Peggy Noonan gives an interesting rationale for why Bolton and Biden should be called as witnesses
PM: I watched a couple of hours of debate on the first day of the Senate impeachment trial when the two parties fought over the rules. It was interesting to watch the arguments but the senate leader had counted the votes and all amendments to the rules were voted down 53 to 47. Every single Republican senator stayed with the “save our president” coalition. The most interesting questions is whether a few senators after the first 5 days will be willing to call witnesses. Peggy Noonan published the most interesting commentary I have read on the trial in the past couple of days.
Impeachment Needs Witnesses on Both Sides
Forget Democrats and Republicans. The interests of a third party, History, are more important.
Small majority for Impeachment
Impeachment
I have two sentiments about impeachment. One the one hand, I am sad that Trump whose actions are clearly worse than what Nixon did and that he will not get removed from office and I pitty Republicans who have to defend actions that are indefensible. But I also acknowledge that congressmen and senators reflect accurately what their masters the voters want. 48 percent want Trump removed and 48 want him to be left in office and face voters judgments next November. Here is a very interesting graphic courtesy of the Walll Street Journal that shows that congressman vote largely reflecting what their constituency wants.
Impeachment Was on the Family Table This Thanksgiving
This opinion piece by a Harvard history professor in the WSJ is very clever and very fun to read.
Homage to Sherlock Holmes in current Impeachment Trial
The public at large believes Trump illegally pressured Ukraine, but the majority does not yet want to throw him out of office. USA today published a great homage to Sherlock Holmes courtesy of an independent senator from Maine.