Trump appears to believe that his statement just now will be “the final word from the pres of the U.S.” pic.twitter.com/gQ7J0pn8Jq
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 20, 2019
Best they have is Trump isn’t so corrupt to have actually ordered extortion, he’s just corrupt enough for it to be easily believed he wanted to extort Ukraine, & he’s surrounded himself w people who assumed that’s what he wanted, & who followed what they thought was his order
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 20, 2019
Fox News is literally arguing this exact talking point right now. pic.twitter.com/7zVphKJJzn
— Robert S. Hamer (@robsolonhamer) November 20, 2019
When you’ve lost this guy… https://t.co/S5qKy2ZwPG
— Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) November 20, 2019
And raise money off of it. https://t.co/aBf1m37AjE
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 20, 2019
Republicans very puzzled that the focus of Sondland’s opening statement was to keep himself out of jail and not to keep Trump in office.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 20, 2019
Donald Trump soon to announce that he's also a Never Trumper whose word cannot be trusted or held against him.
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) November 20, 2019
If Drudge is the canary in this coal mine, not looking good for the miners. pic.twitter.com/v9hjQb0ek8
— Schooley (@Rschooley) November 20, 2019
Yes! It’s called resignation. https://t.co/5OGMDUA2aJ
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 20, 2019
Nixon ultimately cared about the GOP's future. Trump will burn them all to buy himself a three second head start.
Hope the judges were worth it, Susan.
— Gator MaClunkey (@Zeddary) November 20, 2019
Major Major Major Major
Open thread? As good a place as any to drop this.
LongHairedWeirdo
THAT’S IT!
That’s what made me think they’re about to try for an insanity plea!
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, I guess I know one app not to put on my phone.
Roger Moore
@LongHairedWeirdo:
I think you’re confusing “Trump is insane” with “Trump is planning an insanity plea”.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Uber is now officially one of thse Porky Pig cartoons where he has a mouse problem, so he gets a cat, and then he has a cat problem so he gets a dog…
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
As long as they don’t talk about a sanity clause in the contract/NDA that Shitgibbon made his
moronsminions sign.Jay C
Of course: She got to maintain her Official Republican Hack credentials in good standing!
And only at the cost of a few “concerns”!
And a “worry” or two!
And, naturally, the physical toll of having to maintain a furrowed brow over all those concerns….
Jeffro
C’mon, Dems, pick up on this: you’ve got him totally on the ropes, now start the drumbeat for “the only way out of this is removal or resignation.” Remind the GOP that they still have 12(!) months until the election.
I’d much rather see trumpov dragged all year and lose in a blowout, but frankly the GOP is going down in 2020 regardless and the man has the nuclear codes. Push him to resign with ‘honor’ and ‘record X, Y, and Z’. “He’s so awesome, he didn’t even need to finish his first term! GREATEST EVAR!!1!” Whatever, just get him out of there.
MattF
Trump is quoting Sondland’s quotes of Trump denying a quid pro quo. It’s being noted that this isn’t much of a defense.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Roger Moore: Not confused :-). I saw your disagreement earlier, and responded to it.
I don’t disagree with what you say – I just don’t agree that it rules out the possibility. Trump is *cunning*. He knows appearances. He’s not at all bright, but he’s not *stupid*. (Yes, he acts extremely stupidly, because he believes very stupid things. A bright person would realize the beliefs were stupid; he doesn’t. That’s why he *acts* stupid, but why I say he’s not actually stupid – just, not at all bright.)
And he doesn’t want to go to jail – if he thinks that’s a real possibility, I don’t think there are any depths he won’t sink to. If he weren’t *directly* implicated, I’d agree, he’d throw *everyone* under the bus. But I’m betting he’s realizing he’s in the proverbial sheep dip.
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major: Another reason to say, “Fuck Uber!”
Baud
@MattF: reminds me of Dick Cheney and Judith Miller.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Given that Uber has multiple complaints from multiple women about drivers harassing them, driving them to remote locations, etc, it’s probably a CYA move, and yet another reason I use Lyft when necessary.
Rand Careaga
We are informed by the White House that the short-fingered vulgarian stopped by Walter Reed last weekend on a lark, and that he remains, as his personal physician once attested (in a statement dictated by his patient) “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
This, of course, does not refer to his political health, which is looking the least bit parlous this week. And you know, I wonder whether the short-fingered vulgarian might want to steer clear of Deep State physicians as the GOP Senate caucus ponders its narrowing options, because at this rate impeachment in the House looks inevitable, and acquittal in the Senate, while certainly doable at McConnell’s fiat, is…eh…not necessarily a good look, you know? Perhaps “deceased” would play better than “disgraced?”
I recall reading that it is possible for skilled medical personnel discreetly to administer an air embolism. There would be a state funeral, a lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda (gold-plated coffin), a spot in Arlington, funeral oration by President Pence. David Brooks and the other usual suspects in the punditocracy would exhort us to come together for a period of national healing, putting all the unpleasantness of the last three years behind us…I’m not really seeing a downside for the GOP here.
MJS
@Major Major Major Major: Good. I generally have no interest in talking to strangers, a category that includes Uber drivers, and hope that this will make the drivers feel the same.
chopper
ah, the henry II defense. didn’t really work for him either.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Baud:
Can the Republicans call John Baron and David Dennison as character witnesses?
chopper
@Jay C:
at this point her brow is so furrowed you can drive a wagon train through it.
mrmoshpotato
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: John Miller will burn Dump to the ground.
Elizabelle
Danny Heck’s comment to Sondland is marvelous. Talking about what his family sought when they emigrated here. About patriotism.
And why doesn’t the same standard apply to Trump’s cronies (list of names). And Trump. Why is that?
Elizabelle
Jim Jordan up. Not speaking at warp speed yet.
NotMax
re: Sondland
It’s like watching Sgt. Schultz in the witness chair, innit?
Elizabelle
I love that Jordan’s designation is (R-OH).
R-OH R-OH is right.
trollhattan
@Rand Careaga:
I’d like his fate to be getting stuck in Taft’s bathtub and drowning, but I’m not picky at the end of the day.
“How can I miss you when you won’t go away?”
Merrick Garland can preside at the wake.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: “And Mr. Sondland, why are all these other guys too chickenshit to sit before us under oath?”
bluehill
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve been in a lot of taxis that have had a small device that looks like a camera pointed towards me. I assume that they’ve been record
@Roger Moore: I think some taxis have small cameras in them. I’ve been in a few. Assume they can record don’t know if they actually do or it’s more of a deterrent.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
My spouse only uses Lyft but virtually every ride is somebody who drives for both companies. You’re only controlling who gets the money, not who the driver may be.
I’m pissed Uber bought Jump, who provide all the e-bikes and half the e-scooters in town. I’d like to use them but won’t sign up with Uber. Sucks to be me.
gene108
Gator MacLunkey, the judges are sooooooooooo worth it
GOP maybe out of power for a couple of election cycles, but will come roaring back, as Democrats fail to deliver utopia to disaffected voters.
Dem’s crushed Republicans in 1974. Won a close Presidential race, in 1976. Lost the Presidency and Senate by 1980.
Those judges will be able to stop any Democratic plans, which are popular, for decades to come.
A 35 year old Trump appointee can serve for 40-50 years. We won’t get rid of the Trump stink, with regards to judges, until sometime between 2060 and 2070.
Jay C
@chopper:
Funny, I just saw a video clue on Jeopardy! last week featuring the penance of Henry II (kneeling shirtless at the altar in Canterbury while various monks beat him with sticks)*. That would do for Trump just fine, I’m thinking. Better, since they didn’t have television in 1172…
* no one got it right
Mo' Salad (--bd)
Disney’s attempt at a gritty true-to-life Lion King sequel is going horribly wrong:
Detroit Free Press: Monroe shooting suspect identified as Simba Lion
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/11/20/monroe-shooting-police-simba-lion-msp/4251048002/
Elizabelle
@mrmoshpotato:
Yep. Chickenshit. Pretty much.
That exchange will get back to the chickenshits.
piratedan
waiting for the end of this Guy Ritchie movie of an Administration where all the bad guys have shot each other dead with incriminating testimony and we’re sitting here in the bar wondering if we’re really in the clear after all of this shit has gone down…
Sab
@Elizabelle: He sure is loud. Whatever happened to midwestern nice? Makes me afraid to go to Troy, Ohio. Scratch that off my bucket list.
debit
@Jay C: Hold on. You can beat people with sticks when you’re a monk? I’m now reconsidering my career choices.
Jay
trollhattan
@gene108:
Find myself agreeing with a pack-the-court strategy, however remote the odds of doing so. That, and impeaching Kavanaugh.
Martin
Josh notes importantly that the ‘I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo’ conversation came the day after the WH learned that the whistleblower report would go public. So, that conversation was Trump preparing his defense. So, that whole line of inquiry will be shot down in time.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
The problem is that Uber is just compounding a bad situation. Yes, they have a real problem with bad drivers, but recording people’s rides won’t fix it. Instead, they’ll have a problem with bad drivers and a PR problem that they’re recording people surreptitiously. What they need is a panic button in the app that starts A) alerts somebody back at HQ there’s a problem and B) starts sending information back to HQ so they can see what the problem is. Knowing the feature is there will keep the drivers under control, but it needs to be under the control of the passenger, not under control of some algorithm at Uber.
Baud
@Martin:
I LACK THE REQUISITE MENS REA!!! I SAID IT! CAN’T IMPEACH NOW!
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Yeah, most drivers down here seem to drive for both. I don’t have a problem with that since Lyft seems to have *slightly* higher hiring standards.
Jay
JWR
Go to town, Sean Maloney! Wowza!
bluehill
@LongHairedWeirdo: Trump is a survivor who’s only cares about himself. What worries me more is that the traditional checks (i.e. Congress) are not working well or aren’t working at all. The somewhat sane repubs retired so the ones that are left are committed whether they want to be or not. Even if they recognize how unconstitutional Trump’s actions are, they already compromised whatever ethics and beliefs they had, so they might not see any way out other than following along to whatever end Trump is leading them to. Ride or die.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Yeah it’s basically a totally useless PR move akin to PG&E randomly turning off customers’ power. It sure isn’t going to inspire me to use Uber.
BretH
Maloney is definitely hitting the mark here.
Elizabelle
Sondland: I’ve been very forthright.
Sean Patrick Maloney: basically — paraphrasing: this is your third attempt at getting it right though, right? And that was a doozy of a statement this morning.
Maloney’s been the most pugilistic of the Dem questioners (that I have seen). I didn’t like it that much, because it was pretty much the browbeating the GOP does, and I think he could have toned it down. He did get applause from the audience when he finally got Sondland to admit that investigating Biden would benefit Trump.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
“I am incapable of telling right from wrong” does not seem like a winning campaign slogan.
Mr. Kite
It’s the new Business Intelligence Division at Uber. Record conversations in their cars, including phone calls, tag them with customer name and location, upload to the cloud and transcribe.
lgerard
@trollhattan:
Another idea
Congressional review of every one of these OLC “opinions”.
One by one, enshrine them in law or discard them.
cwmoss
@Roger Moore: Might have a problem with criminal wiretapping statutes too. Some states make it a crime to record in-person conversations without consent of all participants
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I used a couple of Lyft drivers when I was in the Midwest. I found them much more pleasurable than Uber. Not to mention Lyft has better rates. Deleting Uber now…
Martin
@Roger Moore: It’s been working pretty well for Roy Moore for going on 4 decades now.
My Side of Town
@Elizabelle: Maloney nailed it. Sondland is basically a weasel.
Betty Cracker
Here it is, fellow citizens — the clip of clips (so far):
Booyah!
germy
Doug R
That would have been appropriate for Bill Clinton, but trump’s done actual crimes.
ThresherK
@different-church-lady: Porky was a hotel guest. Daffy was the desk manager who had all the “solutions”, which ended with sending up a mouse to get rid of the elephant.
Sooooo, who is the Daffy in this scenario?
AxelFoley
Can I just say that I REALLY love the new website.
Watergirl and Alain, you two did a freakin bang up job. I tip my hat to you, milady and good sir.
Jay
@cwmoss:
easily negated by a one click terms of service,
Shalimar
Drudge started posting negative headlines about Trump after the El Paso Walmart shootings in August. His antipathy is not new.
Elizabelle
Sondland is getting punchy, and relaxing more. It’s been a long day. I suspect he’s relieved to have this mostly done.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: He’s no Hillary! :)
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: LOL
NotMax
Nunes is wearing a suit jacket that was instant visual shorthand for gangster in movies of yore.
Scout211
@Betty Cracker: Thank you, Betty. It plays so much better in video. It didn’t seem that awesome reading about it. Wow.
sukabi
@Jay C: you forgot the tots and pears.
Doug R
@Roger Moore:
You do realize that this is the same company that disabled Volvo’s safety features on the Uber “self-driving” Volvo that struck and killed that pedestrian pushing their bike across the road.
Volvo’s own testing showed that in 15 out of 17 scenarios their car would have stopped in time, and the other 2 scenarios it would have been travelling at less than 10 mph.
JWR
Boy, that Devin guy sure can spin a (conspiracy laden) yarn, can’t he? The bad part is that this guy actually believes a lot of his own bullcrap.
germy
@NotMax:
It’s a silent shout-out to his good friend Roger Stone.
Roger Moore
@cwmoss:
I have a good guess about how they’ll deal with that. They can basically impose accepting rides being recorded as a condition of driving for/being driven by them. They can pretty easily impose it on their drivers as a condition of driving for them*, and for passengers they can bury it in the fine print of their user agreement.
*But the drivers are totally still independent contractors, not Uber employees!
Raoul
I still give this low probability (but that it is non-zero is bad): Pence, Pompeo etc are end-times freaks. Trump is cornered and in a spiraling panic. And has ‘the button’ for our nukes.
It really wouldn’t take that much instability in the Middle East, exacerbated by idiot moves like this admin keeps making, for a major ‘go boom’ moment. At which point we find out if the whole dame place is just a giant doomsday cult.
trollhattan
@AxelFoley:
Agreed! Can’t be said too often. Joint’s practically too nice for me. I’m usually accompanied by dust bunnies.
sukabi
@Mnemosyne: rather than recording all rides they could actually vet all drivers.
Aleta
Sondland is such an arrogant piece of smarm.
Roger Moore
@Doug R:
I didn’t say Uber wouldn’t continue doing as the idiots in charge there see fit. They are obviously convinced of their own genius to the point they are unwilling to accept anyone else’s opinion of their actions. I’m just saying this is an incredibly stupid approach to things.
trollhattan
@Doug R:
We didn’t even know our Volvo had that system, until the windshield was replaced with a 3rd party one that somehow screwed with the pedestrian avoidance system and started randomly activating. AAAKKK!
I’m here to testify, it works. (after glass re-replacement.)
Stupid Uber
Betty Cracker
Watch his face at the end after Stefanik turns around:
LMAO!
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
Russians/Dump Brown Shirts trashing Sondland’s hotels on Yelp with one-star reviews.
lamh36
Great digital ad from Kamala Harris releases this afternoon!
https://twitter.com/kamalaharris/status/1197243216132804608?s=21
Ksmiami
@gene108: any judges appointed under this criminal need to be ousted- the entire gop edifice in government needs to be purged root and branch – call it the 2020 anti corruption act
sukabi
@Betty Cracker: that fucker got incinerated!
????
Aleta
I’ve appreciated the thought that went into the website navigation design, so fast and easy to use today while concentrating on a bunch of other things at once. Slick.
Roger Moore
@sukabi:
But vetting drivers costs money! That might make them
unprofitablelose even more money than they already are.different-church-lady
sukabi
@Betty Cracker: lol. He looked just like Melania did at the swearing in.
Just One More Canuck
@Baud:
IANAL but does that translate to “Your Honor, Ah’s Stoopid”?
Yarrow
Schiff’s closing statement is fire.
Betty Cracker
Same energy.
Sab
Yuck. My hometown newspaper, which used to be the flagship paper for Knight, just sold itself to Gannett.
I guess I should be grateful that we still have a paper. Bu I am not. Our free wwekly is still okay.
germy
germy
Same energy:
Immanentize
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
The questions at tonight’s debate better focus on today’s bombshells. We can discuss policy on another night.
Jay C
@Aleta:
True; and I think Schiff and his crew have done an inspired job of dealing with him in this hearing. It’s the classic way of dealing with a shifty weasel of a witness: measured, respectful on-point questioning at the start to get the preferred testimony on the record: but then finish with a thorough reaming by a hard-ass to make the point of the guy’s shifty-weaselness.
And well, it WAS the Republicans who wanted, nay demanded that all this stuff be right out in public….
germy
And now CBS News goes directly to the republicans to let them air their talking points.
They really want repubs to have the last word. (they’re talking a mile a minute)
Sab
@lamh36: I think Harris’s problem is she is everyone’s strong number two, but that doesn’t make her number one.
I am a Warren supporter, but I do really like Harris.
There have been zero primaries yet. Hang in there.
Aleta
@Jay C: Him laughing when one of the underlying subjects is the threat to Ukraine security sums up the attitude of the whole bunch.
Aleta
@Immanentize:
And the walls came down, all the way to hell
JWR
@Betty Cracker: Beauty! (Also too, awesome performance.)
Immanentize
@Aleta: that’s where I want to see them fall to.
Jimmiraybob
“Not a puppet. Not a puppet. You’re the puppet.”
Another Scott
@gene108:
It’s bad, but not hopeless. Repost – Brookings from December 2018:
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
~Not In The Loop~ @Beaner5280
Looks like Sondland thought this was done and it’s bullshit?
Any lipreaders amongst us?
video: https://twitter.com/Beaner5280/status/1197217197556285441
Mr. Mack
Apologies if this has been addressed, but I’ve noticed that in every opening statement, Nunes refers to Burisma funneling money into Hunter Bidens’ domestic account. Is that a (crooked) way to say he was paid? I mean, Vanderbilt routinely funnels money into our domestic bank account, every two weeks in fact. Yet, this is never cleared up? I get that if the committee slaps that down, it is giving the assertion oxygen, but it’s such a slimy insinuation.
Mnemosyne
@sukabi:
Oh, you kidder, you …
Kent
@Another Scott: Any Democratic federal judge who retires in the next year should be barred from polite society for fucking life.
trollhattan
@Sab:
That’s like being kept on life support just in case Cheney needs another heart.
Sorry!
Our dead tree paper just announced they’re ending Saturday delivery. Drip, drip, drip.
mrmoshpotato
@Mr. Kite:
4. Profit!
I wish that definitely was a joke but you just wait.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: Must be viewed several times. Heck, the “who benefits part,” while possibly more important to impeachment, is actually eclipsed by the “let’s be really clear about what it took to get it outa ya” finale.
Sizziling.
Might one dare to call it — pizzaz?
Another Scott
I got curious and decided to look and see if Donnie’s handwriting has gotten substantially worse since his recent unscheduled visit to the hospital.
It looks quite similar to his screed against KAJ in 2017.
(Yeah, it’s scrunched at the top right margin. Yeah, he can’t spell Zelenskyy. But the penmanship hasn’t changed much at all to these eyes.)
So, I’m guessing if he had a “stroke”, it didn’t affect that part of his brain.
Cheers,
Scott.
LongHairedWeirdo
@bluehill: it’s an interesting thing, too.
I’ve been told (so, this is, at best, secondary source) that when Hitler’s Final Solution was revealed, nearly everyone in the room was horrified and shocked.
Except – they’d all taken actions that led to this precise point. At this point, every single one of them realized that if they went home and said “I did X_and_such, which, clearly, obviously, and objectively led to *this*, but I never *intended* it to come to this…” even their most trusted family member would be looking at them like a kid with a chocolate frosting-smeared face insisting someone else ate the last piece of cake. Except, you know, in horror.
And it’s not unlike the Milgram experiment. That experiment was horribly unethical… but I can’t deny that I’m glad we *know* that people will do stupid, ugly things they know damn well aren’t right, for stupid reasons.
And this is why people who give a damn at all about doing the right thing have to stop every once in a while, and *think*. Ain’t been none of that on the GOP side since 2016 at a minimum.
But you’re right – they’re *all* aiding, abetting, and helping to cover it up, because they’re riding the tiger, and have to hope like hell they can stay on.
Elizabelle
@LongHairedWeirdo: That’s a really interesting comment.
Although, the “shocked and horrified” could have been the Nazis trying to salvage their reputations post-war. Apparently Albert Speer was the most successful in that aspect.
But yes, there was likely a continuum and several may not have realized their actions were leading to that.
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
I don’t want to impeach Kavanaugh, I want to indict him for multiple rape counts.