An old silent movie that reflects current times

If you're not into silent movies, you probably won't be interested in this. But if you are, you might want to check out Romola (1924), starring Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish.

In this film set in Renaissance Florence, William Powell plays a completely shameless serial liar and cheat, who through lies and deception, climbs his way to the top of the government and turns the Republic of Florence into a dicatorship. He cons the mob to deem any criticism of the government to be capital treason.

I was watching it this morning, and it struck me as so familiar to tRump, eh?

IMO, some of the Gish sisters' greatest acting ever.

Thank you for the heart!

Anonymous person, thank you!

23 Dangerous Propositions the Senate Just Ratified

In voting to acquit President Trump, the Senate has legitimated legal and moral claims that will not serve America well.

The Senate today voted largely along party lines to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment. The acquittal, in the simplest sense, is a declaration that the House of Representatives failed to prove its case. But it is also a statement of values by the Senate—an embrace of certain basic propositions about the president’s conduct, the House’s conduct in impeaching him, and its own responsibilities.

At least in those circumstances in which the president and the majority of the Senate are of the same political party, the Senate has adopted the following propositions:

1. It is not an impeachable offense for the president of the United States to condition aid to a foreign government on the delivery of personal favors to himself.

More...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/23-dangerous-propositions-the-senate-just-ratified/606133/

(My comment: excellent read, and it's spot on!)

This 2017 article predicted what's happening today

I figure a repeat of this article to be wholly appropriate today. This Vox article is from 2017 and it pertains to the Russia investigation, but it is still eerily prophetic for what’s going on now.

The gist of the article is this: what happens if prosecutors prove their case against Donald Trump, and it still doesn’t matter?

Say Mueller reveals hard proof that the Trump campaign knowingly colluded with Russia, strategically using leaked emails to hurt Clinton’s campaign. Say the president — backed by the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox News, Breitbart, most of the US Cabinet, half the panelists on CNN, most of the radio talk show hosts in the country, and an enormous network of Russian-paid hackers and volunteer shitposters working through social media — rejects the evidence.

They might say Mueller is compromised. It’s a Hillary/Deep State plot. There’s nothing wrong with colluding with Russia in this particular way. Dems did it first. All of the above. Whatever.

Say the entire right-wing media machine kicks to life and dismisses the whole thing as a scam — and conservatives believe them. The conservative base remains committed to Trump, politicians remain scared to cross the base, and US politics remains stuck in partisan paralysis, unable to act on what Mueller discovers.

In short, what if Mueller proves the case and it’s not enough? What if there is no longer any evidentiary standard that could overcome the influence of right-wing media?