed perceptions.

See also:

Donald Trump | Ukraine

New Testimony Adds 2 Stunning and Previously Unknown Details about the Ukraine Quid pro Quo

by Cody Fenwick | November 12, 2019 - 7:55am |

And: 

Bill Blum

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Donald Trump | Impeachment

Think Capone When It Comes to Trump’s Impeachment

And:

Donald Trump | Impeachment

Trump Is Controlling the Narrative On Impeachment

By November 22nd 5th Circuit Will Rule On Whether Minority Groups Still Have Health Care - And 'Denial of Care' Rule

The news ( Church & State,  November, p. 6)  that emergency and other medical services may not be available for a number of minority groups in this country did not come as a total surprise.

As an earlier Denver Post piece observed (Sept. 5, p. 6A) )  the prime culprit is the Trump administration's recent imposition of "religious freedom"  edicts embodied in its 'Denial Of Care Rule' for medical providers. Below an excerpt from the piece:



 As I noted in an earlier (Aug. 1) post:

An ambulance driver could refuse to transport a woman with an ectopic pregnancy

- A receptionist could turn an interfaith couple away seeking fertility treatment

- A nurse could withdraw information about HIV treatment

- A paramedic could refuse to help a woman who's fallen in her home because she's Jewish


Each of the above scenarios is possible under the Trump Administration's new 'Denial Of Care Rule', public health advocates warn.   Other potential denials not listed in the piece but fully consistent with a denial policy include:

- A young woman suffering from endometriosis denied artificial contraception meds which could rectify and ameliorate her condition.

- A prostate cancer patient -  say who's an atheist or homeless (or both) - could be deprived of hormone therapies (e.g. via meds, drugs like Lupron, Casodex - which are expensive) and be forced to undergo orchiectomy instead. (Full physical castration).


  According to Americans' United President and CEO Rachel Laser quoted in the August issue of  Church & State,:

"This is the Trump administration's most dangerous attempt yet to weaponize religious freedom, and we won't stand for it."

Adding:

"It is clear that women, LGBTQ people and religious minorities are the intended targets, but it doesn't stop there. The rule is so broad that everyone - including sick children, pregnant women and senior citizens - is at risk."


So no surprise the Trumpie maggots would also extend this specious "religious freedom" balderdash to emergency services as well.  The clock is running and whether we enter a nightmare scenario for millions of patients and caregivers will hinge on a ruling by federal judges - which may go into effect on November 22nd.  

As noted in the most recent (Nov.)  issue of Church & State,  "This invites virtually any health care worker - including doctors, nurses, paramedics, orderlies, and receptionists to deny care to any patient on the basis of the worker's religious or moral beliefs."

The Trumpie scum try to pretend this degenerate rule offers "religious freedom" - but it is a freedom purchased at the expense of others' suffering and denial of access to healthcare- including emergency care that might be life saving.  As the article goes on:

"Anyone can be denied care, even if life-threatening circumstances, because of who they are or what medical care they are seeking: women, LGBTQ people, patients with AIDS or HIV and religious minorities such as atheists".

Let me go on to point out that the threat of loss of funding for non -compliance extends to the health facilities themselves.  Hence, "facilities could feel forced to stop providing certain services like reproductive and LGBTQ-focused care- which is the ultimate goal of Trump and his base of religious extremists".

Why do this? Because they are vermin:  human cockroaches without an ounce of compassion,  genuine moral insight or respect for the nation's Constitution. Indeed, only such a pack of human hyena hybrids would use their religion as a cudgel to "debilitate health systems across the country leaving millions without access to critical health care."

DO they care if these millions of immigrant kids atheists, women or LGBTQ people perish from their untreated conditions?  Well, no, because they are little better than rats and roaches devoid of actual moral centers.  They would have to be to aggressively deny care to millions,  putting them and the larger society at risk, say of an unanticipated outbreak - perhaps of a more virulent  flu strain, or an antibiotic resistant STD.  This is, fortunately, why an alliance of plaintiffs are ready to press and challenge this ruling all the way to the Supreme Court if need be. After all, many medical professionals themselves point to the core ethical edict guiding their profession: "First do no harm".

But that edict cannot be followed if critical medical care, say for an AIDS,  flu or dengue fever patient, is denied.

As observed by Naseema Shafi, chief executive officer of Whitman-Walker clinic, quoted in the article:

"The Denial of Care message that healthcare providers cold be legally entitled to refuse or restrict care, based on their personal religious or moral beliefs, flies in the face of the standards and ethics of every health care profession, and would sow confusion and undermine the entire healthcare system."

And that is putting it mildly.  I suspect it could lead to a partial collapse of the health care system because I estimate over 45 million citizens would be affected, many of whom (e.g. seniors, women) already have insurance.  This possibility arose months ago in a WSJ piece,  'Court Signals Peril For Health Law', WSJ,  p. A4, July 10) wherein we learned:
"This is a case that could cause millions of Americans to lose health coverage and have deep political implications next year." 

The final verdict will depend on the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans.  It has expressed  "skepticism' that the ACA is constitutional - which will almost certainly send the case before them to the Supreme Court.   In many respects this ought to claim as much attention as the coming impeachment public hearings, given the potential impact on millions.

But will it?  We will have to wait and see if Americans' attention range can extend that far. Already some pundits (MSNBC, Stephanie Ruhle show this a.m.)   insist it may be too much of an 'ask' for most to grasp the case concerning Trump's attempted extortion of the Ukrainian president , Volodymyr Zelensky.   If this is so it means the Reepo rats may be able to get enough of the public to buy into their  specious arguments, i.e. that Trump committed no impeachable offense.  If they can achieve that they may also be able to convince enough people that eviscerating their health care on the basis of  satisfying others'  'religious freedom' is totally constitutional.

That is how far we've possibly descended  into the abyss thanks to three years exposed to the Trump toxic meme (tweet)  factory.