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House Holding Public Impeachment Hearings Next Week As Public Support for Impeachment Tanks

House Holding Public Impeachment Hearings Next Week As Public Support for Impeachment Tanks

Support for impeachment has dropped 4 points since the closed-door inquiries began.

https://youtu.be/lIf91OJ-e8E

Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff of Russia conspiracy monger fame, announced the House Intel Committee will hold their first public impeachment hearing next weeks. Currently, two hearings are scheduled. One on the 13th and another on the 15th.

More from Politico:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said that the first hearing will take place on Nov. 13 and feature William Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of State — two key figures in the Ukraine scandal.

The second hearing will take place on Nov. 15; Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine after a smear campaign backed by President Donald Trump, is slated to testify.

The announcement brings House Democrats one step closer toward Trump’s impeachment.

Democrats consider Taylor and Yovanovitch among the most compelling witnesses to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine’s leaders to investigate his political rivals, which is central to the impeachment inquiry.

Taylor was the first witness to explicitly tie Trump to a quid pro quo with Ukraine, with the White House withholding critical military aid to the country and a Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until Zelensky committed to pursuing investigations into his political rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden.

“It is a rancorous story about whistle-blowers, Mr. Giuliani, side channels, quid pro quos, corruption and interference in elections,” Taylor said, referring to Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Yovanovitch was a casualty of that effort. She was recalled from her post in May amid a push by Trump and his allies, including Giuliani, to portray Yovanovitch as disloyal to the president.

Yovanovitch testified that she felt threatened by Trump, who disparaged her during his July 25 phone call with Zelensky. During that conversation, Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son Hunter as well a debunked conspiracy theory about Ukraine’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

Last week, the House voted (mostly) along party lines to approve impeachment inquiry rules.

According to the Morning Consult, support for impeachment has dropped 4 points since the closed-door inquiries began.

Morning Consult explains further:

As House Democrats begin to release transcripts of closed-door testimony and prepare for public hearings as part of their impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, public support for impeaching the president has fallen.

The latest Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 47 percent of voters favor the House voting to impeach Trump, down 4 percentage points from the share that backed it in an Oct. 11-13 poll. At the same time, 43 percent of voters oppose the House impeaching Trump, statistically in line with figures from the four other polls conducted on the issue since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced her support for the impeachment inquiry in late September. Each of the surveys have a 2-point margin of error.

The Nov. 1-3 poll comes after the House’s 232-196 vote to lay out the rules for its impeachment inquiry, which is moving to a public phase following weeks of private testimony before a bipartisan audience of members of Congress. House Republicans were united in their opposition to the measure, which empowers the House Intelligence Committee to take the lead on the public-facing part of the investigation into Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

Forty-two percent of voters — including 48 percent of Democrats, 42 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of independents — said they’d seen, read or heard “a lot” about the House voting to formalize its impeachment inquiry, making it one of the more widely penetrating events involving Ukraine and impeachment since news of the whistleblower complaint from a U.S. intelligence official first emerged.

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Comments

Colonel Travis | November 6, 2019 at 3:16 pm

Oh good. Thank you, overlords, for allowing us to witness your work.
Unfortunately, I’ll have to miss this because I need to wash my hair from the 13th to the 15th. It takes several days to wash my hair. I have really long hair! If there are any other hearings scheduled, I’ll have to wash my hair then, also.

удачи тебе, comrades!

    legacyrepublican in reply to Colonel Travis. | November 6, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    Don’t forget to dry your wet hair too. That could well take another day as one can’t hear a thing when using a hair dryer.

    After all, what is the difference between the hearings and you drying your hair? Hot air is hot air, no matter how it blows it.

There was no quid pro quo. There was no extortion. The democrats keep shifting, evolving or outright changing the allegations. Where did we see this before… in the mueller investigation. Collusion to obstruction and then to nothing. Same will happen with Ukraine, at least for President Donald J. Trump because they”ve got nothing. joe biden, on the other hand…

    clintack in reply to CKYoung. | November 6, 2019 at 3:32 pm

    This is just another step in the Collusion to Obstruction path. The “crime” here is trying to investigate the origins of the Collusion allegation.

    oldgoat36 in reply to CKYoung. | November 6, 2019 at 4:29 pm

    What does one expect when they put a mentally unstable person in charge?
    Schiff truly has gone off the deep end, and there is no water in the pool. The actions he has done against this country should be seen as criminal. Of course nothing will happen to him, if he is tried for the sedition he is spearheading it will be called revenge and spark another round of impeach foe de fie fever.

    The Word de Jour today is ‘Bribery’ which is about as stupid as trying to staple quid pro quo onto this nothingburger, but nobody ever said the leftist media were too terribly bright.

“During that conversation, Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son Hunter as well a debunked conspiracy theory about Ukraine’s role in the 2016 presidential election.”

So… is that two lies or three?

i hope they have hand puppets, and the sign language guy from Mandela’s funeral.

otherwise, i’m not interested.

The 13th and 15th are perfect. I’ll be watching for sure. Laugh long, live long!

2nd Ammendment Mother | November 6, 2019 at 3:39 pm

Want to know what would be delightful at 7am on Nov 13…. The Durham Report drops….and Schift for brains ewscycle crashes on him

Bonus….. Burisima funded the plot!

SeekingRationalThought | November 6, 2019 at 3:48 pm

The picture of Schiff in this article reminds me of Any Kaufman. Are we sure that it isn’t ? It would explain a lot.

I think this pending impeachment is a destructive joke, just as I thought in 1998 with respect to the Republican-led impeachment of Bill Clinton. You can credibly argue that this one is more completely partisan, but I think poorly of both of them.

All that said, I don’t think it’s accurate for LI to claim that public support for impeachment has tanked. You have one poll from an outfit with a mixed record to put it mildly, and it shows only slight change in pro-impeachment sentiment — I bet within the polling margin of error — and no change in anti-impeachment sentiment.

Yep, I thoroughly agree with the right wing that Adam Schiff & Co. are a pack of malevolent fools at best, but facts are facts: There’s been no real change in even Morning Consult’s numbers.

This article is a good example of partisan preaching to the choir. You’re telling yourselves what you and the more fire-breathing readers want to hear. Generally speaking, I think this site (LI) has been better than that.

As a former D turned genuinely independent, I’d quote the smartest person in the world: Me from my former days. I’d tell people this: “I’m a Democrat, but I’m not stupid about it.” Fine that LI is Republican, but don’t be stupid about it. This article insults the intelligence of LI’s readers.

    And another poll of registered voters in WI returned:

    “ ‘When asked if Trump should be impeached and removed from office, 44 percent say that Trump should be removed, 51 percent say he should not be impeached and removed and four percent say they don’t know,…’ a poll of 799 registered voters in Wisconsin released last week by the Marquette Law Poll found.”

    Further, on the issue of should there be hearings, that poll found: “46 percent think that there is enough cause now for Congress to hold hearings on impeachment of President Donald Trump, while 49 percent say there is not enough cause and 5 percent say they do not know.”

    And the NYTUpshot/Sienna College poll of the “battleground states” found:
    “46 percent think that there is enough cause now for Congress to hold hearings on impeachment of President Donald Trump, while 49 percent say there is not enough cause and 5 percent say they do not know.”

    “The poll of 1,934 registered voters in these six states was conducted between October 13 and October 20. Thirty two percent of respondents were Democrats, 29 percent were Republicans, and 37 percent were Independent/Other, according to the poll’s cross tabs. The cross tabs did not provide a state-by-state breakdown of the respondents, and as an aggregation of sentiment across six states, it is uncertain how the results might vary in each specific state.”

    So with a slight advantage to Democrats, the polling still turned against removing the President from office for the states which likely will be crucial to the 2020 election. And this all is a year before the election, which is the entire reason for all the sturm und drang from the Socialist-Democrats.

    And you are telling yourself, and us, what you want to hear, complete with the “nonpartisan” dressing.

      Edward in reply to Edward. | November 6, 2019 at 6:48 pm

      Edit – that NYT Upshot/Sienna Poll first paragraph should read:

      The New York Times Upshot/Siena College Poll of voters in six key battleground states–all won by Trump in 2016–shows impeachment and removal from office is unpopular in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona, as well as Wisconsin. By a ten point margin, 53 percent to 43 percent, voters in these six states oppose the impeachment and removal from office of the president.

      The poll also found a bare majority of respondents in those six states favor the initiation of House proceedings by a 50 percent to 45 percent margin.

      Strike:
      “46 percent think that there is enough cause now for Congress to hold hearings on impeachment of President Donald Trump, while 49 percent say there is not enough cause and 5 percent say they do not know.”

      Danged lack of edit capability and failure to replace the copied material.

        Edward in reply to Edward. | November 6, 2019 at 7:00 pm

        Forgot to add that I think proven instances of a President committing perjury in Grand Jury testimony and perjury in a sworn deposition in a civil case before the Judge in the case are far better reasons to bring Articles of Impeachment than anything seen thus far with this President. Not that he doesn’t tell lies, but none have been shown to be perjury in sworn testimony.

        But you are entitled to your opinion and I mine.

          RandomCrank in reply to Edward. | November 6, 2019 at 7:24 pm

          Clinton’s actions were certainly sleazy, but I never thought they rose to the level of justifying his impeachment. At the time, I joked that the money spent on Starr’s witch hunt would’ve been better spent on providing a squad of hookers for Bill on a 24/7 basis.

          Impeachment should be reserved for much higher crimes than Bill Clinton’s and for a whole lot more than Donald Trump’s phone conversation with the Ukrainians. I look at this one as at least partly an act of political revenge for the last one.

          Both parties never seem to realize that their stupidities will eventually be served back to them. The Rs should never have taken it as far as they did, nor should the Ds be taking it as far as they are taking it now. All this crap does is please the rabid stalwarts at the expense of long-term political stability of our institutions.

          The older I get, the more independent I become. I think stupidity is a sort of relay race, and in recent years the Ds have grabbed the stick. Give it time, and they’ll hand it back to the Rs, who’ll be eager to take it.

      RandomCrank in reply to Edward. | November 6, 2019 at 7:16 pm

      Look, I think impeachment will backfire on the Democrats, especially in the states that they need to win back. My complaint is narrowly focused on this particular claim that the Morning Consult poll shows that support for impeachment is tanking.

      The poll in question does NOT show that. It’s a slice of red meat for the lizard brains here. I think LI is usually a cut or three above that sort of errant crap.

        I felt similarly when I read the title and sub-title. “Tanking” isn’t a 4 point drop, especially with a 2 point margin of error. I don’t have any faith in the accuracy of the poll in general, but if you’re going to use it, don’t mischaracterize it.

        Maybe her editor wrote the title.

    “As a former D turned genuinely independent…”

    And still all nuts.

    And no, you’re not the smartest. You’re not even clever.

    You are delusional.

    And still a prog.

    You know, you’re just a damn dope.

    “All that said, I don’t think it’s accurate for LI to claim that public support for impeachment has tanked.”

    And here is what LI had to say, note “tanked” doesn’t appear and the headline is entirely accurate:

    “Support for impeachment has dropped 4 points since the closed-door inquiries began.”

    Nice try, prog. Still a commie democrat in spite of pretending otherwise.

As nearly as I can tell, the poll in question is of “all voters”. Here are the problems with that:

1. A poll of “all voters” or “all adults” is unfalsifiable – and media pollsters even admit it. Thus the demographics of such a poll can be whatever the media pollsters want.
2. By contrast a poll of “likely voters” IS falsifiable, since it can be compared to an actual election.
3. Media pollsters tell us the difference between the two poll types is because Republicans and Republican-leaning voters are more likely to vote than Democrats. BUT I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANY EVIDENCE TO BACK UP THAT CLAIM. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zero.

Any poll of “all voters” or “all adults” from an extreme left-wing organization such a Politico must be considered suspect at best.

They’ve never forgiven Giuliani for cleaning up NY.

    RandomCrank in reply to txvet2. | November 6, 2019 at 9:44 pm

    I am a non-resident but (back in the day) frequent visitor to Manhattan who saw the change between 1980 and 2000. Whatever anyone might say about Guiliani now, under his leadership that place was vastly improved. I remember thinking to myself: Wow, who in hell knew that they could ever get this done?

Comanche Voter | November 6, 2019 at 6:13 pm

I love that Politico comment re a Trump organized “smear campaign” against Ambassador Yovanovitch. US Ambassadors are appointed by the President–and serve at his pleasure. I assume Ms. Yovanovitch was an Obama appointment, and a holdover. At one point another US ambassador suggested that she tweet something in support of Trump.
She replied “she couldn’t do that and serve as ambassador”.

Well How De Doo and La La La! Believe it or not the US President–even if he is a moron (Obama, I’m looking at you) sets US foreign policy. He may be right, he may be wrong, but he’s the one who gets to decide. If you can’t get with the program, then you should resign. If you won’t resign, you should be fired.

Now Ms. Yovanovitch is apparently a career cookie pusher diplomat, and she’s now on assignment in Washington D.C. She may still be under the delusion that she’s the one who gets to set foreign policy. So long as she’s delusional, she should stay on the sidelines. You get some strange creatures in the swamp.

Of all the problems associated with these impeachment efforts, it is the logic behind their justifications to continue these efforts that is the most amazing.
>
On one hand you have the parties that were actually involved. Those who involved in the call stated that there was no discussion of quid pro quo nor was there any “understanding” that it was on the table. The Ukrainians involved stated they did not even know the aid was held up and when all as said and done, the aid was given while the Ukrainians did little to investigate the alleged corruption.
>
Meanwhile, the Left’s case against Trump all appears to involve people who were not directly involved testifying to what they heard. It further requires many assumptions that are factually lacking with the “most damning efforts” coming from a person who was not present, who created a whistle blower statement that was filled with errors, and who demands to remain anonymous. It is far more likely that the desire to remain anonymous is to prevent the public from finding out that this is yet another partisan creation void of reality.
>
Ultimately, what the country will discover in the upcoming effort will be how nothing really happened here while the Democrats will be shown to be more interested in hurting Trump no matter the damage it does to the country. Indeed, the Left, headed by Pelosi and Schiff, are not the least bit worried of the damage to Democrat’s credibility, damage to our rule of law, damage to our precedents, , etc., all while trivializing the extreme act of impeaching the President. While this cannot and will not end well for the Democrats, how it will affect the country now and into the future will be far more worrisome.

The Dems are nearing their deadline for making this an issue that will have traction going into the primaries. That gives them about two months. This is their new Plan A which like the previous Plan A (RussiaGate/Mueller) blew up in their faces right out of the gate.

This is it. It’s all they’ve got. Just imagine how panicked they are that they won’t even manage to keep Warren from winning the primaries outright. No brokered convention for them to “fix” the problem and so lose “constructively” in November. So expect their craziness to get even more crazy. They just don’t care. It’s all they’ve got.

I’ve tried to determine whether these hearings will be either a) boring as hell or b) a Cat 5 PR fiasco for the Democrats.

I’ve decided to embrace the healing power of “and”.

What is wrong with the President asking and even pressuring Ukraine to cooperate with AG Barr’s investigation? They are obligated to assist us by treaty. If Biden doesn’t want to be investigated then he shouldn’t have used his position in government to get jobs for his son and he shouldn’t have stopped the Ukrainians from investigating Burisma.

Biden’s relationship with Ukraine sure appears to be corruption, but we need an investigation to determine if Biden should be prosecuted. All Trump was doing was obtaining Ukraine’s cooperation with AG Barr’s investigation.

The progressive fascists should be grateful to President Trump because he will make sure that they don’t make the same mistake they made with Lying Crooked Hillary, ie nominating a criminal as their candidate for president.

    Barry in reply to ConradCA. | November 7, 2019 at 12:02 pm

    Absolutely. As I noted when this first came out, we would be insane not to put provisions upon our giving of foreign aid (a quid-pro-quo). And of course we always do. Biden is corrupt and for the squeamish we can say he certainly appears to be conflicted. Given that it involves USA money that may have been stolen, that it involves a potential illegal use of intelligence assets, we would be crazy and Trump would be derelict to not ask the Ukraine to investigate and cooperate.

    If you could prove a quid pro quo exists, you would prove only that the president was on the job, working for Americans.

    what do the elites keep telling the peons. “if you have nothing to hide why worry”. if the Bidens were as clean as they say they are they would welcome the investigation, it would clear them once and for all.

    one more thing, I bet you would have a hard time finding the video of Joe claiming credit for the removal of the Ukrainian investigator.