Trump Acquitted:  In the end, Utah’s republican Sen. Mitt Romney was the only Republican to break ranks and vote to convict President Trump of abuse of power in his dealings with Ukraine. He became the first senator in the history of three presidential impeachments to vote for the conviction of the president from his own party.
  Romney voted to acquit on obstruction of Congress. The vote was 48-52 on Article I, abuse of power, and 47-53 on Article II, obstruction of Congress. The House managers needed 67 votes to convict the President. Romney’s vote robs Trump of the claim that his impeachment was strictly partisan, but he’ll ignore that.
  Later, speaking on the Senate floor and nearly breaking into tears, Romney said, “The president’s purpose was personal and political. Accordingly, the president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust.”
  He said he based his decision in his religious faith, an oath to God to be impartial. Romney said, “The grave question the Constitution tasked senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did.”
  Romney may one day be considered a hero, but not today by Trump. The President tweeted, “Now his cover is blown, exposed by news reports as the Democrats’ secret asset.”
  Trump also tweeted a meme showing him being re-elected through the year 60,000 followed by the slogan, “Trump 4EVA.” The President tweeted that he will  make a public statement today at noon, “To discuss our country’s VICTORY on the impeachment Hoax!”
  Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown writes in The NY Times that his Senate Republican colleagues are ruled by fear. “In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit,” he says. “They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong.”
Field of Dreams: With Monday’s Iowa Caucus results still dribbling out, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads with 26.2 percent of the vote followed by  Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 26.1 percent. It’s basically a tie. 
  Vice President Joe Biden, campaigning in New Hampshire, admitted that his 4^th place finish was a body blow. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Biden said. “This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been knocked down.”
 Outbreak: Hong Kong is putting all visitors from mainland China into mandatory 14-day quarantine to fight the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus.
  Also under quarantine are thousands of passengers on two cruise ships. The Diamond Princess, sitting in Yokohama Bay, south of Tokyo, and a second ship, docked at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak terminal. Twenty people on board the Diamond Princess have been confirmed to have the virus. The ship is carrying 1,045 crew and 2,666 passengers.
  To date, 565 people are confirmed to have died of the disease, and 28,344 infected.
The Bulletin Board: The final accuser in the rape trial for disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein testified that he shed his clothes, pulled down her dress and groped her in a hotel bathroom in 2013, while telling this is the way things work in Hollywood. — The infamous financial con man Bernie Madoff, 81, is asking to be released from prison saying he has only 18 months to live with kidney disease. He’s got about 150 years to go on his sentence. — Finland’s government, led by 34-year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin, announced it will grant nearly seven months of paid maternity/paternity leave to each parent, for a total of 14 months for each couple. 
 The Obit Page: Actor Kirk Douglas, who’s roles in “Lust for Life,” “Spartacus” and “Paths of Glory” made him one of the great leading men in the golden age of Hollywood, has died at age 103. His son, the actor Michael Douglas, made the announcement.
  Douglas was a face on the Mount Rushmore of leading men in his time, including Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Steve McQueen, and Paul Newman. He had a dramatically jutting jaw and deep dimple in his chin that made him look like he was actually carved of granite.
  Douglas had more than his share of pulp fiction parts, but he rose to greatness in the 1957 “Paths of Glory” playing a French colonel in World War I trying to stop the execution of three innocent soldiers, and in the 1962 “Lonely Are the Brave” in which he was an old style cowboy coping with highways and the confines of barbed wire fences.
The Ratings: The television ratings for President Trump’s State of the Union message were down 20% from last year and down even further from 2017 and 2018.  George Conway, the rebellious husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, tweeted, “Next season should be cancelled, then.”

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