'BradCast' 11/13/2019 (Impeachment Hearing coverage with guest: Heather 'Digby' Parton)

On today's 'BradCast':  Special coverage of the first day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry of Donald J. Trump. We air extended excerpts from the opening statements at today's historic hearing in the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, as chaired by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and led on the Republican side by Ranking Member Devin Nunes. Today's witnesses were two long-serving, career, non-partisan professional diplomats who offered detailed testimony on Trump's unprecedented withholding of military aide to Ukraine in a pressure campaign to force its new President to announce investigations into Trump's political rivals, and an uncorroborated theory regarding Ukraine's interference in the 2016 election. Ambassador Bill Taylor, a 30-year foreign service veteran, added the most noteworthy piece of new information, describing that he had recently learned about a late night phone call in July, in which a staffer overheard President Trump – speaking on an unsecure cell phone in a public restaurant in Ukraine -- ask US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland about the status of "the investigations" into the Bidens and the 2016 election. George Kent, Deputy Asst. Sec. of State overseeing policy for Ukraine. Kent, also offered damning testimony about Trump's scheme to strong-arm Ukraine. Opinion journalist HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, of Hullabaloo and Salon, helps us analyzes today's breaking news, the damning case being laid out against the President by Democrats, the thin and disjointed case offered by Republicans in his defense, and how all of this may be perceived by the American public, as the historic hearings continue in the weeks ahead...