They are called “decepticons” for a reason. McConnell is king, and Cornyn, Thune and Barasso are his praetorian guards.  {Go Deep}
Senator John Cornyn (TX), a key member of the Senate GOP leadership; and a member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees; warns the White House that a vote to immediately dismiss articles of impeachment and avoid a trial won’t work.

“There’s some people talking about trying to stop the bill, dismiss charges basically as soon as they get over here. I think that’s not going to happen. That would require 51 votes,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday. “I think it would be hard to find 51 votes to cut the case off before the evidence is presented.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Senate Republican, John Cornyn, said on Wednesday that should the U.S. House of Representatives vote to impeach President Donald Trump, he doubts a motion in the Senate to immediately dismiss the charges would succeed.

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Day One of the Pelosi, Schiff and Lawfare effort to publicly construct support for the impeachment of President Trump ends.  Within the questioning of State Department officials George Kent and Bill Taylor the value of adding Jim Jordan to the hearings became clear.
Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik and John Ratcliffe methodically deconstructed the false premise advanced by the impeachment crew.  It became clear that both Kent and Taylor held no specific and direct knowledge of the substance behind the claims made by the democrats leading the effort.  Here’s a few highlights starting with Jim Jordan:
Jordan pressed Taylor on how he came to have a “clear understanding” that the U.S. aid to Ukraine was dependent on opening an investigation into Trump’s political rivals. Jordan said there was no “linkage” and Ambassador Taylor said he came to his “clear conclusion” based on what other people said about what other people heard about conversations with other people.

Here’s the visual to help (tweet embed video):

A visual recap of the “clear understanding” of Ambassador Taylor’s knowledge of what happened. #ImpeachmentHearings
.@Jim_Jordan pic.twitter.com/5sZD2CozfL

— Mad Liberals (@mad_liberals) November 13, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Earlier today President Trump and First Lady Melania welcomed President Recep Erdogan from Turkey and his wife to the White House.  Prior to bilateral discussions the leaders held a joint availability in the oval office. [Video and Transcript below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay. Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with President Erdoğan and Mrs. Erdoğan. Thank you very much. We very much appreciate you being here. First Lady, thank you very much. And I know you’re going to go out to lunch after this. Great honor to have you.
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President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Erdogan hold a joint press conference at the conclusion of bilateral discussions between the two leaders.  Anticipated start time 3:10pm EDT
[Update Video Added]

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Here’s the opening statement from HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes:

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The House Intelligence Committee will begin holding public hearings to impeach President Donald Trump today at 10:00am EDT.  The hearings are carefully scripted, organized and planned. Day One begins with Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent.  To support the Democrat impeachment effort all major media networks are carrying the event live, and promoting their anticipation of drama.
Impeachment Chairman Adam Schiff has threatened severe punishment if any member of congress speaks publicly about the CIA helping to organize the ‘whistleblower‘ effort.
Mr. Taylor currently serves as the Chargé D’affaires for the U.S. State Department in Ukraine. Mr. Kent serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the U.S. Department of State.  Both State Dept. officials disagree with President Trump’s foreign policy which they hope will lead to his removal from office.
Fox News Livestream – Fox Business Livestream – CSPAN Livestream – HPSCI Livestream

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Stephanie Grisham Twitter @StephGrisham45

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

HPSCI Theatrical Director Adam Schiff waited until the last moment to release his rules for the public impeachment performance.  [SEE HERE] The rules include no talking about the CIA ‘whistle-blower’, or else it’s curtains for your political career, curtains:
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The Washington Post jumps-in to the Horowitz ‘principal review’ timeline adding that some of the opportunities for witnesses to review the final draft report are “still being negotiated”, likely by the attorney’s for the principals.
Take all reporting on this two-week review phase with a grain of salt. Despite the NDA’s there will be a rush to control the narrative.  “People familiar with the matter” will start popping up in the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, Buzzfeed and CNN.
There is likely to be a flood of spin from the PR teams behind each principal outlined in the report.  Lawyers for James Comey and Andrew McCabe will be using every angle of Lawfare imaginable to attempt to shape their clients image within the report.

Lawyers, Lawfare legal teams, and DC-based PR consultants for Sally Yates, John Carlin, Mary McCord, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Hillary Clinton, James Baker, Michael Kortan, Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Chris Steele, Glen Simpson, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, John Brennan, James Clapper and many more will all be working at courtroom rates to control any report damage for their clients.
The Obama administration will be working in the background, while Fusion-GPS takes in fees and pays their primary journalists and narrative engineers premium rates for column inches that protect their client interests.  This is one big confab of interests all positioning to control any negative impressions and highlight their magnanimous patriotic activity.
Watch and we will see full deployment of the justification defense and “outrage trap“.  After all, according to their predictable defenses, there was evidence, even if slight, that President Trump was a Russian asset belonging to Vladimir Putin…. it had to be taken seriously, etc.  Even the Republicans in congress were alarmed.
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