Despite Bolton’s confirmation of Mango Mussolini’s corruption, the Senate GOPiggies will move on to a quick acquittal with no additional witnesses and no additional documents.

Well, let’s watch Fox News deny Trump’s impeachment is boring now that John Bolton has provided a slam-dunk account of Mango Mussolini’s guilt:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html

I was shocked to watch Jeffry say on CNN that Republican lawyers had an effective argument re: the President’s expressing to Zelensky concern about Europe’s sharing the burden of supporting Ukraine. The factuality of the President’s well-known tendency to bully and/or shift blame to allies in no way excuses his stalling of Zelensky. Ukraine is arguably the most egregious of many instances of Trump’s bullying and blame-shifting, and it is also based on a lie that the Europeans work are not sharing the burden, but those are not the central point of logic.

No, the key point is the non-sequitur, indeed the logical contradiction between concern for burden sharing and the withholding of aid from Ukraine. It is analogous to my standing on the shore with a life preserver in my hand but not throwing it to a friend in risk of drowning “because*” nearby friends aren’t helping my friend as much as I think they should. This is a head-scratcher, because if I really wanted others to help my friend I would do so by my example, “walking the talk“ about how my aid is so much better than my predecessor’s, therefore hastening to be the first to throw a life preserver.. The “because*” above makes sense only in the case that “my friend“ is taken as BS code for almost its opposite, I.e. “someone I don’t give a damn about whom I’m in a position to extort”.

Off topic but Kevin, seeing that you mentioned the number 53 in your post, reminded me of something I saw on Facebook last night.

Trump could shoot someone on the floor of the Senate and he’d still be acquitted by a vote of 54-47.
Unless he shot a republican and then it’d be 53-47.

I know the numbers are wrong but maybe the poster thought that that the VP would have to vote? Or they can’t add.

Heard rather than watched Cipollini (sp.?) opening arguments as I was heading out the door. As I understand it,

1) Cipolloni (sp.?) started by bitterly criticising the House Managers for not having mentioned (wrongly as it happens, for they did at least once) Trump’s comments on burden-sharing (a total lie as it happens, since the EU has provided over 15B and Germany alone has provided over 1B). Most of that aid was to kick start Ukraine’s economy not destroy stuff (where American aid is focused).

2) he then proceeded to air Schiff’s parody of the quid-pro-quo argument without Schiff’s comments both before and after where he says that his words were to be understood “reading between the lines”.

While I accept that lawyers for the defence are entitled to do everything they can to get their client off the hook, anybody else saying such stupid things cannot but be accused of hypocrisy.

Ahhhhh. The man Trump claimed not to know is releasing audio tapes of some of their conversations. Parnas used to worship the Donald. Trump is unaware that there’s no fury like a devotee scorned.

BUT CALL YOUR SENATORS! EVEN IF YOU HAVE ALREADY CALLED, CALL AGAIN!

I was only able to watch the “highlights” but it seems that Democrats are adeptly rebutting. And, Lordy, there are new Parnas tapes!
https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1221251673936551936

Unless something truly spectacular occurs, there will be no witnesses and the remainder of the Senate action will be perfunctory. It’s likely that the GOP will continue to vote in lockstep with all 53 votes to end this matter as fast as it can. It now appears that the Right Wingers are also trying to lean on Red-leaning Dems like Manchin and Jones to vote for acquittal as well.

The one upside here is that everyone gets to vote on the Senate as well as the presidency, so if people don’t stay home, there’s a strong chance that we can hold multiple GOP senators responsible for their behavior here.

Nothingness in a nutshell. The lawyers’ convoluted arguments over the process may please Trump, but won’t bring back a single vote.

Monday plus or minus Tuesday will be a hysterical Jordan/Collins/Ratcliffe/Meadows/Lesko/Stefanik show – don’t know whether they are allowed to speak themselves, but we can be sure they’ll be loading up the teleprompter.