The impeachment circus has started and the trials begins today. Trump is not thrilled with his attorneys on the first day.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is screwing up the country and no one is paying attention.

I guess the NBA viewership is still too high so they make a move and, apparently, I wasn’t the only one that forgot about the Super Bowl.

 

Here We Go Again

The Video

On Tuesday, the Senate got together to debate and eventually vote on whether or not the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is Constitutional. Full disclosure: I did not watch it. I actually watched the Steven Crowder live stream. The show only shows clips of the trial and the rest is commentary and jokes. It makes the political process bearable.

The first thing the Democrats sis was play a 13 minute video of the January 6th attack with the Trump speech superimposed into it. It showed the riots, police being assaulted and berated. It shows people going through fences and entering the Capitol grounds.

It shows the Senate convening for the certification of the vote while Trump is encouraging Pence to overturn the election and, at the end of the speech, he tells them to march to the Capitol building.

It shows the Senate proceeding while the riot gets into full swing.

It shows the clearing of the Senate and House chambers because of the breach and the killing of Ashlii Babbit.

It ends with Trump making his speech about needing peace and to stop attacking the Capitol building.

It was a violent video that put Trump at the lead of the assault. It was an emotional video and looks horrible. But it also skips a lot of things. It skips that the assault started before the speech was over and that it was planned well before the speech. It also skips the words, “Now go and peacefully and patriotically protest” which Trump said and was recorded saying. So it was a cynical video edited together to promote Trump’s strongest words.

The video really did little to prove Constitutionality. It was just an emotion thing.

The Trump defense team also ran a video showing all the Democrats that have been saying they are going to impeach Trump all the way back to 2017.

The idea with this is the argument that the Democrats have been after Trump since day 1 of his Presidency. This is also an effective video for the trial but really did little to prove how this trial is not Constitutional.

Jamie Raskin Get Emotional

One thing I hate is when politicians try to pull at our heart string. It is disingenuous and usually has nothing to do with the debate at hand. That’s what lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin did:

The Vote

The Senate agreed to consider the case against Trump by a 56-44 vote following hours of arguments by the former president’s legal team and House impeachment managers.

A total of six Republicans – Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania – sided with Democrats in calling for the trial to proceed.

Cassidy voted to proceed with the trial just two weeks after he joined other Republicans in a vote to dismiss the impeachment charge on grounds that proceedings against a former president would be unconstitutional. The Louisiana senator explained his reversal shortly after the first day of arguments concluded.

Cassidy said:

“We heard arguments from both sides on the constitutionality of having a Senate trial of a president who has since left office. A sufficient amount of evidence of constitutionality exists for the Senate to proceed with the trial. This vote is not a prejudgment on the final vote to convict.

“If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House Managers and former President Trump’s lawyers. The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president’s team did not.”

Trump Is Pissed

Former President Trump was “furious” and “beyond angry” over his defense team’s showing on Day One of his second impeachment trial despite his ultimate acquittal almost certain.

The sources, who spent time with Trump, said he was particularly incensed with the effort thus far by his attorney Bruce Castor. Trump believes Castor gave a rambling opening argument.

Castor’s 45-minute opening remarks were widely panned on social media after he praised the House impeachment managers for a job “well done.”

“The American people just spoke and they just changed administrations,” Castor said at one point. He said the public is smart enough to “pick a new administration if they don’t like the old one, and they just did.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, was impressive and is “a serious lawyer.” He said Trump’s team did not have the most “effective” performance.

This is all true. Castor was terrible. He was all over the place and made few points. I also think his voice is way too monotone and he seemed to be putting me to sleep. I don’t expect him to say much in the trial.

I will give them a break, though. They did only have a week to prepare since Trump’s original lawyers all quit before the trial. Let’s face it, Trump is not the easiest guy to work with.

I also think that there is enough question about the constitutionality of this. I do not think this is constitutional and I do not think this trial is constitutional. But people don’t read the Constitution. So I am not surprised this was going to get through.

What Was David Schoen Doing

David Schoen unwittingly gave Twitter a lesson in orthodox Jewish customs during former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Tuesday.

Schoen, Trump’s attorney, rested his hand on top of his head each time he took a sip of water while making his opening argument that the case is unconstitutional.

Several viewers noted Schoen’s seemingly unusual drinking habit, with some even suggesting he was trying to keep a toupee from falling.

But the lawyer was likely making the ritual move because he is religiously observant.

Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the kosher division of the Orthodox Union, explained that since Schoen is an observant Jew, he must cover his head and say a blessing whenever he eats or drinks.

“Each time we eat or drink something we say a blessing to thank God and we cover our head, typically with a yarmulke, to show respect and to acknowledge that there’s someone above us,” Genack told The Post.

“Since he wasn’t wearing a yarmulke he wanted to at least cover his head with his hand.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-trials-6-most-interesting-first-day-moments
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-set-to-prosecute-case-at-trump-impeachment-trial-amid-speculation-over-which-republicans-might-convict
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/6-gop-senators-vote-to-allow-trump-impeachment-trial-to-proceed
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-beyond-angry-with-impeachment-defense-teams-showing-sources
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/why-trump-lawyer-david-schoen-covered-his-head-with-every-sip-of-water

 

We Are Missing What’s Important

While we are all listening to this stupid impeachment, we are missing the what is really happening: The destruction of the country by a dottering old fool.

Joe Biden is completely transforming our country, mostly by Presidential edict.

• About to pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus package. This will:
  • Give money to schools that are not even open.
  • Give money to Democratic states that have mismanaged their budgets to get them out of debt.
  • Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The CBO says this will cost 1.4 million jobs.
  • He bowing to the teacher’s unions by saying schools can reopen in April. His goal? Open 50% of the schools for one day a week.
  • Will allow boys who say they are girls to dress in the girls’ locker room and compete in girls’ sports.
  • He fired every one of the U.S. attorneys hired by Trump.
  • He stopped the monitoring of the Confucius Center, a Chinese government propaganda company, from advising on school curriculum.
  • He has signed 52 Executive Orders in his first 20 days. He is ruling like a tyrant and not asking for Congress to do anything.

 

 

Maybe They Should Play the Chinese National Anthem

Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks’ decision to ax the playing of the national anthem drew a ton of reaction Tuesday.

Cuban confirmed to The Athletic that it was his decision to no longer play the national anthem prior to home games at American Airlines Center. The Mavericks haven’t played the national anthem prior to home games this season, and the team doesn’t plan on playing it for the foreseeable future.

“It was my decision, and I made it in November,” Cuban told The New York Times.

NBA spokesman Tim Frank clarified the rules to The Associated Press.

“Under the unique circumstances of this season, teams are permitted to run their pregame operations as they see fit,” Frank said.

The decision to nix the anthem drew reaction from both those disagreeing and those supporting it on social media.

According to The Hill, Cuban then added:

“If you want to complain, complain to your boss and ask why they don’t play the National Anthem every day before you start work.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas said:

“NBA is telling everyone who stands for the flag, who honors our cops and our veterans, to ‘piss off’? In Texas, no less?”

Twitter had some mixed reactions:

 

Well, all that didn’t last long. The NBA issued a statement today, Wednesday, stating that all teams will play the National Anthem before the games. It is mandatory. Apparently they figured alienating fans more was not something they wanted to do.

Meanwhile, Super Bowl LV had the lowest ratings in 15 years. They scored 96.4 million views which was the most in the time slot. But, what is disturbing is that it included bars that might have played the game with multiple people watching at once. Some of the biggest cities actually banned televisions being on within restaurants. That means that a lot of people, between 15 and 25 million, just skipped it.

This is going to scare the NFL. Their attendance and viewership has been going down for the last five years since St. Kapernick decided to kneel for the National Anthem. In 2020, during the pandemic when everyone should have been excited to see something other than reruns of Law and Order, the viewership dropped another 10%.

The NFL did a pretty good job suppressing the social justice warrior crap until the end of the game. I’ll give them that. But the game was not great, the halftime show sucked and the commercials sucked. I did not finish the game. I was bored.

But, in general, sports is going to take it on the chin. Baseball, basketball and football need to begin to realize people watch sports to get away from the real world, not to have it thrown in our face every time some millionaire player

https://www.dailywire.com/news/mavericks-have-stopped-playing-national-anthem-at-mark-cubans-direction
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/mark-cuban-mavericks-national-anthem-axing-reaction-social-media
https://www.dailywire.com/news/super-bowl-posts-worst-ratings-since-2007-despite-homebound-audience