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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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is sure getting a lot of advice from the punditocracy right now. Mostly, over the last few days, this has focused on the question of whether she should or should not hold an impeachment inquiry vote on the House floor. I'm going to ignore that issue today (perhaps to be revisited in a later column) because I feel there are other strategy ideas worth exploring, as the Democrats chart their course through the choppy waters of impeachment.

The first bit of advice I'd give to both her and all other Democrats being interviewed on television is to push back -- with scornful laughter, for full effect -- on all of Trump's current bugaboos. Here's how I would go about doing so:

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Warning!

It isn't entirely clear at this point, but this site may go down later today. Pacific Gas & Electric may be shutting off the power grid right where my ISP lives. Again, I'm not positive this is going to happen, but there is a chance it will. If power goes down and the site goes cold, we have been informed it may take 3 to 5 days (!) before it is restored again.

Thankfully, I don't think the power at my own house will be cut, but I just wanted to warn everyone in advance that the site may indeed be affected. They've said the cut will likely happen around 5:00 P.M. Pacific Time, so if it does happen that's when things will go dark.

My apologies, in advance, if there is an interruption in service.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

I don't think I've ever used this column to comment on the world of basketball, but there's always a first time for everything. The National Basketball Association is currently struggling with a conflict between free speech and making piles of money in China. It is a struggle that many American corporations have faced before, and it boils down to one basic fact: if you want China's money, then you have to play by their rules, period. Chairman Xi is paying the piper, so he gets to call the tune. The concept is clear, and nobody's forcing any company to do business with China, but if any American company does want to tap into their billion-person market, then they've got to follow the Chinese rules for doing business there. And most of those rules are antithetical to democratic norms, which makes perfect sense because China is an authoritarian state.

What set all of this off was a tweet from the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey. The image read: "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong." That's really not all that bad, at least to American sensibilities. To the Chinese, however, it was completely unacceptable, as spelled out in a message from the state television company, Chinese Central Television (CCTV), which read, in part: "We're strongly dissatisfied and oppose Adam Silver's claim to support Morey's right to freedom of expression. We believe that any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech." Got that? Free speech is fine and good as long as the Chinese government approves of what you are saying. If it doesn't agree with what you are saying, then it is nothing short of a "challenge to sovereignty and social stability." This, it shouldn't even need pointing out, is the exact opposite of freedom of speech.

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