January 22, 2020

"Late night congress is great stuff! I'm switching between Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock and the impeachment hearings and it's all starting to make sense."

Said Mr. Forward in last night's "Are you watching the impeachment theater?/I walked out."

Me, I conked out early, got a full night's sleep, and am up at 3 a.m. to view the wreckage.

Headlines on the front page of the NYT:
Senate Adopts Framework After Acrimonious Debate

Republicans blocked Democrats’ efforts to subpoena documents and seek testimony, including from John Bolton. Witnesses could still be summoned later.

Chief Justice John Roberts admonished the House impeachment managers and President Trump’s lawyers to “remember where they are.”

At Davos, Trump Scoffs at Trial and ‘Prophets of Doom’/President Trump appeared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on the day his trial began.

Impeachment Trial Begins in Acrimony/Republicans made last-minute changes to their proposed rules to placate moderates, but they held together to turn back Democratic proposals.
The headlines kept changing on me, and I don't think "Acrimonious" and "Acrimony" were up at the same time, but I infer that they wanted a negative word to describe the emotional atmosphere and they converged on "acrimony."

"Acrimony" is "anger and bitterness: harsh or biting sharpness especially of words, manner, or feelings." It's the same root as "acrid," which is used to describe a taste or smell.

Remember smellovision?



PLUS: "They'll have to have subtitles for the smelling impaired." Hey, thanks for thinking of me, Weird Al.

AND: The word "acrimony" also appears in the NYT headline, "‘Nobody Likes Him’: Hillary Clinton Risks a Party Split Over Bernie Sanders," which went up yesterday, and that's intraparty acrimony:
Since Mr. Sanders endorsed Mrs. Clinton in July 2016, the acrimony between the two camps has lingered. Mrs. Clinton and her former aides maintain that his endorsement came too late and was too lukewarm to truly unify the party. Some supporters of Mr. Sanders still argue that the Democratic National Committee “rigged” the rules to help her secure the nomination.

26 comments:

Clyde said...

Acrimony is the Zeitgeist.

MountainMan said...

Trump made a good speech, exactly what the global elites needed to hear. But they are not listening.

rehajm said...

But they are not listening

They are certainly paying attention to Trump’s strong economy. The talk about climate change and stakeholders and social justice goes away when money talks. When money talks elites who like to squander it listen...

stevew said...

In a commercial running locally Pete Buttigieg asserts that we live in the most polarized times, ever. Or something close to that. He says it so calmly that I believe he believes it. He's hanging out with different people, other than my MIL I don't know anyone that is worried and upset at this alleged polarization.

Why are Democrats so negative and pessimistic?

wendybar said...

Well, don't worry. The Great Alyssa Milano is at the Impeachment trial to enlighten us with her wisdom!!!/SNARK!!

Darrell said...

Alyssa Milano played a witch. Witches seem to be important for Democrat Party politics.

Narayanan said...

Acrid can range between nose wrinkling and coughing your lungs out.

How to rate this?

Taking this up demeans Senate

Big Mike said...

Over at Mother Jones Ira Corn has an article titled “With Trump’s Impeachment, American Democracy Is on Trial.” And so it is, but not in the way he thinks. Trump has exposed the Democrats as a party riddled with corruption, has exposed their alleged affection for the poor and for people of color as utterly bogus, and has demonstrated that their economic theories are not based on reality. This effort to remove him from office is one giant temper tantrum that must not stand.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

In a commercial running locally Pete Buttigieg asserts that we live in the most polarized times, ever"

And in the next breath Pete says Trump voters must be punished and relegated to the "dustbin of history". He sounds like the perfect antidote for our polarized times.

JML said...

Weird Al is brilliant.

slightly off topic, the picture verifier had me identify all the pictures with cars in them...one had nothing but SUVs and trucks...they are making it challenging. But a welcome relief from ID'ing crosswalks and traffic signals. Oh, I timed out adding this comment- back to traffic signals for round two!

Qwinn said...

JML - you can ignore the robot verification. Just click "Publish your comment". Don't feel bad, I did it for months myself before realizing it.

tcrosse said...

No acrimony for Boney Maroney

Leland said...

Alyssa Milano? Didn't see play a supporting role in that show in which a business woman hires a male servant, and the question of the show is whether she or her male servant is really the boss, because the business woman couldn't seem to keep herself emotionally together without the man?

Calypso Facto said...

The local headlines were good for a laugh too. The Milwaukee Journal has "Trial Becomes Partisan Fight", as if the whole thing hasn't been a partisan witch hunt from the start. And the Madison State Journal is promoting their left-of-Bernie subsidiary Capital Time's editorial, "Ron Johnson and Mitch McConnell are corrupting impeachment trial", which almost cost me a mouthful of coffee.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Rigged in quotes, like it isn't blatantly obvious. Sure, let's pretend.

People are always commenting about how the two parties are about to be riven by internal strife. It usually comes to nothing, but you can only do this shit so many times before people become disaffected.

Jupiter said...

"Some supporters of Mr. Sanders still argue that the Democratic National Committee “rigged” the rules to help her secure the nomination."

Lucky for him. It's the only reason he's still alive.

rcocean said...

"They made last minute changes to please moderates."

This is a clue that this thing will drag on and on. We will have witnesses - because of Collins, Mittens, and Lisa Murkey. I guess the Senate has nothing better to do, so why not?

Rory said...

"Some supporters of Mr. Sanders still argue that the Democratic National Committee “rigged” the rules to help her secure the nomination."

This was written about ten days before wikileaks published the DNC emails.

Curious: what is Alyssa Milano doing? Some sort of official analyst for someone, or did she just manage a ticket in the gallery.

Wince said...

I'm waiting for Leonard Pinth Garnell to throw the script in the trash.

Bad Conceptual Theater

Infinite Monkeys said...

Curious: what is Alyssa Milano doing? Some sort of official analyst for someone, or did she just manage a ticket in the gallery.

She's there to provide coverage from the perspective of the willfully ignorant and to maintain her feelings of self-importance.

It's all for her and I'm sure she will do her best to make it all about her.

Leland said...

It's all for her and I'm sure she will do her best to make it all about her.

She's also made some money working in Hollywood starting at a young age. Hollywood gets a pass on child labor laws that most industries and children do not get. And politicians like that Milano is willing to share that money with them.

traditionalguy said...

Witnesses and documents? No one wants them. It is a Dueling Narratives event. And the Dems are the better screenwriters. But the 2/3 vote will never happen. The only interesting thing left watching are the acts put on by the two faced Senators( Romney, Collins and Murkowski) playing to their audience.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Hillary Clinton is a one-woman poison bomb.

Marc in Eugene said...

The other day I asked myself why, even after verifying that the CAPTCHA business isn't a necessary step in the process, I persisted in submitting to it for as long as I had done (not for months and months now). I think, as used as I am to navigating to Internet sites via the browser, shopping online, video-watching etc etc, I remain conscious that I don't know much of anything at all about how the laptop or the Internet actually work, so if I'm told to do this by 'the instructions', I do it, in the same way that when the table comes out of the box I follow the printed instructions: some people of course will look at the parts and simply put 'em together.

LA_Bob said...

I think the NYT will still publish new Hillary Clinton quotes long after the Grim Reaper has spared (well, tried to spare) her further embarrassment.

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