Intro

It's time for a reality check ...

Maybe we’ve reached the point of diminishing astonishment.

But I suspect that much of what we’re hammered with every day really doesn’t make much of an impact on most of us anymore. We’ve heard the same stories too often. We’ve been exposed to the same issues for so long without any meaningful resolution. We recognize that reality is rapidly becoming malleable, primarily in the hands of whoever has the biggest microphone. How else can we explain a society where myth asserts itself as reality, based entirely how many hits it gets online?

We know that many of the “issues” as defined are pure crapola, hyped by politicians on both sides pandering to “the will of the people,” which is still more crapola. Inevitably, it’s not the will of all the people they reflect, but the will of relatively small groups of people with disproportionate political influence.

Nobody wants to face up to the realities of the issues. Nobody wants to say what’s right or wrong – even when it’s obvious and there are numbers to back it up. Most of us are afraid to bring up the realities for fear of being accused of being insensitive or downright mean.

So we say nothing. Until now.

It’s time for a reality check on the fundamentals – much of which is common knowledge to many of us, already. But it might be comforting to know you are not alone …

Monday, January 27, 2020

Not watching the impeachment trial ...

I haven’t watched a minute of the live coverage. 

I know there was more on Saturday.  Didn’t watch that.  I know there’s more this week. 

Guess what.  I’m not watching that either. 

I might watch the actual final vote in the Senate.  Perhaps not. 

Apparently, I’m not alone.  I saw a piece comparing network ratings during the Democrats’ presentation over three agonizing days.  The first day drew less than half the normal daytime ratings for the usual soaps it preempted. Ratings plummeted more on the second and third days.

About 3 million viewers tuned in to the presentations on average across all three broadcast networks – CBS, ABC and NBC.  Understand that some of the individual soaps typically get almost 2 million viewers daily each. So despite all the drama promised by the Democrats, most folks still would have preferred to watch Days of our Lives or Bold and the Beautiful.

Part of this is likely because people have made up their minds already.

People who hate Trump would still hate him no matter what.  He could personally rescue dozens of disabled transgender black and Hispanic veterans from a burning building while toting a basket each of puppies and kittens to safety and they’d still hate him. 

They were probably the only people glued to their screens for the three days so they didn’t miss a moment of the presentations. Granted, they didn’t hear anything new – because there wasn’t anything revealed that hadn’t been beat to death for months already. But it made them feel good that finally – finally! – the American public would learn how awful Trump is, 

Except practically nobody else was watching but them. 

Part of the reason nobody was watching is also because everybody knows how this ends.  

(Spoiler Alert: Trump doesn’t get convicted in the Senate and removed from office.)  

It’s the same reason most people don’t record football games to watch later. Once you know how the game ends, the suspense is long gone.  Unless there’s a surprise ending, a shocking ending no one could have expected, there's little point to rehashing a game. 

The probability of Democrats getting the necessary 67 votes in the Senate to convict Trump is, well, for all intents and purposes, zero.  The odds of the Senate then voting to remove Trump from office are even lower, if that’s possible. In short, there’s no way Trump is forced from office. The only way he leaves the Oval Office against his will is by losing the 2020 election.   

The Democrats know this. Their pals in the media know this. That’s the whole reason for all the impeachment nonsense.  What’s going on now is a show trial designed to dirty up Trump and all Republicans as a desperate ploy to regain power by the Democrats.   

Sorry, but I won’t take part. 

I don’t care what Schiff, Schumer, Nadler or Pelosi have to say, because I know what they’re really trying to do, and it’s not saving democracy or protecting the Constitution.  I also don’t care what establishment weasels like Romney and Lamar Alexander have to say, either.  I’ve heard it all before.  I don’t trust any of these people, and never have; why would I start now? 

Oh, and what about John Bolton?  I never trusted that jackass warmonger.  Almost every time he’s been in an administration he’s argued for wars and usually got his way, costing us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives for essentially nothing. He’s still pissed he couldn’t convince Trump to go to war with Iran, or to send even more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to keep expanding those wars. That’s why he resigned/got fired from the Trump administration.

And now he has a book about to be released that claims Trump told him he was withholding aid to Ukraine until he got results of their investigations into the Bidens.  How convenient.  Just in time for Trump’s impeachment trial.   

Trump says he never said that to Bolton.  Even if he did it actually doesn’t matter – Trump has the legal authority as President to withhold aid to any country for whatever reason he wants.  The withholding of aid was never discussed with Ukrainian officials anyway, even in Bolton’s meeting with them after the infamous phone call.  Or any other meeting with Ukrainians after the call.

This whole impeachment event is a badly written, poorly acted, amateurish attempt to sell a story that has no hooks or dramatic twists to keep its intended audience engaged.  It’s an overlong show about a subject few care about, featuring a cast of washed up players and wannabe thespians who repeat the same lines over and over.  And then wonder why no one is applauding. 

They don’t seem to realize almost nobody is watching. 

There's no point. Everybody knows how the story ends.  

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