I'd disagree that he's a star witness for republicans:

He consented that the July 25th call's request to investigate the Bidens was inappropriate and disturbing.
That Biden acted in good faith with no conflict of interest.
That Guiliani was an obstacle in executing foreign policy.
He also wasn't present on majority of instances that alleged quid-pro-quo was presented in the testimony of other officials.

Notice she only asked Volker of his opinion of the readout. That's not the same as the memorandum. The feedback of the call by Ukraine is again not the same as the memorandum. She specifically framed it to not have his opinion. This opinion was presented by Volker in other parts of the testimony. Its worth noting that she could have purposed that line of questioning to only obtain info that he had first-hand during the development of these events.

I guess I can concede that these are probably the two most supportive witnesses to Trump's defense that I am aware of, with reservation of Sondland as his testimony tomorrow is a tossup.

 

I realize that the Democrats are trying to spin a tale, but I find the Republicans direct line of questioning more valuable then dancing around a subject. What do you think of the Republicans method of directly asking all of the witnesses thus far if they have any actual evidence of quid pro quo, collusion or crimes? They've all answered that they have no evidence. The Democrats are basing their house impeachment by claiming Trump is guilty of these things that their witnesses are saying they've never witnessed. If their witnesses openly admit to having no evidence because they've not witnessed anything that proves Trump did anything that they are claiming is impeachable then what use are they? I mean, what's the use of a witness to a crime if they didn't witness any crimes?

That's like I'm being accused of slandering someone using a racial slur, the prosecutor calls a witness that is supposed to testify they heard me using the racial slur, but then when my defense asks the witness if they heard me using the racial slur the witness says "no". Can you see how I am confused on how that would prove that I used a racial slur?

 

Tha media isnt a homogeneous body. And as with all things taboo, once you start to dissect them they stop working. Thats the whole thing behind the Pepe the frog meme, remember? Induce people to use taboo topics as if they were ironically deconstructing them - thereby disabling the taboo.

Once you come into 'but well there is an edge case' and 'what he actually meant' territory theres always room to push for a little more.

If you need specific definitions on white supremacy, law and a few scientifc fields should be able to provide them. But for the purpose of societal taboos - you don't need specific. You basically need everyone to have an unfaltering 'feel'. You want, that people can get into the vicinity of maybe even getting wrongly accused, so they dont get near even arguing in this matters. Thats how taboos work.

Thats also why we dont have many of them.

 

I'll admit I didn't get to hear Volkers hearing completely, but what stood out to me is that they only asked those questions to the secondary witnesses that were used to establish and get a grip on the background for the scandal.

They didn't ask those questions to Vindman from what I recall anyway, instead generally opting to cast doubt on his loyalty or just complain about the process again.

 

Precisely. They only ask those questions when they already know the answers. It's similar to how they criticized the witnesses early on for not being close with or having talked with the president directly, knowing full well that the White House had ordered everyone close to him to ignore subpoenas. Unfortunately these types of underhanded tactics do work on low-information voters who have the attention span of gnats, but that's a group which was already largely cemented as part of the Republican base anyway.

 

So the Republicans know that the Democratic witnesses don't have any evidence and are asking them to testify as such. So you're right - the Republicans are only asking those questions when they already know the answers. Republicans know they don't have any evidence so having them admit by testifying seems to be a perfect way to show the public that they have no evidence. If there's no evidence then there's no case and no impeachment. Seems to be a very good way to go about doing things. I'm glad you're catching on.

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Yes I did watch. Claiming something is "unusual and inappropriate" and then testifying you have no evidence of bribes or criminal activity is pretty self explanatory. So he thinks that the situation is "unusual and inappropriate". Okay, fine. He's entitled to think whatever he wants about it. Does he have any actual evidence of the crimes Trump is being accused of? No. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

I could be called to court to testify that I witnessed a shooting. The prosecutor asks me what I think about the shooter. I say he's ugly and I'd never date him and he makes me feel scared. Then he asks me what happened during the shooting and I tell him I didn't see it. Well, I'm there to testify if I saw any actual crime not to testify what I think about something.

 

That was Williams who has a vested interest in keeping her position in the White House and can't speak up too much, lest she gets sacked.

Vindman was much more vindicative (pun not intended) about Trumps actions on the call and the subsequent resulting actions. The evidence for Trumps actions is the phone call itself as well as the aid being cut.

To my knowledge no Republican this time went for the "do you have evidence for us" questioning line towards Vindman.

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Completely unrelated -> what the fuck is wrong with Jim Jordan? It's almost like hearing a self-parody of a Trump supporter. I'll freely admit I look forward to his rambles in the hearings just because of how completely off-base it all is (call it a guilty pleasure) and how he barely questions the witnesses, but seriously, what the hell.

 

The thing is: it's not any one witness' job to define what does or doesn't constitute a crime committed by the president. It's meant to be the Department of Justice's job, but since they as an institution full of sycophants decided to refuse to do their duties, it falls to Congress and the impeachment process to decide whether his actions were criminal. That's what this whole thing is about, holding Trump accountable for those actions, regardless of whether they're ultimately deemed criminal or just plain unethical.

Probably needless to say, but I'm confident that any other president in history would've been removed from office for a lot less. It really is insane to think about how much the bar has been lowered as a result of the nation's first (and hopefully only) reality TV presidency.

 

There's been one, and only one impeachment inquiry. Most Democratic voters believed it should've happened much sooner, myself included, but that doesn't change the fact that it didn't. It's happening now. And sure, you can claim that Dems knew Trump would fuck up bad enough to qualify for impeachment, but nobody knew exactly when or how he would fuck up. The fact that he proved them right in the end just goes to show how staggeringly incompetent the man is, not to mention the people he has chosen to surround himself with.

Indeed there's a very slim chance he's removed from office. As some opinion pieces have pointed out, Nixon probably wouldn't have left office either if he had Fox News to defend and fellate him 24/7. At the very least, however, several purple state Republican senators are going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes time to vote.

On the off chance Trump is removed, Pence would be a lame duck for what little time he has left, and would be guaranteed to lose re-election without Trump's WWE-style personality to carry him. I'd hardly call that a "win" for Republicans. Rather it would be a massive national embarrassment which would stick in the minds of voters for decades.

 

This is the 10th impeachment attempt and the first impeachment inquiry. The previous 9 failed and didn't make it this far because they were just about as valid as the collusion hoax. No President should be subjected to premeditated impeachment efforts for simply winning an election. Pence is a lot more religious and has more solid faith based values and generally holds more Conservative views then Trump. Just like Reagan Trump used to be Democrat. Most honest people as they get older and start to think for themselves realize they've been lied to their entire life. Especially the ones that start making money to only find out the Liberals want to take it all away from them and then give it away to people that have no intention to contributing to society. Pence though, is a hard core Conservative.

I believe, like Obama, that the Liberal Democrats have gone too far left for their own good and that a more level headed Republican would have much more of a chance at winning in 2020 if Trump wasn't on the ballot. I mean, it's likely that Trump isn't going to get removed from office and will win again, that's unless the Democrats take Obama's advice and ditch the Liberal's that want to push extreme socialistic policies on a generally moderate leaning majority (who want nothing to do with socialism). I've read the communist manifesto. It's actually quiet entertaining because the Liberals are using it as playbook. Every one of the steps they are taking is clearly highlighted in it. Knowing their next move is beneficial as it gives us an advantage. Us being the actual Democrats, Republicans and Independents that love the USA and want to uphold the Constitution. We see through the Liberals trying to illegally import their ranks with people that could care less about our way of life.

So yeah, if for some highly unlikely reason Trump is removed from office Pence will make a good replacement. He'll honestly probably do a better job then Trump, but remember that his job will align with what the voters want and they don't want socialism. Another positive side effect of this 10th attempt that's likely to fail is that it's strengthening the support for Trump. Now, I don't care about polls that may or may not be accurate. I'm judging the response from the moderates and conservatives based on what I see and read and so far this 10th attempt has really helped Trump financially thus will allow him to fight the Democrats with more advertising for the 2020 election. I'm also an Independent and a lot of us are really upset about Congress playing these silly games. We actually gained a high ranking politician in the last week that WOKE up and left the Democratic party. Maybe someday we'll have a candidate in the primaries. A failed attempt will justify people who voted for him for doing so and just like the public backlash from the fact there was no collusion that turned voters on the edge towards Trump this attempt will likely have the same result. Either way it is a win for Republicans because no matter what happens they will still be in office until the 2020 election.