Intriguing tidbits about State Department Ukraine envoy Bill Taylor’s testimony, courtesy of Politico reporter Andrew Desiderio’s Twitter feed:
Bill Taylor gave a very lengthy opening statement behind closed doors, per multiple lawmakers.
New: Per source in the room, Bill Taylor’s opening statement was 15 pages long and prompted “a lot of sighs and gasps.”
MORE >> Another source says the sighs & gasps were in reaction to Taylor describing “how pervasive the efforts were to tie an investigation of Burisma and 2016 election ‘interference’ to a White House meeting and aid being released.”
Sounds like Republicans are going to have to go with “yes, subverting U.S. foreign policy for personal political advantage is bad, but it’s not impeachable.”
SiubhanDuinne
I was just looking at photos of the formal enthronement of Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako. Crowned heads, elected national leaders, princes and potentates from around the world, were present to observe this ancient ceremony.
Trump (mercifully) did not attend. Nor did he send his Vice President. Nor his Secretary of State. Nor the First Lady. Nor even the First Daughter and First Son-in-Law.
No, he honoured Japan by sending … Elaine Chao.
Cacti
@SiubhanDuinne:
The last time he was there, he wished the Japanese Navy a happy Memorial Day. A Presidential first.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: They all look the same, don’t they?
Josie
Good grief! Could he be any more obviously racist? The sad thing is that he probably thought it was a good idea.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Should we be thankful he didn’t send any descendants of Paul Tibbets?
catclub
Doug R
Any Juicers Canuck curious, the CBC has good coverage of the election here:
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2019/results/
SFAW
@Doug R:
Careful!! None o’ that shit here! This is a family blog!!!
MattF
These folks saw corrupt practices— and took notes. I’m coming to the conclusion that Trump is seriously fucked.
ETA: My understanding is that Taylor was the highest-ranking state department official in Ukraine.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cacti:
I had forgotten that, but now you mention, the occasion comes back to me in all its horror.
tarragon
@SFAW:
Is not!
Ella in New Mexico
Between this and the possible need to add Trump siccing Bill Barr on his political enemies, the latest being John Brennan, it looks like any idea of a narrow impeachment probe is dwindling pretty quickly….Good.
Go for the brass ring. Turn a Clorox firehose on the whole bunch, Trump, Pence, Barr and Pompeo well into 2020 and watch them all scramble desperately to replace the ticket. Pull in some of our favorite House and Senate traitors while you’re at it.
Gonna be a beautiful primary season.
SFAW
@tarragon:
Is so. Now eff off, you wanker.
MattF
@SFAW: Complete with multiple prodigal children and multi-hued sheep.
SFAW
@MattF:
What about baby sharks? [Fuck the Nats, by the way.]
hells littlest angel
He was only joking, it’s just Trump being Trump, he was extorting sarcastically. Pick one, or make up your own. It doesn’t matter. It’s not even bullshit anymore, it’s just mouth-noises.
Keith P.
Lindsey’s already OK with giving Trump a mulligan for the Ukraine call. Problem is, Trump typically takes 4-5 mulligans per hole.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: I mean sure sending the former citizen of a Japanese war colony where atrocities were committed is completely legit right? RIGHT?
…
I still refuse to believe votes weren’t changed.
MattF
@Keith P.: Lindsey should also note that Trump will take your ball, if he likes your lie.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF: Yes, Bill Taylor is a former Ambassador to Ukraine who was appointed as chargé d’affaires after Marie Yovanovitch had her posting terminated early. He is widely respected in both Kyiv and Washington.
James E Powell
@Ella in New Mexico:
Obstruction of justice has got to be part of the impeachment. We cannot hope to prevail in the senate, but the articles of impeachment and the evidence supporting them will make a strong case for the 2020 elections.
Heywood J.
@SiubhanDuinne: Only because Jackie Chan said no.
FelonyGovt
Thank heavens some career civil servants with integrity remain to tell the truth. Hopefully more and more of them will be emboldened to speak.
@SFAW: As a fellow Mets fan I heartily concur.
Turgidson
They might start out saying something like that. But once Hair Furor fires up his Twitter insult cannon, they’ll start saying “subverting US foreign policy for personal political advantage is AWESOME as long as the Democrat Party gets hurt!” Like the good little brownshirts they are.
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Do I need to say it…
They all look alike…..
lips so pursed
Heywood J.
@James E Powell: They’re going to need to broaden the scope of investigation anyway, once they finally get those tax returns — especially the ones while he’s been in (monetizing) office. And they need to impeach Barr as well. He has openly and deliberately abrogated his sworn duties.
OT: Kinda wondering how Diabeetus and Salt are excusing Mister Man’s “lynching” comment? I’m sure it’s hilarious.
SFAW
@FelonyGovt:
Naturally. You (and other persons of good will, i.e., Mets fans) were the “target audience.”
Had it been the Yanks vs Nats, the old standby of “rooting for injuries” would have been in effect.
hueyplong
And your proof might as well be Trump’s claim that Hillary got 3 MM fraudulent votes.
If we have learned anything in this tragic clown cavalcade, it is that GOP accusations are admissions.
MattF
@James E Powell: I expect that Nancy will keep things focused. The Noise Machine will generate wideband static, but nearly everyone agrees that extortion is a bad thing. That’s the key, IMO.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: Can still root for injuries as the Astros continue to step in shit with both feet, vigorously, on this Roberto Osuna situation.
Mike in DC
“The president’s conduct isn’t impeachable enough” will be a fun spin to watch unravel on the weekend shows, for as long as it lasts. At some point the moderators may have to start yelling at them.
No One of Consequence
@SFAW: guffaw! Thanks for this. I needed the laugh this morning.
Peace,
NOoC
HumboldtBlue
@SFAW:
I’ve been sick to my stomach all morning but that at least drew a good laugh.
And the Nats can fuck right off.
FelonyGovt
This is cute- 100- year-old grandma shares her thoughts on Trump
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
The Astros front office certainly isn’t covering themselves in glory with that stupid response.
I still have a tough time acclimating myself to them being in the AL. However, I no longer call them the “Colt 45s,” so I’ve made some progris.
geg6
@Ella in New Mexico:
I missed the news about John Brennan. What now?
divF
@Gin & Tonic: Being an A’s fan, I haven’t had a rooting interest in any World Series since 1990. Except that I would root against the Yankees and at this point the Red Sox, who have become a clone of the Yankees, i.e. a team with a large national following that brings in a huge amount of money to the point that it skews any competitive balance. In this case, though, the fact that I grew up in DC during the 1960’s makes me want to see my old home town to get some baseball glory.
The Senators: “first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League” (even though that applied to the pre-expansion team, it held for the 1960s version as well).
rikyrah
15 pages?
HumboldtBlue
And Jimmy Carter had another fall at home and is in hospital. Fractured pelvis.
mad citizen
Replace the ticket? Coming, Summer 2020: Romney-Ryan Part II: This Time We’re…, OK, We’re Taking One For the Team, etc.
ThresherK
Gasps = “I knew but didn’t know the extent”, I guess.
Sighs = What, from R’s who are still fronting that it didn’t happen?
Uncle Cosmo
@SFAW: Screw the ‘Stros, go Gnats! :^p
rikyrah
Taylor’s not going to jail for anyone.
randy khan
@FelonyGovt:
So, as a Mets fan, my hierarchy of rooting (well, anti-rooting, since it’s really an index of how much I hate teams) has Houston towards the bottom because Mike Scott was a dirty rotten cheater (although the right team prevailed in the end). The Nats are much higher.
Of course, the bottom includes the Yankees, Braves, and Cards. It was kind of hard to root for either team in the Braves-Cards series.
Aardvark Cheeselog
Since it’s an open thread I’ll use it to announce that, according to that Merriam-Webster link that got frontpaged last night, I am the same age as “oral sex.” That is all.
Gin & Tonic
@divF: My son, for reasons that are unclear, has (had?) long been an Expos fan, so some of that has rubbed off.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
For me, I waiting to for it come to “well Trump didn’t swallow the flesh from the child’s corpse, so that’s hardly cannibalism” (and this isn’t snark, that whole Pizzagate thing and how Trump always projects his vices on others)
randy khan
A friend of mine made an interesting observation, which is that the Republicans who are sitting in these hearings don’t seem to be saying anything about them. Her hypothesis is that this means there’s a lot of stuff coming out that’s bad for Trump, and so they don’t really have any way to spin the hearings that would help him.
That seems to make sense to me, although to the extent you think that House Republicans have message discipline, maybe you could say they’re keeping quiet to minimize the headlines about impeachment hearings.
catclub
Taylor’s testimony:
Steve in the ATL
@SFAW: I can’t stand any team that has, or had an any point in the past, Bryce Harper.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: I posted this a week or two ago, but here’s a good recent profile of him, written by a good journalist who knows Ukraine well. Taylor is pretty much everything you’d want a career Foreign Service Officer to be. And at 72, he probably doesn’t care whom he pisses off.
Uncle Cosmo
@Yutsano:
Maybe he told her to ask the Emperor when he’s going to get around to apologizing on behalf of Granddad Showa & the Japanese nation for the Rape of Nanking, Unit 731 & a whole Yamato-ful of other assordid atrocities. (I kid, I kid…)
Mary G
O/T but delicious: National Journal has an article out from behind the firewall until 10/26 about how the Republicans are in deep shit in the Senate races and could lose the majority.
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
Arguments are two doors down.
NotMax
@randy khan
They’re not going to say squat before receiving their
talking pointsmarching ordersautomaton programming. Then they’ll each parrot the same thing in rote formation.catclub
Brexit news:
Follow developments as they happen here. All times U.K.
the win on the first bill made me nervous. Luckily the parliament decided buying a pig in a poke (from Flobalob Johnson!) might not end well ( for them).
lamh36
sdhays
@catclub: All those shitheads who voted against May and then voted for this owe Theresa May an apology. There’s no way that Flobalob’s “deal” is substantively different from her’s, and if the issues were that small, they could have worked those out months ago.
catclub
So if Mulvaney gets canned, which job is he being canned from? Chief of staff? or Head of OMB? or head of CFPB?
mad citizen
@randy khan: Yes, I understand the need to conduct all of these hearings/witnesses in private at first–at least it keeps the hysteria and politics down. I was thinking, since they aren’t public, the R’s don’t have an audience to their usual conspiracy-theory-mongering, etc. I do wonder how they are behaving.
catclub
@sdhays: 1. Apparently May is a much more faithful soldier than Flobabob -I heard that she has been voting in favor of his bills. He did not vote in favor of hers.
2. Johnson got that deal from the EU changed by surrendering on the issues that got changed. Dealmaking up to the Trump standard!
cmorenc
@MattF:
The Republicans are denying there are any vaginas involved that are fuckable.
sdhays
@catclub: Does Kellyanne know that Chief of Staff is a real job, not just playing someone important on the teevee and patting Dump on the head when he shit-vomits all over the Oval Office?
I can’t imagine her accepting.
catclub
@catclub:
My understanding is COS should be someone who is not a known liar. Since they have to work with other people – like the House and Senate, both Republicans and Democrats.
But maybe its different under Trump.
cain
@catclub:
That second vote though looks like a disaster. It would signal to the EU that Britain is prepared to leave the EU.
sdhays
@catclub: I didn’t even know she was still in Parliament.
sdhays
@catclub:
This White House doesn’t hire people like that.
catclub
@sdhays: wonderful understatement here:
Immanentize
That Cracker lady at the top:
This is exactly the thing Lindsey Graham tried to push through the Senate as a motion when the Republican caucus met. His idea was to pass a party line vote in the Senate, then send it to the House to tell them nothing in the Ukraine phone call was impeachable. Nothing like proud JAG lawyer pre-judging a trial.
Seriously, how did Trump un-man* these bounders? I heard a pathetic GOP Rep. on NPR a couple of nights/days? ago who just would not/could not bring himself to criticize Trump even in the smallest way. Self-proclaimed combat vet, too.
* I use the masculine pronoun because, really, there are likely to be almost no GOP women left in the GOP after the 2020 election
Mike in NC
Last night the Washington Post website had an article on the Ukraine scandal. It identified Fat Bastard’s primary foreign advisors on the subject as Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban. (Apparently Hungary and Ukraine have some unresolved territorial dispute.) It was Mulvaney who facilitated the invitation of Orban to the White House.
Oh the irony if Mulvaney gets shitcanned for embarrassing his boss.
rikyrah
@randy khan:
Someone posted here that the reason for the closed hearings is so that folks can’t coordinate testimony. I also think that it’s to put on notice the GOPers, cause if they leak, folks know which GOPers were in those closed hearings.
rikyrah
@catclub:
I’ve been asking that question too..
WHICH JOB(S) does he lose?
J R in WV
Grandma Winnie is right with me!! The way she closed out her birthday remarks, the pause before “that Sucker”, which was probably the dirtiest thing she has ever said, the toss of the MAGAT hat to the floor. What a great grandma for everyone!!
Martin
@rikyrah: Nope. We professional staff are very clear on the scope and limit of our role. Generally our authority is under-appreciated, and it’s moments like this that serve to remind the political class that we are not to be fucked with.
Gravenstone
@catclub: Well Sondland is/was actively trying to cover his own ass. So selective memory is almost to be expected.
Martin
@rikyrah: All of ’em. Trump doesn’t know how to abstract people from positions, which is pretty obvious if you see how he operates as president.
Mary G
@rikyrah: All of ’em, Katie.
HumboldtBlue
One of the hundreds of thousands of Brits who marched for another Brexit vote explains the situation in a clear and understandable fashion.
Gravenstone
@catclub: Just imagine the dynamic if he selects Conjob, and her husband still continues his endless Never Trump agitation from the sidelines.
Martin
@Immanentize:
Politics is a pretty dirty game, but I think Trump turned that to 11. Who knows how much from the National Enquirer vault he has access to and is willing to hold over the heads of GOPers. Not to mention the proclivity of GOP voters to believe any shitpost conspiracy theory that comes along, which Trump is perfectly willing to provide. Lindsay Graham is a time traveling alien and actually killed Lincoln? Qanon will be all over that shit.
Millard Filmore
@rikyrah:
My not so important interpretation of this is that the GOP leadership thinks this slow rolling coup will work, but the mid-level players either are not so sure, or want the coup to fail.
lee
@randy khan: Not only are they not leaking to the press, it appears they are not even leaking to their fellow Republicans. Are all the Republicans with any sense of duty on that single committee?
Martin
@lee: I suspect Pelosi and Schiff have made it clear they will be charged as being a co-conspirator if they leak. These are not standard hearings – they’re depositions being done in the House because the DOJ ignored the referrals. This is a whole different game here.
LuciaMia
Well sure, just like you can just be a little pregnant.
The Dangerman
@Josie:
Well, yes, yes he could. And it’s coming.
I think he dropped the lynching reference and then went off to please himself over that masterpiece of oratory. Strokes of (a stable) genius, ya know.
Betty Cracker
Le Post has the smoking gun testimony from Taylor:
Boom.
Mary G
Can’t get a link to work, but WaPo just broke that the person who wrote the anonymous oped in the FTFNYT about his being a resistor on the inside keeping us safe from Twitler’s lunatic ideas has a book coming out next month telling all. It’s called “The Warning.”
Should give Schiff more ammunition.
Martin
@Millard Filmore: Taylor isn’t a mid-level player. His loyalty is to his career, which isn’t politics. Who is in the WH doesn’t necessarily impact his employment, so he has no reason to protect a president of either party. That’s why career professionals are so important – they provide much needed continuity and stability across administrations.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
The EU already knows that. They’re probably wondering why the British still can’t get their act together and do it.
Redshift
@Martin: That makes sense. As I recall, they were leaking (and just lying publicly) about the early hearings, the one with the IG, perhaps? And I think that was before the requests/subpoenas stated including the language that failure to cooperate would be considered obstruction.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mike in NC:
The Hungarians are demanding autonomy for their ethnic brethren in Transcarpathia, now the Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine. The territory was part of the Kingdom of Hungary under the Hapsburgs but was annexed by Czechoslovakia after WW1, & then by the USSR after WW2 (so that the Soviets would have direct territorial access to both Hungary and Czechoslovakia should they need to intervene in either – which they did, in both). Apparently a typical Eastern European jumble of ethnicities there. You will pardon me if I am less than sympathetic to the fascist Orban’s little outburst of irredentism here. (Disclaimer: I spent about 4 hours in the region in the middle of the night, in transit from Kosice to Lviv, while the train bogies were being adjusted to the FSU gauge & the Ukrainian border guards tried to get me to fill out a customs declaration that was entirely in Ukrainian. At last they found someone who knew enough English to settle the matter. Not fun at 4 AM.)
rikyrah
@Martin:
Had not thought of that. Thanks for the explanation.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Martin:
That’s why all the GOP reps bailing; they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If they truth tell and don’t speak the Trump line, they get primaried, but it’s clear now sooner or later the Right Wing Bubble will puncture and when it does all the GOpers who were loyal Trumpist will be purged.
Betty Cracker
Democratic reps and at least one Republican say Taylor’s testimony contradicts Sondland’s and that the latter will probably be called back in to clear things up.
Another Scott
@catclub: BBC:
Beautiful plumage!
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@rikyrah: Yes, these hearings are like grand jury hearings. OTH the DoJ is in hibernation. Who prosecutes?
HumboldtBlue
Rubin continues with her latest in a series of scorching hot takes.
Sab
Anyone read Ronan Farrows’ book? It is amazing and disturbing. Also, that guy can write.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Uncle Cosmo:
This. I don’t really get the Nats hate from Mets fans. Okay, we’re division rivals so there’s an escalated sense of rivalry there. But such vitriol! In the division at least, we reserve that for the Phillies.
Oh, and Fuck The Fucking Yankees ™ — Steve Gilliard
Of course Steve probably would have been pretty anti-Nats as well at this time given his Mets proclivities.
Ella in New Mexico
@geg6:
This:
HumboldtBlue
@Another Scott:
So it really is just a flesh wound?
geg6
@Ella in New Mexico:
I knew the Orange Garbage Fire had it in for him, but I didn’t think Barr was quite stupid enough to go after him. He will regret that, I’m sure.
Betty Cracker
Link to a copy of Taylor’s opening statement via WaPo.
Sab
am trolling around my town checking flagpoles for respect to Elijah Cummings. Schools and libraries on board immediately. Cop stations and fire stations took a day. Private honking big fancy neighborhood private flags on public space, all full staff.
First time in my long life I have wanted to go out and burn American flags.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Martin:
@Immanentize:
I suspect Putin’s fingerprints. A lot of Russian money has been flowing into Republican politics for a long time, and in 2016 Putin called in the IOUs. If we ever learn the truth, I suspect it will be beyond our wildest nightmares how many Republican politicians are being blackmailed by Russia and to what extent.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Sab
I miss Steve Gilliard every day.
randy khan
So this happened today:
As part of my usual political posting on Facebook, I mentioned and provided a link to the NARAL Virginia voters guide for the elections. It was blocked as violating community standards. I tried posting the native link, in case there was something in my text that somehow triggered the block. I got the same response.
I have, needless to say, objected and sent a message to Zuckerberg’s official account, but I don’t expect much in the way of a response. (I also told the NARAL Virginia folks, who are good people and needed to know.)
lee
@Sab: The next President and his/her appointed AG.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Martin: That makes sense. In my work for the federal government, I was surprised when I found out that the security and secrecy procedures were much tighter when there lawyers involved (having to do with the contract bidding and source selection process) than when it involved mere classified military stuff.
Gravenstone
@Mary G: Linkie
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Sab: I heard one of the Obama bros* interviewing Farrow about the book. The details on how NBC tried to kill the story were indeed disturbing. Also, Farrow pointed out that the decision makers were all men and many of them didn’t think the Weinstein story was all that big a deal.
*I think the bro was John Lovett. I believe he and Farrow recently became engaged.
rikyrah
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Not my wildest nightmares. I was there a loooonng time ago.
trollhattan
@geg6:
Barr’s still in the job. I question his ability to conjure any regret whatsoever.
germy
@Sab:
Mary G
@Gravenstone: Thanks! That has more information than the WaPo piece. The author thinks he can still be anonymous? Good luck with that.
lee
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My understanding there were multiple stories that they killed.
HumboldtBlue
CBC just called a Liberal government.
Teen Vogue is working to trademark the term “Fake News” to keep Trump from using it.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Does look more and more likely every day doesn’t it?
Ruckus
@MattF:
Right or left?
Betty Cracker
Wow, Mr. Taylor’s opening statement (link at #103) is quite something. He comes across as a no-bullshit, non-partisan guy who cares deeply about U.S. security and the people of Ukraine. We’re lucky to have folks like him representing us abroad.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Met Paul Tibbets at Wright Paterson AFB once. He used to give talks there every so often.
Chyron HR
@germy:
“But you know who the REAL sexual abuser was? Hitlery.”
Marcopolo
@Betty Cracker: And perhaps most importantly he is a note-taker (a skill that all long-term civil servants excel at). He meticulously documented every gd interaction he had with the administration regarding Ukraine writing contemporaneous notes immediately following them.
Am only drinking some pop atm but let me raise a toast to the excellent note takers in the Federal government.
hueyplong
@Betty Cracker: And he gives courage/cover to less inspiring people with information who might now come forward.
germy
@Chyron HR: I find it interesting how various news outlets are covering it. The RW publications go with headlines like “Hillary tried to kill Farrow’s investigation” etc., while more neutral pubs just say she wasn’t supportive.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
They are not.
Sab
@Betty Cracker: Career State Department jobs aren’t for the faint of heart. Remember Wilson with his noose at press conferences in Hussein’s Iraq?
I have no problem with (rich) political in extremely expensive low impact postings (Switzerland, UK, France). OTOH why was a rich hotelier posted in the EU during trade wars and Brexit, and why was he poking around in Syria.
Low impact means either nobody cares, or they will bend over backwards to accomodate us. Embassy entertainment can be expensive. Let the rich guys pay instead of State Dept.
Betty Cracker
@Sab: I’m for professionalizing the entire diplomatic corps — no more rich donors.
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
There will always be at least a few. A few women, a few blacks, a few latinos, just like there are old white people who are liberal. No group of people are 100% anything
SFAW
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Not to worry, we hate them, too. Especially now that Bryce Harper is there. [The great thing about the Nats winning the NL Pennant is that Harper is not part of it. Not quite sure why I don’t like him, but “it is what it is.”]
Unlike many of my Mets-fan brethren, I do not have a long-standing hatred of the Yanks. Oh, I’ll hate on ’em when appropriate/necessary, but it’s not an innate part of me, the way ‘Bama and Auburn do, or Duke and UNC (or is it State?) do. But in honor of the sorely-missed Mr. Gilliard, I heartily concur. [I recall coming here, when Steve was still with us, and seeing “FTFY” in some comments, and wondering why commenters were saying “Fuck The Fucking Yankees.” Took a few times before I realized people used it to mean other things.]
SFAW
@Ruckus:
I’m sorry, did you pay for the five-minute argument, or the full half-hour?
trollhattan
@Chyron HR:
“With every abuse you get free pizza!”
SFAW
@Ruckus:
I’m envious.
Sab
@Betty Cracker: If we have to draw a sharp line then I am with you. If not, then let the rich guys get a couple of embassies since we wont pay for necessary entertainment. But I think at this point you are right. Used to be they wanted to show off. Now they just want to grift.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: Most people in govt are like him. But nobody puts them on tv. And generally they don’t want to be on tv.
Ella in New Mexico
@geg6: It kinda sounds like Barr is essentially trying to do what, according to today’s analysis of what Bill Taylor told Congress, Rudy was/is doing: Trying to get a public statements from the Ukrainians implicating Trump’s political enemies or supporting his crazy conspiracy theories about the original Russia investigation rather than actually see them through to real legal action because that was less likely to happen.
Reports are that at a minimum, they wanted to strong-arm Zelensky into doing a CNN interview saying he thought Joe Biden and Hunter Biden committed illegal acts he was encouraging his government to investigate. As noted by Marcy Wheeler on Twitter, “Which is why it should really raise questions about why Bill Barr is traipsing the world collecting this “evidence” outside of normal law enforcement channels, making it useless for legal proceedings.”
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Josh Marshall made an interesting point/comment: the “deliverable” the Traitors wanted from Zelensky was the statement that there were questions about the Bidens and the investigation.
ETA: As Ella just noted.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@SFAW:
I don’t have a lot of data points, just the reaction of KC and STL fans over the years (because I always went to all the Nats games when they would come to those towns and I was back in central Misery) but when both he and Werth were on the team, the ire of those city’s fans was Werth, not Harper.
Millard Filmore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Run the country as a business. He will get a good price for himself as he sells the rest of us out.
Millard Filmore
@HumboldtBlue:
Maybe they can license it to The Onion.
Ladyraxterinok
@Martin:
Wasn’t LBJ said to have lots of dirt on people in Congress? Said to be one way he got Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Acy passed.
And J Edgar Hoover apparently had yrs of FBI dirt on people—ran a real factory.
Kay
I try not to think about the fact that the Trump Administration has access to interfere in state voting systems, but I would like some reassurance that one or two non-corrupt career people will have the courage to whistleblow if they tamper with votes or voting.
They’ll do anything and they get worse every day they remain in office.
Ladyraxterinok
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Wasn’t there a play and then a movie called Damn Yankees? Maybe in the 60s?
SFAW
@Ladyraxterinok:
“Damn Yankees” was a play in the 1950s, and a movie later in the 1950s, I think Tab Hunter was the hero. It was based on “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant,” which was written in the 1950s,
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kay:
Such as?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ladyraxterinok:
There was a play and movie called Damned Yankees. 1955 Broadway play. Gwen Verdon made her name in the play.
One thing that people overlook is that it was based on a book, “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant” by Douglass Wallop. I read the book repeatedly growing up. Great read.
Ladyraxterinok
@SFAW:
I remember that song ‘ Whatever Lola wants Lola gets. ‘ She was working for the devil to tempt a player??
Ladyraxterinok
@Ladyraxterinok:
In 50s because of Mickey Mantle and maybe other Yankee players being from OK, the state was pretty much completely for the Yankees.
Especially since the only other real competitor at the time was the Dodgers. And ‘that’ team actually had Negroes playing for it!!!
NotMax
@Ladyraxterinok
Also too, Ray Walston as the Devil doing Those Were the Good Old Days.
NotMax
Linky fix.
@Ladyraxterinok
Also too, Ray Walston as the Devil doing Those Were the Good Old Days.
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I remember someone in our family – think it was my elder brother – had that book on one of our bookshelves – never did read it, but always meant to. I do remember the “Damn Yankees” connection, tho’!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I remember when the Daily Show they did that at the 2004 GOP convention and laid off under performing states like South Carolina. The SC rep was pissed.
misterpuff
@Mary G: “A Warning” by Anonymous
debbie
@Immanentize:
I bet this was the interview you heard. He then announced he was retiring a day or two later!