Prime Minister Pelosi

Advising Democrats not to cheer too hard over the impeachment votes, via USA Today.

Apparently Trump held Congress and our national security hostage in the National Defense Authorization bill over his right to extort stuff from Ukraine—

Senior Trump administration officials in recent days threatened a presidential veto that could have led to a government shutdown if House Democrats refused to drop language requiring prompt release of  [a $250-million appropriation of] future military aid for Ukraine, according to five administration and congressional officials.

The language was ultimately left out of mammoth year-end spending legislation that passed the House and Senate this week ahead of a Saturday shutdown deadline.

That's just totally normal, right?

Other than that, I really think this is the week Nancy Pelosi became prime minister (as I began expecting a couple years ago), conducting an impeachment of a president, presenting him with three huge bills to sign—the $1.4 trillion appropriations bills and the revised NAFTA treaty—and commemorating the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium (the President, though he had no public events over the weekend other than the Army-Navy football game, sent Defense Secretary Mike Esper to represent him).

Cheap shot: Didn't see that coming

Who, me? Photo via Vice.

Paul Ryan setting the bar pretty low:

CNN host Manu Raju asked Ryan how he dealt with the warring factions in the House's GOP majority differently than his predecessor had. "I think I do it better," Ryan said. "Not to knock John, but, um I spend more time with all of our members on a continual basis."

Uh, Paul? That's not what I hear from David Dayen:

Speaker Squeaker

Preparation for working with Ted Yoho. From Ryan's Twitter feed via Huffington Post, July 2013.

I've been so consistently wrong in everything I've suggested about the Speakership—in spite of a remarkable, even bewildering range and variety of ideas—that I haven't even been able to catch up with it. Even as the news began to arrive that young Paul Ryan was negotiating his acceptance of a draft, and my wrong began to coalesce with everyone else's, and the word was that the Freedomists had caved to all of his most tyrannical demands ("And you all have to say I took it on so I could spend more time with my family!"), I had an analysis half written in my head explaining how the Freedomists had definitively lost their game and their only interest henceforth was to hold on to a little face.

My nomination

Now that everybody's aware that a Speaker of the House doesn't constitutionally need to be a member of the House, people are starting to make some novel endorsements, like Senator Tom Cotton's (evidently sincere) suggestion (h/t BooMan) of former House minority whip (January–March 1989) and chair of the House Republican Caucus (January 1987–January 1989) Richard Bruce Cheney, who has served with distinction or at least distinguishability in three out of the four branches of government, including one he invented himself (others may think outside the box, but he thinks outside the whole building), and can be expected to be a great disciplinarian, since he never hesitates to order torture. And unquestionably has lots of heart, thank to his foresight in getting himself a great health insurance plan.

Image via Daily Inspiration with Dick Cheney/Funny or Die.

But then at 74, Cheney's older than Sanders or Biden, and he doesn't exactly stand for fresh new approaches. And the longer he's out in public the more people will be certain he's a vampire. I think Republicans should use this opportunity for some of that rebranding, to speak to today's youth and minority voters, taking advantage of the flexibility of the speakership rules to do something truly audacious: I give you