Read The Transcripts. Wonkagenda For Tues., Nov. 5, 2019
The transcripts are BAD, Ukrainium One still imploding, and a sparkly scientist. Your morning news brief!
Morning Wonketariat! Here's some of the things wemaybe talking about today.
Yesterday, the House testimony transcript of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was released. She says she was warned to "watch my back" by senior Ukrainian officials who felt the Trump administration was just waiting until nightfall to bring out the long knives. [Transcript ]
Transcripts of from the House impeachment inquiry show Republicans have been aimlessly bumbling and useless in the closed-door depositions, complaining about process and whistleblowers instead of asking substantial questions about the Trump administration's shadow foreign policy and blackmail scheme. Meanwhile, Natasha Bertrand writes that unlike the Mueller Report, Adam Schiff wants to keep the Ukrainium One story simple so it doesn't spiral into some overly complicated Russian novel.
#Yovanovitch does not suffer fools gladly: Page 214: https://t.co/kkFeqy9nDc
— DennisInVenice (@DennisInVenice) 1572891055.0
NOTE: Make sure you get some snacks because the House is expected to release transcripts of US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker later today! It should be good reading since Trump has spent all morning reposting his own shitposts.
The political career of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in jeopardy thanks to his fuckery at the State Department. The poor wretches still plodding around Foggy Bottom are pissed that Pompeo hasn't defended the career officials blowing the whistle on Trump's Ukrianium One scheme, and they could all come back to haunt Pompeo if he tries to run for an open Senate seat in Kansas in 2020.
One of Rudy Giuliani's chucklefucks has decided to flip on Trump World. Lev Parnas now says he'll speak with House impeachment investigators. Parnas has hired new lawyers, and they're sending up smoke signals that he may invoke his Fifth Amendment rights after Trump claimed he didn't know Parnas. Politico points out that Parnas may be trying to pull an Ollie North and demand immunity in exchange for his testimony.
The trial of Nixonian "ratfucker" Roger Stone begins today, and Politico has a quick rundown if you need some catching up. Stone has been charged with obstructing the congressional investigation into Russian fuckery in the 2016 election.
The New York Timesreports the Republican National Committee spammed the offices of almost three dozen house Democrats with robocalls. RNC officials dispute that they were using "robocalls," arguing the calls were as organic as the Tea Party movement;The Timesnotes that the Trump campaign has been passing out scripts to supporters at Trump rallies that urges them to bitch about the impeachment inquiry.
The WSJ has a thing on the ongoing budget fight that threatens to shut down the government later this month. Both Republicans and Democrats are trying to iron out a deal to kick the can into 2020, but Trump's big, fat shadow still looms over the negotiations.
Attorney General Bill Barr's DOJ is tossing couch cushions and poking around Mike Pence's closet in search of the ANONYMOUS LODESTAR op-ed writer. The administration says it wants to know if the writer is bound by a government nondisclosure agreement, or broke any rules on releasing classified material. Like a White House official facing a subpoena from the House, the publisher had told the DOJ to piss off.
Buzzfeed jumped headfirst into the implosion of Ukrainium One and found at the heart of the wingnut-o-sphere's fever dream is a 2017 story from Politico about a low-level staffer at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC tooting his Russian-made whistle about "efforts to sabotage Trump" in 2016.
California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes was scolded by a judge for objecting to a delay in his frivolous lawsuit against the Fresno Bee after Bee attorney Ted Boutros's house burned down in the California wild fires.
After South Carolina Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn went on teevee Sunday and said older black voters have a problem with Pete Buttigieg being a gaymosexual, Sen. Kamala Harris went on CNN and said that's "trope" and "nonsense," adding “To label one community in particular as being burdened by this bias as compared to others is misinformed, it's misdirected and it's just simply wrong." Buttigieg's campaign is firing back too, arguing that the "homophobia narrative" is a bullshit story.
THREAD To be clear: our campaign doesn’t buy into the homophobia narrative floating out there. AT ALL. It’s come f… https://t.co/bVvS1Zng8e
— Nina Smith (@Nina Smith) 1572911846.0
A minion toiling away at Tom Steyer's campaign in South Carolina stole volunteer data collected by Sen. Kamala Harris's campaign. The DNC says they caught him rather quickly, and have forced him to confirm the data has been destroyed. The minion has since been quit-fired, and perma-banned from all Democratic party systems. A Steyer campaign spox tells the Charleston Post and Courier, "The bottom line is that nothing would have taken place if the DNC had been more diligent about the security of voter data."
IT'S ELECTION DAY, so here's some of the races political fortune tellers and geeks are keeping an eye on. GO VOTE!
Republicans are butthurt George Soros is dumping oodles of Ameros into hyperlocal races, backing progressive candidates running for local legislatures and district attorney's offices. Obviously this is evidence of a liberal conspiracy, not proof that all politics is local.
Trump World's Hungarian Nazi sympathizer Sebastian Gorka has been banned from Youtube for repeatedly violating requests to stop using songs from the band Imagine Dragons.
The Washington Post has a story about how an Alaskan moose hunter -- backed by super rich conservatives and gun fetishists -- was able to go all the way to the Supreme Court and argue he had a right to pilot a banned hovercraft through protected parkland to kill a moose. He won.
Friends Of The NRA is raffling off guns in schools in order to raise money and brainwash a new crop of gun fetishists.
Sean Spicer is still stomping around like a syphilitic robot with a stick up his ass on that celebrity dancing show because bored, conservative jackoffs keep calling in (at Trump's request) to keep him on the show after the judges try to kick him off for being a genuinely terrible dancer.
Futurist Rita J. King, executive vice president for business development and co director of Science House, wore a sparkly, sequin dress to deliver a talk at NASA after girls wrote her saying they wanted to see a "sparkling geek." Scientists CAN be sparkly!
Trevor Noah found it funny that Trump's big, beautiful wall is already being broken with a $100 reciprocating saw easily acquired at any hardware store. Over the weekend Trump argued his wall was meant to do that. BONUS: Colbert thinks the wall's impermanence is like an allegory for the futility of life.
Trump's Impenetrable Wall Isn't So Impenetrable | The Daily Show www.youtube.com
And here's your morning Nice Time: CATS VS CUPS!
Cats vs Treat Cup www.youtube.com
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