And now we can move on…

Posted this morning about the end stages of the second Impeachment of Donald Trump and now, several hours later and into early evening, the matter, at least in the Senate, is complete.

By a vote of 57 guilty and 43 not guilty, Donald Trump avoids being convicted. To be convicted, he would have needed 2/3rd of the Senate to vote guilty and, if I’ve done my math right, that would have required 67 guilty votes, ten more than we had.

The Republicans who voted not guilty did so by and large on the technicality that because Trump was no longer President, he couldn’t be convicted.

Which is, of course, a big load of BS.

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives while still in office and for actions performed leading up to January 6th… which, again, was a crime committed while still in office.

Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, loathe to start the trail and no doubt already seeking an excuse to not convict Trump, postponed the Senate trial until after Biden was sworn in. Then he had the balls to say on this very day that he wouldn’t vote guilty for a conviction because Trump was no longer in office….!

But even that excuse is crazy: If Joe Biden, on his last weeks in office, decides to do something similar and causes the deaths of several people, then I suppose he too wouldn’t be convicted in the Senate because his time in office has run out?!

So I suppose if I were working at, say, at a bank and robbed it on the final week I worked there and my actions were discovered after I left the job, I couldn’t be tried for the crime because I’d already left the job?

Really?

Just… incredible.

And yet…

As I said in my earlier post, I’m kinda glad its over.

I suspect there will be other legal issues Donald Trump will face. Those that were injured during the riot, for example, will likely go after Trump in court. The relatives of the officer that died during the insurrection will likely sue as well.

Is Donald Trump protected from these suits?

I don’t know.

But even if he skirts them, he’s still got plenty of legal heat coming his way for other things.

As I also said in my earlier post, maybe he’s a masochist and just likes to have people coming after him.

Whatever.

He’s no longer the President of the United States and, hopefully, never will be. Even more hopefully, the majority voters who put Biden in the White House will continue to vote out these cowardly Republicans.

There is a way forward.

Let’s see if we get there.

Impeachment Part Deux…

As of today, Saturday the 13th of February, it appears the Impeachment trail of Donald Trump in the Senate is all but over -unless there is a decision made to call witnesses- and after concluding arguments, a vote will be taken whether to find him guilty.

It also appears that this vote will go in Trump’s favor and he won’t, despite all the voluminous evidence against him, be convicted of fomenting an insurrection.

Today came this piece of news (the article is by Sara Boboltz and is presented on huffingtonpost.com):

Mitch McConnell Will Vote To Acquit Trump In Impeachment Trial

Mitch McConnell is the senior most member of the Republican party in the Senate and, until the election, was the Senate’s leader. According to McConnell, his decision was a “close call”.

Yeah, sure.

At this point, its just as well the Senate/Congress ends this farce. Despite overwhelming evidence the Republicans want no part in having Trump convicted of anything and they obviously fear their voting base’s reaction should they do what they should… if they had a backbone.

If you can vote to convict President Clinton for a freaking blowjob -which several senators still in the Senate did- surely they would have the courage to…

...nah…

Oh well.

End it and let’s move on.

I suspect there will be further legal actions taken against Trump and what’s left of his miserable life will be spent fighting these actions.

Maybe he’s a masochist and enjoys that.

Either way, I’m more than ready to move past him and forget he ever was a thing.

Hope the rest of the country does the same.

POSTSCRIPT:

Holy crap… no sooner do I post this, figuring the impeachment trial was over, that this happens (the article is by Igor Bobic and presented on huffingtonpost.com):

Senate Votes to Admit Witnesses in Trump’s Impeachment Trial

Wow.

From the article:

House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said his team would like to hear from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last month.

Herrera Beutler on Friday provided new information about a phone call between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Trump on Jan. 6.

The push to subpoena witnesses follows a bombshell report on Trump’s conduct while the Jan. 6 violence unfolded. According to CNN, Trump reportedly responded with mockery when McCarthy called him pleading to call off his supporters — prompting a “shouting match” between the two men.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told McCarthy, according to a CNN report published Friday.

The conversation was confirmed directly by Herrera Beutler.

Huh!

The news that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a phone call during the January 6th insurrection wherein McCarthy told Trump to call off his people and Trump supposedly said he didn’t care to, is pretty heady stuff and essentially proves the case for impeachment.

Senator Sheldon Whitehorse (D) tweeted that McCarthy should be deposed under oath to get to the truth of this matter.

Under oath, eh?

About time they did that with some of these slippery characters.

Certainly interesting if they do.

Too much information…

A while back, when Facebook was first becoming a thing, I recall there was an article imploring people to be careful with what they posted on the then rising platform.

Specifically, they noted that some people posted information about how excited they were about going on an upcoming vacation which took them away from their home. When the vacation was over and they got back, these people were shocked to find that their home/apartment had been broken into while they were gone.

What happened? Well, it seemed the thieves were scanning postings on Facebook and realized they had an unoccupied home available for them for X number of days and simply broke into it knowing the owners were away.

Sadly, I saw some friends of mind doing this same stupidity, posting on Facebook that they were eager to head out to, say, a Disney trip over the weekend, essentially telling anyone reading their post that their home would likely be left vacant while they were gone.

Which brings us to Gina Carano.

Don’t know who she is? Maybe this will help:

Image result for gina carano mandelorian

Gina Carano is an ex-MMA fighter turned actress who played Cara Dune on the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, the very popular set in the Star Wars universe TV series.

She played the character (past tense) because Disney has decided to part ways with her (the below link is to an article by Ed Mazza and was posted on huffingtonpost.com)…

The Mandelorian star Gina Carano axed after “abhorrent” social media posts

Like the Facebook postings I mentioned above, there remains to this day a big problem with people feeling the need to post their thoughts and, in the case of Ms. Carano, posting thoughts which expose her as… well… a person who maybe has fallen under the sway of alarming elements within society.

Look, I know not everyone out there is going to share my mostly liberal leanings. I know there are those out there who are very logical, well balanced, yet may have diametrically opposite political views to my own.

The world comes in all flavors!

But… if one begins to write outlandish ideas, far right screeds, and shows themselves to be in league with -or at least sympathetic with- some of the more out there ideals, and especially if you’re an actor who works for a company that doesn’t like the idea of hiring anyone with any dirt or controversy in their “character”, then maybe its best you keep some of your opinions to yourself.

In the case of Ms. Carano, she is clearly a person who espouses right wing ideals, but its one thing to have such ideals and another to go too far. In this case, going too far for Disney was comparing the current political climate in the United States -and against those who espouse right wing ideology- as being like living in “Nazi Germany”.

While it appears this was the post that precipitated Ms. Carano’s firing, she’s been posting uncomfortable material for a while now (the below linked article is by Joanna Robinson and Anthony Breznican and found on vanityfair.com)…

As Gina Carano and Star Wars fans clash, hero worship turns to scorn

From the above article:

Two months ago, Carano made dismissive remarks about trans pronouns. She’s also shared unproven theories about both the presidential election results and COVID-19 mask mandates. The hashtag #FireGinaCarano began trending Saturday, after Carano announced that she was setting up an account on Parler, a social media platform that has recently become a hit with Donald Trump faithful

I find myself, again as a liberal individual who values free speech, rather uncomfortable with the idea of punishing people for certain free speech.

Again: If you are a conservative and into right wing ideology and can present well reasoned arguments for your philosophies, there’s nothing, IMHO, wrong with that even if I may totally disagree with your points.

However, there comes a point where one takes it too far.

I don’t know Ms. Carano, only the items linked above which got her into hot water and eventually fired, but I do know this:

I’m uncomfortable with people who espouse the idea that COVID-19 is a hoax and/or actively -and proudly!- endanger others by not wearing a freaking mask when in public. I’m very uncomfortable with people who allow themselves to be whipped into a frenzy under the lie that an election was stolen despite no evidence at all to prove this and 62 lawsuits, all but one of which were dismissed because Trump’s team couldn’t prove their heated rhetoric.

And I’m uncomfortable as hell with people who feel entitled to “protest” and create an insurrection by forcing their way into government buildings, the worst example of which was what occurred on January 6th.

I’m certain most -perhaps even all!- of these people do not view themselves as bad guys, but they are.

And they are because they allowed themselves to be convinced of multiple lies by an -admittedly!- charismatic man who played them all for his own benefit.

But…

Free speech can have consequences and Ms. Carano is experiencing them.

You can have your opinions and you can hold them very dear to yourself.

Realize though that by stating them out loud, whether in an interview or posted on Facebook or Twitter, there can be consequences.

If I hire someone at my business and it turns out they were involved in the events at the Capitol on January 6th, I’d think really hard -and ask plenty of questions before hiring them.

If I’m a multi-million dollar conglomorate like Disney and spend millions on a TV show, the last thing I want is to have one of the actors courting controversy and making fans unhappy by their mere presence.

Personally, I haven’t seen a single episode of The Mandelorian and have no idea how good Ms. Carano was in her role. I did see her in the movie Haywire, where she essentially played a female James Bond-like character, and I enjoyed her in that role.

I hope she takes this moment and instead of lashing out, dedicates herself to read and watch more legitimate news articles and gain a truer understanding of the world around her and not the conspiracy-twinged world of these right wing platforms.

This ‘N That…

Regarding yesterday’s Super Bowl LV. between Tampa Bay and Kansas City…

…that’s why I don’t make any sports bets. Here are my original predictions regarding the game (this is the original post from the Friday before Sunday’s game)…

While its very tough to bet against Tom Brady, a man who may well be viewed -unless Mahomes or someone else proves better in time- the best Quarterback ever, the fact is that the Bucs are a more flawed team, IMHO, than Mahomes and the Chiefs. It just seems like the Chiefs have more playmakers versus the Bucs.

So my prediction is that the Chiefs will again win (they won last year’s SuperBowl), barring some kind of weirdness.

That’s not to say that I’m rock steady in my prediction.

Whew… thank goodness I was so wishy washy there at the end about my prediction! 😉

Seriously though, I feel I was right about one thing: I said Kansas City would win… barring some kind of weirdness.

I know I’m going to sound like some kind of sore loser (to be very clear: I have no preference to either team) I think there was some really squirrely stuff going on in the first half of the game.

The refs (I know, I know… blame it on the refs!) seemed to be really tough on Kansas City’s defense, like extraordinarily tough. There were some really -again IMHO!- weird/borderline calls and they helped Tampa Bay score and, eventually, run away with the thing. Also, its my understanding one of their better offensive linemen was out due to Covid-19 protocol.

Mind you and having said all that, Tampa Bay’s defense was ferocious and that, perhaps even more than Tom Brady’s usual great quarterbacking, was the key to their win. It’s hard to win a football game -even if you’re a Tom Brady or a Patrick Mahomes- if each play you run has you running for your life. I’ve personally witnessed several times the mighty Tom Brady have some really bad games against my Dolphins (a weird stat is that as great as Tom Brady is against the league in general and as terrible as my Dolphins have been for most of his time while in New England, during his run with the Patriots Brady had a losing record against the Dolphins when playing against them in Miami…7-10!) because they were able to get to him to the point where he was too hurried. At that point, his effectiveness, like Mahomes in yesterday’s game, dropped.

Anyway, congrats and until next year.

******

The second impeachment trial of one Donald J. Trump begins this week. It’s also the start of Joe Biden’s third week in office.

It’s fascinating to see the trajectory of either man.

I feel like opinions regarding Trump continue to deteriorate, at least among the general population versus those who feel themselves to be strong Republicans. That doesn’t mean the impeachment trail with somehow succeed in convicting Trump of the offenses he so clearly was impeached for -the base is strong and it seems Republican politicians are loath to go against them, witness the way they have censured the very few of their representatives for daring to agree with the idea that Donald Trump is indeed guilty.

Having said that, I feel the general public is very much against the more fanatical elements who are so protective of Trump. I further feel like more people have no desire to continue in the QAnon path that some of the Republicans seem to feel is the way to go.

This will play out in time.

Here’s a prediction, though: if indeed the Covid-19 virus is under control by Summer via vaccinations and general governmental competence under Joe Biden, and if people do realize the difference between how Trump handled things and Biden has, and if they realize how incompetent the previous administration was…

Could they somehow come to realize that perhaps -maybe!- the current crop of Republicans are simply not up to the task of taking care of business like the Democrats.

Further, if the economy roars back because of successful Covid-19 treatment, what could the Republican party possibly have to show to voters to get them to vote for them outside of QAnon nonsense?

It could be the start of a very cold winter for the party.

******

Anyway, its Monday, the start of another week,

Let’s make it a good one!

Coronavirus Diaries 28

Where we live, most people follow masking protocols.

The stores I usually frequent -and there aren’t that many- have big signs which tell people to mask up if they’re going to be in the stores.

At least through today, I’ve not seen anyone flout this.

Today was different.

We went to Target to pick up a couple of things and the store was pretty busy given it is Super Bowl Sunday. I imagine people are stocking up on drinks and chips and whatever other necessities they need and everyone was keeping their distances and everyone was masked.

Except for this couple and their very young (no more than 6 years old or so) child.

The three of them were walking down the aisle of the store completely maskless.

I stared directly at the husband, a huge frown on my face.

I guy saw me and I’m sure he had to see the anger in my face but he just looked away and they continued on down the aisle opposite me.

I gave them plenty of space to pass.

Sadly, I’ve seen some videos from the Tampa area where the Super Bowl is being held and it looks like a pretty large number of people have congregated there. While many of them are wearing masks, I saw all too many partiers going around maskless.

I wonder how many people are having Super Bowl parties at their homes with large groups of people?

I wonder if we’ll see another spike in infections in the next couple of weeks?

Regarding that later question, I suspect there will be another bump.

Too bad.

But not all news is bad.

Over on CNN.com, Harry Enten offers the following:

The Covid-19 news is bad, but there’s room for optimism

At the risk of spoiling the article, Mr. Enten offers the following:

The number of people getting the coronavirus is falling, and the number of people getting vaccinated is rising and will only continue to rise as more and more vaccines are made available.

This is a numbers game and these numbers are indeed positive. The number of people getting infected is dropping, though perhaps not enough, and the fact is that each day that passes more and more people will get vaccinated.

Already there is talk about when regular folks will be able to get a vaccine and, the article notes, there has been an uptick of people who say they are willing to get the vaccine.

Perhaps the fog of misinformation is lifting, if only a bit, and in time more and more of these vaccines -whether from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, or any other companies- will hit the markets and be available for people to use.

I feel like we’re at the edge of a breakthrough and I hope -dearly!- that we’ll see the end results in the next two to three months.

Dare I dream we may return to a form of normalcy -or at least less of a risk- by the end of this very year?

We’ll see.

Lou Dobbs… cancelled

Looks like the first shoe has dropped for the Fox (hardly) News Network.

The Fox “News” Network has for years peddled right wing “news” which was propaganda and, in the last election, several of its opinion hosts talked big about the supposed “fraud” which happened during the election, including saying voting machines by Dominion and Smartmatic were somehow compromised to give Democrats votes.

Welp, Dominion is suing for big bucks against some of the people who made such statements, including Rudy Giuliani and news came that Smartmatic has sued Fox News and several of its hosts for a whopping $2.7 BILLION dollars for defamation. Read all about it in this article presented on CNN and written by Oliver Darcy…

Smartmatic’s 2.7 Billion Lawsuit Against Fox News

Welp, it does appear this lawsuit has Fox “News” feeling more than a little heat because one of the people included in this lawsuit, Lou Dobbs, who has one of the highest rated shows Fox airs, was unceremoniously dumped (the following article is by Matthew Chapman and was presented on Salon.com)…

Fox News made Lou Dobbs its “sacrificial lamb” but will still lose billions in lawsuit, says analyst

Its funny… I recall watching Lou Dobbs when he was on CNN and he seemed, all those years ago, a reasonable enough guy. Mind you, I didn’t follow him religiously or anything, catching him here and there.

Then one day he’s gone over to Fox and I pretty much avoid that network like the plague so I didn’t see him at all, only clips here and there, and realized the guy had gone full Trumpian during the Trump “era” (I can’t tell you how much better my blood pressure’s been ever since he’s been gone… whew).

I mean, I didn’t recognize him. He was into all things Trump, praising him for everything and admonishing and demonizing anyone who had even a moderately contrarian opinion of him.

So it comes as no surprise that he’s been roped into the Smartmatic lawsuit… I’m sure there are plenty of clips of him out there warning about nonexistent problems with those -and all other!- voting machines that dared to declare Trump what he was: A loser.

Anyway, over on huffingtonpost.com a bunch of twitter folks have left their thoughts regarding Lou Dobbs abrupt departure/cancellation:

Twitter critics positively giddy after Fox drops Lou Dobbs Tonight

My favorite has to be this one (beware foul language, oh children):

SuperBowl LV

The Friday before the Sunday and the SuperBowl, number LV, featuring the older whiz-kid quarterback, Tom Brady of the Tampa Bay Bucs, versus the young whiz-kid quarterback, Patrick Mahomes of The Kansas City Chiefs.

I like football, at least to a degree, and its always fascinating to watch any sports in general because you just never know what you’re going to get and, also, the results are usually deserved (though you’ll get plenty of salty fans talking about referees… I know, I’ve been there!).

Anyway, what do I think will happen?

While its very tough to bet against Tom Brady, a man who may well be viewed -unless Mahomes or someone else proves better in time- the best Quarterback ever, the fact is that the Bucs are a more flawed team, IMHO, than Mahomes and the Chiefs. It just seems like the Chiefs have more playmakers versus the Bucs.

So my prediction is that the Chiefs will again win (they won last year’s SuperBowl), barring some kind of weirdness.

That’s not to say that I’m rock steady in my prediction.

The Bucs may not be as strong an overall team as the Chiefs but, again, its tough to bet against Brady.

We’ll see on Sunday!

Avalanche Express (1979) A (Snowy) Review

There are plenty of very good films either set within a train or featuring extended sequences involving a train. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes and North By Northwest (the former took place almost entirely on a train, the later had some great sequences within a train) are two good examples. Others include the first Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor film, The Silver Streak. There’s the original The Narrow Margin, considered by many one of the best B movies ever made. Perhaps Agatha Christie’s best novel, which was twice made into pretty good films, Murder on the Orient Express, takes place almost entirely on the aforementioned train.

Alas, the 1979 film Avalanche Express, which takes place almost entirely on a train traveling through scenic Europe, doesn’t belong in this list.

What a strange, strange film. Here’s the trailer:

Perhaps no film is known as much for the misfortunes that happened behind the scenes rather than the film itself than 1979’s Avalanche Express.

Both Producer/Director Mark Robson (who is known for, among others, another “train” film, Von Ryan’s Express) and actor Robert Shaw both died during the film’s production. While Robert Shaw appears to have completed most of his scenes, he was quite sick during the making of the film and his dialogue was ultimately almost completely dubbed. Quite badly, I might add.

Oh, and to be clear: There are a few sequences here and there where we see the back of Robert Shaw’s character and I’m assuming that was a stand-in, though there isn’t anything along the lines of Bela Lugosi’s clumsy replacement in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Nonetheless, there is one major plot element missing which I’ll get to in a moment which may be explained because Robert Shaw was no longer around to film it.

The film opens with Robert Shaw’s character, Soviet General Marenkov, having a meeting with his fellow Soviet Union/Communist bigwigs. Among them is Maximillian Schell’s Colonel Nikolai Bunin, who is told to leave the room for a moment while Marenkov talks about how their computer systems are being breached. Marenkov makes some snide remarks to Bunin after the meeting that he was in charge of the security, and then they talk briefly about how to find the mole in Europe.

Next thing we know, we’re introduced to Lee Marvin’s spy group. This group consists of Haller (Mike Connors, the leader or co-leader of this group, its never made terribly clear), Elsa Lang (Linda Evans), Leroy (Joe Namath (!!!!)), and of course Lee Marvin’s Colonel Harry Wargrave.

They’re a sorta/kinda Mission: Impossible group of professionals who are stationed in Europe and deal with the Soviets during these waning days of the Cold War.

Sadly, Lee Marvin was looking rather old for this action role and especially too old to be the Linda Evans’ love interest but there you have it.

While its never explained very well (this might be where a sequence was not filmed due to Robert Shaw’s passing), they are informed Marenkov has defected.

Again, it isn’t explained how we went from Marenkov briefing Communist big-wigs into looking into a mole in Europe to him defecting. If I understand it right, General Marenkov is disillusioned with the Soviet Union’s …uh… terrorist ways?… I think, and Bunin, who he was talking with in the movie’s opening act, is one of the people who are using the Soviet Union’s security apparatus to cause the terrorism. Now that he’s defected, Bunin is after Marenkov and wants to eliminate him.

Marenkov defects directly to Wargrave and his group and they realize that this is a superb opportunity to clean out all of Europe of the worst “hawkish”/terrorist elements of the Soviet Union.

How?

By dangling Marenkov as bait on a trip through Europe by train and then take out all the bad guys as they come after him. Marenkov, as it turns out, wants to be used this way but, again, we seem to be missing a few sequences explaining why he’s willing to go along with this dangerous -to him!- plan.

Avalanche Express was completed by cult director Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop) but the end result is a very odd bird of a film, an action/adventure/intrigue Cold War spy film which features one major sequence that feels like it belongs in your typical 1970’s era “disaster” film.

That sequence, involving the avalanche which the movie’s name is derived from, occurs roughly at the halfway point of the film and, while a decent scene (for its time, anyway) it doesn’t have a lot of logic to it either. The avalanche must be damn slow moving -or coming from a mountain that is literally miles up- for the passengers of the train to both know its coming and then have the time to come up with a way to escape being swept away in the nick of time.

Further, there’s also this sequence earlier on where Bunin’s people stop and have a huge shoot out with those on the train, breaking windows and putting many holes in the train’s body… while the other passengers are still inside!

Once the shoot out and avalanche are done and they reach their destination, its like the passengers have completely forgotten what happened and the train’s bullet holes and broken windows seem to have fixed themselves and they off load as if nothing serious happened to them!

Maybe back in the late 1970’s and during the height of the Cold War, it was a given that riding the rails through Europe involved extreme dangers?!

These are just some of the absurdities you’ll find in this film, and I haven’t even gotten to the very end which features -MILD SPOILERS!- the use of torpedoes (yes, you read that right) and the appearance of one Joe Namath as Leroy, a character that feels like it could have been played by any then semi-popular ex-football players. Hell, if Namath wasn’t available, I’m sure they would have pivoted to O. J. Simpson. It wouldn’t have mattered, truly.

Yet for all its absurdity, Avalanche Express nonetheless kinda entertained me… so long as I let it roll along without thinking too terribly hard about all those absurdities.

The question is: Is it a good film?

Hell no, but with a cast as large and varied as this one, there’s so much stuff to see and enjoy -even for laughs- and given the film’s relatively short runtime (the movie runs just shy of 1 hour and a half) you’re not going to lose too much of your time watching it.

Would I recommend the film?

Only to those who are interested in the actors involved and are particularly interested in seeing Robert Shaw’s final performance.

Otherwise, check out The Silver Streak.