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You are here: Home / Politics / Impeachment Inquiry / Sondland After Lunch

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  2. 2.

    zhena gogolia

    This is like some horrible existential torture — every time I have a few minutes free and could watch uninterrupted, it’s Nunes!

  4. 4.

    zhena gogolia

    Side note — it’s back to the thing where my comment doesn’t appear to me unless I close the site, open it again, go to the bottom, and refresh.

  6. 6.

    Leto

    Sondland after lunch

    Like BJ after dark, but with less drinking, funny times, pleasant conversation, and someone invited fucking Republicans, who ate all the shrimp, shat in the plants by the door, and didn’t bother to eat some gum to hide the garlic on their breath.

  7. 7.

    Leto

    @Martin: Predicting it now: A$AP Rocky is the whistle blower! I’d laugh at how insane that would be, but we’re in this timeline so…

  8. 8.

    JWR

    @zhena gogolia: Side note —

    Same here. I’ve been searching for a pattern that isn’t there.

    ETA: and all of a sudden, it’s fixed. Refresh/Posting brought me back to this here comment.

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    @zhena gogolia:

    I swear that guy could show up as an infomercial waterbed salesman and fit right in. “Be one of the first ten callers and we’ll throw in this comforter. Just look at those spangles!”

  10. 10.

    Leto

    MY NAME IS GYM JORDAN AND I CAN’T CONTROL THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE! NOR CAN I FIND MY JACKET! PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO MY CAMPAIGN TO FIND MY VOLUME CONTROL AND JACKET!

  11. 11.

    MattF

    Kevin Drum explains why Rs are obsessed with the whistleblower:

    Republicans all know who the whistleblower is. What’s more, a couple of years ago they had a minor run-in with this person on an unrelated issue. Since then, they’ve compiled a 40-page dossier on the whistleblower and they’re practically bursting with impatience to unload it all over Fox News. As you can imagine, there’s nothing of real substance in this dossier, but they figure there’s enough smoke and smears to distract attention from Donald Trump’s crimes for a while.

  12. 12.

    zhena gogolia

    @JWR:

     

    Yes, it works intermittently.

     

    What never, ever works is if you follow a few “reply” buttons and try to get back to where you were using the back button.

  13. 13.

    Kent

    This is like torture for me too.

     

    I’m a HS teacher and have the kiddos doing independent research so I can look in here when I’m not walking around looking over their shoulders to keep them on task.  But I can’t stream the hearing and the school filters block twitter.  So I’m only getting 10%.  Will have to watch Maddow tonight I guess.

  17. 17.

    zhena gogolia

    @different-church-lady:

     

    I was all excited until I mentioned it to a colleague who said she was just in a doctor’s waiting room (deep-blue CT) yesterday and everyone there was sharing their undying support for Drumpf.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    @Kent: Maddow is moderating the debate tonight. She won’t be on.

     

    Bet you’re wishing you taught PE now and could just tell them to run laps for an hour.

  19. 19.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    I haven’t been following the hearings because of classes, but who’s ASAP Rocky? The whistleblower? Trump?

  21. 21.

    Kent

    @JWR:Yes, Jim Jordan is YELLING. Really, really yelling. How, unexpected.

     

    Is he doing the yelling and ask rapid fire questions thing that he did last week?  The way to handle someone like that if you are the witness is to take a breath, pause, and contemplate before answering each question, and then answer s l o w l y.  Totally throws them off and makes them look dickish.  In my previous life I was a witness in various trials and that’s how you handle asshole lawyers to do the rapid fire questioning.

  29. 29.

    cmorenc

    Watch for a soon-forthcoming counter-attack by the Admin/GOP on a different front – Barr’s IG report on alleged FISA abuses and the allegedly corrupt origins of the democratic-initiated Russia probe.  They are really left at this point with nothing but throwing up as much confusing, distracting chaff as they can to throw media attention off of the Shiff-led House hearings, centered around selling the notion that the Dems have been trying to falsely frame Trump from the get-go.  Of course, their core base will quickly and eagerly buy into this meme, but the other goal is to confuse the rest of the public outside the core D base into at least a state of muddled both-siderism where both sides are seen as too cynically corrupt to believe, so why bother.

  33. 33.

    West of the Rockies

    @Leto:

     

    My girlfriend believes the yellow tie makes his hair look less gray and more blond.  It’s to make him look more virile.  Same with the no-jacket look, I think.  He believes he looks more macho, ready to throw down and do a little wrasslin’.

     

    He’s a sham.  I bet he smells of coffee breath and Axe body wash.

  34. 34.

    Kent

    @cmorenc:

    Watch for a soon-forthcoming counter-attack by the Admin/GOP on a different front

    My fear is that Trump is going to start a wag-the-dog style war just as a distraction.  Seriously.

  38. 38.

    JWR

    @zhena gogolia: What never, ever works is if you follow a few “reply” buttons and try to get back to where you were using the back button.

     

    Thankfully, I’ve yet to encounter that behavior. Sounds awful! But truth be told, if you had only one blog to read, it would still be this one, blemishes and all, wouldn’t it? ;)

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MattF: My guess is that the minor run in was in regard to Nunes’ obsession as HPSCI chair during the Obama administration, which was his attempt to relocate our overseas Signals Intel base from England to land owned by his family and his family’s friends in the Azores.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mrmoshpotato: The dude is about 5’4 and weighs, maybe, 120 lbs soaking wet. He wrestled at THE Ohio State, which is his claim to fame, in either the 98 or 110 lbs weight classes. He’s itty bitty.

  47. 47.

    Chetan Murthy

    @zhena gogolia:  What never, ever works is if you follow a few “reply” buttons and try to get back to where you were using the back button.

    I believe this is connected to the # and/or size of tweets/images in the OP.  I believe that the browser’s algorithm for determining how far down to scroll, is based on computing displayed-content-height in a way that doesn’t account for the height of tweets/images (or doesn’t account properly, or at least, not always).  So for OPs with very few or no tweets/images (like this one, heh), the “return to where you were last” (or “refresh”) works great.  In OPs with massive numbers of ’em, you’re always scrolling down to the last comment you were reading …..

  48. 48.

    lgerard

    New GOP talking point

     

    observable reality does not exist unless someone else tells you about it

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Rockies: The no jacket, top button unbuttoned, and tie not done up all the way with his sleeves rolled up his way of trying to physically communicate that he’s just a regular working class guy forced to work with a bunch of elites and he’s not fully conforming to their elitist dress code.

  51. 51.

    Leto

    Haha Schiff: “My colleagues think unless the President said, I’m bribing you…” I’m glad Schiff is calling them out for this stupidity.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @cmorenc:

    They are really left at this point with nothing but throwing up as much confusing, distracting chaff as they can to throw media attention off of the Shiff-led House hearings

    It’s not going to work.  The thing that makes the hearings so good is that the media just has to be there and repeat stuff, and they’re going on all day, day after day.  It’s the easiest reporting they’re ever likely to do: somebody else is doing all the work and they just have to repeat it.  Trying to distract the media from that is like parking your food truck outside an all-you-can-eat buffet after the people you’re trying to entice have already paid and gone through the line.

  54. 54.

    JWR

    @Kent: The way to handle someone like that if you are the witness is to take a breath, pause, and contemplate before answering each question, and then answer s l o w l y.

    I think Sondland has been handling him fairly well, and you’re right about how it throws them off. Liddle’ Jimmy Jordan is left panting as he furiously checks his notes.

  57. 57.

    Geoduck

    @Kent: My theory on the Shiatgibbon and wars is that he’s too much of a craven physical coward to start one. Also, everything revolves getting people to visit his golf courses and hotels, and even he knows that people don’t go to such places in a war zone.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @lgerard:

     

    I thought that other people telling you about stuff was “hearsay.” That’s what the Russian troll lawyers on Twitter keep saying. ?

  59. 59.

    Leto

    Oh, Republicans are now claiming the whistle blower isn’t guaranteed anonymity? Cool, cool, cool cool cool.

  60. 60.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @rikyrah:

    Oh. LOL. Thanks. I completely forgot about that guy. Wasn’t he the one Trump was trying to help to burnish his bonafides with African Americans? And he’s a total scumbag?

  62. 62.

    zhena gogolia

    He’s equating the president intimidating witnesses with private citizens boycotting Sondland’s businesses.

  65. 65.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mnemosyne:

    Right? Especially about politics. Nobody wants to be there and wants to get out as quickly as possible. Like an elevator. I guess I might talk to somebody I know if I saw them in my doctor’s waiting room. But that’s basically it

  66. 66.

    JWR

    @Adam L Silverman: The dude is about 5’4 and weighs, maybe, 120 lbs soaking wet.

    Wow! No kidding? Not a big deal, but it’s always interesting to envision a person being 6’2″ (not referring to Jordan) only to find they’re itty bitty.

  72. 72.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Jackie Speirs gets applause when she says “The President of the United States gets five Pinocchios on a daily basis” in response to nonsense from Rep. Conaway of Texas.

  75. 75.

    patroclus

    Let’s see if I’ve got this defense right.  I am not “boycotting” Sondland’s hotels although my not having patronized them might cause you to reach a presumption that I’m boycotting them.  No one specifically directed me to boycott them in those precise words, so isn’t it impossible that I even could be boycotting them?

  80. 80.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Adam L Silverman: Then him ripping off his shirt and shouting “Me!  Hulk!” would be even more ridiculous.  (It’s going to happen.)

     

    And, yes, THE Ohio State University.  Can’t mix it up with Ohio State University then.

  85. 85.

    Kent

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Conaway: Wah wah wah, Sondland’s hotels are being picketed.

    Worse than that.  They are becoming radioactive.  We live in the Portland metro area and my wife’s employer is one of the biggest hospital chains in the region.  They typically make use of the Heathman and one of the other Sondland hotels to put up out of town visiting guests and also doctors they are recruiting.  We actually stayed there a few years back when she is being recruited.  But no more.  They are deliberately using other hotel chains now just to avoid the political taint of appearing partisan in this liberal town.  I expect many other businesses are doing the same.  And business travel is their bread and butter.  Gotta think it is going to really sap their business, especially as we aren’t in tourist season.

  87. 87.

    mrmoshpotato

    Holy fuck Chris Stewart!  You’re blaming the Democrats for trying to find something to impeach Dump on?

     

    Someone beat this man with a hardcover copy of the Starr Report!

  90. 90.

    lgerard

    A thing that really irks me is the constant question posed to all the witnesses

     

    Are you aware of the president’s attitude towards foreign aid?

     

    How is that relevant?  It is the prerogative of congress to decide who gets foreign aid, how much, and under what circumstances.  While the president can veto the appropriations bill, once it is signed and passes into law he can’t rewrite it according to his whims

  91. 91.

    JWR

    Chris Stewart from Utah is convinced that the Libs just can’t see the world through his worldly vision. Oh, and words mean different things to different people.

  95. 95.

    Kelly

    @Adam L Silverman: The last time I wrestled my cousin the retired Green Beret CSM in the yard we were in high school. I had about 30 lbs and 6 inches on him. I ended up with a concussion. Lord only knows what he could do now.

  96. 96.

    Kent

    @sukabi: @Kent: I presume you have a cell phone? Mini computer in your hand.

     

    Yes, of course.  But the school is on the edge of town behind a hill in kind of a cell phone tower dead zone.  So if you want your phone to work you have to connect to the school’s guest WiFi and boom….all the school filters kick in.

     

    Plus, it’s pretty poor form for a teacher to stand around with their nose in their phone when student’s aren’t supposed to have their own phones out.  Typing on your computer makes it look like you are actually working.

  99. 99.

    zhena gogolia

    Luckily I have to go to class now that my least favorite person is up, Stefanik. She makes me even sicker than the rest because she clearly knows better.

  100. 100.

    sdhays

    @Roger Moore: That’s a really good point. The media has really exciting stuff being produced directly for them for free. It doesn’t get any better than this, from their perspective. No way you distract them from it without something really, really good (or really, really bad).

  101. 101.

    Kent

    @zhena gogolia:

    Luckily I have to go to class now that my least favorite person is up, Stefanik. She makes me even sicker than the rest because she clearly knows better.

    Something about being in the GOP just causes brain bleed.  They all get it eventually.  Too much cognitive dissonance I guess.  The smart ones learn to fake it but eventually the faking it all the time seeps into their brain and eventually they aren’t.  Kind of like what watching Fox News 24/7 does to the elderly brain.

  105. 105.

    randy khan

    @Kent:

     

    Is he doing the yelling and ask rapid fire questions thing that he did last week?  The way to handle someone like that if you are the witness is to take a breath, pause, and contemplate before answering each question, and then answer s l o w l y.  Totally throws them off and makes them look dickish.  In my previous life I was a witness in various trials and that’s how you handle asshole lawyers to do the rapid fire questioning.

    That’s actually great advice for any witness with any lawyer.  One lawyer trick for cross examining witnesses is to try to get the witness into a rhythm of answering questions quickly, not necessarily by going rapid fire, but by asking yes-no questions or other questions that need only short answers and not really pausing between questions.  The idea is to get the witness not to stop and think about what answer fits best with the narrative the witness wants but to just answer it honestly.  Essentially it’s like the lawyer and the witness are having a conversation, and that’s rarely good for the witness if the lawyer is on the other side.

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    @sdhays:

    The thing is, this has always been obvious.  The people who expected the media to ignore impeachment proceedings because they wanted to protect Trump just don’t understand how this stuff works.  The media may love Trump, but they love him because he’s an endless source of easy stories.  But impeachment is an even better source of free stories, so they were never going to ignore it.

  114. 114.

    trollhattan

    @Avalune:

    Every time someone says pizazz I want to say AH CHA CHA CHA for some inexplicable reason.

    Yikes, that means you’re coming down with Jimmy Durante Syndrome. Seek help immediately before you go full Calabash!

  115. 115.

    mrmoshpotato

    Rep. Heck (to Sondland): Why are all these others guys too scared to sit before our committee?

  116. 116.

    Elizabelle

    @mrmoshpotato:   I thought Heck’s comments were excellent.  About why the Sondland family emigrated here, how Sondland built a successful business, and about the idea of patriotism.

     

    And why don’t all these yucks who were born in this country, as citizens — Trump’s cronies — feel the same?

  118. 118.

    Kent

    So now they are back to the “there was no crime because it didn’t succeed” defense.   Sheesh.  That’s like claiming the kidnapping didn’t occur because the ransom didn’t get paid.  Or the bank robbery didn’t occur because the criminals got caught before they made it out of the bank.  Idiots.

  120. 120.

    James E Powell

    @Kent:

     

    I’m a HS teacher and have the kiddos doing independent research so I can look in here when I’m not walking around looking over their shoulders to keep them on task.

    I’m in the exact same situation, only it’s middle school.

  121. 121.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Roger Moore:

    But impeachment is an even better source of free stories, so they were never going to ignore it.

    The media ignores better sources of free stories in favor of whatever their favorite narrative is all the time.  Witness the whole 2016 election.  Could there be anything more dull than Emails?  But they went on and on and on with it, because being catty at Hillary is what they personally cared about.

     

    The media will lose interest in hearings, and lose interest fast.  The Democrats are doing damned well packing the period while it’s still fresh and new with exciting stuff.  Good for them.

     

    I strongly wonder what will happen with the polls.  As much fun as these hearings are for us, as much as they may seem all-powerful to congressmen, I suspect they won’t change public opinion.  I’m not at all sure on this one, though.  What really hit public opinion was that ‘transcript’, and there’s no taking it back now.

  123. 123.

    mad citizen

    @Kent: Like Patty Hearst wasn’t kidnapped because she eventually sided with her captors.  If we can somehow get the Dude in to testify about the Lebowski kidnapping, that might add some pizzazz.

     

    Was wondering, when we get to the end of the questioners, why do we run out of Republicans?  Do they not have enough to show up, or do they farm it all out to Nunes and Genius Gym Jordan?

  125. 125.

    takebakawashi

    Sondland says he resents being driven to say that Trump would benefit from an investigation of the Bidens and Mahoney is having none of it — reminds Sondland how many times he revised his testimony before reaching the current state of “candour”.

  126. 126.

    NotMax

    @lgerard

    Way too complex a subject to go into why it is not quite so cut and dry* in this space. If you find time to wade through it, this .pdf file could be helpful (even though it is from 30 years ago) in laying out some of the history of the push-pull regarding classes of foreign aid between the legislative and the executive in a (relatively) modern context.

    *Although there is no defense for, as you put it, whim. Nor for using it as a cudgel in contravention of legislative intent.

  129. 129.

    mad citizen

    @NotMax: Yes I thought of that, but at the end it seems like there are 4 to 7 Ds in a row–maybe they’re all sharing the 5 minute increments?  Maybe the Rs simply didn’t want to participate so as to be complicit?  Just let their Designated A-holes handle it.

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