Being There: The House of Representatives is expected to begin debating the second impeachment of President Trump at 9 this morning.

  Vice President Mike Pence rejected calls for him to invoke the 25^th Amendment to remove President Trump saying, “I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our Nation.”

  The House nonetheless went ahead and voted to formally to call on Pence to exercise the 25^th. 

  The 25^th was intended to remove a president unable to serve. Impeachment was designed for removal because of improper or criminal behavior. 

  Pence is stuck between Trump and a hard place. He would be the first vice president to attempt removal of the President even though Trump pushed him last week to violate the Constitution and invalidate the November 3^rd election. The NY Times reports that before Pence went to the Senate a week ago to preside over the Electoral College count, Trump said to him, “You can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy.”

Abandon Ship: As many as 20 Republican members of Congress plan to cross the line and vote with Democrats to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection. Leading with a fiery statement is Liz Cheney of Wyoming who said, “The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.” 

  Even Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell is reported to be welcoming impeachment as a way to purge the Republican party of Trump, although he has not gone public.

  Travelling to Texas yesterday to brag about his border wall, Trump claimed there was nothing wrong with his January 6^th speech credited in the article of impeachment with inspiring the riot. He said, “So if you read my speech and many people have done it and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media on television, it’s been analyzed and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.”

War Plans: An FBI office in Virginia sent an explicit warning to Washington the day before the insurrection that extremists were organizing to go to the Capitol to commit violence and “war,” but no action was taken on it, The Washington Post reports.

  This runs contrary to statements by senior officials that they had no warning. 

  A situation information report (SitRep) quotes scary stuff from an online thread saying, “Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war.”

  Ominously, the message said,  “We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

  “BLM” is Black Lives Matter and “Pantifa” is a dismissive reference to the anti-fascist movement, Antifa.

  The report to Washington soft-peddled its own information, saying that whoever posted the messages was probably protected under the right to free speech. The SitRep said, “In the event no violent reaction occurs, FBI policy and federal law dictates that no further record be made of the protected activity.”

Viral News: Another 4,538 people died in the last 24 hours.

  In a major policy shift, the Trump administration now advises the states to vaccinate every American over 65 and says they will release all available doses to make that happen. The administration has been holding back millions of doses to make the required second shots available.

  The administration says it can get its hands on 200 million doses by July. 

  Meanwhile, no surprise, last week’s Capitol insurrection appears to have been a spreader event. Three Democratic members of Congress have tested positive for the coronavirus after they were barricaded together with some Republicans who refused to wear masks in close quarters.

The Obit Page: Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and checkwriter for Republican politicians and Israel, has died at age 87 at home in Malibu, California.

  With a net worth in the neighborhood of $35 billion, Adelson was estimated to be the world’s 8^th or 9^th richest person. He built casinos that were gambling palaces, including the Venetian in Las Vegas with its canal and singing gondoliers.

  Adelson was a kingmaker for Republican politicians. He gave $25 million to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and $5 million to his inauguration.

 He was also a big supporter of Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party. He paid $67 million for the former US embassy in Tel Aviv after President Trump moved the mission to  Jerusalem, in part to prevent a subsequent administration from reversing the decision. 

Failing Grade: The Harvard Institute of Politics has thrown New York Rep. Elise Stefanik off its Senior Advisory Committee for making unfounded claims of voter fraud in the November election. Stefanik was one of the members who, even after the Capitol insurrection, returned and voted to reject the results of the November election.

  A letter from Douglas Elmendorf, Dean of the  Harvard Kennedy School, said, Stefanik’s assertions about voter fraud “do not reflect policy disagreements but bear on the foundations of the electoral process through which this country’s leaders are chosen.”

  In reply, Stefanik, a Harvard graduate, denounced the “woke Left” and said, “The Ivory Tower’s march toward a monoculture of like-minded, intolerant liberal views demonstrates the sneering disdain for everyday Americans and will instill a culture of fear for students.”

Hunger Games: Jake Angeli, the Arizona man who was shirtless wearing a fur hat with horns at the Capitol insurrection complained to his mother that he hadn’t eaten since Friday because the jail he’s in won’t feed him organic food.

 A judge yesterday ordered that Angeli’s diet requirements must be met. He’s still not allowed to wear his horns.

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