Most striking watching Cohen's extraordinary testimony about Trump's criminality

[bigtree]

...why isn't this an IMPEACHMENT hearing?

ANY other president... but the nation is set back on its heels by this buffoon in the WH, by his republican Senate.

This is a national shame. The president and his party are everything Cohen says about Trump. They're "racists, conmen, and cheats."

Cohen is one sleazy dude. Watching and listening to him just brings the entire, sordid farce of a presidency into focus. Trump gained his office deliberately surrounded by a circus of unbridled criminality, and Cohen is laying it all out in the committee like a mobster turned state's evidence. I don't think it's an accident that this reads like something being prosecuted out of the RICO Act.

This is Sammy the Bull testifying against John Gotti. Shouldn't really be surprising it reads like that, given Trump's decades of mob-connected financial dealings; comparisons made inevitable by the fact it was Mueller who took down the mob boss.

Really puts this incredible and historic hearing in perspective.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I am experiencing deja-vu all over again,

having watched the Watergate hearings and the testimony of John Dean. One thing to keep in mind is that initially those hearings, which took place in 1973, were part of the Watergate investigation and not impeachment hearings per se. The impeachment hearings did not start until May of 1974, after the investigation and those related hearings uncovered evidence sufficient to pursue impeachment.

Patience, Grasshopper...

[saidsimplesimon]

2. Patience, Grasshopper...

good advise, Ocelot.

[bigtree]

4. I thought about Dean this morning before the hearing

...and I'm certain Cohen has looked at Dean's testimony. I think he's referred to him at least once.

Good point about the timing of the hearings.

...here's a fascinating article describing from the time Dean suggested the existence of tapes to the Watergate committee:

How John Dean’s Demand For A Tape Started The Chain That Brought Down Nixon
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-john-deans-demand-for-a-tape-started-the-chain_us_593986bfe4b014ae8c69de74

[mopinko]

3. maybe it is. laying the groundwork.

[gratuitous]

5. First, build the public record

Then, rally public opinion. The House will only go as far out on the impeachment limb as they feel supported. Keep agitating for impeachment, but ground it firmly in reality and facts. We've done a lot of good work to this point, but there's more work to be done.

[bigtree]

9. by all rights, this should be an impeachment hearing at this point

...but for republican obstruction and negligence.

Their mo.

[True Blue American]

6. Loved the former Iron worker from Boston to the

Other side! We could have had these Hearings 2 years ago!

Womp Womp!

Gym Jordan getting desperate!

[bigtree]

7. the president and his debauched defenders

...they're all he has left, and they're an appropriately skeevy bunch to boot.

[True Blue American]

8. The nasty one called Gomez

Or something is the one whose siblings all backed his opponant!

[lastlib]

10. Try to think of it as a *PRE-impeachment* hearing.......

The criminality of the basturd in the Oval office is mind-boggling.

[bigtree]

11. .