I don't intend to watch because I fully expect the GOP to do everything/anything to create a circus ~

BUCKLE UP, folks!

Sooz

Might as well use up the surplus of clowns.

A blistering commentary ~ ~ Jim Jordan has proven himself to be the quintessential guardian for GOP malfeasance ~ Sooz

‘NEW FOLKS’
Impeachment Will Come Down to These Two
One is a decorated combat veteran. The other was called an “idiot” by his own political ally.
Margaret Carlson / Updated 11.13.19 7:26AM ET / Published 11.13.19 4:32AM ET

As open impeachment hearings begin Wednesday, don’t lose sight of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a patriot, and Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican.

As Jordan is on the rise, newly elevated to the Intelligence Committee for his well-earned reputation as a partisan attack dog, Vindman, the Ukraine expert who actually sat in on the call in which Trump tried to bribe that country’s president into doing his dirty political work in exchange for the release of $400 million in military aid, is in trouble and likely to be relieved of his duties at the NSC as a thank-you for his service.

That’s what the fourth NSC director in three years, rookie Robert O’Brien, blurted out when Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan asked if the top expert on Ukraine would continue in his post. “My understanding is he, that Colonel Vindman, is detailed from the Department of Defense, so everyone who’s detailed at the NSC, people are going to start going back to their own departments and we’ll bring in new folks,” O'Brien said.

I bet you will. Trump has a long history of ridding himself of people who follow the rule of law rather than his rules. The New York Times reported Tuesday that he discussed firing his appointee, Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General for the intelligence agencies, for declaring the whistle-blower complaint about Ukraine credible and sending it to the Justice Department rather than killing it immediately.

And Trump already announced his intention to attack Vindman as a partisan hack after the wounded combat veteran with a Purple Heart voluntarily came for his deposition two weeks ago dressed in full uniform and was escorted inside by Capitol Police acting as an honor guard. In his opening statement, Vindman testified that he reported his concerns about the call up the chain of command until he ran into a political appointee who told him never to speak of it again and stashed the full transcript in an inaccessible top secret server. When Trump was asked for evidence to back up his claim that Vindman was a Never Trumper who hated him, he said, “We’ll be showing that to you real soon.”

That’s where Jordan comes in. If you can’t fight on the facts, you attack the character of witnesses—which he proved himself a champ at during the Benghazi hearings. Jordan’s uniform is shirtsleeves, to signify working-man cred and that he’ll take the fight outside if you don’t shut up and let him talk. He was part of the unruly group of Trumpist wingnuts who, before the open hearings began, stormed a basement Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, sending videos from the facility where no phones or recording devices are allowed, to falsely complain that Republicans had been kept out when a couple dozen, including Jordan, drawn from various other committees, were actually sitting on the combined committee. He paid no price for the subterfuge. Now, he is on the official impeachment committee in the latest reminder that no bad deed goes unpunished in Trumpland.

Jordan is the kind of person even his erstwhile allies don’t like. In a Politico article in 2017, the retired former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, said that Jordan “ is an idiot. I can’t tell you what makes him tick," adding for good measure that he’s also “an asshole” as he decried what was happening to his party. In 2018, Jordan campaigned to be House Minority Leader, but lost his bid to California Republican Kevin McCarthy 159–43, the 43 mostly from other firebrands in the Freedom Caucus. That was better than his showing in the speaker’s race in the 114th Congress, when he got two votes.

All which makes Jordan the perfect person to assail the character of others without shame. His promotion comes just as a new lawsuit revives charges that when he was the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University from 1987 to 1995, he ignored pleas from his wrestlers to do something about the team physician, Dr. Richard Strauss. Strauss was to OSU wrestlers as Dr. Larry Nassar was to the University of Michigan gymnasts, using his position to abuse 177 students according to the university’s investigation released last spring. At least eight wrestlers complained, some asking Jordan to protect them from his “extensive groin examinations” and his over-frequent use of the showers. In the latest suit, the referee says he told Jordan that Strauss had just masturbated in front of him while showering and Jordan responded, “‘Yeah, yeah, sounds like Strauss.” You can hear the towel snapping. Jordan denies all the charges against him—a claim that another wrestler, Mike DiSabato, told the Dayton Daily News is “beyond comprehension” given what he and others have said transpired. Jordan says the complaints all come from athletes who grew up to be political partisans or have a “vendetta” against him.

Now Jordan finds himself working alongside another man of questionable character, summoned to impeach witnesses of unimpeachable character. Vindman is one of the parade of career military and civil servants including acting Ambassador William Taylor, George Kent, Fiona Hill and Laura Cooper who will testify that Trump’s so called “perfect” call diminished our national security and enhanced Russia’s.

Democrats will be susceptible to Jordan’s firefights because there is actually little on the merits to argue over. There’s no whodunit here. Trump did it, from the Oval Office with a phone, thereby admitting everything. By releasing the summary of the call—not the full transcript, mind you, which is undoubtedly worse—it’s almost as if Nixon immediately went out to the South Lawn after the break-in at Democratic headquarters, said he ordered it and released a summary of the tapes showing it.

On Monday, the White House tried to clarify O’Brien’s answer about removing the “bloat” in the White House, knowing how bad it would look to be exiling a decorated veteran like Vindman on Veteran’s Day. But like acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s effort to take it back after proudly declaring on camera that of course there'd been a quid pro quo on Trump’s call, do-overs don’t work. Get over it.

Jordan and his team intend to treat Vindman as if the servant and patriot is a fixer and crook like Michael Cohen, trying to stay out of jail by ratting on the boss. They want to put the motive of the witnesses on trial, instead of the actions of Trump. May the better team win.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/alexander-vindman-and-jim-jordan-are-the-faces-of-the-impeachment-fight?ref=home

Nunes does NOT belong on any committee with the word "intelligence" in its title ~ ~ for those of us purists, the WaPo analysis is live-linked below ~ Sooz

Devin Nunes’ Trump defense fails to include much of a Trump defense
11/13/19 02:24 PM—Updated 11/13/19 02:26 PM
By Steve Benen

As the first public impeachment hearing got underway on Capitol Hill this morning, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) began the proceedings with a high degree of sobriety and seriousness. The California Democrat seemed eager to acknowledge the historical weight of the circumstances, which are rarely seen in the American tradition.

And when he was finished with his opening remarks, it was Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-Calif.) turn.

When we last heard from the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, the GOP lawmaker unironically criticizing Donald Trump’s Democratic critics of acting “like a cult,” relying on “defamation and slander,” and bouncing “from one outlandish conspiracy to another.”

This morning, as a Washington Post analysis noted, Nunes continued down the same unfortunate path.


I imagine many Americans watching were confused, and understandably so. The far-right lawmaker’s opening remarks should’ve been accompanied by some kind of cipher to help those unfamiliar with conservative media conspiracy theories unravel what in the world he was talking about.

The Post’s analysis went point by point, highlighting the Republican’s errors of fact and judgment, but what Nunes failed to even try to do was mount a credible argument about Trump’s innocence.

Nunes’ defense of the president, in other words, largely neglected to include any meaningful defense of the president.

As Jon Chait added, “As the state-of-the-art Trumpist of the party’s congressional wing, Nunes’s opening statement reveals the best case they have been able to muster for his defense. As a matter of substance, it is almost nonexistent.”

So why bother? Why go through unrelated conspiracy theories, process complaints, and easy-to-discredit allegations? It’s likely that part of the message was intended to make the Television Viewer in Chief down the street happy: Trump revels in the kind of conspiracy theories that Nunes is only too eager to share, and it’s hardly a stretch to think the president and his followers were the congressman’s intended audience.

Nunes could’ve focused on persuading the public at large, but he chose instead to pursue the latest in a series of base-mobilization strategies. It was as if the goal had nothing to do with winning over on-the-fence voters, and everything to do with getting a Trump retweet.

That, naturally, came soon after, with the president retweeting this item from House Minority Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

But the other part of the equation is arguably more important: the fact that Nunes’ pitch made little effort to defend Trump on the substance was likely because defending Trump on the substance is nearly impossible.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/devin-nunes-trump-defense-fails-include-much-trump-defense#break

Jordan and Nunes are quite the duo ~ ~ Sooz

Here are 5 wild moments from the House’s first public impeachment hearing
Published on November 13, 2019 / By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

The impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump entered a new phase on Wednesday morning, when the first public testimony was presented. The two witnesses presented were Ambassador William B. Taylor (who had been in charge of Ukraine-related matters under the Trump Administration) and U.S. State Department diplomat George P. Kent (deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs). And while House Republicans aggressively defended Trump during Taylor and Kent’s testimony, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and other Democrats used Taylor and Kent’s testimony to show why Trump deserves impeachment.

Here are some of the wildest moments from the first public hearing in the Trump impeachment inquiry.

1. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) doubled down on bogus Crowdstrike conspiracy theory

Rep. Devin Nunes has not been shy about promoting the conspiracy theory known as Crowdstrike, which claims that interference in the 2016 presidential election came not from the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin, but from the Ukrainian government. And Nunes continued to promote that discredited theory when questioning Taylor. Nunes, more than once, mentioned “Ukrainian election meddling.” But when Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman asked Kent if there was any credible evidence that Ukraine’s government interfered in the 2016 election, Kent responded, “To my knowledge, there’s no factual basis.”

2. Taylor’s testimony demonstrated that a quid pro quo did, in fact, occur

One of House Democrats’ arguments in favor of impeachment is that when Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, there was a “quid pro quo”: an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in exchange for military aid. Trump supporters have denied that there was any type of “quid pro quo” on July 25, but Taylor testified that military aid to Ukraine had been frozen and that aid was “conditioned on the investigations.”

3. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded that Schiff tell him the whistleblower’s identity

During his pro-Trump grandstanding on Wednesday morning, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio complained that it was unfair that House Republicans do not known the identity of the Ukraine whistleblower who made a complaint about Trump’s July 25 conversation with Zelensky. Schiff, Jordan asserted, has an unfair advantage because he knows who the whistleblower is and House Republicans don’t. But Schiff set Jordan straight, telling the far-right Republican congressman, “that is a false statement. I do not know the identity of the whistleblower.”

4. Nunes insisted that Democrats manufactured Ukraine scandal following ‘Russian hoax’

During the hearing, Nunes not only railed against the impeachment hearing but also, the Russia investigation led by former special C\counsel Robert Mueller. Nunes claimed that after Democrats failed with the “Russia hoax,” they needed a new “hoax” — and Ukraine became that “hoax.” As part of the “impeachment sham,” Nunes asserted, Democrats falsely claimed that Trump “committed a terrible crime” on July 25. Nunes insisted that Trump never asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, but Taylor’s testimony did show that Trump and his allies were seeking “investigations” and that Trump mentioned “Crowdstrike” when speaking to Zelensky.

5. Schiff stresses that the identity of the whistleblower must be protected

Schiff was not swayed at all by Jordan’s assertions that House Republicans deserve to know who the whistleblower is. The House Intelligence chairman remained firm, asserting, “We will not permit the outing of the whistleblower.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/11/here-are-5-wild-moments-in-the-houses-first-public-impeachment-hearing/

Trump’s Impeachment Hearings Aren’t Going Well...If You’re Trump
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

Maybe they are three years late, but the impeachment hearings are finally happening! One thing we already know for sure is that the president is definitely, absolutely not watching them even though he tweeted about them the entire time. Republicans fell apart as Ambassador Taylor’s testimony directly incriminated Trump. Buckle up. It’s going to be a long, weird ride.

https://www.facebook.com/fullfrontalsam ... live_video

Another blistering commentary ~ don't forget that Rick Wilson was a GOPer before the DiC's reign of terror onset ~ ~ Sooz

NO DICE
All the President’s Fools Couldn’t Put Trump’s ‘Perfect Call’ Together Again
Wednesday’s impeachment hearing was a contest of gravitas that the skells, sycophants, and dead-end goons on the committee were bound to lose—and did.
Rick Wilson, Editor-at-Large / Opinion / Updated 11.14.19 2:16AM ET / Published 11.13.19 11:46PM ET

Wednesday’s opening act of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump was only going to end one way for Trump and his defenders, and that was badly.

In the face of two credible, non-partisan witnesses of unimpeachable character and service, the Trump House Clown Caucus brought their A-game, and instead of changing the dialogue and owning the libs they managed to validate the witnesses, embarrass themselves, and doubtlessly enrage the Audience of One.

You could practically hear him screaming all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue as his allies’ carefully constructed tower of bullshit collapsed under the matter-of-fact, up-the-middle baritone recitation of his plan from men who lived through the Ukraine scandal.

Trump relied on his shriveled, impotent House caucus to destroy Taylor and Kent, and the unfocused, pathetic performances his mooks put on must have left The Donald tearing his wig out. Even the late addition to the committee of wrestling coach Jim Jordan couldn’t overcome the damage two grey men did to the story of the perfect call.

Even in Trump’s empire of lies, reality sometimes penetrates.

On just the first day of impeachment hearings, the fantasy that the Republicans on the committee, led by the comically incompetent Devin Nunes, would shift the public dialogue from Trump’s overt corruption to Biden, Burisma, and loco conspiracy theories was utterly detonated. The idea that the Republicans would make the hearing about the original whistleblower was also shattered.

Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, two experienced government hands, played their roles to perfection. In particular, Taylor's bravura 41-minute statement was a riveting tick-tock of the why, when and how of Trump's attempt to corruptly abuse American power to gain domestic political advantage. Taylor deftly drew a binding timeline that showed the role Rudy Giuliani and Trump catspaw Gordon Sondland played in trying to suborn the cooperation of Ukraine’s new government into a false investigation of Joe Biden. George Kent’s knowledge of Ukraine, its politics, and the damage Trump’s efforts wrought was as granular as it was damning.

It was a contest of gravitas that Trump’s skells, sycophants, and dead-end goons on the committee were bound to lose—and did. Jordan, Nunes, and the rest were so overmatched by Taylor and Kent that it was almost laughable.

Jordan, as always, was without a jacket, an appropriately knotted necktie, or a clue. His gotchas didn’t get anything, his predicates were as thin as his combover, and his belief that he’d save the day by talking louder and faster was a flop. He was rattling off “questions” so fast that he sounded like an auctioneer who had discovered the joy of cocaine. That fact that other members of the committee kept throwing their remaining question time to Jordan was a sign not of confidence in him, but of their own desires to punch their questions out and resume hiding.

The man Trump once wanted to be the head of the entire United States intelligence community, Rep. John Ratcliffe, tried to display some of his former federal prosecutor chops but was largely shut down by Chairman Adam Schiff.

Nunes, a man no one confuses as a person with a first-, second-, or even third-class intellect, was so out of his depth and so uncomfortable that it was painful to watch. He gamely slogged on about Ukraine being the source of the 2016 election interference—a conspiracy so discredited that even Trump’s most fervent allies can’t deliver it with a straight face. Then again, Nunes is presently litigating against a parody internet account featuring a fake cow.

Schiff ran the show with unexpected skill, swatting down any number of dilatory, small-ball distraction plays brought by the Trump Clown Car Caucus and keeping the witnesses filling the record with a flood of damning testimony.

The Democrats and Wednesday’s witnesses were playing for the country, for history, and for the coming Senate trial. They had the advantage of the truth on their side. Day One was a flood of additional evidence that Trump was using the Ukraine situation for his own political gain, and as Schiff said, “If this isn’t impeachable, what is?”

Trump and the committee Republicans knew from the jump that Taylor and Kent would be a problem. They knew deep down that no matter how many hours Hannity bellows at the camera, no matter how many articles from his apologists flood the Trump-friendly conservative blogs, and no matter how many times Trump tweets that the witnesses testifying against him are Never Trumpers, Taylor and Kent are better men. He was listening to men with no skin in the political outcome, and thus, men who were the most dangerous kind of truth-tellers.

Which is why the Republicans can barely restrain themselves from saying the name of the whistleblower. One Hill source told me this morning that there's a likelihood the name will be brought forward by Jordan or one of the other loose-cannon types, and though it's so widely known, the deliberate strategy will be to force the Republicans favorite obsession into the mainstream media. If the media doesn't say the name, they'll scream “cover-up!” If the media does cover the name they will claim the entire hearing is invalid on a wrongheaded but loud fruit-of-the-poison-tree argument.

In the meantime, one element of the Republican show on Day One was the constant repetition of the so-called hearsay defense. In the mayfly world of the Trump GOP, they act as if tomorrow will never come, and Gordon Sondland will never testify. They seem to believe that executive privilege will never be broken or the testimony of others ordered. Democrats need to emphasize that the hearsay question could be easily resolved by letting White House and State Department personnel testify.

The weak link is, of course, Gordon Sondland, who was Trump’s do-boy in Ukraine. He spoke directly to the president, repeatedly. We will discover soon enough the contents of those direct conversations with Trump, including the cover-up call in which Trump ordered him to tell Volker there was no quid pro quo. The consciousness of guilt in that would be evident to even the meanest, dumbest Trump defender. Yes, Devin, I'm looking at you, you dolt.

It was a bad day for Mick Mulvaney and Rudy Giuliani. Both men were implicated very directly in the testimony of both Kent and Taylor. For Giuliani, well, he was everywhere in the testimony, increasing his political radioactivity, and the odds that Trump will be forced to pursue the strategy Republican leaders leaked to Axios Wednesday morning: framing the entire fiasco as Rudy running his own game in Ukraine and bamboozling an innocent President Trump. The evidence—and again, just on the first day—shows that’s an outrageous lie, and it’s never going to pass the smell test. Trump’s nervousness over Rudy in the wind, broke and angry, is delicious.

Mulvaney, a man with a face like a terrified rodent, has for weeks kept his twitching nose to the wind, smelling the pungent musk of White House predators all around him and knowing that his role is, at best, lunch. Taylor’s direct testimony of a Mulvaney aide confirming the shutoff of Ukraine aid draws yet another line of contact directly back to the Acting Provisional Kinda Chief of Staff and the President. Anyone who thinks a man with Mulvaney’s wee cojones was freelancing, I’d suggest they stop day-drinking. Mulvaney was acting on orders. The line goes to the top.

It was a bad, bad day for Trump. His defenders on the committee came in believing that keeping him, Fox News, and the Republican base happy would save the day. It won’t.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/all-the-presidents-mooks-couldnt-put-trumps-perfect-call-together-again

From my Facebook feed ~ this fits snugly here ~ ~ Sooz