Trump’s second impeachment is over in record time, and of course they didn’t convict him. They were never going to.
Some among you are disappointed, but what’s unsettling is that a few of you are actually surprised. You seem to have been under the misapprehension that this was a trial or something instead of the latest installment of the D.C. Bread And Circus Show (Hold The Bread).
(To be fair: I also thought it was a trial. My bad. -Editor)
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Are celebrities different from the rest of us?
Well, in some ways of course they aren’t. They’re just people, living their lives as best they can. Sports stars, actors, and those famous for being famous are as human as the rest of us; cut them and they bleed red.
In another and very real sense, they are definitely not. They are the public faces of entertainment corporations, skilled at their jobs and little more. When they adopt causes (which they so often do) it isn’t through expertise but rather exposure to charismatic activists; due to their isolated condition, those activists are usually the fashionable type sponsored by corporate investors. When they get involved in politics, it isn’t generally through their profound grasp of economic theory and social policy.
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This morning I was confronted with a Twitter poll about which date was the worst in American history. The choices were: the Kennedy assassination, September 11th 2001, Pearl Harbor, and January 6th of this year.
Now, I won’t say any of these days was a particularly good one. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were especially bad. But let’s keep some perspective here; on August 24, 1814, an invading army actually burned down both the White House and the Capitol after inflicting a pitiful defeat on American defenders at the Battle of Bladensburg — and even that, while a bad day for America, wasn’t our worst.
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On Monday, the second Trump impeachment trial in the Senate is scheduled to begin.
(I know; just when you thought he was finally gone, right? Wrong. Trump is back in the headlines for another few weeks — and it’s a good thing for everyone. But more on that later. -Editor)
In order to prepare for the upcoming outcomes of these events, there are a few aspects of the proceedings that you should be aware of going into this so you can adjust your expectations. That way, there are few surprises and there will be little room for disinformation going forward. The proper correction for fake news is, after all, a strong infusion of the truth.
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If you missed the headlines over the weekend… well, as usual, you didn’t miss much. To no-one’s real surprise, the threat of filibuster was only a threat, and Mitch and Chuck have arrived at a power-sharing agreement. Later today, the Senate will convene as a court rather than a deliberative body, and Senator Patrick Leahy — the President Pro Tem, by tradition the longest-serving member of the majority party in the Senate — is expected to preside over Donald Trump’s second impeachment.
(more…)The volume of public ignorance on this topic is deafening. With no common definitions, we end up with continual verbal skirmishing over fine yet scarcely relevant details. This usually devolves into namecalling, which inevitably stifles meaningful discourse and ends productive conversation.
So here’s a quick guide to the types of political systems presently active in the world today. Doubtless there will be disagreement over the abstract terms; hopefully, this can be resolved without namecalling. (Probably not, because people are idiots — but what the hell. -Editor)
(more…)“A lot can happen in twenty four hours,” they say. “One day is an eternity in politics.”
Well, sure; fine. A lot can change in a day’s time; that’s undeniable. Just… not this day.
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Some people among us continue to insist that the election was stolen, that votes were manipulated and voices silenced — or invented, that tens of thousands of elderly folks in nursing homes (largely senile) had their ballots farmed at the behest of local organizers who wished to win more than they wanted to safeguard the election process.
Much of this is plausible. Certainly, the results of the election are not what they would have been had earlier laws remained in effect, and (in Pennsylvania’s case) had the governor strictly followed the legislature’s lead. Then too, given the truly vast number of election volunteers, surely some few must have violated the law here and there; in the present COVID age, identification validation went unverified in places it would not have. A neutral party could readily grant so much.
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One of the things that very much doesn’t matter, and I can’t stress this enough, is Donald Trump’s opinion on anything.
After five years of being a windbag who dominated the press, he has been silenced. His last messages were “Go down to Congress and tell them…” followed by “We love you; you’re special; go home.” He is now off Twitter, off Facebook, and if Parler were still functioning— but of course it’s not.
(more…) Well, all right; last time it was personal too — and political. It’s a pop culture reference, not an epitaph; it’s not graven in stone.
So — yes, Trump is getting impeached — again. And, even though the Senate won’t reconvene until the Inauguration is over, it’s actually meaningful. We all know that the first penalty that can be assessed is removal from office, but they could well pursue the second penalty, which would forbid him from ever again holding any office of trust. This process is thus unlikely to get dismissed as moot.
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