The most deadly GOP attack on the legitimacy of the Judiciary Committee hearing was a speech that Nadler himself delivered in 1998. Several Republicans read excerpts: “There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy.” But such considerations are now irrelevant to the Democrats. Wednesday’s hearing was an attempt to hide their hyper-partisan coup beneath a canopy of pseudo-constitutional camouflage. In the end it will fail. The polls show that the voters already know what they’re up to. Trump will remain in office and be easily reelected.

In her loneliness, the lady professor (and lonely school marm Pamela Karlan) also declared that President Trump’s call for investigating corruption in Ukraine was worse than the crimes that nearly got President Nixon impeached. Because, she said, Mr. Nixon’s crimes were domestic and Mr. Trump’s supposed “crimes” were abroad. Whatever. As if eating mail-order turkey and sleeping with Mueller reports isn’t sad enough, the lonely lady professor later attacked the 13-year-old son of President Trump to make the point that — well, to make the point that she really despises President Trump. There was no other point. Please. Somebody call the emergency lonely hearts line and get this woman some help.

Eric Ciaramella's name is well-recognized as that of the alleged whistleblower. Liberal censorship is happening on YouTube and on Facebook. Journalist Tim Pool says he was suspended from Facebook for having used the name and linking to a Politico column by media critic Jack Shafer, who made the obvious point: "Journalists are supposed to report the news, not suppress it." Facebook told Pool, "Your post goes against our Community Standards on coordinating harm and promoting crime." Coordinating harm?! Promoting crime?! By this transparently political standard of protecting one party's (or country's) backstage operatives, the entire media are guilty — on one story after another, daily.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has filed a $435 million defamation suit against CNN over a story that alleged Nunes met with a fired Ukrainian prosecutor in an effort to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The lawsuit adds some new facts that could change the course of the story. Still, it is extremely hard for a public figure like Nunes to prevail in a defamation suit against a media organization. The standard Nunes must meet is exceedingly high. But a lawsuit can also be a way of making a public statement, in this case about coverage of a high-profile, controversial issue. In this new suit, Nunes does just that.

The proof that the hearings failed is that most polls showed support for removing the president actually falling after the Schiff show. That’s a flop by the only measure that counts. Democrats have frittered away their two years in power as Pelosi refused to negotiate with Trump on most major issues. Putting all their eggs into the resistance basket, they are now reduced to impeachment or bust. Their presidential candidates are similarly bankrupt of accomplishments and good ideas. Driven to extremes by Trump’s success in stoking economic growth and jobs, most of the large field of candidates has played to the fringe in terms of health care, immigration, taxes and the environment.

The past, whose great if often deeply flawed men once served as moral exemplars, has become something to be condescendingly sneered at. Not only must Columbus, Washington, and Jefferson be unceremoniously censured, their public memory must be trashed, if not excised. Mom, with her “second-wave feminism” full of “internalized misogyny,” is also worthy of derision. In her own rebellion against the traditions of her time, she provided the template for her own destruction. The trend will only intensify. Of course, to turn this ship around would require a pretty dramatic paradigm shift, reimagining the historical and cultural narratives parents impress upon their children.

Some questions before we declare our solidarity with the protesters engaging the Hong Kong police. If the police crush them, or if China’s army moves in and crushes the demonstrators whose hopes were raised by America’s declared solidarity, then what are we prepared to do to save them and their cause? Are we willing to impose sanctions on Beijing, such as we have on Venezuela, Iran and Russia? Some of us yet recall how the Voice of America broadcast to the Hungarian rebels of 1956 that if they rose up and threw the Russians out, we would be at their side. The Hungarians rose up. We did nothing. And one of the great bloodbaths of the Cold War ensued. Are we telling the protesters of Hong Kong, “We’ve got your back!” when we really don’t?