The Impeachment of President Donald J Trump

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAai5ZK9BbQ

Lively exchange between Dem NY and Sondland.

"You're no Jack Kennedy" moment when Maloney makes the comment about Sondland's correction/retraction.

At 2:22 is a brilliant moment IMO.  Sondland says Ukraine was "in a terrible position," and you can see his brain short circuiting as he realizes he now has to explain why it was a terrible position.

[mongers]

[CdM]

Good to hear Zbigniew Brzezinski quoted in the hearings today.

[/CdM]

[The Minsky Moment]

The eventual release of the money and lack of announced investigation is irrelevant. The story broke before Ukraine made up its mind whether to accept the offer, and it became impossible for Ukraine to announce it afterwards. The money was returned after the story broke and the natural inference is that it was a reaction to the story breaking.

It's the equivalent of a shoplifter quickly pulling the goods out of his pants and putting them back on the shelf after the security guard grabs them by the collar, then claiming no crime was committed.

And that makes you confident the American public understands those facts?

I'm not confident, but I've seen Democratic talking heads going out making these points.

[frunk]

The more I see of the Impeachment inquiry the sadder I feel for all of Devin Nune's livestock, not just his cow.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes, I know.  Geez.  I raise a question about the Democratic media strategy and you, like Malthus, feel the need to enlighten me personally.

I understand we have a number of frustrated press secretaries here on Languish, but how about some recognition that you're missing my point?  Why isn't someone on the Democratic side delivering these catchy one liners and pithy Latin phrases to the American public?

Oh okay. My argument would that the Republicans are pushing a line because they're on the defensive and not in control of what happens next.

They're in control of the timetable. So far every day of hearings has been bad for Trump and every witness has been bad. I'd let that keep going day-after-day. Don't get into an argument with Republicans. Just say "that's what you say about Ambassador x. Now we move to Lt Col y."

My view is don't get in the way of these witnesses who are people who viewers are more likely to trust (to the extent they trust anyone in the establishment). Then when the Republicans have the impetus you can move to counter-punching. At the minute Democrats are controlling the narrative I think it would be a mistake to let that slip/or distract from it by doing the running commentary stuff - at this stage.

Question though is how many people are actually watching the witnesses testify?

[Razgovory]

Question for Languish Lawyers who do trials:  Are jurors typically capable able to understand this type of thing?

[The Minsky Moment]

Question for Languish Lawyers who do trials:  Are jurors typically capable able to understand this type of thing.

For the most part, yes - but jurors are placed right in front of witnesses testifying live with nothing to do other than listen to them.  The process of empaneling and seating jurors is also surrounded by formalities all of which reinforce the importance and seriousness of the task.  It's a very different experience from a normal harried adult catching pieces of stuff on cable news or skimming some headlines.

[dps]

Question for Languish Lawyers who do trials:  Are jurors typically capable able to understand this type of thing.

For the most part, yes - but jurors are placed right in front of witnesses testifying live with nothing to do other than listen to them.  The process of empaneling and seating jurors is also surrounded by formalities all of which reinforce the importance and seriousness of the task.  It's a very different experience from a normal harried adult catching pieces of stuff on cable news or skimming some headlines.

Yeah, when I served on jury duty last year, we listened to dozens of hours of testimony that probably would have been summarized in 2 or 3 lines in a news report.  What you see and hear on jury duty is a lot more detailed than what you hear or read in the media.

[Admiral Yi]

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

Didn't know Fiona Hill is a Brit.

[Sheilbh]

From Tyr's neck of the wood too

[Admiral Yi]

Ah, so fleeing the Great Thatcher Coal Famine.

[Sheilbh]

You're not far wrong. Daughter of a coal miner who said this today - which is true and sad:
"Years later, I can say with confidence that this country has offered for me opportunities I never would have had in England," Hill testified. "I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent."
"In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional advancement. This background has never set me back in America. For the better part of three decades, I have built a career as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical national security professional focusing on Europe and Eurasia and especially the former Soviet Union."

[mongers]

Question for Languish Lawyers who do trials:  Are jurors typically capable able to understand this type of thing.

For the most part, yes - but jurors are placed right in front of witnesses testifying live with nothing to do other than listen to them.  The process of empaneling and seating jurors is also surrounded by formalities all of which reinforce the importance and seriousness of the task.  It's a very different experience from a normal harried adult catching pieces of stuff on cable news or skimming some headlines.

Yeah, when I served on jury duty last year, we listened to dozens of hours of testimony that probably would have been summarized in 2 or 3 lines in a news report.  What you see and hear on jury duty is a lot more detailed than what you hear or read in the media.

I'd certainly like to do jury service if that was the attitude of most jurors.

[Sheilbh]

Question though is how many people are actually watching the witnesses testify?

Oh - God, no-one. It's like cable news, very few normal folk will be watching this (though it would be interesting to see if it does get viewers).

But I think the witnesses will be the evening news clips, the headlines caught on the front-page and all the other diffuse ways people consume news. With evidence like this I think the old line is true - if you're explaining, you're losing.

[The Minsky Moment]

Schiff and Pelosi need to adjourn the impeachment hearings until the additional key witnesses can appear - i.e. Mulvaney, Vaught and Duffey from OMB, Rudy, and until they receive the full documentation over the aid hold.

Then pursue the enforcement of the subpoenas while at the same time pushing the talking points in media that the President is abusing executive privilege claims to conceal evidence and that if he is really as innocent as he claims, he should the first one showing the documents that prove it and demanding these witnesses to come in to clear his name

Any other course of action IMO would be defeatist and a strategic blunder.

Pelosi just seems to want this over before the primaries happen - I think she views the impeachment as a sop to the base that is inevitably doomed in the Senate.