This is an excerpt from House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff’s closing statement yesterday at the end of the impeachment testimony, at which witnesses specifically sought by the GOP for what was presumed to be friendly, if not entirely exculpatory, testimony made Trump and his cabal of idiots seem just as corrupt as did Taylor, Yavanovitch et al. Then there was National Security Council European Director Lt. Col. Vindman, who snapped “Ranking member, that’s Lieutenant Colonel, please” at Devin Nunes when the GOP automaton deliberately poked at him by addressing him as “Mister”. In response to jacketless moron Jim Jordon’s dark, innuendo-laced claims that the Lt. Col.’s judgment and competence had been seriously questioned by his superiors, Vindman read calmly from his last, remarkably stellar, performance review. He was at one point awarded with what might be only the second standing ovation ever given for witness testimony before a Congressional committee, and melted hearts with the close of his opening statement, in which he assured his immigrant Dad, whose conditioned Soviet-era reflexes have made him very frightened for his son, that there was nothing to worry about, this was America, and speaking truth to power is not punished here.
Fear not. This is still America, Pops. Jesus. Right in the pumper, and rendered all the more poignant in light of the Army’s official acknowledgment that they’re considering what amounts to protective custody for Vindman and his family, in response to a growing volume of shrill MAGA threats now flowing over both social media and more traditional channels.
Schiff’s uncharacteristically impassioned address was made before today’s testimony, at which EU Ambassador Sondland, a key player in Trump’s bribery/extortion shit show in Ukraine, has decided to tell the whole truth – about everybody – rather than take the 5th. He’s literally testifying with what can only be called abandon. Cat after cat is leaping from the bag, each charging off to scatter what must be increasingly terrified GOP pigeons. Must be good to get it all off your chest, eh Ambassador? It’s like when the interrogated perp finally spills his guts in a cop movie. Just come clean, and that great weight’ll be lifted, son.
Reaction from the commentariat on Twitter has been almost delirious, as Sondland implicates not only Trump but virtually the entire executive branch, Pompeo, Pence, the lot. “Everyone was in the loop” he stated, under oath. “It was no secret”. Without any grant of immunity, and taking no shelter under his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, Sondland is spewing it all out, every festering bit of it, including his own quite possibly criminal behaviour. The press and pundits can barely believe it.
Whoa. When you’re a self-anointed right wing “chosen one” and GOP demigod, and you’ve been exposed in your corrupt dealings to the point that you’ve lost Ken Starr, you are well and truly feeked. Trump is like one of those Evangelical TV Pastors, after being caught with a male prostitute. A dead male prostitute. The rats are pouring over the gunwales. Who knows, maybe Newt Gingrich will be the next to turn.
I wonder what Schiff says today? We haven’t even heard from Fiona Hill yet, whose intelligence, integrity and commanding presence remind me of no one so much as personal hero Sally Yates, and who has things to say that should be quite enough to damn Trump and his merry pals to the lowest shit-filled concrete holding pens in Hell. And only God knows what Bolton will say, if he ever appears, though at this point the Dems may see any further blockbuster eye-witness accounts as superfluous piling-on.
Watch Nunes and GOP counsel Steve Castor react to what must have been a particularly pungent bit of Sondland’s testimony:
Have we finally got the bastard? Is this it? Pray that it’s so. Pray even if, like me, you’re a stone atheist. Throw your hopeful energy in all directions into the Cosmos.
Meanwhile, drink in the righteous indignation of Adam Schiff, the right man in the right place at the right time, who may one day share space in the public consciousness with Sam Ervin and Howard Baker, God rest their honourable souls – and God, perhaps finally, bless poor, corrupted, beleaguered America.
the needlefish 