WASHINGTON DC -- Moments ago, Reuters reported that in a phone call between Russian and U.S. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, Trump rejected the possibility of extending the New START Treaty and derided the nuclear arms control agreement as favoring Russia.

The New START Treaty requires that both the United States and Russia reduce their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550 accountable offensively deployed weapons by 2018, the lowest level since the 1950s. It also caps the number deployed land- and submarine-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers. It does all this under rigorous on-the-ground inspections by both countries. 

In reaction to the press report, Bruce Blair, co-founder of Global Zero, the international movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons, issued the following statement:

A few blocks north of Old Worthington’s quaint downtown area, Executive Center, an unobtrusive brick office complex, is nestled between a bank and another office building, and surrounded by a generous parking lot. On most days passersby are unlikely to notice the building managed by international real estate giant CBRE, but on January 14th a group of protesters lining North High Street in front of Executive Center with signs bearing anti-racist slogans directed at Greg Anglin, one of its tenants, were hard to miss.

The “Demonstration Against Hate From Worthington To Whitefish,” was organized by Columbus’ chapter of Anti-Racist Action (ARA), to raise awareness about Morningstar Ministries’ ties to Daily Stormer, a neo-nazi news site popular with Alt Right millennials, run by Greg Anglin’s globe-trotting son, Andrew, who grew up in Worthington. On the site’s donation page Andrew Anglin listed his father’s Christian counseling office’s address in Worthington for cash donations, explaining that he and his site have been banned from Paypal and other electronic payment services.

“Lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. Boy, you think our country’s so innocent? You think our country’s so innocent?”

We have carnage and we have irony.

The speaker is the president, of course. It’s Super Bowl Sunday and here he is, generating another eyeball-popping headline as he dares to compare American collateral damage over the years with (as a chorus of shocked critics exclaimed) Vladimir Putin’s remorseless homicides. This happened during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Bill O’Reilly last Sunday, after O’Reilly had challenged Trump’s coziness with Russia and called Putin a killer.

The last time Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the proverbial table was 10 years ago. At that time, I reported on an unusual incident:

Stage set: a dining room at left, an office at right

A woman enters the office where the phone is ringing. She answers it.

NP: Hello? Why do you ask? Yes, I'm sure. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Impeachment is off the table. Now let me tell you about some new legislative proposals that I think you're really going to like. I'll give you what we're going to pass in the first hundred seconds and in the first hundred months. Which one do you want first? Let's start with…

The woman's voice lowers but continues as lights go up in the dining room, where we see a cat jump off the table and wander into the office where the woman is hanging up the phone.

NP: Where were you sweetie? Was I ignoring you? Come here kitty kitty. I didn't mean to ignore you.

The phone rings. The cat leaves.

NP: Hello? Yes, this is Nancy Pelosi. Yes, I know, but an investigation investigates. It doesn't impeach. I've said it before and I'll say it again – Will you excuse me a second?