Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I really should read my own blog.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

No one could have predicted…

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

In my day, never was longer.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans in disarray!

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / The Opening Statement of David Holmes, the Career Foreign Service Officer Assigned as the Political Officer at US Embassy Kyiv

The Opening Statement of David Holmes, the Career Foreign Service Officer Assigned as the Political Officer at US Embassy Kyiv

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CNN’s Manu Raju obtained the opening statement of David Holmes in his deposition before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence this afternoon. He is the career foreign service officer assigned as the Political Officer at US Embassy Kyiv. He also read the statement on air. Holmes works for Ambassador Taylor, the Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine, who testified yesterday that Holmes and one of his other foreign service officers had overhead an unsecured phone call on 26 July between US Ambassador to the EU Sondland and the President at a restaurant in Ukraine. This call took place the day after the President’s call with President Zelensky of Ukraine where the President tried to extort him Zelensky into interfering in the 2020 election.

The call that Holmes overhead WAS NOT on speaker phone. Rather, the President was so loud that he could hear him through Ambassador Sondland’s ear piece. It is important to note here, that US government issued unclassified smartphones for official use have the bluetooth deactivated as it is considered insecure. If you’re issued a US government smartphone, you get a wired earpiece as part of the equipment package. We already know that the President was speaking on his own unsecured cell phone at the White House, but Raju’s reporting of Holmes’ opening statement seems to indicate that Sondland was also using his own personal cell phone to conduct official business. Or what he and the President considered official business, but is really a crime, as well as a High Crime and Misdemeanor. We now have an eyewitness (earwitness?) to these events, which won’t actually tamp down the President’s, his surrogates’, and his supporters’ complaints even though it should, because those complaints aren’t being made in good faith.

I’m uploading a copy of Holmes’ opening statement here.

Holmes_Opening Statement

Mr. Holmes deposition is not particularly good for either the President or Ambassador Sondland who, it appears, will likely need to revise his testimony again.

Mr. Holmes is now scheduled to testify in open session next week. Tomorrow, Mark Sandy a senior career official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be deposed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ahead of what will surely be scheduled public testimony next week. Mr. Sandy was directly involved in the criminal orders that Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney gave that forced OMB to hold up the congressionally appropriated and mandated aid to Ukraine.

There is a second foreign service officer assigned to Embassy Kyiv, Suriya Jayanti, who overhead the unsecured phone call between Ambassador Sondland and the President on 26 July 2019. I haven’t seen any reporting yet as to whether she will be deposed by HPSCI.

The President’s very bad week is about to become an even worse weekend. Information from tomorrow’s depositions, for instance Mr. Sandy’s opening statement, will be released and picked over just in time for the Sunday news shows. The worst thing that could happen to the President has happened: he has lost control of the news cycle. He is unable, at least for now, to program it. And it is going to freak him out, enrage him, and drive him to commit even more self-destructive acts.

We should all hope that these self-destructive acts are limited to the political and the personal. It is going to be a long, bumpy weekend. So strap in, stay frosty, and keep your heads on a swivel!

We are off the looking glass and through the map!

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

145Comments

  5. 5.

    Ruckus

    I believe the phrase is “The brown is hitting the whirlies. And no one is getting out without catching some, guilty or not.”

    For those not accustomed to snark that’s “The shit is hitting the fan and it’s set on hurricane.”

  6. 6.

    dr. bloor

    Mr. Holmes deposition is not particularly good for either the President or Ambassador Sondland who, it appears, will likely need to revise his testimony again

    He should hope he is afforded the opportunity to do so.  There is no particular reason that Congress needs the testimony of an unreliable, serial liar (Sondland) to corroborate the testimony of a credible witness (Holmes).

     

    If I’m Schiff, I swear Sondland in again simply to ask him if he has a preference about rooming with Manafort or Stone.

  11. 11.

    LAO

    @dr. bloor: Sondland is a real wildcard here. I expected him to testilie but he may actually be concerned enough about his criminal liability to tell the truth.

     

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    “ALEXA! ALEXA! ARE WE GOING TO DO CRIMES?!”
    “YES! WE WILL DO ALL THE CRIMES AND MORE!”

  15. 15.

    zhena gogolia

    I definitely forgot to hydrate today. I could not tear myself away from the hearings. Of course I had to tear myself away every five minutes or so to “work,” but it was gripping. Now I’m trying to fill in the things I missed via twitter.

  17. 17.

    TS (the original)

    As I mentioned on the last thread I found it even more disturbing that Sondland refused to have a note taker present when meeting with some of the Ukrainians. What other meetings are yet to be revealed?

    At this stage Sondland should be 100% looking to save self. If he is trusting trump to save him he is the fool he appears to be.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    @dr. bloor:

    There is no particular reason that Congress needs the testimony of an unreliable, serial liar (Sondland) to corroborate the testimony of a credible witness (Holmes).

    They don’t need Sondland to corroborate Holmes, but it might be better if he weren’t on record contradicting him. The Republicans will take advantage of anything they can, so a witness, even one with gigantic credibility problems, testifying on Trump’s behalf gives them one more puff for their smokescreen.

  24. 24.

    Mary G

    Holmes’ statement also ends with an ode to Ukraine and its people. Now I want to go there.

     

     

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    Breaking: the official WH readout of the first trumpov-Zelensky call was drafted before it occurred, according to a person familiar with the matter.

     

    In other words, there were talking points/an outline drafted…the call-chaos-bribery-extortion happened…so the WH decided to just go with the outline as the “official” version of the call.

     

    No wonder he wants everyone to READ THE TRANSCRIPT!  It’s FAKE, drafted IN ADVANCE!

     

    Faux-ites, you people are such suckers, so deluded…

  26. 26.

    LAO

    @Roger Moore: Dan Goldman was a formidable prosecutor in the SDNY, I look forward to his examination of Sondland. If I were the Democrats I cede all of the time to him. Not that they will.

     

  27. 27.

    dr. bloor

    @TS (the original): If Holmes’s testimony is deemed credible or corroborated in some other way, the “I refreshed my memory” gambit gets Sondland very little this time around.  He needs to produce something in a Queen for a Day profer that no one else can give the committee.

     

  29. 29.

    TS (the original)

    @FelonyGovt:

     

    I feel so very sad for Zelensky – he was forced into this situation by a manic man with the power to give his country to Russia. And that manic man may do just that – before he is eventually handed the order to leave the White House.

     

     

     

  31. 31.

    hells littlest angel

    @FelonyGovt: How embarrassing for Zelensky …

     

    Good. Maybe he’ll figure out that America is his friend, not Trump or his henchmen.

     

     

     

  36. 36.

    JMG

    The defense for Trump is boiling down to “Fuck you, Republicans rule.” It’s terrible that this will work for most Republicans, but it’s beyond horrible that it will be presented as “just another partisan food fight” by 95 percent of national political media. As a former journalist, those people make me feel I wasted my working life.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    On Twitter, the Hoarse Whisperer is of the opinion that Roger Stone will NOT get a pardon because he’s too close to Trump, and narcissist Trump is only willing to pardon people who don’t embarrass him like Stone did.

    I really hope it’s true.

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    @FelonyGovt: Zelensky and his government don’t have long left. And that was really the point to all of this on the foreign line of effort of the Black PSYOP I’ve been writing about. By, to use the President’s phrasing, “putting Zelensky in a public box”, Zelensky would be compromised. The President would know, but Putin who is the real beneficiary of anything that destabilizes Ukraine, would also know it. And that information warfare operation would have begun ASAP. Zelensky would’ve been given two options: 1) capitulate to Putin, bringing Ukraine back under Moscow’s control or 2) have his presidency, his administration, his government, and his personal reputation destroyed as the information showing he was compromised was dripped out.

     

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    https://time.com/5597784/freedom-gas-energy-department/

     

    Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes unveiled the term “freedom gas” in the release, which notes that he highlighted the approval at the Clean Energy Ministerial in Vancouver, Canada.

    “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy,” he said.

    Later in the release, Steven Winberg, the assistant secretary for fossil energy, said the department is promoting an efficient regulatory system to enable “molecules of U.S. freedom to be exported to the world.”

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: There is no way he is going to be able to politically survive what has come out in Holmes’ opening statement. And what will be revealed is only going to get worse. He’s going to be collateral damage of the President’s impeachment.

     

  45. 45.

    Leto

    @LAO: Cede the time from the individual members? Can they do that? Idk if that was the agreed upon rules, but I do agree that he’s very good.

     

  47. 47.

    Dan B

    @LAO: I beg to differ about Sondland.  It seems his wife is afraid of what her big boob of a husband will do to be a big deal in the GOP.  I believe they are already heading for pariah status in Portland social circles.  And she has raised alarms to her husband.

     

    I hope she doesn’t suffer too much due to her foresight but I’m not holding my breath.  She didn’t get him tossed in the looney bin for his million dollar bribe to Donald.

     

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    I want to know how this guy got onto the White House grounds and was allowed to wander around till he found the press pool.

    And within 100 feet of the Oval Office!

  54. 54.

    LAO

    @Dan B: I’m confused. How do think he’ll testify? I originally believed he definitely lie to protect himself and Trump and now, I’d give 50-50, that he may testify truthfully.

     

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Timurid:

  58. 58.

    TS (the original)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He’s going to be collateral damage of the President’s impeachment.

    I see this as trump’s payback because Zelensky didn’t announce the investigations before the w.b. details came out. He was in a lose lose situation and trump was happy to have him there.

     

    Trump has now turned to do similar to SK.

     

     

     

     

  61. 61.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: Freedom Molecules!  On the same day the IEA (I believe) released a report that the methane leaks from coal mines, and oil and gas wells, may be equal to the global warming impact of the entire transport and aviation sectors.

     

    I believe this showed up on Raw Story.

     

  63. 63.

    sdhays

    I have to say that I’m kind of surprised that the Republicans haven’t (yet) fallen back on “this is a complete waste of time because the Senate will NEVER convict Dump”. The raw use of power is pretty much their entire SOP at this point, so it’s kind of surreal seeing them go through the motions of making (terribly stupid) arguments that the President is somehow not totally guilty. I hope it means that they’re seriously scared.

  67. 67.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TS (the original): Fareed Zakaria has already publicly confirmed that they had the interview schedule and that he’d gotten to Ukraine and suddenly it was called off. So the drip, drip, drip of information that further implicate the President, Giuliani, Mulvaney, Pompeo, Pence, etc is going to be a political water torture for Zelensky. Especially as people like Zakaria who were set up to be used as unwitting dupes put out statements to cover their own tuchases. This is why I don’t think Zelensky will survive long. Which is, of course, what Putin wants. If he can’t control Zelensky, then getting rid of him works.

     

  69. 69.

    Immanentize

    Sure sure.  Yes yes yes.  But what does Matt Taibbi or Glen Greenwald think of all this?

     

    Don’t I need to know before I know what to think?

  71. 71.

    TS (the original)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Thanks – I couldn’t agree more – Zelensky lost when he was elected.

    SK is South Korea. I also wonder about Japan. Both countries have been supported by the US (and allies – not too sure who these are anymore) until trump.

    I do not have the expertise or language to fully explain why I believe this – but trump has been desperate for his  peace prize & sees the unification of Korea as his way there.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    Zelensky can, and I think will, just go straight to his people and say ‘yes, I was going to go along with these nuts in order to get the arms we needed to defend Ukraine from Russia – wouldn’t you?’

     

    And he’ll be right, and he’ll be okay.  Well, except for all of the Russian propaganda/social media/info warfare that will happen.  But it’s the best approach and one that will likely go over well with his people.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TS (the original): Okay, now I”m tracking. I’m used to ROK as the abbreviation, I thought you were referring to a person.

     

    South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have had a lot of regional strategic risk piled on them over the past several days.

     

  76. 76.

    jl

    ” We are off the looking glass and through the map! ”

    The looking glass is being ground into powder and the map is bursting into spontaneous combustion.

     

    It’s a good thing that Lindsay Graham is ignoring the whole business. Otherwise he’d be put in an awkward spot.

     

    I hope more people come forward to tell the truth about Trump. I suppose that depends on how liable they are to criminal prosecution when all the dirt comes out. But, maybe some will feel they need to unburden themselves anyway. I remember that when the great Trump Wall was first suggested as a campaign cheer rouser, even Trump thought it was a stupid idea (even Trump is not a dumb as many of his fanatics). I wonder if Trump still feels that way, and he knows he is still using it as a cynical campaign gimmick. If so, I wonder how often he spilled that to his flunkies.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jeffro: The condition of receiving the weapons was that they COULD NOT be used against Russia so as not to provoke Putin to escalate. Not even defensively. We sent them over there as a never to be used deterrent. And, of course, this was leaked to the news media, which completely destroyed the deterrent effect. I’m sure the President also told this to Putin to reassure him during one of their chats.

     

  78. 78.

    sdhays

    @Jeffro: On the way home, I heard the Snooze Hour discuss this call and they said something stupid about how the memo they just released doesn’t include things that were reported to have been included in April, and they had the gall to say that the White House was saying that the discrepancy made Vindman look bad.

     

    I mean, I’m sure that’s what the White House was thinking, but why bother smearing Vindman by suggesting that it’s at least partially his fault when the White House has been caught lying, repeatedly, about just these sorts of things. I still remained stunned how little offense the press took to Sean Spicer, on his first day as Press Secretary, insisting that up is down and the sky is polka dot. They even sympathized with him!

     

  79. 79.

    Martin

    Remember the report that Lev had flipped?

     

    At one point during the party that night, Parnas and Fruman slipped out of a large reception room packed with hundreds of Trump donors to have a private meeting with the President and Giuliani, according to two acquaintances in whom Parnas confided right after the meeting.
    Word of the encounter in the White House last December, which has not been previously reported, is further indication that Trump knew Parnas and Fruman, despite Trump publicly stating that he did not on the day after the two men were arrested at Dulles International Airport last month.
    Eventually, according to what Parnas told his confidants, the topic turned to Ukraine that night. According to those two confidants, Parnas said that “the big guy,” as he sometimes referred to the President in conversation, talked about tasking him and Fruman with what Parnas described as “a secret mission” to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

    This is going to be fun.

  83. 83.

    TS (the original)

    @Adam L Silverman:

     

    ROK –  haven’t used it (my lack of knowledge probably)  – I did edit my reply above before reading this – but  I’m happy to read any more of your analysis as  my thoughts seem to follow your expertise.

     

  85. 85.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: I agree with you (maybe?). This might strengthen Zelensky.  He looks like an  actual patriot who will even give up his ego — debase himself when necessary — for the good of the country he leads.

     

    We of course do not recognize such courage

     

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @waratah: No, the political officer is a career foreign service officer whose focus is on the internal politics of the country in which they’re assigned at the embassy. They serve as the senior advisor for politics to the US ambassador assigned to that country. Just as the economics officer does the same for that country’s economics, etc.

     

  92. 92.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman:  If, likely, Zelensky gets the boot hiw likely is it that Burisma goes back to its old corrupt practices? I seem to recall that Zelensky was supported by an oligarch so progress was already uncertain but had better prospects.

     

    Seems like Putin would love to have oligarchs worldwide in addition to the former Soviet sphere.  If he could absorb Poland and parts of the Middle east he could then finance oligarchs in the Americas.

     

    We are teetering on the end of the democratic era just as the climate comes undone.

     

    We need more than Greta and Jane to the rescue, and we’ve got Bill Gates stewing about taxes?

     

    Time to make a pitch to my friend who is friends with the Gates.

     

  93. 93.

    TS (the original)

    @Martin:  So am I, but what I see  is very different to what trump sees. He sees unification, how he does it is irrelevant.

     

    trump sees a “perfect phone call”. I see bribery and corruption.

     

  95. 95.

    sdhays

    @Adam L Silverman: This is something I still don’t understand. If they can’t use them against Russia, even for defense, and everyone knows this, should Zelensky have just told Dump he wasn’t interested in the military aid?

     

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: BJ is soggy with experts on all topics at all times.  One of the joys of the comment section.  Refer to the rotating tag regarding “often wrong, never uncertain….”

     

  98. 98.

    sdhays

    @Adam L Silverman: What I found disgusting was how the Snooze Hour just passed that accusation on to the viewers rather than first getting to the bottom of it or at least attempting to apply a smell-test.

     

  99. 99.

    TS (the original)

    @Gin & Tonic:  I see Adam as an expert. As I said before, I don’t have the expertise or the language skills but after 3 years of watching trump I agree with Nancy Pelosi – all roads lead to Putin – and trump wants to give Putin Ukraine, while he breaks up nato & withdraws from  Japan & Korea.

  105. 105.

    Kamala.Harris.2020

    @Immanentize:

     

    I am not affiliated in anyway with Kamala Harris (BPUH).

     

    I’m just someone who appreciates high quality presidential candidates.

     

  107. 107.

    Adam L Silverman

    Please stop the news, I would like to get off!

    Also, he seems nice…

  110. 110.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Dan B: Honestly, you should direct these questions to @Gin & Tonic:. I know a lot about Ukraine, especially in regard to Putin’s regional and geo-strategic machinations. I’m basing my argument on what I know about how information warfare, influence operations, and PSYOP work. G&T will have a far better read on the domestic politics than I do. And his cautions regarding our speculation should not be ignored.

     

  111. 111.

    Jay

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sdhays: If you have them and they’re the last thing that could prevent you from being overrun, you want them so you can ignore the caveats on their use. I would expect that’s why Zelensky wanted them.

     

  113. 113.

    lgerard

    @Martin:

     

    Parnas is a con man, he would not make a good witness even if he was telling the truth, which I highly doubt.

     

    When in the impeachment process are we going to start discussing the fact that the 3 amigos wrote a script that they wanted Zelensky to recite in public”

     

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TS (the original): I know a lot about Ukraine in regard to the regional and geo-strategic implications of its politics and Putin’s machinations. But @Gin & Tonic: knows far more about its domestic politics than I do and has a far better understanding of the subtleties of those domestic politics than I do. I often consult him offline when I have a question. We should take his concerns regarding our speculation to heart.

     

  116. 116.

    LAO

    @lgerard: well, considering the fact that none of the first three witnesses would have knowledge of the 3 amigos statement, the fact that it’s not in the record yet shouldn’t be surprising. I suspect that Sunderland will be questioned on that topic.

    edited

  117. 117.

    debbie

    I will say upfront before I get slammed that I am no expert and should have no opinion, but I don’t think Zelensky’s toast; Sondland’s statements about him are just that: the words of an asshole. Zelensky has done what he did for his country and he can’t be faulted for that.

    I would hope there is much gnashing of teeth at Putin’s home tonight.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @debbie:

    Hopefully Zelensky has been doing the Ukrainian equivalent of keeping his pants zipped so his enemies can’t get to him via an unrelated scandal.

    (I say “the Ukrainian version of keeping his pants zipped” because most European countries thought we were ridiculous and puritanical for impeaching Bill Clinton over a blowjob, so a career-destroying scandal in Ukraine would presumably not be a run-of-the-mill extramarital affair between consenting adults.)

     

  121. 121.

    lgerard

    @LAO:

     

    I thought that there was some reference to it in those text messages that Taylor was looped in on, but I may be mistaken.  After all, that was like 5 trump-years ago.

     

  122. 122.

    André Alessi

    Something that occurs to me: we know from the JIT that investigated the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine that Ukrainian intelligence services routinely record all cellphone calls in areas of significance for future analysis. (Bellingcat, etc used these to identify individual Russian military officers who were involved in the launch of the missile that downed the passenger plane.) If US diplomatic staff are using unsecured cellphones, what chance is there that recordings of those calls actually exist?

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    @André Alessi: The Russians have the audio. So do the Brits, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Germans, the French, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Finns, the PRC, the DPRK, and I would also expect the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Turks.

     

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    “… gradually, and then suddenly.”

     

    A good day for restoration of the rule of law and respect for the Constitution.

     

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  125. 125.

    Dan B

    @LAO: Just noticed your question about Sondland’s testimony.  I believe he can’t bring himself to abandon his need to stoke his ego.  His wife seems to be opposed to his lust for status.  Portland does have its elites but they tend not to care for notoriety.  They are descended from Boston Brahmins who find deplorable reaching above your place.

     

    So much for social speculation.

     

  126. 126.

    Jeffro

    @Adam L Silverman: right

     

    or you just want them to show that you can get them from a stronger ally

     

    or you just want them to laugh and make your opponent think you will just use them anywhere you want

     

    just having them is a major advantage… The “restrictions“ not really operative in the real world

     

  127. 127.

    Another Scott

    @Immanentize: Plus, Ukraine has been under Russia’s boots for hundreds of years.  They know how these political dirty tricks work.  They’re not going to throw Zelenskyy under the bus so quickly, especially not in response to Donnie’s and Rudy’s machinations.

     

    Cheers,

    Scott.

     

  130. 130.

    Jay

    “More than 30 influencers told me that the Saudi government blackmailed them with material obtained by hacking their phones. They were given two options: Tweet propaganda or have your private content, including pictures, released on Twitter.” https://t.co/pViSSRtXBj— Clayton Swisher (@claytonswisher) November 15, 2019

  132. 132.

    frosty

    @Jay: Russia takes control of main U.S. military facility abandoned earlier this week by American forces on Trump’s orders.

    Not only does this make me feel sick, this looks a lot like treason to me.

     

  133. 133.

    hitchhiker

    @FelonyGovt:

     

    I think it’s the opposite. The oaf-child Sondland was characterizing Zelensky as a willing patsy, humbled by the great and powerful Oz in the white house, but in fact Zelensky had done everything he could think of to hold onto his integrity and still save his country.

     

    He comes off as a hero in this demented saga. He could have just played along and sold it all off to Putin & his thugs.

     

    What’s more, the final result just might be that Ukraine & all the places struggling with entrenched corruption get a textbook lesson in what it looks like to have institutions with integrity — sometimes whistleblowers are protected and honest citizens get to speak up and throw the motherfuckers out.

     

    Yes, I’m feeling optimistic.

     

  134. 134.

    Jay

    Immigration judges resigning. Asylum officers leaving. ICE agents contacting us, looking for help finding different jobs. Workers quitting companies like GitHub whose tech powers roundups & camps. The more pressure we put on the system, the more it hollows out from the inside. https://t.co/qKpJvMks1K— ✡️ Never Again Action ✡️ (@NeverAgainActn) November 15, 2019

  136. 136.

    NYCMT

    @Dan B: What chaps my ass about Sondland is that he’s the youngest  son of Yekke Holocaust refugees and part of the mythology of the German-Jewish sonderweg is how upright we supposedly are. Sbbbbppplpplltttttt.

    (Yeah. Kissinger. Kissinger’s father was my grandfather’s tutor. My grandfather and my mother sat with Ludwig and Paula in their apartment in Washington Heights the Shabbos that Heinz married Nancy Maginnis…)

     

  137. 137.

    Mike in NC

    We just rewatched the movie “I, Tonya” and it appears that Fat Bastard is the Tonya Harding of American politicians: a deeply corrupt scumbag who’ll do anything to win at all costs. He needs to spend the last years of his rotten fucking life behind bars.

  138. 138.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: I agree qe shouldn’t speculate and Ukraine’s political winds are complex to the point that it’s unlikely that anyone or any group of experts could provide an ironclad, or even probable, forecast.

     

    I was hoping for a glimmer of insight and overstep when the future is so uncertain and with so much possibility of a long dark era descending on us.  I’m  only human.

     

    My parents lived through the Depression and WWII.  I always wondered how it felt.  They never talked about it felt or their experiences except in the broadest brushstrokes – where they worked and lived.  This didn’t give me a foundation to the story of people who lived through these turbulent times.

     

    I’ve got no expectation that you will provide an all encompassing narrative or some nuggets of wisdom, but you so often do that it keeps my hopes up.

     

    I do an ask of OO.

     

  141. 141.

    Gvg

    @Adam L Silverman: I just don’t see that. The Ukrainians have to know what danger their country is in without US aid. Their President whomever he/she is is not responsibly or patriotically able to resist very much. It’s actually commendable he tried. Being blackmailed by the threat of many of your countrymen being killed is not dishonorable nor the same thing as greed and looting such as the prior government. Now if he had had to do the faking and people didn’t know how he was forced, that would put him in a bad position, and he knew it. These revelations should help him down the line. Of course Trump isn’t removed yet, so he kinda needs to keep in the background. I just don’t see why he should be blamed by his countrymen.

    Kay is right though. It’s going to turn out this isn’t the only country this is happening too.

    Any ideas who should be our next Secretary of State? Worst job ever.

     

  142. 142.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gvg:

    Any ideas who should be our next Secretary of State?

    Uh …. Susan Rice? She’s eminently qualified and was going to be Hillary’s successor until *Benghazi*. But at this point, we know the GrOPers will find -some- reason to attack any nominee, why not make them to back to the ancient well? At least it’s *possible* hat they’ll be unable to gin up public attention, after …. a century of trying.

  143. 143.

    dopey-o

     

     

    @LAO: who wants to see zelinskyy or his #2 come to d.c. and explain these events from kyiv’s point of view? and bring his recordings?

     

  144. 144.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mary G:  Spent 4 days in Lviv and 4 in Kyiv a few years back. The former is a lovely Eastern European city that’s changed hands a lot (Lviv/Lwow/Lvov) where a few words of Ukrainian get you big grins, the latter a bustling metropolis that’s not easy to navigate where the same few words get you a puzzled stare (Kyivans prefer Russian). Found out the hard way that Russian & the Cyrillic alphabet replaces English and Roman letters as the lingua franca  east of the EU, but fortunately I knew barely enough of both to get along.

     

    It’s big & somewhat remote; if you aren’t flying, it’s hard to get to or around in – took me 2 overnight trains to get to Lviv from Prague & another to Kyiv – & the people can seem a bit hostile when it’s really just the language disconnect.

     

    Definitely worth the trip. Too bad we have a fucking traitor in the White House eager to hand them over to his daddy in the Kremlin.

     

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