* We know how this impeachment chapter ends. Acquittal–which is not a synonym for exoneration–in January. The story ends with the electorate’s decision in November. If it ends badly with a re-election, Trump might just set another precedent. The only president to be impeached twice. The scary specter of four more years of this impulsive, unethical autocrat could make for a sequel. Trump, who actually tampered with an impeachment witness via Twitter, is pathological. He can’t help counterproductive impulses and narcissistic self-interest. He will, if re-elected, become increasingly unhinged. That’s beyond unnerving–and dangerous.
Among those likely amenable to Impeachment II: the military and the intelligence community, those especially privy to existential, national-security concerns.
* “They don’t like us.”–The reason, according to Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of the Judiciary Committee, that Democrats were pushing for impeachment. No, that’s not the reason, but, yes, Jordan and his like are manifestly unlikeable. At best. Especially Jordan, who makes Corey Lewandowski seem like a nice, classy guy.
* “An embarrassment to this country.” No, that wasn’t Donald Trump in an unfathomably candid reference to his presidency. That was Trump weighing in on the House Judiciary Committee’s approval of two articles of impeachment.
* Trump recently paid $2 million in court-ordered damages for misusing funds in a tax-exempt charity he controlled. In short, he illegally used funds from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to buy portraits of himself, pay off his businesses’ legal operations and help out his 2016 campaign. No, this is not impeachable, merely disgusting. For any other politician, this would be damning. For Trump, just another day at the orifice.
* Looks like attorney Alan Dershowitz, a frequent adviser to Trump, could get even more involved as the Trump-impeachment defense strategizes before the Senate vote. For Dershowitz, it seems an appropriate role for someone who has represented O.J. Simpson, Roman Polanski, Mike Tyson and Jeffrey Epstein.
* “Crooked bastard.”–How President Donald Trump referred to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Remember when there was presidential protocol and demeanor?
* “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her anger management problem.” That was Trump going after Greta Thunberg, the teen-aged climate activist with Asperger Syndrome. It was also Trump’s knee-jerk reaction to Time magazine choosing someone other than him as its “Person of the Year.”
* You know what’s got to be as awkward as it looks: The president holding an ad hoc press gaggle in the Oval Office while a visiting head of state sits stiffly right next to him. Most recently it was Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez. Perhaps regular White House press briefings would obviate the need for such media-opportunity optics in the era of Trump. Perhaps.
* A U.S. District judge has barred President Trump from using $3.6 billion in military construction funds to pay for a wall along the Mexico border. Hopefully, that will prod the Administration to get more creative: maybe racquet ball courts and naming rights. Perhaps 1-800-Ask-Rump.
* Just wondering what the motivation was for Sen. Ted Cruz of the Judiciary Committee to grow that facial hair. One theory: It makes him look less like the Cruz who used to be highly critical–and down-right disparaging–of Donald Trump. Or maybe just to look less like Joe McCarthy.
* Michelle Obama and George W. Bush, however unlikely a pairing, have become role models for political civility via their friendship. It should be an ongoing, teachable moment. And it helps, of course, that Geo W., although in over his head as president and too reliant on the noxious, neoconic likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, was still a decent person. Those were the days.