All Roads Sink from Trump

No, I didn't watch the State of the Union Address.  I can't watch Trump talk for much more than 30 seconds -- the idea of watching him for an hour wasn't even close to being on the table.  Given how much he lies and panders and makes everything about him and about campaigning in inappropriate venues during those half-minute bursts, a full hour of that, while in the midst of an impeachment trial, is something for people far-more hearty or foolhardy than me.

My timing was very good though for turning on the channel to see if was over yet, since when I switched back, everyone in the House was getting up to leave, and Nancy Pelosi was gavelling the joint session of Congress closed.  I did miss her tearing up the speech, though saw it in replays.  Also, I heard reported what I'd suggested the other day, that she did not say the traditional, "It is my high honor and distinct privilege..." to present Trump, since I'm guessing the words were unable to come out of her being without a surgeon extracting them.

(By the way, I completely understand why Republicans are upset at Nancy Pelosi ripping up Trump's speech. It's a very Republican thing to get outraged over -- gestures bother them. President Obama wearing a tan suit. Michelle Obama going sleeveless. Nancy Pelosi ripping up paper.  Illegally withholding funds to extort a foreign nation for personal gain, that's okay..  Also okay to Republicans -- not shaking the hand of the Speaker of the House, that's a gesture that's on the GOP Approved List.).

I also missed hearing him announce that he would be giving the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh.  In total truth, I'm very sorry to hear about Limbaugh's serious health issues. Even with him spending years ridiculing cancer warnings about smoking, I do not wish him ill health. I But I'm sickened by the idea of him getting the Medal of Freedom since more than most anyone on-air in the media over the past 20 years, Rush Limbaugh has gone out of his way to be divisive and tear America apart.

I have no other comments on the SOTU speech since I long ago gave up believing anything Trump says, most especially about the state of the union.

I did pay attention during the day though to some of the reasons given by Republican senators for why they would be voting to acquit Trump.  While I didn't expect any of them to say, "Because I'm scared Trump is going to tweet angrily about me and get his base to get so upset at me that someone will challenge me in the primary," but I'm sort of sorry that they didn't just all say something we could accept, even if we didn't come remotely close to believing it, along the lines of "I just thought the House Managers didn't provide enough evidence" or "If there was just one person in the room with Trump who had come here and told us under oath that he heard the president actually say he tried to extort Ukraine for a personal favor, I might have considered voting to convict, but no one testified to that."

Instead, we were stuck having to listen to disingenuous "explanations" so convoluted and twisted that they'd make a pretzel jealous.  

Like Marco Rubio saying just because someone did something impeachable doesn't mean you impeach them.  Or Lisa Murkowski saying that voting to convict Trump would be unfair to all the people who had already voted for him on the ballot, despite Trump not even being the GOP nominee yet and there being no ballots.  Or Lamar Alexander saying that he felt Trump actually did things that were wrong, but apparently that's okay.

But it's not surprising that the most mind-numbing "explanations" came from Susan Collins.  She said that she's voting to acquit Trump because he only had "poor judgement," which she noted is the same reason why she voted to acquit Bill Clinton. For the record, "poor judgement" is lying about sex with an intern. Illegally withholding funds to extort a foreign nation to hurt a political opponent is a national security crime.  The thing is, if Ms. Collins had left her "reason" as being nothing more than mere "poor judgement" by Trump, it would have been utterly, stomach-churning foolish but she could at least hide behind it.  However, for reasons unknown to man, she went on and said that the president has learned from this case" -- which makes her appear not only too incompetent to represent the state of Maine, but in need of a court-appointed guardian.

I don't even think the most base of Trump's base believe that he "learned" anything from this case.  In fact, I'd suggest that one of the things Trump acolytes love about him is that he doesn't learn anything new, but is unshakable about pretty much everything in his life, no matter how much evidence to the contrary is presented to him.

And so, today is the vote.  The only question is if any Democratic senators who represent red states are going to cross over and protectively vote to acquit.  

Okay, so there are really two questions.  The other is if the Senate vote results will be announced before those of the Iowa caucus.