The Edge of Night: As President Trump spoke at the United Nations calling for a future of nationalism and isolated patriotism, long-reluctant Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House will embark upon a full inquiry aimed at impeachment.

  “It’s really a sad day for our country,” Pelosi said.

  Citing Trump’s reported conversations with the president of Ukraine about investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, Pelosi said, “The actions taken to date by the President have seriously violated the Constitution.” She said the President “must be held accountable — no one is above the law.” Pelosi described the President’s actions as “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

  It’s a huge political risk. While more members of Congress are signing on to the impeachment movement, it could die in the Republican-held Senate, which would have to convict and remove the President for “high crimes and misdemeanors” as dictated by the Constitution.

  Trump tweeted, “Such an important day at the United Nations, so much work and so much success, and the Democrats purposely had to ruin and demean it with more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage. So bad for our Country!”

  The President says he will release the transcript of the telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine to prove he did nothing wrong.

  At the UN, Trump claimed that he had withheld military aid from Ukraine not to pressure the government to investigate Joe Biden, but because he was frustrated that America is shouldering too large a burden defending Ukraine from encroachment by Russia. It was a 24-hour change of story. He originally said his concern was about corruption in Ukraine.

  In his UN speech he railed against unfair trade, imbalanced defense spending, illegal immigration, and socialism, but his primary message was “America First” and the encouragement of self-interested nationalism by every country. Trump said, “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.” 

The Impeachment Trap:President Trump has said that impeachment will be “a positive for me,”as he heads for re-election, reinforcing among his supporters the belief that he is the victim of efforts to destroy what he calls the most successful presidency ever. He might be right … at least about impeachment being good for him. Trump calls the current accusations “more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage.”  Polls show that at the moment most Americans do not want to see Trump impeached.

  NY Timescolumnist Ross Douthat writes that even while Trump might enjoy the combat of impeachment, “The nature of the Trump era is that yuge events recede far more rapidly than anyone expects. So it might be with impeachment: Have the vote or don’t have it, we’ll be arguing about something completely different by the time Americans are going to the polls.”

At Sea: Fish populations are dropping and so is the level of oxygen in the world’s oceans. Ice is melting and the ocean levels are rising. A major report from the United Nations released today says climate change has the world’s oceans at a tipping point headed toward ecological collapse.

  For years the oceans have served as a sponge to soak up carbon dioxide from human-caused emissions, but they can’t take much more. Rising sea levels could displace millions of coastal residents later this century while increased acidity and temperatures in the water threaten fish as a food supply. Cheery. 

The Bulletin Board:Amid rising concerns about safety, Massachusetts has ordered a four-month ban on the sale of all vaping products. In Washington,Ruby Johnson, the mother of a college student hospitalized with a vaping-related lung ailment, told a Congressional committee, “If this was romaine lettuce, the shelves would be empty.” — In the continuing fallout from the college admissions bribery scandal, Los Angeles businessman Devin Sloane, who paid $250,000 to get his son into USC as a water polo player, was sentenced yesterday to four months in prison. 

The Obit Page:Former United Airlines pilot Alfred Haynes, who in 1989 brought a crippled airliner down for a crash landing in Sioux City, Iowa saving the lives of 189 of 296 people on board, has died at age 87.

   An hour out of Chicago en route to Denver, the tail engine on Flight 232 exploded. The explosion knocked out the plane’s hydraulics. Haynes and his crew controlled the plane by balancing power on the two remaining wing engines. They flew for 44 minutes handling a situation never covered in their training.

  The plane broke up and burned on landing, resulting in dozens of deaths, but 189 people lived because Haynes never gave up.

D’ese, D’ems, and D’ose:In the continuing gender identity revolution, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has taken a cue from college kids and expanded the definition of the word “they,” which has traditionally been used to refer to two or more people. Now, according to Merriam-Webster, “they” may be used to substitute for “him” or “her”to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary.

  Look up “nonbinary” on your own. 

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