The decline of Hot Air has been rapid. For me it’s not just Allahpundit and Ed and their never ending Never Trump crap but the selections at the top have become nothing but NYT, WaPo anti Trump stuff and Never Trumper non sense.

Who do they think their audience is I wonder.

Now these are appearances to me, merely. Nevertheless, mere appearances or no, I can find no respect for the man whatsoever. He is bad and that’s it.

https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2019/09/24/latest-trump-ukraine-bombshell-another-dud/

This is apparently what passes for intellectual thought in certain parts of the conservative sphere. We’ve already known for months that the aid to Ukraine was held up. In fact, Republican Senators commented on the matter weeks ago before any of this latest craziness blew up, citing the need for Europe to get more involved. The question has never been if Trump put a hold on the aid. It’s why he did so and if he used that hold improperly. To this point, Rothman and others have yet to provide one ounce of evidence that Trump brought up the aid to Ukraine to try to extort them. Instead, we are left arguing feelings and supposition, as per usual.

As to his last statement, there are actually good kinds of quid pro quos when it comes to doling out foreign aid. Most Americans realize that. If Trump held the aid back because he wanted Europe to do more to provide for their neighbor’s defense, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. That’d actually be a good thing. Further, if that wasn’t the reason as the media and others suppose, then why did Trump not even bring up the aid in the call to the Ukrainian president? If he wanted to use it as leverage improperly, why didn’t he do so? Why was the aid released without an investigation?

Those are pretty important questions to grapple with, don’t you think? At some point, all these conspiracy theorists who are sure Trump did something wrong need to provide some actual evidence for their latest claims.

The first sentence refers to the outcry against Trump from the Right more than from the Left, as exemplified by Noah Rothman’s* tweet:

Condolences if you were an R who climbed out on the limb that there was no quid pro quo. Trump sawed it off today.

“Trump confirms he withheld military aid from Ukraine” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2019/09/24/trump-confirms-he-withheld-military-aid-from-ukraine-says-he-wants-other-countries-to-help-pay/ …

As Bonchie said,

Wait, so Trump withheld the aid temporarily, but then reversed course and did not use it as leverage over Ukraine to investigate Biden? That’s the bombshell? Notice the sub-heading saying it “raises further questions.” They actually have nothing here, but the narrative must advance.
…
That’s not how any of this works. You either do something or you don’t. Presidents don’t get impeached for thinking about doing things, even if those things are dumb.

*Rothman wrote briefly for Hot Air some years ago, and was not well received by the commentariat there. In fact, the response to his generally ill-thought-out and worse-written posts was rather vitriolic; my own comments were in the more modest tone of friendly advice to a would-be pundit. 😉
IMNSHO, one reason Salem shut down the comments and moved to FaceBook registration — which precipitated a massive withdrawal of that bunch of readers — was the wounded feelings of himself and his sponsors.
I haven’t seen much more intellectually impressive work at Commentary, but at least his articles (though longer) are more coherent.

https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/09/24/691385/

Dem Senator Recently ‘Reminded’ Ukrainian President That Opening Investigation Into Biden Would Be ‘Disastrous For Long-Term US-Ukraine Relations’; Got That?
Posted at 2:30 pm on September 24, 2019 by Elizabeth Vaughn

And I’m not buying the theory that Trump wants this impeachment garbage to go forward. There is no way that this constant drumbeat helps him. If anything it just leads to a stronger likelihood of a wave of ‘return to normalcy’ sweeping Warren to victory. Too many care little about policy but about all the nonstop drama and the media will do everything in their power to cover all of Warrens many scary policies.

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/09/24/democrats-shift-goal-posts-demand-more-than-phone-call-transcript-after-trump-says-hell-release-it/

Democrats are demanding President Trump do more to prove that he did not try to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son, after Trump announced Tuesday he would release the transcript of his phone call with Zelensky in July.
…
Although Democrats have demanded that Trump release the transcript, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said after Trump’s tweet that it did not matter if the transcript was released and no quid pro quo was found, but rather, it was about the “sequencing” of his actions.
…
Journalists and former Obama officials also demanded Trump release more, including a whistleblower complaint made to the intelligence community inspector general reportedly about the call.
…
According to CNN, the whistleblower did not have direct knowledge of the details of the president’s call with Zelensky.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) tweeted that after Trump said he would release the transcript, “amazingly Democrats now say the whistleblower complaint is more important.”

He added, “Folks, the ‘whistleblower’ wasn’t on the call. They think a secondhand account of the call will tell you more than the *actual call.*”

Seems like we’ve seen this maneuver before.

I was thinking along the lines of the first foray of Project Veritas, where O’Keefe would release a short video, the Democrats would put out all sorts of exculpatory “reasons” — and he would release the next video shooting them down.
That went on for several cycles, and now for several years with other stings.
I don’t think they learned a thing.

Jewish Rabbi: “Blasphemy! Kill Him!”

Biden: “Hello Deep State X Files executive, I have some rabbi that needs to disappear soon”.

Antifa: “Divest and Kill the Rabbi!”