Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: To Democrats who say that President Trump’s decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine was intended to bully Ukraine’s leader into carrying out investigations for Mr. Trump’s political benefit, the president and his allies have had a simple response: There could not have been any quid pro quo because the Ukrainians did not know the assistance had been blocked. Following testimony by William B. Taylor Jr., the top United States diplomat…

Read More Read More

Politico reports: What did Gordon Sondland know and when did he know it? The bombshell testimony of veteran diplomat William Taylor, President Donald Trump’s top envoy to Ukraine, has raised a crucial question of whether Trump admitted to Sondland that he was withholding military aid in exchange for an investigation into political rivals. Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the E.U., indicated as much in a phone call between the two in September, Taylor says. Sondland, however, had said previously he…

Read More Read More

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine for information he could use against political rivals came as he was being urged to adopt a hostile view of that country by its regional adversaries, including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, current and former U.S. officials said. Trump’s conversations with Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and others reinforced his perception of Ukraine as a hopelessly corrupt country — one that Trump now also appears to believe sought to undermine…

Read More Read More

Eugene Scott writes: President Trump apparently fears an impeachment could be so destructive to his presidency that he has frequently described it in terms of an epic injustice, taking that habit to a new level Tuesday by calling the impeachment efforts a “lynching.” And in doing so, the president has solidified the perception that he is completely insensitive to the United States’ history of racism and violence. So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the…

Read More Read More

Politico reports: MPs dealt a fresh blow to Boris Johnson as they voted against his breakneck timetable to pass Brexit legislation. The House of Commons voted by 308 to 322 to reject his plan to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which turns Johnson’s Brexit deal agreed with Brussels into U.K. law, in just three days, despite a majority voting to support the deal as a whole just moments before. Too many thought three days was not enough time to scrutinize…

Read More Read More

Jonathan Chait writes: Throughout Trump’s presidency, I’ve dismissed the possibility that he could be removed from office. In all likelihood, the Senate will come nowhere close to mustering the 67 votes needed to do so. But over the past few weeks, the outline of a removal scenario has begun to take shape. The prospect is no longer a fantasy. The Republican Establishment has largely submitted to Trump, and its acquiescence has come to seem like an immutable fact of this…

Read More Read More

Like most other angry old trolls, it’s easy to tell when Donald Trump gets really mad: a twitchy shift-key lets loose with a rapid fire of upper-case letters. ….Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020. We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately. Thank you! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October…

Read More Read More