Live stream
Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, and David Holmes, an aide to the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, testified before the House Intelligence Committeeas part of its impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
It appears a large number of Republican lawmakers have now left the dais, with only a few sitting through Democrats’ counsel’s questions. To be a fly in the wall in their ante room right now…
Charlie, I’ve been told by multiple Republicans that the fourth defense – let the voters decide – is polling well.
https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1197538670976393216?s=20
Perhaps for a vote scheduled shortly. Not sure.
Every hearing he’s opened this this debunked theory about the DNC server and the false story of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. I’m very interested in the GOP defense today, since most of their talking points have been debunked last night and this morning.
They still have the black ledger story and the Politico story, I hope they ask Ms. Hill about those, i’d love to hear what she has to say about those pieces.
Opening Statement
And I know we all know it is all Playbook stuff - Repetition is effective. T uses it…at some point because you/one says it, it must be true.
As Jeff Weiner, CEO of Linkedin remarked in an interview:
“A friend of mine once paraphrased David Gergen, saying on the subject of repetition, “If you want to get your point across, especially to a broader audience, you need to repeat yourself so often, you get sick of hearing yourself say it . And only then will people begin to internalize what you’re saying.”
Reminds me of this article - where Nunes acts as Tribe leader…“Good for our tribe”
and tells everyone what is ‘true.’ Obviously, his facts are not…he’s preaching/lying and trying to pin the tail on the Dem donkeys…(so to speak)
But at some point, yup, you can not hear beyond your knowns perhaps, however false. 
And bad news travels faster than good.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that has to do with knowing and coming to know things — what counts as true, what counts as evidence, how we accumulate knowledge, and the like. It’s where you find schools of thought like skepticism (we can’t truly know anything) and realism (the universe contains observer-independent facts we can come to know).
Tribal epistemology, as I see it, is when tribalism comes to systematically subordinate epistemological principles.
…
Tribal epistemology happens when tribal interests subsume transpartisan epistemological principles, like standards of evidence, internal coherence, and defeasibility. “Good for our tribe” becomes the primary determinant of what is true; “part of our tribe” becomes the primary determinant of who to trust.
WATCH: NOVEMBER 21, 2019
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters at the Capitol and responds to questions on a range of issues, including the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s Ukraine policy and the withholding of security assistance.
Takeaways on the impeachment proceedings:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted Thursday that the ongoing impeachment inquiry is far from over and that more witnesses may be called to publicly testify against President Donald Trump.
"We aren’t finished yet, the day is not over," Pelosi said during her weekly press conference. The Democratic leader added that you "never know what testimony of one person may lead to the need for testimony of another."
Pelosi declined to give an exact impeachment timeline during her press conference, telling reporters that “we will go where the facts take us.” She added that it is up to the House committees involved in the inquiry to decide whether additional testimony is needed.
She also lashed out at her conservative colleagues for continuing to stand by Trump, stating that "the sad tragedy of all of this is the behavior of the President and the defense of that behavior by the Republicans."
They are REALLY working to re-hash 2016 and the whole “Ukraine attacked us” conspiracy theory again. It’s idiotic.
Trump is fighting a legal battle on at least two fronts, all the way to the Supreme Court, to PREVENT his tax returns from being released.
And now he wants us to believe he’ll just do it free and clear before the 2020 election? Yeah, right. Stall tactic so he can claim the lawsuits are unnecessary.
She’s covering the Politico story right now!
The GOP has apparently moved from re-hashing old conspiracy theories to outright gaslighting and berating of witnesses. At least three of them now have gone to shouting at David Holmes, and the last one didn’t even ask anything, just spent the whole time ranting.
Dr. Wenstrup is taking that quote out of context. The version Trump is pushing, of the quote from the whistleblower’s lawyer, is doctored to remove the tweet it was responding to, and I’ve looked at his account; he has consistently called what Trump’s regime is doing “a coup.”
The original tweet that was doctored was calling what the Trump regime is doing a coup, in response to the removal of Sally Yates.
So the GOP has stopped asking questions period after consistently being taken apart by Dr. Hill, David Holmes, and Democrat rebuttals. They’re just pushing conspiracy theories and lies with their time. Not good for them.
Also, Rep. Stewart effectively just stated the GOP Senate will not convict no matter what. Also a bad, bad optic for them.
So, Rep. Stefanik just tried to push the “but nothing was exchanged” line, and then tried to push that a UN meeting between Trump and Zelensky fulfilled promises; Holmes noted it did not.
And now Rep. Swalwell drops the Devin Nunes - Lev Parnas bombshell.
Swalwell enters this article into the record
Top White House officials and Senate Republicans agreed that a full trial should be conducted if the House impeaches President Donald Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
A group of Republican senators met Thursday morning with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss impeachment strategy.
Two attendees said that the White House wants the Senate to hold a trial of some length and not immediately dismiss any articles of impeachment with the GOP’s majority, as some Republicans have suggested. The White House and Trump’s GOP allies decided instead “they want some kind of factual affirmative defense on the merits," said one attendee.
No final decisions were made on strategy for a trial that, if it happens, would come in January at the earliest. But one prominent scenario discussed, according to officials, was a trial that would last for roughly two weeks, which several Senate Republicans view as the ideal option because they believe it would be long enough to have credence without dragging on too long.