The Impeachment Trail: As the House Judiciary Committee prepares to get to work this week holding hearings and drawing up articles of impeachment, the White House announced that neither the President nor his legal team will participate.

  In a five-page letter of complaint about an “unfair process,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone, turned down an offer to participate in sessions weighing whether the President’s conduct warrants impeachment. He said the committee gave insufficient notice and has neither described the format of the process nor identified the potential witnesses.

  Cipollone said, “The facts that emerged even from Chairman Schiff’s carefully controlled and unfair process served only to further confirm that the president has done nothing wrong and that there is no basis for continuing your inquiry.”

  The tactic of the White House clearly has been to just deny and deny. There’s no doubt that President Trump did something wrong in withholding aid from Ukraine to wrest from their government an investigation of Vice President Joe Biden and his son. The question is whether it is an offense that merits impeachment and removal from office.   

Travel and Resorts: A nasty system of rain and snow moved into the East last night. Up to two feet of snow was expected in northern New York and Vermont.

So far this morning 642 flights have been cancelled. Yesterday, 926 flights were cancelled and 10,000 delayed. 

Normal People: The book written by an anonymous Trump administration official hits the bookstores tomorrow with some damning passages about the President. The author says “normal people who spend any time with Donald Trump are uncomfortable by what they witness.” The anonymous official writes that, “He stumbles, slurs, gets confused, is easily irritated, and has trouble synthesizing information, not occasionally but with regularity.” 

  Often, he/she says, “the president also can’t remember what he’s said or been told.”

  Writing that Trump barely reads and requires shorter briefings with fewer words and more pictures, the senior official says they are “bewildered how anyone could have run a private company on the empty mental tank President Trump relies upon every day to run the government.”

Second Revolution: Some of the deadliest political unrest since the Islamic Revolution 40 years ago has been taking place in Iran over the past two weeks with unrest sparked by a sudden 50 percent hike in gasoline prices. Within days, demonstrator around the country were demanding an end to the Islamic Republic’s government. 

  In many places, security forces have shot dozens of unarmed protesters, many of them low-income or unemployed young men. In one incident in the southwest city of Mahshahr, members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps rounded up then shot and killed 40 to 100 demonstrators in a marsh.

  The total number of people killed has been estimated at from 180 to 450, with 2,000 wounded and 7,000 arrested.

  Iran is struggling under the Trump administration’s economic sanctions. With a ban on oil exports, the increase in gas prices was supposed to fill a serious budget gap for the government. 

Drug War: At least 19 people were killed yesterday in a 90-minute gun battle between local police and drug cartel gunmen who attacked a town hall in northern Mexico.

  The incident came as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador scorned President Trump’s threat to declare the cartels foreign terrorist organizations. 

  The Mexican leader told a rally on Sunday that he had no intention of returning to the kind of “war on drugs” led by the army in past years. “We will never repeat this absurd and deranged strategy, we will not risk the lives or prestige of the armed forces, nor use them for inhumane actions,” he said at a celebration of his first year in office.

  The assault in the town of Villa Union, southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas was carried out by gunmen who arrived in 14 trucks, some of them marked with their cartel’s logo. The dead included four state police officers, 13 cartel members, and two civilians who were kidnapped and killed. 

The Bulletin Board: Former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak ended his long-shot bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He barely registered on the Richter scale. Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, who argued that he’s a winner in deep red state, also dropped out. — Nine members of a family returning from a hunting trip in South Dakota were killed in the crash of their private plane shortly after takeoff in a blizzard. The dead included family members from four generations. Three people survived. — Expanding his worldwide trade war, President Trump announced that he’s re-imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum shipped into the United States from Brazil and Argentina.

The Obit Page: Singer and composer Irving Burgie who partnered with Harry Belafonte to create 1950s calypso craze, died in Brooklyn at age 95.

  Known professionally as Lord Burgess, Burgie wrote eight of the 11 tracks on Belafonte’s album “Calypso.” One of the most lasting hits has been “Day-O” (“The Banana Boat Song”). Burgie and Belafonte, who’s 92 now, were credited with introducing Afro-Caribbean rhythms to the mainstream pop music.

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