When this was written last week, the house managers on the impeachment trial were in the middle of their last day of presenting their case. The opening part began on Tuesday of last week and the amount of time to be used by Trump’s team was still unknown at the time of this writing.
Many observers of the trial thought that Senate Minority Leader Schumer had pulled an enormous coup by seeking to have a number of amendments attached to the trial proceedings. By doing so, it was reported he was able to give the Democrat Managers 12 more hours in which to deliver part of their opening statement. However, in retrospect, what he may have done was take the edge off the Democrat argument by prolonging the agony of listening to a recap of the impeachment inquiry fiasco.
Speaking of the inquiry, it started with a lie when Chairman Schiff read his fictionalized version of the famous phone call. That event reminds one of the old saying, “It doesn’t matter so much that I discovered you telling me a lie, as it does that I can never trust anything you say again.”
To summarize the constantly repetitive diatribe that Schiff and Nadler delivered last week it seemed very much like the movie “Ground Hog Day”. On Schiff’s part, he kept referring to Russia when the topic of impeachment revolved around Ukraine. As for Nadler, who is an impartial insulter, he may have poisoned the well permanently when he told the Senators that if they failed to indict they would be viewed as part of the Trump cover-up. Nadler got so nasty that Trump’s team was forced to chastise him and Chief Justice Roberts admonished both sides.
Both Schiff and Nadler are well known for bloviating and they were joined by a fellow bloviator in the person of Congressman Jeffries from New York. The key thing that all three had in common was constant screening of printed slides and television clips that were mostly a regurgitation of the flawed impeachment inquiry. The time it took to compile dozens of slides (B-roll) and TV clips explains why Speaker Pelosi sat on the Articles of Impeachment for so long. Several of the people I talked to, who are still in TV production, said that it would have taken weeks to get the B-roll to match the hand written text that the managers read from. In contrast, all the Trump team has to do is keep playing the video of Schiff’s initial falsehood.
Most of the observers of the hearing, who I have spoken with, said if you have trouble with insomnia you could quickly cure it by replaying either Schiff, Nadler or anyone else for that matter from their appearances on TV during these proceedings.
In essence, the entire Democrat performance reminds one of the Kavanaugh hearings. ***
THE BILL HARRAH I KNEW. With the news last week that the iconic Harrah’s Club would be disappearing from the Reno scene forever, I was reminded of the many executives I knew who worked for Harrah’s as well as Bill Harrah himself. One of the hallmarks of Reno’s golden era, was the fact that the PR men from the various major properties would “comp” each other when it came to viewing floor shows. During the occasions when I was comped into Harrah’s Reno or Tahoe and Bill was in the audience, I would always receive several cocktails compliments of Bill. At major events, such as the Virginia City Camel Races, I interfaced with Bill and his fellow horseless carriage compatriots. At the screening of the “Misfits” premier at the Granada Theater, I made certain that Bill and Scherry were seated in the VIP section. On one occasion I happened to be walking with Charles Mapes to the Prospectors Club when it was located at Harrah’s. At that point in time the steel skeleton for Harrah’s Hotel was just going up. Mapes pointed to it and asked me, “Isn’t it great to see that much steel going up in downtown Reno?” It is true that Bill Harrah brought gaming to the masses, his Greyhound bus program was one example. He was also the first to put carpet in his clubs and to insist that his bars were stocked with the coldest beer. While extremely taciturn in speech, he was well known as the fastest car driver in Reno. A true man of parts.
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