Impeached

   For just the third time in history, a president of the United States of America has been impeached. And within minutes of the vote by the House of Representatives, emails flew across the internet launched by conservative supporters of Donald Trump decrying the vote and seeking funds to help fight the upcoming trial in the Senate.
   Meanwhile, even as the House was voting, the president was speaking to thousands of supporters at a campaign rally in Michigan, but said nothing about the voting, either while it was happening or after it was completed and his name was added to the list of impeached presidents. The other two were Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Neither was convicted after a Senate trial, and the odds are that Trump will also survive the ordeal.
   That conclusion is supported by statements from Republican leaders in the Senate that they have already decided on their positions, even before the formal impeachment vote was taken.
   A more subtle possibility is this: Republicans in the Senate want to continue their strategy of confirming only conservative Republicans as judges in the federal judiciary. This goes back to the years when Democrat Barack Obama was president, and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell refused to move judicial nominees -- including one to the Supreme Court -- to the full Senate, which has the constitutional responsibility and authority to confirm such appointments.
   Now they have the opportunity to reject impeachment and removal of the president from office, and in return continue their plan to add more conservative Republican magistrates to federal courts around the country.
   That, of course, assumes they will retain control of the Senate in the nationwide election a year from now, and that Trump will be re-elected. Meanwhile, the GOP still dominates Senate voting, and refusing to convict Trump would mean more opportunities to confirm judges of their preference.
 And because America is currently widely divided between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, that may be a valid assumption. Unless voter opinions change.