Yesterday was an amazing, amazing day for our country. And it is just the start. Let’s relive it a bit!
Because we need to enjoy when we win a battle.
The simple, honest, and sad truth is that Republicans no longer care about our democracy. They are ok with completely ignoring the constitution as long as they get to stay in power. They are ok with disenfranchising voters as long as it means they win. They are ok with cheating as long as they continue to rule.
Our current situation a fight for our nation just as much as the revolutionary war was, just as much as the civil war was, and just as much as the civil rights movement was. Democrats and resisters are fighting to ensure that our constitution means something and our democracy remains. The stakes are that high.
In that context, this impeachment process is just one battle in the war for our country. It is unlikely to be the final battle.
If we think of “winning” this battle as getting Trump out of office though impeachment, then we will likely be disappointed. The far right is locked into their echo chamber and they own the Republicans.
But this war doesn’t end with this impeachment; this war ends by us keeping our democracy.
In that case, the impeachment battle is already a victory. We have already shown that there are brave and amazing women willing to come forward to speak for our country. We have already shown that over half of the House cares about our country and wants to defend the constitution. We have shown that we will fight and stand up for what is right and won’t give up.
If this impeachment ends with just a few people in the mushy middle feeling just a little worse about trump and just a little less likely to vote for him in November, then we have won. The swing states will be close, and anything that pushes people in that direction is a win.
And that WILL happen. We may not see it in immediate polls, but this is the kind of information that sinks in and stays with people. This is the kind of spectacle that people want to avoid. This is showing the kind of leader that most of us don’t want to have.
Things are downhill for the failed reality TV show host from here on in. We ride this down-wave until November, we work our asses off to GOTV, and then we vote his ass out (and then let Kirsten Gillibrand’s justice department send him to jail).
How do I know that it is downhill? Here are 15 reasons:
1. Wednesday’s hearings were bad for the president
Wednesday was a disaster for Trump and a huge victory for the rule of law. Schiff was amazing and the witnesses were honest and convincing.
All the President’s Fools Couldn’t Put Trump’s ‘Perfect Call’ Together Again
Wednesday’s opening act of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump was only going to end one way for Trump and his defenders, and that was badly.
In the face of two credible, nonpartisan witnesses of unimpeachable character and service, the Trump House Clown Caucus brought their A-game, and instead of changing the dialogue and owning the libs they managed to validate the witnesses, embarrass themselves, and doubtlessly enrage the Audience of One.
You could practically hear him screaming all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue as his allies’ carefully constructed tower of bullshit collapsed under the matter-of-fact, up-the-middle baritone recitation of his plan from men who lived through the Ukraine scandal.
2. Friday’s Were Even Worse for Him
Republicans Thought Yovanovitch Would Be a Pushover. She Beat Them Up Instead
Before she even spoke on Friday, President Donald Trump’s surrogates in Congress and conservative media expected Marie Yovanovitch to cry on command for the impeachment-hearing cameras. As she began testifying about the smear campaign that forced her from her ambassadorship in Ukraine, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted that impeachment wasn’t about her feelings.
But for over five hours, the 33-year veteran diplomat left no doubt why she was there and what she endured, even as the president himself weighed in on Twitter seeming to intimidate her as she sat in front of the congressional panel. The president’s attack wasn’t the only attack she brushed aside. Yovanovitch methodically outplayed a series of Republican efforts to cast her firing as normal, the president’s behavior as unremarkable, and the harm she suffered as negligible–rather than the prelude to a shadow diplomatic effort to coerce Ukraine into aiding Trump’s reelection.
Instead, she made it clear that she would have been an obstacle to the president’s pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had she remained in Kyiv. At one point, she told Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) that she would have opposed the summer 2019 suspension of $400 million in U.S. military aid and would never have asked Zelensky to pursue the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. Asked to affirm that Trump was legitimately concerned about Ukraine corruption, she shot back, “That’s what he says.”
Not much of Friday’s hearing, the second in the House impeachment inquiry, went the GOP’s way.
right from her opening statement she was clear and amazing:
and this:
and this:
here it is:
and this:
what did you think about today’s hearings news guru Kyle Griffin?
Well how about a joke then:
3. Trump can’t help himself from making it worse by releasing a call that didn’t help him
to distract from the testimony (didn’t work) trump released a phone call no one had asked for. This is basically the strategy:
Did it help?
Turns out it actually just shows that they lied about this call too:
whoops! Well played, moron!
4. Trump can’t help himself from making it worse by doing more crime
Then Trump decided it would be smart to obstruct justice more by threatening a witness as she testified about him threatening her! Genius!
and this:
and this:
and this important reminder:
What do you think Nancy? Can you throw a little snark in?
5. Democrats are being smart about this
Dems Banging Down the Door at Fox to Win GOP Minds
The morning after the first open impeachment hearing, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) stood in the marble hallways off the House floor for an appearance on Fox’s morning newscast, anchored by Bill Hemmer.
“As of right now, this evidence is overwhelming, it is shocking,” said Cicilline, after Hemmer asked the question a third time. “It appears you’ve already reached your own conclusion,” replied the anchor. He wrapped with a question—on whether Cicilline believes Ukraine should investigate Hunter Biden—and a plea: “Please come back,” Hemmer said.
He agreed. And it’s not an empty promise—it’s part of a deliberate strategy for Democrats to appear more frequently on the president’s favorite network, a move that acknowledges the reality that they must rally more than the faithful in order to convince the public that impeachment is more than just a political ploy.
6. This Mess is Bad for all the Slimeballs Around Trump as well
7. And soon those slimeballs will turn on one another
When the people around trump know that there have been crimes and misdeeds and things to keep quiet, the only way to be safe is to be sure everyone will stay quiet, or to be the first one to break the silence and be the “good guy.” This is not a group that can trust one another. That means there will be more and more of them leaking the truth to try and get it out in their words. That is good news for us
The White House Motto: Watch Your Back
Having stooped low to protect the president, administration officials are vulnerable to one another.
There’s no honor among thieves nor, apparently, among anxious political hacks who bound themselves to a president with a penchant for subordinating the national interest to his own.
Once-eager presidential enablers have turned on one another with feral abandon as the facts of what Mr. Trump’s flunkies were doing in Ukraine have become clear and the impeachment investigation moves into its public phase.
All this should serve as a warning for the president’s many apologists. As the impeachment inquiry grinds on, the circular firing squad is likely to grow still larger — and potentially armed with higher-caliber ammunition.
Trump is throwing Sondland under the bus. But the new spin has a fatal defect.
Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, is now getting accused by at least one Trump loyalist of fabricating his latest round of testimony in league with Democrats — even though Sondland is a top Trump donor. And another leading Trump sycophant is questioning Sondland’s credibility, something Trump himself tried to do at a rally on Thursday night
what a genius move, throw him under the bus right BEFORE he publicly testifies about you! I’m sure he’ll continue to cover for you! /s
8. Turns out there are witnesses that Trump was in on this
Two New Staffers Destroy Trump’s ‘Hearsay’ Defense
William Taylor testified that a member of his staff heard Sondland, in Kiev on a cell phone, speaking with President Trump, and that Trump asked about Ukraine opening “investigations.” After the call, Sondland told the staffer, David Holmes, that Trump’s highest priority in Ukraine was securing an investigation of the Bidens. Today, the Associated Press reports a second staffer, Suriya Jayanti, also heard the call.
it is not “hearsay” when officials are following expressly communicated orders through a chain of command. And it’s certainly not hearsay when somebody literally hears the boss say the order.
Democrats land damning new evidence in impeachment testimony
The existence of the call — relayed by William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, during the first public hearing since the inquiry began — delivered Democrats an explosive new detail and underscored the depth of Trump’s fixation with targeting Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as his alleged effort to exploit a U.S. ally at war with Russia in order to boost his 2020 reelection campaign.
and one them testified last night:
what did he say?
what did he say EXACTLY?
but is that evidence that Trump was just in this for his own gain? Well how about this:
Boom!
9. Getting Cornered by So Many People Leaves Trump’s Best Offense Useless
Trump Is Surrounded
The president thrives on having an opponent to villainize. With impeachment, there are too many to choose from.
the case has moved far beyond a single person, and that’s precisely the problem for Trump. Now he has so little time, but so many to tarnish—some with sterling résumés. Still, Trump is giving it his best shot. “NEVER TRUMPERS!” the president tweeted in the hours before the first TV hearing opened yesterday, an apparent effort to sully the witnesses by claiming they don’t, well, like him all that much.
A Republican senator told me the president “has two speeds: hostile, and hostile on steroids.”
“Of course it does worry me,” the Republican senator told me about Trump’s Ukraine gambit. “He’s not nature’s best diplomat. He doesn’t use a scalpel; he uses a meat ax.” As the hearings continue, Trump will be taking the meat ax to ever more witnesses—so many that the blade could end up dulling.
10. The Republicans are clueless because they have no real case to make
Impeachment Is Not a Fair Fight, and on Day One It Showed
There’s only so much Republicans can do when Democrats have all the evidence they need.
If it looked like House Republicans were throwing a lot of mud at the wall to see what might stick during the first day of public impeachment hearings, that’s because they had settled into a strategy many defense attorneys adopt when the prosecution has the goods on their client—confuse the issues and distract the audience from the evidence at hand.
Confused by the impeachment defense strategies from Republicans? Yeah, so are they.
Meadows’s truth-is-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder defense was the best impeachment defense of Trump since, well, last week, when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) debuted the incompetence defense: “What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward the Ukraine, it was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to. They seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.” That’s quite a reelection slogan.
Before that, the most creative defense had been developed by Conway, who argued that, whatever happened in reality, “there was no quid pro quo intended.” What matters, she said, is what was in Trump’s “heart, mind or soul.”
Even House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) would surely prefer to close down the investigation before issuing a subpoena for Trump’s soul.
Laura Ingraham: ‘Attempted Bribery’ Isn’t Listed as an Impeachable Offense in the Constitution
Fox News host Laura Ingraham defended President Trump on Thursday night by arguing that “attempted bribery isn’t in the Constitution” as an impeachable offense.
here you go Laura:
11. This is just the start of the information that will harm trump
White House budget official who could prove key impeachment witness to testify Saturday
The highest-ranking civil servant at the White House budget office is expected to appear before the congressional impeachment panel on Saturday, providing testimony that could potentially shed light on how Trump administration officials withheld aid from Ukraine in an alleged effort to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
The official, Mark Sandy, is currently the deputy associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, a White House agency that coordinates federal government spending. Sandy would have had a unique vantage point from which to observe any political machinations that went into withholding the Ukraine funds — and then releasing them.
12. The truth is leaking into FoxNews
Fox News is going to continue to be awful on their website and in the evening. But the truth even leaked into Fox yesterday. First there was the hearings itself:
and then this Fox guy:
and Chris Wallace:
and Ken Freakin’ Starr:
And more Chris Wallace!
Even the WSJ:
13. Right when he most needs to seem honest, his longest serving adviser is going to jail for crimes that implicate him!
Roger Stone Is Found Guilty in Trial That Revived Trump-Russia Saga
Roger J. Stone Jr., a former aide and longtime friend of President Trump, was found guilty on Friday of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election in what prosecutors said was an effort to protect Mr. Trump.
The evidence showed that in the months leading up to the 2016 election, Mr. Stone strove to obtain emails that Russia had stolen from Democratic computers and funneled to WikiLeaks, which released them at strategic moments timed to damage Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent. Mr. Stone briefed the Trump campaign about whatever he had picked up about WikiLeaks’ plans “every chance he got,” Jonathan Kravis, a lead prosecutor, said, but denied to congressional investigators that he did so.
The trial revived the saga of Russia’s efforts to bolster Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the White House at the same time that House impeachment investigators are scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine, a foreign ally, for help with his 2020 election.
Trump's honesty was on trial in the Roger Stone case. The verdict was harsh.
"Trump was in the conspiratorial loop," said Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor and NBC News legal analyst who watched the trial. "He was in the hard collusion loop by virtue of him having phone calls in real time with Roger Stone while these email dumps were in progress."
If the Stone trial revealed anything, it showed that Donald Trump and the people around him had no problem making use of hacked emails that were the fruits of foreign election interference.
Or, as prosecutor Kravis put it, "trying to fish for information from WikiLeaks, knowing it had been hacked by a foreign government."
Another reason this is important:
and this will remind witnesses that lying for Trump is f-ing stupid:
14. Stone is not the only Trump Associate in Really Hot Water
Federal Prosecutors Probe Giuliani’s Links to Ukrainian Energy Projects
Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Rudy Giuliani stood to personally profit from a Ukrainian natural-gas business pushed by two associates who also aided his efforts there to launch investigations that could benefit President Trump, people familiar with the matter said
got a topical joke for us, Joe?
😆 😆😆😆
15. We have a lot of Allies in this fight
Michael Bloomberg to launch $100 million digital anti-Trump campaign
Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul who continues to weigh a run for the Democratic nomination for president, will launch a $100 million online ad campaign targeting Republican President Donald Trump, an advisor confirmed.
The online advertisements Bloomberg is funding, which have not yet run but are slated to begin Friday, will target four states: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The advertisements are slated to run through the primary season, regardless of whether Bloomberg decides to run for president, the aide confirmed.
And finally, snark us out, Nancy:
Happy weekend everyone. I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with you ❤️ ✊ ❤️