Today was one of those days when the inside-the-Beltway punditry drew way too many conclusions from a single poll. So I thought it be a good time to once again provide a little more context to the state of the Democratic presidential race. Because, generally, one outlier poll does not a trend make.

As usual, the polling we see now is really reflective of what was going on last week. What was going on last week in the Democratic race, of course, was the fourth debate. We're just now beginning to see any post-debate movement in the polls, which always lags reality by roughly a week. An event (such as a debate) happens, then it takes a day or so for reactions to really sink in, then polls take another couple of days to run, then the data must be crunched. We've now had time for that to happen, post-debate, but the real trends won't become obvious until at least next week, when we get enough data points from individual polls to show any real sustained movement in the electorate.

The poll that caught the punditry's attention today came from CNN, and it showed Joe Biden with a commanding 15-point lead. Biden was at 34 percent, Warren was way down at 19 percent, and Bernie Sanders pulled in 16 percent. All the other candidates were in single digits.

So has Biden trounced the recent surge from Warren? Well, maybe, but then again maybe not. A poll also released this week (by The Economist/YouGov) put Biden at only 24 percent with Warren close behind at 23 percent (while Bernie scored exactly the same 16 percent). That's only a one-point difference, which is inconsistent with all the storylines being told at the Beltway cocktail parties right now.

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The Latin phrase quid pro quo simply means "something for something." That's a literal translation, and the concept is much older than even the Roman Empire: I have something you value, you have something I value, so let's exchange the two. Whether it be a chicken, a bolt of cloth, a ferry ride across a river, some gold, or whatever else, the quid pro quo concept goes back even before money existed. You give me something, and I'll give you something, and we'll both walk away satisfied with the deal. It's really not hard to understand at all, because this basic system of bartering is the bedrock of all commerce today.

President Donald Trump, however, seems to have a rather thin grasp on the concept. In his mind, as long as nobody actually says the phrase, then no quid pro quo can ever have happened. This, of course, is not true in the real world. In the real world, deals get made all the time without anyone uttering any Latin. If I go down to the coffee shop and get a donut and a cup of Joe and exchange some legal tender for these things, the only Latin that will be involved is the Annuit Coeptis, the Novus Ordo Seclorum, and the good old E Pluribus Unum engraved on the dollar bills. But a quid pro quo will have taken place nonetheless. Even if I state loudly while passing the money over: "This is not a quid pro quo," it doesn't change the fact that it is indeed a quid pro quo.

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I read today an excellent article in Salon which took on the utter shallowness of the current frenzy of making Elizabeth Warren admit she's going to have to raise taxes to pay for Medicare For All. This article impressively paints the bigger picture and offers up several soundbites that I wish we had heard from both Warren and Bernie Sanders in last week's debate. Warren and Sanders are the ones defending Medicare For All, but so far they have struggled to do so in a way which directly answers some of the inane criticism not only from the pundits but also from several centrist Democratic presidential candidates as well.

But while the article does a great job addressing the tax issue, there were two other attacks on Medicare For All which were made last week (notably by Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar) which really demand a much stronger response than either Warren or Sanders gave. The first is the charge that Medicare For All would "kick 160 million Americans off their health insurance," and the second is that "people love the health insurance they have now." Both need knocking down, and while Warren and Sanders have attempted to do so in the first four debates (all of which have spent a large amount of time on the healthcare reform issue), they still need to drive the point home in a way they so far have failed to do.

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We've reached the stage where Donald Trump and his henchmen are no longer even pretending to care about their lawlessness -- they're just doing it right out in the open for everyone to see, daring their fellow travellers in the Republican Senate to care. Right after Trump's White House chief of staff admitted that there was indeed a quid pro quo in Trump's call to the Ukraine, the White House announced that the upcoming G-7 summit would take place at Trump's own Florida resort. Both are, quite obviously, impeachable offenses. Right out there in the open, for all to see.

Add in to this Trump's pusillanimous behavior towards the strongman who runs Turkey, and his shameful betrayal of our Kurdish allies in Syria, and it's been quite a week all around. The House voted to condemn Trump's Kurdish betrayal by a whopping (and veto-proof) 354-60 majority, which included 129 Republican votes. The measure is being blocked in the Senate, for now, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just wrote a scathing article for the Washington Post titled: "Withdrawing From Syria Is A Grave Mistake," so perhaps the measure won't be blocked for much longer. Trump has already lost his own party on this massive blunder, which is easily the biggest foreign policy screwup to date, on his watch. He sent Mike Pence over to attempt some damage control, which resulted in Trump giving the Turks pretty much everything they wanted and asked of them absolutely nothing other than they stop slaughtering the Kurds for five days. This ceasefire has already been breached, less than 24 hours after the shameful deal was struck. Turkey is pushing the United States around, Trump is showing his true weakness, and the rest of the world is watching.

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As I read the breaking news that Turkey has now agreed to a five-day ceasefire of its invasion into Syria, I couldn't help but think that this is yet another example of what might be called the Trump Doctrine. Unlike other presidential doctrines, however, this one works just as easily on domestic affairs as it does on foreign affairs. It's really nothing short of Trump's modus operandi, writ large.

Here is the Trump Doctrine, in a nutshell:

(1) Unilaterally create a crisis. This can be done through action, through inaction, through a random tweet, through executive orders, through a phone call or letter to a foreign leader, or through any other way, really. Take a stable situation and interject some chaos by: pulling out of an international deal with no alternative deal in place, ordering a sweeping change in U.S. governmental policy with no regard for the consequences, kowtowing to a foreign leader in some way or another, or just being as offensive as possible on Twitter.

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I have a proposal for a new rule for the Democratic presidential debate moderators, going forward: no repeat questions should be allowed. It's a pretty simple idea, really. The moderators would be barred from asking the candidates questions that have already been asked in previous debates. After all, there are plenty of other subjects that have yet to be talked about, so why should voters be subjected to these re-run debate segments, over and over again?

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As usual, what follows are my snap reactions to the fourth Democratic presidential debate, held earlier on CNN. But this time I'm opting for a somewhat simpler format. I'm only giving personal reactions to five of the 12 candidates (which does include the three frontrunners). Then I'm going to give some reactions grouped loosely together, under categories such as "good argument / good delivery" or "amusing moments." We'll have to see whether this is a time-saver or not, in the end.

As always, the quotes below were hastily-jotted down and may not be word-for-word accurate, but I think I've accurately captured what was intended. And also as always, I'm writing this before I watch or read anyone else's reactions to tonight's debate. That's enough of a technical intro, so let's just get on with it, shall we?

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Tomorrow night the top Democratic candidates will debate each other, for the fourth time in the 2020 primary race. The number of candidates on the stage has grown from the third debate (up from 10 last time around to tomorrow night's even dozen) as a result of the Democratic National Committee laying down exactly the same entry criteria for both events. Since there was more time to qualify, more people managed to make it onto the stage for the fourth debate than the third. From this point on, though, the D.N.C. seems likely to reset the criteria individually for each debate, so this is probably the last time the field will expand rather than shrink. Also, the decision was made to put all 12 on stage together tomorrow night rather than breaking them up into two debates of six candidates each, held on two successive nights. What this means is that each candidate will not have very much time to speak tomorrow night.

This is also the last time we'll likely see a number of these candidates in a debate, as the entry criteria continues to tighten. What this means is that there will be a number of very desperate candidates who know full well that this may be their last chance at making their mark and breaking through the crowded field. The full list of candidates who will appear tomorrow night is: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Julián Castro, and Tulsi Gabbard. Steyer and Gabbard are the two who didn't appear in the third debate, but eventually squeaked out high enough polling numbers to qualify for tomorrow night.

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The amusing thing about a circus clown car is, of course, that just when you think that itty-bitty car couldn't possibly vomit forth any more clowns... a few more climb out. That's what this week's news of the arrest of two "clients" of Rudy Giuliani (Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman) as they were attempting to flee the country certainly felt like.

As for the label "clowns," it is not actually one we can claim original credit for. Now, we know it's way too soon for our annual awards, but if we had a "Best Prediction Of 2019" award to hand out, we'd have to give it to Ukrainian business tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, described as "a figure close to [Ukrainian] President Volodymyr Zelensky." Back in May, Kolomoisky was interviewed on Ukrainian television, where he talked about the two clients of Rudy Giuliani who just got arrested fleeing the country. And he absolutely nailed it:

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The biggest question Nancy Pelosi will face next week, when the House of Representatives gets back from yet another multiweek vacation, will be whether or not to hold a full floor vote to authorize the impeachment inquiry that has already begun in various House committees. There are arguments to be made both pro and con on the issue, and so far Pelosi has been resisting the pressure to hold such a vote. President Donald Trump upped the stakes on this decision by claiming in a White House letter that he's not going to comply with any subpoena or request for interviews or documents until the House holds such a vote. But it's still an open question whether he would do so even with a floor vote for the impeachment inquiry, because if he stays true to form then he'll just manufacture another specious argument for why he is continuing to stonewall Congress.

Pelosi, up until now, has declared that an impeachment inquiry is already underway and that the Constitution has no requirement for a floor vote, therefore one is simply not necessary. She's right about the Constitution, which leaves the entire process an open question. Here are the relevant passages. The first is from Article II, Section 4 (Article II deals with the powers and duties of the president):

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