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Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: YES QUEEN!

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And too also:


“Wanna find out if I still have those ball bats in my office, boys?”

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Be Prepared

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As House Democrats geared up for their first impeachment hearing last month, Speaker Nancy Pelosi huddled in her office with her leadership team, downplaying expectations.

Don’t expect these hearings to trigger a massive shift in public support toward ousting President Trump, Pelosi (D-Calif.) told her colleagues the night before the hearing, according to Democrats familiar with her warning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the encounter frankly.

Those words of caution — delivered as House Intelligence Committee members prepared in the Capitol basement for the next day’s hearing — reflected the innate skepticism that has influenced her every move as she has guided her Democratic majority through a tumultuous moment in the nation’s history…

But with a five-minute nationally televised address Thursday morning, she has become the ­reluctant face of the impeachment effort, donning a role she never wanted at a time when she’d rather be talking about anything else.

“I’m really sorry the president made this necessary by his complete disregard for the vision of our founders,” she told reporters Thursday. “An impeachment is not a pleasant experience. It can be divisive. We don’t take any glee in this at all. It’s heartbreaking. But the president gave us no choice.”.…

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer who was among the “national security freshmen” who pushed Pelosi toward supporting an impeachment inquiry, praised her handling of the process. From the beginning, she said, she asked Pelosi to ensure that the investigation was done in a strategic, efficient and serious manner, and she said Pelosi has followed through.

“I really can’t stand anything that celebrates this moment we’re in, because if you’re from a place like Michigan — swing state, you know, where your neighbors have different political views than you do — that tension is seeping into our everyday lives and no one’s happy about it,” she said. “I think she has set an important tone.”

Slotkin added that Pelosi has kept the moderate freshmen at the top of her priority list, making sure their bills are passing the House and tending closely to their political needs. Slotkin pointed to one of her top priorities — allowing patients to have immediate access to prescription drug prices from their doctors’ offices. The House passed the bill Oct. 29, two days before the House formalized its impeachment probe…

When the dust settles, there will still be legislation that needs to be made. Pelosi may or (Trickster forbid) may not be around to keep shepherding the Democratic cats, but she’s doing her best to make sure that the rules will not be forgotten and that somebody will be there to implement them.

We can hope Pelosi gets some credit in the history books, because she sure won’t get any from her very-woke “allies”…

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Watch This

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Nancy usually keeps things pretty cool during her news conferences but James Rosen (a real asshole) got the full Nancy treatment this morning. Holy shit.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: No Stopping, No Going Back

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gop will say anything for trump - tom toles

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)

From the Washington Post:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff left little doubt with fellow Democrats Wednesday that they plan to move swiftly to impeach President Trump as soon as this month.

According to multiple Democratic lawmakers who attended a closed-door Capitol meeting, Pelosi announced no firm decision or timeline in moving toward a vote on Trump’s impeachment. But, a day after Schiff delivered a 300-page report detailing charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against Trump, she made clear what lies ahead in the House.

“Are you ready?” Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked her colleagues, after describing grave constitutional circumstances posed by Trump’s alleged wrongdoing surrounding his dealings with Ukraine and his subsequent decision to stonewall the House investigation into it.

The caucus, according to multiple members, erupted with shouts of approval.

“We’re moving forward,” said one member, summarizing the thrust of Pelosi’s remarks and speaking on condition of anonymity to candidly describe a private meeting. “We’ve got a job to do whether people want to testify or not.”

Pelosi then turned the room over to Schiff (D-Calif.), who received a standing ovation before saying a word, the members said.

Schiff proceeded to run through the major findings of the report, add context to some of the key events the inquiry has uncovered, and explained to colleagues why, among other things, he did not wait for additional witnesses — such as former national security adviser John R. Bolton, who met with Trump to discuss Ukraine policy — before issuing his report…

In a separate closed-door meeting elsewhere in the Capitol basement, Vice President Pence rallied Republicans against impeachment — encouraging the GOP rank-and-file to “turn up the heat” on House Democrats and accuse them of focusing on impeachment instead of solving the nation’s problems.

Pence praised Republicans for sticking together and defending the president, telling them he and Trump were proud of their work standing up for the president. He also criticized Pelosi and House Democrats for what he called shameful behavior — not just the impeachment proceedings against Trump but also claiming Democrats had turned a blind eye to other issues that affect people’s everyday lives…

cold warrior putin has gop on ice - matt davies

(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Back in the (TV) Box

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Fortunately, the GOP is all in favor of enhanced interrogation techniques, so they can hardly claim *this* is torture…

… Pelosi also refused to elaborate on what — if any — charges House Democrats would bring against Trump, notably declining to say whether the president’s Twitter attack on former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during her testimony amounted to witness intimidation.

“I haven’t had a lot of time to pay attention to the president’s tweets and the legal implications of them. I just think that was totally wrong and inappropriate and typical of the president,” Pelosi said on CBS’ “Face the Nation“ in an interview that aired Sunday…

“The president of the United States was using the massive powers entrusted to him to try to use tax payer dollars as leverage to get a foreign country to interfere in an election,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”

“If you don’t use impeachment for this type of offense, then I am not sure what you use it for.”

Murphy’s remarks came after a week in which House investigators — and millions of Americans — heard detailed accounts about the pervasiveness of the campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping the president damage a top political rival, the smearing of reputations along the way and Trump’s direct involvement in the effort…

The slate of hearings this week will kick off Tuesday morning with testimony from Jennifer Williams, a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a senior official on the National Security Council.

Both Vindman and Williams were on the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky and later expressed alarm about the president asking for “a favor” that included investigating an energy company associated with Biden’s son…

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Proud to Be A Democrat

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Per the Washington Post:

Former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch began her testimony in the House impeachment hearing Friday with praise for Ukrainians who took a stand against corruption in their country in a 2014 movement called the Revolution of Dignity.

The reference doubled as a call to action that she directed at U.S. leaders — a pointed reminder of their obligation to defend the dignity of civilian career diplomats around the world.

Yovanovitch — who was abruptly yanked from her post in Kyiv after being targeted in a smear campaign that reached President Trump — warned that the State Department was “being hollowed out” and in “crisis.” She called on its leadership “to stand up for the institution and the individuals who make that institution the most effective diplomatic force in the world.”

The testimony of the former ambassador put a compelling human face on a complex international scandal that has involved a cast of unfamiliar Ukrainian characters, descriptions of shadowy back-channels and constitutional debates.

In resolute, clear tones, the veteran diplomat described how she came to learn of the plot against her — and how shaken she was to read the president’s menacing comments about her in a call to his Ukrainian counterpart…

But over and over again, Yovanovitch sought to turn the focus away from her personally and back on the larger implications of her ouster.

“Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American ambassador who does not give them what they want,” she said. “After these events, what foreign official, corrupt or not, could be blamed for wondering whether the ambassador represents the president’s views? And what U.S. ambassador could be blamed for harboring the fear that they cannot count on our government to support them?”…

When asked by Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) why she didn’t defend herself more openly to the attacks against her, she added: “I think it was for others to stand up for me.”

However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo never made a statement in her defense because he was worried Trump would undermine it in a tweet, Yovanovitch testified that she was told…

But throughout the hearing, Yovanovitch was steely in her defense of the diplomats and institutions that promote U.S. policy abroad without weapons. She invoked the memory of everyone from the hostages in Iran to the felled in Benghazi in her appeal to respect and defend the Foreign Service against those who would undermine it — including the Trump administration…

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Calling A Bribe A Bribe

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Calling A Bribe A Bribe Matt Davies

 

Per the Washington Post, “Democrats Sharpen Impeachment Case… “:

Democrats sharpened their case for impeachment Thursday, escalating their rhetoric against President Trump as additional evidence emerged potentially implicating him directly in the abuse-of-power controversy surrounding U.S. relations with Ukraine.

Using her most aggressive language yet, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Trump of committing “bribery” by seeking to use U.S. military aid as leverage to pressure the Ukrainian government to conduct investigations that could politically benefit the president.

Pelosi’s move to cite a specific constitutional offense and move away from using the lawyerly Latin term “quid pro quo” to describe the president’s actions came as a second official from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was revealed to have overheard Trump discussing political “investigations” in a July 26 phone call with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union who served as a key liaison between the White House and Ukraine’s fledgling government.

That phone call, which Trump has said he doesn’t recall, is expected to play a pivotal role in upcoming impeachment proceedings, as Democrats seek to directly tie Trump to what they charge was a bribery scheme worthy of removal from office. David Holmes, an embassy staffer in Ukraine who allegedly overheard Trump discussing “investigations” with Sondland, is slated to testify behind closed doors in the House impeachment probe Friday…

On Friday, the impeachment hearings will continue with public and private testimony.

Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled earlier this year by Trump, is scheduled to appear at an open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee…

While Yovanovitch’s testimony could help Democrats build a broad case that Trump and Giuliani were using conspiracy theories and shadowy arrangements to advance their personal and political interests in Ukraine, Holmes’s private testimony is expected to be more critical to the central thrust of the impeachment inquiry…

Pelosi’s embrace of the term bribery — one of only two crimes specifically cited in the Constitution as impeachable — comes after nearly two months of debate over whether Trump’s conduct amounted to a “quid pro quo” — a Latin term describing an exchange of things of value.

Bribery, Pelosi suggested, amounted to a translation of quid pro quo that would stand to be more accessible to Americans: “Talking Latin around here: E pluribus unum — from many, one. Quid pro quo — bribery. And that is in the Constitution, attached to the impeachment proceedings.”

Article II of the Constitution holds that the president and other civil federal officials “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”…

 

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Yes, Let’s Rally The Base

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Yesterday Nancy Pelosi had to balance out her strong showing on Colbert by once again attacking the “left wing” of the Democratic Party.

There’s a whole thread there. It’s the usual – don’t go for Medicaid for All or anything else that might fire up the base. Remember those folks in the Midwest diners!

There are so many things wrong with that.

I would like to hear Pelosi’s basis for this. I would like to see polling data. I would like to see a strategy for getting the votes.

That she presents none of this – just her concern that the Democrats not be too lefty for the San Francisco liberal she claims to be – makes me suspicious that she is simply enunciating the deep lack of confidence that many older Democrats feel, partly justifiably. But they need to ask whether times have changed.

Her comments occasioned lively discussions on Twitter. One of the things I observed is that people worry about other people being turned off by things like M4A, even though they themselves back social justice measures. This is where I would like to see polling data. Do those imagined people exist outside of media scolds? For example,

A confounding variable, even if there were data, would be the presence of unconscious racism or sexism. Polling can fail to uncover this. And some of the “lefty” things that Pelosi and others are worried about have to do with racism and sexism, which we are not to speak of because they make people uncomfortable.

That’s a difficult conundrum. Many voters are women and people of color. Pelosi, in that Twitter thread is quoted as saying “What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan. What works in Michigan works in San Francisco — talking about workers’ rights and sharing prosperity.”

Which workers? Ideally, all of them. But the pitch for workers that Trump has made has been to white male workers in extractive industries. The workers in San Francisco are more likely to be women of color who work in health care. Their interests are different. Workers’ rights and wages should be part of the campaign, but the specifics will touch on that unconscious racism and sexism and thus be too lefty.

Pelosi is also doubtful about a Green New Deal because it would eliminate fossil fuels. It may be the timeline that she is objecting to, or it may be displacing those Trumpian laborers; it’s not clear. But yes, we have to eliminate fossil fuels, and the faster, the better.

I keep thinking about that San Francisco-y song, “The Times, They Are A-Changing.” Yes, let’s fire up the base to get them to vote in the general election and maybe drag along those young voters who feel they and their future are being ignored. Let’s present a vision of the future that people can sign on to. Trump has trashed the government. We’ve got an opportunity to build something better than what we had before.

 

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Friday Night Impeachment Watch: Nancy Pelosi Talks to Steven Colbert

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Good for Madam Speaker, now and forever…

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Impeachment Inquiry Open Thread: Madam Speaker Takes the Next Step

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Possibly not unrelated, shall we say, to the Very Serious Peoples’ sudden intense interest in the proper etiquette for displaying public displeasure in an open forum, such as a baseball game?

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Pivotal Image

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The Beat Goes On

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Per the Washington Post:

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton have emerged as key targets for House Democrats in their impeachment investigation of President Trump after explosive testimony about the president’s pressure on a foreign leader to investigate a political rival.

House Democrats on Tuesday began discussing the possibility of summoning both men — who would be the highest-ranking individuals to testify — as the investigation has accelerated in recent days with the cooperation of several current and former administration officials.

The actions of Mulvaney and Bolton attracted considerable attention after two witnesses testified that the acting White House chief of staff was involved in setting up a separate channel to handle diplomacy with Ukraine, which angered Bolton…

“Mulvaney has the inside understanding of why the money was withheld on the security assistance,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, who said the two men should testify.

“They’re going to be good witnesses,” quipped Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). “I suspect we will [need to hear from them]; we need to get the facts.”…

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Excellent Read: “Nancy Pelosi, Political Grandmaster”

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There’s a famous Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

It always comes to mind when some Very Woke twitter analyst with a goldfish memory switches overnight from WHY WON’T PELOSI DO SOMETHING !!!RIGHT NOW!!! to WOOO SPEAKER & SHORTLY INTERIM PRESIDENT PELOSI IN!THE!HAWSE!!!. (Except, of course, those analysts usually switch right back to their first position, sometimes before I can finish reading down the thread.)

Abigail Tracy, in Vanity Fair, on “Nancy Pelosi, super Speaker, on Trump’s unfitness, the decision to impeach, and “weaving” her fractious caucus”:

Lost in the wilderness of the Trump era, Democrats looked long and hard for a champion: Robert Mueller, the media, even Michael Avenatti. But when the party retook the House in November and Nancy Pelosi began her historic second term as speaker, no one doubted the search was over. She’d been a GOP target and, some centrists thought, an electoral liability given her San Francisco roots. But now no one doubted that she was the indispensable Democrat, cheerfully jousting with AOC and “the Squad,” mediating the hoary conflict between the party’s left and its center (she describes herself as “a weaver,” which is a nice word for how she sometimes has to operate), winning with substance (her party’s focus on health care) and imagery (the famous Max Mara red coat, the donning of the sunglasses after her triumphant border wall meeting with Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer), and holding fire on impeachment until precisely the right moment. The Speaker talks to Abigail Tracy about the road to impeachment, how the Democrats won in 2018, why Trump is unique among presidents she’s known, and the work to be done after Trump is gone.

Tell me about the moment you reached the decision to go down the impeachment path.

I take a lot of guidance from the vision of our founders, and our founders fought very hard for our democracy, for our country, for our Constitution. In the dark days of revolution, Thomas Paine said, “The times have found us.” We believe that the times have found us to keep the republic from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that would be those who say things like, “Article II says I can do whatever I want.” That’s not a republic, that’s a monarchy. That’s not what we have…

Some members in your caucus credit excitement from the base and a desire for a check on President Trump to your victory in the midterms in 2018. Others argue it was the messaging around issues like health care. What is your diagnosis?

Oh, it was health care. We had a very disciplined campaign in terms of a purpose. “For the people” was our agenda. We were going to lower health care costs by lowering costs of prescription drugs and preserving [protections for] preexisting conditions. Two, we were going to increase paychecks by building infrastructure in a green way. Three, we were going to have cleaner government by reducing the role of big dark money in politics and ending voter suppression others inserted in the bill. And the issue of health security, it’s just very dominant. People have determined it is “the issue” and this is the difference between Democrats and Republicans…

It is hard not to notice that he has rarely used a nickname for you.

Who cares? I don’t care if he has a nickname, maybe that’s why he didn’t do it.

I treat him with respect. I respect the office he holds. Sometimes I think I respect the office he holds more than he respects the office he holds. I try not to ask him to do something that isn’t in his interest. And it is in his interest to lower the cost of health care, to protect children, to build the infrastructure of America…

Have you been at all surprised by the behavior of the broader Republican party in the Trump era?

No. I’m not surprised. I mean, their oath of office is clearly to Donald Trump and not to the Constitution of the United States. Forgetting his personal grotesqueness, there is nothing he is about, in terms of the issues, that they haven’t been there longer and worse. Name any issue— climate, a woman’s right to choose, fairness in our economy, gun safety, how we treat immigrants. Any issue you can name, they have always been there and worse than he is. He is like their JFK. He is their guy…

Much has been made about a perceived conflict between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic caucus this Congress. Has anything really changed?

No. No, it’s been the same forever. We’ve always had a big tent, we’ve always had different elements of the party. I myself am a San Francisco liberal and I’m proud of that. Republicans bought 137,000 ads describing me as such during the 2018 campaign. It didn’t work for them. We won 40 seats in the most gerrymandered, voter-suppressed districts you can name.

We’ve always had our exuberances, but we’ve always had our common ground. And as I say, “Our diversity is our strength, our unity is our power,” and that’s what President Trump fears most…

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Good for Madame Pelosi

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After this week, I think we’re entitled to a little gloating. Karen Tumulty, in the Washington Post, “This might be the worst impeachment news of all for Trump”:

As the president of the United States rants and rages about the prospect of his impeachment, the woman who set the gears in motion is a study in serenity.

“I feel very at peace with all of this, very at peace,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told me in an interview Wednesday…

For many months, Pelosi had resisted the calls within her party to commence the process that could lead to Trump’s impeachment. What forced her hand, the speaker said, were the facts, the sheer impropriety of Trump pressuring Ukraine’s president to turn up dirt on Trump’s leading presidential rival, former vice president Joe Biden.

“He has committed impeachable offenses even before this, but I do think this is more easily understandable by the public,” Pelosi said. “He gave us no choice. And if he doesn’t understand and the Republicans can’t grasp that — the fact that he undermined our national security, our Constitution and our electoral system — that’s their problem.”

Pelosi remains determined not to give in to the impulses of some Democrats to make impeachment a vehicle for everything about the president that stirs their rage. All of that should await November 2020, she said, when voters will have their opportunity to weigh in on Trump’s policies, his temperament and his character…

In the meantime, Trump’s chief adversary at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is settling in for the duration, however long it might be. “I have never talked about any timeline. I don’t have the timeline,” Pelosi said. “It will go expeditiously — that is to say, we’ll use the time well to get the facts. We’re not moving hastily, though.”

For a president who grows more agitated by the day, that might be the worst news of all.

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They Always Had It In For Her

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I hate writing these posts because inevitably some blinkered shithead will chime in and call me a Hillary fanboy, which I’m not (a simple search of this archives should sustain that assertion), having been driven to the point of near insanity by her 2007-2008 shenanigans, it’s just in 2016 I felt she was the best choice for Democrats and a far better candidate than Trump. I think I have been proven correct on that belief, too. Regardless, it is simply not my style to shy away when obvious bullshit is occurring and I believe in a basic principle of fairness.

Having said all that, I find it simply astounding that Bernie having a heart procedure is not getting more press. Mistermix mentioning it was the first I had heard of it. There was relatively nothing even on twitter.

Contrast that with Clinton, who spent the entire 2016 election cycle dealing with headlines and frontal assaults over MADEUP health allegations. It was so bad that when she had fucking pneumonia but tried to show up to a 9/11 ceremony anyway, we got days of coverage about how her health was a real concern.

They always had it in for her and she was never going to get a fair shake. The 40 year campaign by Republicans to smear her was embraced by the trotskyite left and the Russian front at the Young Turks and elsewhere, and amplified by our “liberal” media. And that’s just the facts.

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