US Politics, October 2019 — I guess statement you could say with thread. I made a thread. The thread was PERFECT.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said on Wednesday that it was difficult to draw "hard, fast conclusions" from a top U.S. diplomat's closed-door testimony but that the "picture" from initial reports was "not a good one."

"The picture coming out of it based on the reporting that we've seen is, yeah, I would say not a good one," Thune told reporters when a reporter characterized William Taylor's testimony as "troubling."

"But I would say also that, again, until we have a process that allows for everybody to see this in full transparency, it's pretty hard to draw any hard, fast conclusions," Thune added.

Thune noted at the time that he had not read Taylor's testimony but had seen only initial reports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_Oe-jtgdI

Not sure how labeling a very real impeachment inquiry "so-called" is supposed to work in his favor.

Kinda sad I wished for Scalise's recovery at one point

Can't quite put my finger on why this particular stunt is enraging me to the extent that it is, but it will pale in comparison to the rage I'll feel when these dumbfucks manage to skirt any real and effectual punishment for their dumbfuckery.

he just...tweeted it out

is it not like...totally illegal to do this

god sometimes I really wished the law applied to Republicans

Not sure how labeling a very real impeachment inquiry "so-called" is supposed to work in his favor.

White House strategy is to claim they don't have to cooperate with the inquiry because the House has not yet voted to open an inquiry.

it's almost as if the party that couldn't successfully manage a governing majority in Congress doesn't actually understand how Congress works

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/after-clinton-spectacle-benghazi-panel-goes-back-behind-closed-doors/447768/

let's not forget the time the dems stormed into these closed door sessions

Lady Lindsay Demands Decorum!

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Wednesday rebuked the GOP congressman who stormed a closed-door hearing earlier in the day to protest the Democrats' impeachment inquiry protest, calling the act “nuts.”

“That’s not the way to do it,” Graham said of the GOP House members moves, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Dozens of Republican members of the House crashed, including some members of leadership like House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), barged into the secure hearing room in the Capitol basement delaying the testimony of Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia.

This is the most pernicious aspect of Trump's presidency imo. Not what he specifically gets away with but the extent to which his unbridled id begins to influence others to wantonly thwart norms like it's all some big goddamn joke.

This was interesting. And by interesting I mean terrifying.

A few words on why Gaetz stunt to storm the SCIF to disrupt Laura Cooper's deposition is a VERY serious national security problem.

Note, I worked in that SCIF for HPSCI and handled cybersecurity issues while there.

— Mieke Eoyang (@MiekeEoyang) October 23, 2019

no doubt Trump's ability to face no consequence whatsoever for his flagrant lawbreaking has rubbed off on other members of the GOP

Reminder: a young Navy sailor was prosecuted and convicted for taking photos in the classified areas of a submarine.@RepAlexMooney tried to livestream his entrance into a SCIF. https://t.co/MC1BuTrlgn

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) October 23, 2019

REMEMBER SAILOR!!!

doopdedoo how long til this gets to the Supreme Court

The State Department must begin turning over documents related to the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine within 30 days, a judge ruled Wednesday.

American Oversight, an ethics watchdog organization, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department in early October in an attempt to gain access to documents related to communications between President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and top State Department officials regarding Ukraine.

The group also requested records related to the recall of Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Wednesday that the records sought were of public importance and that the State Department needed to begin disclosing documents within 30 days, NBC New York reported. Cooper reportedly advised American Oversight to meet with the government to narrow the request.

“Despite the ongoing obstruction of Congress, the Trump administration will now have to start releasing records concerning its dealings with Ukraine," Austin Evers, executive director at American Oversight, said in a statement to The Hill.

"This is an important victory for the American people’s right to know the facts about Ukraine, and it is a major setback for the White House’s stonewalling. The court recognized the importance of these documents and the need for the State Department to rapidly release them, and American Oversight will continue fighting to make sure the truth comes out.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

Your regular reminder that national security is a farce and Edward Snowden is a saint

Signed,

Glenn Greenwald (NOT A TRUMP GUY)

the very notion of a SCIF was invented by spy agencies - liberals who hold meetings in them are just untrustworthy hypocrites

signed

Matt Taibbi

Doug Henwood tweet

Signed

Morbs

going back to McConnell's current "defend the president on the process" tactic:

“The transcripts are all going to be released publicly, and there will be public hearings,” Lieu told us. “So all of these stupid process arguments that Republicans are making are going to go away.”

it's almost as if McConnell knows he has a weak hand and is just playing for time

oh Hucklepaws

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) walked back his earlier comments that called out a group of House Republicans for storming into a closed-door deposition that is part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump on Wednesday.

Graham tweeted a “correction” saying that when he told reporters “that’s nuts” in response to his fellow Republican lawmakers’ actions, he had been misinformed on the nature of the disruption.

“I was initially told House GOP took the SCIF by force – basically like a GOP version of Occupy Wall Street,” Graham tweeted. “Apparently it was a peaceful protest. Big difference. I understand their frustration and they have good reason to be upset.”

Yes entering a building screaming while breaking laws = perfectly legal peaceful protest, good one

I wonder if literally sending a squad of goons to disrupt an investigation counts as obstruction of justice? I wonder...

Could someone please subpoena Graham's phone records spanning the moments when he publicly veers from the party line until his inevitable retractions (which are in no way precipitated by someone reminding him about those photos that are still in that safe deposit box)?

If we don't someday learn that he has been deeply, deeeeeeply compromised by some foreign entity at least throughout the course Trump's presidency, I will quite literally eat my hat.

shouldn't these idiots' phones be confiscated by now

Major league umpire Rob Drake tweeted “I will be buying an AR-15 tomorrow, because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020”, according to a copy of the tweet obtained by ESPN. MLB says it is aware of it. News: https://t.co/Qf7VMAXEoJ

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 23, 2019

MORAN!

Get that man on the Supreme Court! It's all just balls 'n' strikes, right?

He later complained that his account was "hicked"

shouldn't the 2020 slogan be Make America Great Again, Again

it should be MAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

a la Billy Joel's "Movin' Out"

An amusing bit:

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/23/trump-impeachment-offensive-conservative-056063

Miller said Republican lawmakers need to do a better job of strategically leaking information to the media from the behind-closed-doors testimony to build Republicans’ nothing-to-see-here argument. He alleges Democrats are leaking tidbits of information every day to drive news cycle favorable to them.

Which could also imply...there's nothing pro-Trump to leak.

Notably, according to a list provided by Gaetz's office of the Republicans who RSVP'd to join the protest, 12 of them are members of the Oversight or Foreign Affairs committees — including Rep. Jim Jordan, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee — meaning they have been allowed to sit in on all depositions held in the SCIF in recent weeks.

virtue signallers

Hmm, of course.

Rudy Giuliani is looking for a defense attorney, sources sayhttps://t.co/qp8u1IA9RN

— Mike Warren (@MichaelRWarren) October 24, 2019

but he's so good he can defend himself, no?

Fool for a client etc.

He's so good he doesn't even *need* to defend himself.

I am not a lawyer but it seems pretty clear to me that if you are the president's lawyer you are allowed to commit crimes because executive privilege, etc.

6) Fox is told there was never any chance mbrs who barged into SCIF would be arrested by USCP wBut some mbrs members asked to be arrested. They wanted the optic of being frog marched out of the SCIF in front of TV cameras. That would help w/GOP narrative of Dem process abuse

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 24, 2019

Apparently our man Barry is supposed to speak at Cummings’ service so coverage of this could lead to the heart attack we’ve been hoping for

dummy just said he's building a wall on the Colorado border

It borders Second Mexico

New Mexico gon' pay!

2 Mexico

2 Furious

missed this detail earlier

In fact, Mr. Trump is said to have given them a thumbs-up the day before. On Tuesday, he “met with about 30 House Republicans at the White House to talk about the situation in Syria and the impeachment inquiry,” at which time the members “shared their plans to storm into the secure room,” Bloomberg News reported. Mr. Trump told them he thought it was a good idea.

trump + these thirty are going to be like the alamo only if you weren't sure how to reload the guns

I guess statement you could say with tweet. He made a tweet. The tweet is perfect:

(Kiddingly) We’re building a Wall in Colorado”(then stated, “we’re not building a Wall in Kansas but they get the benefit of the Wall we’re building on the Border”) refered to people in the very packed auditorium, from Colorado & Kansas, getting the benefit of the Border Wall!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2019

*curb your enthusiasm music plays *

how surprising that his clarification makes less sense than the original statement

I'm glad he cleared it up for us, he's got my vote back.