Acquittal--and a good dinner

 

Baked whitefish that look prettier 
when it was one glorious piece

Everybody cozy on this cold night? I have a space heater in my cottage that makes a lot of difference. Supper tonight was sort of a buffet—Jordan and I had decided on baked whitefish (cod) but neither boy wanted it. Christian has had his second vaccination and didn’t want to eat; Jacob wanted leftover enchiladas, though he tasted a bit of fish, said it was okay, if it had been all there was for dinner, he would have eaten it. I thought it was really good.

Impeachment is over, done with, a not-unexpected but still disappointing verdict that speaks volumes about America and embarrasses us before the world. There’s not much more left to be said—or is there? I thought some highly relevant things came out toward the end of the trial, things even the House Managers didn’t include despite the brilliance of their presentation—and it truly was brilliant. Here are some things, in random order, that I think deserved more attention.

But did you know that just as the president always has the nuclear codes with him (boy, did we luck out on that one), so does the vice-president. So when Pence was being rushed to safety, the aide who carries his nuclear “football” (no idea why they call it that) was right behind him. Think what could have happened if that had fallen into the mob’s hands—no, they couldn’t have broken the codes and set off explosions, but they could have sold damning information to rogue nations throughout the world.

Trump apparently didn’t think of that when he made Pence a target of his anger—or maybe he thought and didn’t care. Another thing that came out yesterday—the then-president knew that the vice-president’s life was in danger. He called new Senator Turbeville to get him to stop the certification, and Turbeville said, “Mr. President, Pence has just been taken out. I have to go.” He swears those are his words, which means trump could easily have interpreted them to mean that the vice-preskdent had fallen into the hands of the mob, which probably would have meant his death. Nonetheless trump tweeted minutes later that Pence was a coward and afraid to stand up for democracy and stop the certification. He challenged the mob to make Pence a target, and at least one insurrectionist read the tweet aloud over a bull horn. Some sources have suggested that trump was writing Pence’s eulogy. Thank the Lord it was not true.

Representative Stacy Plaskett revealed that no parade permit had been given for marching from the Ellipsis to the Capitol—until trump himself approved the permit. He knew he was going to encourage his followers to march to the Capitol (and lie to them that he would be walking with them). Sound pre-planned.

On January 5, Steve Bannon predicated that all hell would break loose the next day. How did he know that, and what did he know? Was he part of the advance planning?

And then there’s that explosive and damning phone call between trump and Kevin McCarthy (he of the weak spine) where trumps says, “Well, Kevin, I guess some of them are more upset about the election than you are.”

Little things, but they add to the picture that was clearly presented of a carefully planned and orchestrated event on January 6. Where do we go from here? One hardly dares to suggest, except that I think details like the above will continue to leak, much to trump’s damnation. I’m disappointed, of course, but I think given the nature of the Republican party today, a conviction would have been too much to hope for.

My mom used to tell me the mills of the Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. I still believe karma is coming, and I still strongly believe in the strength of our democracy. Be of good cheer—this is far from over, and trump is far from a free and happy man.