Honestly, Former President Insurrectionist would have been better off if he had hired Cat Lawyer — or an actual cat — to represent him at his impeachment trial

by Therese Odell, posted in Uncategorized

It’s a Wednesday!

Here is the chaos that naturally unfolds when one tries to weigh a bunch of penguins:

Political Crap: Impeachment corner: Impeachment 2: the last crusade

Welcome to the second day of the second impeachment of Former President Dingaling! I probably should have opened the corner back up yesterday as it was the first day of these proceedings but 1. I had published yesterday’s post at about the same time the proceedings began because 2. I had to take a kid to an early orthodontist appointment because 3. Mom Life and 4. I was distracted by the Cat Lawyer video.

So what did we miss yesterday? LOTS, FRIENDS. Before the House Managers could get to the question at hand: did Former President Orange Julius Caesar instigate the January 6 riot and siege of the Capitol, they had to deal with a different Constitutional question: do they even have jurisdiction to try him considering he is no longer President? If you can’t remove someone from a federal office, what’s the point of even going through the motions, amirite? (Well, so they could vote to prevent him from running for office ever again, but let’s set that aside for now.)

The House Managers opened yesterday’s proceedings with a 13-minute video of the attack on the Capitol interspersed with the Former Twatter-in-Chief’s inflaming comments at the rally earlier in the day and his absolutely deplorable Twitter video telling the rioters that he loved them, and his Tweet urging them to “Remember this day forever!”

If you didn’t watch it, please carve out the time to do so. Be warned, there is NSFW language, and it unflinchingly shows the violence that took place on that day, including the shooting of one rioter Ashli Babbitt.

The House Managers then reminded the Senate that not only can they impeach and try people who are out of office, they have done so before. So, like, what’s even the argument here?

Furthermore, they argued, if we can’t try someone who commits impeachable acts in their final month or weeks in office because they were no longer in the position, it would create what Representative Jamie Raskin called, “a January exception.” Basically, the last weeks of any federal officeholder’s term would become the Purge.

“It’s an invitation to the president to take his best shot at anything he may want to do on his way out the door, including using violent means to lock that door. To hang on to the Oval Office at all costs and to block the peaceful transfer of power,” the impeachment manager added. “In other words, the January exception is an invitation to our founders’ worst nightmare.”

Also, and this is getting a little wonky, but for those dummies out there being all: “iF wE cAn iMpEaCh PrEsiDeNtS wHo ArEn’T iN oFfIcE aNyMoRe, jUsT wAiT uNtIl We iMpEaCh ObAma!” the fact of the matter is, Former President Babyhands was still in office when he was impeached by the House. Just because the Republicans in the Senate delayed this trial until after he left office changes nothing.

The Republicans have now argued that a President can’t be impeached less than a year before an election because the American voters should be allowed to make that choice but that a President can’t be impeached two weeks before he leaves office because he’ll be out of office soon enough and that he can’t be prosecuted while he’s in office, but he also can’t be prosecuted once he’s out of office. Coooooooool.

Finally, Representative Jamie Raskin gave a heart-breaking account of being in the Capitol on that day, which also happened to be the day after he buried his 25-year-old son. His children had come to the Capitol with him that day to be together as a family, and also to witness history being made as the House counted the electoral college votes and to watch their father deliver a speech on the Capitol floor, but things obviously went differently. Rep. Raskin said he promised his daughter that her next visit to the Capitol would be better, but that she said, “Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol.” It was a highly emotional, personal, powerful moment that had the entire chamber riveted.

And then Former President Doesn’t Pay His Bills’ lawyers had their turn, and … woof.

Bruce Castor Jr., a former district attorney who declined to prosecute Bill Cosby while in office, was the first to speak. To say he had no script or even a plan would be generous. He rambled about the job of being a senator, called called Nebraska a “judicial-thinking place,” must have mentioned he’s from Philadelphia about 18 times, talked about Benjamin Franklin for some reason, explained what a record player is, said this: “If we’re really going to use pre-Revolutionary history in Great Britain, then the precedent is we have a parliament and we have a king. Is that the precedent that we are headed for?” AND managed to get himself accused of being in the Deep State by his client’s base for admitting that their guy lost: “The American people just spoke and they just changed administrations. They’re smart enough to pick a new administration if they don’t like the old one and they just did.”

Senators were baffled: “The president’s lawyer just rambled on and on,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “I’ve seen a lot of lawyers and a lot of arguments, and that was not one of the finest I’ve seen.”

And Former President FlimFlam was … not happy.

Mr. Trump, who often leaves the television on in the background even when he is holding meetings, was furious, people familiar with his reaction said.

On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the angriest, Mr. Trump “was an eight,” one person familiar with his reaction said.

And though his second lawyer, David I. Schoen, followed up with a more cogent, if weirdly angry, argument, focusing on the partisanship of the proceedings (as if an impeachment isn’t going to be partisan but whatever), the damage was done, and one Republican who had originally voted to dismiss the trial in a vote last week, Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, sided with the Democrats this time. With a vote of 56-44, the Senate rejected the “YOU CAN’T IMPEACH ME BECAUSE I’M ALREADY GONE!” argument Former President Smear made, and the Senate trial is proceeding today, focusing on the Former President’s “provocations,” which led to the “predictable” and “foreseeable” violence on January 6.

And listen, the fact that 44 Republicans would still vote to dismiss this trial after everything that happened yesterday — the video, the establishment of precedent, the moving first-hand witness testimony, the clown show that was the defense — all but assures there is NO CHANCE there will be 17 Republicans who will find their ethical core, do the right thing and convict this violent, dangerous man to prevent him from running for office again. It just ain’t gonna happen because impeachments ARE partisan proceedings.

BUT! MEANWHILE! Down in Georgia, an Atlanta prosecutor is opening a criminal investigation into Former President STOP THE STEAL!’s attempts to commit election fraud. Get your popcorn:

In a letter Wednesday to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state officials, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis did not mention Trump by name but stated that her office is examining a raft of potential criminal charges related to “attempts to influence” the administration of the 2020 election in the state.

In early January, Trump pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in the state during an hour-long phone call.

Trump also called the top elections investigator on Raffensperger’s staff shortly before Christmas, asking the person to “find the fraud” and become a “national hero.”

In her letter, Willis wrote that her office will examine whether anyone illegally solicited election fraud, made false statements to state and local government officials, made threats, or participated in a criminal conspiracy. Her letter was first reported by the New York Times.

She asked officials to preserve all records related to the 2020 election. She said the matter is “of high priority” and will go before a grand jury as soon as March.

“I know we all agree that our duty demands that this matter be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted, in a manner that is free from any appearance of conflict of interest or political considerations,” Willis wrote.

And you know what’s extra-delicious? One of the reasons Former President Douchecanoe’s representation at the impeachment trial is so laughably terrible is that he brought them on at the literal last second after his initial team of lawyers quit when he “refused to sign a letter of intent guaranteeing they would be paid, according to two people familiar with the events, even through he had raised millions for a legal defense fund through his false claims of a stolen election.”

And here’s the kicker per CNN:

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.

All Other TV News

NBC is still betting that the Tokyo Olympics are going to happen this year. To be fair, exactly a year ago, they thought they would be happening that summer, too. Anyway, they’ve announced that they are not going to replay the opening ceremonies during primetime here in the States, but instead will broadcast them live the morning of July 23. They will air at 8 a.m. on the East Coast, 4 a.m. on the West. Yoikes.

If you have an older Apple TV device (if you bought it anytime before 2015), and are a CBS All Access subscriber, you’re going to want to click this clicky.

The Trebek family and Jeopardy! have donated Alex’s wardrobe from the show to The Doe Fund, “an organization that provides paid work, housing, vocational training, continuing education, and comprehensive social services to underserved Americans with histories of addiction, homelessness, and incarceration,” with the intention that men looking to reenter the workforce would have access to suits to wear on job interviews.

Pedro Pascal’s sister Lux has come out as trans, and he made a lovely Instagram post support of her. Meanwhile, his co-star continues to be an anti-trans asshole.

The WGA has officially ended its fight with the big agencies.

Going Viral

When I checked Worldometer just now, we had surpassed 480,000 American deaths. According to Johns Hopkins, we are at 468,000 deaths. In any event, some 3,200+ Americans died yesterday, so even though the numbers are going down, it’s still a catastrophe. Please continue to be careful and get the vaccine when you can — one-third of your fellow Americans are not planning to do so.

It’s time to double mask.

A 117-year-old nun who survived the Spanish Flu has survived this virus, too. I’ll have what she’s having.

MLB is requiring all of their players to wear tracking devices because that’s somehow easier and less intrusive than forcing them to get the vaccine. (Of course, there might be a bit of outcry if a bunch of overpaid, healthy athletes had access to vaccines before our more vulnerable populations).

The Equalizer had to pause production after a positive test on set.

Uh-oh: the U.K.’s Love Island might not happen this year because of the virus.

COVID, protests, wildfires, and social distancing were just a few of the obstacles Top Chef had to deal with to make this season happen in Portland.

Renewals

In Development

  • The CW is turning Powerpuff Girls into a live-action series. They are also rebooting the 4400. The CW has also ordered two pilots: Naomi, a superhero series from Ava DuVernay; and an untitled religious comedy.
  • Velma, an animated series based on the Scooby-Doo character and voiced by Mindy Kaling, is in the works at HBO Max. Additionally, the streamer is bringing Clone High back, and they have ordered Fired on Mars, a new animated series with Pete Davidson in the lead role.
  • The Best Man is being adapted into a series at Peacock. The original cast: Morris Chestnut, Melissa De Sousa, Taye Diggs, Regina Hall, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, and Harold Perrineau, are set to return.
  • National Geographic has announced four new projects from the team who made Free Solo: (working titles) Thai Cave Rescue; Tompkins; Into the Unknown; Photographer.
  • Redwall, the children’s book series, is being adapted into a series at Netflix.
  • Oona Out of Order is being adapted into a series at Amazon.
  • The Yin Yang Master has been ordered at Netflix.
  • Red Bird Lane is not going  forward at HBO Max.
  • Nicole Kassell, a director and executive producer of Watchmen, is going to direct a new film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. It’s movie news, I know, but I’m always happy to see the Watchmen crew go on to other interesting projects.

Casting News

Mark Your Calendars

  • Genius: Aretha will debut on National Geographic on March 21.
  • MTV Unplugged Presents: BTS will air on MTV on February 23.
  • Race to the Center of the Earth will debut on National Geographic on March 29.
  • Patrice O’Neal: Killing Is Easy will debut on Comedy Central on February 19.
  • National Geographic Presents: IMPACT with Gal Gadot will premiere on National Geographic on April 19.
  • Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted will debut on Disney+ on May 31.
  • Waffles + Mochi will debut on Netflix on March 16.

  • Breaking Bobby Bones premieres on National Geographic on May 31.
  • Red Summer will debut on National Geographic in June.

R.I.P.

Marty Schottenheimer, Former NFL coach for San Diego Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Browns and the Washington Football Team

Joe Allen, Owner of legendary Broadway restaurant Joe Allen’s

WATCH THIS

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel: The Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles is notorious for being the home of serial killers, the site of multiple murders and suicides, and the location of the very mysterious death of Elisa Lim. (Google her if you’re not familiar. It’s probably simply a case of mental illness taking a tragic turn, but it’s still super spooky.) Premiere. Netflix

Riverdale: And now we skip ahead seven years. They can’t be in high school forever, guys.  7 p.m., The CW

Tough as Nails: Season two premiere. 7 p.m., CBS

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Dwayne Johnson, Daniel Kaluuya, Chris Stapleton
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers: Allison Janney, Rep. Cori Bush
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Kristen Wiig, Rebecca Breeds
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: Noah Centineo, Madison Cunningham
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Mila Kunis, KJ Apa, Sam Dew
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Watch What Happens Live: Bridget Everett, Mary Cosby
  • A Little Late with Lily Singh: Priyanka Chopra Jonas

WEDS. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC The Goldbergs
(new)		 American Housewife
(new)		 The Conners
(repeat)		 Call Your Mother
(new)		 For Life
(new)
CBS Tough As Nails
(new)		 SEAL Team
(repeat)		 S.W.A.T.
(repeat)
CW Riverdale
(new)		 Nancy Drew
(new)		 Local
FOX The Masked Dancer
(new)		 Name That Tune
(new)		 News/Local
NBC Chicago Med
(new)		 Chicago Fire
(new)		 Chicago P.D.
(new)

Leave a Reply