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.
NANCY SMASH!
Thursday Morning Open Thread: No Stopping, No Going Back
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…
Julia Ioffe responds to Tucker Carlson’s question “Why is Putin so bad?” pic.twitter.com/NpeZyp02CT
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) December 4, 2019
Thursday Morning Open Thread: No Stopping, No Going BackPost + Comments (122)
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Back in the (TV) Box
51 percent of Americans in New ABC/Ipsos poll want Trump impeached and removed from office.
57 percent of Americans want him impeached.
70 percent believe he did something wrong. https://t.co/tSvzM1AR0F
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) November 18, 2019
Speaker Pelosi is a genius. The timing of the Impeachment hearings has turned Virginia blue, given Kentucky and Louisiana Democratic governors, made a laughingstock of the entire GOP and sent trump running to the hospital late on Saturday night
— Not My America (@LeslieEscoto2) November 17, 2019
Fortunately, the GOP is all in favor of enhanced interrogation techniques, so they can hardly claim *this* is torture…
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday left open the possibility that Democrats’ impeachment inquiry will continue into next year…”
via @heatherscope https://t.co/us6nMXe8Pc
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) November 17, 2019
… 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…
Our Ukraine timeline, now with greater legibility and sorting. https://t.co/rZTgHMdWvb
— Philip Bump (@pbump) November 19, 2019
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Back in the (TV) BoxPost + Comments (169)
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Proud to Be A Democrat
Overlooked: Nancy Pelosi has been dealing with overstuffed real estate egomaniacs her entire adult life, through her developer husband. She took the measure of Donald Trump within 5 minutes. https://t.co/vNiFZlGtaM
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) November 16, 2019
‘Stand up’: Yovanovitch uses moment in the spotlight to call on U.S. leaders to defend diplomatic corps by @karoun @PostRoz https://t.co/bo2ukDEAwA
— Matea Gold (@mateagold) November 15, 2019
Per the Washington Post:
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…
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Proud to Be A DemocratPost + Comments (159)
Friday Morning Open Thread: Calling A Bribe A Bribe
Per the Washington Post, “Democrats Sharpen Impeachment Case… “:
Friday Morning Open Thread: Calling A Bribe A BribePost + Comments (173)
Yes, Let’s Rally The Base
Yesterday Nancy Pelosi had to balance out her strong showing on Colbert by once again attacking the “left wing” of the Democratic Party.
NEW: Speaker Pelosi warns her party’s presidential hopefuls that ideas like Medicare For All and free college may fire up the left but won’t beat Trump.
“Remember November,” she says. “You must win the Electoral College.”https://t.co/A0BVnTxsov
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 2, 2019
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,
I fear this is poison in the key states. https://t.co/KcGdnFlRgs
— Kim Masters (@kimmasters) November 3, 2019
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.
Friday Night Impeachment Watch: Nancy Pelosi Talks to Steven Colbert
Good for Madam Speaker, now and forever…
Translation: we intend to squeeze every drop of blood from this that we can https://t.co/7CgxgDYuaJ
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 1, 2019
Friday Night Impeachment Watch: Nancy Pelosi Talks to Steven ColbertPost + Comments (30)