US Politics, November 2019: These people are truly sick.

he obviously never talked to my mother on the phone .

I am a charter member of the Phone Call-Watching Society of America and have logged 3,000 hours of call observance in strict accordance with Society guidelines. Never, and I mean never, have I

Is he capable of behaving/speaking like a faint simulacrum of an actual human being for one entire 24-hour span of time?

15 tweets in two hours. Quite a busy morning for the big boy president.

"Never have I been...able to hear or understand a conversation. I’ve even tried, but to no avail."

Holmes:

My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland stated, “Dammit Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f---s everything up.”

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 21, 2019

That's certainly my impression of Rudy.

Or to put it more broadly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz6_9ReEGuY

Rudy was on Glenn Beck's show (he has a show? is he blind yet?) still claiming he's working with Ukrainians to get the goods on Biden et al.

I can't post the clip right now, but someone observed that Trump was leaving the plane yesterday he used the shorter back stairs, was dragging his left leg a little, and wasn't moving his left arm at all ...

otm to whoever suggested keeping an eye out for when he golfs next. he definitely seems like the kind of guy who, when told to rest, would take it easy for a couple of days then stubbornly return to regular activity. maybe he'll reinjure himself.

(semi related, indictments against Netenyahu reportedly imminent ... )

🐦[Holmes:

My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland stated, “Dammit Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f---s everything up.”
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 21, 2019🕸]🐦

https://i0.wp.com/equality365.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Stephen_Tobolowsky_Mercer_island.jpg

he's just a big goofball rich guy who realizes the absurdity of his life.

Sondland mildly likeable within this particular context (mostly because it's swell to see a big-money Trump donor joyfully and publicly hand Trump a gift-wrapped set of his very own balls) and undoubtedly a nightmare and a must to avoid in pretty much every other imaginable context.

I do think there's something noteworthy about the one rep yesterday (don't recall which) who evoked Sondland's Holocaust survivor parents and how that experience may have injected a teeeeeeny sliver of decency and higher sense of the public good in dudes like him and Cohen who otherwise enjoy lives of flagrant steaming turd-dom.

(I guess Sondland's mother fled Germany prior to WWII but the point stands.)

apropos of nothing i'd like to point out it is Budd Dwyer's birthday today

I wish I would've met you
Now it's a little late
But today is still your birthday
So let's all have some cake

Dammit Rudy

A message to you: stop that messin around

time you straighten right out, better think of your future, else you'll wind up in jail

sondland seems like a massive prick to me

Me too. Just some nihilistic rich dude.

Rudy can fail

Sondland should end up in jail, fuck him.

'nihilistic rich dude'

Do u really need that extra modifier?

potential december thread titles, suggested in this thread:

The President Speaks Loudly
okay from what?
everyone's hair was on fire
I WANT NOTHING, I WANT NOTHING, I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO
Dammit Rudy...

Can't believe no one itt wants to have a beer with Gordon Songland.

What do u guys think of fiona hill?

She seems kind of hawkish but maybe this no nonsense approach will play better.

The line about being from the same part of England as George Washington’s ancestors seemed sort of bizarre.

I like her, she seems smarter than fuck and tolerates no fools. Actually I'm very impressed by everyone I've seen who works in the foreign service and the State Department. I feel bad for all of them since they obviously have build important careers doing important shitty work in other countries and now they're all getting thrown under the bus by idiots.

I wasn't expecting today's hearings to be very interesting but now I want to see how HIll responds to Nunes' gibberish bullshit. She already pointed in her opening testimony that she has no time for this Ukraine conspiracy crap.

Apparently she was already pretty prickly in response to their BS in the closed hearings.

hill seems fine, but her testimony will probably useless. she's there to be a fact witness on ukraine, to rebut one of the many republican lines of attack, that there is this big conspiracy by ukraine to interfere with elections. democrats already know that's bullshit. republicans might too, but does anyone think that "facts" or "experts" are going to suddenly change their mind?

especially once it comes out that hill once smiled to a democratic operative in an elevator, which would mean that she's in on the hoax as well, etc

Forget the work it's going to take to restore the reputation of the US with the rest of the world, consider the uphill battle it's gonna be to recruit any serious-minded people to devote their lives to that work in the future.

i don't know about that. that's a risk, for sure. but i can see a wave of talented civilians re-entering federal employment, under a new administration.

Yeah a lot of dip / foreign service folks expect to drift in and out of government in response to political tides. The next D president will get a LOT of resumes from experienced people who were pushed out in the Trump years.

especially if the incoming administration makes it a point to re-emphasize the importance of federal employees, offers pay raises, better career ladder opportunities, new hiring aimed at people coming out of college, etc.

xp

I think it will be easier than many might think. There are still literally tens of thousands of career employees in all of these departments.

also yes, on the question of the phone: I can hear my mother in law every single time shje calls my wife. My wife sometimes just sets the phone down, not on speaker, because she's shouting everything. This is fucking obvious.

whole binders of women

xp

Does this fed get any credit for NOT getting pushed out based on my incredible ability to avoid bubbles bursting by always zagging when the rest go zig? A: No I will get new bosses and they will be really in love with how smart they are and ready to shake things up

you get credit from ex-feds, which is worth about 1/1000th of regular fed credit rates

At least the next admin seems unlikely to openly embrace any old Google or Facebook imagineer who shows up to disrupt government

personally, i'm already preparing my explanation for what i was doing in the trump years by pointing out that i was gaining valuable experience in the private sector, gaining new and rising buzzwords that i can distribute throughout the federal sector

I totally listen to my mom with the phone a foot away from my ear (but not on speaker phone). To Trump: "If it's too quiet, you're too old!"

Meanwhile, this was cute:

The more things change... pic.twitter.com/wZd6CsGxNW

— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) November 20, 2019

hearing's back on.

sorry - is there an impeachment thread we can use? i feel like we keep hopping to Impeach Trump Y/N but then it inevitably ends up back here