Wednesday, November 20, 2019

 You know, I can kind of sympathize with Trump's most recently bellyaching about how mean everyone is to him over this whole Impeachment business. It is getting somewhat sad to watch how bad it keeps going for him and the poor dumb bastard keeps pretending he's smelling like roses. But then I think, screw him, the crooked bastard. He could've enjoyed his money and left everyone alone, but no.



 Today was a big day, boy howdy. In a just, normal universe that wasn't insane and irrational, today's testimony from Gordon Sondland, Laura Cooper and David Hale would've sunk Trump so bad he'd have resigned before dinnertime. Especially Sondland, who seems to have taken a hint from Kurt Volker's swerve yesterday and decided Trump wasn't worth prison.

 Interesting tidbit about Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Seems he's a fairly wealthy hotelier who donated one million dollars to Trump's 2016 campaign, despite Trump saying he's never heard of him. Turns out, not only does he have no governmental experience, much less enough to be ambassador to the EU, he got his "start" by gathering nearly eight million dollars from "friends and family" to start his hotel empire. Well, I thought it was interesting, you know, how unqualified persons got plumb government jobs they could profit from because they donated money to the dumbass' campaign and not, you know, not knowing how to do the job.

 Of course, Trump, the greasy little fink, claims he doesn't know Sondland like he doesn't know anybody that in anyway makes him look bad or like the filthy liar he is. "Just so you know, I don't know him very well," Trump whined to reporters this afternoon. "He's a guy that got put there. He wasn't even on my side. He came over to me, I didn't even know that. He came over to me after I defeated other people, I defeated them all." This is a guy who took a million smackers from someone he claimed to not know, recall.

 Anyhow, after yesterday's testimony shattered some of the Trump toadies' defense of the president like it was sugar glass, Sondland saw the writing on the wall and dropped several serious dimes on Trump. For one, he testified that he pressed Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden and Burimsa at Trump's direction, working with lawyer and ghoul Rudy Giuliani though no one wanted to, because, come on, he's skeevy as hell. And he didn't beat around the bush, confirming quite clearly that there was a "quid pro quo" and everyone that was anyone was in on the dirty deed.

 And we mean everyone, as Sondland's testimony implicated Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. In fact, Sondland said that Pompeo was pushing a working relationship between Volker and Pompeo as late as Sept. 24. While he refused to acknowledge that he realized Trump was leaning on him to get Ukraine to actively investigate the Bidens, he did say that with 20/20 hindsight, yeah, he was. We're supposed to believe that no one was able to put two and two together on this until Trump got caught, but what the hell.

 Finally, Sondland cut the legs completely out from under the Trump team's main defense by saying, indeed, that the whole push to investigate Burisma and the Bidens was in fact, yes, political, that is, not to solve corruption but help Trump in the 2020 election against Biden, should he win the nomination. What a shocker. Granted, the Republicans will pretend that Trump was merely sitting the wrong way on his white horse until the last man, but it's not looking good for the goofy bastard.

 Cooper, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, gave testimony later this afternoon and, like Sondland, saw which way the wind was blowing and decided her ass was more valuable to her than saving Trump's saggy tail. She amended her prior deposition and told the committee that she was since discovered emails sent to her staff on July 25 - the day of Trump's famous "perfect call" - that the Ukrainians were indeed aware of the delay in military aid. That was another leg in the bootlicker caucus' defense, that it hadn't been discussed. Well, tough titty on that one, I guess, as it completely undermines the Republican stance that the quid pro quo couldn't have happened. Cooper also said that the whole deal greatly benefited Russia and their violation of international law.

 Hale testified that a representative of the Office of Management and Budget said they were "objecting to the proceeding with the assistance [to Ukraine] because the president has so directed though" Mulvaney. Furthermore, he said every other agency, including his - the State Department - supported releasing the aid to assist Ukraine defend itself against Russia. Hale was also witness to the smear campaign against Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch by the dirtbag in the White House and his sniveling lickspittles in Congress like Jim Jordan or whatever dimwit decided to screw with legit badass Jackie Speier, Democratic Representative from California.

 And that's it, quick and dirty. I've had a long day, including a very pleasant visit with the Therapist, so I'm sure I've gotten one or two things confused. In any event, Cody Johnston and the fine folks at Some More News put together this clever video about just how screwed Trump is - though he's claiming exoneration, naturally - and notes that the GOP and the conservative media is ride or die with Trump on this and nothing they say should be given any sort of credence. Oh, and that Stephen Miller is a nasty white supremacist who works with other white supremacists to spread the shitass ideology of white supremacy. I think that should be said again.

 We have another Democratic debate tonight that I'm going to ignore because I'm tired and there's more testimony to be heard tomorrow. After that, who knows. Maybe we'll get some more dirt on Trump's continued sleaze or maybe the rubber will hit the road and Nancy Pelosi, et al, will get their collective thumb out of their ass. We'll see, we'll see.