The Schiff Show may have only run for one season and the ratings were terrible, but that’s clearly not going to stop the Democrats from fulfilling their dream. We learned last night that the party of the Donkey will go ahead and file two articles of impeachment against the President today. Given that some of them (including at least one of their constitutional scholar witnesses) have been aching for this since Trump’s inauguration, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. The startling part is that they’ve decided to drop any specific charges and settled on a couple of the gauziest and most general ones. (NBC News)

Democrats plan to announce articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, a senior Democratic aide told NBC News on Monday night.

The House Judiciary Committee heard from lawyers for both parties for more than nine hours on findings from the Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry over allegations that Trump withheld aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

The Democratic aide said the articles would be announced at a news conference on Tuesday morning.

Sean Davis quickly summed up the key question on Twitter after the news broke.

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1204247068694462465

Yes, whatever happened to all of those specific charges? Where’s the accusation of bribery of a foreign power? Wasn’t that what kicked off this entire show in the first place?

In any event, it appears that most everyone in the House is ready to move forward to a floor vote and get this over with. It’s been obvious from the beginning that the Democrats were going to give in to pressure from their base and impeach the President. They’ll likely have a few defectors from swing districts and virtually zero Republican support, but they should still have enough votes to pass the measure.

It’s a bit late in the year to start the trial in the Senate now, but Cocaine Mitch should be able to get things set up for a starting date in early to mid-January. At that point, the shoe will be on the other foot. The Senate GOP majority will get to set the rules and call their own witnesses, unlike the kangaroo court that Adam Schiff set up. Since a two-thirds supermajority is required in the upper chamber to actually remove Trump from office and the Democrats don’t even hold half of the seats, the outcome should be a foregone conclusion.

It’s conceivable that a couple of Republicans may vote against Trump (possibly Mitt?), but at the same time, the Democrats can’t even count on getting all of their own members to vote for removal. Chuck Schumer is going to have to twist the arms of Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Doug Jones (Ala.) pretty hard to get them to go along with this scheme. Keep in mind that Trump carried Alabama by 28 points in 2016 and he ran the table in West Virginia with a 42 point margin.

Jones is up for election again next year because he’s currently filling out the rest of Jeff Sessions’ term that he won in a special election. And since he’ll probably be running against Sessions he’ll need every vote he can get. As for Manchin, he still has four years left in his term and he’s already 72 years old, so he may not have as much to lose if he’s looking toward retirement. But he’s also one of the least liberal members of his party.

When the smoke clears, Trump will still be in office. Recent polling indicates that the tide has been turning in the President’s favor in the swing states recently and when everyone sees that this entire farce has turned out to be a monumental waste of time, Trump may be on track for a second term. And if that’s the case, everyone voting against him will probably be reminded that the President has a long memory, and it will likely be a long and uncomfortable four years to come.