Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[hrothgar]

I have intentionally avoided this message board for the last few days because I’ve felt that it has deteriorated into nothing more than a pissing contest.

 

Chas, you openly admitted that joined this board to act like an asshole and a troll, and now you're clutching at pearls because you're treated as an asshole and a troll

 

So with those thoughts I leave you to your endeavors. I’ll see you again on November 3, 2020.

 

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, asswipe...

[y66]

You hate to see it.

[y66]

From Nikki Haley Embodies What’s Wrong with the Republican Party by John Cassidy at The New Yorker:

 

In January, 2016, Nikki Haley, who was then the first female governor of South Carolina, delivered the Republican response to Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address. She dutifully criticized the two-term President, trotting out a few G.O.P. talking points on the national debt, health-care reform, and the threat of terrorism. But she also rebuked her own party, saying, “We need to recognize our contributions to the erosion of the public trust in America’s leadership. We need to accept that we’ve played a role in how and why our government is broken."

 

At the time, Donald Trump was leading the polls in the 2016 Republican primary. Haley didn’t mention him by name, but there was no doubt about her target when she said, “Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume.” Haley endorsed Marco Rubio in the primary. When he dropped out, she backed Ted Cruz. After Trump won the nomination, she fell in line behind him but continued to insist that she wasn’t a fan.

 

What a difference a few years can make. On Sunday, Haley gave an interview to CBS News to promote her new book, in which she recounts the nearly two years she spent working for the Trump Administration, as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. When the interviewer, Norah O’Donnell, asked whether Trump would ultimately be impeached and removed from office, Haley’s reply was entirely dismissive. “No. On what?” she said. “You’re gonna impeach a President for asking for a favor that didn’t happen and—and giving money, and it wasn’t withheld. I don’t know what you would impeach him on.”

 

Abusing his office for his own personal gain, perhaps? Threatening to abandon a vulnerable ally to the mercy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia? Seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton and the Bidens from a foreign country for the benefit of his 2020 reëlection campaign? If Haley had even considered any of these justifications for the impeachment process, she didn’t let on. “When you look at the transcript, there’s nothing in that transcript that warrants the death penalty for the President,” she insisted. “The Ukrainians never did the investigation. And the President released the funds. I mean, when you look at those, there’s just nothing impeachable there.”

 

If nothing else, Haley’s interview provided a preview of what we are likely to hear from Republicans on Capitol Hill in the next few weeks, as the House Intelligence Committee holds televised hearings featuring some of the foreign-policy officials inside the Trump Administration who looked on in astonishment and horror as the Ukraine squeeze play unfolded. The Republicans will continue to harp on the partisanship of the process. They will also create diversions, such as this weekend’s demand for Hunter Biden and the anonymous whistle-blower who reported Trump’s actions to testify before the cameras. But the core of their argument, and their ultimate fallback position, will be that the entire inquiry is much ado about nothing and should never have been started.

 

In adopting this see-no-evil posture, Republicans like Haley are confirming Trump’s belief that the normal rules don’t apply to him. Trump said during the 2016 election that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue without losing any supporters. What he has learned in the intervening period is that, as long as his supporters stay loyal, he won’t lose any elected Republicans either—or not very many of them, anyway. Some Republicans are too gutless to follow their consciences. Others still sense that there is personal gain to be had from associating themselves with Trump.

 

Haley, who is often mentioned as a possible Presidential candidate for 2024, is a prime example of a Republican who is supporting Trump for opportunistic reasons. Despite lacking foreign-policy experience, she spent two years at the United Nations defending Trump’s efforts to thumb his nose at the world by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, and moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In her new book, according to the Washington Post, which obtained a copy, she says that she supported all of these moves, and she doesn’t stop there. In a blatant effort to further ingratiate herself with Trump and his supporters, she criticizes Rex Tillerson, the former Secretary of State, and John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, for trying to work around the President and contain his worst instincts.

 

“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley writes. “It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing.” The problem with that, Haley told O’Donnell, is that “they should have been saying that to the President, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan.” She added, “To undermine a President is really a very dangerous thing, and it goes against the Constitution and it goes against what the American people want. And it was offensive.” (Kelly told CBS and the Post that if providing the President “with the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the [government] so he could make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,’ then guilty as charged.”)

 

The reality is that Tillerson and Kelly, along with the former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, were trying to deal with an unhinged novice of a President who refused to read his briefing notes and ranted daily at North Korea, nato, and other targets. Haley writes that Tillerson told her that people would die if Trump wasn’t checked. Meanwhile, Haley—having taken herself out of the running for Secretary of State—could sit safely in New York, where she had plenty of visibility but no real responsibility for making policy. In October, 2018, she announced her resignation—a clear case of getting out while the getting was good—and went on to join the board of Boeing and write her book.

[y66]

From David Leonhardt at NYT:

 

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …

That is the start of the oath that members of Congress take upon assuming office. It’s also the oath that members of the military take when enlisting.

 

And I’m glad to see that military veterans are starting to call on Congress members to make good on their shared oath.

 

In an advertising campaign that began last week and is running in 14 House districts, veterans read the oath on camera and ask congressional Republicans to hold President Trump accountable for violating his own (very similar) oath. The campaign is part of the Defend American Democracy project, run by a coalition of groups alarmed by Trump’s behavior, including Republicans for the Rule of Law.

 

“We kept our oath,” an Air Force veteran named Jeff says in one ad.

 

“Now Congressman Fitzpatrick has to keep his,” Alex, a Marine Corps veteran, says, referring to Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a suburban Philadelphia district. “As a former F.B.I. agent, Congressman Fitzpatrick should know better,” she adds.

 

Veterans are effective messengers, because the military remains one of the few American institutions that’s widely trusted across the political spectrum. In a recent Gallup Poll, 73 percent of Americans said they had confidence in the military, compared with 38 percent for the Supreme Court, 36 percent for organized religion, 29 percent for public schools, 23 percent for both big business and newspapers and a mere 11 percent for Congress.

 

In a separate ad released yesterday — on Veterans Day — Elaine Luria, a freshman House Democrat who represents a district in southeastern Virginia, also reads the oath and explains what it means to her.

 

“I took that oath the first time when I was 17 years old and went to the Naval Academy and took it again upon every promotion during my 20-year Navy career and most recently now serving in Congress,” Luria says. “I didn’t come to Washington to impeach the president, but I also didn’t spend 20 years in the Navy to allow our Constitution to be trampled on.”

 

Impeachment is fundamentally a struggle for public opinion, as I’ve written before. Patriotism is a valuable tool in that struggle, especially when it’s wielded by people who have been willing to make sacrifices for it. The contrast between their selflessness and Trump’s selfishness is jarring.

 

more …

 

“I served in the Army from 2001 to 2006, deploying to Iraq in the summer of 2004,” Alan Pitts, a retired Army sergeant and an organizer of the Defend American Democracy project, wrote in USA Today recently. “I never thought I’d see a day when a service member was attacked for standing up for our country, but that’s exactly what I saw after Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified on Capitol Hill last week.”

[y66]

From Supreme Court Allows Sandy Hook Families' Case Against Remington Arms To Proceed by Bill Chappell at NPR:

 

The Supreme Court has denied Remington Arms Co.'s bid to block a lawsuit filed by families who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook school massacre. The families say Remington should be held liable, as the maker of the AR-15-style rifle used in the 2012 killings.

 

The court opted not to hear the gun-maker's appeal, in a decision that was announced Tuesday morning. The justices did not include any comment about the case, Remington Arms Co. v. Soto, as they turned it away.

 

Remington had appealed to the highest federal court after the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed the Sandy Hook lawsuit to proceed in March. The company says the case "presents a nationally important question" about U.S. gun laws — namely, how to interpret the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which grants broad immunity to gun-makers and dealers from prosecution over crimes committed with their products.

 

Remington manufactured the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle that Adam Lanza used on Dec. 14, 2012, to kill 20 first-graders and six adults at the elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

[y66]

From Zachary Evans at National Review:

 

Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) called on the State Department Monday to ban the bodyguards of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan who assaulted protesters in a 2017 incident in Washington, D.C. from reentering the U.S.

 

In May 2017, members of the Turkish Presidential Protection Department (TPPD), Turkey’s equivalent of the Secret Service, attacked pro-Kurdish protesters outside the residence of the Turkish ambassador. The assault, in which protesters and American law-enforcement officials were injured, was captured on video.

 

In a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Cheney requested that “none of the people who were in the United States with President Erdoğan in 2017 and participated in physical attacks on American citizens—including those protesting lawfully, our secret service, our diplomatic service, and our law enforcement officials—will be allowed into the United States again this week.”

 

“At least eleven people were injured throughout the day, including law enforcement personnel who every day defend Americans’ constitutional rights and physical safety,” Cheney wrote.

 

The letter comes in advance of a planned White House visit by Erdogan this Wednesday.

 

TPPD agents have a history of confrontational incidents on U.S. soil. In 2016, TPPD officers attacked journalists at a Brookings Institution event, and in 2011, they attacked U.N. security personnel at U.N. headquarters in New York.

 

Pompeo on Monday said that President Trump will raise the topic of Turkey’s recent invasion of Syria in his meeting with Erdogan.

 

“We will talk about what transpired there and how we can do our level best collectively to ensure the protection of all of those in Syria, not just the Kurds, but everyone in Syria,” Pompeo told cadets at The Citadel after delivering a Veterans Day speech.

[Winstonm]

Well, isn't THIS fuc$ing special!

 

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

 

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency.

 

In this, the first of what will be a series about those emails, Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a “white genocide”-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in “Mein Kampf.”

 

I anyone deserves to be in a cage, separated from all humans and family, it is this guy.

[johnu]

I have intentionally avoided this message board for the last few days because I’ve felt that it has deteriorated into nothing more than a pissing contest. I am ashamed of my participation in that contest and no longer wish to engage. We are all Americans (well maybe not Zelandakh who says he is a German but just wants to get in on the pissing), and hopefully we all wish only the best for our fellow countrymen. I’ve just finished reading a review of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s book, A Republic, If You Can Keep It. Justice Gorsuch opens the book, not with judging, but with a discussion of civics and civility. He warns that “just as we face a civics crisis in this country today, we face a civility crisis too.” Too many Americans know neither our political principles nor how to engage in fruitful political discussion. I haven’t read the book yet, but I intend to. So with those thoughts I leave you to your endeavors. I’ll see you again on November 3, 2020.

For the 3rd or 4th time in the last couple of years, Chas_NoDignity_NoHonor_NoIntegrity has said he will stop trolling and not post any more drivel. The previous times he has embarrassed himself by showing what kind of integrity he has by resuming posting in a matter of weeks. I will be the most astonished poster in this thread if he actually stops posting for a year.

[Winstonm]

President Donald Trump has repeatedly discussed the possibility of firing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, The New York Times reported. Atkinson reviewed a whistleblower complaint against Trump and, after finding it to be urgent and credible, alerted Congress about it, in accordance with US law. Trump is reportedly furious with Atkinson and doesn't understand why Atkinson shared the complaint with Congress.

 

This little blurb should be enough for anyone with a single working brain cell to eliminate Trump for consideration for receiving his or her vote for president.

 

This is the U.S.A. , not the Trump family's la Cosa Nostra.

[johnu]

Senior Trump official embellished résumé, had face on fake Time cover

 

A senior Trump administration official has embellished her résumé with misleading claims about her professional background — even creating a fake Time magazine cover with her face on it — raising questions about her qualifications to hold a top position at the State Department.

 

An NBC News investigation found that Mina Chang, the deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stability Operations, has inflated her educational achievements — like claiming, falsely, to be a Harvard grad — and exaggerated the scope of her nonprofit's work.

 

...

 

Chang, who assumed her post in April, also invented a role on a U.N. panel, claimed she had addressed both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and implied she had testified before Congress.

Obviously this person is overqualified for a State Department position. This person shows presidential leadership character and skill.

[Zelandakh]

Everyone got pizza and bier handy?

 

CBS

[PeterAlan]

Everyone got ... bier handy?

Even if the result is a Senate conviction, I thought the penalty was only removal from office. Perhaps he'd need to be carried out.

[barmar]

The self-centered aspect comes with a vote for Trump and his tax policies.

Except that he was joking when he said that. He said so immediately after the comment, it's not like this was some half-hearted mea culpa when he was called on it later.

[Winstonm]

Except that he was joking when he said that. He said so immediately after the comment, it's not like this was some half-hearted mea culpa when he was called on it later.

 

 

That is good to hear.

[Zelandakh]

Even if the result is a Senate conviction, I thought the penalty was only removal from office. Perhaps he'd need to be carried out.

Sorry, that was me mixing up my English and German. Bier is the German word for beer.

[Winstonm]

It struck me today during one of the opening statements that I have been wrong about Trump; I had thought he was the conman but it turns out he is the sucker, and he bought the Putin's con about Ukraine and Crowdstrike.

 

On a similar note, it also occurred to me that the nexus between Putin and Trump is corruption; they both need it and depend on it as a means to get their way. If you can corrupt the world, everyone is tainted.

 

The question now is: how do you fit into that corruption scenario, Lindsey Graham?

[y66]

From Vanessa Friedman at NYT:

 

Amid all the debate and various through-the-mirror interpretations of Day 1 of the public impeachment inquiry, all the grandstanding, pundit-ing and parsing of testimony, there was one surprising point of fascination among the viewing public: the bow tie worn by George P. Kent, the State Department official in charge of Ukraine.

 

A lot of people noticed it. A lot of people commented on it. Hands down, the majority voted yes on it. It soon got its own Twitter hashtag: #GeorgeKentsBowTie. The Daily Beast even crowned Mr. Kent an immediate “fashion icon.”

 

No one was saying it was the most important detail of a historic day — of course it wasn’t. (Nor was the Nalgene bottle he brought with him, though that also got some attention.)

 

But it was impossible for many to ignore because, like the moment itself, it was singular; an anomaly in an anomalous time. And in that sense, it almost seemed to symbolize not just Mr. Kent himself, but also the whole experience.

 

The bow tie, at least onscreen, appeared to be blue and yellow (some said orange, others ocher and turquoise), in a sort of chain/paramecium pattern. It was paired with a matching pocket square and was worn with a light blue shirt and gray plaid three-piece suit, complete with neatly buttoned-up vest.

 

It also looked hand-tied, listing slightly as if to underscore its own authenticity — and, maybe, that of the man who wore it. It was the same bow tie that Mr. Kent wore for his portrait currently on view on the State Department website, a nod to both continuity and the fact that he was appearing in his professional capacity.

 

Some speculation had it that it was his good-luck bow tie. Or his power bow tie, depending. Either way, it was definitely a signature tie. Mr. Kent adopted a similar look — a paisley bow tie and matching pocket square — during his closed-door testimony on Oct. 15.

 

And, in its truncated shape, the opposite of the Trump tie, which is famously worn extending below the belt.

 

It was also a highly unusual accessory to see in Washington, where dressing like a company man is the norm, and where ties most often indicate party allegiance or flag-referential patriotism. (See the blue tie chosen by Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and the red one with white polka dots worn by Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the committee).

 

Washington is where the somber dark suit is the default uniform, and modernity is symbolized by rolled shirt sleeves. Where, despite famous bow-tie-wearing politicians like Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the sight of a bow tie is rarer than the sight of no tie at all.

 

Instead, the bow tie has all sorts of stereotypical associations outside of the political arena. It is linked to the professor, the intellectual, the Southern dandy (at least when paired with seersucker), the nerd, the waiter, the clown.

 

Bill Nye the Science Guy is a famous bow tie wearer. So is Pee-wee Herman. So were George Plimpton and Fred Astaire. How those traditions color the perception of Mr. Kent depends on your cultural shorthand. In any case, he is now part of that motley assortment.

 

None of those things could have escaped him, since, as his testimony indicated, he is a student of history as well as a career diplomat.

 

The decision to go the bow tie route at a time when the eyes of the country would be on him, when the image of him in that tie was assured of becoming a part of history, was not a decision Mr. Kent could have made by accident. Which makes it hard to avoid the assumption that it was also a declaration of independence, of a sort.

Sharp tie, sharp mind and a sharp tongue. I like this guy.

[y66]

From James Poniewozik, chief television critic at NYT:

 

In the middle of the testimony of William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, that opened the House impeachment hearings Wednesday, a guessing game broke out on social media.

 

He sounded like someone, didn’t he? His deep, assuring, steady voice reminded some people of Tom Brokaw. No, maybe it was Walter Cronkite? Edward R. Murrow?

 

It’s telling that all those comparisons were to old-school news anchors. Because I think what people were hearing in Mr. Taylor’s gravelly composure was the voice, not so much of another person, but another time — a time of authoritative voices that a wide audience found credible.

 

It was like a science-fiction story in which someone turns on an old radio and hears a staticky broadcast from the past. Even the text of Mr. Taylor’s introduction had a Cronkitian ring: “I am not here to take one side or the other,” he said. “My sole purpose is to provide facts as I know them.” And that’s the way it is.

 

But this was in fact 2019, where there’s no unified audience willing to accept a single way that anything is.

 

The Democrats running the House Intelligence Committee investigation, led by Representative Adam B. Schiff, used the testimony of Mr. Taylor and his colleague George P. Kent, a senior State Department official, like the opening scene of an international-intrigue drama: two diplomats becoming aware of disturbing news in a foreign land.

 

Mr. Taylor’s testimony was a tale of two channels. There was the regular channel of diplomacy, he said, aimed at supporting Ukraine’s newly elected government. And there was an “irregular channel” — one of several terms the day’s proceedings added to the lexicon of scandal — working,

 

But there were competing channels in the committee room as well. The Democrats, in charge of the proceedings and witness list, were starting to craft a story arc of presidential threats and self-dealing. The Republicans seemed less interested in offering a unified counternarrative than in pre-empting it with a series of program interruptions.

 

In his opening statement, ranking Republican Devin Nunes decried the investigation as a “theatrical” performance. But it was his party’s performance that was belted most stridently — and maybe pitched toward one particular viewer on Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

Mr. Nunes reached presidential-tweet levels of rancor in denouncing the investigation as a “carefully orchestrated media smear campaign.” Representative Jim Jordan, riffing like an angry auctioneer, closed the hearings dismissing them as a “darn sham.”

 

This is not the first impeachment proceeding to play out in the era of 24-hour electronic news. But there’s a difference between today and the Bill Clinton impeachment of the late 1990s. Back then, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all covered the damaging and salacious details with similar fervor.

 

Wednesday, both broadcast and cable news carried the hearings live — but depending where you watched, the onscreen graphics could tell a very different story. During Mr. Taylor’s testimony, an MSNBC caption identified him as “Top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine since June.” A label on Fox read, “President Trump dismissed Taylor as a ‘Never Trumper.’”

 

The awareness of Fox’s influence on the conservative base never seemed far from mind. Indeed, some of the Republicans’ lines of questioning seemed unintelligible — like a story line from a larger cinematic universe — unless you were familiar with the counter-theories about Ukraine and the 2016 election favored by that channel’s opinion hosts and elsewhere in the conservative mediasphere.

 

As for Fox’s viewer-in-chief, the president insisted that “I haven’t watched for one minute” (though he did retweet several supportive tweets during the hearings, some including video). But his presence was felt, and not just among Republicans: Representative Eric Swalwell asked Mr. Kent and Mr. Taylor if they were “Never Trumpers,” an accusation the president had tweeted again that morning. (Both men denied it.)

 

Wednesday’s testimony was the first installment in a series of unknown length, and it showed the hearings’ potential to tell an involving story and to enable grandstanding. The afternoon segment, in which committee members took turns questioning, was heavy on the posturing.

 

But Mr. Taylor’s lengthy statement was absorbing, not just because of that 20th-century-anchor voice. “Mr. Chairman, there are two Ukraine stories today,” he said. One was the notorious story of arm-twisting and election interference. The other was a “positive, bipartisan one,” about a country developing an inclusive identity, “not unlike what we in America, in our best moments, feel about our diverse country.”

 

There are going to be at least two competing stories as this narrative unfolds. And in this programming era, the positive, uplifting ones don’t always adapt well to American TV.

[barmar]

It struck me today during one of the opening statements that I have been wrong about Trump; I had thought he was the conman but it turns out he is the sucker, and he bought the Putin's con about Ukraine and Crowdstrike.

 

On a similar note, it also occurred to me that the nexus between Putin and Trump is corruption; they both need it and depend on it as a means to get their way. If you can corrupt the world, everyone is tainted.

 

The question now is: how do you fit into that corruption scenario, Lindsey Graham?

And it's particularly ironic that the GOP party line is that Trump was trying to get Ukraine to root out corruption, with Hunter Biden's board membership simply being one instance.

[barmar]

Sharp tie, sharp mind and a sharp tongue. I like this guy.

"Every girl's crazy for the sharp-dressed man" -- ZZ Top.

[y66]

From Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

 

House Democrats have finally figured out how to hold a hearing.

 

The first public congressional session of the impeachment inquiry aimed at President Donald Trump probably wasn’t compelling television for most voters. Most people just aren’t very interested in fine details. Nor did Democrats bring a lot of drama or theatrics.

 

And yet I suspect that for those who are interested in government and public affairs — including the news media — there was plenty of substance in the testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday of two State Department officials responsible for U.S. policy in Ukraine. Competently guided by Democratic members and staff, Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent skillfully laid out facts that are clearly damning to Trump, and to the rogue Ukraine policy run by presidential counselor Rudy Giuliani, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and others on behalf of Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

 

With few exceptions, Democrats followed a just-the-facts, this-is-serious-business strategy, showing their intention to speak to those beyond their strongest supporters. There’s no way to predict whether they will succeed in weakening Trump’s support and building sentiment for his removal from office among people who are undecided or weakly opposed, but that’s the way to do it.

 

The Republican responses were unconvincing. Ranking committee member Devin Nunes of California and the Republican counsel used a lot of their time to sketch out debunked claims and conspiracy theories that Trump, Giuliani and others have been trying to spread.

 

Most of it was incomprehensible to anyone who doesn’t regularly tune in to the attacks on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that dominate Fox News and Republican-aligned talk radio. Republicans also made much of the early contact between committee staff and the anonymous whistle-blower who alerted intelligence agencies to the July 25 phone call in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden. They also alleged that Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff met with the whistle-blower and influenced his or her testimony. Schiff has credibly denied any such coordination, and it’s hard to see why it would matter given that the whistle-blower’s complaint has been almost entirely verified, including by the two witnesses on Wednesday.

 

The other Republican line of defense was somewhat less outlandish, though it still doesn’t add up. Their story goes like this: Trump had been more supportive of Ukraine than President Barack Obama had been; it was reasonable for Trump to temporarily hold up military aid even under circumstances that strongly suggested a pressure tactic to force the Biden probe; the aid was eventually delivered even though no investigation was publicly promised or undertaken; therefore there’s no harm, no foul, and nothing abusive.

 

It's healthy in general for members of a president's party to ask tough questions and to poke for holes in the opposition’s case. Nevertheless, in this case it won't wash.

 

It’s true that Ukraine military aid was initiated by people in the Trump administration. But that doesn’t absolve Trump himself from responsibility for trying to wield it for personal political gain.

 

Because Trump is such a weak president, different officials take hold of different pieces of policy, sometimes in direct conflict with others. Today’s witnesses explained this as a two-track of policy for Ukraine, one through regular officials and the other through irregular channels. The regular group was advancing a normal U.S. policy of supporting a nation under attack from Russia. The irregular one wasn’t interested in any of that, but was advancing Trump’s personal campaign interests by trying to extort election assistance from the new Ukrainian government.

 

That plot failed because it was exposed, and Congress pressured the administration to follow the official policy. But the plot was real nonetheless, as detailed by today’s witnesses, by depositions taken recently, and by documentary evidence such as the written record of the July 25 call.

 

I suspect that the witness-bullying style of Republicans Jim Jordan of Ohio and and John Ratcliffe of Texas won’t play well outside of the president’s strongest circle of supporters, either.

 

The one big revelation in today’s hearing came at the beginning, when Taylor described in his opening statement a phone call between Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland that a State Department official overheard in a restaurant. Not only may that call tie Trump even more directly to the rogue policy, but it also provides new drama as the hearings continue.

 

The official, David Holmes, is being asked to give a private deposition to the committee on Friday, and may then be added to a public hearing. Sondland is scheduled to testify next week. He’s already changed his testimony once since his deposition; now he’ll either have to remember more things that he previously forgot to mention, or else there will be directly contradictory testimony. Either way, and regardless of substance, it brings the kind of suspense to the hearings that keeps live coverage going and gets people to talk about it.

 

Given the facts of the case, that’s bad news for Trump.

[y66]

bribery, n.

 

Origin: Formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: bribe v., bribe n., -ery suffix; briber n., -y suffix3.

 

3. The demanding of a sum of money or other inducement by a powerful person, esp. a judge or other official, in return for a certain action or a favourable judgement; an instance of this. Obsolete.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between this sense and sense 4, esp. in later use; see note at bribe n. 2a.

1538 T. Elyot Dict. Emissarius, sommetyme..signifieth suche a persone, whyche is ordeyned of him that is in any great office or authoritie, to aduaunce his bribery.

1549 H. Latimer 2nd Serm. before Kynges Maiestie 3rd Serm. sig. G.v Brybery is a pryncely kind of theauing. They wyl be waged by ye riche eyther to geue sentence against the pore, or to putte of the pore mans causes.

1621 H. Elsynge Notes Deb. House of Lords (1870) 23 His estate raysed by theis briberyes.

1769 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. IV. 139 Bribery is..when a judge, or other person concerned in the administration of justice, takes any undue reward to influence his behaviour in his office.

1836 Penny Cycl. V. 407/1 Since the Revolution, in 1688, judicial bribery has been altogether unknown in England.

 

4. The giving, offering, or promising of a sum of money, gift, or other inducement (see bribe n. 2a) to someone in order to influence his or her behaviour, esp. to persuade him or her to act in one's favour; the taking or acceptance of such a sum of money or other inducement. Also: an instance of this.

The giving of bribes instigated by the recipient is often taken to fall within the scope of the term bribery, including in many legal definitions (cf. note at bribe n. 2a); in such use there is some overlap with older use in sense 3 (where the term is used more narrowly to refer only to inducements instigated by the recipient). Sometimes spec. with reference to the giving of bribes in exchange for votes at a parliamentary or other election; cf. bribery oath n. at Compounds 2.

 

1560 J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. xix The Frenche king..intended by the same counsell to depose him from his bishopprike which he had got by briberye.

a1639 W. Whately Prototypes (1640) xxvi. 57 Bribery is naught, that is to seeke to turne a Governour from justice by gifts, and hire him to do wrong.

1661 Eliana vi. 247 Those that opposed her, were many of them suspected of bribery, having been too much acquainted with that Prince, others spake out of a spirit of fear and pusillanimity.

1701 A. Boyer tr. E. Le Noble Art Prudent Behaviour i. 39 When a Judge is immoderately severe, is that a sign of his being Subject to Bribery?

1755 T. Carew Hist. Acct. Rights Elections Great Brit. i. 7/2 The agents of Simon Mayne are not guilty of bribery in corruptly procuring votes at the late election of a burgess.

1827 H. Hallam Constit. Hist. Eng. I. v. 288 This [sc. 1571] is the earliest precedent on record for the punishment of bribery in elections.

1879 Evening Bull. (San Francisco) 22 Jan. Rival book houses have resorted to the bribery and corruption of the School Department.

1935 Slavonic & East European Rev. 14 61 He became an unscrupulous business man..yet his grafts or briberies are now justified because he will destroy and undermine the rotten ‘capitalistic civilisation’.

1969 R. Salerno & J. S. Tompkins Crime Confederation 172 The attempted bribery of police to overlook specific acts is common at all levels of law-breaking—some criminals carry $5000 or so in large bills at all times as ‘fall’ money.

1982 R. Carr Spain (ed. 2) ix. 367 Illicit practices—the oversetting of voting urns, the resurrection of the dead for voting lists, bribery and intimidation.

2012 Guardian 28 Aug. 25/5 The act outlaws bribery by UK companies and their local partners. Facilitation payments..are banned, as are favours to protect existing contracts or win business.

2019 Nancy Pelosi The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival — a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election.

 

Source: OED

[Winstonm]

Devin Nunes continues to spread the Russian conspiracrap.

[Zelandakh]

Devin Nunes continues to spread the Russian conspiracrap.

It might be time to re-visit some of the Russian stuff in the wake of what has come out during the Stone trial. It sure does look like Trump lied during at least one of his written answers. Those are under oath and that is precisely the charge that Reps brought in the Clinton impeachment. The inability of Müller's team to prove that link between DJT and Wikileaks via Stone is precisely one of the main reasons why it was not possible to prove the conspiracy charge so if that impediment falls away there ought to be some follow-up.

[barmar]

And yet I suspect that for those who are interested in government and public affairs — including the news media — there was plenty of substance in the testimony

That explains why Fox News didn't find it compelling -- they're not interested in any of those things, and barely count as "news media".