Trying Times: Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander announced last night that he will not vote in favor of calling witnesses, possibly putting a bullet in President Trump’s impeachment trial.

  Alexander has been one of four senators who have teased the possibility of calling witnesses and all four would have to vote in favor to make it happen. 

  He said in a statement that the Democrats have proved their case, but it is not a removable offense. “There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a ‘mountain of overwhelming evidence,'” Alexander said in the statement. “Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.”

  The Senate is likely to vote today on the witnesses question. If the answer is “no,” the trial could be over by tonight. They might vote to acquit the President and go home for the weekend.

  The Senate finished its second day of questions and answers last night, all of it falling upon mostly deaf ears on both sides. We didn’t learn much new in the last two days, except that after delivering a shocking legal opinion about impeachability Wednesday, former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz will be dining alone on Martha’s Vineyard this summer.

  The discussions finally touched a core point about the Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The Republicans say Giuliani was representing official US policy in Ukraine while Rudy and the President say he was acting as a private lawyer. If he was acting in a public capacity, he could be called to account for it. If he was acting as a lawyer for the President, then his efforts in Ukraine were for the benefit of the President, not US foreign policy. Neither outcome would be good for Trump.

  As both sides warned about dire consequences if Trump is convicted, or not convicted, things got testy. In one response, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said, “With the greatest respect, if the Senate can just decide there’s no executive privilege, guess what? You’re destroying executive privilege.”

  House manager Adam Schiff responded, “When anybody begins a sentence with the phrase, ‘I have the greatest respect for,’ you have to look out for what follows.”

 What followed was Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who presented the next question saying, “I sent a question to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Capito and Scott of South Carolina — with all due respect.”

Outbreak: The US has issued a “do not travel warning for China and the World Health Organization has declared the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus is a global health emergency. So far in China,  213 people are dead and nearly 10,000 sickened. 

  The countries most affected are China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Vietnam, and the US. The husband of an Illinois woman is believed to be the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the US.

  In another demonstration of the Trump administration’s knowledge of how the world works, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared said on Fox Business  that he “didn’t want to talk about a victory lap,” but the coronavirus “will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”

  NY Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that, “If the virus seriously disrupts Chinese production, its impact on the U.S. economy will be like an extreme version of Trump’s trade war, except without any compensation in the form of tariff revenue.” 

  He wrote, “If Wilbur Ross’s boneheaded remarks on Thursday are any indication — and I fear they are — the Trump administration is even less prepared to deal with the economic fallout from a possible pandemic than it is to deal with the public health crisis. Be afraid.”

The Bulletin Board: Fotis Dulos, the Connecticut man accused of murder in the disappearance of his estranged wife, was taken off life support and died of the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. He is reported to have left a suicide note that claimed he was innocent. 

The Obit Page: Fred Silverman, the television executive who rose to the top in the 1970s and gave the green light to groundbreaking shows at all three of the grandfather networks, has died at age 82. Silverman  was behind the launch of “All in the Family,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “M*A*S*H,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and “Hill Street Blues.” — Leila Janah, a social and business entrepreneur who brought paying work to the poor of Africa and India in the belief that jobs, not handouts, are the way out of poverty, died of a rare soft tissue cancer at age 37. A daughter of Indian immigrants and a graduate of Harvard, Janah was on a business trip to India when she had the epiphany that the poor people in the streets were perfectly capable of doing some of the same office work as the educated middle class. She said the poorest people in the world are “the biggest untapped resource” in the global economy.

Please, God: Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who has a penchant for big and loud bow ties, opens the impeachment trial each day with a prayer of guidance for the senators.

  Monday he prayed, “As this impeachment process unfolds give our senators the desire to make the most of their time on earth. Teach them how to live, oh God, and lead them along the path to honesty.”

  Tuesday the chaplain intoned, “Guard us from those who smile but plan evil in their hearts. Use our senators to bring peace and unity to our world.”

  And on Wednesday; “Help them follow the road of humility that leads to honor.”

  The impeachment trial is a major test of whether God listens. 

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