Impeached: First he was 45, now he’s three. Donald J. Trump, the 45^th President of the United States, last night became only the third to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

  The vote along party lines was 230-197 on Article I, abuse of power, and  229-198 on Article II, obstructing the Congressional investigation.

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sternly waved off applause from the Democrats as each vote total was announced. If your mother gave you a look like she did, you’d wilt. 

  Speaking at a re-election rally last night in Battle Creek, Michigan as the vote went down, Trump was so red-faced he looked like he was going to explode. He bellowed, “The radical left in Congress is consumed with hatred and envy and rage, you see what’s going on. I tell you, these people are crazy.” Trump said, “We did nothing wrong, nothing whatsoever.”

  At a press conference after the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that she might not pass the articles to the Senate for trial until she gets assurances of a fair proceeding. In a twist on the old “fair trial then hang ‘em,” Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has all but guaranteed an acquittal for Trump. Holding back the articles would leave Trump twisting in the impeachment wind.

  Debate dragged on all day yesterday with Republicans denying the facts of what Trump did while calling the Democrats “radicals” and “socialists.” The Democrats stuck to the facts of what Trump did in withholding military aide from Ukraine.

   The President appeared to be watching, tweeting his reactions in real time saying, “SUCH ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT, DO NOTHING DEMOCRATS. THIS IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA, AND AN ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!”

  Trump appears to be frenetic, but at his rally last night he said, “I’m not worried. You don’t do anything wrong and you get impeached. That may be a record that will last forever.”

Impassioned Reason: In a chamber inflated with hot air, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer delivered one of the most reasoned speeches in favor of impeachment.

 He said,  “Throughout the Trump presidency, Democrats have resisted pursuing impeachment even as we watched with dismay and disgust at a pattern of wrongdoing. That pattern included ordering federal agencies to lie to the public, firing the FBI Director for refusing to end an investigation of his campaign, siding with Vladimir Putin over our intelligence agencies, taking funding away from the military to put toward an ineffective border wall, and setting policies that have led to the separation of families and the caging of children. We have, to be sure, deep disagreements with the policies and actions taken by this president. But they are not reasons to pursue what Chairman Schiff has called, ‘a wrenching process for the nation.’”

  Hoyer said, “It was not until there was clear evidence that the President was abusing his power to serve his own interests – at the expense of our democracy, our national security, and the safeguarding of our elections from foreign interference – that we were compelled to consider articles of impeachment. Credible witnesses, many of whom were appointed to office by President Trump, have corroborated the details and timeline of his abuse of presidential power, which forms the basis of the first article of impeachment in this resolution.”

  Hoyer continued, “The votes we are about to take concern the rule of law and our democracy itself. Let us not forget the words of the philosopher John Locke, so influential to the Founders of our republic. He warned: ‘Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.’”

Fatal Diagnosis: A federal appeals court yesterday struck down a pillar of the Affordable Care Act, ruling that the requirement that people have health insurance is unconstitutional. But the appeals panel sent the case back to a federal district court in Texas to determine whether other provisions of the law could continue to exist without the mandate. This will end up in the Supreme Court.

Debatable: Seven qualifying Democratic candidates for president debate tonight. The participants are Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Tom Steyer. 

The Axe Man Commeth: An expensive catalogue company called Guideboat Co. features a “Heritage Pack Axe” for $195. Best Made offers its “American Felling Axe” for $248-to $368. You can get a custom painted handle. Both of them cut wood pretty much the same as the $26 wooden-handled axe offered by the Ace Hardware chain.

  Alexandra Marwar notes in The NY Times  that, “The American ax fetish is everywhere — in designer ax brands, the rise of ax-throwing bars and the internet’s first ax emoji, which debuted this year.” 

  She says, “For decades, the ax was inextricable from a vision of Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining.’ Now, they’re being given as gifts in lieu of cuff links to best men, and in lieu of salad bowls to newlyweds.”

  Not many people really use an axe, so more interesting to us is the question of whether to spell it “ax” or “axe” as the fancy catalogues do. The Associated Press Stylebook says it’s “ax not axe,” but we like it with an “e” and so do the people who sell one for $368. 

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