Hmm...not to rain on anyone's parade, but thus far nothing really new is coming forward.

Sure, it's now broadcasted live. So what? Remember how the group that needed any convincing in the Mueller case first refused to read the full report because it was too long and then complained that the summaries were biased? It's this same group that first claimed these hearings were a sham because they were secret (they weren't) and then all voted against making them public. The irony is that they're trying to make it a sham by requesting Hunter Biden to testify (yes...because surely HE knows more about blocking US military aid ) and then downright violating whistle blower protection laws by insisting he (they?) should be testified(1).

So yeah...once again: "top diplomats testify that Trump cared more about a Biden investigation than about the state of the country". "by denying an ally military aid, Trump went directly against crucial policy regarding the safety of the US". I'm curious to see how it'll all affect the polls on Trump popularity, but what impact will it have on a larger scale?

Yes, he's now boo-ed at sports events and "IMPEACH" signs are put up wherever he goes. But that's not really the aim of the investigation. I'm all with Pelosi on this one: this is just about doing the right thing. The house shouldn't be about impeaching the president. It's not what they want to do or why they joined politics. It's just that push has come to stove; you can't just ignore a president committing crimes.



(1): to be fair: I would be able to understand this reasoning if (s)he was the sole voice complaining. but at this stage, there are so many confirmations of everything that there is literally no need for a public outing aside for political revenge (which is exactly what the law aims to prevent).

 

True. But never for personal political gain. There's a reason the diplomats claim Trump puts his personal agenda over the benefits of the USA.

(1) Not quite. The EU and individual governments were equally pressuring onto Ukraine (as well as some instances within the country) to get Shokin removed. Joe Biden was just representing the US in this regard.
I'd also like to repeat what I said earlier: that Shokin slowed down the investigation of Burisma (source).
(2) again: wrong. Shokin was never cleared of his charges. And in case you're referring to Hunter: he was never officially charged, for the simple reason he was just one of the many employees of Burisma. The investigation against Burisma just continued...and ended in an anticlimax (read: there was no evidence of corruption).
(3) yes...republicans are indeed wishing they could make that claim. Too bad that the differences aren't exactly details
-Trump doesn't have the backing of other countries or instances. Heck...he doesn't even have the backing of his own diplomats
-There was plenty of evidence against Shokin. Against Hunter, they've got nothing

I beg to differ. When I'm suddenly getting promised money withheld from a country, and then shortly after get on the phone with the country's leader saying I need to do them a favor(1), I know what is implied. It doesn't make it less extortion.


(1): that's based on the publicly released transcript. The actual phone call had Trump insisting repeatedly that Zelensky start an investigation.

...which further proves that there's something fishy going on. A delay of nearly 400 million dollar and republicans can't even produce a valid reason for it being withheld?

Inappropriate is pretty light. If diplomats call it "very disturbing", then I'm more inclined to go with that. Is it any less inappropriate to set up an entire alternative diplomatic entity for this job? C'mon...are you really expecting us to believe that a former hotelier (Sondland) and a NYC mayor (Giuliani) have better interests in the country than veteran diplomats?
Fuck...Ukraine isn't part of the EU, but I think that piece of trivia flew over the head of the guy interrogating Taylor (Steve Castor: "ok, so it's unusual <that EU diplomat Sondland schemes in Ukraine>...but it's not as outlandish as it could have be...correct?" Taylor: <*holds back laughter*>).

This isn't about Russia, dude. Crowdstrike is at best a hoax because Trump doesn't want to keep promises USA made to the world.

Easy claims when he's hiding in the white house.

It's an interesting link, I'll give you that. Unfortunately, it doesn't answer the main question I have: what explanation was given to Prystaiko for the delay?

It'd be nice to hear more about the Ukraine side of the story, but at this point I don't see much contradiction in either statements (remember: the charges are Trump requested president ZELENSKY to open an investigation).

Lol, what? Seriously: Trump may be many things, but he's too incompetent to be a mastermind. I've seen him described as a puppet of Russia quite some times, but never in charge of it.

So no...the USA isn't in charge of Ukraine. But again: the allegations are that Trump uses military funds for personal political gains. That's perfectly doable without being "a criminal mastermind controlling the entire country".

If they witnessed actions and conversations tracing back all the way, it's irrelevant whether or not they literally met Trump. Taylor claims, for example, that Trump shouted so hard that his employees on his side of the line could hear it. It doesn't somehow make them less a witness to the incident.

It goes without saying, but I don't share your opinion of democrats. If you ask me, it's the republicans going all sorts of nuts. Which is in and of itself amazing (yes, I've got a different world view than them...but even so I find it scary how blind they follow Donald Trump's opinion)

 

Actually, when asked if she had any information that could prove quid pro quo (now being called bribery because the Liberals overused the original term) or if she had any evidence that Trump broke the law she said answered both times saying "no". Seeings as the impeachment inquiry is based on impeaching the president for quid pro quo (now being called bribery) and any criminal wrong doing I see this as a positive thing for the Republicans. The only relevant facts directly relate to what the Democrats are trying to impeach Trump for and she admitted she has nothing that reflects that - she simply stated that she has no information that Trump committed an impeachable offense. Turns out that reality bit the Liberals in the ass so they tried to turn the attention to the fact they have ZERO evidence and focus on what Trump tweeted. What she does have, is that she's upset she was fired and that has no bearing on what the impeachment effort is about. It's Trump's job to fire people like her. He's the boss an within his rights to do so. Also about the intimidation accusations. It's funny that Yovanovich would have had no clue that Trump tweeted about her unless Shift for Brains would have brought it up. I mean, what are the Liberals doing checking their smart phones when they're supposed to be running an inquiry? I'd also like to point out that this isn't a criminal trial so Yovanovich isn't an actual witness that was in the position to be intimidated (even if Trump was directly doing so, which he wasn't). Besides, if you focus on the intimidation accusation you're doing exactly what the Liberals want you to do. They simply want to distract you from the fact that their witness had zero actual evidence of any quid pro quo or bribery.

Quote Source (Watch the Hearing or -> https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/15/marie-yovanovitch-tells-chris-stewart-no-info-that/)

This (the quote) is the only information from the witness that matters.

 

Well, I do understand Liberals and their need to constantly redefine things or change names to suite their agenda. I wonder what actual linguist and other people that study the spoken word think about how the Liberals ignore years of history and simply redefine shit on the whim to fit stuff into their agenda (when in reality they're simply making this shit up most of the time from thin air). Though, I agree that both of these terms are interchangeable. At least they didn't have make up a completely fake defintion this time. Anyway, what they are doing are simple basic psychological tactics. I was just pointing out they're playing petty word games again. How do you feel about the quoted questions and answers that I just added to my original post? The questions that Yovanovich answered. Do you think these are the only relevant questions?

 

Oh, and I know we're conversed about politics before I left. So if you're interested in why I left or why I'm back I've posted about this in my blog. Just in case you're wondering why I'm posting again.

 

Crowdstrike may be a hoax and yet Russia got investigated. There was indications in the Russia case which not much came out of it just like there was in Ukraine. Trump can use this to his advantage. They shot themselves in the foot with Russia and it can back fire on this case. "Look at Russia hoax, you guys investigated that and you are not going to investigate Ukraine"



"I beg to differ. When I'm suddenly getting promised money withheld from a country, and then shortly after get on the phone with the country's leader saying I need to do them a favor(1), I know what is implied. It doesn't make it less extortion."

I beg the differ differ, because aid could've been with held for different reasons. The problem is implied. Anything could be implied, since it wasn't directly said they can make a case for a different implication, like new leadership are they worthy of military aid? Are they trust worthy? Lets withhold money and talk it over in the White house before making bad rash decisions. The withheld money was a coincidence in timing with the phone call.


We are basically arguing/debating over nothing said. Trump does this a lot. He's always very vague in what he says and people give their opinions on what he implied which is influenced by their personally biases of what they already think about Trump.

Like when Trump says about Megyn Kelly on CNN that he doesn't respect her as a journalist and he said that you can see blood was coming out of her eyes and coming out of her wherever. People got mad and called him a sexist because they believed he implied that he was talking about her lady private parts, that she was menstruating and she couldn't do her job properly. But that statement is vague, people that already believed that Trump is sexist against women say we know what he meant, c'mon look at all the past sexist stuff Trump did, its as easy as putting two and two together. While his defenders say no he probably meant eyes or nose, he just said wherever because that was a quick response for the moment because he couldn't think of any other body part, how could he be talking about her lady parts if he couldn't think of that answer at the moment.


This is basically how many arguments of what Trump actually meant go down.Trump is so vague and people are basically arguing over nothing said. Implying what he meant based on their personal biases. Which is why many of these arguments lead to no where and nothing gets solved.

 

You fail to grasp the reasoning in the same way several Republicans during the hearing failed to.

Back in April, she was suddenly subjected to a smear campaign by Giuliani and two associates of his which resulted in her removal. Whilst it's not fully clear why this happened, during the hearing she made clear that the act of witholding funding in exchange for digging up dirt on Biden (which is what the investigation is about and what Volker, her successor, did do) is something she would refuse to do since it's illegal.

The reason she's being heard is because there's a not-insubstantial argument to be made that Giuliani ran the smear campaign so she could be replaced with a more Trump-sympathetic person (Volker although he also picked eggs for his money), to ensure that they could do the illegetimate acts that make up the impeachment hearing without her standing in the way as a roadblock.

 

The point is to establish the ambassador for Ukraine was systematically replaced by someone more pro-Trump. This entire incident took place before the phone call, she wasn't fired for "not doing her job". They probably replaced her because they knew she wouldn't stick to the withholding aid when it would come up and decided to plant someone who would there to make sure it wouldn't become an issue.

Hearsay is not relevant yet or here.

The current proceedings are investigation based, which means you're absolutely allowed to investigate on things originating from something that would be hearsay.

The actual articles of impeachment and the subsequent vote will use more concrete evidence (such as that gathered from witnesses in both open and closed hearings) rather than the original complaint.

To put it in another way; if I hear someone say "Bob is gonna murder his girlfriend tonight" and I out of concern call the cops on Bob to make sure his girlfriend is protected, the cops are essentially going on hearsay. That said, since the cops aren't in court at that point, they're just investigating a claim made by me, they're absolutely allowed to go and arrest and question Bob.

In this case, what we're seeing now is the investigative phase. Hearsay as a legal argument is not considered valid at this stage, since this is not the judgemental phase.

 

It's not clear cut, only because Trump didn't outright say "investigate Biden or we don't give you money" on the call but sugar-coated it in a mob thread.

I've said it elsewhere, but Trump essentially made a very transparent mafia-esque threat. "I'd like you to do us a favor" is not a thing with much interpretation if you've read any mafia novels or seen mafia movies (and for Trump -> his family has ties to the mob) and then having several people send to Ukraine to ensure an investigation is started before the money gets handed over is a quid quo pro.

We don't just need to look at Trump here for the call. Giulianis, Sondland and all the others around him tell us much more about what actually happened and how it was intended. The White House made an active effort to cover up the call itself, Giuliani has been involved in notorious shifty deals, Volker outright came clean in his hearing because he didn't want to get scapegoated by Trump et al., the White House is actively telling it's own administration members to not testify.

They know they fucked up with this situation. Let me put it like this: The allegations made are really damn serious. Trump is facing impeachment charges. Now, the best way to respond would be complete openness. If it's all as horseshit of an investigation as Republicans claim it is, then they should show it. But instead, they're going on a full lockdown mode, not revealing anything and instead constantly complaining about non-existent procedural issues whilst telling everyone to shut the fuck up and not say anything.

Saying it's not a "quid pro quo" is incredibly disingenuous at this point.