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Normally, I don’t consider Politico a good source of information. They are rabidly pro status-quo and were never nice, or even fair, to Bernie Sanders. Also, they say “according to multiple Democratic sources,” which is somewhat less than giving an actual name and far, far less than ‘we’ve got it on tape.’ But, they have actually quoted somebody who, as far as I know, hasn’t denied it, and it totally fits in with what I suspect a congressman to say, so I’m believing this one until convinced otherwise. Here it is.

And, in fact, the Democrats did not call any witnesses, they proceeded to the vote, knowing they would lose. They did not force Republican Senators to listen to witnesses like the policeman who was beaten by the mob, who were screaming kill him!, kill him!, or the one who had his eye gouged out, or the widows of those who committed suicide, those in the mob who received Trump’s tweets and acted on them, or those congress people who were trapped in their offices.
They did not force Republicans to sit through the drip, drip, drip of steadily accumulating evidence and the steady erosion of public support that accompanied the Watergate investigation, for months.
Instead, they proceeded to a vote, knowing they would lose. That’s because they were never really trying to win. It’s all a big show. They are on the same side.

Mitch McConnell’s speech after Trump was acquitted was one of the most glaring examples of hypocrisy ever, but we should not be surprised. Hypocrisy is no longer enough to lose an election. It doesn’t matter any more.
Part of that is that the charge gets leveled at everybody, and for almost everybody in congress (Bernie Sanders and maybe 4 or 5 other people are exceptions) it’s true. So, when we point out that McConnell is a hypocrite for voting to acquit someone who, in his own words, is completely guilty of cheering on the riot in which 5 people died, of attempting to murder Mike Pence, of creating an atmosphere of violence, of attempting to interfere with democracy, it doesn’t really hurt McConnell with the voters he needs to win. No more than it hurts him that he hilariously mispronounced hyperbole as hyberpole.
I doubt 50% of them could define it coherently, and probably fewer than 1 in 4 could spell it. And, because both sides accuse the other of it (and both sides are right) they just sort of figure it means ‘bad’ and therefore they’re going to shout it at the other team.
It’s not entirely a new thing. There have been hypocrites in congress since 1775, and hypocrites in the halls of power as long as there have been halls of power. The ability to get a lot of people to follow you has always depended, to some extent, on your ability to lie, and some people can do it more convincingly than others.
The amazing thing is that now we have the internet, and both audio and visual recording techniques, we have clear proof of hypocrisy, on many politicians, at many points throughout their careers. The blame for the fact that this does not disqualify them for office falls squarely on the voters.

I saw a meme yesterday that I thought was sort of brilliant. Not because of the meme itself, which was one the the standard ones, the pensive dinosaur, but because of the actual text, which said “Why do we keep forcing our politicians to take oaths, instead of signing binding contracts.” I read that and thought by golly, that is a crackerjack idea.
Then I thought about it a little more and realized that it probably wouldn’t make any difference, unless it was a really well written contract, and there was a will on the part of somebody within the government to enforce those contracts, which there is not. Then, of course, there is the ‘discouraging people from taking the job’ factor, because if you realize that going to jail might be a consequence of taking a bribe, a lot fewer people are going to want to run for congress, because outside of the money, and the fame (an ex-congressman can usually walk right into a TV job, where they can be a paid spouter of nonsense for life, or make money on a book, or by giving speeches), and the perks, hoo-boy, such a lot of perks. But, that would probably be a good thing.
On balance, I’d be for it.
What I think is even more important is that government be made completely transparent. All of these fucker’s offices should be wired, and their finances audited like crazy, in an ongoing fashion, and they should be followed around by drone paparazzi wherever they go. “State security” is a bullshit excuse. The secrecy is just so they can continue to steal money.
Forget about Hollywood. If an actor or actress I like has some sleazy side habits, I don’t really feel the need to know about it. Who’s sleeping with who is none of my business. Transfer some of that attention to Washington.

Well, the trial isn’t going well for Donald Trump. The prosecution opened strong, with a powerful video of the break-in at the Capitol (break-in is bit of a mild term, but it associates it with the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, in which precisely zero people were killed but, nonetheless, Richard Nixon was forced to resign over it), and phone records that showed by time stamp, which have been convicting people for the last two decades of detective thrillers regular as clockwork, that his infamous ‘Get Pence!’ tweet came after he knew the protesters were inside the capitol building, thus actually making it an attempted murder case.
And the defense, well, if the defense was his defensive line and Trump the quarterback, he just got sacked. His lawyer’s opening statement was the most cringeworthy piece of oratory I’ve heard since that time Joe Biden talked about how much the little black kids at the pool liked to play with his hairy, blond leghairs. And, of course, there’s himself refusing to put in an appearance and testify. That’s probably the best strategy for him, no matter how bad it looks.
Anyway, it may be bad enough that enough Republicans desert him (remember, it was the Republicans turning on Nixon that forced him out), but I expect it to go more like the Kavanaugh hearings. Lindsey Graham will make a long and hysterical speech and everybody else will just forget about it and call it a day. Because that’s the way it goes.

O.K., I finished watching the John Adams miniseries today, and my overall review is perhaps a bit more generous than the one I wrote yesterday. The final episode was excruciating, just watching everybody get old and die and, seeing as this was the early 19th century, some of them didn’t even get old first. But, even the last two or three were a bit grim. I guess it was historically accurate, so that’s a good thing, but he got very bitter in his old age, and jealous that Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington were all more popular and famous than he was, and he felt that his presidency would be regarded by history as insignificant, in which he was not entirely wrong.
Still, he was alive and involved at a key point in history, so it was interesting. Which got me thinking…when are we going to see a miniseries about the life of Millard Fillmore, or Grover Cleveland? They, too, were at the center of things and saw a lot of historical changes, and no doubt had families and relationships and things going on in their lives that movies could be made about.
Of course, most of these biopics try to paint the historical personage in a favorable light, and a lot of presidents and other world leaders have been downright scum, but that can be interesting, too.
I suppose it helps if somebody has written a book about their life to start with, but probably most world leaders have had that and, even if not, there’s probably enough news coverage that the essentials can be pieced together.
I suppose, from a commercial point of view, filmmakers might worry about making films about the lives of less significant, less famous people, and wonder who would watch them. Well, I would, for sure. And who knows – some of them might see a resurgence of interest, even popularity.