Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Smoking gun...



delivered at this morning's hearing by national hero, Lt.Col. Vindman:



"Don't worry, I will be fine for telling the truth." --Lt.Col. Vindman to his father at the end of his testimoney.


A former U.S. Attorney says Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has delivered “smoking gun” evidence of a quid pro quo BRIBERY arrangement between President Donald Trump and Ukraine. 

 The National Security Council staffer told a House impeachment inquiry that he was aware of — and alarmed by — efforts as early as March to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, which he believed were conducted to deliver a political benefit the president.




‘Smoking gun so hot it’s still on fire’: Ex-US Attorney astonished by text shown in Vindman testimony

A former U.S. Attorney says Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has delivered “smoking gun” evidence of a quid pro quo arrangement between President Donald Trump and Ukraine. 

 The National Security Council staffer told a House impeachment inquiry that he was aware of — and alarmed by — efforts as early as March to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, which he believed were conducted to deliver a political benefit the president. 

The counsel for House Democrats then showed a text sent 30 minutes before Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, which shows the special envoy Kurt Volker dangling a White House visit to a Zelensky aide in exchange for an investigation.

TEXT:
“Good lunch — thanks. Heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington. Good luck! See you tomorrow – kurt.”



This is what the 30 percenters do to military heroes they say they support. Trump supporters are a disgrace to America:



US Army prepared to move Vindman to secure location: report

27 comments:

skudrunner said...

Every thing is a smoking gun but none of them will result in trump being thrown from office. He will leave when he is voted out and with the current list of obstructionists running he may be difficult to defeat. I doubt the democrats have learned that it is the independents and middle America that tipped the scales and caused the -H- to get trounced. So far it is the coasties who think they are the only ones capable of making decisions on how the government knows best.

Shaw Kenawe said...

"...the independents and middle America..." DO NOT SUPPORT TRUMP.

November 5, 2019 at 6:51 p.m. EST
MANCHESTER, N.H. —

The latest Post-ABC News poll has some seriously troubling news for President Trump: A year out from the 2020 election, he is hemorrhaging the support he once enjoyed from independents.

If it hadn’t been for voters who claim no party affiliation, Trump most likely would not be in the White House today.


Are you paying attention, skud? Trump campaigned HARD for the GOP governor candidates in DEEP RED STATES. AND THEY LOST.


skud: "So far it is the coasties who think they are the only ones capable of making decisions on how the government knows best."

That is such a dumb partisan statement that I'll leave it here for anyone to understand what someone says when they have nothing to say about how a majority of Americans, INDEPENDENTS, MIDDLE AMERICAN, and even GOPers, are not supporting the GOP criminal president.

Anonymous said...

IMPEACH THE BASTARD!

Dave Miller said...

Impeachment and removal is still a heavy lift. I don't believe he gets removed for this. I think the GOP will chastise him, mostly in private, and then say as one has already done, he was wrong but it was not impeachable.

And then, as Skud has said, the voters will decide.

Unless of course some mystery ailment forces him to resign before hand.

skudrunner said...

Ms Shaw, If I reflect back it is the coasties who are screaming the loudest that the big -H- won the popular vote and therefore she is the true winner. It is the leftist supreme leader who said mid-westerners clinging to their guns and religion. If that is not a reliable source as to the feelings of the elite coasties I am not sure what is.

anymouse said...

Skid claims that Hillary got 'trounced'. I don't think that word means what he thinks it means. The Lying orange criminal blob he worships lost the popular vote by almost 3 million and only barely squeezed out an electoral win in 3 states by total of 70,000 votes. That's nothing on a national level. But hey, nobody expects Republiclowns to ever be honest about anything. We've learned that they never can or will be anything but lying sycophants who always put party over country.

myfoxmystere said...

What we are seeing is a political circus on display for the world to see. Let Adam Schiff show us what kind of court jester he really is. God is in control.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave, Trump will be impeached. Whether he'll be convicted is unclear, since the current majority GOPers in the Senate are a bunch of spineless, anti-American cowards who will decide that having the American president ask a foreign government to help him win re-election by smearing his opponent with lies is perfectly fine with them. It's worse than that, though. Trump betrayed the Ukrainians by inviting them to commit corruption alsong with him and his henchman Giuliani at the same time our foreign diplomats were trying to encourage the new president and his reform government to eschew corruption. This made the dictator and murderer Putin, Trump's idol, very happy. It screwed up the progress we and Ukraine were making in bringing them into the company of young democracies.

Trump, in another time and another world, would be hanged for his corruption and crimes.

The GOP Senate will mot convict, and they will be forever seen as the disgusting partisan cowards they are.

Shaw Kenawe said...


BlueBull, our conservative friend, skud, has never gotten over the fact that a bi-racial man of dignity, honesty, class, and intelligence was elected TWICE by a clear majority for the first time since President Eisenhower. That sticks in their craws and they'll never get over it.

How any American can support the corrupt, anti-American liar and cheater that is currently defiling the Oval Office is a mystery to me. They know he lies, they know he cheats (he just had to pay $2 million to the court for STEALING FROM HIS CHARITY that was set up for veterans). Yeah. He's that much of a disgusting crook, and yet Republicans like skud come here and denounce President Obama and Hillary every chance they get. I delete most of their vile comments, BTW, so you don't have to read them.

Hillary Clinton was investigated 7 ways to Sunday and the REPUBLICAN investigating committee lead by Trey Gowdy ruled that THERE WAS NO CRIME COMMITTED BY HER.

Those are the same people who are blubbering about a WITHCH HUNT on President Quid Pro Quo, where dozens of witnesses UNDER OATH have testified his criminality.

But that's where we are today in this divided country. The Republicans adore a disgusting, corrupt, liar, and they (skud for example) continue to attack President Obama, a man loved and admired by Americans and the rest of the world.

That will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be said about Donald J. Trump. He'll always have his 30 percenters who'll stay faithful to the liar and cheater.

But that's their burden they'll carry around for the rest of their lives.

Shaw Kenawe said...

The following is written by Conservative Max Boot (the Trumpers hate him because he won't blind himself to Trump's venality and moral turpitude like they do:

"Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is a decorated and wounded veteran of the Iraq War. He is no coward, and yet his hands were shaking and he was visibly nervous as he read his opening statement on Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee. This was a reminder of what a signal act of bravery it takes for a military officer — or a Foreign Service officer or an intelligence officer — to publicly reveal that the most powerful man in the world has committed impeachable and even criminal conduct.

Vindman and his colleagues have already faced attacks that he rightly described as “vile” and “reprehensible.” After Vindman gave a deposition behind closed doors last month, President Trump denounced him as a “Never Trumper.” When asked what evidence he has of the political leanings of this career military officer who still works in the Trump White House, the president promised in his thuggish way that “We’ll be showing that to you real soon, okay?” (No such evidence has been forthcoming.) The White House Twitter account attacked Vindman, questioning his judgment, as he was testifying. So did Donald Trump Jr. — incessantly.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) stepped in Monday to supply speculation that Vindman “fits” the “profile” of anti-Trump bureaucrats who “try to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office.” His evidence? That Vindman told him in May “that it was the position of the NSC that our relationship with Ukraine should be kept separate from our geopolitical competition with Russia.” Johnson was rightly skeptical that this would be possible, but this is hardly evidence of anti-Trump animus. Presumably Vindman suggested keeping Ukraine separate from relations with Russia because Trump has an inexplicable soft spot for Russia.

The president has been even more scathing in denouncing Vindman’s fellow witnesses, Marie Yovanovitch and Jennifer Williams: He absurdly accused Yovanovitch of being responsible for the dire state of Somalia and Ukraine — and just as absurdly accused Williams, who works for Vice President Pence, of being a “Never Trumper.” Sounding more like a mob boss than a democratically elected leader, Trump has threatened that Yovanovitch will “go through some things.” She already has, having been fired from her post as ambassador in Ukraine. House Republicans are now desperate to out the whistleblower so they can put this truth-teller through the ringer, too, even though the complaint has been entirely vindicated.

But for pure maliciousness, it is hard to top the gall of Trump partisans who question Vindman’s loyalty to the United States because he emigrated here as a toddler from the Soviet Union. Republican counsel Steve Castor continued those nasty aspersions of dual loyalty on Tuesday by extensively questioning Vindman about an offer extended to him out of the blue by a Ukrainian official to become defense minister of Ukraine. Vindman said he rejected the proposal and reported it to his superiors, because he is an American. Questioning Vindman about this — and demanding to know whether he had been speaking Ukrainian — is sheer McCarthyism."


Shaw Kenawe said...

(cont.)

"These vicious attacks raise a real danger to Vindman — and not just the danger of having his good name smeared. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that “the U.S. Army is prepared to move Col. Vindman and his family onto a military base to ensure their security if it is determined that they are in physical danger.” That a war hero might be in physical danger marks a new low in Republican attempts to defame and intimidate the witnesses against the president.

Vindman ended his opening statement with a stirring plea that had some spectators wiping away tears: “Dad, my sitting here today, in the U.S. Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth.”

Vindman’s reassurance to his father resonated with me — another Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union who came to the United States as a young boy in the 1970s. People raised in tyrannical regimes such as the Soviet Union grow up with a terror of doing anything that could result in a trip to the gulag. As Vindman said, “In Russia, my act of … offering public testimony involving the president would surely cost me my life.” That paralyzing fear is hard to shake even when you move to a free country. Even today, my 84-year-old, Russian-born stepfather, who has been living in Los Angeles for more than four decades, expresses concern that something terrible might happen to me because of my outspoken criticism of the president.

Like Vindman, I assure my loved one that I will be fine — and I truly believe this because I am exercising my constitutionally protected free-speech rights. But then I am not an existential threat to Trump’s political survival; Vindman is. Along with his fellow witnesses, he is presenting incontrovertible evidence that the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. No wonder Vindman is visibly nervous. In testifying anyway, he is vindicating the highest ideals of a country where no man, not even the president, is above the law. Vindman was not born here, but he is a far better American than the Trump toadies who question his loyalty."

anymouse said...

Nunes and the Repub lawyer and Mr. Ed stand-in are making such huge fools of themselves. I'm laughing my ass off at their pathetic antics. The late night talk shows are going to have a blast tearing those guys apart! When Volker crashed their conspiracy theories and then praised Joe Biden, I thought Nunes and the perv who likes to watch boys being sexually abused couldn't possibly sink any lower in their chairs. LOL. It was a thing of beauty.

Shaw Kenawe said...

BlueBull, None of these inquiry hearings have been good for the Repubs. "Facts are stubborn things," Trump tried to shake down a foreign government to get dirt on his political rival, and Trump withheld foreign aid, authorized by Congress, to make his bribe work.

Those are the facts. Trump is a corrupt lying crook.

Anonymous said...

. "God is in control."

Well, she'll fix Trump's fat orange ass for sure!

anymouse said...

True Shaw, and as is his specialty, the orange blob used other's money (tax dollars) as if it were his own. He doesn't seem to understand that when monies are approved and budgeted by the Congress, it's not his money to do anything with.
The perv from Ohio is doing his usual screeching nutbaggery, yelling about every loony conspiracy theory you can think of. Damn but the Repubs are kooks.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw... you mentioned "in another time."

Remember back when the Tower Commission [yes, a GOP President who felt he had done nothing wrong, appointed a commission to check it out] investigate Iran Contra? The seminal moment came when another Lt Col, Oliver North stepped up to the table and like Vindman today was sworn in. His word was accepted as truth because he had served our country and was working to better America.

And then we have today. Suddenly conservatives are not so enamored with the military. I watched where they've ripped apart men they claimed to honor and respect when Pres Trump called them to serve. Men like Gen's Mattis, Kelly and McMaster. Men like Alexander Vindman.

The questioned his allegiance to America today. A man who has literally bled for America. They questioned his loyalty to America simply because he chose to speak publicly against a POTUS who he believes is not acting in the best interests of America,

These folks rip our military leaders if they speak out in uniform and then if they leave office, if they speak out from the sidelines.

What are people supposed to do?

And why, in this day and age, is the GOP and their supporters, suddenly attacking members of the US and questioning their patriotism?

Anonymous said...

Well Rev, maybe because Vindman was full of B.S. and a vindictive man...uniform or not. So you can dry your alligator tears.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave: "The seminal moment came when another Lt Col, Oliver North stepped up to the table and like Vindman today was sworn in."

Wearing his uniform. Don't forget. And today some Repub on the committee questioned Lt.Col. Vindman's motive for wearing his uniform!

Dave: "And why, in this day and age, is the GOP and their supporters, suddenly attacking members of the US and questioning their patriotism?"

Because their allegiance is to a party and its leader, not to America, her laws, or her honor.They've made their pact with a dishonest president who's been caught in an attempt to commit a high crime (bribery) and many misdemeanors.

One has to feel a little sorry for their attachment to such a terrible person.

Shaw Kenawe said...

To Anon @9:55 PM ABOVE MY COMMENT.

The good people of America would argue that it is YOU who's "full of B.S." It's pretty evident that you didn't watch the hearings.


Every single witness yesterday testified under oath that Trump demanded that Ukraine start an investigation into Joe Biden and his son before he'd release the Congressionally authorized funds to Ukraine and give Pres. Zelensky a WH visit. Every single one testified to that bribery.

You, Mr. Anonymous, are the one with a pant load.

And shame on you for attacking a hero. You stink.

Ray Cranston said...

Shaw, that Anon you answered is probably from the WYD blog that's been quiet because its owner is going through a family crisis. The Trumper goons that visit that blog have nowhere else to go to spread their lies and bullshit. And bullshit it is to trash Vindman. If he was testifying against a Democratic administration, that Anon would be worshipping him. That Anon is full of caca and as dishonest as the shitstain in the WH he worships.

Shaw Kenawe said...

"It didn’t help Mr. Trump’s case that Kurt Volker, the former top envoy to Ukraine and one of the Republicans’ own witnesses, on Tuesday afternoon dismissed the claims of corruption by the Bidens as conspiracy theories.

Without any substantive defense of the president’s behavior, Republicans did all they could to deflect. They called the hearings a circus. They demanded to know the identity of the whistle-blower — even though they previously complained that he had not listened to the July 25 call, and two people who had heard the call were sitting right in front of them. They criticized the media.

They continued to push the idea that Trump is genuinely interested in rooting out corruption. That was never plausible to begin with. But it became even harder to sustain in light of the fact that anti-corruption measures were on a list of talking points prepared for Mr. Trump both times he spoke with Mr. Zelensky, and both times he failed to raise the issue at all. (And as Representative Eric Swalwell noted, the Pentagon had certified that Ukraine had met its anti-corruption requirements for receiving the military aid before Mr. Trump withheld it.)"
-- J. Wegman, NYTimes

Clearwater, Florida said...

I find the attempts to discredit Lt. Col. Vindman absolutely repulsive. This is a decorated officer in the United States Army with an impeccable service record. He exudes patriotism and obviously has great respect for the Uniformed Code of Military Justice which stipulates that falsely accusing a superior officer ( in this case the Commander in Chief) of wrong doing is an act punishable by court marshal. This is a point that I am sure weighed heavily on his mind as he waited for testimony to begin this morning, and why he appeared to be so nervous at the beginning of the mornings proceedings.


What this country needs is more men like the Lt. Col. Men who are willing to stand up for what is right and just, free of the pressures of politics and party affiliation. In short, this great nation desperately needs more men like Lt.Col. Vindman. Men who are willing to serve the public interest rather than the self interest which seems to drive our current president.

Anonymous said...

Was watching the CBS evening news last night. They are pretty good at just explaining the facts without editorializing everything. But, I had to chuckle when Major Garrett was reporting on the impeachment testimony. He said it was very curious about the Republicans in that if the witnesses (with impeccable backgrounds and resumes) said anything against the president or Administration, the witnesses could not be trusted and were dismissed. BUT, witnesses with the same background saying anything that is positive for the president or the Administration, well then, they were upstanding citizens who definitely should be trusted.

Possumlady

skudrunner said...

Ms Shaw, You always paint the swell guy as always being above a saint. You cannot see that his halo fell several times when he lied, withheld facts, used his executive order to shield the AG for assisting in the murder of a border patrol officer. I admit he was a swell guy just not much of a president. He is abut equal to jimmy in leadership abilities.
I want to see trump resign not be impeached because that is better for the country. Problem is that wouldn't give the democrats as much of a stage since that is all they care about. As botox Nancy said, To hell with the country this is all about us.

Dave Miller said...

Skud... are you, like Trump, just making stuff up? Why should we take you seriously when you say stuff like you did above?

Where did Nancy Pelosi say, as you alleged... "To hell with the country this is all about us."?


Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave skud is not interested in facts. All he does is trash Barack Obama, Hillary, Pelosi, or any other Democrat, and that's because he knows the leader of his party is a despicable, dishonest, conniving crook and he can't talk about that, so he does what the Repubs have been doing all week during the impeachment inquiry hearings: Deflect, and point to the Democrats.

I don't bother responding to lies and other garbage he posts. I don't think he's a bad person, but he is misguidedm IMO.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Possumlady That's also true about the current occupant and national disgrace in the White House. Wait until we hear from Fiona Hill this morning. I wonder how Trump will trash her.