(Illustration: Pro-Trump supporters storm the US Capitol, found at CNN).
Clambering across the news cycle today has been copious reports on the opening day of T-Rump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, with the Democrats releasing an emotional, pitch-perfect video of what it’s like to witness an insurrection/riot, coup-like event encouraged-propeled by spoken words — a flashback scene from many historical points of history, though, in other places on earth, not America.
Even if the Senate does as likely and acquits the T-Rump, America will get a first-hand look this week at how shitty the Republican brand is as far as doing the right thing. Factual evidence is obvious — T-Rump incited an insurrectional episode.
I don’t watch much TV, get most — if not all — my news via the Interwebs, view clips of shit and read what other people think of stuff and their reactions to this crazy era. Despite not much MSNBC/CNN, whatnot, I can make a fairly-good judgment on what’s happening, especially with the T-Rump. Conspicuous bad is clear-cut not good.
Two big impressions today — a video presented by House impeachment prosecutors which showed in stark frames of how fucked the Jan. 6 insurrection/riot, and also how livid-loony are T-Rump’s legal defense.
The video I posted this morning, and Bruce Castor’s an idiot.
Even too-idiotic for the T-Rump and he snapped — via the Guardian‘s live blog:
Donald Trump is reportedly unhappy with his lawyers’ performance today…
Per @MajorCBS, "Two sources familiar with the former president's reaction to today's Senate proceedings described Trump as angry about his lawyers' lackluster performances. One source said the President "didn't sound pleased" on phone calls with close associates.
— Doug Sovern (@SovernNation) February 9, 2021
And as in before, T-Rump’s camp still leaks shit like a shiv”
Per @MajorCBS, "Two sources familiar with the former president's reaction to today's Senate proceedings described Trump as angry about his lawyers' lackluster performances. One source said the President "didn't sound pleased" on phone calls with close associates.
— Doug Sovern (@SovernNation) February 9, 2021
A Trump advisor told the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman that Trump attorney Bruce Castor’s confusing, meandering performance was a “deliberative strategy.” designed to lower the emotion in the room, though, I’d counter, a master strategist wouldn’t need to put out a background statement explaining their strategy.
Addendum on nasty-pissed-off the T-Rump — per CNN:
Castor, who is representing Trump alongside attorney David Schoen, delivered a meandering argument during the first day of the Senate impeachment trial, including praise for the House impeachment managers for a presentation that he said was “well done.”
Trump was almost screaming as Castor struggled to get at the heart of his defense team’s argument, which is supposed to be over the constitutionality of holding a trial for a president no longer in office. Given that the legal team was assembled a little over a week ago, it went as expected, one of the sources told CNN.
Still, Trump’s allies were flabbergasted when the attorneys switched speaking slots at the last minute.
…
An adviser to Trump’s team offered a candid assessment of the messy opening day, asking pointedly, “What the hell is going on?”
The adviser said the former President could be in serious jeopardy if he finds himself charged in criminal court, given his inability to attract a high-powered legal team for the impeachment trial.
“Trump is f–ked if anyone ever charges him. No one wants to work with him,” the adviser said.
However, apparently shitty legal work combined with Democrats’presentation was enough for Senators to squash Rand Paul’s nit-twit claim T-Rump’s impeachment trial is unconstitutional — 56 voted against it, including six Republicans.
One of those Republicans was Bill Cassidy, who immediately got on his high horse for a minute, called the performance of T-Rump’s lawyers “…disorganized, random, had nothing..,” but then cowered (Mediaite): ‘Cassidy also put out an official statement on his vote switch, in which he reiterated his judgment that the House Democrats made a much stronger case for their side. But he added a caveat that this procedural vote should not be read as a harbinger of his position on Trump’s ultimate guilt: “This vote is not a prejudgment on the final vote to convict.”‘
Still without a fully-developed spine, near-about pulling a Susan Collins. How could one not grasp T-Rump wired his people up, did it for months, got more hardcore Jan. 6, and when they stormed the Capitol building he was happy about it — the video is the emotional kicker.
And of the kicker kicking it — The Washington Post dropped a detailed piece this afternoon on how the T-Rump is living nowadays, beyond yelling at the TV. Read the whole thing, it’s a timeine of delusional idiocy, and this the weird-ass kicker:
In self-imposed exile in South Florida since leaving office on Jan. 20, Trump has created a gilded bubble around himself — a protective shield further enforced by the decision of Twitter and other social media companies to ban the former president from their platforms after the Capitol riot, which resulted in the death of a police officer and four others.
He is adrift, friends say, with no clear sense of what comes next for the first time in his political life.
They add that Trump is calmer than they expected as he faces down another historic indictment in a career littered with them. At least four former senior Trump administration officials independently described the former president as “chill” or “chilling.”
Maybe a slighty nauseous, not ‘chill‘ at fucking all. T-Rump’s a monster.
One really-good nutshell/analysis of today’s opening round came from David Smith at the Guardian, which included Jamie Raskin’s emotional closing argument infusing the death of his son by suicide late last yeae, and his daughter being at the Capitol Jan. 6:
Raskin, fighting back tears, said of his 24-year-old daughter: “I told her how sorry I was and I promised her that it would not be like this again the next time she came back to the Capitol with me. And you know what she said? She said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol.’”
At that Raskin broke down for a moment, putting fingers to his eyes before regaining his composure.
“Of all the terrible, brutal things I saw and I heard on that day and since then, that one hit me the hardest. That and watching someone use an American flag pole, the flag still on it, to spear and pummel one of our police officers – ruthlessly, mercilessly tortured by a pole with a flag on it that he was defending with his very life.”
See, obvious…
(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Agonizing Horse,’ found here),