Wondering on Wednesday (v191)

Ready... set... wonder! 

• I wonder if anyone at all honestly believes that Republicans are not being exactly as partisan in defending the president as the Democrats are in calling for his impeachment? I mean, if we are supposed to believe that the latter is driven by political ideology and dismay about losing the election, why would any sane person think that the former is anything other than blind allegiance to the winner?

• Was anyone else watching or listening to the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on Monday, wondering how cool it would have been if someone - anyone - had stood up and bellowed "OAR-DURRRRRRR" like the recently retired Speaker of the Commons John Bercow? I mean, seriously - the hearing (the couple of hours I listened to before losing patience) - was a cluster of whining and yelling and posturing and gibberish and predictable voice votes and annoying roll calls -- and worse, there was not a bit of charisma exhibited by any of them, least of all the chairman. I was begging for a Bercow, I really was. 

• I wonder, has Christopher Wray been fired yet? I haven't checked Twitter all that much today, but I can't imagine he's going to be the current Director of the FBI for a whole lot longer. Staying with the same presidential tweet, I have to wonder what the "greatest men and women working there" think of their new-found accolades, having been denigrated by the president throughout his time in office. Maybe that's Trump's way of saying I'm sorry?

• A bit of additional diversity was added to the December Democratic debate, as entrepreneur Andrew Yang has met the qualifications: 4% approval in four approved national polls or 6% in two early-state polls and at least 200,000 unique donors and at least 800 donors in at least 20 states. The qualifiers to date, in alphabetical order (to prevent the Bernie Sanders contingent from freaking out if he's not listed first): Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Sanders,  Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, and Yang. I'm wondering tonight how many of the remaining non-qualifying candidates will continue to stay in the race, especially if this is not the first debate they've missed.

• Folks in the UK go to the polls tomorrow; current polling suggests that the Conservatives, led by Boris Johnson, will prevail against Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, but we've learned on our side of the pond how wrong polls can be. I wonder what will happen if Johnson doesn't prevail, almost as much as I wonder what will happen if he does. Will other countries start making their own moves to leave the EU? And what will our response be, other than tariffs? I mean, there will be tariffs, right?  Trump's still president, after all...

• I know about Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday, and Small Business Saturday, but I had to wonder what Green Monday was all about. I only learned about it when I got more than a dozen emails from retailers (they're still coming today, I might add). In case you're in the dark, as I was, the 2nd Monday of December is apparently the day that lots of retailers kick off their holiday sales

There's more - there's always more... but what are you wondering about today?