Trump has made a hallmark of his presidency bombastic bloviating and boasting that he’s accomplished what no other president has ever accomplished.  Well, he’s finally right.  By inciting insurrection where the Capitol was attack and sacked, a Capitol Hill police officer was beaten to death, 4 other people died and hundreds of members of Congress and their staff were terrorized, Trump has most certainly accomplished what no other president has done – getting impeached.  TWICE.  In a bipartisan vote where 10 Republicans joined the Democrats, Nancy Pelosi led the race to remove him before he does more damage or gets more people killed.  The Senate, of course, is foot dragging, but with Repubs joining the Dems, the pressure is on for McConnell to do something.  Ball’s in your court again, Mitch.

This afternoon, in the style of a banana republic, Republicans in the Senate, aided and abetted by Chief Justice John Roberts, voted to support Trump’s lawbreaking and stonewalling by acquitting him of both articles of impeachment, after not hearing one witness.  Lamar Alexander was the nail in the coffin of the impeachment attempt, siding with corruption rather than The People.  Murkowski caving on witnesses was the crowning blow. Romney was the only Republican to stand on his hind legs and vote to convict the SOB on Article 1, he voted to acquit on Article 2.  Of course, the two Shitheads from Texas sided with the criminal.  What an embarrassment.  With this acquittal, the Senate has communicated to Trump that illegally using US taxpayer money to extort a foreign government for his own personal gain is fine.  Foreign interference in US elections is welcome. Lying to and stonewalling Congress is Okey Dokey.  Smearing good public servants for personal gain is appropriate, and using private individuals to form US policy is sweet.

The outcome was really never in doubt.  Corrupt Republicans, led by henchman Mitch McConnell, resisted seeing any evidence, hearing any witnesses, or honoring their oaths to be impartial.  Despite a large number of Americans wanting a fair trial, the Senate once again followed the orders of their masters who were at once stuffing their pockets full of money and threatening to put their “heads on a pike” should they dare oppose the president of the United States King Donald I Il Douche who is beholding only to Vladimir Putin, Erdogan, and Saudi princes.

If you think Trump acted badly after Barr successfully buried the Mueller report, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  On his way to prison, Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, predicted that he wouldn’t leave office quietly.  The Senate has now guaranteed that prediction.  Without guardrails, Trump will unleash a massive effort to tilt the election toward himself, threatening opponents, and welcoming the Russians or any other foreign power who ally themselves with him.  And, if by some remote chance this massive corruption results in an electoral loss, he will declare the election invalid and declare martial law.  What comes next we’ve seen before in Germany, Italy, multiple Central American states, and Cambodia.  And none of that was pretty.

I’m sad to say that the end of the great American experiment has come.  After decades of lies and propaganda pumped out by Fox Noise, Rush Limbaugh, and other talking heads, aided by Russian intelligence, the US government, led by abjectly corrupt Republicans, has weakened our country to the point that truth is unfindable; under McConnell, the US Senate is a wasteland of weirdos, liars, morons, and the cynically corrupt.  Much of the House is the same.  Trump played millions of Americans for chumps, and after years of stupidifying, they fell for it, suspending disbelief and accepting massive gaslighting as truth.  Corruption and criminality are now the norm. The vision of the Founders is dead, led to the grave by Trump, Mitch McConnell, his corrupt Republican Party, and enabled by the corrupt majority on the Supreme Court.

Everyone, even if they deny it, knows this was not a trial in any sense of the word.  It was a sham from the moment it passed from Nancy Pelosi’s hands into McConnell’s.  But we also something else – history will not be kind to those who did this.  Generations behind us will look at this time in our history and will pinpoint the precise time of death of the most remarkable experiment in self government in world history.

John Bolton’s tell-all book was leaked yesterday (at least the part about Trump’s extortion of Ukraine) by someone, likely WH staff, and it says exactly what you think it does.  How did the WH get a copy? A transcript of the book had been provided to the WH on December 30, to review for classified information.  According to the NY Times, Bolton confirms that Trump told him personally that he was going to withhold military aid to Ukraine until Zelensky announced investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter.   The account apparently runs dozens of pages, describing not only Trump’s role, but also Giuliani, Mulvaney, Pompeo, and others describes events around Trump’s extortion plan from the Spring of 2019 up until his departure in September.  Of course, Trump lied via Twitter last night that he didn’t discuss Ukraine with Bolton.  Right. Trump NEVER talked about his Ukraine plan with his national security advisor.  That’s believable.

This should ratchet up pressure to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial, but it won’t and you can bet that Cornyn and Cruz will lead the way off the cliff.

The impeachment trial has adjourned for the weekend after only two hours.  Impossible to listen to for more than 2 or 3 minutes at a time, Trump’s lawyers alternated between yelling “Nuh Uh!” and lying.  In the face of a mountain of evidence, they kept repeating that Trump did nothing wrong without actually refuting any of the charges or said evidence.  It’s going to be a long 22 hours left.  The lies will be neck-deep by then.

Very early this morning, Mitch McConnell rammed through his rules avoiding a vote on witnesses and documents until AFTER the House and Trump’s goons present their cases.  The only small victory for the House was him caving to “moderate” Senators who forced him to extend the time for case presentations and allowing evidence already presented.  This vote tactic has become a standard fare for McConnell, dragging proceedings out into the wee hours of the morning and holding votes when most Americans are in bed.  Remember he did the same thing when he tried to kill the ACA; McCain’s midnight thumbs down was the only thing that stopped him.

Yesterday was a circus.  Schiff and his team presented clear, detailed evidence of Trump’s criminal activity, alternating with Trump’s lawyers acting like chimpanzees hurling their own feces at zoo visitors.  Their behavior was shocking to the senses with the WH counsel and Jay Sekulow actually shouting at the senators; their case strategy is primarily yelling “Nuh Uh!” to every bit of evidence presented by the House team.  Knowing that the fix is in, they’re not even trying to present a defense, preferring to play full time to their audience of one.

This is a very high risk strategy for McConnell and the Republicans, including Susan Lucy Collins, who is voting in lockstep with her party.  As Schiff said in his arguments, the truth WILL come out.  The suppressed evidence will become public, and every single witness will eventually tell the truth, either in books or television interviews.  The tragedy will be that it will then be too late to remove Trump by impeachment.  If (when) he’s voted out of office, he won’t go quietly, and it’s a virtual guarantee that he won’t go quietly knowing that he’ll then be facing a lifetime of trying to stay out of, or get out of jail.

This is now all on McConnell and the rest of the Republicans enabling this lunatic.  Hopefully millions of Americans who are glued to Dancing with the Stars and America’s Got Talent, will be able to pry themselves away from their television pablum long enough to go vote.  I’m not hopeful.

Here’s a graphic illustration of Susan Collins doing her thing with the Dems in the Senate impeachment trial.  I’ll leave the comments to our readers.