We are just under 24 hours out from the first of the publicly facing House impeachment hearings. The first hearing begins tomorrow at 10:00 AM EST and if we have a functional blog, I’ll have a live feed up for you all.
Tomorrow’s hearings are Ambassador William Taylor, the Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine, at 10:00 AM and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the afternoon. The next day of public hearings will be Friday when Ambassador Yovanavitch, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine will be testifying.
Next week’s schedule was released earlier today.
Here's a look at public hearings scheduled for next week as part of the impeachment inquiry:
NOVEMBER 19
Jennifer Williams
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
Kurt Volker
Tim MorrisonNOVEMBER 20
Gordon Sondland
Laura Cooper
David HaleNOVEMBER 21
Fiona Hillhttps://t.co/x2rFHf6Pxr— CNN (@CNN) November 13, 2019
The procedure for these hearings will be that the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Congressman Schiff, and the ranking member, Congressman Nunes, will each make an opening statement. Each session’s witness will then be given a chance to make an opening statement if they so desire. Questioning will begin with a forty-five minute round of questioning for the committee chair and ranking member, rather than the 5 minute rounds we’ve become accustomed to over the past several years. It has already announced that Congressman Schiff’s time will be taken by the majority (Committee) counsel, Dan Goldman, a former Federal prosecutor and former NBC/MSNBC legal analyst who was specifically hired by Congressman Schiff back in February to oversee this investigation. It is not clear yet whether Congressman Nunes will do the questioning himself, have his counsel conduct the questioning, or some combination thereof. It is important to remember that Congressman Schiff is, himself, a former Federal prosecutor and one of the few who has successfully prosecuted a case involving a US official engaged in spying for a hostile foreign power. Goldman was involved in very high profile prosecutions of Genovese crime organization members. Congressman Nunes has a degree in agriculture, states his occupation as farmer, but his family farm is now in Iowa, not in his congressional district in California. So expect more of the conspiracy theory laundering that Congressman Nunes has been doing throughout the closed door depositions when he could be bothered to actually show up to them.
After that, the questioning will devolve back to the alternating five minute blocks of questioning for each of the remaining Democratic and Republican members of the committee. I fully expect that the Republican members, like they do for every hearing, will have a coordinated a list of questions intended to derail and sidetrack the hearings into conspiracy theory territory so they can launder their misinformation, disinformation, and agitprop through the hearings. And since Congressman Jordan (R-Men’s Showers) has been temporarily placed on the committee so he can do his jacket off, sleeves rolled up, rapid fire, staccato badgering of witnesses, I fully expect a lot of the Republican questioning time will be yielded back to him so he can badger at will as we’ve seen in House Oversight Committee hearings earlier this year. The Democratic members of the committee, unlike their Republican counterparts, are largely former Federal and state prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and staff judge advocates in the US military so their questions will at least be on topic and germane even if they’re not coordinated. And they really should be coordinated, but I’m not counting on that type of message discipline in strategic communication.
Congressman Schiff has established the rules so that all of the various points of order and personal privilege and parliamentary procedure will be dealt with at the end of each hearing day to avoid the Republican members of the committee from grinding the hearing to a halt for up to an hour as soon as it begins as they’ve done with other high profile televised hearings over the past 10 months.
I have no idea what time the ritual bodily ejection of Congressman Gaetz (R-DUI) from the committee chambers is scheduled for. You’ll just have to watch the whole thing. Personally, I’m hoping Congressman Schiff has a Gaetz sized trebuchet installed so they can really go for distance! (that was sarcasm, lest anyone think I’m advocating for violence against Congressman Gaetz).
Expect a lot of what we already know from the now released deposition transcripts to be publicly confirmed. Expect the committee Republicans, their staff, and Congressman Gaetz to be disruptive and try to turn the hearings into a circus. And, provided the blog is actually up, running, and functioning with the change over to the new site, expect that I’ll have a live stream of the proceedings up as soon as I can get access.
Open thread.
TomatoQueen
*invokes spirit of Senator Sam*
Adam L Silverman
@TomatoQueen: Perhaps you want Yosemite Sam?
I personally like this one:
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: That can’t be unheard and unseen.
Cheryl Rofer
CDA William Taylor has already registered a shot across the Republicans’ bow with an op-ed in a major Ukrainian newspaper. It is a brilliant piece, reassuring Ukrainians of American support, but also making a number of points to secure the case against Trump. I plan to tweet out its major points tomorrow morning, in preparation for Taylor’s testimony.
Never piss off a diplomat.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: The only thing funnier would’ve been if someone had dubbed a Yosemite Sam rant over video of Palin talking so his voice was coming out of her mouth.
Despite what the poster of this video is implying, she is not shouldering this shotgun correctly and is lucky she didn’t seriously hurt herself.
Mary G
Don’t you mean 12 hours?
Sandia Blanca
Bring on the trebuchets!
TomatoQueen
@Adam L Silverman: SPLUTTER
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: Sure, sure. I’ll fix it.
Jay
Thread,…….
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: Oh, wow, fuckin’ wow.
That’s all I got. Brain fried from a day of attending and reporting on govt. meetings.
Jay
Mary G
@Cheryl Rofer: I was so impressed with the end of Amb. Taylor’s opening statement when he talked about Ukraine; he obviously loves that country. I got in extra popcorn to watch him slice and dice Jim Jordan. It’ll be like Usain Bolt racing a potato.
Ked
I want to watch – have some time off work this week – but I can’t but expect that the repubs are going to be letting the freak flag fly and my ensuing rage will result in my stroking out. It’s too much to expect the first-tier commentary will be competent enough to push back on it.
debbie
Thanks for the late night laugh!
NotMax
Wouldn’t put it past the Rs to have arranged to salt the audience with paid protestors.
JWR
@Adam L Silverman:
Or that she didn’t knock the teeth out of the guy standing right behind her.
PS. Thank you, Adam, (I’m just now getting caught up today), for the Psyops post. Good stuff!
As for the live hearings tomorrow, I’m not worried they might effect the preznit’s poll numbers, because Amy Walter assured me (last night on PBS), that that would not happen. //
Jay
Stuck in moderation for pasteing a tweet with too many hashtags,…..
NotMax
Also wouldn’t be in the least surprised to see later reporting that Nunes was at the White House this evening.
TS (the original)
@Cheryl Rofer: Rachel had that on her show tonight. Wondering how long he retains his position?
This whole episode is surely causing much damage to Ukraine – and all they were wanting was the support promised by the US. The misfortune of anyone who has to deal with trump will hopefully be broadcast far & wide via the impeachment hearings.
Chetan Murthy
@JWR: I’m not a gun guy, so was curious to what Adam referred (re: proper shoulder mount technique for shotgun). Went and looked it up. Interesting. Nice slo-mo of doing it right and wrong.
https://youtu.be/rO7Ogc7R4UI?t=78
Cheryl Rofer
@TS (the original): Taylor was called out of retirement when Marie Yovanovich had to flee Ukraine ahead of an errant tweet. He’s got his professional integrity, great respect and love for Ukraine, and nothing to lose.
Cheryl Rofer
The kittehs are cranky because they didn’t go out today (too cold) and are demanding food.
I’ll see you on the Twitters and, eventually, on the other side.
Good luck to us all.
NotMax
Now that’s a trebuchet!
:)
Adam L Silverman
@JWR: Richard Nixon’s popularity was at 70% in 1973.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: Don’t take this the wrong way, but given the amount of firearms in circulation in the US right now, my view is that everyone should have basic familiarity with handguns and long guns. Specifically how to make them safe and safely handle them. That’s not an endorsement for owning them, using them, etc. Just basic safety familiarization.
TS (the original)
@Cheryl Rofer: Couldn’t agree more, but I’m sure trump is trying to determine how to replace him in Ukraine
Jay
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman:
I certainly don’t take it the wrong way, Adam. And if I lived, or visited, areas where there might be legal weapons around, I’d do so. But …. well, living in downtown SF, and with my almost atavistic hatred of visiting anything that resembles the sort of rural North Texas town where I grew up, well, I haven’t seen a gun IRL since I visited a (now former) friend in Boulder (he bought a Mini-14 + banana clip, and insisted I accompany him to the local canyon which had been repurposed as a free-as-in-beer firing range …. and fire his gun, too). That was in 2000, and the last time I was within 10ft of a gun.
Martin
I have a feeling that after tomorrow, someone is going to have a sit-down with Nunes and let him know that these aren’t Fox News clips, this is live national broadcast with an audience several orders of magnitude more than usual, and against a professional prosecutor he looks like a fucking moron.
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman:
Of course, if things turn out badly in 2020, I guess I’ll be getting serious firearms training, as well as training as a medic for trauma. I’m sure the latter will be more useful, but still ….
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Yup. Ammosexuals have “accidentley” left their penis substitues behind in washrooms, cabs, Starbucks booths, etc.
JWR
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, someone on the show mentioned that, but Walters stuck with her notion, (read: buncha BS), because we’ve already divvied ourselves up into tribes, so what effect could live TV possibly have?
I wanted to throw my shoe at the TV, but I’ve only got one other. (Pair of shoes, not TV’s! ;) )
Jay
Major Major Major Major
Great posts tonight, Adam.
So we’re getting a new blog I guess, that’s cool, just learned about the schedule lol
Yutsano
Well as I am in the ICU again…I guess I got time eh?
JWR
@Chetan Murthy: I’m not a gun guy either, but common sense, plus a lot of Q&A with my former gun-nut co-workers, told me she really didn’t know what she was doing. Either that, or she’d fired a .22 a few times, and a gun being a gun…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: I agree that he’ll probably need that, but he’s the ranking member of the committee, who’d do it, Kevin McCarthy? He’s so stupid, I’m not sure he’d see anything wrong.
Jay
Elizabelle
@Yutsano: Oh no. Hope you are doing much better and sprung soon.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: I thought you were being sprung on Sunday, hope they find what’s ailing ya.
Mary G
@Yutsano: Oh, no. I’m sorry. Sending you healing vibes. Hope they can fix you soon. You spend too much time there!
Tenar Arha
@Yutsano: I hope you’re feeling better soon. Seriously though, do they even let people in ICU watch the news? (the hospice nurses who took care of my father were not fond of news, though they especially mentioned Fox was the most agitating for their patients).
Yutsano
@Elizabelle: Thinking things are fixed much better this time around. Or at least they had better be.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was sprung on Sunday. Ended back up in two days later.
Yutsano
@Mary G: It’s REALLY bad when the ambulance driver remembers you from last time.
And the ER nurse.
And the ICU doctor.
And I’m in a different hospital!
@Tenar Arha: I don’t think they will have an objection. I very rarely scream loudly and if worst comes to worst they just take away my TV remote. I probably won’t miss it much.
Mary G
@Chetan Murthy: I’m right there in the liberal bubble with you. I’ve only held a gun in my hand once in my life, and it was a Walther PPK an ex-boyfriend bought with money his dad gave him to pay off credit card debt, because 007. A cousin tried to get me to hold a hunting rifle once, but I was too busy being appalled at the dead deer in the bed of his pickup. I have fired the rifles they used to have in Frontierland at Disneyland, and at the ducks in Nintendo, but that’s it. If I ever came across an unattended gun, I would call the cops, or my friend’s husband the ex-Marine.
Mary G
@Yutsano: Before I gave into the wheelchair, the EMTs had the combination to my key safe memorized because I fell so much.
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: You have email!
Also, we’re keeping good thoughts.
Jay
Take care Yutsano, good thoughts and wishes for your healthy recover.
Jay
Redshift
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s idiots all the way down. They swapped Gym Jordan onto the committee because they know Nunes is a doofus, and they think Jordan’s witness badgering is somehow effective. (Well, that and his slavish loyalty will probably please Trump, regardless of whether it’s actually effective.)
I’ll be fascinated to see if they have a staff attorney do the 45 minutes, and if so, what the line of questioning will be. Either the staffer will be another idiot and do 45 minutes of conspiracy-mongering and witness-smearing, or he’ll be smarter and do… what?
prostratedragon
@Jay: Yipes!
Just … yipes!
piratedan
hoping for a moment when Amb. Taylor responds to Rep Jordan in such a fashion….
You see Rep Jordan, we’re similar in a way… I witnessed a wrong and felt it was my obligation and duty to report the lawbreaking to the authorities because that’s what a good public servant should do, and you also witnessed wrong doing and lawbreaking and in your case, you chose to support the abuser by saying nothing, like a bad Public Servant, so no matter what I say to you, your systematic pattern of behavior means that no matter what I testify to, you’re likely to do the wrong thing.
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: Like the scrawny, greasy-haired dimwit walking around the local hardware store with some kind of skeleton-handled pistol stuck in the back waistband of his jeans? The handle was facing to the right if I recollect rightly because my sense was that I could have had it in my hand before he could react. Or blown his left cheek off if the safety wasn’t on. Ugh, I nearly walked out of the store.
I did read the older posts you linked to in the last thread, plus the comments, all relevant to the situation at hand. It is 10º here with a nice wind, I am off to bed, time for the flannels. Did we somehow skip a chunk of November and all of December & land in January?
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
.