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.

In a silent show of resistance, Nancy Pelosi stood behind Trump who was basking in the glow of corrupt Republican adoration and tore his speech to shreds.  It was brilliant.  Have a look:

Last night in Saline Michigan a meeting of parents in the local high school was held to discuss the problem of rising racism in this small town.  The town is mostly white, but also is populated by immigrants from Latin America and south Asia.  Racism against these children of immigrants including verbal and physical abuse.  During the meeting, Adrian Iraola, who immigrated to Michigan in 1980 from Mexico, was telling his experience with his son who has been verbally abused by white students.  In mid-sentence, Iraola was interrupted by a white guy sitting behind him saying, “Then why didn’t you stay in Mexico?”  The crowd in the room responded as you can imagine, but the man seemed non-plussed, and acted as if his behavior was somehow OK.

The problem we have building in America is that the current resident of the WH has made this attitude somewhat acceptable, at least in conservative circles.  This is the cancer in our society that has metastasized, threatening the entire body politic helped along by Trump.   Here’s a video of the incident.

Today, Adam Schiff had a mic drop moment when he was addressing Trump’s lawyers’ assertion that the House should have gone to court to enforce subpoenas to get Trump’s people to testify.  At the very same time they were making that argument on the floor of the Senate, Barr’s DOJ lawyers were in court arguing the House didn’t have the ability to use the courts to enforce their subpoenas.  When the judge asked the DOJ lawyers what alternative the House had, the answer was…wait for it…impeachment.  Schiff was masterful.  Watch it here:

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/senate-stunned-as-schiff-reveals-doj-just-argued-in-court-that-defying-subpoenas-is-an-impeachable-offense/

In a truly jaw dropping moment during the question period at Trump’s impeachment trial, Alan Dershowitz spewed some pretty outrageous assertions, especially when he tried to defend arguing the opposite side of what he argued for the Clinton impeachment trial in 1998.  But the breathtaking moment came when Dershowitz actually said that if the president believes his reelection is in “the public interest”,  he can do ANYTHING.  That’s right, folks, Alan Dershowitz, of OJ Simpson and Jeffery Epstein fame, has now debased himself completely by actually claiming that the president of the United States is immune from all oversight and consequences as long has he/she BELIEVES their reelection is in “the public interest”.  The “public interest”?  Dershowitz has cleared Richard Nixon of the crimes he committed because he believed his reelection was good for America.

This is the logical result from Trump’s “if I deny it, I didn’t do it defense”.  Now, denial is not even needed; if the president believes his actions are in “the public interest” he can just do it and no one can do anything about it. Trump has actually declared himself monarch, and HALF of the Senate is enabling that.  I wonder how they’ll feel about their position when he suspends the Constitution and disbands the Congress if he wins (or even loses) the election.

Admit it…you had to think about that for a second, didn’t you?