I assume you saw that Trump yelled "Are you talkin' to me?" at a reporter yesterday...which made me nearly fall out of my chair laughing. 

But, Reg, if the base (and isn't that an apt word for these traitors given its meaning as an adjective) doesn't move, why would the spineless sycophants in congress suddenly show a modicum of patriotism and allegiance to the constitution?

Well, let's put aside the spineless sycophants for a moment ( Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, and of course the ultimate nitwit Devin Nunes) and just look at the Senate. I think the problem for them now is the crimes are just out in the open. Trump was emboldened by not getting impeached for the Mueller report and so he believed he could do whatever he wanted. I think most people believed Pelosi would never pull the trigger on impeachment. I would count myself as one. Once she failed to act after the Mueller report was in their hands my feeling was the decision was made...there would be no impeachment. The goal was to remove through an election process. This is the safest way forward and if Trump lost the election, you could just say the American people removed him.

This is one of the most disheartening things for a lot of people when it comes to elected officials, that they mostly will choose to do nothing at every opportunity. Mitch McConnell, of course, being the poster boy for this but I think for people that lean toward voting Republican they literally love that their elected officials do nothing because they basically don't even want a government. On the Democrat side though the voters want their elected officials to work for them. To do something, particularly when everyone can clearly see something has gone wrong. So, when Pelosi did nothing, voters took notice, Trump took notice, Republicans took notice and the message was...nobody will punish Trump and if anything will get done it will have to be done by voters in 2020. 

What has changed is that Trump, once again, got caught trying to illegally influence an election through foreign interference and it was not a carefully worded 300 page report people had to sort through to understand it...it was just two sentences from a phone call. Ukraine wanted aid and Trump said "I want you to do me a favor though..." and the favor involved inventing dirt on Joe Biden and his son as well as inventing nonsense that Russia (who happens to be the enemy of Ukraine and the United States) did not meddle in the 2016 election, Ukraine did and they did so to help Hillary Clinton. Make this stuff up, however you have to, and you can have your aid and weapons.

Problem was that as soon as Trump gave the order to put the aid to Ukraine on hold, EVERYBODY, Republicans and Democrats and of course everybody in Defense and Intelligence went "What the fuck is going on here? We need to help Ukraine defend themselves against Russia." Again, everybody was forced to ask "Why is Trump, again, doing something that benefits Putin?" This order also does something Trump has constantly been working toward, which is undercutting the powers and authority of Congress. Now, I do think the Republican nitwits in the House will just do anything Trump wants but the Senate does not want their powers undercut...at all. 

Trump wants the whole system of checks and balances to go out the window. He wants to live by Nixon's "If the president does it, it is not illegal." theory.   However, I do not believe that every Republican in the Senate is a moron. Sure, they often act like it but the truth is they do understand what is happening. They can't sign off on this one. If they do they also set a precedent that they are ceding their powers and authority to a rogue president. They don't want to do that. They do understand if they do then the Democrats could repeat this process. 

Trump is making the choice for them easier by the day. He is breaking laws, laws that would get you or I locked up quick. He has threatened a federally protected witness, openly and over and over. He has threatened the chair of the House Intel Committee. Saying these people deserve to be executed. He is openly inciting violence against his political enemies, calling them savages. He is repeating comments that there will be a civil war if they impeach him, pushing and pushing people to riot in this country.  These are the OPEN acts of a criminal...not a president.

While TV news would often present the idea that all these Republicans and Democrats in Washington are at each other's throats...the truth is they are all pals. They go out to dinner, their families know each other, they spend a lot of time together. They are not full of hate and rage toward one another. In fact the majority of them spend more time with each other than they do with our president. They are talking to each other. Behind closed doors they say what they think and there is no doubt a whole bunch of Senate Republicans think Trump is an insane criminal.

All the leaks about what Trump has been doing, all the incriminating stuff, that's not coming from Democrats...that's coming from Republicans and people that work in Trump's administration. So, yeah, that's Republicans giving the Democrats what they need to impeach Trump. This is not crazy Democrats, this is terrified Republicans trying to take down Trump.  So, the question really becomes when do you act?

It was obviously a requirement that the Democrats act first and that they make a good case that would help the Republicans come out from under the covers.  I do not think Pelosi suddenly changed her stripes and went "OK, that's it! Now I am finally going to do the right thing!"  No way. What happened was a whole bunch of Democrats and Republicans huddled and talked this over and ONLY THEN did Pelosi come out and say "That's it now we are impeaching."

There's no rocket science involved here and I am no genius. This is just the way this stuff works. Mitch McConnell made a basically unneeded statement that they would hold the impeachment hearing in the Senate. He did not have to say that at this point. He did anyway. That was basically an open warning to the president, and an encouragement to the House to go ahead and impeach. Chuck Grassley openly warned the president about threatening the whistle-blower. He could have just sat on his hands but he did not. The word is that most elected Republicans and the RNC have wanted to primary Trump.

They want Nikki Haley and Mitt Romney to run. They are done with Trump. He has served his purpose for them. He presided over massive tax cuts for their donors. He has been devastating all regulatory protections. The mess Trump has created internationally though, the idea that they live under constant threat of getting blasted by a Trump Twitter barrage and FOX News idiots repeating it so it hurts their reelection chances...well...they don't need any of that shit. 

Here's what we can see right now...Trump is on an island. He has his few loyalists around him, Rudy, Pompeo, Barr...the idiot congressmen I mentioned above...but outside of those guys, he has nothing. Well, he has Sean Hannity, if anybody thinks that's a good thing. Plus Rudy, Barr, and Pompeo have all moved into cover their own asses mode. He is polling poorly. They have no real reason to stay with Trump. Just watch how carefully Republicans word what they say here. Now that the impeachment process has begun officially...the people inside are running for the lifeboats.  As Bob Dylan sang, things have changed...