John Bolton is constantly adjusting his glasses. What's up with that?Serg Glovny/ZUMA

I got home a little late last night, so I missed the outcome of the Bolton revelations:

In a closed-door meeting after closing remarks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told colleagues he doesn’t have the votes to block witnesses, according to people familiar with his remarks who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them. Just four GOP senators would have to join with Democrats to produce the majority needed to call witnesses — an outcome McConnell has sought to avoid since it could invite new controversy and draw out the divisive proceedings.

An initial vote to allow witnesses, expected Friday, does not ensure witnesses would actually be called, since the Senate would have to subsequently hold separate votes on summoning each individual witness. And Trump’s ultimate acquittal still remains all but assured, since a two-thirds vote in the GOP-run Senate would be required to remove him.

Friday? What are they going to do today and tomorrow? Pray for divine guidance?

I’m not really surprised by this. After a guy like Bolton—who’s a longtime conservative hero—put his credibility on the line to say that Trump was lying, it was all but impossible not to want to hear from him. Fox News is doing its best to paint Bolton as nothing more than a disgruntled hack, but they’ve been singing his praises for too long to make that stick. And in the Senate, refusing to hear from a fellow Republican of Bolton’s stature is literally an admission that they don’t care whether Trump is guilty or not. They just want to get this over with.

I hardly blame them for that, but it turns out there are still a few Republicans who aren’t quite willing to act so hackishly. Whether that’s because they don’t like Trump or because they just want to do the right thing, is unclear. But it doesn’t matter.

This whole leak remains puzzling, as does Bolton’s initial decision to write about Trump’s Ukraine obsession in his book but not talk publicly about it even though it’s a core part of the impeachment hearings. Did he really want his narrative to come out after the impeachment was over? Why? Did he ever try to get word to House Democrats that he wanted to testify? Why not? Is the current run of events somehow an effort to just sell more books? If it is, I don’t get it. And did Bolton do this as a way to get revenge on Trump for insisting on such a non-warlike foreign policy? Is he the new John McCain?

I doubt that Bolton’s testimony will hold up the trial much. Marc Thiessen tries to make the case today that Trump will claim executive privilege and go to court to stop Bolton from testifying, which will tie up the Senate for months. I wonder if this is true? Sure, Nixon went to court over executive privilege, but that was during the House hearings. In the Senate trial, Chief Justice John Roberts should be able to rule on this, and his opinion will be non-appealable. Or so I think I’ve heard. The whole thing might be quicker than we think.

Of course, the big risk for Republicans is that Bolton’s testimony opens up an entire Pandora’s Box of stuff that has to be followed up—at which point the Senate really might be tied up in knots for months. But that’s the price you pay when your strategy is to relentlessly deny reality, only to have reality finally come crashing down on you. Eventually, even the diehards can’t keep up the act anymore.

Consolidated News Photos/CNP via ZUMA

Jay Sekulow makes the case that . . . something. You tell me:

Sekulow read several statements denying Bolton’s allegation that Trump directly tied the withholding of military aid to Ukraine to investigations into his political rivals.

Sekulow then sought to emphasize what remains unknown about Bolton’s still-unpublished book, calling it “an unpublished manuscript that maybe some reporters have an idea of maybe what it says.” Sekulow continued: “I mean, that’s what the evidence — if you want to call that evidence — I don’t know what you’d call that — I’d call it inadmissible — but that’s what it is.”

Well, that might be true. I suppose it could be hearsay, but only because courts will reject evidence if a more direct source is available. For example, a book might be inadmissible if the author is available to testify.

Which is true in this case. So I agree with Sekulow: Bolton’s book is inadmissible. The only proper source for this evidence is testimony from Bolton himself.

Thanks, Jay! I’m glad we’re all in agreement about this.

This is a pretty little waterfall in Sumapaz National Park in Colombia. But instead of showing you both a normal exposure and a long exposure, as I often do, I’m showing you two long exposures taken from slightly different distances. As I recall, I wanted to try a few other angles, but it started to rain so I packed up and headed back to the car. Still, even between just these two I can’t decide which I like better.

Palestinians show what they think of President Trump's Mideast peace plan.Ashraf Amra/APA Images via ZUMA

Jared’s Mideast peace plan is finally finished! Let’s see what he came up with after three years of grueling work:

Mr. Trump’s plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the outside world.

….The proposal imagines new Israeli borders that cut far into the West Bank, and, at least in the short term, calls for what Mr. Netanyahu has described as a Palestinian “state-minus,” lacking an army or air force.

Ooh, a “state-minus.” Bibi sure has a way with words. I’m sure the Palestinians will leap to endorse this plan.

Did Jared actually produce any of this plan? It appears that it was created by asking Netanyahu to write a draft and then simply releasing it under the White House seal. Which is the whole point, of course. This wasn’t designed to be a serious peace plan; it was designed to be a 2020 campaign document showing how much Trump loves Israel.

And while we’re on the subject, here’s some related news:

Hours before President Trump was expected to unveil his plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffered a major political setback when prosecutors in his own country proceeded with a three-count indictment against him for alleged bribery, fraud and the coercing of favorable coverage from Israeli media outlets.

Of the three parties to peace talks, one is under indictment, one is being impeached, and the third has boycotted the whole thing. It’s hard to imagine why people aren’t taking this seriously.

A few days ago, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unloaded on an NPR reporter for having the gall to ask him—the Secretary of State—about Ukraine. The reporter then made Pompeo’s temper tantrum public, and Pompeo retaliated by telling a slew of obvious lies about their interview.

But in Trumpland that’s not enough. Pompeo has now banned NPR from his upcoming trip to Europe. It’s not even the same reporter! Nobody from NPR is allowed to come along.

This is not surprising: Trump’s world is consumed with revenge. Trump himself, of course, has been methodically taking revenge on Barack Obama for three years now, all over a single joke Obama told about Trump at a White House Correspondents Dinner. And fear of revenge is what keeps Republican members of Congress in line. They all know that anything more than the mildest disagreement with the great man will unleash a relentless program of vengeance designed to toss them out of office.

Pompeo has obviously caught on to this. Stay loyal to Trump and take highly public revenge on all your enemies. It’s all you need to know to succeed in Trumpland.

Stefani Reynolds/CNP via ZUMA

Over at Vox, Luke Winkie talks about facial hair:

Clearly, there is something within men, particularly men who are often in front of cameras, that urges them to radically change the way their face looks during the epilogue of existential upheaval. The cultural instinct is to chalk this trend up to depression or other mental health ailments. The term “breakup beard” has been inscribed within the Urban Dictionary catalog since 2009, and as Deborah Serani, a psychologist and adjunct professor at Adelphi University explained in Psychology Today, an apathy toward self-grooming can be one of the first signs of dysfunction in the frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain that also dictates your interest in eating, sleeping, and other basic self-care regimens.

Oh come on. I know the old saw says three’s a trend (Justin Trudeau, Beto O’Rourke, and Ted Cruz), but it’s still only three guys. And O’Rourke is the only one of the three who had an existential crisis. Last I looked, Trudeau remains prime minister of Canada and Cruz remains safely ensconced in the Senate.

Sometimes a beard is just a beard, you know? Which reminds me: I grew a beard once. There was no existential crisis involved, just a six-week vacation I had negotiated with a previous employer. I figured that was a good opportunity to see what I looked like with a beard, but without the whole workplace watching it grow in. It turned out pretty badly, though, and I cut it off before I returned to work. Maybe I’ll show it to you on Throwback Thursday this week.

This is a scarlet pimpernel, a very common little wildflower around these parts. It’s named for the tiny bit of scarlet in the center, rather than the vast amount of orange that makes up the rest of the flower. That seems a little unfair, but sometimes life is like that.

My little weekend survey is finished and the results are in. Here are the top ten policy issues among my readership:

I’m a little surprised that climate change scored only 81 percent. Who are the 19 percent of you who didn’t even put it in your top five?

One thing of note is that most of the top ten consists of economic-ish issues, not hot button culture war stuff—although that doesn’t necessarily mean the culture war stuff is less important to you. I didn’t put abortion in my top five, for example, but that’s not because I don’t care about it. It’s because every Dem candidate shares virtually the same position on it.

For the record, my top five were: climate change, health care, unions, income inequality, and pre-K.

Here are the also-rans:

You guys don’t care about Iran and Iraq at all! Child care, family leave, and pre-K also rate pretty low. Is that because my readership skews male? Or childless? I don’t know.

Based solely on this—which nothing should be—Democratic presidential candidates should probably be talking more about gun control and unions, and less about family leave and opioids. And reparations should be off the table completely.

Robert Samuelson is worried about the deficit. That’s no surprise since he’s always worried about the deficit. But this is a head scratcher:

Let’s concede that higher deficits are one problem that can’t be blamed on President Trump. Since the 1970s and 1980s, Democrats and Republicans alike have evaded the hard questions required to balance the budget.

Why can’t we blame President Trump? Let’s run the tape:

• Under Jimmy Carter the deficit shrank.
• Then Ronald Reagan cut taxes on the rich and blew up the deficit.
• Under Bill Clinton the deficit shrank. In fact, it went away!
• Then George Bush cut taxes on the rich and blew up the deficit.
• Under Barack Obama the deficit expanded to tackle the Great Recession and then shrank and stabilized.
• Then Donald Trump—a totally orthodox Republican in this respect—cut taxes on the rich and blew up the deficit.

Just how long does this cycle have to repeat before Washington centrists finally admit the obvious? I don’t care a lot about the deficit myself, but if I did I’d take a blood oath to never vote for a Republican again.

The big news from last night is that someone leaked an important bit from John Bolton’s upcoming book. Here is the New York Times:

President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

….Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.

There are all sorts of questions about this. White House officials had a copy of the manuscript in order to review it for classified information, and Bolton’s lawyer blames them for the leak. But why? Other people had copies too.

And why was Bolton keeping this a secret? Was he really hoping that it wouldn’t become public until after the impeachment hearings were over? Again, why?

And if it was the White House who leaked this, what motivation did they have? This hurts President Trump, since it makes it more likely that the Senate will agree to call witnesses later this week. Or did the leak come from someone inside the White House who doesn’t like Trump?

And why did the leak take so long? The White House has had Bolton’s book for weeks.

And the phrase “Democrats including the Bidens” implies that there are other Democrats that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate. Who are they?

It’s all very strange. Maybe Bolton managed the leak to maximize publicity for his book. Or maybe it was all just some strange confluence of events. Stay tuned.