Catch-up, not ketchup. Or katsup manis.
- After yesterday's not-even-1L-moot-court-worthy performance by his "esteemed counsel" in opening his defense to the impeachment trial in the Senate, it has become excrutiatingly clear what The Orange One's best hope for acquittal is:
Pure. Partisan. Allegiance.
On either facts or law (because, for example, "incitement to rebellion" does not have an "immediate intent" component — any time, and any violence (or, presumably, nonviolent unlawful means), will do!), and the First Amendment "protection" claimed in general was overruled by the specific oath of office taken on 20 January 2016 (just like military officers' First Amendment rights are limited by the combination of their oaths of office and Article 88 of the UCMJ), there's no substantive defense to the charges laid. And even the First Amendment isn't a pure exemption; there can be, and at times is (although the dissent has the better argument, it was a dissent), a price to be paid for the exact content of one's expression.
The only defense available to the Orange One is loyalty of those who claim to be Heffalumps to an individual who took control of the Heffalumps. The irony that everything depends upon RINOs is a bit much before the caffeine settles in. But what this really does, more than anything else, is offer half a hundred members of the Senate the opportunity to demonstrate whether their oaths are to the Constitution, or to ideology, or — as is not only most likely but virtually certain based on their collective behavior since 03 November 2020 — personal power and ambition. (Since Article 88 no longer applies to me, I can say those "contemptuous words" freely.)
- Meanwhile, the arts chug on. Or not. Maybe AIs are creative after all (although I don't think so; this is one of the few areas in which some form of the work-for-hire doctrine seems appropriate). That said, who "creates" is certainly at issue (the irony that this article is coming out of America's whitest big city goes unnoticed). But everyone in and around the arts wants to get paid — legitimately or otherwise, now and historically — because starving artist don't paint daisies, they push them up.
- All of which beats being a classics scholar of color. The fundamental problem here is akin to the endowment effect: The extended study of leading figures in the classical world leads to turning them into heroes, and criticism of those figures (both as individuals and in their expressions) is… difficult. Criticizing Thomas Jefferson for having been a slaveowner is trivial compared to criticizing the Roman Republic for not only institutionalizing slavery, but refusing to even acknowledge it as a problem. The less said about history — and classics curricula (e.g., failure to inquire into "Homer")! — being writ by the victors, too, the less we'll notice (let alone criticize) the bigotry embedded in theocracy and organized religion, too.
In parallel, consider (one of!) the French cultural-superiority problems. I've not only seen them on film, but in person…
- Circling around the platter to the beginning, it's worth reemphasizing that of course an impeachment trial is a political spectacle, political theater. For starters, there's no qualified judge presiding (thanks ever so much for your declination to preside, Mr Chief Justice, and yes, I will be holding that against you for the forseeable future, such as scrutinizing your vote on every matter in which a criminal defendant raises an even marginally plausible allegation of biased judge or jury). Hell, it's a trial on the basis of one political body's majority vote (the bill of impeachment) for which conviction requires a supermajority vote of another political body. How can it not be political theater?
Indeed, that's precisely what the Constitution contemplates, and very specifically so, by taking "removal of office" away from the judicial system. It is consistent with the respective houses of Congress being the sole judges of their own elections (U.S. Const. Art. I § 5). It may, or may not, be a good idea; but it's the law. And the duty of those sworn to uphold it.
Getting elected isn't just about "more power for meeee," Senator; it's also about the responsibilities that come along with it. All of them.