In Case You Missed it (v15)

It was an interesting week, for sure - so much so that by the time we got to Friday, I was so thankful I didn't even do a TGIF post, setting that aside so that I could comfortably take time to enjoy the holiday season with friends.

But we did hit the ground running, with my visit to the Sunday School classrooms focusing on both sides of the impeachment question.  Not surprisingly, the Democrats spoke from their side of the aisle, and the Republicans did the same, I did manage to find someone talking about both parties - and it was Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

For the longest time, many of us said which Republican is going to defy the wishes of their political base and come forward and do the right thing for the country? Same thing applies to Democrats. Will we ignore our political base and look at our Constitution? That's what should guide us.

There was the Extra Credit-worthy, and truly cringeworthy interview Chris Wallace did with former FBI Director James Comey. Seriously, it was almost as if Comey was floating around an alternate universe rather than the one that Wallace and the rest of us live in. Here's just one example:

The FBI is an honest, apolitical organization. Remember the treason; remember the spying; remember all of us going to jail. That was false information that your viewers and millions of others were given. My own mother-in-law was worried I was going to jail. I kept telling her, “Look, it’s all made up, it’s all made up. Don’t worry about it.” But I couldn’t say that publicly for two years. Well, now I’m saying it on behalf of the FBI. It was all made up, and I hope people will stare at that and learn about what the FBI is like, human and flawed, but deeply committed to trying to do the right thing.

He may still go to jail, given there's still a criminal investigation going on here - he may want to give his mother-in-law a heads up.

In a week that include many bizarre moments, there was perhaps nothing more bizarre than the six page letter the president sent to the Speaker of the House, full of bluster and falsehoods and braggadocio and other things Trump, including his continued lie on how many Electoral College votes he got. Here's a snippet of the love letter.

Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it! You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box during the great Election of 2016. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view democracy as your enemy!

While the president was attacking the Speaker, I was on Poll Watch, checking to see where public sentiment stood on the impeachment inquiry, including one from Fox News and a second, from The Washington Post and ABC News.  Both polls show that Americans are not happy with the president as far as this issue goes, with Fox respondents showing, among other things,

• 53% believe he has abused the powers of his office; 50% believe he has obstructed justice;  48% believe he has obstructed Congress, and 45% believe he has committed bribery;

The WaPo-ABC poll had similar results, including that

• regardless of how respondents feel about impeachment, 51% say that Congress should censure him, while 42% say no. 

On the day that saw only the third impeachment of an American president, I was doing some Wondering on Wednesday about this whole mess, from a variety of angles, including one that I don't hear a lot of people talk about.

For example, wouldn't it be sad if we were to forget how we got here, and that it would have been impossible for president Trump to be in a position to demand an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden had Hunter Biden not been given a job, for which he was completely unqualified, by a foreign company located in a country in his father's vice-presidential portfolio?

On Thursday, I found, among the 100 or so messages from the 2020 Dems, a note from Elizabeth Warren, which earned the coveted Email of the Week award. Here's a portion of it.

I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and so did my colleagues in the Senate and in the House. And we owe it to the American people to do our jobs and get to the bottom of this.

Come the new year, I will be a juror in Donald Trump's Senate trial, and I'll uphold my oath. Because nobody is above the law — not even the president of the United States.

But it's important to remember that Trump is just the worst symptom — not the cause — of a rigged, corrupt system. A system that rewards the rich and powerful and leaves working people behind.

So, there you have it - this week in review. Check back next week to see what's going on, as we get ready to close out the year.