“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

ha - is anyone watching castor right now?

i suppose at some point he will try to make some sort of argument defending trump. but right now he is in full-on "grandpa is 30 minutes into the story and can't remember what it was about" mode. it's obviously intentional. he has 2 hours to kill, and the argument that trump can't be tried is just stupid and dumb and pathetic, just like so much of the trump admin was. he can't spend 2 hours talking about why trump can't be tried. so instead he's talking about how when he was a kid he wanted to be a senator

he just said "you know, it's funny - this is an aside, but it's funny when you talk to people and they say...."

I tend to assume anything connected to Trump is a lie, but this Everett Dirksen album his lawyer is going on about does exist.

https://res.cloudinary.com/pippa/image/fetch/h_750,w_750,f_auto/https://assets.pippa.io/shows/5bb26c9287ef87811438a58b/1549551093214-cff53946e94305e3e2869603caf7594e.jpeg

There's literally nothing anyone can say that will elicit a vote to impeach from those 45 Republicans. I don't know how far you have to go back for at least the possibility of a Joseph Welch moment.

Never. This moment never existed. There has never been a time when individuals seeking to hold and maintain power were more concerned with fair play and the letter of the law than taking and holding power.

Yeah WTF is Castor rambling on about anyway?

i fucking HATE his paternalistic, patronizing, folksy, down home tone - he's gradually trying to bring us around to the idea that...U.S. Senators are known as cool-headed, even when emotions run high....and of course emotions ran high, and that was an awful day...and U.S. senators are to be respected for their cool-headedness. We all know what happened that day...

sorry, what was I talking about? the heroin poppies in wizard of oz just knocked me out. but i think something that drives me absolutely CRAZY is hearing that patronizing tone employed in the defense of COMPLETE BULLSHIT

that was a large part of the psychological damage the trump era inflicted on millions of people

(xpost) But didn't Joseph Welch's "Have you no sense of shame..." help hasten McCarthy's downfall? Or is that just a narrative that developed later?

Wasn’t a man beaten to death? Why do they expect “cool heads?”

like, i don't care much for football so who cares that the chiefs lost last night (although tom brady sucks), but if i were a big KC Chiefs fan, i think the lesson of the last 4 years is you can just be like "The Chiefs didn't lose. the Chiefs won. and the Buccaneers cheated. Tom Brady cheated and the Chiefs won by many points", and then just keep going like that, and nothing happens

I genuinely have no fucking idea where this dude's ambling stroll through the English language is taking us. Like no idea whatsoever. It sounds like pure filibustering.

and not only that, but i'm a hero for knowing the truth with all of these liars in the media

lmao at this dude

"Webster's defines 'Senator' as..."

I have this on in the background and was only half -listening so I assumed that this guy’s rap abt nonpartisanship and the serious role of a U.S. Senator meant he was arguing for the prosecution : /

castor "can't believe" the house impeachment managers made references to "pre-revolutionary" legal history, since that was under the British system

...

FUCKCKKKIN

think of how non-partisan the colonists were, Karl.

and yet, 45 out of 50 GOP senators are about to agree with castor's barely-existing argument that trump can't be tried (which i assume... he's going to make sometime?)

"to understand 'impeachment', we must first break down the word. firstly, consider the peach..."

I didn’t follow any of what he was sayimg

Something about being headed for a monarchy

i'm trying to remember what the references to "pre-revolutionary" history were about, and i'm pretty sure that among other things, they were about how the authors of the constitution put in protections like impeachment because they deeply understood the possibility (and inevitability, given the passage of enough time) of chaotic evil-aligned rulers bringing down the whole dang country for personal gain

what a silly reference! that was before AMERICA

loooool one eye open

he's not far from that

I want to see the faces of the people in the room who are trying to follow this word salad right now.

release the whirlwind

RELEASE THE WHIRLWIND, erm, I meant FLOODGATES

Didn't I see this guy arguing a case against Jimmy McGill?

i wonder if this speech is full of q codewords and that's why it's so weird

I have no legal training whatever and hate Trump's guts but I'm fairly sure I could defend him more adroitly.

i have to admit, though, this is funny shit! this castor bit. it's only the fact that it ends with trump getting acquitted that makes it simultaneously enraging to watch. i never thought there was a venn diagram overlap between "EXCRUCIATING PAIN" and "COMEDY GOLD", but tim heidecker and nathan fielder laid the path for this castor performance we're seeing today

I think he's doing a filibuster speech

out of nowhere, he just alluded to a hypothetical future impeachment scenario involving Eric Holder and Fast and Furious

just as a hypothetical, random scenario, ok?

There's a non-zero chance that this dude wets himself before he's finished speaking.

That was so bizarre, the Holden reference.

Yeah i think that’s right andy. They must not think there is a way to interpret trump’s words on that day that exonerates him.

lol, now he's taking aim at ben sasse

WHIRLWIND!

nathan fielder laid the path for this castor performance we're seeing today

i'm half-expecting him to start dispensing chili out of an elaborate system in the sleeves of his coat

i wonder if this speech is full of q codewords and that's why it's so weird

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, February 9, 2021 2:29 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's an acrostic afaict.

is Castor Troy the lawyer

They must not think there is a way to interpret trump’s words on that day that exonerates him.

oh, they do. we're not on that part of the trial yet - that starts tomorrow. today they're presenting arguments (for 4 hours) on the question of whether the senator can even be allowed to try trump, since he's no longer president. the obvious answer is "YES, you fucking dumbass". but castor is supposedly making an argument, right now, that it should not be allowed to hear the trial at all. and then, 45 out of 50 GOP senators will agree with him, but 50 Democratic Senators + the only 5 GOP senators that don't fucking blow chunks will vote that yes, they can have a trial about trump even though he's no longer president. then they'll start doing that tomorrow.

at that point, tomorrow, we will start to hear bruce castor jr's very interesting theories about how trump's words that day, and on all the other days when he clearly urged his supporters to overturn the election by all means necessary, actually exonerate him. that's probably going to be reallllllllly fucking enraging

"There isn't one of you who doesn't consider the other 99 a patriot"--???

He’s not making an argument against the constitutionality of the trial either. It’s a lot of stalling and cliches.

Did he just learn how to speak within the past week?

but also deeply funny

xp

Patriot has become my least favorite word recently.

xp treeship

yeah, he's not right now (which is really gutsy and funny sorta!)

but i'm waiting for that 2 minute bit at the end of his speaking time where he quickly argues that it's not constitutional to try an ex-president

It won’t. It will be more emotionally laden non-sequitirs.

“Trump would do anything for you guys! He’d give you the shirt off his back, it’s just who he is.”

castor just revealed the real reason for this impeachment: the house DEMOCRATS are afraid americans, because they're afraid of trump running again, because trump might win again.

and that's wrong. because america just spoke. "why are they afraid of the very people who sent them to do this job?"

Maybe some dr. seuss quotes attributed to thomas jefferson