Black or Blue

The End is Nearer:  The impeachment hearing is almost over. Though the vote on witnesses hasn’t taken place yet, the odds of witnesses being called is between zero and nil as only two Republican Senators, Romney and Collins, have publicly stated that they will vote for calling witnesses. Last night, Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, the Republican Senator who is retiring at the end of his term who some hoped might vote for witnesses announced that he won’t.  Alexander didn’t let Trump off scot free, he tweeted, because even octogenarian Senators are now into social media. Specifically, he said that he didn’t need more witnesses to prove that Trump had pressured Ukraine’s Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden in exchange for aid because the Democrats had already more than adequately proved that he had.  Alexander added that there was no question that Trump had acted inappropriately, that asking a foreign official to interfere in a US election was a bad thing and that doing so “undermines the principal of equal justice under the law,” but justified his decision to vote against calling witnesses and against removing Trump from office by saying that he just doesn’t think that Trump’s bad deeds provide a good enough reason for removing him, particularly in the run up to an election.  Senator Lisa Murkowski, who is believed to be the sole remaining possible pro-witness Republican voter, is expected to announce her decision this morning. If she votes yes, Chief Justice Roberts will then have to decide whether or not he wants to break the resulting 50-50 tie, something he is loath to do.  If she votes no, or Roberts leaves the vote in a tie, the trial will quickly move to an end. If Roberts breaks the tie by weighing in for witnesses, all hell will break lose, with Republicans calling him a turncoat and doing their best to overturn his decision which is one of the reasons that it is unlikely that he’ll weigh in. For her part, Speaker Pelosi is on record saying that absent witnesses the trial isn’t a trial and as such Trump won’t really be acquitted even if he is, but Teflon Trump, the messenger in chief will scream full exoneration and his pulpit really is a bully so his message will prevail. 

And…: In other related news, after his efforts to name the Whistleblower were again squashed by the Chief Justice, Senator Rand Paul went outside the Senate chamber, complained about being censored and disclosed the Whistleblower’s name, or at least the name that has been floating around in right wing circles and in the twitterverse anyway.  In the Senate chamber, Trump’s lawyers continued to argue that he’d done nothing wrong, that if he had it wasn’t wrong and that the real criminals are and continue to be those nefarious Bidens.  Pam Bondi, the former Florida Attorney General/Trump lawyer, actually cited a Biden family fishing trip as proof that Joe Biden had colluded with his son Hunter.  State Department career officer Jennifer Williams, the aide to Vice President Pence whose cooperation with House investigators has made her a persona non grata in the White House, plans to leave her position ahead of schedule. Yesterday, Adam Schiff confirmed that the supplemental information that she provided but that Pence still refuses to declassify contains information about how the Russians promoted the conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine rather than those devious Putin controlled Russian bots and army technology experts who were responsible for the 2016 election interference.  And because even Attorney General Barr’s Justice department can provide a source of amusement, the Senate chamber erupted in laughter after Adam Schiff pointed out the irony that yesterday, while Trump’s impeachment lawyers were slamming the Democratic impeachment managers for not pursuing the enforcement of their ignored subpoenas in the courts, Justice Department lawyers were busy arguing in court that the remedy for Congress for the White House’s ignoring of subpoenas is …. impeachment.         

Et Cetera:  Secretary of State Pompeo spent the day in Ukraine where he met with and embraced his good friend President Zelensky.  That had to be a bit awkward since just a few days ago he told an NPR reporter that no one in America really cares about anything or anyone Ukrainian.  Anyway, Zelensky may finally be having the last laugh; because it would be optically bad to do otherwise, the Trump administration now plans to provide Ukraine with a substantial amount of aid next year even though earlier plans had been to cut the embattled country’s allotment.  Trump has now made Health Secretary Azar, whose continued employment in the Trump cabinet was already in jeopardy, his Coronavirus Czar, what could go wrong?  As to that deadly virus, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says it could be a good thing for American workers claiming they stand to  benefit if corporations shift jobs from China to the US.  Not only is that an inappropriately callous remark to make while people are dying but it fails to acknowledge that the virus isn’t a good thing for people or economies.  The virus’s impact is already negatively impacting China’s growth and a decrease in demand from China will negatively impact economic growth here and abroad. As to borders, a large chunk of newly built wall on the Mexican border fell down this week, the victim of a gust of wind, so much for Trump’s building skills.  At about the same time it was reported that gates in another section of the wall will have to be kept open at times to manage seasonal water flows. Our tax dollars at work?  Lastly, E Jean Carroll, or at least the dress she was wearing the evening that she asserts that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, is back in the news.  Though this time the dress is Donna Karan black rather than Gap blue, it shares something with the Clinton era in that it has some fragments of male DNA on it.  Carroll is now seeking a sample of Trump’s DNA to determine if those fragments are his.  Could history be repeating itself?