Paging Dr. Kildare

Weekend Update:   On Saturday, while an OMB staffer was being deposed in the House SCIF Trump took an unscheduled, rushed trip to Walter Reed Medical Center for what his staff said was “half” a physical with the rest to be completed in February, a nonsensical explanation that no one, except maybe Judge Jeanine Pirro, who insists that Adonis Trump is the model of health and perfection, believes.  Keeping in mind that the White House has a fully staffed medical facility and that no one at Walter Reed was alerted to Trump’s “half physical” in advance, it’s likely that something is up.  We’ll just have to wait to find out whether Trump is paving the way for a medical excuse to step down, his heel spurs are acting up, or whether he really has a serious medical condition, something beyond impeachment/tax return anxiety and his obvious narcissistic personality disorder.  

A Friday for the Books:  Friday had everything: more testimony, mean tweets, a Roger Stone conviction, some pardons, and a bona fide standing ovation.  Starting with the testimony,  it was Former Ambassador to Ukraine Maria Yovanovitch’ s time at bat but before she got a chance to speak, Chairman Adam Schiff gave his opening remarks, Ranking Member Devin Nunes spewed some conspiracy nonsense and then, in what was supposed to be an exculpatory bombshell, read what the White House said was the transcript of Trump’s April call to President Zelensky, the call Trump made right after Zelensky won his election to become Ukraine president.  According to the transcript Trump briefly congratulated Zelensky on his victory and then bragged about his Miss Universe contest, adding that the Ukrainian contestants were very lovely, but said nothing about corruption.  Unfortunately for Trump and Nunes within the hour the press reported that an earlier read out of the April call was completely different than what Nunes had just read.  After some additional Republican shenanigans, the soft spoken Yovanovitch started testifying, she came off as smart, dedicated and totally impressive, a long-term State Department professional who prioritized service to the US over her private life. She recounted her time in Kiev, discussing her career and some of her earlier hardship posts including one in not so lovely Mogadishu, Somalia. She talked about the importance of pushing back against the corruption endemic to republics of the former Soviet Union, a mission she took seriously, as opposed to any of that Biden nonsense or the debunked conspiracy crap about Ukraine, rather than Russia, being responsible for 2016 election interference. She clearly understood that ambassadors serve at the will of the president but said she still couldn’t understand why her firing had to be preceded by the relentless smear campaign orchestrated by Rudy Giuliani and his buddies Lev and Oleg who we now know also discussed Ukraine strategy with Trump and Giuliani at last year’s White House Hanukah party.  She was gone from her post at the time of the Trump/Zelensky July 25 so her testimony focused on events that preceded the summer.  Republican plans to discredit her were foiled by Trump who impulsively smeared her some more just forty-five minutes into her testimony by tweeting “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? ….” Later in the day, claiming he was just exerting his right to free speech, Trump doubled down on his ill-timed and inappropriate tweet but the damage had been done.  Republican efforts to defend him, already muddled, evolved into gratuitous appreciation of Yovanovitch for her service leaving Trump looking crueler and pettier than ever. For his part, Schiff didn’t let Trump’s nasty tweet slide, he read it out loud, asking Yovanovitch if she found being publicly slammed by Trump intimidating, and of course she did, threatening to add witness intimidation to Trump’s list of impeachable offenses.

As a result of Trump’s tweet idiocy, as well as his remark to Zelensky on their July 25 call that suggested that Yovanovitch ought to watch her back because bad things were coming her way, the best the Republicans could do was go after committee procedures, attack “Shifty” Shift, and again call for the Whistleblower to reveal himself, etc. They also repeated that Trump wasn’t guilty of any crime because despite his best attempts, aid to Ukraine was eventually provided and the investigations he wanted were never announced but they avoided acknowledging that Trump’s intentions were foiled only after his and his cronies efforts got public attention.  This time around Republicans contracted some of their dirty work to upstate NY Republican Elena Stefanik.  That didn’t turn out all that well for her. In response to her slime throwing, Stefanik’s 2020 opponent, Democrat Tedra Cobb, raised around $1 million over the weekend with George Conway, who now says that he thinks his wife Kellyanne is trapped in a Trumpist cult, giving her $2800.  At the end of her testimony, Yovanovitch received an unprecedented standing ovation, leaving those Republicans who hadn’t ducked out early stunned. Over the weekend she continued to get hero treatment, being greeted by another ovation when she visited a local DC jazz club.

More SCIFfing: After Yovanovitch time was up, the action moved to the House SCIF where another embassy official, David Holmes. recounted overhearing Ambassador to the EU/Three Amigo Gordon Sondland’s call with Trump.  That’s the Kiev call where Trump spoke so loudly that everyone nearby, including the Russian waiters/spies heard him ask whether President Zelensky had committed to start those key investigations he wanted while also hearing Sondland tell Trump that Zelensky “loved his ass” and “would do anything he wanted.”  Ugly American diplomacy at its worst.  Holmes explained that he hadn’t come forward earlier because he thought his testimony wasn’t necessary but after hearing Republicans assert that the whole investigation was bunk because only third hand accounts, or worse, were being presented he concluded he had to step up.  As to that Republican assertion that there have been no first hand accounts, that’s because the White House continues to work at barring testimony from first hand witnesses such as national security advisor Bolton, acting chief of staff Mulvaney, Energy Secretary Perry and anyone else who is still adhering to the Cult Leader’s instructions.     

Stoning Stone:  Before Friday ended, Roger Stone’s jury reached their verdicts, finding him guilty of all seven counts, including lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing a House investigation.  None of that pleased Trump who tweeted “So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come, well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?”  Stone who is due to be sentenced in February was allowed to go to Florida to hang while waiting for his sentence or his pardon, whichever comes first and he clearly is counting on a Trump pardon, one that Trump whisperer Tucker Carlson is now demanding he get.  Odds are Stone will get that pardon eventually though he might have to wait until the day before Trump leaves office whenever that is. He’d better hope that Trump’s medical emergency involved bone spurs rather than an exploding heart.  Notably, Trump did exercise some of his pardoning muscles on Friday by pardoning three servicemen accused or convicted of war crimes. He did that over the objection of senior Pentagon officials who firmly believe that letting war criminals off the hook sends the wrong message to the troops.

More to Come:  In preparation for this week’s testimony which begins on Tuesday with NSC twin Lt Col Vindman, Pence aide Jennifer Williams and former special envoy to Ukraine/Three Amigo Kurt Volker, transcripts from testimony by Jennifer Williams, a career foreign service official and Tim Morrison, the former national security council official who resigned shortly before providing his deposition, were released.  Among other things, Williams, who listened in to Trump and Zelensky’s July 25 call found Trump’s references to be “inappropriate” more “specific to his personal agenda as opposed to a broader foreign policy objective of the US.”  She said that she put a hard copy of the call in VP Pence’s briefing book though she couldn’t confirm if he ever read it.  Trump responded to Williams’ remarks by calling her a “never Trumper” who he “doesn’t know and mostly never even heard of.” Tim Morrison’s transcript revealed that he had heard from that other Three Amigo Sondland that US aid to Ukraine was conditioned on Ukraine’s announcement of an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter providing additional corroboration to the testimony of others, like acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Taylor, that Sondland said he was acting at Trump's direction when he was urging Ukraine to announce political investigations.  As to Sondland, last night the WSJ reported that there are emails showing that he kept Mulvaney and Perry informed of his push for Ukraine to launch investigations in the weeks leading up to the Trump-Zelensky July 25 call.  Though there will be eight people testifying in public this week, Sondland’s Wednesday appearance is the most anticipated.  Unfortunately for him a lot has come to light since the last time he updated his behind closed door deposition. The question now is whether he will come clean, plead the Fifth, lie in hopes of receiving one of those dangling Trump pardons or get hit by truck. Another question, is when, if ever, will Secretary of State Pompeo reemerge to speak up and defend his State Department officials.  

Election Updates:  Louisiana’s Democratic governor John Bel Edwards narrowly defeated Republican Eddie Rispone, a Trump backed business man, in the state’s run-off election.  Trump, who won Louisiana by 20 points in 2016 traveled to Louisiana multiple times to campaign for Rispone.  The anti-abortion Edwards is hardly a Democratic poster boy but his victory which was attributed to a large turnout by African American and white city and suburban voters, the crowd that the Democrats need to attract to win in 2020, is not a good omen for Republicans. As to the 2020 race, recent polls indicate that Pete Buttigieg who has very little African American support has leapfrogged past Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden to the top of the Iowa polls. That’s notable for two reasons, first because Iowa Democrats tend to be more liberal than average and Buttigieg is a moderate and second because Iowa is very homogenous so it’s not clear what, if anything, winning Iowa will mean in more diverse states. While all were focused in Buttigieg, it’s also interesting to note that another moderate, Senator Amy Klobuchar, while behind the leaders, is also quietly gaining. Though he’s still not officially in the race, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent part of his Sunday in a Harlem church apologizing for the stop and frisk program that he supported while and after he was mayor, acknowledging that it had some very bad consequences for the Black community. His mea culpa was probably spurred by last week’s Charles Blow op-ed, the one that said that Blacks should never vote for Bloomberg because of stop and frisk. Bloomberg also announced that he’s funding a $100 million anti-Trump ad campaign.

Other items:  Hong Kong demonstrations against China continue to escalate with dire consequences for some. Reports of how badly the Chinese are treating their Uighur minority in those harsh detention “reeducation centers” continue to leak out. Though there is now a shaky, very shaky, ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, last week a barrage of Gaza rockets rained down on Israel, payback for Israel’s targeted killing of an Islamic Jihad leader who was earlier responsible for attacks in Israel.  Former US bases in Northern Syria continue to be taken over by the Russians, while hostilities between the Kurds and Turkey escalate.  Bolivia’s socialist leader has fled to Mexico and Chile is suffering from dramatic social unrest and reactionary violence.  Oh, and Venice is under water. All is not okay.