I’m fighting off a case of caught-on-an-airliner-wintertime-creeping-crud, so spent most of the day consuming bourbon and lemon and watching the impeachment hearing.  I’m actually glad I did.  Some takeaways:

1. My faith in loyal, non-partisan, professional career public servants was restored.  Ambassador Taylor and Secretary Kent were pitch perfect.  They showed deep knowledge and experience, took no sides, resisted efforts by both sides to do that, and simply stated cold hard facts.  With impeccable credentials and reputations, their testimony was powerful and, pardon the pun, unimpeachable.  It was refreshing to witness that.
2. Ambassador Taylor dropped a bombshell of new evidence testifying that since his testimony, it has been reported to him that one of his staff overhear a cell phone conversation between Sondland and Trump (in a Kiev restaurant, no less) where Sondland told Trump that Zelensky was going to play ball.
3. Schiff did a reasonably good job laying out the case.  He has said that his goal is to get all the major news in during the first hour, and he did that, taking into account frivolous interruptions from the other side.
4. The Republicans have nothing.  NOTHING; zip, nada, zilch, zero.  Nunes and Jordan, the Trump’s chief ass lickers, only repeated the same threadbare tropes, and it seemed their ONLY strategy was to confuse.  It was pitiful, and he even floated one those ridiculous conspiracy theories that the Ukrainians were “out to get Trump”.
5. The Republicans demanded their be a vote on subpoenaing the Whistleblower, even though that’s against Federal law.  They also wailed about how the Whistleblower “started all this” and should be forced to appear.
6. We know how this is going to go…Schiff could show  body cam footage of Trump clubbing a person to death on fifth avenue and Nunedan would say “What? That happens every day.”  The only thing that will swing this is getting a secret ballot in the Senate when it comes to the vote so Republican senators would do their goddam jobs without paying a price.

Oh, and one last detail. One of the best moments of the day was after one of Jordan’s diatribe’s about “the most important witness” not being produced, Peter Welch, Dem from Vermont retorted, “I’d be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify. President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there.”  Have a look:

I’ll be following along again tomorrow.  Should be interesting.  It’s certainly historic.

Impeachment hearings start in a few minutes.  It *almost* froze here last night, meaning it’s colder than a witches’s teat in a brass bra to native south Texans who live here because snow is pretty for only one day but after that it’s frozen mud. It snows here once every 10 years or so and it’s gone after one day, which is perfect.

Today will be spent in my jammies and favorite housecoat watching the teevee.  I’ll be here if something big breaks but feel free to comment on anything you hear.

If Devin Nunes says “nude Donald Trump” one more time, angels will descend from heaven and sing the Hallelujah Chorus over California’s 22nd Congressional District.

AFTERNOON UPDATE:  Okay, here’s my question.  The reason that Bill Taylor and George Kent are hearsay witnesses is because the primary witnesses are refusing to testify.  If Pompeo ever gets the cajones that Hillary Clinton has, he can march his sweet patootie to the hearing room, get sworn in, and answer questions for 11 hours. Republicans can’t have it both ways.

They also can’t whine about not getting to question the whistleblower when we don’t get to question Rudy Giuliani. Besides, everything the whistleblower said was admitted to by Donald Trump.

Jim Jordan is what Republicans think a smart person sounds like.  First off, smart people rarely screech. They also rarely laugh out loud when they lose an argument, thinking smugly that they won.

Hillary’s now saying she hasn’t ruled out running in 2020.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.  That’s ALL we need.

A disgruntled former Breitbart employee came to her senses and leaked hundreds of Stephen Miller’s emails.  You won’t be surprised to learn that he’s a racist pig privately just as much as he is publicly.

Trump says dreamers are “hardened criminals” as SCOTUS hearing begins.

Rick Gates testified today that Trump lied to Mueller about him “not recalling” talking to Stone about WikiLeaks when he in fact did multiple times.

Trump ordered to pay $290,000 in legal expenses to the Scottish Government after losing battle to stop a wind farm.

Trump claims that Ivanka created 14 million US jobs by herself.

There are too many lies to even keep up.

The Supremes denied hearing a case brought by the Sandy Hook families against Remington Arms.

The Court decided not to take up an appeal by Remington. That marks a blow to the gun industry: Depending on the outcome of the case, it could open the door to gun violence victims’ families suing gun manufacturers for damages.

And, no, Little Bubba does not have anything to do with this case except for standing and applauding like all the rest of us.

One other thing while I’m at it. In Texas, I am required by law to carry liability insurance on my car. I think the same should be required of anyone owning rapid fire guns.

Republicans are trying to confuse the issue by demanding that Hunter Biden testify at the impeachment hearing.

Here’s my offer:  I’ll be all for Hunter Biden testifying if Ivanka Trump also testifies under oath. Or Jared.  Either one. Doesn’t matter to me.

Hey, if we’re going on a fishing expedition, let’s at least catch the piranha.